Volume 23 | Number 7723 | 2 RiyalsTuesday 27 November 2018 | 19 Rabia I 1440 www.thepeninsula.qa

BUSINESS | 03 SPORT | 08

England claim landmark Test series sweep after tense win

Blockade was like a real stress test

for the economy: QCB Governor

Amir, Turkish President hail strategic partnership

QNA ISTANBUL

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, discussed the development of the strong stra-tegic relations between the two brotherly countries, and means of promoting them in wider fields.

During the bilateral meeting which was held prior to the fourth meeting of Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee at Vahdettin Pavilion in Istanbul yesterday,

H H the Amir and the Turkish President reviewed areas of joint cooperation, mainly in the fields of politics, trade, economy, investment and culture. The two sides also discussed the latest developments in the region, and exchanged views on issues of mutual concern.

H H the Amir and the Turkish President co-chaired the fourth meeting of Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee at Vahdettin Pavilion. At the outset of the meeting, the Turkish President

welcomed H H the Amir and the accompanying delegation, and expressed pleasure for the visit which comes in the framework of the Supreme Strategic Committee.

The Turkish President praised the level of relations and cooper-ation between the two countries which coincides with the com-memoration of the 45th anni-versary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He underlined that Turkey and Qatar have supported one another in hard times, and proved to be true friends many occasions, especially in hard days, referring to Turkey’s efforts to lift the unjust siege on Qatar, and Qatar’s great support to Turkey during the failed coup in June 2016, as well as its support during the fierce campaign against Turkey recently. President Erdogan, on behalf of the Turkish people, expressed his deep thanks for Qatar’s solidarity and it strong stand in support of Turkey.

On the bilateral meeting with H H the Amir, the Turkish

President said that the meeting was very fruitful, noting that the meeting discussed the level of relations between the two coun-tries and means of bolstering the

strategic cooperation and expanding its horizons, stressing the convergence of views on issues related to the regional developments.

For his part, H H the Amir expressed thanks and gratitude to the Turkish President for the warm hospitality, expressing pleasure to visit Turkey for the fourth meeting

of Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee, which H H the Amir described as strong model of fra-ternal relations.

Responding to the Turkish President’s thanks for Qatar for its support, H H the Amir said that it was the duty of Qatar by virtue of brotherhood, affirming that Qatar will never forget the

support of the Turkish President personally to Qatar in the crisis before a year and seven months.

H H the Amir noted that the State of Qatar was wronged in this crisis, but Turkey stood with the right, and now Qatar has proved to the world that it was right and that the accusations against it were false. �P2 & 3

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Istanbul yesterday.

NTC launches ‘Qatar.Qurated for you’ drive RAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

The National Tourism Council (NTC) yesterday unveiled Qatar’s first global destination campaign aimed at positioning Qatar as an attractive destination for authentic and bespoke experiences.

Under the tagline ‘Qatar. Qurated for you.’, the campaign brings to life Qatar’s focus on tai-lored visitor experiences that celebrate its heritage, and will be rolled out across 15 existing and targeted priority markets.

The campaign was formally launched at a ceremony held under the patronage and in the attendance of Prime Minister

and Interior Minister and NTC Chairman of the Board H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani.

The campaign will run across print, TV and digital platforms in eight languages including Arabic, English, French, Italian, German, Russian, Turkish and Mandarin, and target 225 million travellers in 15 countries including Russia, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, UK, Ireland, USA, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Scandinavian countries.

To mark the launch, an adver-tisement titled ‘Qatar. Qurated for you’ was officially rolled out in three languages including Arabic,

English and Mandarin at a cer-emony held at Sheraton Doha Hotel yesterday. The one-minute video depicts some of the most prominent tourist spots in the country including Souq Waqif, the Corniche, the Museum of Islamic Art, Sealine and Inland Sea, National Museum of Qatar, Doha Skyline and East-West/West-East sculpture in Brouq nature reserve.

Qurated will leverage part-nerships with global television networks such as CNN Interna-tional, Al Jazeera Network, BeIN, Digiturk and SkyTV. Outdoor advertising in major airports and popular squares as well as social media will also be utilised for the campaign.

Through captivating visuals that offer glimpses of Qatar’s authentic tourism offerings, the campaign is designed to make Qatar a top-of-mind destination.

The campaign’s launch comes at an exciting period of growth and development for Qatar’s tourism sector. Just a few weeks earlier, Qatar Tourism Authority and the Permanent Committee for Conferences was converted into the NTC. The new governance structure paves the way for the implementation of key initiatives across the public and private sectors to develop solid tourism infrastructure and deliver exceptional visitor expe-riences. �P5

Advisory Council approves draft State budget for 2019QNA DOHA

The Advisory Council held its regular weekly session yesterday under the chair-manship of the Speaker of the Council H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud.

In a meeting attended by Minister of Finance H E Ali Shareef Al Emadi, President of the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) Dr Saad bin Ahmed Al Mohannadi, and a number of senior officials at the Min-istry of Finance, the Council discussed the draft General State Budget for the fiscal year 2019 and the draft law approving it.

H E the Minister of Finance explained the Government’s view on the draft budget and answered the questions and queries raised by the members of the Council.

At the beginning of the dis-cussion of the draft budget, H E the Speaker of the Advisory Council thanked Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for his wise guidance and policies which enabled the country to occupy this pres-tigious position and enjoy a strong economy capable of growing at high rates and gaining the confidence of global

financial institutions.He added that it is a source

of satisfaction that the direc-tives and visions of H H the Amir are embodied in the draft budget as well as in its objec-tives, foundations and philosophy.

The Speaker of the Advisory Council affirmed that the foun-dations on which the draft budget is based were welcome, praised and supported by the Council, adding that they aimed to provide the necessary allo-cations for the Qatar National Vision 2030 plans and projects, continue to increase non-oil revenues and provide financial allocations to complete major projects and projects related to the 2022 World Cup, as well as develop infrastructure in the economic, industrial and logis-tical areas, improve business environment, enhance the role of the private sector, support food security projects, allocate sufficient resources over five years to develop an integrated infrastructure for citizens’ lands, and continue work to increase the efficiency of public spending.

He added that in light of these foundations and goals, the draft budget meets expectations and is in line with the require-ments of the State. �P3

International Traffic Safety Conference beginsSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

The International Traffic Safety Conference kicked off yesterday with the participation of representatives from several countries around the world, and a number of traffic safety experts from governmental entities.

The two-day event which will conclude today is being organised by the Ministry of the Interior in cooperation with Qatar Uni-versity and was held at Doha Sheraton Hotel.

The opening was attended by a number of Their Excellencies Ministers, officials, dignitaries, and researchers, specialists in transport and traffic safety and guests of the conference.

Following the inauguration, Prime Min-ister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani inaugurated the Traffic Exhibition on the sidelines of the conference.

The Prime Minister toured the exhibition where he was briefed on the most important efforts in enhancing traffic safety and the latest techniques used in roads engineering and safety.

The conference tackles a number of dif-ferent topics such as traffic safety engi-neering, driving behaviour, road users at risk, legal enforcement, post-accident investiga-tions, internal vehicle technology, transport safety and security, intelligent transportation systems, traffic flow, road design, public

transport, among other topics.Speaking at the inaugural session of the

conference, Minister of Transport and Com-munications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti said that: “We have taken great steps in the devel-opment of infrastructure including modern road networks, metro and mass transport, and the completion of large proportions in the construction of the stadiums for Qatar World Cup 2022 while a plan for linking land, air and sea transport has been developed.”

He pointed that the objectives of the National Traffic Safety Strategy were also developed to include sustainable transport, traffic safety, national economy and security. �P4

H H the Amir and Turkish President

co-chair Qatar-Turkey Supreme

Strategic Committee meeting.

Turkey thanks Qatar for solidarity and

strong stand in support of Turkey.

Qatar and Turkey sign several agreements.

Welcome brother H H the Amir in Istanbul

02 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018HOME

Parachute drills in Umm Al ShakhoutDOHA: The Ministry of Defence yesterday said the Skydive Qatar centre would carry out parachute jump and hang gliding drills in Umm Al Shakhout area from Decem-ber 1 to January 1 from 6am to 6pm. The Directorate of Moral Guidance at the Ministry called on those who frequently visit the area to take precautions for their own safety. QNA

Qatar condemns Somalia explosionDOHA: The State of Qatar expressed its strong condem-nation and denunciation of the explosion that took place in a religious centre in the north cen-tral city of Galkayo in Somalia, killing a cleric and nine of his fol-lowers. In a statement issued yesterday, the Ministry of For-eign Affairs reiterated the State of Qatar’s firm stance in rejecting violence and terrorism regardless of the motives and causes. The statement expressed the State of Qatar’s condolences to the families of victims as well as the government and people of Soma-lia. QNA

Advisory Council’s Committee holds meetingDOHA: The Information and Cultural Affairs Committee of the Advisory Council held yesterday its first meeting at the 47th ordinary session of the Council. At the outset of the meeting, the Committee elected Mohamed bin Ali Al Maadid as its Rapporteur for this session by consensus. The Committee examined a draft law on the establishment of the media city and decided to complete the study of the draft law at its next meeting. QNA

Amir, Turkish President hail strong strategic ties

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, co-chaired the fourth meeting of Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee at Vahdettin Pavilion in Istanbul, yesterday.

FROM PAGE 1

H H the Amir added that the support for Turkey is the support of all Qatar and the people of Qatar. He went on saying: “We are advocates of peace and we do not want problems, but be assured, Mr Pres-ident, that if Turkey needs anything in the future we will always stand with our friends and brothers.” H H the Amir under-lined that Turkey will do the same thing and will always support Qatar. He dis-cussed with the President a number of issues, including the development of eco-nomic and trade relations and other fields.

Talks during the meeting covered the

strategic relations between the two coun-tries in various fields to serve the interests of both countries and brotherly peoples.

The two sides also exchanged views and consulted on the most important issues on the regional and international arenas.

The meeting was attended by Their Excellencies members of the official

delegation accompanying H H the Amir, and a number of Their Excellencies the Ministers and senior officials from the Turkish side.

H H the Amir and the President attended the signing of agreements and number of memorandums of under-standing between the governments of the two countries, following the fourth meeting of Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee.

H H the Amir and the Turkish Pres-ident witnessed the signing of a MoU between the Civil Aviation Authority of the State of Qatar and the Directorate

General of Civil Aviation of the Republic of Turkey, and the signing of the exec-utive program for the Cultural Year 2019-2020 of the MoU on cooperation in the field of culture between the two coun-tries, aiming at promoting cultural exchange through the exchange of dele-gations and support the exchange of

expertise and experiences among cultural institutions.

H H the Amir and the Turkish Pres-ident also witnessed the signing of two cooperation protocols between the gov-ernments of the two countries, the first is on cooperation and training in the field of electronic warfare, and the second is on the exchange of members of the armed forces. They also witnessed the signing of a trade and economic partnership agreement aims at liberalising trade in goods and services, cooperation in elec-tronic commerce and attracting

investment between the two sides.The signing ceremonies were con-

cluded by signing the joint statement issued by the fourth meeting of Qatar-T u r k e y S u p r e m e S t r a t e g i c Committee.

H H the Amir attended the dinner banquet hosted by the President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in honour of H H the Amir and the accompanying delegation. The banquet was attended by a number of Their Excellencies ministers and senior officials from the Turkish side.

We are proud of the success of the Qatari-Turkish partnership since its establishment in 2014. With the signing of more agreements, new horizons are opened for cooperation and brotherhood between the two countries to achieve objectives of our two nations and serve the region's issues for security and stability.

What His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has said in regard to the sisterly Republic of Turkey confirms that the State of Qatar does not stay behind from fulfilling its promises and charters. No reward for good other than good.

03TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 HOME

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, co-chaired the fourth meeting of Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee at Vahdettin Pavilion in Istanbul, yesterday. H H the Amir and the Turkish President attended the signing of an agreement and number of memorandums of understanding between the governments of the two countries.

Amir, Turkish President co-chair 4th meeting of Supreme Strategic Committee

Advisory Council approves draft budget

FROM PAGE 1

It opens the horizons for further development and construction in various fields of development and services to increase our economy strength and durability, to preserve the country’s sover-eignty, free will and its independent national decision, and to achieve the ambitions and aspi-rations of its people, he noted.

The Speaker of the Advisory Council said that we take pride in our leadership and our loyal people that our country is achieving all these achievements and moving towards the future with confidence, determination and stability despite the unjust siege imposed on it. He thanked the Minister of Finance and the President of Ashghal and the accompanying team for attending the Council’s meeting and responding to the queries of its members. After the extensive and objective discussions, the Advisory Council praised the draft General State Budget for the fiscal year 2019, and lauded the efforts of the Government and its plans and programs within the framework of the National Development Strategy 2018-2022 and Qatar National Vision 2030.

QMC Chairman meets Charge d’Affaires of IraqDOHA: Chairman of Qatar Media Corporation (QMC) H E Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani met yester-day with the Charge d’Affaires at the Embassy of Iraq in Qatar, Abdulsattar Hadi Al Janabi. The meet-ing discussed the media relations between the two brotherly countries and ways of enhancing them.

Minister of Administrative Development meets Sri Lankan delegationDOHA: Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs H E Yousef bin Mohammed Al Othman Fakhro met yesterday with a delegation of the joint committee to regulate manpower in the Republic of Sri Lanka, chaired by Yamo Nabera Per-era, additional secretary at the Sri Lankan Ministry of Telecommunication, Digital Infrastructure and For-eign Employment, who is currently visiting Qatar. The meeting discussed aspects of cooperation in areas of common concern and means of supporting and devel-oping them, especially in the field of employment.

QNRF funds 27 research projects tied to traffic safetyQNA DOHA

Executive Director of the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) Dr Abdul Sattar Al Taie said that since its establishment, the QNRF has funded 27 research projects related to traffic safety, including 10 projects for university students.

In a presentation at the Inter-national Traffic Safety Con-ference, which started yesterday, Al Taie that these research projects address many topics including intelligent transport systems, behavioral factors in the use of roads, characteristics of roads, smooth traffic, optimal handling of injuries and ambu-lance service acceleration, which w i l l c o n t r i b u t e t o

reducing accidents, saving lives and preserving human resources in the State of Qatar.

He stressed the QNRF’s keenness to support research projects in traffic safety field and meet the strategic and sectoral priorities in the country with the participation of researchers, specialists and students in coop-eration with international sci-entists and experts.

Dr Al Taie pointed out that the International Traffic Safety Conference is important to coor-dinate local, Arab and interna-tional efforts to spread the culture of traffic safety and reduce accidents by presenting research and highlighting their scientific results, as well as dis-cussing the obstacles, challenges

and modern trends of traffic safety and exchanging experi-ences in this field in order to reach solutions that help in raising the level of road safety in all parts of the globe in general and in the State of Qatar in particular.

He added that the QNRF is pleased to be one of the main sponsors of this conference, pointing out that QNRF was set up by Qatar Foundation for Edu-cation, Science and Community Development in 2006 as part of its continuous commitment to achieving one of the important pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030 that is the establishment of a diversified and sustainable knowledge-based economy in the State of Qatar.

04 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018HOME

International Traffic Safety Conference begins

FROM PAGE 1

“Meanwhile, National Traffic Safety Office was established and the second operational plan for the next five years was also launched.”

“At the global level, we are doing our part to support the United Nations and its organiza-tions to achieve the desired goals and we are also working with the United Nations and the Ambas-sador of Traffic Safety in the world to accomplish the objec-tives,” he added.

Major General Mohamed Saad al Kharji, Vice-Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said that road acci-dents were one of the most serious problems afflicting the contemporary world, and that the world has been alerted to this problem in recent years, and has put laws and policies to mitigate them as much as possible.

He said that the second phase of the implementation plan for the National Traffic Safety Strategy (2018-2022), which was launched in 2018, is underway. “This requires excep-tional efforts, cooperation from

all sides, and adoption of an unprecedented mechanism of implementation to address traffic problems, and the achievement of 2022 goals with high efficiency and on time.”

He said that although good results were achieved during the first phase of the National Traffic Safety Strategy 2013-2017, there is a major challenge ahead, which is to reduce the mortality rate by 10 deaths per year com-pared to 2017, to achieve the target of 2022, to reach 130. The pedestrian mortality also should be reduced from 32 percent to 17 percent and serious injuries to 400 by 2022.

“In addition actions have to be accelerated to achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals endorsed by the State of Qatar by reducing congestion by 5% annually, developing city planning and road and transport networks, improving traffic safety, and addressing the causes of traffic accidents in the five traffic areas and municipal areas identified by the concerned authorities.”

Separately, speaking to

media on the sidelines of the conference, Al Kharji said that all traffic indicators were sug-gesting a decrease in traffic acci-dents in Qatar, especially with regard to severe injuries when compared to the last year.

On pedestrians accidents, he said there are many pedestrian bridges that have been estab-lished and will help reduce pedestrian accidents too espe-cially that we are required to be reduced from 32percent to 17percent. On a question about adopting a smart transport strategy, Al Kharji added that the General Directorate of Traffic is currently managing the roads through the control room, either in road monitoring or in seizing traffic violations.

Brigadier Mohammed Abdullah Al Malki, Secretary of the National Traffic Safety Com-mittee said that the aim of Qatar by organizing this conference ITSC-2018 was to inform the world about the efforts exerted by the State in providing road safety.

“It also aims to learn about the experiences and efforts of

other countries in this field and to benefit from these experiences in the development and

improvement of work as well as the acquisition of expertise of the rest of the world and to find out

the latest technologies used in road engineering,” Al Malki added.

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani at the exhibition of the International Traffic Safety Conference yesterday. Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti (right), UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt (second left), were also present.

UN Envoy praises Qatar’s efforts on improving traffic safetySIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

The UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt, has praised Qatar’s commitment to improve traffic safety and its achievements in reducing the number of accident victims.

“I am also delighted that you are ready to share your experience and the results you have achieved in improving traffic safety in general,” he said yesterday while addressing the International Traffic Safety Conference (ITSC), which is being held for the first time in the State of Qatar to promote Qatar’s international status in terms of road safety.

Todt noted that of the 1.3 billion accidents in the world on highways, 90 percent of them occur in low-income countries, stressing that “we

have to do something about them. We must increase and strengthen investments and develop a new approach to deal with this, focusing on the main objective of the Con-ference, which is the traffic safety of all.”

He said that the national goal of Qatar is consistent with these general goals and calls for reducing the proportion of traffic accidents by half by 2020. “Through these national goals, he hopes that Qatar will continue to take its own approach to eliminating accidents by 2050.”

He emphasized the need of focusing all sectors of road uses not only on vehicles. “We also need to develop a comprehensive infra-structure suitable for pedestrians, children and the elderly to allow them freedom of movement away from vehicles,” he said.

QU President: ITSC prepares institutions to host 2022 CupQNA DOHA

Qatar University (QU) Pres-ident Dr Hassan Al Derham said the International Traffic Safety Conference (ITSC), which is being held for the first time in the State of Qatar, will promote Qatar’s international status in terms of road safety and preparing national institutions concerned with traffic safety to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Al Derham said this international event comes within the framework of the State of Qatar’s interest in transportation and traffic safety, as the National Stra-tegic Traffic Safety Plan was adopted under the direct supervision of HE the Prime

Minister and Minister of Interior.

The QU President added that the conference provides an opportunity for those concerned with traffic safety both at the institutional level and at the individual level to discuss and share visions and ideas regarding solu-tions to road safety problems and how to translate these ideas into strategies that can be utilized in real reality.

He added that the QU is working hard to serve the Qatari community through its strategy to contribute to the comprehensive growth of Qatar. “This is why the two-day event is hosted. QU represented by QTTSC is one of the key partners in imple-menting the National Traffic Safety 2013-2022.”

05TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 HOME

NTC launches ‘Qatar.Qurated for you’ driveFROM PAGE 1

Both the revised governance model and the global promotion campaign are critical compo-nents of the sector’s newest strategy launched in 2017 (The Next Chapter of the National Tourism Sector Strategy). These foundational developments are further complemented by the country’s revised visitor visa pol-icies which have earned it the ranking of most open country in the Middle East - and the eighth most open in the world - according to UNWTO’s recently updated visa openness rankings.

Hassan Al Ibrahim, NTC official, said, “We’re proud of this campaign and the process fol-lowed to develop it, which took into account input from our partners in both the public and private sectors, whether in Qatar or internationally. This process is representative of our ethos as an industry, which is deeply rooted in the spirit of collabo-ration and partnership to deliver

exceptional experiences at every touchpoint of the visitor’s journey. We look forward to bringing the spirit of Qurated to life, on people’s television screens, in airports around the world, and eventually here in Qatar where the world is wel-comed to experience our authentic heritage and forward-looking vision.”

Rashed AlQurese, NTC rep-resentative added,”Qurated is more than an advertising cam-paign: we’ve closely examined what Qatar offers as a desti-nation to bring into sharp focus the essence of the Qatar expe-rience, and how it can be tailored to each of our visitor segments.” He added, “To deliver bespoke end-to-end experiences to our visitors while achieving true impact for the industry, NTC is partnering with some of the world’s most popular travel plat-forms such as TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet so that prospective visitors can curate their next visit

to Qatar from the moment they read about the destination,

through to making reservations and enjoying the destination’s

various cultural and natural attractions.”

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani inaugurating Qatar’s international promotional campaign as a leading tourist destination, yesterday.

Woqod opens petrol station in Rawdat Al Hamama-2THE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Fuel ‘Woqod’ yesterday opened Rawdat Al Hamama-2 raising its total count of petrol stations to 79.

Woqod CEO Eng Saad Rashid Al Muhannadi said “We are pleased to open new fixed petrol station Rawdat Al Hamama-2. Woqod aspires to expand its petrol station network in the country to meet the rising demand for petroleum products and achieve the goal of providing customers with access to best-in-class products and services at their convenience and comfort. Woqod has recently accelerated the process for the construction of new petrol stations to meet the fuel and energy needs of the country. Woqod team would like to extend their gratitude to all concerned governmental and private entities that contributed/are contributing to the com-pletion of this project”.

Rawdat Al Hamama-2 petrol station is spread over an area of 10,000 square metres and has three lanes with six dispensers that will serve Rawdat Al Hamama and its neighbourhood.

The new petrol station offers round-the-clock services to residents, and include Sidra convenience store, manual car wash, oil change and tire repair, sale of LPG cylinders, in addition to sale of gasoline and diesel products for light vehicles.

Woqod is currently over-seeing the implementation of 17 new petrol stations, some of these stations are expected to be operational during the current year.

Qatar Airways to expand Iran operationsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Airways announced yesterday that it will expand its operations in Iran with the launch of a new twice-weekly direct service to Isfahan International Airport, starting from February 4, 2019, as well as introducing increased services to Shiraz and Tehran, from early January 2019.

Isfahan will become the air-line’s fourth non-stop gateway to Iran, joining Tehran, Shiraz and Mashad, with the service oper-ating from Doha each Monday and Friday by an Airbus A320 air-craft, featuring 12 seats in Business Class and 132 seats in Economy Class.

Three extra weekly flights will be introduced to the Shiraz

service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, taking the route to daily operation from January 2, 2019.

The airline will also introduce two extra flights on the Tehran route, with the addition of an extra flight on Wednesdays from January 2, 2019 and Fridays from January 4, 2019, taking the route to a triple-daily operation every day except on Tuesdays, when the service runs twice-daily.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “With its incredible, age-old architecture and bustling tradi-tional bazaars, we are thrilled to announce Isfahan as Qatar Airways’ fourth-service gateway into Iran. Isfahan is a city that is

not only steeped in history, but one that has also emerged in recent years to combine its rich cultural heritage with modernity, making it one of Iran’s most fas-cinating, colourful and lively places for international visitors. We are also delighted to announce that we are increasing our weekly services to both Shiraz and Tehran in January”.

“These latest launches are further evidence of Qatar Airways’ commitment to Iran, as well as the expansion of our network in this thriving market to provide greater connectivity to both business and leisure pas-sengers alike,” he said.

Standing at the foothills of the Zagros mountain range, the

beautiful, ancient city of Isfahan is a Unesco World Heritage Site, famed for its stunning mosques and palaces, magnificent public squares, atmospheric traditional tea houses, tranquil gardens and exquisite historic hand-painted tiling at every turn.

The newly-introduced flights to Isfahan will operate every Monday and Friday departing from Doha at 01:45, arriving at Isfahan at 04:00; with the return flight departing from Isfahan at 05:10, arriving at Doha at 06:25.

Qatar Airways has operated flights to Tehran since 2004 and, with the introduction of the two extra flights, the airline will operate a total of 20 weekly non-stop flights from Doha.

Qatar Airways to operate a total of 20 weekly non-stop flights to Iran from Doha.

06 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018HOME

Geekdom returns to Ajyal Film FestivalTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar’s largest pop-culture event, Geekdom, returns to the sixth edition of Ajyal Film Festival, hosted by Doha Film Institute (DFI) from November 28 to December 3 at Katara Cultural Village.

The must-visit event for nerds, gamers and eve-ryone who loves to have a good time in the company of friends, Geekdom is part of the Ajyal Creativity Hub, which aims at engaging the community. Entrance to the Geekdom pavilion in Katara Buildings 18 and 19 is free to the public.

Among the highlights are cool cosplay days, video game tournaments, and film screenings ensuring that everyone has something to enjoy from November 29 to December 3. In addition, Qatar’s char-acter designers, concept artists, storyboard artists and fan artists will demon-strate their skills and share them with the community, with their arts and products offered for sale.

T h e G e e k d o m screenings this year is a special showcase of films by eminent Japanese ani-mator and director Hayao Miyazaki. The films include: Kiki’s Delivery Service starring Kirsten Dunst and Minami Takayama, Spirited Away co-directed by Miyazaki and Kirk Wise which won the Golden Bear at Ber-linale and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2003, and My Neighbor Totoro starring Dakota Fanning.

At Geekdom Talks, engage in insightful and interesting discussions as author, actor, director and voice artist Omar Al Shamma takes you through his life journey, especially the challenges he faced as

one of the founding members of the dubbing movement in the region. Also listen to Dr Gregory Bergida, who served pre-viously as Director of Student Affairs at North-western University in Qatar, talk on ‘Immersive Content: Expanding Outward by Looking Inward. The final Geekdom Talk is by Professor Leland Hill on ‘Life as a Geek’ as he looks back at his childhood and the tele-vision shows and movies that influenced and culti-vated his love for all things geeky.

The Geekdom Tourna-ments, at the gaming area sponsored by Virtuocity, are not to be missed. Compete at the FIFA 19 Tournament, the latest and greatest edition of the ever-popular EA football video game franchise, organised by Youth Hobbies Centre. You can also register your team for Overwatch, a video game played in teams of six, with players selecting from a roster of 29 characters, known as heroes, each with a unique style of play; the event is organised by the Kanpeki team.

Other video game tournaments include Super Smash Bros, a fighting game featuring Nintendo’s ‘all-stars’ as playable char-acters and organised by 1-UP Gaming Centre; Tekken 7, the best-selling fighting game franchise in history; and Street Fighter V, the legendary fighting franchise; and Dragon Ball FighterZ, the latest 2D fighting game from Bandai Namco, all three organised by Qatar FGC.

The closing night – Cinemoon meets Geekdom – will be held at the Katara Esplanade on December 3 from 9pm to 10pm, organised by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ministry urges students to benefit from digital lessonsQNA DOHA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education urged students to benefit from the digital lessons offered by the electronic department, to support and enrich the sources of learning.

The digital lessons cover all subjects between the third grade and 12th grade.

The Ministry gave out awareness flyers to students to explain the steps needed to access the lessons through Youtube, then to the channel of

the needed grade and finally to the playlist of the subject required. The Youtube channel is continuously updated with new lessons.

This aims to provide all stu-dents with a series of digital educational tutorials linked to Qatar’s curriculum standards from the 3rd to the 12th grade,

to raise the level of academic achievement and ensure that they meet the subject goals.

It also comes as part of the Ministry’s efforts to provide learning sources that are diverse and attractive to students and to enable self-learning.

The digital lessons have been launched three years ago and currently has nearly 3 million views and more than 22,000 subscribers.

Students may use this link to access the lessons: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeW65lIctwlk85F4Mghe-eg

Qatar, FIA discuss ways to

attract youth to motorsportsQNA DOHA

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali met with the United N a t i o n s ( U N ) Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety and President of Interna-tional Automobile Federation (FIA), Jean Todt, who is partici-pating in the Interna-tional Traffic Safety Conference (ITSC) in Doha.

The meeting dis-cussed various topics related to the future of motorsports and ways to develop it, especially in Qatar and the Middle East, in addition to reviewing future projects between FIA and Qatar Motor and M o t o r c y c l e Federation.

T h e y a l s o reviewed ways to attract youth to mot-orsport, which is a key area where young people express their talents within the existing regulatory framework,

which ensures the safety of practitioners.

The two sides also discussed

means of enhancing traffic safety through exchanging experiences.

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali (right) with United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety and President of International Automobile Federation Jean Todt.

MoFA Secretary-General meets Filemon VelaThe Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hamadi, met with the US Democrat Representative for Texas’s 34th congressional district, Filemon Vela, who is currently visiting the county. The meeting discussed bilateral relations and ways of supporting and developing them in addition to matters of common concern.

The digital lessons

cover all subjects

between the third

grade and 12th grade.

Global meet on aviation training next monthTHE PENINSULA DOHA

For the first time in Qatar and the Middle East, under the patronage of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Qatar Aeronau-tical College, in collaboration with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), will organise the ICAO 5th Global Aviation Training & TRAINAIR PLUS Symposium from December 10 to 12 , 2018.

The symposium is an important event as it provides a platform for ICAO member states, global training organisations, as well as international organisations and institutions to come together in this global gathering to discuss pros-pects and opportunities for estab-lishing new partnerships; in addition to increasing awareness of priorities in capacity building related to aviation training on the short and long terms.

The symposium will be attended by large number of inter-national organisations working in the sector, and representatives from prestigious universities as well as specialised training centers such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Airport Council International (ACI).

The symposium will also host prominent dignitaries, senior man-agers and industry experts.

Minister of Transport and Com-munications H E Jassim bin Saif Ahmed Al Sulaiti expressed his pleasure to host this important event in Doha and extended his welcome to all guests to Qatar.

The Minister said “QAC hosting of the ICAO 5th Global Aviation Training and TRAINAIR PLUS Sym-posium will contribute to sup-porting its strategic vision for the development of human capital for this vital sector in Qatar and the region, as the symposium will

attract distinguished presence of international aviation experts, in addition to focusing on the best practices in training that the college can use to support the aviation sector in the country, thereby con-tributing to its development and progress.

Furthermore, the global cul-tural atmosphere that the sym-posium will provide to the member states of the ICAO will, in turn, increase their knowledge and develop their capabilities and skills in the global air transport sector”.

The Minister confirmed the commitment of the Ministry of Transport and Communications to “No country left behind” initiative by ICAO, stressing that “the min-istry will provide the necessary support to ICAO to help the coun-tries of the world in implementing ICAO standards in civil aviation and recommended practices, including aviation training”.

Sheikh Jabor bin Hamad Al Thani, the Director General of Qatar Aeronautical College, also hailed this international sym-posium being hosted by QAC, which will receive good attention locally and internationally, and will add to the college academic rec-ognition which few similar colleges in developed countries have gained.

He said, “As a key member of the ICAO TRAINAIR PLUS 2018 program, we are very honoured and delighted to be the official host of this symposium, which comes in line with Qatar Aeronautical College mission to develop and advance the human capital in the air transport sector in Qatar and the region.

The symposium will aim at exchanging views and information in an exciting event that will stim-ulate logical thinking capabilities and creativity in the field of avi-ation training”.

07TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 HOME

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Seat belts play major role in saving lives, survey revealsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Seat belts save lives between 45% and 80% depending on the type of accident impact, the location of a person within the vehicle (front/back) and the size/weight (adult, child, baby) of the pas-senger, reveals a new survey.

The research survey was commissioned by QIC Insured and RoadSafety and conducted by YouGov in September 2018 with a representative sample of 169 residents.

The survey indicates high awareness levels of the protective powers of the seat belt. “97% of participants think that seat belts protect drivers, front-row pas-sengers and children. However, this value drops to 79% with regards to back-seat passengers,” said the survey.

This knowledge is also reflected in the actual use of seat belts: 76% ‘always’ use them while driving, 72% as front-seat pas-sengers, but only 5% ‘always’ use the seat belt on the back-seats.

Drivers are like captains of air craft, and they must care about the safety of their passengers. Hence, they have to ask everyone in the vehicle to buckle up, but only 51% of Qatar’s drivers are such responsible drivers, the survey shows.

When asking about the reasons for not using /not asking others to use seat belts, these are

the main mentions by the drivers as per the survey: When I sit on the back seat, I feel safe enough without seat belt - 63%; on short trips, it is not needed to wear seat belts - 35%; I am a safe driver and I will not be involved in an accident; hence I don’t need seat belts - 12%; seat belts crinkle my clothes - 9%.

Regarding usage of child car seats, 32% of Qatar’s parents state that they do not own a proper child seat. Of those who do own seats, only 84% ‘always’ use them.

When asked about the reasons for non-ownership and non-use of child car seats, the results are as follows in both cases.

Non-ownership top reasons: My kids don’t like to be strapped in child seats or booster cushions - 38%; my kids don’t like to be strapped in their child seats or their booster cushion - 59%; too expensive - 37%; on short trips, it is not needed to wear seat belts - 29%.

Non-use top reasons: I don’t

know which child seat or booster cushion to buy for my kid — 23%; I am a safe driver and I will not be involved in an accident; hence I don’t need seat belts — 27%; pas-sengers holding kids is as safe as child seats or booster cushions — 13%; it is not part of our culture — 15%; I am a safe driver and I will not be involved in an accident, hence I don’t need seat belts — 13%; child seats or booster cushions do not protect kids in the case of an accident — 12%.

Ahmed Jarboey (pictured), Senior Claims Manager at QIC Insured said: “Despite many tech-nological developments, the seat belt remains the single most important device to save pas-sengers from injuries or death in case of an accident. This is the reason why QIC Insured con-ducted this pioneering research here in Qatar, jointly with our strategic partner RoadSafety. We have conducted the same survey throughout the GCC to show our commitment to road safety.”

“Ownership levels of proper child restraint systems as well as seat belt usage levels for everyone in the car — children and adults alike — must stand at 100%. This research helps all involved stake-holders to address the root causes for non-usage and non-own-ership. We are committed to con-tributing to safer roads with this and other research projects we have conducted and communi-cated,” Jarboey concludes.

City College officially opens; offers Business ProgramsDOHA THE PENINSULA

The City College — a brand new Qatari higher education insti-tution offering Business Programs — was officially launched in a ceremony.

Attending the opening were key figures from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Ambassadors, the British Council and VIP members of the Board of Governance of the College.

City College breaks new ground with a learner-centric and practical approach to voca-tional higher education offering internationally accredited Business programs. The College admitted its first batch of stu-dents in September 2018, and runs three intakes a year (in Sep-tember, January and April).

In his welcoming speech, Nicholas Evans, Director of Edu-cation of City College, high-lighted the aim of the college to

foster national sustainability and to contribute directly to national growth in Qatar, as its courses meet the needs of the growing services sector of the country.

He added: “Our interna-tionally and nationally recog-nised courses are academically rigorous and also rooted firmly in employability and business competency and tailored to the Qatar business world and of course to the global economy. Our students study for a UK Honours degree but only spend one year abroad, so get to take advantage of the security and familiarity of their home life here in Qatar. “

Through its part-time and evening programmes, City College also caters for employees who wish to pursue their studies while working, and has close links with major companies in Qatar. City College designs tailor-made, internationally-accredited education programmes for all

industries and sectors and for both government and private entities.Through its partnership with the University of Port-smouth, City College also offers preferential entry for its students to pursue their Honours degree

in the United Kingdom. They also have the choice to join more than 339 other universities worldwide. City College promises students its own degrees in the near future.

In his speech, Dr. Khalid Al

Ali, Assistant Under-Secretary for Education and Director of the Higher Education Institutes, remarked: “Today marks the launch of City College, a prom-ising new Qatari higher edu-cation institution licensed by the

Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Qatar”.

Dr. Al-Ali discussed the unique features of vocational learning in his speech, and encouraged private investors in Qatar to contribute to the quality and diversity of Higher Edu-cation in the country.

City College is located in Barwa Commercial Avenue. Its courses are developed by the Business and Technology in Edu-cation Council (BTEC), approved by Pearson Education, and licensed by the Ministry of Edu-cation and Higher Education in Qatar. City College offers the same business programmes as its international partner, the Uni-versity of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom.

BTEC programmes are well-established and have trained tens of thousands of students over many years. BTEC courses are accepted by over 339 universities worldwide.

Dr Khalid Al Ali (left), Assistant Under-Secretary for Education and Director of the Higher Education Institutes, officially opens the City College in Doha yesterday. PIC: ABDUL BASIT / THE PENINSULA

Effective action plan clears rainwater in 3 municipalitiesTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Ministry of Municipalities and Envi-ronment, represented by the Joint Rainfall Emergency Committee, has completed the work of removing rain water from low-lying areas across three municipal-ities — Al Shamal, Al Shihaniya and Al Wakrah,

“The work is in full swing to clear water-logging from other parts of the country and was expected to be finished by yesterday evening,” said Safar Mubarak Al Shafi, Head of Rainfall Emer-gency Committee in a statement.

The Joint Rainfall Committee Emer-gency Committee exerted intensive efforts to remove rainwater from low-lying areas across the country since yesterday noon.

“A total of 57,903,504 gallons of rain-water was removed since yesterday (Sunday) noon until today (Monday),” said Al Shafi adding that the rainwater was carried in 9,082 tanker loads.

He said that rainfall emergency teams comprising of 706 workers, 352 tankers,

61 pumping machines were deployed to clear the water-logging caused by the rain. “Municipal control room received 423 calls from residents seeking to remove rainwater from their localities,” said Al Shafi.

“The committee made all necessary preparations in advance by deploying the teams at low-lying areas so that they could immediately start the operation,”

said Al Shafi. He said that the committee prepared a complete plan on how to respond to the calls through control rooms from all over the country in a bid to send the teams to all areas to clear rainwater.

“All calls seeking the removal of rain water are being responded on time. The oper-ation will

continue round-the-clock until the com-plete removal of rainwater,” said Al Shafi. He also said that the operation mainly focused on highways and tunnels to ensure traffic flow as much as possible and the teams are also in action to remove the rainwater from residential areas.

“Requests of citizens and expatriates for clearing the water-logging from their local-ities were addressed. Requests were received through emergency number issued by each municipality, hot-line 184 and 998 Al Awn application and social networking sites of the ministry,” added Al Shafi.

Safar Mubarak Al Shafi, Head of Rainfall Emergency Committee.

A tanker carries rainwater for disposal from a low-lying area in Doha.

“A total of 57,903,504

gallons of rainwater was

removed since yesterday

(Sunday) noon until today

(Monday),” said Safar

Mubarak Al Shafi, Head

of Rainfall Emergency

Committee, adding that the

rainwater was carried in

9,082 tanker loads.

08 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018HOME

09TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Protesters shout slogans and hold signs opposing the visit of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Tunis, Tunisia, yesterday The left banner reads, “No to the desecration of Tunisia. The land of the revolution.”

Lebanon rejects military aid offer from RussiaREUTERS BEIRUT

Lebanon this month turned down a long-standing offer of Russian military aid that had caused concern for the United States, a major backer of the Lebanese army, a senior Lebanese political source told Reuters.

“The rejection came on the pretext that Lebanon does not need these kinds of weapons and ammunition, but the reason was maybe because of US pressure,” the source said, con-firming a report in Lebanese daily Al Akhbar.

The source said Lebanon spurned the offer, which had been made early this year, earlier this month.

The United States is the biggest donor to the Lebanese army, providing more than $1.5bn in support since 2006.

The United States says the support has aimed to strengthen the army as “the sole” military force defending Lebanon - where the heavily armed Iran-backed group Hezbollah holds major sway - and to counter threats from neighbouring Syria.

Western diplomats have said that Lebanon accepting the Russian offer would be prob-lematic for Washington and its Western allies.

Russian forces are widely deployed in neighbouring Syria, where they have been fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad since 2015 alongside Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah - which is listed as a t e r r o r i s t g r o u p b y Washington.

Under a 2017 law, the United States can impose sanc-tions on countries that engage in “significant transactions” with the Russian military.

The United States has been increasing pressure on Russia globally through sanctions in recent years over actions including its role in annexing Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, a nerve agent attack in Britain, allegations of meddling in the 2016 US election, and its role in Syria.

Exact details of the size of the Russian offer are not known. In February the Russian government published a draft military accord between Russia and Lebanon. The five-year renewable agreement included general aspirations of improving information exchanges, developing military training and fighting terrorism. Local media and a Western dip-lomat early this year said Russia was offering a $1bn line of credit to the Lebanese military for arms and other military purchases.

Turkish police search villa outside Istanbul in Khashoggi murder caseREUTERS YALOVA, TURKEY

Turkish police searched a remote villa in a coastal area southeast of Istanbul on Monday as part of the investigation into the killing last month of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, officials said.

Authorities believe that one of the Saudi agents allegedly involved in the murder at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, Mansour Othman Abahussain, called the villa’s owner a day before the killing, the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office said.

The owner of the property is a Saudi national, Mohammed Ahmed Alfaozan, who had the codename “Ghozan”, it said. Two officials said that Alfaozan had

purchased the property, near Yalova on the Sea of Marmara, around three years ago.

The phone call was believed to be about the destruction or dis-appearance of the body parts, the prosecutor’s office said.

Police used sniffer dogs to search the garden of the villa and the nearby wooded area, according to Reuters cameramen at the scene.

Officials said last month that Khashoggi’s killers may have dumped his remains at a rural location near Yalova, which is a 90km drive southeast of Istanbul. They had halted the search last evening.

Authorities have previously carried out inspections at the kingdom’s consulate and the

consul general’s residence in Istanbul as part of an investi-gation into the killing of the jour-nalist, a Washington Post col-umnist and a prominent critic of the Saudi government.

Khashoggi’s killing has strained Saudi Arabia’s ties with the West and battered the image overseas of its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia has said the prince had no prior knowledge of the murder.

After offering numerous con-tradictory explanations, Riyadh later said Khashoggi had been killed and his body dismembered when negotiations to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia failed.

Saudi Prince faces protests on Tunisia visitBLOOMBERG TUNIS

Displaying a large banner depicting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a chainsaw, Tunisian journalists and activists vowed on the eve of his visit to demonstrate over the murder of columnist and critic Jamal Khashoggi.

MBS, as the power behind the Saudi throne is known, is expected to arrive in the North African country today as part of his first overseas trip since the killing of Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul last month provoked an interna-tional outcry and strained ties with some western countries.

The tour of regional allies is probably calculated to show it’s business as usual for Prince Mohammed.

He flew to the UAE on Thursday, moving onto Bahrain and is stopping by Egypt for a two-day visit before heading to Tunisia.

Tunisian activists had unsuccessfully tried to have a court bar him from the country, whose revolution inspired the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011.

The Journalists Syndicate held a news conference yes-terday, saying activists would hold a protest against the prince in downtown Tunis.

“We will take a stand against this visit using all forms of protest,” syndicate member Sakina Abdel Samad said at a press conference with 11 other civil society groups.

The banner, hung down the side of a white-painted villa, depicts a man in traditional Gulf robes, his hand resting on a chainsaw, an apparent illusion to the dismemberment of Khashoggi’s body. “No to defiling the land of revolu-tionary Tunisia,” it reads.

Palestinian shot dead by Israeli militaryREUTERS BEIT UMMAR, WEST BANK

A Palestinian was shot dead while carrying out a car-ramming attack yesterday that injured three Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said.

The military said one of the soldiers sustained mod-erate injuries and the other two were slightly hurt when the Palestinian crashed his vehicle into them along a West Bank road north of the city of Hebron. Another soldier then shot and killed the assailant, the military said.

Palestinians, many of them individuals without known associations with mil-itant groups, carried out a wave of car-ramming attacks in the West Bank in late 2015 and in 2016, but the frequency of such incidents has since decreased.

Kinshasa rejects US ‘terrorist threat’ warningAFP KINSHASA

The Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday accused Wash-ington of sparking “needless fear” after the US embassy in Kinshasa warned of a “possible terrorist threat” against its mission in the country ahead of a key election.

“You have to distrust infor-mation coming from people who want to spread needless fear and uncertainty among the Con-golese a few days before

elections,” government spokesman Lambert Mende said.

The conflict-prone central African country heads to the polls on December 23 to elect a successor to longtime President Joseph Kabila as well as law-makers for national and pro-vincial parliaments.

“Now that the holding of three elections on December 23, 2018, is a certainty, those who have no control over the elec-toral process in the DRC are trying to distract the Congolese,”

said Mende, who is also the country’s communications minister.

The embassy on Saturday cited “credible and specific information of a possible ter-rorist threat against US gov-ernment facilities in Kinshasa”, which were closed on Monday.

Relations between Kinshasa and the West have been strained under Kabila, and DRC’s elec-toral commission Ceni said Monday that no EU or US observers would be invited to oversee the poll.

Israel detains 32 PalestiniansAP JERUSALEM

Israeli police have arrested 32 Palestinians in east Jeru-salem, accusing them of ille-gally working with Pales-tinian security services.

Interim peace accords state that residents of Israel are not allowed to cooperate with Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.

Yesterday’s arrests come after recent tension between Israel and Palestinians in east Jerusalem, an area the Pales-tinians claim as their capital.

Chemical weapons agency to probe alleged Aleppo attackREUTERS THE HAGUE/GENEVA

The global chemical weapons agency will investigate an alleged gas attack in Syria’s Aleppo on Saturday that reportedly wounded up to 100 people, the head of the agency said yesterday.

The Syrian government, which accused rebels of firing chlorine, asked the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to send a fact-finding mission to the city, Fernando Arias, the OPCW’s new head, said.

Arias said the OPCW had asked the United Nations department of security to say whether it was safe to deploy a team to Aleppo, where government forces two years ago ousted rebels from the last pocket of territory that they controlled.

U.N. war crimes investigators, who have a standing mandate to examine all human rights violations committed in Syria, are also collecting information and asking sources for any evidence, a UN official in Geneva said.

“Once they have something concrete and credible that meets their standard of proof, they will be able to report publicly,” he said. The panel has attributed 33 docu-mented chemical attacks to the government since 2013, while the perpetrators of six

others have not been sufficiently identified. World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the WHO had “received unconfirmed reports of patients arriving in health facilities in Aleppo with symptoms that may be consistent with exposure to chemical agents”.

Under new powers granted in June, the OPCW will be able not only to determine whether a chemical weapons attack occurred but also to assign blame. That responsibility had fallen to a joint U.N.-OPCW mission until Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution to

extend its mandate a year ago. Past investigations by the joint

mission found that Syrian government forces had used chlorine and sarin several times in the civil war, while the radical Islamic State was found to have used sulphur mustard gas once.

A damaged building in the Syrian rebel-held Al Rashidin district near Idlib province. Air strikes hit the edges of Syria’s last major rebel stronghold west of Aleppo, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Policeman shoots wife and kin to death in South Africa courtroomAFP JOHANNESBURG

An off-duty policeman opened fire inside a divorce court in South Africa yesterday, killing his estranged wife and her brother during a tea break in legal proceedings.

The incident in South Africa’s southeastern port city of Durban occurred on the eighth floor of the regional magistrate court building as the court heard the annulment case between the couple.

“At around 11am... the suspect shot at the wife and her brother and both died at the scene,” police spokeswoman Colonel Thembeka Mbele said, adding that the hearing had been about to resume after the break. The two victims suffered several gunshot wounds, she said. The suspect, 32, turned the gun on himself but survived.

AFP DAMASCUS

A government reshuffle yesterday in Syria renewed almost a third of the cabinet, including the ministers of interior and of public works, the official Sana news agency reported.

The reshuffle, which does not include any major surprises, was announced in a decree signed by Pres-ident Bashar Al Assad.

One of the most significant changes is the replacement of Mohammed Al Shaar, who had held the position since 2011, by Mohammed Khaled Al Rahmoun as interior minister.

Syria interior minister out in reshuffle

“The rejection came

on the pretext that

Lebanon does not

need these kinds

of weapons and

ammunition, but

the reason was

maybe because

of US pressure,”

the source said,

confirming a report

in Lebanese daily

Al Akhbar

More than

720,000

Rohingya fled

Myanmar as

result of a

brutal military

crackdown in

August last year,

taking shelter in

crowded camps

in Bangladesh

and bringing with

them harrowing

tales of assault,

murder and

arson.

DANIEL W DREZNER THE WASHINGTON POST

10 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018VIEWS

Ongoing Rohingya repatriation efforts are doomed to failure

Earlier this month, Bangladesh and Myanmar attempted to repatriate thousands of Rohingya refugees currently

residing in Bangladesh as part of a deal they had signed last November, but were eventually forced to postpone their plans amid intense international pressure.

More than 720,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar as result of a brutal military crackdown in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bang-ladesh and bringing with them har-rowing tales of assault, murder and arson. Earlier this year, the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar classified the atrocities perpetrated by the country’s military as “genocide”. In its 440-page report on the crackdown, the mission revealed that the military has killed more than 10,000 people in a matter of months and used brutal methods like rape, sexual slavery, arson and abductions to force the Rohingya to leave the country.

Marzuki Darusman, chair of the UN fact-finding mission, also said the estimated 250,000 to 400,000 Rohingya who remained in the Bud-dhist-majority country following last year’s crackdown “continue to suffer the most severe” restrictions and

repression. “It is an ongoing gen-ocide that is taking place,” he said.

Myanmar, on the other hand, rejected the UN report, claiming the investigation was “flawed, biased and politically motivated”. Myanmar authorities consistently deny any atrocity ever against Myanmar’s Rohingya population, saying the

country’s security forces only attack “armed rebels”.

In light of all this, the rushed attempt to send the Rohingya refugees back to their home state caused concern in the international com-munity and led many to question the reasons behind the eagerness of Bang-ladesh and Myanmar to swiftly start the repatriation process.

Perhaps Bangladesh wants to

unload the burden of the refugees as soon as possible and Myanmar wants to partially repair its image in the international arena by showing some willingness to welcome back the Rohingya. While all this is under-standable, there were major flaws in the process that led to the failed repa-triation attempt. First of all, the ref-ugees themselves were absent from the bilateral negotiations on repatri-ation between the two neighbouring states - nobody asked them what they wanted to do.

“We want to return to Burma [Myanmar] as it is our motherland, we were born and brought up there,” said Abdul Jalil, a newly arrived Rohingya refugee I interviewed in September in the Balukhali camp in Bangladesh.

“But we experienced nothing but atrocities there since August last year - Burma turned into a ‘death hole’ for us,” he added. “Now you tell me, would you be willing to fall into a death hole?”

Other Rohingya men and women I interviewed there told me more or less the same thing: That they want to go back to their homeland, but only if Myanmar gives them legal recognition and their safety is guaranteed by an international body such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Nevertheless, even in the unlikely scenario that Myanmar agrees to meet these conditions, the safe repatriation of the Rohingya refugees may not be possible. The ethnic Burmese majority in Myanmar is highly sceptical of Muslims in general and the Rohingya minority in par-ticular, and the events of the past year only accentuated these feelings.

Kyaw Soe Moe, the administrator of the Inn Din village in Myanmar’s Rakhine state - where most atrocities took place - told Britain’s Guardian

newspaper in October that he does not believe “the Muslims will come back”. “No one wants the terrorists to come back,” he added.

Given that the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh do not want to return to “a death hole” and many in Myanmar are reluctant to welcome back “ter-rorists”, it is possible to say, at least for now, any repatriation attempt is doomed to fail.

Myanmar is not mentally, politi-cally, or logistically ready for the Rohingya refugees’ return and those in Bangladesh are not ready to go back to their “homeland” due to a persistent sense of insecurity.

Predictably, Bangladesh, an already overpopulated country whose infrastructure reached a breaking point following the arrival of the last batch of Rohingya refugees, is eager to start the repatriation process.

However, as was demonstrated by the failed attempt earlier this month, repatriation cannot take place without the agreement of the Myanmar authorities, the Burmese majority, the international com-munity and, most importantly, the Rohingya refugees themselves. For now, none of the concerned parties - other than Bangladesh - genuinely believes the right conditions for the return of the Rohingya refugees are there.

Myanmar is not willing to bring the Rohingya refugees back. It is only appearing to be going along with Bangladeshi attempts to arrange their return to ease international pressure. The fact that the Rohingya villages in Rakhine are being prepared to be re-populated by “Rakhine, Chin, Bamar, and Hindu people from other parts of the country” clearly shows that Myanmar authorities have no real intention to welcome Rohingya back.

NASIR UDDIN AL JAZEERA

QUOTE OF THE DAY

There is no justification for the use of military

force against Ukrainian ships and naval personnel

so we call on Russia to release immediately the

Ukrainian sailors and ships it seized.

Jens Stoltenberg

Nato Secretary-General

The rhetoric of reaction to climate change

I hope you and yours had a good Thanksgiving break. Everyone needs some time to pay attention to family, friends, turkey-induced

naps, holiday sales and whatnot. One cannot spend every day focused on current events, lest one go mad with information overload. In case you’re just starting to check the news, however, let me just quote the first few sentences from a federal government report that happened to be released the Friday after Thanksgiving:

“Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities. The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future - but the severity of future impacts will depend largely on actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the changes that will

occur.”That is from the Fourth National

Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report that the Trump administration released on one of the slowest news days of the year. Here’s part of The Washington Post’s write-up of the report:

“The report’s authors, who rep-resent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain than ever that climate change poses a severe threat to Americans’ health and pocketbooks, as well as to the country’s infra-structure and natural resources.

And while it avoids policy recom-mendations, the report’s sense of urgency and alarm stands in stark contrast to the lack of any apparent plan from President Trump to tackle the problems, which, according to the government he runs, are increasingly dire.

“The congressionally mandated document - the first of its kind issued during the Trump administration - details how climate-fueled disasters

and other types of worrisome changes are becoming more commonplace throughout the country and how much worse they could become in the absence of efforts to combat global warming.”

The assessment makes clear that policy responses can mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. Will this report trigger any serious policy response from the Trump administration?

Before I answer that, let’s remember two important facts about Donald Trump. The first is that he has recently tweeted about climate change: “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?”

The second thing is that Trump does not know a lot about most areas of public policy. On Nov. 25, The Post’s Josh Dawsey and Damian Paletta related the following anecdote:

“Trump also is often not versed in the particulars of the federal budget.

Qatar is setting

new standards

in protecting

the rights of its

workforce and

has become a role

model for others

to follow in the

region.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

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

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

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Huge praise for labour reforms

Qatar’s landmark reforms meant to safeguard human rights and welfare of expatriate workers has come in for huge praise yet again. The International

Labor Organization (ILO) and FIFA, at a seminar held in Brussels by the European Parliament, hailed the labour reforms adopted by Qatar and for leading the region in advancing rights of the workers.

Qatar considers its expatriate workforce as a signif-icant partner in the development process of the country and the State’s determination and coordination with con-cerned bodies to ensure well-being of workers has borne fruit.

The representatives of ILO and FIFA stressed that Qatar has made substantial changes in recent years to ensure its commitment to respect workers rights in general, not just World Cup facilities’ workers. They added that Qatar adopts the highest standards of safety and security during the construction of 2022 World Cup stadiums, in addition to the adoption of new laws, notably the abolition of the sponsorship law, and the law of regulation of entry and exit of expatriates, which approved the cancellation of

the requirement to issue the exit permit to allow travel of expatriates.

Chief of the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Branch of the ILO Governance and Tripartism Department, Beate Andrees, said that the progress made by Qatar in these areas is indeed a model for development.

FIFA’s Head of Sustaina-bility and Diversity, Federico Addiechi, speaking about the most important achievements made by Qatar in preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, said FIFA worked closely

during the last three years with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) to follow up the completion of the infrastructure and stadiums of the World Cup.

He was all praise for the SC and said SC has been and continues to be a great partner, especially with regard to human rights. He pointed out that Qatar has launched a reform program to change the labour laws, in coordi-nation with ILO, adding that FIFA witnessed significant changes in the area of labour laws.

In October, two key major steps were taken to fully protect the rights and welfare of expatriate workers. The first step was the implementation of amended law con-trolling the entry and exit of expatriates while the second development was the issuance of law pertaining to workers support and insurance.

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued Law No. 17 of 2018 establishing the Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund a few days ago. It must be mentioned that in December 2016, Qatar abolished the Kafala system and replaced it with contract system within the framework of law reforms which included a minimum wage for all workers, setting up employee’s committees in workplaces, establishment of grievance committee, and committee for workers compensation.

No doubt, Qatar is setting new standards in protecting the rights of its workforce and has become a role model for others to follow in the region.

A Rohingya refugee girl runs through at the Balukhali refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar.

The Sentinelese -

believed to be direct

descendants of a

migration from Africa

some 50,000 years

ago - have historically

been hostile to visitors,

and for good reason.

Encounters with

outsiders, especially

under the aegis of

19th-century British

colonial authorities,

decimated the

aboriginal populations

of the Andaman and

Nicobar Islands.

11TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 OPINION

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Strong opposition showing challengesto Taiwan’s Tsai

Death at the edge of the world

CHRISTOPHER BODEEN AP

ISHAAN THAROOR THE WASHINGTON POST

A strong showing by Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party in local elections over the weekend presents a major

challenge to independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen as she grapples with growing economic, political and military pressure from rival China.

While Saturday’s polls were largely decided by local concerns, Beijing cast a heavy shadow after two years of unrelenting efforts to restrict Taiwan’s participation in interna-tional society and advertise its threat to use force to bring the island under its control.

Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party lost power in its southern stronghold of Kaohsiung, while the Nationalists notched up 15 wins in the 22 major races being contested.

Independent Ko Wen-je appeared to have won re-election in Taipei, the capital, although his Nationalist rival Ting Shou-chung has filed for a recount. The DPP won just six major races.

Analysts and local media cited dis-satisfaction with Tsai and the DPP rather than approval for the Nation-alists, also known as the KMT, as a prime reason for the outcome.

“Rather than thinking that Satur-day’s results were because the KMT did a good job in opposition, it is more accurate to say they were due to voters’ overwhelmingly negative per-ception of the DPP,” Eric Yu of National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center was quoted as saying in the Taipei Times on Monday.

Another factor cited was the Nationalists’ Han Kuo-yu, who ended 20 years of DPP rule in Kaohsiung by soundly defeating his DPP rival, and seemed to galvanize opposition to the status quo under Tsai. While his can-didacy received little initial support from the party establishment, Han rode a wave of grass-roots support and went on to stump for other Nationalist candidates, adding momentum to the Nationalists’ sweep.

Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory, it had largely withheld overtly intervening in the elections despite accusations of spreading disinformation. China has sought to isolate Tsai over her refusal to endorse its “one China” principle that designates Taiwan as a part of China.

However, a spokesman on Sunday was quick to cite the election results as evidence that Taiwanese were becoming fed up with Tsai’s approach.

The outcome “reflected the strong will of the public in Taiwan to share the benefits of peaceful development across the Taiwan Straits, and their desire to improve the island’s economy and people’s well-being,” Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, was quoted as saying by China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

The office’s Taiwanese coun-terpart fired back swiftly, saying the elections - along with referendums on topics such as same-sex marriage and Taiwan’s name used at the Olympics - were an “internal affair whose results testified to the mature development of Taiwan’s democracy.”

“This lies at the core of Taiwan’s democratic values, which Beijing should respect and correctly under-stand,” the Mainland Affairs Council said on its website.

“The only correct way to advance prosperity between the people of the two sides and eliminate differences is through communication and exchanges without political precondi-tions,” the council said.

The true impact of China’s

pressure campaign was difficult to gauge. Taiwanese voters are notori-ously capricious, often changing sides based on their feelings toward a par-ticular candidate, rather than over principle or policy. While the vast majority favor maintaining Taiwan’s de facto independent status - as Tsai has done - they are also deeply con-cerned about falling behind China in the financial stakes, as working on the mainland has become an ever-more appealing option for young Taiwanese facing wage stagnation and limited markets at home.

Tsai resigned as DPP head on Sat-urday once the election results came in and now faces a considerably more hostile landscape as she con-templates running for re-election in 2020. Beijing has shown no sign of easing the pressure on her adminis-tration and is expected to begin wooing the more China-friendly election victors such as Han and the Nationalists’ Taichung mayor-elect, Lu Shiow-yen.

Tsai’s efforts at reforming the gov-ernment and economy have also encountered headwinds, particularly her push to reduce generous civil service pensions.

“The election results are a major warning to Tsai’s governing team,” said Frank Cheng-shan Liu, a pro-fessor at National Sun Yat Sen Uni-versity in Kaohsiung, who predicted increased friction within the DPP and greater difficulty in pushing Tsai’s reform agenda.

However, Liu said the results had far less to do with Tsai’s refusal to rec-ognize the “one China” principle than with dissatisfaction over economic growth. While expected to grow at a relatively healthy pace of 2.6 percent this year, Taiwan’s high-tech economy is generating fewer oppor-tunities than in the past, while dispar-ities in income are growing.

China’s best option would be to stay low-key, since increased hostility could build resentment and shore up support for Tsai ahead of the 2020 election, Liu said.

On North Sentinel Island, a spit of coral and rock in India’s far-flung Andaman and Nicobar Islands, lives

one of the planet’s most isolated groups of people. They are a tribe of hunter-gatherers known as the Sen-tinelese, a name given to them because no one has any clue what they call themselves. Nor does anyone know how many of them there are; the best guesses put their population at fewer than 100.

This tiny community is now at the center of global attention thanks to a 26-year-old American missionary named John Allen Chau. Chau trav-elled to the island this month, hoping to convert the Sentinelese to Christi-anity. They killed him instead.

Chau’s story illustrated how hard it is to keep modern society from pen-etrating any corner of the Earth - even the ones that want nothing to do with it. The Sentinelese - believed to be direct descendants of a migration from Africa some 50,000 years ago - have historically been hostile to vis-itors, and for good reason. Encounters with outsiders, especially under the aegis of 19th-century British colonial authorities, decimated the aboriginal

populations of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Like so many other indigenous peoples during the age of European empires, the tribes of the islands were unprepared for foreign diseases and vulnerable to the explorers who saw them as specimens of primeval man - subjects for zoo-logical study, not human compassion.

In the 1970s, a National Geo-graphic film director who approached North Sentinel Island with a team was hit in the leg by an arrow. In 2006, two marooned Indian fishermen were killed there, their bodies reportedly propped up on the beach in a lurid display. Sporadic “gift-giving” mis-sions carried out by anthropologists stopped taking place by the 1990s, with academics and authorities con-vinced the Sentinelese were better off left alone.

The tribe, along with a handful of other aboriginal communities in the archipelago, lives beyond the pale of the Indian state, which has outlawed visits to the island to preserve its inhabitants’ isolation.

But none of this was about to deter Chau. He paid local fishermen to help him evade Indian Navy patrols, then, once close enough, paddled to the

island in a kayak and attempted to make contact. According to a diary he kept, Chau sang devotional songs and proffered gifts of scissors, fish and a soccer ball to the people he saw. In response, at least one person shot an arrow that punctured the American’s waterproof copy of the Bible.

“Lord, is this island Satan’s last stronghold where none have heard or even had the chance to hear your name?” he wrote in the diary, which was provided to The Washington Post by his mother.

The morning after Chau’s last trip to the island, the fishermen who con-veyed him to North Sentinel saw his body being dragged around a beach and buried in the sand. Indian author-ities arrested five of the fishermen for helping Chau make the illegal and fatal journey, and they now are puz-zling over what to do about retrieving his remains. Attempting contact is a fraught endeavor that could lead to further violence and expose the Sen-tinelese to outside contagion. A police team that approached the island on Friday reportedly saw a number of the Sentinelese standing watch, bows at the ready.

“We don’t have any plan to go on the land or do any kind of confron-tation,” said Dependra Pathak, the police chief for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to The Post’s Joanna Slater over the weekend. “We have to move with utmost sensitivity and care.” The incident involving Chau had “to create a good amount of stress” among the Sentinelese, Pathak told The Post. In eras past, stories of martyrdom helped spread Christianity through certain parts of Asia. But Chau’s demise has mostly inspired outrage, with critics in India and else-where riled by the selfish foolhar-diness of his mission.

“The Sentinelese have shown again and again that they want to be left alone, and their wishes should be respected,” said Stephen Corry, the director of indigenous-rights group Survival International, in a statement. “The British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands decimated the tribes living there, wiping out thousands of tribespeople, and only a fraction of the original population now survive. So the Sentinelese fear of outsiders is

The outcome

“reflected the

strong will of the

public in Taiwan

to share the

benefits of peaceful

development across

the Taiwan Straits,

and their desire

to improve the

island’s economy

and people’s

well-being,”

Ma Xiaoguang,

spokesman for the

Cabinet’s Taiwan

Affairs Office said.

very understandable.”There is certainly far more

sympathy for the plight of popula-tions like the Sentinelese than there was in the past, but indigenous communities like theirs are hardly any safer than before. In many places, the perils posed by climate change and the resource demands of developing countries have only deepened the vulnerability of iso-lated tribes.

In Brazil, far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has vowed to scrap the country’s indigenous affairs department in a bid to boost the expansion of agribusiness and logging companies. “If I become president, there will not be one centimeter more of indigenous land,” he once declared. Brazil’s Amazon region is home to roughly 100 “uncontacted” tribes - more than any other country on Earth - and activists are now warning of a new “genocide” should Bolsonaro follow through on his promises.

In many cases, though, indig-enous communities are under-mined not by faraway political fiat, but by the pressure of a world inex-orably closing around them.

T.N. Pandit, an Indian anthro-pologist who spent decades studying the aboriginal peoples of the Andamans, lamented the effects outside exposure has had on them. In an interview with the New York Times last year, he pointed to the steady depletion of the Jarawa tribe, neighbors to the Sentinelese, after extended contact with out-siders. Their numbers have thinned; fewer people among the younger generation know the skills or languages of their ancestors.

“In the course of time, these communities will disappear,” Pandit said. “Their cultures will be lost.”

John Allen Chau killed by remote tribe on North Sentinel island.

12 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018ASIA

India asks Pakistan to punish Mumbai attack perpetratorsIANS NEW DELHI

In a strong attack on the tenth anniversary of the 26/11 terror strikes, India yesterday asked Pakistan to give up its “double standards” and to expeditiously bring the perpetrators to justice, saying its planners still roamed the streets of the neighbouring country with impunity.

India also welcomed the statement issued by the United States yesterday calling on Pakistan to uphold their UN Security Council obligations to implement sanctions against the terrorists responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and its affiliates.

In a statement, the External Affairs Ministry said it was a matter of deep anguish that even after 10 years of the heinous terror attack, the families of 166 victims from 15 countries across the globe still await closure, with Pakistan showing little sincerity in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

“The planners of 26/11 still roam the streets of Pakistan with impunity. The 26/11 terrorist attack was planned, executed and launched from Pakistan ter-ritory,” the statement said.

It referred to the remarks of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Pakistan-based non-state actors or militant organisations played a role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

“The former Prime Minister of Pakistan had earlier this year admitted that the terrorists were

sent from Pakistan’s soil. We once again call on the Gov-ernment of Pakistan to give up double standards and to expe-ditiously bring the perpetrators of the horrific attack to justice.

“This is not just a matter of Pakistan’s accountability to the families of the innocent victims who fell to terrorists, but also an international obligation,” the ministry said.

It said the Indian gov-ernment will continue its efforts to bring justice to the families of the victims and the martyrs.

The External Affairs Ministry statement said that the gov-ernment and the people of India sombrely remember the victims of the dastardly attack and the martyred security personnel who laid down their lives.

It said that President Ram Nath

Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in separate mes-sages, have expressed their firm solidarity with the families of the victims and martyrs.

A solemn memorial event and wreath laying ceremony was organised yesterday by the Mahar-ashtra government at the Police Memorial in Mumbai and the Memorial at Taj Hotel, Mumbai.

The Indian missions in 14 other countries, which lost their nationals in these attacks, organised memorial events remembering the victims, both national and foreign, reminding the world of the global threat of terrorism.

Senior government repre-sentatives from the host govern-ments, family members of victims and survivors partici-pated in the solemn events.

Ten heavily-armed ter-rorists, sneaked in through the Arabian Sea and attacked mul-tiple locations within a small geographical area, killing 166 persons — including Indian security personnel and 26 foreign nationals — and left another 300 injured, besides inflicting huge damage to public and private properties.

David Coleman Headley, whose original name was Daood Sayed Gilani, who was sent by the LeT on a spying mission to India to prepare for the attacks is serving a 35-year prison sen-tence in the US for his role in the Mumbai attack and in a ter-rorism conspiracy against a Danish newspaper.

A policeman pays his respects at a memorial to mark the tenth anniversary of the November 26, 2008 attacks, in Mumbai, yesterday.

US announces $5m bountyIANS NEW YORK

Timed for the tenth anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai attack yesterday, the US government has announced a $5m bounty covering all the terrorists connected with it.

The reward offered under the State Department’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) Programme is for “any individual who committed, conspired to commit, or aided or abetted in the execution” of the attack that killed 166 people, a Department media note said on Sunday.

This is the third RFJ bounty from the State Department on

terrorists involved in the Mumbai attack carried out by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as it casts a wider net beyond its leaders.

In 2012, the Department put a bounty of $10m on LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and $2m on his deputy, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki.

The rewards have not worked so far and Saeed operates openly in Pakistan, leaving the effectiveness of the latest steps open to question.

Under international pressure, the Pakistani Punjab government put him under house arrest in January in 2017 but a review board headed by a Lahore High Court judge ordered his release

in November that year.Saeed has also been declared

an international terrorist by the UN Security Council.

Before the Mumbai attack, the US had designated the LeT as a terrorist organisation in 2001 and imposed sanctions on it and the UN Security Council followed suit in 2005.

The RFJ website, which said the “reward offer extends to any individual who bears responsi-bility for this act of terror”, men-tioned four persons, who, it said, have been indicted by a US federal court.

They are Sajid Mir, Major Iqbal, Abu Qahafa and Mazhar Iqbal (alias Abu Al Qama).

Engine-less Train 18 runs at 115kmph during trialsIANS LUCKNOW

The Research Designs and Standards Organisation yesterday said the trial run of indigenously developed engine-less train — ‘Train 18’ — was successfully conducted up to 115kmph on tracks in Moradabad division of Northern Railway.

RDSO’s Executive Director M Z Khan in a statement said, “The Train 18 has successfully completed its running and performance trials up to the speed of 115kmph on nominated track stretches in Moradabad division having defined track geometry parameters, curved alignments of specific radius and station yard zones.” He said the Train 18 will now be sent to Kota division in West Central Railways for vali-dating its performance at its designed speed of 160kmph.

Khan said Railways will be initiating the process for obta ining necessary approvals from the desig-nated authorities for induction of the Train 18 into commercial service after completion of the trials in Kota division.

Built by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) Chennai, the train will promote ‘Make in India’, and is capable of running at a speed of 160km per hour.

Campaigning concludes in Madhya Pradesh, MizoramIANS NEW DELHI

The high-decibel campaign, often marked by bitter personal attacks, ended yesterday in Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram which go to polls tomorrow to elect new Assemblies. The elec-tioneering saw both the BJP, which is power in Madhya Pradesh for the past 15 years, and the ruling Congress in Mizoram trying to stave off anti-incum-bency to retain power.

In a virtualy BJP versus Con-gress fight, the saffron party’s

campaign in Madhya Pradesh was spearheaded by political heavy-weights, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is straining every nerve to secure a fourth term while the rival campaign was led by Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders who addressed several rallies to woo the voters.

However, in the battle for supremacy in the election to 40-member Mizoram Assembly, the fight is largely between the Congress and the Mizo National

Front led by former chief min-ister Zoramthanga while BJP and others are also in the fray.

Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla of the Congress is seeking a hat-trick of wins this time and claims there is no incumbency against his government.

The voting in both the states will be held in a single phase tomorrow.

Over five crore registered voters in Madhya Pradesh — 2,63,01,300 men, 2,41,30,390 women and 1,389 comprising the third gender — will decide the fate of 2,907 candidates. There

are 62,172 voters who can exercise their franchise through postal ballots.

Among the 2,907 candidates in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has fielded candidates for all 230 seats while the Congress is con-testing for 229 seats leaving one seat, Jatara in Tikamgarh district, for Sharad Yadav-led LJD.

The BSP has fielded 227 can-didates and the SP is contesting for 51 seats. There are 1,102 inde-pendent candidates in the fray.

The Prime Minister, who addressed three election rallies in Rajasthan yesterday, refrained

from campaigning in Madhya Pradesh on the last day. He, however, addressed two election rallies in the state on Sunday.

In his campaign, Modi attacked the Congress on cor-ruption, dynasty politics and several other issues and also gave accounts of the achieve-ments of the state and the Centre.

Rahul Gandhi attacked Modi and his government on issues of corruption, unemployment, farmers’ plight and the promises made by Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and by Shivraj in the 2013 elections.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj (right) meeting with her Maldives counterpart Abdulla Shahid in New Delhi, yesterday.

Diplomacy

Scams in Jan Dhan and Ujjwala will be unearthed: MamataIANS KOLKATA

Claiming that the scandals in the BJP-led NDA government have come out in the open due to disputes within the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Reserve Bank of India, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday said more wrongdoings by the Centre will be unearthed in the future.

Banerjee claimed that there are scams within the central government schemes like the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’, that aims to provide affordable access to financial services, and the ‘Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana’ under which LPG subsidy is being provided.

“They (Centre) are busy looting people’s money and scamming them in every way possible. Today, the cat is out of the bag due to the ongoing CBI and RBI controversies. In coming days, same things would happen in the Jan Dhan accounts or in case of LPG

subsidy,” Banerjee said at a public rally in Jhargram district.

All the development in this region has been done by the state government. But some parties come here with bags of cash and alcohol before the elections and ask for people’s votes.

“You can take the money if you need it, but do not vote for them. Remember, the money they are distributing is not theirs, it is common man’s money,” she said in a veiled ref-erence to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The saffron outfit has increased its strength consid-erably in the tribal belt of Bengal, especially Jhargram, where it gained a majority in the last Gram Panchayat elections.

Terming the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as worshippers of the demon king Ravana, the Tri-namool Congress supremo accused them of selling their Gods to get votes.

Police consult anthropologists on prospect of recovering Chau’s bodyREUTERS NEW DELHI

Police are working with anthropol-ogists and psychologists to see if a plan can be forged to recover the body of an American missionary suspected to have been killed by an

isolated tribe on a remote island, an officer said yesterday.

John Allen Chau, 26, is believed to have been killed last week after travelling to North Sentinel - part of the Indian archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal.

“We are in constant touch with anthropologists and psychol-ogists,” said Dependra Pathak, director general of police in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

“If they suggest any meth-odology to interact without dis-turbing them then we can draw

(up a) strategy,” he said. “At this stage we don’t have any plan to confront our Sentinelese.” Chau, who described himself in social media posts as an adventurer and explorer, made several trips to the island by canoe on November. 15.

“The former Prime

Minister of Pakistan

had earlier this year

admitted that the

terrorists were sent

from Pakistan’s soil.

We once again call

on the Government

of Pakistan to give up

double standards and

to expeditiously bring

the perpetrators of

the horrific attack to

justice,” an External

Affairs Ministry

statement said.

Unloading the catch

13TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 ASIA

Bangladesh oppn faces crackdown ahead of pollsANATOLIA DHAKA

A crackdown against the main opposition party in Bangladesh has raised ques-tions on the fairness of the upcoming general elections, analysts say.

Leaders of the Bang-ladesh National Party (BNP) are facing arbitrary arrests and court cases. Mystery sur-rounding the death of an oppo-sition candidate who had arrived in capital Dhaka last week to file his nomination papers adds fuel to the fire.

The body of Abu Bakar Abu, 58, was recovered from a river in the outskirts after police allegedly picked him from his hotel. The Bangladesh Election Commission (EC), the country’s election authority, has asked police to investigate the incident and file a report.

The party claims dozens of party members have been arrested on trumped up charges. “Over 500 of our party members were picked up by law enforcing agencies since Nov.8,” Shamsuzzaman Dudu, vice-chairman of BNP, said.

Wickremesinghe vows to take over state financesAFP COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe initiated moves yesterday to take control of state finances as a power struggle with the coun-try’s president entered a second month.

Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) said it would call a parliamentary vote this week to block spending by

the new administration installed by President Maithripala Sirisena.

The UNP says that as Sri Lanka does not have a recog-nised government all spending powers should revert to par-liament, where the UNP and its allies have a majority.

Sirisena set off the constitu-tional crisis on October 26 by sacking Wickremesinghe, naming the country’s former strongman president Mahinda

Rajapakse as prime minister, and seeking to dissolve parliament.

But the Supreme Court and legislators have blocked Sirisena and the parliament’s speaker has declared that neither Wick-remesinghe nor Rajapaksa are prime minister.

Wickremesinghe, who occupies the prime minister’s residence, and Rajapaksa, who has the premier’s offices, have both refused to back down.

Maldives top court clears Nasheed of terror convictionAFP COLOMBO

The Maldives top court over-turned a terrorism conviction yesterday against the country’s first democratically elected leader Mohamed Nasheed, who fled into exile after being sentenced to 13 years behind bars.

The Supreme Court said Nasheed was wrongfully charged and should not have been convicted in the 2015 trial described by the United Nations as politically motivated.

Nasheed went into exile a year later while abroad seeking medical treatment, and was branded a fugitive from justice.

“President Nasheed’s entire trial was a politically-motivated sham,” his lawyer, Hisaan Hussein, said after his con-viction was quashed.

“It is appalling that an innocent man was unjustly forced to spend a year in jail, 35 months in exile, and was pre-vented from standing for political office.”

The opposition icon only returned to the Maldives this month after his political rival Abdulla Yameen, who ruled the Maldives with an iron fist for

five years, was beaten in a pres-idential election.

The strongman president jailed or exiled most of his opponents but since he departed office political pris-oners have been freed and opponents abroad have returned.

Nasheed, the leader of the opposition Maldivian Demo-cratic Party, was expected to contest the September poll but was barred on account of his terrorism conviction.

His party’s nominee, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, ran and unexpectedly defeated Yameen despite curbs on oppo-sition campaigning. Nasheed risked arrest if he ever returned to the Maldives while Yameen remained in power.

Nasheed was elected pres-ident in the Maldives first-ever democratic poll in 2008, ousting an authoritarian pres-ident who had ruled the hon-eymoon islands for 30 years.

But he was toppled in what he called a coup in 2012, and found guilty of terrorism three years later. His appeal against his 13-year jail sentence had languished before the courts for years before Yameen’s defeat and the case reopened.

Rohingyas angry over data collection in BangladeshREUTERS COX’S BAZAR, BANGLADESH

Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in camps in Bang-ladesh began a protest yesterday, demanding that Bangladesh recognise their ethnicity as Rohingya and that officials and aid agencies stop sharing their family information with Myanmar.

Markets were shut at several of the refugee camps in southeast Bangladesh because of the protest. Rohingya working with non-government groups and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees also boycotted their jobs as part of the strike.

“The term ‘Rohingya’ is very important because we have been persecuted because of our identity,” the protesting refugees said in a statement, adding that while the term was banned in Myanmar, it should not be banned in Bangladesh.

More than 700,000 Muslim Rohingya fled a sweeping army crackdown in mostly Buddhist Myan-mar’s Rakhine State last year, according to U.N. agencies. The crackdown was launched in response to Rohingya insurgent attacks on security forces.

Rohingya regard them-selves as native to western Myanmar’s Rakhine State but Myanmar authorities and many citizens regard them as illegal immigrants from the Indian subcontinent.

Many are stateless as a 1982 law restricts citizenship for the Rohingya and other minorities not considered members of one of Myan-mar’s “national races”.

The Myanmar gov-ernment refuses even to use the word “Rohingya”, as that would imply a distinct identify, instead calling them “Bengali”.

Bangladesh has been urging the refugees to accept smart cards that help with identification and the distri-bution of aid. The smart cards however, identify an indi-vidual as a “forcibly displaced Myanmar national” and not as Rohingya.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan along with Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, during a daylong visit to Miranshah, in the North Waziristan, yesterday.

PTI-led govt boasting performance in first 100-days of ruleINTERNEWS ISLAMABAD

A furious opposition in parliament, bailout package from Saudi Arabia, TLP protests, U-turns, re-emergence of terrorism, peace overtures to India and its much-hyped austerity drive amid economic upheaval were some of the main features of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government during its first 100 days — a period which has completed.

While opposition parties are terming the 100-days per-formance of the government as “unimpressive, ridiculous and full of lies and U-turns,” the ruling party leaders are boasting the period with “remarkable achieve-ments”, claiming that the country has been put on the right track.

Some three months before the July 25 general elections, PTI chairman Imran Khan had unveiled his party’s ambitious “agenda” outlining the party’s com-mitments for starting work within the first 100 days of forming gov-ernment after the polls.

The salient features of the agenda were expeditious merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bifurcation of Punjab and reconciliation with estranged Baloch leaders.

The 100-day agenda also contained a plan for introducing

a development package for Karachi and a programme for alleviation of poverty, besides a number of steps for improvement of economy.

Presenting the salient points of the economic policy of the PTI government, Asad Umar, now finance minister, had promised that the government would create 10 million jobs, revive manufac-turing, rapidly grow small and medium enterprises sector, facil-itate private sector to build five million houses, reform tax admin-istration and transform state-owned-enterprises.

Later, speaking at the first formal press conference after the elections and before assuming the charge as finance minister, Umar had said that offering any relief or subsidy to the people during first 100 days was like giving lol-lipops. He said the first 100 days

would also not see a decision that would change the destiny of the nation, but a clear direction on what “we promised and where we are headed for stock-taking”.

The opposition parties allege that the government has totally failed to deliver at almost all the fronts, particularly economy and law and order situation. According to the opposition, the government has not done its homework properly.

The delay in the formation of committees of the National Assembly has almost made the parliament non-functional.

NA Speaker Asad Qaiser, who has been struggling to run the house smoothly, is on a tight rope because of the ongoing tussle between the PTI and the opposition parties over the issue

of the chairmanship of all pow-erful Public Accounts Committee.

He has stopped the process of the formation of parlia-mentary committees due to the opposition’s threat to boycott all panels if the ruling party does not offer PAC chairmanship to Opposition Leader and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif as per “parliamentary traditions.”

Due to having no legislative work to do, almost all previous sittings of the lower house of the parliament witnessed debates and speeches on petty matters with members continuing their corruption tirade against each other, causing uproars and even scuffles that resulted into a ban on the entry of Information Min-ister Fawad Chaudhry to the

upper house of the parliament by Senate Chairman Sadiq San-jrani due to former’s refusal to tender an apology for making “personal attacks” on opposition leaders on the floor of the parliament.

While mentioning the U-turns taken by the gov-ernment, the opposition parties - mainly the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) remind the PTI that after the first cabinet meeting, the infor-mation minister had declared that the prime minister would not undertake any foreign visit in the first three months and would only travel in commercial flights, but he had already undertaken the visits of Saudi Arabia, China, the UAE and Malaysia and that too, on special aircraft.

World powers meet in Geneva today on Afghan peaceREUTERS KABUL/GENEVA

Afghan leaders and international diplomats meet in Geneva today to evaluate whether strategies and aid offered to Afghanistan are helping resolve the quagmire created by the 17-year war, paving way for the with-drawal of foreign troops.

The two-day conference on Afghan-istan, jointly hosted by the Afghan gov-ernment and the United Nations comes at a time when US President Donald Trump’s administration is actively seeking a peace deal with the Taliban.

While no fresh financial commit-ments are expected, the conference will be a chance for donors to measure results

against the $15.2 billion committed for Afghanistan at the last funding meeting in Brussels in 2016.

“At least 60 percent of all the promises made by President Ghani at Brussels have been implemented. Discus-sions will be held regarding the chal-lenges,” said Haroon Chakhansuri, Pres-ident Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman.

With Afghan security forces strug-gling to hold back increasingly confident Taliban fighters and Western appetite for further commitments uncertain, the con-ference comes at a sensitive moment.

The government will present a growth strategy mapping out how an economy battered by 40 years of war can one day stand on its own as well as pledges on

issues ranging from fighting corruption to women’s empowerment.

However diplomats said much of the focus will be on side meetings, where offi-cials from Afghanistan and regional and Western countries will have a chance to assess the efforts of U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.

Ghani, facing a war-weary public at home, is expected to press regional coun-tries to support the process but he has so far been kept on the sidelines by the Tal-iban’s refusal to talk to his government, which they consider illegitimate.

His own future will be decided by presidential elections due in April but organisational and political problems may hamper the vote with authorities

admitting they are considering a delay of three months.

The Taliban, fighting to drive out international forces and establish their version of strict Islamic law, will not be attending but will be closely monitoring the talks. “We hope the international leaders accept our demands and put pressure on the US to withdraw all foreign forces from Afghanistan,” said a Taliban member. “Otherwise the conference will hold little significance.”

The United States currently has some 14,000 troops in Afghanistan, serving in the Nato-led Resolute Support training and advisory mission as well as in sep-arate counter-terrorism operations against militant groups like Islamic State.

Bangladeshi fishermen anchoring a fishing boat and unloading their catch with help of locals at Shamlapur fishing village in the Ukhia area.

The opposition

parties allege that the

government has totally

failed to deliver at

almost all the fronts,

particularly economy

and law and order

situation. According

to the opposition, the

government has not

done its homework

properly.

Sandstorm engulfs Chinese city

14 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018ASIA

A durian pizza is seen at La Cesar Pizzaria in Shanghai, China.

S Korean lawmakers land on disputed isle; Japan protestsREUTERS TOKYO

A group of South Korean lawmakers landed on an islet disputed with Japan in the East China Sea yesterday, prompting a protest from Tokyo and straining ties at a time when stalled talks over North Korea’s nuclear programme call for close coordination.

Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over the sovereignty of a group of islets called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, which lie about halfway between the East Asian neighbours in the Sea of Japan, which Seoul refers to as the East Sea.

“This landing on Takeshima by a group of South Korean law-makers was carried out despite Japan’s advance protests and requests to call it off,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference.

“In light of our country’s stance on sovereignty over Takeshima, this is by no means

acceptable.” It was the lawmakers’

second visit to the islands since August 2016, media said.

The two countries share a bitter history that includes Japan’s 1910-45 colonisation of the Korean peninsula and the issue of “comfort women”, a Japanese euphemism for South Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels in World War Two.

South Korea last week shut down a Japan-funded foun-dation created under a 2015 deal between the Asian neighbours to settle compensation for the women.

South Korea vowed to pursue a more “victim-oriented” approach, but the move

prompted Japanese Prime Min-ister Shinzo Abe to warn South Korea that it was risking dam-aging ties by disbanding the fund.

South Korea’s top court also ruled last month that Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp must compensate four South Koreans for their forced labour during the war, a verdict Japan denounced as “unthinkable”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump pledged to work towards denuclearisation at their landmark June summit in Singapore, but the agreement was short on specifics and nego-tiations have made little headway since.

Over 200 Chinese held in Cambodia for online scamsAP PHNOM PENH

Police in Cambodia yesterday arrested more than 200 Chinese citizens accused of defrauding people in China over the internet.

Gen. Y Sok Khy, director of the Interior Ministry’s Department of Counter-Ter-rorism and Transnational Crime, said 36 women were among the 235 Chinese arrested in three different vil-lages in Takeo province south of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Online scams by Chinese gangs that operate from foreign countries and target mainland Chinese are common throughout Southeast Asia and have been found as far away as Kenya and Spain. Cambodia has arrested and sent at least 1,000 Chinese and Taiwanese residents allegedly involved in such schemes to China since 2012.

The scams are carried out by making phone calls over the internet and employing deception, threats and blackmail against the victims. Placing phone calls over the internet makes communica-tions costs cheap and hinders tracing of the source of the calls. Y Sok Khy said the arrests followed months of surveillance and investi-gation. The suspects were sent to Phnom Penh for further questioning and will be deported to China, he said.

The arrests have caused controversy because suspects from Taiwan are usually deported directly to China in deference to Beijing, which views Taiwan as its own ter-ritory without sovereign legal status. Taiwan rejects China’s claim to its territory and wants its citizens returned there.

QNA MANILA

Philippine authorities raised alert levels to 2 after the Mayon volcano, the most active in the Philippines, spewed ash yesterday. Phil-ippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology warned that sudden eruptions of the volcano could threaten neighboring areas, adding that the volcano’s eruption caused generated grayish to grayish white ash plume that rose 300 to 500

meters above the summit.The institute also alerted from entering the

permanent danger zone, which is six kilometers long. The alert level on Mayon was downgraded to Alert Level 2 last March, which means that the country’s most active volcano “is at a mod-erate level of unrest.”

Mayon, the most active and deadly volcano, killed four foreign tourists and their tour guide when it last erupted in May 2013.

China bars US citizens from leaving over ‘economic crimes’AFP BEIJING

China yesterday said that it has barred three reported US citizens — a woman and her two grown children -- from leaving the country because they are suspected of “economic crimes”.

According to the New York Times, Chinese-born mother Sandra Han and her children, Cynthia and Victor Liu, were pre-vented from leaving the country after they arrived in June.

The children say police are preventing them from returning home to compel their father, a

former executive at a Chinese state-owned bank, to return to China to face criminal charges, according to the Times.

Their mother is allegedly being held in a secret site known as a “black jail”, the Times reported. The siblings told American officials and family associates that they were pre-vented from flying home despite not having been charged with a crime, the newspaper said.

China’s foreign ministry on Monday defended the decision.

“As we understand it from the relevant authorities, these people you have mentioned all

have legal and valid identity documents as Chinese citizens,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular press briefing.

“They are suspected of having committed economic crimes and have been restricted from leaving China by Chinese police.”

Chinese law does not rec-ognise dual citizenship. While China is known to bar naturalised foreign citizens who are former Chinese nationals from leaving, it is rare that one of those being held was born in the United States.

Malaysia bets on durian as Chinese become huge fans for smelliest fruitREUTERS KUALA LUMPUR

The stinky, spiky durian is set to become Malaysia’s next major export as the Southeast Asian nation rushes to develop thou-sands of acres to cash in on unprecedented demand for the fruit from China.

Once planted in family orchards and small-scale farms, the durian, described by some as smelling like an open sewer or turpentine when ripe, is attracting investments like never before. Even property tycoons and companies in palm oil, Malaysia’s biggest agricultural export, are making forays into the durian business.

The Malaysian government is encouraging large-scale farming of durian, counting on a 50 percent jump in exports by 2030. “The durian industry is transforming from local to

global, large-scale farming due to the great demand from China,” said Lim Chin Khee, a durian industry consultant. “Before the boom, a durian farm in Malaysia would be a leisure farm... Now they are hundreds of acres and bigger, and many more will come.”

Durian may be banned in some airports, public transport

and hotels in Southeast Asia for its pungent smell, but the Chinese are huge fans. Durian-flavoured foods sold in China include pizza, butter, salad dressing and milk.

“At first, I also hated durians because I thought they have a weird smell,” said Helen Li, 26, eating at a shop specialising in durian pizza in Shanghai, where

nearly every customer ordered the 60 yuan ($8.50) dish during a recent lunch hour rush. “But when you taste it, it’s really quite delicious. I think those who hate durian are scared by its smell. But once you try it, I think their opinion will change.”

At another Shanghai res-taurant selling durian chicken hotpot - a type of sizzling broth - for around 148 yuan ($21), owner Chen Weihao said the store could sell around 20 to 25 kg of imported Thai durian every month. “When you taste it, it has a kind of fresh and sweet flavour, as if you have arrived in the tropics,” said 27-year-old cus-tomer Yang Yang.

Chinese pay top dollar for Malaysia’s ‘Musang King’ variety of durian because of its creamy texture and bitter-sweet taste. Prices of the variety, now planted all over the country, have nearly quadrupled in the

last five years. China’s durian imports rose

15 percent last year to nearly 350,000 tonnes worth $510m, according to the United Nations’ trade database. Nearly 40 percent was from Thailand, the world’s top producer and exporter. Malaysia accounted for less than 1 percent, but expects sales to China to jump to 22,061 tonnes by 2030 from this year’s likely 14,600 tonnes, as trade is widened to include whole fruit from the current restriction to durian pulp and paste.

Lim, the consultant, said palm oil giant IOI Corp and property-to-resorts conglom-erate Berjaya Corp have approached him about making ventures into durian farming. IOI did not respond to queries, but a source with direct knowledge of the matter said the company was looking to plant durian on a small scale.

AFP HONG KONG

A scientist in China claims to have created the world’s first genetically-edited babies, a move that would be a ground-breaking medical first but which has generated a barrage of criticism.

Chinese university professor He Jiankui posted a video on YouTube saying that the twin girls, born a few weeks ago, had had their DNA altered to prevent them from contracting HIV.

The professor, who was educated at Stanford in the US and works from a lab in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, said their DNA was modified using CRISPR, a technique which allows scien-tists to remove and replace a strand with pinpoint precision.

The development emerged Sunday in an article published by industry journal the MIT Technology Review, which ref-erenced medical documents posted online

by He’s research team to recruit couples for the experiments.

He’s video then went online, prompting a heated debate among the scientific community, including from experts who cast doubt over the claimed breakthrough, and others who decried it as a modern form of eugenics.

He said the babies, known as “Lulu” and “Nana” although they are not their real names, were born through regular IVF but using an egg which was specially modified before being inserted into the womb. “Right after sending her husband’s sperm into her egg, an embryologist also sent in CRISPR/Cas9 protein and instruc-tions to perform a gene surgery intended to protect the girls from future HIV infection,” he said.

Gene editing is a potential fix for her-itable diseases but it is extremely contro-versial because the changes would be passed down to future generations and could eventually affect the entire gene

pool. The MIT Technology Review warned “the technology is ethically charged”.

The claims come ahead of a con-ference of world experts in Hong Kong this week, with He expected to speak on Wednesday and Thursday.

But there is as yet no independent verification of his claims, which have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal -- an omission that the scientist’s critics have seized on.

The research has been robustly crit-icised by Chinese scientists and institu-tions. The university where He works said he had been on unpaid leave since Feb-ruary and his research is a “serious vio-lation of academic ethics and norms”.

“This research work was carried out by Professor He Jiankui outside of the school,” the Southern University of Science and Technology said. And a joint statement from a group of 100 scientists in China criticised the findings and called for better state legislation.

Chinese scientist claims first gene-edited babies 6 bodies found in remote farmhouse in JapanAP TOKYO

Japanese police said yesterday they found six bodies believed to be members of a family in a farmhouse in a remote mountain village, and the body of a seventh person who jumped or fell from a nearby bridge.

Miyazaki prefectural police said officers found the bodies after receiving a phone call from a rel-ative of the family in another town, saying his calls had gone unan-swered. They said some of the bodies had knife cuts. Police said the seventh body, found in the river below the bridge, was of an uniden-tified man who apparently fled in the family’s car.

Police are attempting to identify the bodies to see if they are of farmer Yasuo Iihoshi, his wife and their adult son’s family.

A cyclist riding in a sandstorm in Zhangye, in China’s northwestern Gansu province. The northwest Chinese city was engulfed by a massive sandstorm that sparked rural fires, forced traffic to slow down and prompted residents to cover their faces, according to state media.

Tokyo and Seoul have long been at

loggerheads over the sovereignty of a group of

islets called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo

in Korean, which lie about halfway between

the East Asian neighbours in the Sea of Japan,

which Seoul refers to as the East Sea.

Mayon volcano erupts in Philippines

15TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 EUROPE

French President Emmanuel Macron attends a “prise d’armes” military ceremony at the Invalides in Paris, France, yesterday.

France drops plan for urban tolls amid fuel price protestsREUTERS & AP PARIS

The French government has dropped plans that would have eased the introduction of urban tolls amid nationwide protests against rising fuel costs, the transport minister said yesterday.

Last month, Transport Min-ister Elisabeth Borne said a new law on mobility would allow cities to introduce congestion pricing in a bid to cut traffic jams and pollution.

But in the past two weeks, France has seen nationwide pro-tests against rising fuel costs, with demonstrators clad in fluorescent jackets - dubbed “yellow vests” - blocking highways and setting up barricades, hoping to force the government to row back on new taxes on petrol and diesel.

The unrest came to a head in Paris on Saturday, when police clashed violently with thousands of demonstrators on the Champs-Elysees, with more than 100 pro-testers detained.

At a presentation of the draft mobility law following a cabinet meeting yesterday, Borne told reporters that it would not include urban tolls as had previ-ously been proposed.

“The perception is that this measure would create new ter-ritorial divides, and hence it will not be part of the draft law,” she said. She added that the goverment’s transport policy would focus on providing more alternatives for individual car ownership.

This will include improving railway connections to smaller cities, which have been left behind as France focuses on building high-speed TGV lines between its major cities, and on encouraging car sharing and cycling.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel

Macron’s government vowed an “uncompromising” stance toward troublemakers who use protests over rising fuel taxes to damage businesses and clash with police - including in the heart of Paris, o n t h e g l i t t e r i n g Champs-Elysees.

Pressure is mounting on Macron after a second weekend of sometimes violent demonstra-tions by angry drivers. He promised to explain today his plans for weaning France off fossil fuels via small tax hikes that are at the heart of the protests.

The protests are a major chal-lenge for Macron, drawing dis-parate demonstrators with no clear leader or mission but with a shared anger at his perceived elitism.

Scattered actions continued yesterday as drivers blocked roads from the Pyrenees to Brittany. Tense clashes Saturday reached Paris’ high-end Champs-Elysees, with store windows smashed and police firing volleys of tear gas and chasing trouble-makers through streets filled with smoke from flares and bonfires.

The government unveiled yesterday a planned bill to invest ¤13.4bn ($15.2bn) by 2022 aimed to develop the rail network,

Two trains of the national rail company OBB are seen during a warning strike in a railway station in Vienna, Austria, yesterday.

Austria rail strike stalls trains, disrupts 100,000 passengersREUTERS VIENNA

Trains stopped running across Austria yesterday as last-minute pay negotiations failed to avert a planned two-hour strike, disrupting travel for 100,000 passengers in Europe.

Wedged between eight countries including Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Austria is an important hub for European rail travel. The main rail workers’ union called the “warning strike” to press its demands in the annual pay talks.

Austrian national rail company OBB said shortly before the strike began that since the union had not told it which lines would be affected, all services would be shut down, including trains arriving from other countries.

“The union has still not announced the affected connections and lines. Therefore, for operational security reasons, OBB temporarily shut down rail traffic across Austria at 12 o’clock,” it added. The Vida trade union later said talks had broken down after it had received “no serious offer” on pay. Its

statement did not say what further indus-trial action it might take. By 1300 GMT,

OBB said long-distance services were resuming and local ones would follow

shortly afterwards, but disruptions were likely to continue until the late afternoon.

Germany marks 20th anniversary of agreement on Nazi-looted art AP BERLIN

German officials, Jewish leaders and others are marking the 20th anniversary of the international agreement on returning art looted by the Nazis with concrete pledges and proposals aimed at breathing new life into the process.

Culture Minister Monika Gruetters said Monday it is Germany’s responsibility to improve upon the so-called Washington Principles to restore cultural objects to their original Jewish owners or heirs, noting their meaning is much more than financial.

Germany is implementing measures to make both research of looted items and restitution easier. World Jewish Congress head Ronald Lauder says Germany has been “exemplary” in many ways but he called for more to be done and noted several other countries that endorsed the Washington Principles have largely ignored them.

EU, Iran commit to uphold N-pact despite Trump moveAP BRUSSELS

The European Union and Iran are affirming their support for the international nuclear deal and say they aim to keep it alive despite US President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the landmark pact.

Ahead of EU-Iran talks on civil nuclear cooperation in Brussels yesterday, EU Energy Commissioner Arias Canete said the deal is “crucial for the security of Europe, of the region and the entire world.”

He said the agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear ambi-tions is working and that “we do not see any credible peaceful alternative.” Iranian Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi said: “I hope that we can enjoy the niceties of this deal and not let it go unfulfilled.”

car-pooling, electric cars and unmanned shuttles.

The transportation minister, Elisabeth Borne, said that pro-testers’ anger is the consequence of “decades of abandonment of (rural) territories.” ‘’We’re not going to solve these difficulties just in one moment,” she said.

The protests dominated a Cabinet meeting Monday, notably the question of how to “respect the anger,” according to government spokesman

Benjamin Griveaux. “At the same time, we must be uncompro-mising in the face of those who want to do damage.”

He warned that images of Saturday’s violence on the Champs-Elysees could hurt France’s reputation abroad - and the foreign investment that Macron has tried to lure back to the French economy.

A local protest leader in Toulouse, Benjamin Cauchy, said Monday on BFM television

that the movement is at a turning point and the next step will hinge on what Macron has to say.

Cauchy said protesters should respect the media, after journalists were attacked, chased or threatened while cov-ering Saturday’s events.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire is meeting later Monday with businesses hit by the pro-tests on the Champs-Elysees and elsewhere.

Latvian President nominates lawyer Gobzems as PremierAFP RIGA

Latvia’s president yesterday tasked Aldis Gobzems (pictured), from the populist KPV LV party, with forming the next government after a previous nominee failed to do so following an October election which produced no clear winner.

President Raimonds Vejonis gave Gobzems until December 10 to name a team of ministers and secure majority support in parliament for his government, which he would lead as prime minister.

“I am allocating two weeks to secure the support of the majority of members of par-liament, to name all the pro-spective ministers and prepare a list of major tasks” for the new government, Vejonis told Latvian media yesterday.

“Should that fail, I’ll retract Gobzems’ nomination,” he added. Gobzems, a 40-year-old lawyer, was elected on the anti-establishment populist KPV LV ticket. He has gained

popularity over the last five years, while working pro bono for families of victims of a deadly 2013 supermarket roof cave-in.

Fifty-four people died in November 2013 when the con-crete roof of a Maxima super-market caved-in, resulting in Latvia’s worst peacetime disaster. Last year Gobzems secured a ¤100,000 ($114,000) payment from Maxima to each family that suffered during the disaster. A criminal trial is still ongoing.

Gobzems has stirred con-troversy by suggesting he would be open to teaming up with the

pro-Russian Harmony party. Although Harmony topped

the October vote with 24 seats in the 100-seat parliament, its pro-Russian stance has put off potential coalition partners in Latvia, both a Nato and EU member. Harmony was fol-lowed by Gobzems’s KPV LV which took 16 seats alongside Janis Bordans’ New Conserva-tives who also scored 16 seats.

Gobzems is the second party leader to have a go at forming a government since the October 6 election which saw seven parties enter parliament. Conservative leader Bordans acknowledged on November 14 that he had failed to muster the required support to build a centre-right coalition similar to those that governed Latvia since it broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The fragmented election result has complicated attempts to build a majority coalition to smoothly govern the Baltic eurozone state whose financial sector was hit hard this year by allegations of graft and money laundering.

President Emmanuel

Macron’s government

vowed an

“uncompromising”

stance toward

troublemakers who

use protests over

rising fuel taxes to

damage businesses

and clash with

police - including in

the heart of Paris,

on the glittering

Champs-Elysees.

Danish pensions boss quits after criticism of past tax schemesREUTERS COPENHAGEN

The chief executive of Danish pension fund ATP has decided to step down following criticism of the tax policies at a banking business when he was at the helm around a decade ago.

ATP is Europe’s fourth largest pension fund with around $120bn of assets under management and handles mandatory pensions for more than 5m Danes.

Christian Hyldahl said he had decided to resign because he had lost the confidence of stakeholders in ATP and “I must draw the conclusion that this will not change.”

“At the same time, there is an increasing risk that the repu-tation of ATP will suffer which should be avoided on any account,” he added in a statement issued by ATP. He declined to comment further. The focus on tax treatment has intensified in Denmark after a money laundering scandal involving its largest lender Danske Bank and a wider European dividend stripping scandal.

Five political parties, representing 43 percent of the seats in parliament and including two of the coalition government’s three parties, had prior to Monday’s announcement said they did not think Hyldahl was the right CEO.

A division of Nordea bank has been criticised in the Danish media for trading schemes from 2005-2008 that included buying shares in Swiss francs from Swiss investors shortly before the annual dividend was paid out, and selling them back shortly after.

Under a tax agreement between Denmark and Switzerland the division, Nordea Markets, was able to get the divided tax it had paid refunded, unlike the Swiss nationals who held the shares for the rest of the time.

Hyldahl was managing director, co-head of markets, at Nordea Markets from 2005 to 2007, and chief investment officer, head of investments, at Nordea Asset Management from 2007 to 2011.

Hyldahl and Nordea Markets have not been accused of any unlawful activity.

16 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018EUROPE

Russia-Ukraine tensions

soar after sea incidentAFP KIEV

Kiev and Moscow were facing their worst crisis in years as Ukraine and its Western allies demanded the release of three ships fired on and seized by Russia near Crimea.

Russian vessels boarded and captured the ships on Sunday, accusing them of illegally entering Russian waters off the coast of Crimea in the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine’s military was on high alert and parliament was to vote on a request from President Petro Poroshenko to impose martial law for 60 days.

The incident has raised fears of a wider military escalation and the UN Security Council was to hold an emergency session. Nato also called an emergency meeting on the incident.

Ukraine’s Western allies accused Russia of using force without justification, while Kiev urged its partners to impose further sanctions on Moscow.

“These were planned acts of aggression by the Russian Fed-eration against Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told reporters in Kiev.

“We will demand (at the Security Council) the immediate release of our sailors and the lib-eration of our ships.”

He said talks were underway, with the European Union and others, on increasing sanctions imposed on Russia.

Moscow insisted Kiev was to blame, with Kremlin spokesman

Dmitry Peskov saying: “The Russian side acted strictly within both domestic and international law.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Kiev of a planned provocation and of using “dangerous methods” that put ships in the area at risk.

The crisis unfolded as two small Ukrainian warships and a tugboat were heading through the Kerch Strait, a waterway that gives access to the Sea of Azov from the Black Sea and which is used by both Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine said a Russian border guard vessel rammed the tugboat and then fired on the ships, immobilising all three. It said the Kerch Strait was blocked by a tanker and that Russian mil-itary aircraft were flying over the area.

Russia’s FSB security service, which oversees border forces, confirmed weapons had been fired and the vessels seized, accusing the Ukrainian ships of “violating the Russian border”.

Ukraine said six of its serv-icemen were injured, two seri-ously. The FSB said only three had suffered non-life threatening

injuries and were given medical treatment.

Russian news agencies quoted port officials in Crimea as saying the strait was reopened to traffic early yesterday.

The confrontation is a dan-gerous development in the long-running conflict pitting Ukraine against Moscow and Russian-backed rebels in the east of the country. More than 10,000 people have died in the fighting.

The United States and EU have imposed sanctions on Russia over the conflict and on Monday European capitals rallied behind Kiev.

“I condemn Russian use of force in Azov Sea. Russian authorities must return Ukrainian sailors, vessels & refrain from further provoca-tions,” EU President Donald Tusk tweeted.

France also called on Russia to release the sailors and ships, with the foreign ministry saying “nothing appears to justify the use of force” by Russia.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said any Russian “blockade” of the Sea of Azov was “unacceptable”.

Tensions have been building over the Kerch Strait, where Russia has built a new bridge that gives it a land connection to Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Kiev has accused Moscow of blocking access for Ukrainian ships though the strait, the only way in and out of the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.

In recent months, both sides

had deployed more naval and border vessels to the area.

“The incident marks a signif-icant escalation of the conflict

between Russia and Ukraine,” research firm Eurasia Group said.

“Western governments will side with Ukraine against Russia

over the incident... making new sanctions against Russia likely.”

Poroshenko held a late-night meeting of his military cabinet, proposing the imposition of martial law in Ukraine “to ensure the security and safety of its citizens”.

Eurasia Group said martial law could have wide-ranging domestic consequences, espe-cially with a presidential election due in March and Poroshenko behind in opinion polls.

“Poroshenko did not take this kind of action during the worst of the conflict in 2014 and 2015. This raises concerns that... it could lead to postponement of the presidential election,” it said.

Protesters gathered in several Ukrainian cities to denounce Russia’s actions, with several hundred far-right activists marching to parliament in Kiev and setting off flares.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko chairs a meeting with members of the National Security Council in Kiev, yesterday. BELOW: Activists of Ukrainian far-right groups marching to the parliament as they demand to set martial law in the country and to cut diplomatic relations with Russia.

Legendary Italian film director Bertolucci deadAFP ROME

Legendary Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci, whose films include “Last Tango In Paris” and “1900”, died at the age of 77.

Bertolucci died at his home in Rome early yesterday, his press office Punto e Virgola said in an email.

Considered one of the giants of Italian and world cinema, Bertolucci was the only Italian ever to win the Oscar for best film, snapping up the award in 1988 for “The Last Emperor.”

The biographical master-piece about the last Chinese

emperor won a total of nine Oscars, all of those for which it was nominated.

He acquired notoriety for his 1972 drama “Last Tango In Paris” starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider.

He had been wheelchair-bound for several years and won an honorary Palme d’Or for his life’s work at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Born in Parma, north-eastern Italy, on March 16, 1941, Bertolucci made films that were often highly politicised, dealing with workers’ struggles in “1900” or the fate of left-wingers in fascist Italy in “The Conformist”. Bertolucci studied literature before turning to film. UK faces extreme weather in 2070s: Study

REUTERS LONDON

Britain is likely to experience hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters by the 2070s, as well as rising sea levels which can lead to floods, due to the effects of climate change, long-term projections by the Met Office show.

To help homes and busi-nesses plan for the future, a report based on science from the Met Office and around the world sets out a range of climate sce-narios over the next century based on different rates of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere.

UK Climate Projections 2018 shows rising summer tempera-tures, more extreme weather and rising sea levels are expected in Britain and urgent action is needed.

Even in the lowest-emission scenario, average annual tem-peratures are expected to be up to 2.3 degrees Celsius higher by the end of the century. In the highest-emissions scenario, summer temperatures could be up to 5.4C higher by 2070 and winters up to 4.2C higher.

The chance of a summer as hot as this year is about 50 percent by 2050. This summer was the joint hottest on record, when a six-week spell of hot

weather saw daytime temper-atures in many parts of the country regularly over 30C.

The report said average summer rainfall could fall by up to 47 percent by 2070 and winter rainfall could be up to 35 percent lower in winter. Mean-while, sea levels could rise by up to 1.15 metres by 2100, which increases the risk of flooding.

“Sea levels are projected to rise over the 21st century and beyond under all emission sce-narios — meaning we can expect to see an increase in both the fre-quency and magnitude of extreme water levels around UK coastline,” the Met Office said in a statement.

Ukraine’s military

was on high alert

and parliament was

to vote on a request

from President Petro

Poroshenko to impose

martial law for 60

days.

French-American man drops attempt to swim Pacific OceanAP TOKYO

A French-American man has given up his attempt to swim across the Pacific Ocean after a storm broke the mainsail of his support ship.

Organizers said yesterday that long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte had abandoned the attempt. He had com-pleted about 2,780km of the 9,260km journey.

The announcement was made by online science pub-lisher Seeker, which partnered with Lecomte and has been documenting his attempt.

Lecomte said the damage to the sail was “an insur-mountable blow” and called the premature end to the s w i m “ a d e e p disappointment.”

He had set out on June 5 from Japan’s Pacific coast and was swimming an average of eight hours a day. Violent storms had already forced him to interrupt the swim once and return to Japan in late July.

A file photo of Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci celebrating his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in California.

Expats cannot challenge Brexit talks: EU CourtREUTERS LUXEMBOURG

European Union judges dis-missed a case brought by a World War II veteran and other Britons living on the continent against the Brexit negotiation, ruling that their rights as EU cit-izens had not yet been infringed.

Harry Shindler, a 97-year-old living in Italy, was among 13 expatriates who complained to the EU’s General Court that Brexit would deprive them of EU citizenship, and that the decision last year by the bloc’s

Council of member states to accept notification of Britain’s withdrawal next March breached their rights because they had been denied a vote in the 2016 referendum.

Yesterday, the Court dis-missed the action as inadmis-sible because the Council’s move to start talks with London did not in itself carry any definite con-sequences for their rights.

“The decision of the Council authorising the opening of nego-tiations on Brexit does not produce binding legal effects capable of affecting the interests

of the applicants by bringing about a distinct change in their legal position,” it said.

Julien Fouchet, a French lawyer acting for the plaintiffs, said they would appeal to the Court of Justice, the EU’s top court. “Unacceptable,” he tweeted. “The fight goes on.”

Shindler had taken a demand that all expatriates be given a vote in the referendum to London’s High Court. Judges there ruled two months before the vote that this would be too difficult for the authorities.

Campaigners said millions

of British citizens fall foul of a law depriving them of a vote after 15 years abroad.

Under Article 50 of the European Union treaty, Prime Minister Theresa May notified the European Council on March 29, 2017, that Britain would leave the bloc, setting in motion a two-year countdown that will see Britain leave in four months’ time.

On Sunday, May and the other 27 EU leaders formally agreed a treaty setting terms for departure and outlining a close future trading relationship.

Russia plans for new US nuclear missiles in EuropeREUTERS MOSCOW

Russia said yesterday it was planning for a US deployment of new nuclear missiles in Europe following Washington’s planned withdrawal from a landmark Cold war-era arms control treaty despite the United States denying it has such plans.

Russia is keen to dissuade US

President Donald Trump from carrying out a threat for Wash-ington to quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty which eliminated both countries’ land-based short- and intermediate-range nuclear mis-siles from Europe.

Both countries accuse each other of violating the 1987 treaty.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said yesterday

that Moscow wanted to save the treaty and was open to talks on the issue with Washington.

But Ryabkov, who accused the United States of violating the accord with missile deployments in Poland and Romania, said he thought the chances of a change of heart were slim and said Rus-sia’s military planners were pre-pared for such a scenario.

Nato’s top official said in

October he did not believe there would be new deployments of US missiles in Europe and US National Security Advisor John Bolton said Washington was a long way from taking decisions about deploying missiles in Europe.

Ryabkov said Moscow was sceptical about assertions from US and Nato officials that no such new missiles would be deployed.

“We hear (the denials) but nothing more,” said Ryabkov. “Plans have been changed many times before. We don’t want to be disappointed in our (US) col-leagues again and therefore we are assuming the worst case sce-nario in our military planning.”

Ryabkov said he believed the US would be able to deploy intermediate-range nuclear mis-siles in Europe “within years”.

17TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 AMERICAS

Trump warns of closing

border permanentlyBLOOMBERG TIJUANA

President Donald Trump said the US will close its southern border with Mexico if needed, a day after US agents shot several rounds of tear gas at migrants, some of whom tried to breach a border fence.

“Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries,” Trump said yes-terday on Twitter. “Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the USA. We will close the Border permanently if need be.”

Trump made a similar threats in October ahead of the midterm elections, warning that an approaching “caravan” of migrants posed a risk to US security and claiming without evidence that criminals were among the group. So far, he hasn’t followed through on those threats.

Details of any potential closing of the 3,145km border aren’t yet clear. Mexico is the third-largest American goods trading partner with $557.6bn in two-way trade during 2017, according to the Office of the US

Trade Representative. Trade in services accounted

for another $58bn.The Mexican peso fell as

much as 0.3 percent after Trump’s tweet, weakening to as low as 20.4624 per dollar, before rebounding yesterday.

US border officials on Sunday temporarily closed the San Ysidro port of entry between Tijuana and San Diego, one of the busiest border crossings in the world, “to ensure public safety’ after agents shot several rounds of tear gas at migrants, leaving

children screaming and coughing, the report said.

An estimated 8,200 migrants from the so-called caravans heading to the US from Central America are now in Mexico, authorities say. Trump has vowed to shut down the southern border with lethal force if nec-essary, and is calling on Mexico to intervene.

Immigration — an issue Trump has relied on to rev up his base — has proved legislatively thorny. Democrats and even some lawmakers in Trump’s own party have resisted his calls to fund his proposed border wall.

Trump wants migrants to remain in Mexico while their US asylum cases are adjudicated. Olga Sánchez Cordero, Mexico’s incoming interior minister, as

well as a spokesman for incoming President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, have said Mexico won’t accept that proposal.

Central American migrants run after the US border patrol threw tear gas from the distance to disperse them after an alleged verbal dispute, along the Tijuana River near the El Chaparral border crossing, yesterday.

Trump wrote on twitter: Mexico should move

the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are

stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do

it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want,

but they are NOT coming into the USA. We will

close the Border permanently if need be.

42 migrants arrested onUS side of Mexico borderAFP WASHINGTON

US border patrol agents have arrested 42 Central American migrants who crossed the southern frontier from Mexico, Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott said yesterday.

“Forty-two people crossed the border and were arrested. To be completely frank there were numerous people who actually made it across the border,” Scott, of the San Diego Sector Border Patrol, said, adding that the majority of those detained were men.

They were among a group of migrants mostly driven back — under tear gas and rubber bullet fire — when they tried to

rush the border on Sunday from a camp where about 5,000, mostly from Honduras, are staying in hope of eventually becoming US residents.

“We’re in the process of building the new border wall here but we don’t have it com-pleted. There were sections that had dilapidated border wall that was made out of scrap metal the military gave us,” Scott added.

“The group breached a couple of sections of that, actually tore down one small section. They started to rush across and that’s another time they starting assaulting our agents and we were able to hold them back using riot techniques.”

‘Misinformation’ chosen as word of the yearAP NEW YORK

Misinformation, as opposed to disinformation, was chosen yes-terday as Dictionary.com’s word of the year on the tattered coat-tails of “toxic,” picked earlier this month for the same honor by Oxford Dictionaries in these tumultuous times.

Jane Solomon, a linguist-in-residence at Dictionary, said in a recent interview that her site’s choice of “mis” over “dis” was deliberate, intended to serve as a “call to action” to be vigilant in the battle against fake news, flat earthers and anti-vaxxers,

among other conduits.It’s the idea of intent,

whether to inadvertently mislead or to do it on purpose, that the Oakland, California-based company wanted to highlight. The company decided it would go high when others have spent much of 2018 going low.

“The rampant spread of mis-information is really providing new challenges for navigating life in 2018,” Solomon said ahead of the word of the year announcement.

“Misinformation has been around for a long time, but over the last decade or so the rise of social media has really, really

changed how information is shared. We believe that under-standing the concept of misin-formation is vital to identifying misinformation as we encounter it in the wild, and that could ultimately help curb its impact.”

In studying lookups on the site that trended this year, Dic-tionary noticed “our relationship with truth is something that came up again and again,” she said.

For example, the word “mainstream” popped up a lot, spiking in January as the term “mainstream media,” or MSM, grew to gargantuan proportions,

wielded as an insult by some on the political right. Other words swirling around the same problem included a lookup surge in February for “white lie” after Hope Hicks, then White House communications director, admitted to telling a few for President Donald Trump.

The word “Orwellian” sur-faced in heavy lookups in May, after a statement attributed to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused the Chinese government of “Orwellian nonsense” in trying to impose its views on American citizens and private companies when it declared that United

Airlines, American Airlines and other foreign carriers should refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as part of China in public-facing materials, such as their websites.

Misinformation, Solomon said, “frames what we’ve all been through in the last 12 months.” In that vein, the site with 90 million monthly users has busied itself adding new word entries for “filter bubble,” ‘’fake news,” ‘’post-fact,” ‘’post-truth” and “homophily,” among others. Other word entries on the site have been freshened to reflect timely new meanings, including “echo chamber.”

US driver stands trial for car rampageAFP CHARLOTTESVILLE

An American man is set to go on trial for murder today after allegedly ramming his car into counter-protesters at a 2017 white supremacist rally that made the town of Charlottes-ville a byword for rising racial tensions under Donald Trump.

James Fields, 21, also faces hit-and-run charges as well as eight counts of causing serious injury to others struck by the black Dodge Challenger he

allegedly drove at the “Unite the Right” protest on August 12, 2017.

The rampage resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, 32, and highlighted the growing audacity of the far right under Trump, whose rhetoric and pol-icies are blamed by critics for a spike in racist and anti-Semitic violence.

The president drew broad criticism following the attack when he spoke of “blame on both sides,” and appeared to establish a moral equivalence between the white supremacists

who came to the liberal uni-versity city to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, and those who opposed them.

Jury selection begins from today and is estimated to last around two days, with the full trial expected to take up to three weeks to complete.

If convicted of first degree murder Fields faces between 20 years to life in prison. His legal team earlier failed to shift the trial away from Charlottesville, where they argued it would be impos-sible to impanel an unbiased jury.

City workers place barricades around the court grounds during the first day of jury selection for the James Fields murder trial at Charlottesville Circuit Court, in Virginia, yesterday.

Snowstorm hammers US MidwestREUTERS ILLINOIS

Commuters in Chicago and across the Midwest faced inches of heavy, wet snow as they headed back to work yesterday after the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with the storm knocking out power, icing roads and canceling some flights.

The National Weather Service ended blizzard warnings yesterday in northeast Missouri through the Chicago metro-politan area and northeast into Michigan, but noted strong winds of up to 72kph would continue to blow around drifts of the snow accumulated overnight.

“Snow will continue to taper off to flurries and then end this morning,” the service’s Chicago office said in a statement, warning drivers to take extra caution on slippery roads in low visibility.

“The drive into work was NASTY,” Diane Pathieu, an ABC7 Chicago news anchor, wrote on Twitter of her pre-dawn commute. “Roads barely plowed, wind blowing snow everywhere. Proceed with caution!”

North of Chicago, the city of Evanston’s police department said in a statement its power had been knocked out by the storm, although it was still able to receive 911 calls.

Dozens of school districts in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas canceled classes due to the weather. Chicago public schools were expected to open.

The storm canceled 1,270 flights on Sunday, a busy day for travelers trying to get home after the Thanksgiving weekend.

That included about 900 flights to and from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway Airport and almost 200 flights at Kansas City International Airport.

Yesterday morning, about 500 flights to and from O’Hare had been canceled, about 17 percent of all scheduled flights, according to the FlightAware flight tracking service.

Oprah Winfrey’s mother, Vernita Lee dead at 83AP MILWAUKEE

Oprah Winfrey’s mother, Vernita Lee, has died at the age of 83.

A Winfrey spokeswoman yesterday issued a statement saying Lee died at her Mil-waukee home on November 22. The spokeswoman says private funeral services were held. No other details were provided.

Lee was a teenager when she gave birth to Winfrey in Mississippi in 1954. They moved to Milwaukee when Winfrey was 6 years old.

Lee was featured getting a makeover on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1990.

Lee is also survived by another daughter, Patricia Amanda, and four grand-children. She was predeceased by a son, Jeffrey, and by a daughter, Patricia.

Black woman to lead Harvard newspaperAFP NEW YORK

In January 2019, a liberal-arts student from New York born to immigrant parents will become the first black woman to lead Harvard University’s Crimson newspaper in its 145-year history.

Kristine Guillaume, who is studying literature, history and African-American studies, was elected this month with a promise to steer the traditional bastion of the establishment towards a more diverse, digital-first future.

She has previously served as a chair of a diversity and inclusivity committee, respon-sible for making The Harvard Crimson more diverse and welcoming to students from all backgrounds.

“If my being elected to the Crimson presidency as the first black woman affirms anyone’s sense of belonging at Harvard, then that will continue to affirm the work that I’m doing,” she said.

The 20-year-old is the third black president and first black woman to helm the organization since it was founded in 1873.

18 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018AMERICAS

Chilean govt sends Haitian refugees homeREUTERS SANTIAGO

Chile is returning a second planeload of Haitian immi-grants to their native country and will make use of the return flight from the Caribbean island to bring home Chileans stranded in crisis-stricken Venezuela.

After dropping off nearly 180 Haitian citizens in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, the Chilean air force plane will stop in Caracas to pick up nearly 100 Chileans and fly them back to Santiago, Interior Minister Andres Chadwick said.

As oil-rich Venezuela’s economy has sunk into crisis under President Nicolas Maduro, as many as 1.9 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015, according to the UN.

“This will be a humani-tarian flight on the way there, and on the way back.”

A total of 1,600 Haitians have signed up for the flights back to Haiti from Chile, part of a program labeled as “humanitarian flights” by the government of President Sebastian Pinera.

US plans overhaul of medical device system

Festival of lights in MexicoPeople visit “Luztopia”, a festival of lights a exhibited in the Paseo Santa Lucia at the beginning of the holiday season, in Monterrey, Mexico, yesterday. Spreading along three kilometres, the festival is one of the largest in Latin America.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro adds fifth military man to CabinetREUTERS RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro yesterday named retired General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz as his next gov-ernment minister, adding a fifth military man to his cabinet.

Right-wing politician

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who surged to victory on a pledge to end years of cor-ruption and rising violence, made the announcement in a Twitter post.

Some Brazilians are con-cerned that the appointment of Dos Santos Cruz, who led UN peacekeepers in Haiti, and other

current or former military offi-cials marks a return to a milita-rized government.

Seeking to defuse those con-cerns, Bolsonaro has vowed to adhere to Brazil’s constitution and has moderated some of his more extreme views expressed during his nearly-three decades as a federal congressman.

Bolsonaro, who has long been a critic of the socialist gov-ernment of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, again appeared to tone down his strident views on regional migration, saying that Venezuelans fleeing to Brazil could not be returned to their country “because they are not merchandise.”

AP WASHINGTON

US health officials said yesterday that they plan to overhaul the nation’s decades-old system for approving most medical devices, which has long been criticized by experts for failing to catch problems with risky implants and medical instruments.

The Food and Drug Admin-istration announced plans aimed at making sure new medical devices reflect up-to-date safety and effectiveness features.

The system targeted by the actions generally allows manu-facturers to launch new products based on similarities to decades-old products, not new clinical

testing in patients.The FDA’s move came one

day after the publication of a global investigation into medical device safety by more than 50 media organizations.

Led by the International Consortium of Investigative Jour-nalists, the group found that more than 1.7 million injuries and

nearly 83,000 deaths suspected of being linked to medical devices had been reported to the US Food and Drug Adminis-tration over a 10-year period.

“We believe that newer devices should be compared to the benefits and risks of more modern technology,” FDA Com-missioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

Gottlieb said the changes under consideration would push companies to compare their devices to more up-to-date tech-nology, rather than referencing decades-old products.

Some of the reforms pro-posed by the FDA could take years to implement, in some cases requiring new guidelines

and regulations for manufac-turers. And the most substantive changes could require action by Congress.

The FDA’s framework for clearing more than 95 percent of devices on the US market dates to 1976 and has long been criticized in reports from gov-ernment watchdogs and inde-pendent medical experts.

Unlike new pharmaceuticals — which are tested in patient studies— most medical devices only have to show that they are similar to devices already on the market.

Only a handful of truly new devices must undergo extensive clinical testing to verify they are safe and effective.

Defective devices cleared through the streamlined system have included hip replacements that failed prematurely, surgical mesh linked to pain and bleeding and a surgical instrument that inadvertently spread uterine cancer.

As generations of devices have been cleared via the FDA’s main review process, medical products have become increas-ingly complex and often barely resemble the decades-old “predicates” they claim to reference.

Devices cleared through this system, known as the 510(k), include imaging scanners, com-puterized drug pumps, artificial joints and spinal implants.

In 2011, an Institute of Med-icine panel recommended that the “flawed” system be replaced, because it does not actually establ ish safety and effectiveness.

At the time the FDA said it disagreed with the group’s recommendations.

The Advanced Medical Tech-nology Association, the indus-try’s chief lobbying group, said in a statement that some of the FDA’s proposals “could prove arbitrary.”

“While we believe the 510(k) pathway has proven its effec-tiveness over the years, we have always maintained that any process can be improved,” the group said.

The Food and Drug

Administration

announced plans

aimed at making

sure new medical

devices reflect up-to-

date safety and

effectiveness features.

Driver crashes into Minnesota governor’s gateAP ST PAUL

Police said a motorist accused of crashing his SUV through the front gate of the Min-nesota governor’s residence in St Paul has been jailed.

State Patrol Lt Gordon Shank said nobody was injured in the incident around 9:30pm on Sunday.

Shank said the vehicle, driven by a 59-year-old Center City man, came to a stop in the driveway.

He was ordered out of the vehicle and arrested without incident.

Spokesman Matt Swenson said Governor Mark Dayton was never in danger.

The driver is being held on suspicion of criminal damage to property.

Associate of Trump ally says to reject Mueller’s plea dealREUTERS NEW YORK

An associate of political oper-ative Roger Stone, a long-time ally of US President Donald Trump, said yesterday he will reject what he claims is a plea deal offered to him by the special counsel probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presi-dential election.

Jerome Corsi, a right-wing commentator known for pro-moting political conspiracy the-ories, said the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller wanted him to plead guilty to one felony count of knowingly providing false information in return for leniency at sentencing.

At issue in the plea talks were two separate email exchanges from 2016 in which Stone and another associate encouraged him to make contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to Corsi, who said he has never met or communicated with Assange.

Corsi said he had forgotten about the emails when he ini-tially spoke with Mueller’s team and asserted there was never any intention to contact Assange. He said Mueller later allowed him to amend his tes-timony to reflect the content of the emails.

“Now they want to charge me for something that they

allowed me to amend. That’s not fair,” said Corsi, who told media last week that he was in plea talks with Mueller. “I didn’t go in to deceive them.”

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel, declined to comment. David Gray, Corsi’s attorney, could not be reached for comment.

Stone said yesterday that he believed the email from him was a message in which he urged Corsi to look into three issues on a visit to the UK, one of which was that Corsi should visit Assange at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Mueller’s team of prose-cutors have questioned several associates of Stone as part of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and whether Trump’s election cam-paign team colluded with Moscow.

Mueller’s team is examining whether Stone had advance access to emails hacked from the Democratic Party and the account of John Podesta, cam-paign chairman of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and obtained and later published by Wikileaks.

Stone has denied having advance access to the emails, which US officials say were hacked by Russian intelligence and released by Wikileaks weeks before the 2016 election.

Nasa spacecraft lands on Red PlanetAP CAPE CANAVERAL

A Nasa spacecraft designed to burrow beneath the surface of Mars landed on the red planet yesterday after a six-month, 482 million kilometer journey and a perilous, six-minute descent through the rose-hued atmos-phere.

Flight controllers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leaped out of their seats and erupted in screams, applause and laughter as the news came in.

“Touchdown confirmed!” a flight controller announced.

The three-legged InSight spacecraft reached the surface after being slowed by a parachute and braking engines, the space agency said. Updates were coming in via radio signals that take more than eight minutes to cross the nearly 160 million kil-ometers between Mars and Earth.

It was Nasa’s ninth attempt to land at Mars since the 1976 Viking probes. All but one of the previous US touchdowns were successful.

Nasa last landed on Mars in 2012 with the Curiosity rover.

Viewings were held coast to coast at museums, planetariums and libraries, as well as New

York’s Times Square.The plan called for the

spacecraft to go from 19,800 kph to zero in six minutes flat as it pierced the Martian atmosphere and settled on the surface.

“Landing on Mars is one of the hardest single jobs that people have to do in planetary exploration,” said InSight’s lead scientist, Bruce Banerdt.

“It’s such a difficult thing, it’s such a dangerous thing that there’s always a fairly uncom-fortably large chance that some-thing could go wrong.”

Mars has been the graveyard for a multitude of space missions. Up to now, the success rate at the red planet has been only 40 percent, counting every attempted flyby, orbital flight and landing by the US, Russia and other countries since 1960.

The US, however, has pulled off seven successful Mars landings in the past four decades, not counting InSight, with only one failed touchdown. No other country has managed to set and operate a spacecraft on the dusty red surface.

InSight was shooting for Elysium Planitia, a plain near the Martian equator that the InSight team hopes is as flat as a parking lot in Kansas with few, if any, rocks.

This is no rock-collecting expedition. Instead, the sta-tionary 360 kilogram lander will use its 1.8 meter robotic arm to place a mechanical mole and seismometer on the ground. The self-hammering mole will burrow 5 meters down to measure the planet’s internal heat, while the seismometer listens for possible quakes.

Nothing like this has been

attempted before at our next-door neighbor, nearly 160 million kilometers away.

No lander has dug deeper than several inches, and no seis-mometer has ever worked on Mars.

By examining the interior of Mars, scientists hope to understand how our solar sys-tem’s rocky planets formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they

turned out so different - Mars cold and dry, Venus and Mercury burning hot, and Earth hospitable to life.

InSight has no life-detecting capability, however. That will be left to future rovers.

Nasa’s Mars 2020 mission, for instance, will collect rocks that will eventually be brought back to Earth and analyzed for evidence of ancient life.

The mission control team at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) react on a video screen as the spaceship Insight lands on the planet’s surface after a six-month journey, in Pasadena, yesterday.

19TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018 HOME

Qatar Charity centre’s programme delights communities in Al Khor THE PENINSULA DOHA

The men’s branch of the Qatar Charity Center For Community Development located in Al Khor, has organised a number of educational, cultural and family activities and competi-tions for the non-Arabic speaking communities living in Al Khor.

These activities were held in cooperation with the Friends Cultural Center (FCC) of Qatar Charity (QC) as part of the con-tinuation of the charity’s ‘Tawasul’ programme, which has witnessed the active partic-ipation from both male and female participants.

More than 150 women and children have taken part in its different activities, which are expected to continue during next year as well as other new activities will be added to the programme’s list.

The programme includes several activities, the most important of which is ‘Tham-heedul Mar’a’, an educational activity for women initiated by the centre in October, which will continue until the same month of next year.

Around 15 female partici-pants regularly attend this edu-cational activity to learn the Holy Quran, Hadith, and Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh) and know about the history of the

Righteous Caliphs. The centre also intends to launch another activity for men in order to benefit everyone.

The centre has also organised cultural competitions for children during the past and current month, in which about 80 boys and girls participated. Other competitions are expected to take place in the coming months.

The centre also holds other activities in the holy month of Ramadan, as well as during Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha. The centre has also held a coun-selling session as part of the ‘Tawasul’ programme, which was given by Nasiruddin, a family counselling expert, and was attended by 60 women.

Also, Dr. Jaseera, a senior physician at Parco Clinic, Doha, spoke about psycho-physical issues of children during the session.

Sajidurrahman, an Indian community activity organiser, said, QC’s ‘Tawasul’ programme is a very useful initiative for the non-Arabic speaking commu-nities, especially for those living in Al Khor, where no such activ-ities were available for their children, their families and their women, pointing out that they enjoy the activities of this programme.

Kids during an activity organised by Qatar Charity Center For Community Development for non-Arabic speaking communities living in Al Khor.

Siege boosted food security, QU symposium hears

THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences (DBES) at Qatar University’s (QU) College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) hosted the 12th QU Life Sci-ences Symposium on November 25 and 26.

The two-day event themed ‘Food Systems and Technology: Advancing Food Production’, was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment. It aimed to create a transdisciplinary framework for knowledge, skills and exploration in food systems and technologies and to provide opportunities for applied, problem-based learning in food

systems.The opening session was

attended by CAS Dean Dr. Rashid Al Kuwari, DBES Head Dr. Rad-houane Ben Hamadou, as well as CAS faculty, staff and students.

The symposium featured 4 sessions: Food Security: Chal-lenges and Policies, Food Pro-duction Systems: Technologies and Innovation, Food Biotech-nology and finally, Food Safety and Quality. The sessions included the presentation of more than 15 research papers from universities and institutions within and outside Qatar, and featured posters presented by students.

Dr. Rashid Al Kuwari, said, “This symposium is one of many

initiatives to support the Qatar National Vision 2030 as food security, sustainable food prac-tices and food systems are areas of increasing importance to Qatar and fall under the “eco-nomic and social” pillar of Qatar National Vision 2030. It also reflects QU’s interest in scien-tific research as the nucleus of Qatar’s future development and prosperity. Over the past years, the Life Sciences Forum has

discussed many topics related to the health of the individual and the environment, the marine environment, the Crimean plant, biotechnology, environmental pollution and others.”

Dr Radhouane Ben Hamadou, said, “This event flourishes while Qatar is under a blockade imposed unilaterally by the neighbouring countries, which imposed Qatar to adapt

and establish new sources and alternate, more sustainable supply routes for basic goods, like food and medicine. The negative impacts of the unjust blockade by the four Arab states on Qatar were temporary and the economy managed to contain these impacts and come out of it very quickly.”

“The State of Qatar turned this threat into opportunity and in the field of food security, new

farms and food production and post processing units just bloomed to cover part of the local needs for food commod-ities. It is nevertheless time to turn these initiatives into a sus-tainable framework joining pol-icies to integrated initiatives for international trading (with sus-tainable partnerships), food local production and strength-ening strategic reserves into the country.”

The students, faculty and other staff of the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Qatar University’s College of Arts and Sciences during the 12th QU Life Sciences Symposium on November 25 and 26.

The two-day event, themed ‘Food Systems

and Technology: Advancing Food Production’,

aimed to create a transdisciplinary framework

for knowledge, skills and exploration in food

systems and technologies and to provide

opportunities for applied, problem-based

learning in food systems.

Pari Gallery celebrates launch of Eutopie Perfumes’ latest fragrance THE PENINSULA DOHA

Pari Gallery, renowned retailer and distributor of luxury fra-grances, skin care products, cos-metics and accessories, cele-brated the launch of Eutopie Perfumes’ latest fragrance ‘No11’ at their branch in Hyatt Plaza, amongst a host of socialites and

members of media. Eutopie Perfumes narrates

the sentimental journey of the nomadic couple travelling the world on a quest to discover the ‘place of good’. Euptoie ‘No11’ takes us on a journey to the city of Prague, the city of a thousand towers and a thousand steeples, through the eyes and senses of a nomadic couple.

Eutopie ‘No11’ encapsulates the beauty of Prague’s bright spring and its fairy lilac bloom season. It is a luminous floral wood fragrance, that opens with a fresh cascade of citrus and fruity notes, then glows with a voluptuous floral heart and finally encounters the sensuality and soft warmth of amber and wood for an elegant base.

Hakam Al Qawasmi (centre), General Manager of Pari Gallery, and Elodie Pollet, Eutopie Brand Founder, with other officials during the launch of Eutopie No11 at Pari Gallery Hyatt Plaza branch yesterday.PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

WCM-Q urges people to adopt good lifestyle choices THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) has held its first Lifestyle Medicine Week to rein-force messages about leading healthy lives among Education City (EC) staff, faculty and students.

The week-long event was organised by WCM-Q’s Institute for Population Health, and fea-tured workshops and demon-strations designed to improve EC community members’ health and remind them of the need to make good lifestyle choices.

The event began with the Walk for Life in Qatar Founda-tion’s Oxygen Park, which was attended by EC staff, faculty and students as well as their friends and families.The week continued with cookery demonstrations by Jens Heier, executive chef at the Millennium Hotel, Doha, who made Vietnamese chicken salad and sea bass with cucumber and dill, among other dishes, before an appreciative audience.

Russell Clarke who works in Information Technology Services at the college, said the recipes were quick, healthy and most importantly, tasted great.

He said: “It was really impressive watching Jens cook the meals so quickly. I’m not sure I would be as quick but the dem-onstration really made you think about the food that you eat and how you can improve your diet with just a few tweaks.”

Other events included ‘Get Connected’, a seminar on building and maintaining good

relationships with others, which was presented by Sobia Rahman, psychologist and learning support specialist at WCM-Q; and ‘Quiet your busy mind and body’ presented by Jacki Wood-worth, learning facilitator and mindfulness teacher with Qatar

Development and Consultancy Centre, who provided attendees with ideas of how to build healthy habits that promote improved health and wellness.

The final day of the week saw the Tobacco Control Center at Hamad Medical Corporation

visit WCM-Q to deliver messages and techniques for stopping smoking to those who use ciga-rettes and shisha, and also to their friends and families via pamphlets and advice groups.

Dr. Sohaila Cheema, director of the Institute for Population

Health, said it had been a fasci-nating week. She said: “I’d like to thank everyone who attended the various activities hosted during the week. I think eve-ryone has picked up tips and ideas for improving their health and wellness in small but signif-icant ways and we will look at hosting the week again next year.”

Dr. Ravinder Mamtani, pro-fessor of healthcare policy and research and senior associate dean for population health, said the aim of the Lifestyle Medicine Week was to make people con-sciously think about their health and consider ways in which it could be improved.

The Lifestyle Medicine Week followed the inaugural meeting of the recently established Life-style Medicine Interest Group - Middle East (LMIG-ME), which was convened at WCM-Q in late September. The meeting drew a large number of healthcare pro-fessionals as participants and also saw delegates attend vir-tually via an online video-link.

Chef Jens Heier gives a cooking demonstration at WCM-Q’s first ever Lifestyle Medicine Week event.

The first Lifestyle

Medicine Week

organised by WCM-Q

began with the Walk

for Life in Qatar

Foundation’s Oxygen

Park, which was

attended by EC staff,

faculty and students

as well as their friends

and families.

20 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2018HOME

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 39 AM

05. 59 AM

11. 21 AM

02. 23 PM

04. 45 PM

06. 15 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 08:00 – 19:00 LOW TIDE 00:15 – 15:45

Mild daytime with scattered clouds and

relatively cold by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum 22oC 27oC

Josoor Institute holds outreach session for QU studentsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Students from Qatar University (QU) showed keen interest in an outreach session held recently by Josoor Institute, a centre of excellence for the sports and events industries that is inspired and developed by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC).

The outreach session, held in collaboration with Gener-ation Amazing, was titled Building a Legacy towards 2022 & Beyond.

The session was attended by over 30 students from QU who were introduced to Josoor Institute and Generation Amazing, two legacy projects of the SC. The students were briefed on the efforts of Josoor Institute to educate, empower and support talented indi-viduals to play an important

part in the organisation and execution of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar. Attendees learned the importance of cre-ating a knowledge-based economy that will help build an outstanding and sus-tainable sports and events industry in Qatar, and throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

More importantly, this was an opportunity for them to meet with the Josoor Institute team and discuss how they could benefit from its pro-grammes and workshops.

Commenting on the success of the session, Afraa Al Noaimi, Executive Director of Josoor Institute and Acting Executive Director of Gener-ation Amazing remarked: “We are pleased with the high interest that our outreach session at QU has generated. We have had several students from QU who have been a part

of our flagship diploma pro-grammes and workshops, and whose professional progress we monitored by staying engaged with them long after they completed their pro-grammes with us.”

Presenters at the session discussed the mission of Gen-eration Amazing, and its vision of using football for devel-opment initiatives to address social issues in countries with an identified need, in line with the sustainable development

goals of United Nations. Projects carried out by

Generation Amazing have a significant impact on 250,000 beneficiaries in Qatar and overseas, and are driven by its aim to inspire and accelerate development to contribute to the legacy of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The attending students were also informed of career prospects in the sports industry and future volunteering opportu-nities with Generation

Amazing.Dr. Mahfoud Amara,

Director of the Sport Science Program, College of Arts and Sciences at QU, said: “We were pleased to host Josoor Institute and Generation Amazing at the QU Campus. It was of great benefit for our students to know about the different training programmes and workshops offered by Josoor Institute and how these pro-grammes can complement their academic degrees.”

The students of Qatar University during the outreach session held recently by Josoor Institute.

QR3bn paid via Ooredoo Money Payroll service THE PENINSULA DOHA

Ooredoo announced yesterday that its Ooredoo Money Payroll service is one of its fastest growing and most popular services.

The Ooredoo Money Payroll service was the region’s first payroll service via mobile and offers a secure and convenient alternative to carrying cash. Ooredoo Money Payroll service is seeing huge demand with over 150,000 employees benefitting from the service.

Overall a massive QR3bn has been paid to employees via the Ooredoo Money Payroll service since its launch in 2015, and every month the Ooredoo Money Payroll service is used to pay over QR115m to employees across Qatar, directly into their Ooredoo Money Wallet which can be accessed through their phone from anywhere.

The smart payment method, which is compatible with Qatar’s Wage Protection System, offers a simple and understandable access to financial services for users unable to access a local bank account, such as interna-tional and local transfers, mobile top-up, international airtime top-up as well as an ATM card that can be used across Qatar and anywhere in the world.

The service is also designed to achieve Qatar’s vision of Digitisation and help businesses to reduce accounting and administration costs, improving business efficiencies, and above all improving the lives of workers. Interested employers can begin registration for Ooredoo Money Payroll service by emailing: mobilemoneypayroll@ooredoo.qa.

Once registered, customers can benefit from all the services of Ooredoo Money instantly by using Ooredoo Money App or simply by dialling *140#, anywhere anytime. The Ooredoo Money app is available in seven languages English, Arabic, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Tagalog and Nepali.

Novel ‘Salt Houses’ campus-wide read at NU-QTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) has selected Palestinian-American Hala Alyan’s debut novel Salt Houses as the campus-wide read for the university’s One Book, One NU-Q programme.

The novel, which has won several awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab-American Book Award, is about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between dis-placement and home. Alyan will visit NU-Q in March and will deliver a community-wide lecture as well as visit classrooms and meet with students.

The book has achieved popular appeal and critical acclaim from The

New York Times, National Public Radio, Dallas Morning News and others, including the Los Angeles Review of Books, which said: “Alyan is doing important work through this novel... Salt Houses can be read very simply as a family drama, proving Alyan’s talent as a master of both the family drama genre as well as the depths and complexities of the

Palestinian displacement.” “The One Book, One NU-Q” programme is a wonderful opportunity for everyone at NU-Q – faculty, students, and staff – to come together as a community to read the same book to celebrate common understandings and differ-ences. This is an important book that speaks to the human condition at a time when migration and the dis-placement of refugees affects so many,” said NU-Q’s Dean and CEO Everette E Dennis. He added, “It is an honour to have this gifted author join us for what I imagine will be pro-ductive discussion and debate.”

Spanning six generations, Alyan’s book follows eight members of a Pal-estinian family in their search for home and identity. Through multiple periods of relocation and the ongoing rebuilding of their lives, Alyan writes

about the family members’ emotional struggle set against the backdrop of political turmoil starting in the 1960s at the beginning of the Six-Day War.

The book was selected by a com-mittee of faculty, staff, and students led by Hariclea Zengos, senior asso-ciate dean and the director of the NU-Q Liberal Arts Program who also teaches in literature and literary studies. Several professors have incorporated the theme of the novel in their courses and reading assign-ments during this the academic year.

In addition to her work as a writer, Alyan is a practising clinical psychologist whose studies focused on trauma and addiction work with various populations. She has been published in Guernica and other lit-erary journals and has authored three poetry collections.

Author Hala Alyan and the cover of her novel ‘Salt Houses’.

Students’ leadership skills enhancedTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Academy Al Khor (QAK), part of Qatar Foundation’s Pre-University Education, has launched a brand-new student leadership safety programme titled, ‘QAK Safety Officers’ Club’.

The programme is offered to stu-dents in grades 3-5. It aims to

enhance students’ leadership skills, build better communication skills, promote safety awareness, and teach conflict resolution tactics.

As part of the initiative, students are trained by administrative staff and local safety and law enforcement officers. Once training is complete, a Qatari police enforcement repre-sentative swears candidates in during an official ceremony.

An official trains students during the student leadership safety programme titled, ‘QAK Safety Officers’ Club’, which was launched by Qatar Academy Al Khor.

Provisions of student assessment policies amended THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Minister of Education and Higher Education H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi issued a decision amending some provisions of Ministerial Decision No. 22 of 2015 on student assessment policies.

The amendments include the addition of two articles to the student assessment policy for grades 4 through 11, as well as the addition of two articles to the student assessment policy for Grade 12, approved by the Minis-terial Decision.

The amendment for grades 4 to 11 abolishes the student’s test in all subjects and stipulates that the student is considered failed in his class, given the word “can-celled” and deprived of study in the same academic year in the following cases:

If any of the mobile devices or other means of communication or reception, whether wired or wireless, were obtained in the

examination committee and while in session, whether they were used in cheating or attempted or not.

If the student obtained in the examination committee and while in session any equipment or any means that lead to the dissemination, broadcasting or promotion of the test questions or answers.

If the student participated in any social networking sites, in a group of constituent groups for the purpose of cheating or disrupting the g e n e r a l s y s t e m o f examination.

The test of the student in all subjects will be cancelled and he will be considered failed in his class, given the word “cancelled” and deprived of study in the same a c a d e m i c y e a r

and the following year if he photographed, published, broadcasted or promoted by any means the questions or answers of any exam related to different stages of edu-cation, with the intention of cheating or disrupting the general system of exami-nation or abusing of the edu-cational system, whether this act occurred before or during the examination committee, or occurred inside or outside the examination hall.

With regard to the 12th grade assessment policy, as included in the decision, the student’s test in all subjects will be cancelled and he will be considered failed in his class, given the word “can-celled” and deprived of study in the same academic year, if he obtained in the

examination committee and while in session any of the mobile phones or other means of communication or reception, whether wired or wireless, whether used in cheating or attempted or not; if he obtained any equipment or any means that lead to the dissemination, broadcasting or promotion of the test ques-tions or answers; or if he par-ticipated in any social net-working sites, in a group of constituent groups for the purpose of cheating or dis-rupting the general system of examination.

The test of the student in all subjects will be cancelled and he will be considered failed in his class, given the word “cancelled” and deprived of study in the same academic year and the fol-lowing year if he photo-graphed, published, broad-casted or promoted by any means the questions or answers of any test related to different stages of education, with the intention of cheating or disrupting the general system of exams or abusing

the educational system, whether this act occurred before or during the exami-nation committee, or occurred inside or outside the test hall.

The decision also stipu-lates to inform the student’s employer of the violation and the actions taken if the student is an employee.

The decision also forbids school staff from participating in the tests and from any pre-scribed remuneration for any of these works if they printed, photocopied, published, broadcasted or promoted by any means the questions or answers of tests related to the various stages of education with the intention of cheating or disrupting the general system of tests or abusing the educational system, whether the act occurred before or during the examination com-mittee, or occurred inside or outside the exam hall, or caused, because of negli-gence, any of the actions mentioned in the previous item, or helped the students to cheat by any means.

The amendments include the addition of two

articles to the student assessment policy for

grades 4 through 11, as well as the addition

of two articles to the student assessment

policy for Grade 12, approved by the

Ministerial Decision.