N E W SWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

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He insisted that there can be no serious economicreforms without fighting corruption, which is “rife like can-cer”. The Assembly opens its next term in mid-October.

Meanwhile, MP Faisal Al-Kandari, who said he will fileto grill the finance minister in the first session of the nextterm, reiterated yesterday that he will carry out histhreat. The lawmaker said that he had signed the motionto hold the emergency session, but since the motion didnot get the required support, he will go ahead with hisgrilling. He said that he and other MPs will not acceptany government decision harmful to citizens, addingthat the government is required to withdraw its decisionhiking petrol prices, which harms citizens. FinanceMinister Anas Al-Saleh on Monday welcomed the grillingsaying it will give him an opportunity to explain themeasures that have been adopted by the government toreform the economy.

Also, Minister of Justice and Minister of Awqaf andIslamic Affairs Yaqoub Al-Sanea dismissed reports sug-gesting that he had informed Acting Premier and Ministerof Interior Sheikh Mohammad Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabahabout his intention to resign. “These reports are totallybaseless and divorced from reality,” the minister said in apress statement yesterday, attacking local media for fabri-

cating news reports in violation of professional and ethi-cal rules. He urged the media to uphold credibility andethics and get information only from his office or theCabinet. Sane appreciated the support of HH the AmirSheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and HH thePrime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

Separately, the criminal court yesterday sentencedSheikh Abdullah Salem Al-Sabah to three years in jail forinsulting HH the Amir and others members of the rulingfamily. Sheikh Abdullah, the grandson of the Amir’s half-brother Sheikh Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, was alsoordered to pay compensation of KD 5,000 over defama-tion charges against State Minister for Cabinet AffairsSheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah. The suspectwas charged of posting video messages on Snapchat criti-cizing HH the Amir, the government and other personali-ties. The ruling can still be challenged at the appeals andsupreme courts.

This is not Sheikh Abdullah’s first run-in with theauthorities. In 2012, he was questioned for posting com-ments on Twitter deemed sympathetic to the oppositionand critical of HH the Amir. In June last year, he wasdetained for 10 days pending interrogation for criticizingthe Amir. The following month, a court acquitted him in asimilar case.

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TMZ, citing unnamed sources, reported Jolie wasupset by Pitt’s parenting methods.

“I am very saddened by this but what matters mostnow is the well-being of our kids,” Pitt said in a statementto People magazine. “I kindly ask the press to give themthe space they deserve during this challenging time.”Media commentators reacted to the news with surpriseand sadness. “Today shall go down as the day love died,”fashion magazine Vogue said in an online report on thecouple’s split.

The couple was last seen together in public in mid-July, just ahead of their second wedding anniversary. Pittcame into the public eye 25 years ago with a much-talked-about shirtless debut as eye-candy in the hitmovie “Thelma and Louise” - and went on to become ahousehold name in Hollywood. A three-time Oscar nomi-nee for his acting, Pitt took home a golden statuette forbest picture in 2014 as a producer of “12 Years A Slave”.He has built a resume of varied film roles, starring along-side some of the industry’s other mega-watt stars: withTom Cruise in “Interview with a Vampire,” AnthonyHopkins in “Legends of the Fall” and George Clooney in“Ocean’s Eleven.”

Jolie catapulted to stardom with her role in 1999’s“Girl, Interrupted”, taking home an Academy Award forbest supporting actress for her fierce portrayal of a rebel-lious woman in a mental institution. She has since playedeverything from a fairy tale villain (“Maleficent”) to a sexyvideo game heroine (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”) to thewidow of assassinated American journalist Daniel Pearl(“A Mighty Heart”).

The red carpet darling is now better known for herhumanitarian work than for her tabloid-ready actions, hav-ing served for several years as a goodwill ambassador forthe United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Morerecently, she has been a vocal advocate for victims of sexu-al violence in war zones, co-hosting a global summit onconflict rape in 2014 in London. One of the world’s mostvisible symbols in the battle against cancer, she underwenta double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries and fal-lopian tubes to prevent an aggressive form of the disease

that killed her mother, grandmother and aunt.Jolie had been married twice before, to actors Jonny

Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton. News of her thirddivorce spread quickly on social media, with #brangelinathe top trending hashtag on Twitter. More than 20 postsmentioning the hashtag appeared on Twitter every sec-ond, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.Many users posted memes featuring former “Friends” starJennifer Aniston - Pitt’s previous wife - including one ofher on the phone saying: “And that, my friend, is whatthey call closure.”

Pitt, born to a middle-class family in Oklahoma, stud-ied journalism and advertising before heading West toHollywood where he supported himself at first with part-time jobs, including as a chauffeur, removal man andeven dressing up in a chicken suit to advertise a fast-foodchain. But from 1987 the work started to trickle in, withbit parts in the television series “Dallas” and “21 JumpStreet” and a few low-budget movies. His position as aHollywood golden boy was assured by his 2000 marriageto Aniston, which made them one of the hottest couplesin the world.

Pitt and Jolie fell in love four years later on the set ofaction film “Mr & Mrs Smith,” although they didn’t getengaged until 2012. In May 2006 Jolie gave birth to theirfirst child, a girl named Shiloh. “Because of the film, weended up being brought together to do all these crazythings, and I think we found this strange friendship andpartnership that kind of just suddenly happened,” JoliePitt told Vogue in 2006. Their joint fortune is estimated atover $300 million, and they are among the highest paidstars in Hollywood.

Jolie, the daughter of Oscar winner Jon Voight, madeher directorial debut in 2011 with “In the Land of Bloodand Honey,” an unflinching drama about rape as aweapon in wartime Bosnia. Her fourth feature behind thecamera, historical thriller “First They Killed My Father,” isbeing released on Netflix later in the year. Jolie has beenestranged from Voight, who left the family before sheturned 1, but he told “Inside Edition” he was concernedabout the divorce filing. “It ’s very sad,” he said.“Something very serious must have happened forAngelina to make a decision like this.” — Agencies

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He had a more direct message for his Russian coun-terpart, accusing Putin - who has invaded Ukraine anddeployed forces to Syria - of trying using the military togain global clout. “In a world that left the age of empirebehind, we see Russia attempting to recover lost glorythrough force,” Obama said.

Even as a Syrian ceasefire brokered by Washingtonand Moscow lay in tatters, Obama insisted diplomacy -not force - is the only way to end the brutal five-yearconflict. “There’s no ultimate military victory to be won,we’re going to have to pursue the hard work of thediplomacy that aims to stop the violence and deliver aidto those in need,” Obama said. On Monday the Syrianmilitary declared the ceasefire over and 18 UN aid truckswere destroyed as they tried to bring relief to war-rav-aged citizens near Aleppo. Syria and Russia denied strik-ing the convoy, with Moscow suggesting it may havecaught fire.

The Syria crisis, perhaps more than any other, threat-ens to sully Obama’s eight-year effort to improveAmerica’s standing in the world. Obama arrived at theWhite House in 2009 to find America’s reputation tat-tered by the war in Iraq and George W Bush’s distain for

global forums. Obama has been more cautious - criticswould say timid - with using US power, refusing to inter-vene to topple Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’sregime. Before the UN, Obama restated the case for mul-tilateralism and an America that knows the limits of itsown power. “I’ve noticed as president times when bothAmerica’s adversaries and some of our allies believe allproblems were either caused by Washington or could besolved by Washington. Perhaps too many in Washingtonbelieve that as well,” he said to laughs from delegates.

Standing before the 193-member UN body, Obamasought in broad strokes to lay out a blueprint foraddressing other unresolved conflicts. He called forthe world to impose “consequences” on North Koreafor its latest nuclear test and, in less direct terms, forChina to abide by a recent UN tribunal ruling againstits territorial designs in the South China Sea. A daybefore meeting with Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu, he drew a parallel between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the need to respect racialminorities in the US “Surely, Israelis and Palestinianswill be better off if Palestinians reject incitement andrecognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizesthat it cannot permanently occupy and settlePalestinian land,” Obama said.— Agencies

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environments more extreme than anything found inNature. That includes being plunged into scalding liq-uids or frozen at temperatures just shy of absolute zero.In an earlier experiment, water bears were given a 26-hour bath in - 253 degree Celsius (-423 degreeFahrenheit) liquid nitrogen. The deepest chill everrecorded on Earth was a relatively balmy -89.2 C inAntarctica. All it took was a few drops of water for thecritters to spring back to life.

And it gets better. Some tardigrade species - thereare about 1,000 in all - can handle crushing pressure atleast six times greater than found at the 11-km deepMariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Even the ravages ofouter space don’t seem to faze them. In 2007, thou-sands of water bears, attached to a satellite, wereexposed directly to potentially-deadly space radiationin vacuum conditions and then brought back to Earth.Not only did many survive, some females later laid eggswhich yielded healthy offspring.

To survive extreme conditions, water bears can alsoslip into a state of suspended animation in which theylose almost all the liquid in their tiny bodies, andmetabolism slows to 10,000 times below the normalrate. Scientists still do not know how they do all this.Most research has concluded that water bears have aheightened capacity to repair damaged DNA, especially

as they emerge from a state of extreme dessication,which can last for decades.

However, in their experiments with human cells,Hashimoto and colleagues found the tardigrade’s Dsupprotein could also “work as a kind of physical shield toprotect DNA” -especially from X-ray harm. The findingswere published in the scientific journal NatureCommunications. The results may resolve a controversythat erupted after another team of researchers pub-lished the first complete genome of a tardigrade - fromthe species Ramazzottius hypsibius - last December inthe US Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

That study had found that nearly a fifth of thespecies’ DNA had been obtained from other plants andanimals, a new record in the animal kingdom for so-called horizontal gene transfer between species. This,they hypothesised, accounted for the remarkable resist-ance of water bears. Almost immediately, other scien-tists speculated that the high percentage of foreignDNA found was more likely the result of sample con-tamination.

Hashimoto’s results suggest the critics were right. Histeam sequenced the genome of a different species, R.varieoranatus - thought to be the hardiest of all tardi-grades - with a precision 100 times greater, and foundthat foreign genes accounted for only 1.2 percent. “Thissuggests that horizontal gene transfer is not a majorcause of tolerability,” said Hashimoto. — AFP

Protein shielding DNA from X-rays

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It said an investigation would still be needed to con-firm why the distress signal was pressed. “Appropriatepenalties and sanctions will be imposed on the erringpilot if the result is indeed a human error,” it said. Therewere 410 passengers on board plus four pilots and 17crew members, airport general manager Ed Monrealtold reporters. Many of them were returning from theannual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

One of the passengers, Aida Majud, said they werenot told why they were being kept on the plane.“When we saw the armed men we thought, what’s the

problem? We wanted to know what was happening,”Majud told ABS-CBN television network. But she saidthe atmosphere was calm, with some speculatingPresident Rodrigo Duterte had come to the airport towelcome the pilgrims home and that the armed mensurrounding the plane were his security personnel.

Majud said passengers had to undergo bodychecks after getting off the plane to ensure no onewas carrying weapons. Airport officials said therewere no major disruptions to traffic, with planes con-tinuing to land and take off, because the Saudia air-craft had been kept at an isolated area. The carrier isknown as Saudia. — AFP

Saudia pilot triggers false hijack alarm

People onboard fishing boats head out to sea in order to catch crabs, in Xianrendao in China’s northeasternLiaoning province on Monday. — AFP