Volume 22 | Number 7320 | 2 RiyalsFriday 20 October 2017 | 30 Muharram 1439 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

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A computer-generated image of ‘Abraj Al Tahwiliya’. Qatar Industrial Manufacturing Company’s (QIMC) mixed-use development project is set to be a vibrant new addition to Doha’s iconic Corniche skyline, which is expected to be completed by late 2020. →Story on page 18

CEO of QIA receives Order of Friendship from Putin QATAR Investment Author-ity (QIA) CEO H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani received the Order of Friendship from Russian President Vladimir Putin, in recognition of His Excellency’s contribution to the development of bilateral relations.

According to a statement issued by QIA yesterday, Chief Executive of Russia’s Rosneft, Igor Sechin, handed over the Order of Friendship on behalf of the Russian Pres-ident to the CEO of QIA, on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Forum held in the Italian city of Verona.

Emir holds talks with Kuwait FM

QNA

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met yesterday at Al Bahr Palace with First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the fraternal State of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah, and the delega-

tion accompanying him.At the outset of the meeting, the First Deputy Prime

Minister conveyed the greetings of Emir of the fraternal State of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah to H H the Emir, and his wishes of more progress and prosperity to H H and the Qatari people.

For his part, the Emir entrusted Sheikh Sabah Al Kha-led Al Hamad Al Sabah with his greetings and wishes of more development and growth to H H Emir of the State of Kuwait and the fraternal Kuwaiti people. The meeting reviewed the close fraternal relations and discussed a set of regional and international issues, especially the latest developments of the Gulf crisis and the Kuwaiti efforts to settle it through dialogue.

→See also page 2Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the fraternal State of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah, at Al Bahr Palace, yesterday.

The meeting reviewed the close fraternal relations and discussed a set of regional and international issues, especially the latest developments of the Gulf crisis and the Kuwaiti efforts to settle it through dialogue.

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

To facilitate landlords and lessors, the Ministry of Municipality and Environ-

ment has launched a new online application service through which landlords can collect monthly rents of their buildings online in case of unsettled dis-putes with the tenants.

At present, landlords can receive cheques of rents through moving an online application but soon under a new facility the amounts would be electronically deposited into their bank accounts. The Office of Rent Dis-pute Settlement Committee at the Financial Affairs Department of the Ministry in cooperation with the Information Systems Depart-ment, launched a new electronic

service “request for disbursing deposit” to serve the purpose. The service is available at the website of the Ministry. The Ministry defines “deposit” as the monthly rent deposited by tenants at the treasury of the Office in favour of the beneficiaries — leassors and landlords in return for renting a res-idential or commercial facility.

→Continued on page 3

The Peninsula

Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) yes-terday signed a Memorandum

of Understanding (MoU) with New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization of Japan (NEDO) on the pilot project for the advanced seawater desalination sys-tem applying heated discharge water.

The MoU was signed by Kahramaa President Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari and Akihiko Miyamoto NEDO Presi-dent in the presence of H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, Minis-ter of Energy and Industry, and top officials from Qatari and Japanese side.

In this advanced seawater

desalination technologies, discharged seawater used as cooling water for power planets, chemical plants, and other heavy industrial plants will be utilized from the intake of raw sea-water desalination plants with advanced technologies developed by Japanese companies.

An environmentally-friendly bio-enhanced pretreatment will be applied. An advanced RO membrane is heat resistance to remain stable with high temperature seawater.

The project, implemented in Ras Laffan Industrial City, aims to achieve energy efficiency and protect the environment in that industrial city. The project capacity is 1500 m3/day of potable water.

Washington

QNA

US Secretary of State Rex Tiller-

son (pictured) will start a foreign tour today to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, India and Switzerland. The US State Department said in a statement that Tillerson will begin his tour which ends on October 27 by visiting Saudi Arabic where he will take part in the inaugural Coordination Council meeting between the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The US Secretary of State will also meet with various Saudi leaders to discuss the conflict in Yemen, the ongoing Gulf dispute, Iran, and a number of other important regional and bilateral issues.

Tillerson will then travel to Doha, where he will meet with Qatari leaders and US military officials to discuss joint coun-terterrorism efforts, the ongoing Gulf dispute, and other regional and bilateral issues, including

Iran and Iraq, the statement added.

Tillerson will also visit on his foreign tour Paki-stan and India.

In Islamabad, he will meet sen-ior Pakistani leaders to discuss continued strong bilateral cooper-ation, Pakistan’s

critical role in the success of our South Asia strategy, and the expanding economic ties between our two countries.

In New Delhi, Tillerson will meet senior Indian leaders to discuss further strengthening strategic partnership and col-laboration on security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

In Geneva, Tillerson will meet with the office of the United Nations High Commis-sioner for Refugees, International Organisation for Migration, and the International Committee of the Red Cross to discuss a number of the current global humanitarian crises, according to a statement issued by the US State Department.

QNA

The Emiri Land Force concluded Nasr 2017 exercise, which was held in Al Galayel area under the patronage of Minister of

State for Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, in the presence of Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces H E Major Gen-eral Pilot Ghanem bin Shaheen Al Ghanim.

The Directorate of Moral Guidance at the Ministry of Defence said in a statement yes-terday that all the commanders and branches

of Emiri Land Force, the Brigade of Jassim bin Mohammed, the Emiri Guard and units of the Armed Forces took part in the two-week exer-cise. Exercise Manager Brig. Gen. Shayeq Mesfer Al Hajeri said that the Nasr 2017 exer-cise focused on training commanders and staff to assess, plan, support and carry out opera-tions to repel aggression, airdrop and incursions and to prevent infiltration and restore the situation in vital areas.

→Continued on page 16

US Secretary of State begins foreign tour including Qatar

EMIR H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yester-day a cable of condolences to each of H M King of Spain Felipe VI and President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, on the victims of the fires that broke out in the for-ests of northwestern Spain and central and northern Por-tugal, wishing the injured speedy recovery. Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani sent a simi-lar cable. Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also sent cable of condolences to Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, and Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, on the victims of the fires, wishing the injured speedy recovery.

Emir condoles with King of Spain and President of Portugal

New online service for rent disputes

Kahramaa, Japan firm sign MoU

Emiri Land Force concludes Nasr 2017 exercise

Upcoming QIMC towers

02 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017HOME

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani receiving the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah, at Doha International Airport, yesterday.

Foreign Minister receives Kuwait counterpart

The Peninsula

The 29th session of the Council of Arab Min-isters in-charge of environment affairs started yesterday at

the headquarters of the Arab League general secretariat in Cairo.

The Minister of Municipal-ity and Environment H E Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi handed the presidency of the 29th session of the coun-cil of Arab ministers in charge of environment affairs, to the State of Kuwait, which is repre-sented by Kuwait’s Environment Public Authority (EPA) Chairman and Director General, Sheikh Abdullah Ahmad Al Humoud Al Sabah.

In his opening remarks, Al Rumaihi reaffirmed the State of Qatar’s keenness under the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to support the environment and sustainable development and pay them special attention, which was evident by enlisting this field as one of the pillars of Qatar’s National Development Strategy.

He noted that 18 countries, including Arab nations, have signed a foundation document in Doha on October 15 to estab-lish the Global Dryland Alliance.

The minister expressed hope that the meeting’s outputs will help in enhancing joint Arab action in the field of environ-ment and sustainable development, boost the oppor-tunities of cooperation in the environment field, and limit cli-mate change.

Al Rumaihi reviewed Qatar’s efforts during its presidency of the 28th session, extending thanks to the Arab League sec-retary general and staff for their efforts in this regard.

“I was honoured to chair the council this past year,” he said, noting that the meeting is a proof of the pressing need for

sustainable development and stressing the importance of implementing the decisions of the regular Arab summits in relation to the environment, the sustainable development initi-ative and the development and economic Arab summit decisions.

The minister added that the State of Qatar made great efforts during its presidency of the last session in order to preserve Arab interests and set priorities, nota-bly the goals of sustainable development, combating deser-tification and biodiversity, and Arab action in climate change negotiations.

He also highlighted his efforts to invite Arab countries that did not sign the Arab envi-ronment facility in order to accelerate its ratification, prais-ing at the same time the efforts that led to the establishment of the Arab Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction 2030.

The meeting is set to discuss the agenda, which includes 27 items dealing with means of the implementing the decisions of the Arab economic and social development summits, espe-cially in relation to inviting Arab countries that have signed the statute of the Arab environment facility but have not ratified it.

It also touched on the mon-itoring of nuclear pollution in border areas with Israel and its effects on the Arab region, in addition to following up on the collection of the results of radi-ological monitoring in Arab countries that neighbor nuclear plants and reactors.

In addition, the meeting will discuss a draft resolution on environment and sustainable development indicators in the Arab region in the light of the recommendations of the Arab group on Environment and Sus-ta inable Development Indicators.

Focus on sustainable development: Al Rumaihi

The Peninsula

The Philippine Trade and Tourism Conference – Qatar (PTTC-Q) opens

today at the Shangri-La Hotel Doha featuring investment opportunities in properties, agri-business, eco-tourism, stocks and bonds, among others.

Prominent business person-alities and government officials from the Philippines are among

the speakers at the conference.Philippine Department of

Trade and Industry Undersec-retary Ruth Castelo will focus on the various business and job opportunities back home for returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as well as the vast prospects of further infra-structure projects available for foreign investment.

Philippine Agri-business TV sensation BV Boer Farms CEO

Dexter Villamin will highlight his advocacy of providing contem-porary farming investment potentials to OFWs.

Speaking at a press briefing yesterday, celebrity Entrepre-neur Isabel Granada, Marketing Director of Star Net provided an overview of the start-up net-working opportunities that they have on offer to the Filipino expat community. Granda, being a well known Filipino actress

and singer, will be joining vari-ous Filipino Community and school groups who will be pro-viding live cultural performances during today’s event.

The expanded version of the Philippine Property & Invest-ment Show Qatar, PTTC-Q is organised by the Association of Filipino Real Estate Executives in Qatar (Afreeq) in partnership with LiQha Trading & Creative Arts.

The Peninsula

The Security Committee of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy continues its preparations for the organ-

isation of the First Major Event Safety and Security Conference, in collaboration with Interpol, which will be hosted by Doha from November 7-8. It aims to develop security measures and precautions for international sporting events and implement them in preparation for those events. The conference will also contrib-ute to determining the security arrangements to be made during the World cup to be held in Qatar in 2022. The conference will discuss key topics such as legislation, physical security and cyber security by international law enforcement experts from event organizing committees, governments, the private sector, the aca-demic community and civil society. The participating bodies will present papers, studies and research on the conference to sup-port planning and implementing security arrangements in the field of major sporting events at the international level. Colonel Mohammed Majid Al Sulaiti (pictured), Director of the Security Department of SC pointed out that this conference would strengthen the international partnership in the field of maintaining security and providing safety for major sports events in light of the increas-ing transnational and transcontinental security risks.

Health Ministry holds introductory visit for secondary school studentsMINISTRY of Public Health has recently organised a introduc-tory visit for students of secondary schools. Held under the title “To build future leadership in the health sector”, students from Arwa bint Abdul Muttalib School, Asma bint Yazid Al Ansari School, Al Iman School and Umm Ayman Secondary School were intro-duced to the activities, services and programs of the Ministry of Public Health, in addition to a seminar between students and ministry offi-cials. During the visit, students toured different departments and sections of the Ministry and an opinion questionnaire on their visit was also conducted. Welcoming the school students, Wasan Abdul-lah Al Baker, Director of Food Safety and Environmental Health at the Ministry of Public Health, stressed that students represent a fun-damental pillar in the development of Qatari society.

QNA

Doha has hosted the fourth annual meeting of chemical industry repre-

sentatives and national authorities of states parties to the Chemical Weapons Conven-tion (CWC) from October 17 to 19.

“This annual event strength-ens the collaboration between the National Authorities of States Parties to the CWC and chemi-cal industry as an important stakeholder at the national level,” the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weap-ons (OPCW) said in a statement.

“The ultimate objective is to enhance the fulfilment of sev-eral convention obligations, particularly relating to the ver-ification regime under Article VI of the CWC.

“Representat ives of approximately 20 states par-ties of the CWC from all regions are expected to attend the

meeting. A representative of the International Council of Chem-ical Associations (ICCA) as well as OPCW experts will also par-ticipate,” the statement added.

The meeting has been tak-ing place on an annual basis since 2014, with close collabo-ration between the OPCW and the Qatar National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons (NCPW). “These events have sig-nificantly contributed to the implementation of the CWC in participating countries,” OPCW said.

“Since 2012 and in cooper-ation with the OPCW Technical Secretariat, through the Doha Regional Centre for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear CBRN Training, Qatar has organized 26 programs with a view to combating chemical terrorism. These programs, with the contribution of Qatar, have covered main areas of Articles VII, X and XI of the Convention, to enhance the capacities of states parties to address the

chemical threat and promote peaceful uses of chemistry. The events have been fully funded by the voluntary fund provided to the OPCW by Qatar.

“Qatar has generously con-tributed to the OPCW in support of capacity building activities for full and effective implementa-tion of the CWC in the past years,” OPCW said.

As the implementing body for the CWC, the OPCW over-sees the global endeavor to permanently eliminate chemi-cal weapons. Since the convention’s entry into force in 1997 with its 192 states parties it is the most successful disar-mament treaty eliminating an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.

Over 96 percent of all chem-ical weapon stockpiles declared by possessor states have been destroyed under OPCW verifi-cation. For its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weap-ons, OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Annual meet praises Qatar’s activities to implement Chemical Weapons Convention

Philippine Trade & Tourism Conference–Qatar opens today Preparations under way for First Major Event Safety and Security Conference

Athba and Lejthaya Interchange on North Road to be closed from Sunday

H E Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi reaffirmed Qatar’s keenness under the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to support the environment and sustainable development and pay them special attention.

Minister of Municipality and Environment H E Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi at the 29th session of the Council of Arab Ministers in-charge of environment affairs, in Cairo, yesterday.

The Peninsula

The Public Works Author-ity, ‘Ashghal’, will close temporarily both of Athba

Interchange and Lejthaya Inter-change on North Road to enable the construction of the service roads along, as part pf North Road Corridor Enhancement

project. The diversions, in coor-dination with the General Directorate of Traffic, will start on Sunday, 22 October 2017 until 20 November 2017.

During the traffic change, Athba Interchange users can travel through the neighbouring Fuwairit Interchange and Al Mafyar Interchange instead

along with the recently con-structed service roads along the Al Shamal Road, as shown on the map.

Also, Lejthaya Interchange users can commute through the nearby Lehwaila Interchange and Fuwairit Interchange instead along with the recently created service roads along the

Al Shamal Road, as illustrated on the other map.

Ashghal has stressed that the traffic on North Road main car-riageway will not be affected by the closures. For their safety, Ashghal has requested motor-ists abide by traffic instructions and the newly installed signage.

03FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017 HOME

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi received yesterday a copy of the credentials of Ambassador of the Republic of Ireland to the State of Qatar, John Paul Kavanagh. The Minister wished the new ambassador success in his duties and assured him of providing all the support to upgrade the bilateral relations and closer cooperation in various fields.

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanim Al Ali with the Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to the State of Qatar, Fodor Barnabas. They discussed cooperation between Qatar and Hungary and ways to strengthening and developing them in the fields of culture and sports.

Minister receives credentials of Irish envoy Minister of Culture and Sports meets Hungarian envoy

Amna Pervaiz Rao Bürgenberg, Switzerland The Peninsula

Katara Hospitality brings facilities for Arab guests to enjoy five-star facili-ties at Bürgenstock Resort, Lake Lucerne,

Switzerland.Since its opening on September

14, the resort has become a favour-ite destination for tourists from Qatar and whole MENA region always on a quest to explore new heavens on the face of earth.

Located at the center of the land of cheese, chocolate and watches; the resort offers all a tourist can yearn for from picturesque sur-roundings to delectable food.

Katara Hospitality Switzerland Ltd. in Zug is responsible for the hotels in Switzerland owned and managed by Katara Hospitality, Doha; the Bürgenstock Resort near Lucerne and the Hotel Royal Savoy in Lausanne. The Bürgenstock Resort has opened its premises to the public which includes top-of-the-range luxury hotels, a health and medical excellence centre and residence suites.

The Bürgenstock Hotel was designed by Lucerne architects Rüssli Architekten AG. The Hotel and its outdoor facilities are at the centre of the resort, which extends over more than one kilometre.

The premises are officially opened for the visitors to enjoy,

Grand Residence Suites, Panorama Residence Suites, Diamond Domes (Event & Tennis) and Outdoor tennis court.

Furthermore, the new shopping arcade in front of the Bürgenstock Hotel has been inviting guests to shop since September 2017.

During the recent trip by The Peninsula to Bürgenstock Resort, Lake Lucerne, located in Switzerland, Steve Nikolov, Head of Marketing & Sales at Bürgenstock Resort said: “Katara hospitality Qatar manages everything highly professionally and gives very strict guidelines. We have the three properties which are fully owned and managed by Katara Hospitality.”

Answering to a question on the reason behind Katara Hospitality’s decision of choosing Switzerland as its destination for resort, he said, “The location, size, dimension, the facilities we offer from four differ-ent hotels, spa, sport facilities, residential units, medical treatment

facilities, boat and train transporta-tion all these things combine and make it totally unique world-wide; this makes the resort the biggest resort in portfolio of Katara Hospitality.”

Bürgenstock Resort provides special facilities for Arab visitors and guests, which make their stay com-fortable and luxurious. It is built keeping the Arab visitors in mind.

Nikolov,told The Peninsula that since the first day of our planning process, they anticipated healthy portion of customers from the Mid-dle East as well from Asia.

“We have Sharq Oriental Restau-rant and shisha lounge which offer halal food and shisha outdoor and indoor facility, quest rooms are all equipped with qibllah directions and we paid special attention to equip the washrooms with hand showers. We hired staff that can speak and understand Arabic as well the Asian languages.”

Speaking about the unique facil-ities about the resort he said: “The resort village, with an extraordinary mix of historic and modern build-ings offers all unique facilities that can’t be enjoyed in three days. We have access to one of the most spec-tacular sites in Switzerland within fifteen minutes.”

“The iconic location is the most important factor of our resort espe-cially the location and views. It is located in the centre of the country and breath-taking location high

Katara Hospitality’s Swiss resort a favourite spot

above Lake Lucerne, make the Bürgenstock Resort truly unique.”

The resort comprises four hotels with a category of three to five-star superior, with 383 rooms and suites, a health & medical cen-tre, 12 restaurants and bars, 67 residence suites, a 10,000 m2/107,000 sq ft Bürgen-stock Alpine Spa, and a wide range of leisure activities. The portfolio consists of the Bürgen-stock Resort Lake Lucerne, the Schweizerhof Hotel & Spa Bern (99 rooms) and the Royal Savoy Hotel & Spa Lausanne (196 rooms). The total investment volume of the Bürgenstock Selection amounts to one billion francs.

The official further said that since the day the resort was opened its doors, the

Arab visitors have been visiting the resort regularly due to the one-of-its-kind facili-ties being offered at Bürgenstock Resort.

About the Arab client’s experience, he told The Peninsula: “The day we opened on September 14, we received a Qatari family which stayed here for holidays. They loved their experience due to the beautiful weather. We had few families from other GCC coun-tries as well.”

“As soon as we offered the panorama suits on ‘bookings.com’, within 48 hours, we started receiving booking from our Arab cli-ents. Sharq and Spices Restaurant is always appreciated by different clients coming from the Middle Eastern countries.”

The Peninsula

Over 100 teachers and stu-dents represent ing independent and interna-

tional schools in Doha were present at the recent launch of Qatar University (QU) Gas Processing Center’s (GPC) sev-enth Gasna competition for schools.

“Gasna” aims to increase stu-dents’ awareness on the importance of the oil and gas industry in the country’s devel-opment and growth, and to engage them to further advance it. This year, the initiative is spon-sored by Qatar Petrochemical Company (QAPCO), Qatargas and ExxonMobil.

Present at the event were QU College of Engineering (CENG) Dean Dr Khalifa Al-Khalifa, QAFCO Chair in Chemical Process Engineering Prof Muftah El-Naas, CENG Department of Mechanical Engineering Head Prof Majeda

Khraisheh, ExxonMobil Qatar Senior Environmental Researcher Nayla Al-Naema, and QAPCO Head of Career Development Faraj Atiq Al Hamad, as well as QU faculty and students.

The Gasna K-12 award includes four categories -- First Category (KG – Grade 4), Sec-ond Category (Grade 5 and 6), Third Category (Grade 7-9), and Fourth Category (Grade 10-12). Each participating school must sub-mit a project for each category. Submission could be a perform-ance, a poster, an essay, or a research project.

Commenting on the event, Dr Khalifa Al-Khalifa said:

“CENG is committed to cement its relations with indus-try to help promote engineering programs. Gasna is one of the ini-tiatives that achieve this objective. At CENG, we are looking forward towards more collaboration with industry, and this motivates us to double the efforts and run all activities that target spreading

STEM (science, technology, engi-neering and mathematics) subjects among students.”

Prof Abdelmagid Hammuda said: “Gasna competition is a national initiative that aims at raising students’ awareness on Qatar’s national resources and energy sector. The competition meets the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030, and provides par-ticipants with the opportunity to discover all aspects of oil and gas projects and plants in Qatar.”

QAPCO Managing Director and CEO Dr Mohammed Yousef Al Mulla said: “It is a tremendous

privilege to sponsor this event and QAPCO is proud to be associated with the Gas Processing Center and Qatar University. The goal of this competition is to promote information and technology related to Qatar’s gas processing industrial base.” Nayla Al Naema said: “Qatar University has excelled in finding creative ways of getting school-age children excited about math and science. ExxonMobil Qatar is proud to have found an ideal partner in the university, as we work to provide the energy that drives human potential and ulti-mately fuels progress.”

QU holds seventh Gasna competition for schools

Bürgenstock Resort provides special facilities for Arab visitors and guests, which make their stay comfortable and luxurious. It is built keeping the Arab visitors in mind.

Katara Hospitality’s five-star facilities at Bürgenstock Resort in Switzerland.

→ Continued from page 1

The service for requesting for disbursal of the deposit will help beneficiaries in getting the monthly rent upon sub-mitting an online request.

The requirement for receiving the rent money online is very simple as it demands a copy of ID card for individual beneficiary. However, the leasing companies will be needed a copy of computer card, commercial registration (CR), and authorization letter if the beneficiary is representative of the company.

The new service will enable the beneficiaries of prop-erty owners and landlords who have rental dues deposited by the tenants at the treasury of the Committee to access the ministry’s website and check all their deposits in the account of the office and request for disbursing the money without visiting the Office.

A beneficiary will receive a text message immediately on his mobile phone stating that he has submitted a request for disbursing the deposit with the deposit number required for disbursal. Once this amount is processed, another mes-sage is sent to the beneficiary that the check on the deposit is ready for receiving. Additionally, an online service for “request for deposit certificate” is also available.

The office at the headquarters of the Rent Dispute Set-tlement Committee is all set to upgrade existing online service. Under upgradation, online requests to settle rent disputes, activate bank transfers to the accounts of lessors and ben-eficiaries as property owners of their financial deposits at the treasury of the office will be available .

New online service for rent disputes

Participants at the Gasna competition.

04 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Erbil, Iraq

AFP

The Iraqi Kurdish regional gov-ernment said yesterday it was open to talks with Baghdad after central government forces seized a swathe of dis-

puted territory from Kurdish fighters.“The cabinet welcomes the initiative

of Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi on

starting negotiations with the regional government to solve pending issues according to the constitution and prin-ciples of partnership,” it said in a statement. “Kurdistan demands the help and contribution of the interna-tional community in sponsoring this dialogue,” it added.

The statement was issued after a meeting attended by Iraqi Kurdish prime minister Nechirvan Barzani and deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani.

On Monday and Tuesday, federal troops and allied militias ousted Kurd-ish forces from the northern province of Kirkuk and its lucrative oil fields, as well as formerly Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh and Diyala provinces.

The advance stunned Iraqi Kurds, who barely three weeks ago over-whelmingly voted for independence in a controversial September 25 referen-dum that Baghdad branded illegal.

On Tuesday, Abadi said the poll was now “a thing of the past” and its results void, calling for dialogue with the Kurdish autonomous region. Ahead of the operation to retake the disputed areas, Abadi had said he would not hold talks with Kurdish leaders until the results of the independence vote were nullified.

With the retreat of Kurdish forces this week, almost without a fight,

Baghdad has restored its control to swathes of territory held by the Kurds since 2013.

Kurdish forces are now largely con-fined to their three-province autonomous region in the north. They have lost nearly all of the territory they had taken since the US-led invasion of 2003, some of it during the fightback against the Islamic State jihadist group in 2014.

The autonomous region’s vice-pres-ident Kosrat Rasul called the setback “a new Anfal for Kurdistan”, a reference to the widespread deaths and destruc-tion wrought by operations in 1987-1988 by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Yesterday, a Baghdad court issued an arrest warrant for Rasul on charges of “provocation” against Iraq’s armed forces, the judiciary said.

The region’s vice-president had referred to the Iraqi army and federal police as “occupation forces” in a state-

ment on Wednesday, the court said.The judiciary in the Iraqi capital last

week also ordered the arrest of three senior Kurdish officials responsible for organising the independence referen-dum. The arrest warrants are likely to prove toothless as Baghdad’s security forces do not operate inside Iraqi Kurdistan, but they could stop the offi-cials leaving the northern region.

This week’s military operation also

dealt a severe blow to the autonomous region’s finances, which had relied heavily on revenues from exports of Kirkuk oil. Baghdad has retaken five oil fields from Kurdish forces in Kirkuk, leaving the Kurds in control of only one in the province. The lost fields accounted for more than 400,000 of the 650,000 barrels per day that the autonomous Kurdish region used to export in defi-ance of Baghdad.

Israel arrests 120 ultra-Orthodox Jews protesting army draftJERUSALEM: Several thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews blocked a major intersection in central Jerusalem yesterday to protest against efforts to force them to enlist in the Israeli military like their sec-ular compatriots. There were simultaneous disturbances in other parts of the city, including the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neigh-bourhood, where police said the protestors had blocked streets and set fire to garbage bins, using them as flaming barricades. “Police units mobilised in different areas of Jerusalem to respond to illegal demonstrations by right-wing ultra-religious demon-strators,” police said in an English-language statement. They later said they had arrested 120 demonstrators who were “involved in disturbances and blocked roads and major junctions”. A series of such protests in recent weeks has been spurred by occasional arrests of ultra-Orthodox young men accused of dodging military service.

Turkey detains top civil society figureISTANBUL: Turkish police have detained businessman and lead-ing civil society activist Osman Kavala, reports and his lawyer said yesterday, raising fresh alarm over freedom of expression. Kav-ala was detained at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport after flying in from the southern city of Gaziantep, the Dogan news agency said. His lawyer Ferat Cagil said that Kavala was apprehended immedi-ately after the flight landed late Wednesday and has been remanded in custody for seven days ahead of a court hearing. Cagil said it was unclear what his client was accused of. “The case is confiden-tial. Whatever is said would be speculative now. We will find out when he testifies,” he said.

S Sudan forces assault UN commanderUNITED NATIONS: South Sudanese forces stopped a UN peace-keeping convoy at gunpoint and beat the unit’s commander in the latest clash with peacekeepers in the war-wracked African coun-try, a report obtained by AFP yesterday said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that South Sudan’s defence minister had apologised for the September 21 incident in Juba, the capital. About 100 officers from South Sudan’s national security service “surrounded the convoy and pointed weapons at the vehicles,” said the confidential report sent to the council on Monday.

Tensions flare in Yemen’s rebel campSANA’A: New signs of tension between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh emerged yesterday with a fresh wave of mutual accusations threatening their three-year alliance. Saleh and the Shia Houthis have jointly controlled the capital Sanaa since September 2014, but tensions have been ris-ing in their ranks since a public dispute between the two in August. Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) on Thursday complained of humiliation at the hands of the Huthis, accusing the rebels of waging an “orchestrated campaign” against the former strong-man. In an open letter to Ansar Allah, the political party led by rebel chief Abdulmalik al-Huthi, the GPC said its ministers in the unofficial rebel government had been “humiliated” by the Huthis, who “lack the will to maintain partnership”. Ansar Allah fired back, accusing the GPC of breaking their pact with the Huthis and accepting funds from the rival government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, in a statement by the party’s political leader Salah Sammad.

Lebanon approves first budget since 2005BEIRUT: Lebanon’s parliament approved the first state budget in 12 years yesterday, a vital step towards reforming the fragile econ-omy and preventing rising debt spinning out of control. Successive governments have failed to pass annual budgets due to a string of political crises since the 2005 assassination of former prime min-ister Rafik Al Hariri.

Nairobi

Reuters

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta snubbed a cri-sis meeting called by the

top election official yesterday, saying he would instead spend the time campaigning for next week’s presidential vote re-run. The first presidential vote in August, which Kenyatta won by 1.4 million votes, was annulled by the Supreme Court over pro-cedural irregularities.

The re-run is set for October 26 but opposition leader Raila Odinga has pulled out, alleging a failure to improve oversight of the election, casting doubt on how the vote will proceed.

Election board chairman Wafula Chebukati, in a stark message to political leaders on Wednesday, said he could not guarantee a credible vote under present conditions, and demanded Kenyatta and Odinga meet him for talks. The board, known as the IEBC, set the meet-ing for 1130 GMT in Nairobi but then said it had been postponed to an unspecified date and time.

Chebukati later tweeted that he had met Odinga and was “look-ing forward” to meeting Kenyatta, though it was not clear if the president intended to respond to his call.

Opposition demonstrations, which have led to confrontations between police and protesters, and divisive rhetoric by politicians

have stoked uncertainty in Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy and a stable Western ally in a chaotic region. Speaking at a campaign rally in the western town of Sab-oti late on Wednesday, Kenyatta said the priority was for Kenyans to go to the polls on the set date.

“We are not interested in telling the IEBC what to do. We

want them to prepare so Ken-yans can vote on the 26th,” he said. However, Odinga, whose call for mass protests on elec-tion day has sparked fears that the crisis could turn violent, called for serious talks on the impasse after meeting Chebukati.

Odinga said his withdrawal should force the commission to start a fresh 90-day electoral cycle, including fresh candidate nominations. The election board says the vote will go ahead.

Chebukati’s call for a meet-ing with the candidates followed the flight of one IEBC commis-sioner to New York. Roselyn Akombe said she had fled due to threats and said the planned election would amount to a mockery of democracy.

The ruling Jubilee party filed a petition in the Supreme Court yesterday alleging opposition politicians were in contempt of court for obstructing a re-run by withdrawing from the race and by ordering supporters to con-tinue protests including during trainings of election staff in western Kenya.

Kenya president snubs vote crisis meeting

Iraqi Kurds agree to talks

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters gather north of Kirkuk, Iraq, yesterday.

Jerusalem

AP

President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy said yester-day that if Hamas wants

to play a role in any Palestinian government, it must renounce violence and commit to negoti-ations with Israel — demands the Islamic group has always rejected.

Jason Greenblatt’s statement was the first American comment on the advancing reconciliation efforts between the rival Pales-tinian Fatah and Hamas factions, and echoed Israeli demands.

“Any Palestinian govern-ment must unambiguously and explicitly commit to nonvio-lence, recognise the state of Israel, accept previous agree-ments and obligations between the parties — including to dis-arm terrorists — and commit to peaceful negotiations. If Hamas is to play any role in a Palestin-ian government, it must accept these basic requirements,” Greenblatt said in a statement.

Under Egyptian auspices,

the Palestinian factions last week reached a preliminary agreement and have formed committees to sort out unre-solved issues, most notably who will control Hamas’ massive arsenal. The deal has yet to be implemented.

Greenblatt arrived in Cairo yesterday for talks on the Pal-estinian reconciliation efforts, Egyptian and American officials said. The officials spoke on con-dition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Greenblatt has been shut-tling through the region in search of a formula to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last broke down in 2014.

Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu also said this week there would be no talks with the Palestinians unless Hamas agrees to the same con-ditions. Netanyahu, who welcomed Greenblatt’s state-ment, has made some additional demands, including that Hamas disarm and return the remains of two Israeli soldiers and send

back two Israeli civilians believed to be in Hamas captivity.

The Palestinians appear to be hopeful that this will be enough to satisfy the interna-tional community. However, Hamas has said it will not dis-mantle its powerful military wing, and it is likely to wield influence behind the scenes.

In a statement, Hamas said it rejected “the extortion and American bias toward the Israeli positions expressed by Jason Greenblatt.”

“Hamas will go ahead in the reconciliation and will not pay attention to any attempt to sab-otage or block this track,” it said.

Abbas seeks an independ-ent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. Israel cap-tured the territories in 1967, though it withdrew from Gaza in 2005. With peace efforts on hold, Israel this week pushed plans ahead for roughly 3,000 new homes in West Bank set-tlements, according to Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group.

Amman won’t allow Hamas offices: OfficialAMMAN: Hamas will not be allowed to open any offices in the Jordanian capital despite the group’s apparent reconciliation with rival Pal-estinian faction Fatah, a senior Jordanian official said yester-day. “Hamas is a Palestinian political party,” the official, who spoke anonymously due to the issue’s sensitivity, told Anadolu Agency.

“Jordan’s political parties law prohibits non-Jordanian parties from opening branches on Jordanian terri-tory,” he said.

Despite its sizeable Pal-estinian population, Jordan closed all Hamas offices countrywide in 1999.

Last week, Hamas and Fatah signed a landmark rec-onciliation agreement in Cairo. The deal — if it holds — will allow the Ramallah-based Palestinian unity government to assume polit-ical and administrative responsibility for the Gaza Strip, which for the last ten years has been run by Hamas.

Kenyan rights activist Boniface Mwangi is detained by police officers during a peacefull demonstration against police killings within recent demonstrations, in Nairobi, yesterday.

Baghdad court issues arrest warrant for Iraqi Kurd VPBAGHDAD: A Baghdad court yes-terday issued an arrest warrant for the vice-president of Iraqi Kurdis-tan on charges of “provocation” against Iraq’s armed forces, the judi-ciary said. Kosrat Rasul had referred to the Iraqi army and federal police as “occupation forces” in a statement on Wednesday, the court said.

In the statement, Rasul, who is also vice president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish parties, criticised his own group for not having resisted the entry of Iraqi federal forces into the disputed northern city of Kirkuk on Monday.

US envoy: Hamas must disarm to join Palestinian government

With the retreat of Kurdish forces this week, almost without a fight, Baghdad has restored its control to swathes of territory held by the Kurds since 2013.

05FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017 ISLAM

Jamaal Diwan

Islam is a holistic system that impacts all areas of a person’s life. To this effect, Imam Hasan Al Banna, a

famous Muslim scholar, said: “A Mus-lim should strive to attain a strong body, good character, cultured thought. He should be able to earn a living, have pure belief, and correct worship. He should be able to control his desires, be care-ful about his time, organized in his affairs, and beneficial to those around him. These comprise the duties of every Muslim as an individual.” These ten points provide a well-rounded approach to personal development according to the teachings of Islam.

According to the above quote, the first strength necessary for a complete Islamic personality is physical strength. Our health is a blessing and responsi-bility from God and the quality with which we take care of it affects all areas of our lives. If we are healthy, we have greater clarity of thinking, more energy, and enhanced emotional stability. Con-versely, when we neglect our health, we fall victim to physical maladies like fatigue or lethargy, psychological issues like anxiety or depression, and spiritual struggles. For these reasons, good health is foundational in the development of the well-rounded Muslim personality.

From good health comes the second

strength which is an outward manifes-tation of a quality relationship with one’s Creator — good character. The Arabic word ‘matn’ means good but also firm. We can infer from this dual meaning that strong character must demonstrate itself not only in times of ease but also when things are difficult.

When things are easy, it is no great challenge to maintain good conduct and treat people in the best way possible; but in the face of hardship, fatigue, frus-tration, disappointment, anger, and an array of other emotions, the fortitude of one’s character is put to the test. The person who has firm character can with-stand these tests, but the one who is only putting on a show will eventually be exposed for who he or she really is.

The third strength necessary to build a strong Muslim personality is intellec-tual and educational rigor as the basis for attaining enlightened and refined thought. This is of utmost importance as many times this strength is neglected by people who are perceived to be “reli-gious.” Islam is a system of life, informed by the teachings of the Divine, and embodied in the real-life example of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the final prophet of Islam. Yet, to understand and apply Islamic teachings in a manner that goes beyond blind faith or superficial understanding, one must develop the intellect. Then one learns

to think critically, cultivates powers of discernment so as to properly perceive what has value and what has priority, and comprehends the best ways to apply Islamic wisdom and practical solutions to problems facing humanity.

The fourth type of strength neces-sary to build a strong Muslim personality capable of serving God and serving Islam is financial strength — being able to earn a living. It is very difficult to contribute to the well-being of society when one’s financial situation is so dire that he is primarily occupied with essential issues like food, clothing, shelter, and health care. A Muslim must always seek finan-cial stability and sufficiency so that he can be independent and able to devote time and other resources in his service to Islam. Whether poor or affluent, all should seek some sort of financial stability.

After mentioning physical, intellec-tual, and character strength, as well as financial stability, Imam Al-Banna then moves on to point out the importance of pure belief and correct worship. These are the basis and backbone of the first four strengths.

Faith and worship are the sources by which the Muslim finds his or her direction in daily living and the kind of relationship with the Divine that is required to face the difficulties that come with service to the Truth. They

constitute the well which quenches the spiritual thirst of the heart in its search for its natural inclination. [Click here to learn more about worship in Islam.]

The mission — to be of service to the Truth — requires much from the indi-vidual so dedicated, and herein lies the appropriateness and necessity of the last four characteristics. Firstly, the Muslim is constant in fighting his or her base desires.

In the struggle to worship God and live a righteous life there are endless difficulties and tests. These tests are sometimes very clear and open, but sometimes very subtle. They can be tests of our sincerity, whether our ego seeks excessive praise and aggrandizement, whether we are given to conciliation or argumentation, and countless other provocations by the lower self. These tests cannot be overcome except through a never-ending process of learning to control — to moderate, ele-vate, and channel —one’s desires.

The next two of these characteris-tics are to be strict with one’s time and organized in one’s affairs. Time is life itself and the person who squanders time is squandering opportunities to develop the self and purify the heart. In this regard, Hasan al-Basri said, “O Son of Adam! You are nothing but a compi-lation of breaths and with each breath that passes, a piece of you is gone.” The

The complete Islamic personality

well-rounded Muslim will also find that his or her responsibilities always out-weigh the amount of time available. For this reason, the Muslim is always strict with his time and organized in her affairs so that they can reap the most benefit from this life before meeting their Lord in the next life.

The last characteristic is to be ben-eficial to others. We do well to reflect deeply on this. Everything that came before is lost if we are harmful to those around us. The scholars of Islam have said that the core objective of Islam is to produce benefit. Everything that we do is in the service of God, and what He requires from us is the intention and striving to bring about benefit to our-selves and all of humankind. [Learn more: Rush to Virtue]

May God help us to embody these characteristics and bless us with the capacity to manifest Islam in all of its wonderful beauty.

www.whyislam.org

The Messenger of Allah Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “Verily actions are by intentions, and for every person is what he intended.

So the one whose ‘hijrah’ (migration) was to Allah and His Messenger, then his ‘hijrah’ was to Allah and His Messen-ger. And the one whose ‘hijrah’ was for the world to gain from it, or a woman to marry her, then his ‘hijrah’ was for what he made ‘hijrah’ for.” (Bukhari and Muslim).

Many scholars began books with this Hadeeth. Imam Bukhari, may Allah have mercy upon him, commences his book of Hadeeth (Saheeh Al Bukhari) with this Hadeeth and explains that every action that is done without seek-ing Allah’s pleasure is invalid and devoid of reward.

It can be said that the entire religion revolves around this Hadeeth. Imaam Ash-Shaafi’i may Allah have mercy upon him said, “this Hadeeth consti-tutes a third of all knowledge.”

Muslim scholars differ in opinion as to the limits of the Prophet’s (PBUH) say-ing: ‘actions are by intentions’. Many of the later scholars are of the opinion that the limit is that the action is made correct or acceptable with the intention. What is meant by this is that a legislated action needs an intention. As for habitual actions such as eating, drinking, dressing, etc., they are not in need of an intention.

Some say ‘actions’ here is to be understood in its generality; therefore, nothing is exempt from it. Others relate this as the saying of the majority, mean-ing the majority of the early scholars. This occurs in the words of Ibn Jareer At-Tabari, Abu Taalib Al Makki, and oth-ers from the early scholars, may Allah have mercy upon them. Imaam Ahmad may Allah have mercy upon him said: “I like that for every action, from prayer, fasting or charity or any action of right-eousness that there be an intention preceding the action. The Prophet (PBUH)) said: ‘actions are by intentions’, and this is taken for every matter.”

Fadl Ibn Ziyaad may Allah have

mercy upon him said: “I asked Abu Abdullaah (i.e. Imaam Ahmad may Allah have mercy upon him) about the intention in action, how should it be? He may Allah have mercy upon him said: ‘One should concentrate on him-self when he intends to do an action, not doing it for the sake of people (i.e. show-ing off).’”

It is possible that the limits of the saying, ‘actions are by intention’, are that the action is good, corrupt, acceptable, rejected, rewarded, or not rewarded according to the intention. Therefore, this statement informs us of the Islamic ruling concerning this: the correctness or incorrectness of the action is in accordance with the correctness or incorrectness of the intention.

The saying of the Prophet (PBUH) after this: ‘and for everyone is what he intended’ informs that one can not gain anything from his action except what he intended. So if he intended good, he gets good. If he intended evil then he gets evil. This second statement (of the Hadeeth) is not merely reiterating the first, because the first statement points to the fact that the goodness or corruptness of the action is according to the intention necessary for that action to exist. The sec-ond statement points to the fact that the reward of a person for his action is accord-ing to his good intention, and that the punishment for his action is according to his evil intention.

Scholarly definition1. To distinguish different types of

worship, one from the other. Like dis-tinguishing Noon (Thuhr) Prayer from Afternoon (‘Asr) Prayer, or distinguish-ing the fast of Ramadan from other fasts, or distinguishing actions of worship from actions of habit: like distinguish-ing bathing from impurity from bathing for the purpose of cleanliness.

2. To distinguish for who or what the action is done: is it for Allah only, for other than Allah, or for Allah and oth-ers than Him?

The meaning of ‘intention’ in the speech of the Prophet (PBUH) and the Salaf (righteous predecessors) was used generally to carry the meaning of ‘desire’. In the Quran, the word ‘desire’ is often used to describe an intention, as in Allah’s saying (which means): “…Among you are some who desire this world, and among you are some who desire the Hereafter…” (Quran 3: 152)

“Whoever desires the life of this world and its adornments…”(Quran 11: 15)

“And keep yourself patient [by being] with those who call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening, seeking His countenance. And let not your eyes pass beyond them, desiring adornments of the worldly life...”(Quran 18: 28).

Sometimes intention is described with the word ‘seeking’ as in Allah’s say-ing (which means): “But only seeking the countenance of his Lord, Most High.”[Quran 92: 20] And (which means): “…and you do not spend except seeking the countenance of Allah…” (Quran 2: 272)

Regarding the second meaning of intention, there are numerous examples from the ‘Sunnah’ and the statements of the ‘Salaf’. To mention a few:

The Messenger (PBUH) said: “Peo-ple will be gathered upon their intentions.” (Ibn Maajah).

The Prophet (PBUH) also said: “Man-kind will be resurrected upon their intentions.” (Muslim).

Another Hadeeth says: “Verily those slain on the battlefield will be resur-rected upon their intentions.” (Ibn Abi Ad-Dunya).

The Prophet (PBUH) also said: “For the ones whose concern is this world, Allah will scatter his affair, and place poverty between his two eyes. He will not get from the world except what is written for him. For the one whose intention is the Hereafter, Allah will gather for him his affair and place con-tentment in his heart, and the world will come to him willingly.”(Ibn Maajah)

Zayd Ash-Shaami may Allah have mercy upon him said: “Verily I like to make an intention for everything I do even if it is eating and drinking.”

Sufyaan Ath-Thawri may Allah have mercy upon him, said: “I have not treated anything more difficult than my intention, because it keeps changing.”

Ibn Al Mubaarak, may Allah have mercy upon him said: “Maybe a small action is made great by its intention, and maybe a great action is made small by its intention.”

The three above-mentioned sayings

were reported by Ibn Abi Ad-Dunyaa in his book ‘The Sincerity and the Intention’.

Imam Ahmad, may Allah have mercy upon him, said that the founda-tion of the religion is upon three Hadeeths:

1. “Verily actions are by intention.” (Bukhari and Muslim)

2. “Whosoever introduces into this affair of ours that which is not part of it then it is rejected.” (Muslim)

3. “The Halaal (lawful) is clear and the Haraam (prohibited) is clear.” (Bukhari & Muslim)

Islam teaches us to perform good actions, stay away from the forbidden actions and stop at the doubtful mat-ters. All of this is perfected upon two matters:

Actions must be done correctly, according to the teachings of Islam, and seeking the Pleasure of Allah, Almighty.

Fudayl Ibn ̀ Iyaadh, may Allah have mercy upon him, said about the saying of Allah (which means): “He who created death and life to test you [as to] which of you is best in deed.” (Quran 67: 2)

Who is sincere and correct in it? If the action is sincere and incorrect, then it is not accepted. Likewise if it is cor-rect and not sincere then it is not accepted. It is only accepted when it is both sincere and correct. It is sincere when it is for the sake of Allah, and cor-rect when it is done according to the teachings of Islam.

www.islamweb.net

Intention: The foundation of every actionMany scholars began books with this Hadeeth. Imam Bukhari, may Allah have mercy upon him, commences his book of Hadeeth (Saheeh Al Bukhari) with this Hadeeth and explains that every action that is done without seeking Allah’s pleasure is invalid and devoid of reward.

Faith and worship are the sources by which the Muslim finds his or her direction in daily living and the kind of relationship with the Divine that is required to face the difficulties that come with service to the Truth.

06 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017ASIA

Festive atmosphere at Wagah border

Cox’s Bazar

AFP

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims stranded near Bangladesh’s border this

week after fleeing violence in Myanmar have finally been permitted to enter refugee camps after “strict screening”, officials said yesterday.

The UN had expressed deep concern about the new wave of around 10,000 refugees, including children and elderly people who, dehydrated and hungry from the long journey, had been stopped from cross-ing the border into Bangladesh and left to squat in paddy fields.

It was not immediately clear why the new arrivals were being held in an area of no man’s land, but the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had said it was calling on the Bangladesh authorities “to urgently admit” the group.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) spokesman Major Iqbal Ahmed told AFP yesterday that the newcomers, who were blocked at Anjumanpara near the border town of Ukhiya, had been screened “very carefully” to stop “unwanted visitors”.

“After strict checking, they are being taken to the extended Kutupalong camp where they will receive some basic goods and later will be shifted to another camp,” said Ahmed.

Excluding the latest wave,

the UN says some 582,000 Rohingya refugees had fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since late August, when militant attacks on Myanmar’s security forces in Rakhine state sparked a major army crackdown.

But Bangladesh, which has been overwhelmed by the influx of people fleeing the vio-lence, is wary of radical Islamists getting into its refu-gee camps where there are now more than 800,000 Rohingya in all.

Many of the new arrivals were from Rakhine’s Buthidaung district, which lies relatively far from the border with Bangladesh.

Some told an AFP corre-spondent they had trekked for days to reach the border as their villages remain under military surveillance and they had noth-ing to eat.

“We ran out of food,” said Shamser Alam, 21, from Yin Ma Kyaung Taung village near Buthidaung town.

“There is no village market. There are too many restrictions. We don’t have freedom. Not more than five people can pray together.”

Sufia Khatun, a mother of four, said one of her sons was killed in a stampede after Bud-dhist militants attacked her village.

“We ran for our lives and I lost Jalal. Later I found he was killed in the stampede,” she said.

Gurez

IANS

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi yesterday celebrated Diwali with soldiers in this idyllic valley of Jammu and

Kashmir, telling them how he gets engergised by spending time with the Armed Forces which he called “my family”.

Dressed like soldiers in mil-itary camouflage, Modi sported a black aviator on his eyes and spent nearly two hours with the troops in the Gurez valley near the Line of Control (LoC) -- the de facto border that divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

He offered sweets and gifts and exchanged greetings with them, appreciating the sacrifices of armed forces in protecting the country. He said like everyone else he too wished to spend Diwali with his family.

“Therefore, I came here to be with you because you are my family. When I shake hands with

you, you may think it is a formal-ity. But it is not a formality for me. I get new energy,” he said in his address to the gathering of the men in uniform.

The Prime Minister said he had been told that the soldiers on the borders regularly prac-tice yoga which would “definitely enhance their abilities, and give them a sense of calm”. He said soldiers who leave the armed forces after completing their duty tenure “can become excel-lent yoga trainers”.

In the visitors’ book, Modi

wrote: “Protecting the Mother-land, far from your loved ones, displaying the highest traditions of sacrifice, all soldiers at the

nation’s borders, are symbols of bravery and dedication.

“I have an opportunity to spend the festival of Diwali with

you. The presence of brave soldiers at the border, on this festive occa-sion and generates new energy among crores of Indians.”

New Delhi

AFP

A major fire broke out in a high-rise building on the Jawaharlal Nehru Road in

Kolkata today. Ten fire tenders have been rushed to the spot to douse the fire.

The 19-storey building houses the offices of Life Insur-ance Corporation of India (LIC) and State Bank of India (SBI). The fire was reported from the server room of an office on the 15th floor of the building.

According to eyewitnesses, the fire was fast spreading to the other floors of the building. Since offices were closed for Diwali, no one was present inside the building as per last reports.

The chief general manager (Kolkata circle) of SBI, P P

Sengupta, said there was no news of anyone getting stuck on the

floor. SBI’s server room is on the floor where the fire broke out.

New Delhi

AFP

An explosion at an ille-gal firecracker factory in eastern India killed

seven workers and injured nine others in the hours before yesterday’s Diwali fes-tival, officials said.

Firework use hits a peak across India during the Hindu festival but New Delhi authorities have tried to restrict sales to tackle mount-ing pollution.

The explosion late Wednesday completely destroyed the makeshift structure after fire touched off the gunpowder and chemical stocks used to make the fire-works in Balasore district of Odisha state, said district magistrate Pramod Kumar Das.

He said several of the injured workers are in a crit-ical condition after the “huge” explosion.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is traditionally cele-brated by lighting lamps but has metamorphosed into a grand show of fireworks, sparking pollution and controversy.

Explosions often occur in the thousands of illegal back-yard and underground workshops that spring up during the festive season.

Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) General Secre-tary Roshan Giri has

alleged that West Bengal Police ransacked his resi-dence around midnight yesterday.

“Around 12.45am, police broke open the door and van-dalised my house. They took away my computer, two printers and a suitcase of doc-uments,” Giri said.

Meanwhile, a Darjeeling court yesterday issued a proc-lamation order against GJM chief Bimal Gurung and five others, including Roshan Giri, in connection with the June 8 incident in Darjeeling.

Shimla

IANS

At least five people were injured when a crucial concrete bridge linking

Chamba town in Himachal Pradesh with Pathankot in Punjab collapsed yesterday, an official said.

It is unclear what caused the collapse of the bridge midway on the Chamba-P a t h a n k o t n a t i o n a l highway.

The double-lane bridge is located in Parel, just six kil-ometers from Chamba town and some 450km from Shimla.

A mini truck loaded with bricks was still stranded on the collapsed bridge.

“We have ordered an inquiry,” Deputy Commis-sioner Sudesh Mokhta said. He said the injured had been admitted to a hospital in Chamba.

New Delhi

IANS

The India-Russia annual joint military exercises called INDRA is set to

begin today, officials said yes-terday. This year, all three services are involved in the 10-day exercises being con-ducted in Russia.

The indigenously built Indian Naval ships INS Satpura and INS Kadmatt yesterday

reached Vladivostok Port. The rest of Indian contingent

comprising of army and air force personnel had reached Vladi-vostok on Wednesday in IL-76 aircraft of the Indian Air Force.

The Defence Ministry, in a statement, said the INDRA-2107 will be “a landmark event in the history of Indo-Russian defence cooperation”.

Scheduled to be conducted at the 249th Combined Army Range Sergiyevisky and in the

Sea of Japan near Vladivostok, it is the first tri-service bilateral exercise between the two countries.

In its previous nine editions, INDRA has been conducted as a single service exercise alter-nately between the two countries.

The Indian contingent is comprising 350 personnel from army, 80 from air force, two IL 76 aircraft and one Frigate and Corvette each from the navy.

Thiruvananthapuram

IANS

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan yester-day headed a cabinet

meeting that decided to call a special one-day Assembly ses-sion on November 9 to table the Solar Scam probe report.

Cases were set to be regis-tered against several Congress leaders including former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on the basis of the Solar Judicial Commission report. The cabi-net recommended the Governor to call a special session, Vijayan said in his Facebook post. According to rules, once a judi-cial commission report is

received, the government can either accept or reject it. In case it accepts the report, along with the action taken report, it has to be tabled in the Assembly, within six months.

On October 11, the govern-ment decided to proceed with the Justice G Sivarajan Commission report in the solar scam and gave the nod to register criminal, vig-ilance and sexual harassment cases against Chandy, his cabi-net colleagues, a former Union Minister, legislators and other Congress leaders. The multi-crore solar energy investment fraud, which rocked the Chandy government in 2013, was led by Saritha Nair and her live-in partner.

Modi reaches out to Armed Forces

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrating the Diwali with the jawans of the Indian Army and BSF, in the Gurez Valley, near the Line of Control, in Jammu and Kashmir, yesterday.

Fire breaks out of Kolkata high rise

Smoke billows out from a commercial building after a fire broke out in it in Kolkata, yesterday.

Bangladesh allowsRohingya into camps after screening

India & Russia to begin annual joint military exercise today

Seven dead in Odisha firework factory blast

GJM leader alleges police vandalised house

Bridge collapse in Himachal injures five

Kerala Assembly special session to discuss solar scam report

Army ‘my family’

Dressed like soldiers in military camouflage, Modi sported a black aviator on his eyes and spent nearly two hours with the troops in the Gurez valley near the Line of Control.

Pakistani Wing Commander Bilal presenting sweets to Indian Border Security Force commandant Sudeep on the occasion of the Diwali festival at the India-Pakistan Wagah border, yesterday.

07FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017 ASIA

Court indicts Sharif and daughter for corruptionIslamabad

Reuters

A Pakistani anti-cor-rupt ion court yesterday indicted ousted Prime Minis-ter Nawaz Sharif

(pictured) and his daughter over allegations linked to own-ership of London properties, opening a trial that could see the former leader jailed.

The Sharifs have called the corruption proceedings against them a conspiracy, hinting at intervention by the powerful military, but opponents have hailed it as a rare example of the rich and powerful being held accountable.

Sharif, 67, resigned in July after the Supreme Court dis-qualified him from holding office over an undeclared source of income, but the veteran leader maintains his grip on the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.

Sharif said there was no precedent for indicting some-one in his absence. “I hope I will get justice,” he told reporters in London in remarks broadcast by local Geo TV, adding that he would travel home to attend the next court hearing. Judge Bashir Ahmad of the court that tries cases registered and investi-gated by an anti-graft body, the National Accountability Bureau

(NAB), indicted Sharif, his daughter Maryam Sharif and her husband, Muhammad Safdar. They all pleaded not guilty.

Maryam and Safdar were present in court, but Sharif, who was prime minister twice in the 1990s, sent a representative while he tends to his wife as she undergoes cancer treatment in Britain. Maryam said in the court that the charges were unfounded and baseless.

“This will go down in history as a travesty of justice,” she said.

Outside the court, Maryam again hinted at military inter-ference in the judicial process by saying the trial was “a repeat of 1999”, the year her father was toppled in a military coup led by former army chief Pervez Musharraf.

It is not clear if she was comparing the trial to the coup,

or subsequent corruption accu-sations and investigations that Musharraf ordered into Sharif.

Sharif’s disqualification stemmed from the Panama Papers leaks in 2016 that appeared to show that his daughter and two sons owned offshore holding companies reg-istered in the British Virgin Islands and used them to buy posh flats in London.

The Supreme Court initially declined to dismiss Sharif but ordered an investigation into his family’s wealth.

A separate Supreme Court-appointed panel said the family’s wealth did not match its income, and accused Maryam and her brothers of signing forged documents to obscure ownership of offshore compa-nies used to buy the London flats.

NEWS BYTES

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is negotiating with a US firm to resume the hunt for missing flight MH370, a minister said yesterday, in news welcomed by the widow of one of those who had been on board. The American company, Ocean Infinity as well as Dutch outfit Fugro, which had been involved in the original search, and an unidentified Malaysian company had put forward proposals to relaunch the hunt. Ocean Infinity was reported to be favoured after making a “no find, no fee” offer to search for the Malay-sia Airlines plane. The jet disappeared with 239 people on board in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Bei-jing after diverting from its flight path. No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000 square kilometre (46,000 square mile) zone selected by satellite analysis of the jet’s likely trajectory. The Australian-led hunt -- the largest in his-tory -- was suspended in January, sparking criticism from families of those on board and some experts, who said it was called off too soon.

Malaysia negotiating with US firm to resume MH370 hunt

ISLAMABAD: A young woman gave birth to quintuplets – two girls and three boys – at the Lady Aitcheson Hospital in Lahore , officials at the facility announced yesterday. Komal Shehzad, 22, who lives in a rural area of Punjab, was admitted to the hospital and gave birth to five children. They were normally delivered and are in good health, said the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Sameena Nasreen It was the first time in the hospital’s history that quintu-plets were born and the hospital welcomed the children, she said. “We are very happy. The hospital staff is celebrat-ing the births of the children and giving their best wishes to the couple,” she said.

Quintuplets born in Lahore hospital

43 Afghan soldiers dead in military base assaultKandahar

AFP

At least 43 Afghan soldiers were killed in a Taliban-claimed suicide attack on

a military base in southern Afghanistan yesterday, officials said, the third assault on a secu-rity installation this week.

Just two soldiers are known to have survived unscathed after the attack on the base in the Chashmo area of Maiwand dis-trict in Kandahar province, the defence ministry said in

a statement, adding that nine soldiers were wounded and six unaccounted for.

Defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri told AFP the attackers detonated at least one explosive-packed Humvee vehi-cle and razed the compound in the early morning assault.

“We think the militants used an explosive-packed Humvee vehicle to detonate the gate of the base and we are looking to see if there was more than one,” Waziri said. “Unfortunately there is nothing left inside the camp.

They have burned down every-thing they found inside.”

The Taliban claimed the ambush in a message to journal-ists which said all 60 security personnel on the base were killed. Ten insurgents died, the ministry said.

“We have sent a delegation to assess the situation. The base is under ANA control,” Waziri added. It was the third suicide and gun attack on a security installation this week and takes the total death toll to more than 120.

In each assault the Taliban

used a Humvee vehicle as a bomb to blast their way into their targets. On Tuesday two attacks in southeast Afghanistan killed 80 people and wounded nearly 300 in the bloodiest day in the war-torn country in almost five months.

The deadliest of Tuesday’s assaults was on a police com-pound in the city of Gardez in Paktia province where Taliban militants disguised as police det-onated three explosive-packed vehicles that cleared the way for 11 gunmen to enter.

Court extends Hafiz Saeed’s detention for one month Lahore

AFP

Pakistan yesterday extended the detention of the chief suspect in

the 2008 Mumbai attacks for a month, government officials said. Firebrand cleric Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group and has a $10 million US bounty on his head, has been under house arrest since January follow-ing a government crackdown on the outfit.

“Hafiz Saeed’s detention has been extended for a period of one-month,” a sen-ior government official said on condition of anonymity. He said the detention was extended by a three-member review board of Lahore High Court headed by Judge Yawar Ali.

JuD, listed as a terror out-fit by the United Nations, is considered by the US and India to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for the attack on India’s financial capital which killed more than 160 people.

Pakistani Taliban chief dead in US drone strikePeshawar

AFP

The chief of an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban has been killed in a US drone

strike, a spokesman for the group said yesterday.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a fac-tion of the Pakistani Taliban, had claimed responsibility for many deadly attacks in the country, including a suicide bombing in a park in Lahore on Easter Sunday last year that killed 75 people

including many children.“Chief of our Jamaat-ul-

Ahrar Umar Khalid Khorasani, who sustained serious injuries in a recent US drone strike in Afghanistan’s Paktia province, succumbed to his injuries Wednesday evening,” JuA spokesman Asad Mansoor said.

Two US drone strikes on Monday along the border between Afghanistan and Paki-stan killed at least 26 people including fighters from the Haqqani network which is allied

to the Afghan Taliban.The US has increased pres-

sure on Pakistan in recent months to crack down on the Haqqanis, who have earned a fearsome reputation for their vicious attacks on Nato troops and Afghan installations over the years.

The use of US drones has dwindled dramatically in recent years in Pakistan, where the strikes have proven extremely controversial with the public and rights groups.

Blast pirates out of the sea: DuterteManila

AFP

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte yesterday said he would ask the

leaders of Indonesia and Malay-sia to “blast” pirates out of regional waters and would refo-cus security efforts to solve the problem.

The Abu Sayyaf, a kidnap-for-ransom network that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, has been kidnapping dozens of sailors on fishing vessels and cargo barges, prompting warnings the region could become the “next

Somalia”. Duterte’s remarks came two days after he declared the southern city of Marawi “liberated from terror-ists’ influence” following a nearly five-month battle against militants including Abu Sayyaf members.

“Blast them out of the seas to keep our shipping lanes open and safe. They have committed enough piracy there, enough money collected from ransoms,” Duterte said in a speech at a forum for Southeast Asian dip-lomats and leaders in Manila.

“I just finished the war in (Marawi) then perhaps I can refocus the entire armed forces

to deal with this problem once and for all.”

Pro-IS gunmen occupied parts of Marawi, the Islamic cap-ital of the mainly Catholic Philippines, on May 23 in what Duterte said was a bid to estab-lish a Southeast Asian caliphate there.

The Philippines’ longest urban conflict has claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced 400,000.

While declaring that the fighting in Marawi was winding down, Duterte yesterday said Islamist militants continued to threaten Southeast Asia’s sup-ply routes and shipping lanes.

Blaze guts historic teak wood Yangon hotel

Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte with the Bureau of Jail and Penology Management personnel as he visits a detention cell in Manila, yesterday.

Yangon

AFP

A Japanese man was killed when a fire tore through a luxury teak wood hotel in

Myanmar’s largest city Yangon yesterday, destroying an iconic resort popular with foreign visitors.

Hundreds of firefighters tried to quell the blaze, which broke out at around 3am local time (2030 GMT), but were unable to stop the flames from consuming the lake-side Kandawgyi Palace Hotel.

A reporter at the scene saw a white plastic sheet covering a body retrieved from the fire. The victim was later identified as a

middle-aged Japanese man. “(He) was a businessman in his

50s,” Tomoko Yoshihiro from the Japanese Embassy in Yangon said. Htay Lwin from Htoo Group, which owns the hotel, said author-ities were probing what sparked the inferno.

“It’s hard to say why the fire broke out, the cause is under investigation,” he said, adding around 140 guests were at the hotel when the flames erupted.

The colonial-era structure is owned by a Myanmar business-man notorious for making his fortune under the former junta.

Tay Za, a controversial tycoon who spun millions of dollars through his close military links,

founded the Htoo Group, which spans construction, timber, resorts and an airline.

Locals lamented the loss of one of Yangon’s iconic buildings, which was perched on a hill by a large picturesque lake in the cen-tre of the city.

“We’re sad that such a historic and beautiful place was com-pletely destroyed,” a witness Kyi Kyi told AFP, standing near the still smouldering ruins of the building. The oldest parts of the Kandaw-gyi hotel date to the 1930s when British army officers used the site as rowing club.

Guests at the hotel had been moved to other hotels in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital.

A firefighter extinguishing a fire at Kandawgyi Palace hotel in Yangon, yesterday.

Conspiracy

The Sharifs have called the corruption proceedings against them a conspiracy, hinting at intervention by the powerful military, but opponents have hailed it as a rare example of the rich and powerful being held accountable.

MEN’S tennis has never been in such fine health. Evergreen Roger Federer, the elder statesman on the men’s Tour, is nicking trophies left, right and centre even at the ripe age of 36.

Playing sublime tennis, Federer bagged the Shanghai Masters title beating arch-rival and world number one Rafa Nadal last Sunday.

For the organizers and fans in Shanghai, it was a blockbuster final - Federer taking on Nadal. For the two tennis legends, it was just another opportunity to emerge victorious and add to personal trophy cabinet. Federer obviously picked up his 94th career trophy win while Nadal remains pegged at number 75. Incredible stats!

This season, Federer and Nadal have been in imperious form, picking up two Grand Slam titles each. Clearly, the 36-year-old Swiss and the 31-year-old Spaniard are in no mood to let others win. They almost seem to be becoming trophy thugs, if one may be allowed to say so.

Winning and dominating the Grand Slams or the Masters Series events like the one held in Shanghai is proof that Federer and Nadal make things happen on the men’s Tour that has been missing top guns Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Andy Murray of Britain because of injuries.

Federer, clearly, has raised the bar and just yesterday announced that he won’t be putting out a retirement date anytime soon. The 19-time Grand Slam champion says he feels fine on the circuit, taking forced mid-season breaks to allow himself enough time to recover from fatigue and exhaustion.

There’s plenty of motivation for Federer to keep appearing at events - he is playing his home tournament at Basel this week - to win trophies. If

he wins the Oct 21-29 tournament, Federer gets closer to becoming world number one once again. With injured Nadal not playing in Basel this week, Federer stands a very good chance of going all the top to the top of the tennis peak.

Federer is also keen on playing the season-ending championships in London next month. The tall right-hander skipped the entire clay-court season including the French Open in order to gear up for Wimbledon and the US Open. Federer won the Wimbledon title for the 8th time in his career to leave fans gasping for more.

“For me, I have come to realise that sometimes less is more,’” Federer said recently. As far as the tennis fans are concerned, the more Federer plays, the better for all of us.

08 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017VIEWS

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

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

The trophy chaser

QUOTE OF THE DAY

No one in the universe can disarm us. On the contrary, we will continue to have the power to protect our citizens. No one has the ability to extract from us recognition of the occupation.

Yahya Sinwar Hamas’s Gaza Head

Winning and dominating the Grand Slams or the Masters Series events like the one held in Shanghai is proof that Federer and Nadal make things happen on the men’s Tour.

America and the world have been so focused on President Donald Trump’s decertification of the nuclear deal with Iran that every-one missed the main message

behind his step. For decades, Washington tried to separate Iran’s nuclear program from what America calls Tehran’s “destabilizing activities in the region,” reasoning that com-ing to political terms with Iran might be impossible, and that dissociating nuclear from Iran’s other activities presented the only chance to diffuse Tehran’s ticking nuclear danger, and reaching an agreement.

Unlike former US presidents who tried -- and succeeded in the case of Barack Obama -- in separating nuclear from non-nuclear, Trump reversed past policies by mixing Iran’s nuclear and non-nuclear issues. That, not decertification, was the bottom line of his speech. Trump’s decertification before Con-gress is technical and has little effect on the nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCOPA), which was enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 2231. At the UN, the only thing that can kill a Security Council resolution is another resolution, not a US presidential decertification before Congress.

Security Council resolutions are binding for all member states. These resolutions are not international treaties that require ratifica-tion by national legislative bodies. Democratic President Obama, however, sought to legiti-mize the Iran deal by acquiring congressional approval. A reluctant Congress, controlled by the Republican Party, played along, with a caveat: The White House would have to “cer-tify” before Congress every three months that Iran was compliant. Otherwise, Congress would revoke its vote and reinstate the “nuclear sanctions” on Iran which were sus-pended under JCPOA.

Calculating that once JCPOA went into effect and Iran was economically reintegrated into the world order, Tehran would start importing US manufacture, thus creating a powerful lobby of US interests that would rush to defend the deal in Congress, facing any possible attacks. Obama, who was almost certain that fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton would succeed him in the White House, believed that Clinton would protect the deal, even if Congress voted to annul it and reim-posed sanctions. By law, the US president is king when it comes to foreign policy.

Last month, the two houses of Congress passed, with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, sanctions on Russia for its interven-tion in the 2016 presidential US election. Trump, who thinks that punishing Russia for such an intervention blemishes his electoral victory, ignored the new law, despite signing it since it came to his desk with a veto-proof majority.

As a matter of principle, after Congress legislates sanctions on foreign nations, it remains at the discretion of the president to

Trump shakes Iran deal for political gainHussain Abdul HussainAnatolia

choose which sanctions to enact, or none at all. Trump could have reimposed all the “nuclear sanctions” on Iran, without even consulting Congress. Trump could have lifted the remaining US “non-nuclear sanctions” on Iran, also without prior approval from Congress. If Trump has such authority, then why make a big fuss of decertification, without actually reinstating the “nuclear sanctions” on Iran?

The only answer that can explain the noise Trump made with his “decertifica-tion” was that he saw in it such good political theatre. Trump is a reality TV star, and knows what brings him good ratings, and therefore improves his chances for reelection. He also knows that the anti-Iran lobby has some influ-ential friends, with deep pockets, who can help Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020.

What happens next? The battle over JCPOA cannot be fought in Congress, but at the IAEA in Vienna, and the Security Council in New York. When the Obama administration negotiated the agreement with the Iranians, it based the deal on trust and good faith. Hence, Washington and Tehran chose ambiguous language that -- in the absence of trust between the two capitals, like in the case between Iran and Trump -- would make JCPOA look like “the worst deal America has ever had,” to put it in Trump’s words.

Two points especially stick out from the point of view of the Trump adminis-tration. The first hindered the deal for months, and was only resolved superfi-cially. Western intelligence agencies had evidence that Iran once dealt with radio-active material at its military facility of Parchin. This made Western capitals demand Tehran come clean by opening this facility to international inspectors.

Iran considered this an act of aggres-sion on its sovereignty, and refused to open it up for inspections. Tehran also

refused to open other sites that inspectors might choose randomly. A compromise stipu-lated that Iran open Parchin one time for a

protracted international visit, and allow inspectors into “sovereign sites” only after prior UN notice and Iranian approval.

Detractors of such compromise argue that Iran could run non-radioac-tive nuclear weapons’ tests -- such as nuclear detonators -- in some of its facilities without being radioactively detected, while prior approval would give Tehran enough time to move around any illicit nuclear designs or experiments.

Detractors of JCPOA, who found a strong ally in Trump, now demand “unfettered access” for international inspectors into any suspected Iranian facilities, thus scrapping the prior notice arrangement. Such demands will require some amendments around the treaty’s annexes, while keeping the main frame-work of the deal intact.

The way the American demand plays out would determine the future of JCPOA and might result in restoration of crip-pling international sanctions on Tehran.

Iran, meanwhile, would find itself in a bind. Should it concede to the Ameri-can demand of amending JCPOA and allowing international inspectors unfet-tered access, Tehran might be seen as a pushover. Should the Iranians stand their ground, however, America would make the deal crumble.

For all the trust and concessions that America offered, by passing on “unfet-tered access” and lifting restrictions on Iranian experiments with ballistic mis-siles, the Obama administration made sure to design JCPOA with a strong “snap-back” option. In other words, anytime one of the seven parties, signa-tories to the original framework -- that is the Security Council’s permanent members, Germany and Iran -- objects to any part of the agreement or its implementation, a dispute resolution mechanism takes effect.

When consensus over JCPOA is absent, the dispute goes to a group of experts. If these fail to reach an agree-ment, the issue goes to the seven foreign ministers. When these fail, the Security Council meets to “renew” JCPOA. If the council fails in renewal, the pre-deal international sanctions on Iran automat-ically go back into effect.

For America, this means creating a dispute, which the Trump administra-tion has just started. If the dispute continues without resolution and reaches the Security Council, all America has to do is vote against “renewal” of JCPOA, and the crippling international sanctions will hit Iran again. From there on, countries that keep doing business with Iran will be in violation of Security Council resolutions, a matter that busi-nesses around the world do not take lightly. The fact that Trump reconnected what Washington perceives as non-nuclear Iranian destabilization with Tehran’s nuclear issue suggests that America intends to go all the way to dis-rupt JCPOA and let the sanctions relapse.

When consensus over JCPOA is absent, the dispute goes to a group of experts. If these fail to reach an agreement, the issue goes to the seven foreign ministers. When these fail, the Security Council meets to “renew” JCPOA. If the council fails in renewal, the pre-deal international sanctions on Iran automatically go back into effect.

ED ITOR IAL

09FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017 OPINION

could lead to a long-term conflict.“Sensitivities could develop into hostilities that

could spark a civil war,” he said.Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party

(KDP) have defended the referendum.“It was the right move. No one will stop us from

achieving independence,” his spokesman Vahal Ali said.

But not all of Iraq’s Kurds, who fought a bloody civil war amongst themselves in the 1990s, sup-ported the idea, raising doubts over the management of any independent state.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said the KDP, who make up the coalition, were putting Kurds at risk because of strong opposition to the vote, including from key ally the United States.

The Peshmerga General Command in the KDP stronghold of Erbil accused Iran, a historical ally of the PUK, of helping Iraqi forces launch the offensive in the Kirkuk area.

“Unfortunately some of the PUK officials betrayed Kurdistan by being part of the plan by abandoning key fronts and leaving…,” said the Pesh-merga statement. “This plot will fail and the will of our people will prevail.”

Ali Akbar Velayati - a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - was quoted in a report by Tasnim news agency as saying Iran had no role in the Kirkuk operations.

A senior Western diplomat also denied that Iran had played a role.

“This is mythology. Barzani has in the past blamed others for his mistakes including the PUK.

The Catalan crisis is not just about nationalism

This is a difficult year for Spain. First, the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, had to appear in court because of corruption charges levelled against his party; then Barcelona suffered a bloody terrorist

attack; and now a referendum for the independence of Catalonia has plunged the nation into a political crisis that led to Spanish police beating up voters and Madrid threatening to revoke Catalonia’s autonomy.

Article 155, which enables the central govern-ment to do so, is rather vague. We still do not know whether applying it entails the dissolution of the Cat-alan government, taking control of the public security or calling for regional elections. But the imprisonment of two pro-Catalan independence leaders earlier this week indicates we are heading for serious trouble.

What is important to understand now is that there is more than just blind nationalism in the Cata-lan impasse, despite what Madrid and Brussels want us to believe. The Catalan call for independence should not be discredited; it is the rightful demand of millions of Catalans. But one must wonder why most articles about this crisis focus exclusively on the his-torical roots of Catalonian statehood, free citizens’ democratic right to vote, and the inclusive character of Catalonia’s nationalism, which is open to foreigners.

As noble as these historical and democratic argu-ments are, it is important to emphasise, as Owen Jones rightly pointed out, that “Catalonia cannot be understood in isolation. Here is another manifesta-tion of the crisis enveloping the western world”. This is a crisis of governance in which citizens no longer

trust their governments and governments have turned their backs on the people. Why?

The new geopolitical balances that emerged after 9/11 and the financial meltdown of 2008 have put to an end Francis Fukuyama’s happy dream of a global liberal democracy where everything is possible. Instead, this dream turned out to be a nightmare considering the sacrifices (wars, austerity measures, indiscriminate surveillance) that liberal democracies impose on the world. Unfortunately, neither Europe nor the United States has put forward policies to resist the reality this crisis has imposed. There aren’t even signs of improvement: newly created jobs are almost all precarious, and most policy reforms are designed to cut social benefits.

International financial institutions like the Inter-national Monetary Fund continue to call for the reduction of bargaining power of workers, cuts in healthcare, social security and state employment. No wonder that in Spain, unemployment (at 18.6 per-cent) is almost double the eurozone average.

As we’ve seen over the past few years, these lib-eral reforms “to overcome the crisis” have triggered very different political responses throughout Europe, from Syriza’s new progressive left in Greece to Farage’s right-wing xenophobic populism in Britain and a surge of civic nationalism in Scotland and Cata-lonia. The case of Catalonia is interesting not only

because it is the richest region of Spain (with 7.5 mil-lion people, it draws more than a third of Spain’s foreign investment, generates a third of its exports, and is responsible for 20 percent of Spain’s gross domestic product) but also because it is already gov-erned autonomously and is determined to join the EU.

Whereas most countries blamed the EU for the social and economic inequalities and government austerity measures, for Catalan politicians these were primarily Madrid’s fault. Artur Mas, a previous president of the Catalonian Generalitat, explained that the Spanish government forced him to imple-ment austerity cuts that are “impossible to meet without seriously affecting some basic elements of the welfare state.”

Other former presidents of the Catalan government were cautious when blaming Madrid for unfair taxes or other diktats from above, but Mas (a neoliberal) saw an opportunity to promise change, prosperity, and free-dom in a new Catalan state independent from Spain and its outdated constitution. This explains why the nationalist alliance Junts pel Si (Together for yes) that he created with other politicians is made up of forces from both the left and the right.

The current Catalan President Carles Puigde-mont refused to explicitly clarify whether he declared independence after the referendum of October 1. His goal is to force Rajoy’s

The Kurdish independence vote championed by their leader Masoud Barzani was a gamble that may have made his quest for a homeland more elusive

than ever.The September 25 vote won over-

whelming backing for secession but has raised the possibility of a new civil war in Iraq that could draw in regional powers. Baghdad says the vote is illegal.

Just a few months ago, the Iraqi army, Kurdish fighters, known as the Peshmerga, and Iranian-backed Shia paramilitary forces worked together to defeat Islamic State in Mosul.

But that cooperation was short-lived and on Monday Iraqi forces seized Kirkuk—an important oil town for the Opec producer that is also considered by the Kurds to be the heart of their home-land. Iran and Turkey oppose Kurdish independence and Shia militias funded by Tehran are gaining influence across Iraq. Meanwhile divisions between the two par-ties in the ruling Kurdish coalition have deepened.

“Kurds have been managing these areas since the fall of (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein) in 2003 and to change the situation in an instant will make the whole situation as if it is sinking into quicksand,” said Baghdad-based analyst Jasim Al Bahadli, an expert on Shia armed groups.

He said the Shia paramilitary groups’ presence in areas that used to be control-led by Kurds will help create tensions that

Vote may have put independence out of reach for Iraqi Kurds

Spanish Minister of Education, Culture and Sports and Government spokesperson Inigo Mendez de Vigo arriving to make a statement on the situation in Catalonia at the Spanish Congress, yesterday.

But this is mythology designed to get support from the Amer-icans,” he said. PUK leader Jalal Talabani died barely a week after the vote, adding more uncertainty for the Kurds.

Shuras Sherko Jdy, an official in the main opposition Kurdish Gorran Movement, said the Kurds, who gradually built an autonomous region in the north after the 2003 US-led invasion, were facing a leadership crisis.

“Civil war could take place over Kirkuk. I hope it does not. If it does it will encourage the intervention of Iran and Turkey,” he said.

But Iran, like Turkey, worries the vote will encourage their own Kurdish populations to push for homelands and has made no secret of its growing ambitions in Iraq.

The most prominent Iranian figure in Iraq is Major Gen-eral Qassem Soleimani, the commander of foreign operations for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, a military corp provid-ing training and weapons to Iraqi paramilitary groups backing the Shi‘ite-led government in Baghdad.

Ali said Soleimani appeared in Kirkuk two nights before Iraqi security forces attacked. That account was confirmed by an Iranian source in Iraq who said he appeared for “a cou-ple of hours there to give military guidance.”

“Tehran’s military help is not a secret anymore. You can find General Soleimani’s pictures in Iraq everywhere,” said an official close to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

“Now, beside political issues, Kirkuk’s oil is a very key element for Iran, which is an Opec member. Control of those oil fields by Iran’s enemies, would be disastrous for us. Why should we let them enter the oil market?.”

Kurds have sought an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East after the collapse of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire and left Kurdish-populated territory split between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

They have often accused the West of not helping them during times of trouble. President Donald Trump has said the United States would not take sides in the clash.

Some fear the referendum, which gave Iraqi Prime Minis-ter Haider Al Abadi a chance to assert his authority, has put independence further out of reach.

Baghdad has also banned international flights to Kurdish airports and imposed punitive financial measures.

“We used to control our own airports. We used to control our own borders. We were running our own autonomous region...Now we have nothing. Barzani is responsible for this,” said Jdy.

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Madrid government to begin a fruitful dialogue in order to reach an agreement on the region’s independence.

But Madrid, as Pepe Escobar said, “in effect subscribes to only two priorities: dutifully obey EU austerity diktats, and crush by all means any regional push for auton-omy.” This is probably why Rajoy’s government made it easier for firms to relocate, passing a law that allows companies to shift their legal address more quickly; more than 700 (including banks, multi-nationals, and publishers) have decided to move so far from Catalonia.

The fact that the EU uncondi-tionally supports the Spanish prime minister’s policies towards the Catalonia impasse is an indication it cannot afford another Brexit. As President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “If we allow Catalonia - and it is not our business - to separate, others will do the same.” Although First Vice President Frans Timmer-mans condemned Spanish police brutality during the referendum, he also said that “it is a duty for any government to uphold the law, and this sometimes does require the proportionate use of force.”

Those of us who were in Barce-lona that day can testify that there was nothing “proportionate” in the police violence except that its pro-portions made it imperative to call for Rajoy’s resignation. As we can see, this crisis was triggered by more than just nationalism; it is also matter of governance in the “age of anger”.

Santiago ZabalaAl Jazeera

The Catalan call for independence should not be discredited; it is the rightful demand of millions of Catalans. But one must wonder why most articles about this crisis focus exclusively on the historical roots of Catalonian statehood, free citizens’ democratic right to vote, and the inclusive character of Catalonia’s nationalism, which is open to foreigners.

Michael GeorgyReuters

Not all of Iraq’s Kurds, who fought a bloody civil war amongst themselves in the 1990s, supported the idea, raising doubts over the management of any independent state.

10 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017EUROPE

Britain’s Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, visit West Ham United’s London Stadium for the the graduation ceremony of more than 150 Coach Core apprentices, in London, yesterday.

Royal visit

Brussels

AFP

British Prime Minister Theresa May urged EU leaders yesterday to urgently set out plans to move forward with

Brexit negotiations, in particu-lar on the rights of European nationals, as they prepared to delay key trade talks until at least December.

Arriving for the two-day summit, May accepted that her 27 European Union counterparts were unlikely to agree that there has been enough progress on divorce issues to move on to a second phase, saying the meet-ing was intended to “take stock”.

But she urged them to start preparations to discuss trade and a transition deal at the next sum-mit in December, telling reporters they would be “setting out ambitious plans for the weeks ahead”.

In a move to sway EU lead-ers on what is a key topic for them, May published an open let-ter to the three million EU citizens living in Britain yester-day promising they would not be asked to leave after Brexit in March 2019. She said a deal to secure their rights was “within touching distance” — but also

told reporters that she wanted EU leaders to show “an urgency in reaching an agreement”.

EU President Donald Tusk warned he did “not expect any kind of breakthrough”, saying that while there had been “prom-ising progress”, London needed to come up with more concrete proposals.

EU leaders are increasingly vocal about their frustration at divisions in May’s cabinet over Brexit, saying they are still unsure what Britain wants. The talks had to be moved at the last minute from the EU’s new 321m euro Europa summit building after noxious chemicals in the catering area sickened several

people on Wednesday“Lessons from #EUCO

kitchen: fuming over #Brexit must not become toxic,” Lithua-nian Prime Minister Dalia Grybauskaite said on Twitter.

The EU agrees that of the three key separation issues at stake, citizens rights is the most advanced, but sticking points remain. Discussions on the bill Britain must pay to leave mean-while are deadlocked and discussions on Northern Ireland still have far to go.

Over a working dinner with other EU leaders, May will “encourage them to move the conversation on to consider the future partnership and the implementation period,” a sen-ior official said. She will then leave them to discuss Brexit without her today morning.

After five rounds of Brexit negotiations produced few results, fears are growing that Britain may fail to strike a with-drawal agreement before its formal departure on March 29, 2019. May engaged in a whirlwind of diplomacy ahead of the sum-mit, calling the French and German leaders among others and having dinner with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels.

In an apparently symbolic

Valletta

Reuters

Police believe a bomb that killed a prominent journal-ist in Malta was attached

beneath her car and triggered remotely, a government spokes-woman said yesterday, giving the first details of the investigation.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, a renowned blogger and fierce critic of the government, died on Monday in a blast that wrecked her car as she was leaving her house, throwing debris and body parts into a nearby field.

The murder shocked the Mediterranean island, the small-est nation in the European Union, and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Wednesday promised a reward to anyone who came forward with infor-mation about the killing.

However, Caruana Galizia’s

three grown-up sons dismissed the offer, and called instead for Muscat to resign, saying he should take political responsi-bility for the first such murder of a journalist in Malta since the island won independence in 1964. Muscat has ruled out quit-ting and flew to Brussels for an EU summit, where his spokes-woman said investigators were making some progress.

“Emerging evidences make us think that the bomb was placed under the car and was set off with a remote trigger,” she said, adding that foreign experts would be called on to help iden-tify the mobile phone which was used to detonate the bomb.

In a news conference in Val-letta, police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar denied Brit-ish police would join Dutch forensic experts and a team from the US Federal Bureau of

Investigation (FBI) in helping with the case. Muscat’s spokes-woman earlier said British officers would be involved.

Cutajar said no arrests had made so far and added it was too soon to discuss possible motives, telling reporters it would take weeks to collect all the evidence. He also could not confirm reports from a Maltese police source that Semtex explosives were believed to have been used in the killing.

The 53-year-old journalist used her widely read blog to lambast Muscat, his wife and some of his closest advisers, accusing them of setting up off-shore accounts to hide ill-gotten gain. They denied the charges and Muscat was suing Caruana Galizia for libel at the time of her death. “The police may or may not find out who ordered the assassination of our mother but

as long as those who led the country to this point remain in place, none of it will matter,”

her three sons, Matthew, Andrew and Paul, wrote on Facebook.

London

AFP

Britain set a new dead-line of October 30 for Northern Ireland’s

deadlocked political parties to reach a powersharing deal, warning it would otherwise have to impose direct rule.

Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire warned that without any signs of a deal by the end of the month, the government in Westminster would have to pass a budget for the region, adding that “the prospects do not look positive at this time.”

“We’re on a glide path to more Westminster interven-tion,” he told a parliamentary committee in London. “I would like the parties to recognise the spirit of compromise.”

“The best possible out-come is for locally elected politicians to make decisions and be held accountable by a locally elected assembly, that is the bedrock of the Belfast Agreement,” he said, referring to a deal that ended three decades of fighting.

Northern Ireland’s semi-autonomous government collapsed in January, after Sinn Fein pulled out of governing with their DUP counterparts over the handling of a renew-able energy scheme.

Talks between the parties have since failed to break the stalemate, amid further wran-gling over an Irish language law. Former US president Bill Clinton — who helped broker the 1998 peace accord — vis-ited both Northern Ireland, where he met privately with its leaders, and Ireland.

He also met British Prime Minister Theresa May in Lon-don to discuss, among other things, the deadlock. Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar conceded recent progress in easing the stalemate had stalled, and sounded the alarm this week at the potential impact of a continued impasse.

May seeks urgent Brexit plan at EU summit

FROM LEFT: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain Prime minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron talk as they arrive in Brussels yesterday during the summit of European Union (EU) leaders.

move May walked into the sum-mit room flanked by both Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, with the three leaders deep in conversation. Britain’s exit bill is the most poisonous issue. In a speech in Florence last month, May promised to maintain Brit-ain’s contributions for two years after Brexit to complete the cur-rent EU budget period, totalling around 20bn euros ($24bn).

Germany and France insist that there should be no impact on the EU’s budget from Britain’s departure. But European

Parliament chief Antonio Tajani — whose institution will have a final veto on any Brexit deal — told the BBC that “20bn is peanuts. The problem is 50 or 60 (bn euros).”

May is under pressure from senior Brexiteers at home, and a group urged her in a letter on Thursday to walk out of the talks if the EU does not agree to move on to trade. Separately, Britain’s opposition party leader Jeremy Corbyn held talks with leading European Union negotiators on Thursday in what he said was a bid to “break the Brexit logjam”.

The Labour leader, whose unexpected success in a June snap election deprived May of her par-liamentary majority, warned that leaving the EU without a deal would be “catastrophic”.

Macron will push trade onto the agenda with a call to scepti-cal EU counterparts to put the brakes on free trade agreements or risk angering citizens who are increasingly wary of globalisa-tion. The leaders will also deal with foreign affairs including Turkey, the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

In a move to sway EU leaders on what is a key topic for them, May published an open letter to the three million EU citizens living in Britain yesterday promising they would not be asked to leave after Brexit in March 2019.

Samos

AFP

Dozens of tents stud a hillside surrounded by olive trees, while chil-

dren in flimsy sandals — the lucky ones wearing socks — play on mounds of stinking garbage as the sun rises on the Greek island of Samos.

Almost two years since more than a million migrants and ref-ugees crossed into Europe, thousands are still living in squalor after risking their lives crossing the Aegean sea.

“We arrived last night. 42 of us on a small boat,” said Naween Rahimi, an Afghan from Kabul, who is travelling with his wife.

“Some Chinese sold me a tent for €10,” he said, adding that he had worked as an interpreter for the American military. Nearly 300 Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis and Afri-cans from various countries live in this makeshift camp — just a small fraction of a recent surge in migrants arriving from Turkey.

According to the United

Nations refugee agency, 5,000 migrants arrived on Greek islands in September, an increase of 35 percent from the same period a year earlier. That is putting extra pressure on already overcrowded sites at a time when aid agencies are reducing their engagement on the ground.

The September figure com-pares to a total of 13,320 arrivals from January to 20 August, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The resurgence of migrants making the journey to Europe comes despite the EU deal with Turkey in March 2016, which drastically reduced the number of arrivals, and amid political tensions between Ankara and Brussels. A hundred metres away from the makeshift camp, barbed wire surrounds the offi-cial reception centre of Samos, overflowing with people.

There are just 700 places for more than 2,500 migrants, and journalists are banned from entering without permission. “No toilets, no water, and the food is

not good for the youngest,” said Saura, an Iraqi woman outside, pointing to her three shivering children, aged two to 10 years old.

New arrivals travel to the centre each day to try to each get a 1.5-litre bottle of water and a portion of food. They were regis-tered in early October, but their first interview with the Greek asy-lum service is not until January 3.

As well as Samos, 11,722 ref-ugees are staying in reception centres on four other Greek islands (Lesbos, Kos, Chios and Leros), well beyond the total official capacity of just 5,576. “We are in deadlock. They have to move the refugees to the Greek mainland,” said Manos Logothetis, a medical coordina-tor at the Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Keelpno), while also emphasis-ing the need to respect the asylum procedure.

Some fear the recent rise in arrivals and overcrowding could fuel marginalisation and create tensions between the migrants and local communities.

Remotely-detonated bomb ‘causes’ Malta journalist’s death

Journalists gather outside the Parliament in Valletta yesterday in a silent commemoration to mark their sorrow at the murder of blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia and to promise that the savage attack will not intimidate the profession. They carried placards calling for freedom of expression, democracy and justice.

Refugees in ‘deadlock’ on Greekislands as arrivals increase

UK sets Oct 30 deadline for stalled NorthernIreland talks

11FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017 EUROPE

Protest march called by the CGT workers’ union against the French president’s labour law reforms, in Rennes, northwestern France, yesterday.

Protest in France

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Barcelona

AFP

Stressed to “breaking point”: Residents in Barcelona and Madrid were fed up yester-

day as Catalonia’s leader and the central government issued fresh threats over the region’s inde-pendence bid, with no end to the crisis in sight.

Spain’s government said yes-terday that it would press ahead with seizing some of the Catalan regional government’s powers after its separatist leader warned he may declare independence if “repression” continued.

“I’ve reached breaking point, over this whole thing,” says Albert Puig, a 35-year-old com-puter engineer in Barcelona. “Every day, there is ‘a very important deadline, a very important date’. I keep myself informed, but I don’t see a breakthrough.”

Catalan leaders said 90 per-cent of people who voted in the

court-banned referendum backed independence, but turn-out was only 43 percent. “If you had asked me a month ago, I would have responded that I was enthusiastic” about independ-ence, he says. But now, he looks crestfallen, watching the rain fall in the Mediterranean city.

Ariadna Galan is just as downbeat. The 22-year-old stu-dent says she is “disillusioned” and “stressed”. “We watch tel-evision every day, we’re totally insecure,” she says. “We’re just waiting.” Pro-independence, she insists she “respects Spaniards” but feels she is “in a dictatorship again, with people detained because they organised peace-ful protests”. She was referring to the detention of Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, the leaders of two powerful grassroots pro-independence organisations.

Galan is ideologically far removed from Maria Carmen Fernandez, a 71-year-old former teacher, but they share

the sadness of seeing Catalan society divided over the crisis. “We’re Catalan, just like them,” Fernandez says of those who are against independence. “They who insist so much on dialogue have forgotten that there’s a word for that: cohabitation.

In Madrid, meanwhile, resi-dents have also been hit by fatigue. “We need more dialogue, not repression,” says Lola Men-dez, a 63-year-old Spanish teacher. “I’m fed up. The situa-tion is really complicated.”

But 67-year-old Alfons Fern-andez is exasperated with Catalan separatist leaders. “If someone wants to talk but doesn’t respect the law, then there is no talk possible,” he says. Cecilia Molano, a 41-year-old graphic designer, says she’s “scared” seeing a rise in nationalism not only in Cata-lonia but in the rest of Spain. A rise that reminds her of the 1939-75 dictatorship of Fran-cisco Franco.

Brussels

AFP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French Pres-ident Emmanuel Macron

voiced strong support for Madrid in the Catalan independence cri-sis yesterday, backing the Spanish government’s response to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

EU leaders gathering for a summit in Brussels closed ranks behind Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, saying the stand-off over Catalonia’s independence drive must be settled within the provisions of Spain’s constitution. The show of unity comes as Madrid vowed to take back some of the Catalan regional govern-ment’s powers and its leader warned he could declare inde-pendence, deepening the crisis still further. “We back the posi-tion of the Spanish government,” Merkel said. “We hope there are solutions found on the basis of the Spanish constitution.” Brus-sels has insisted the dispute over Catalonia’s referendum is an internal matter for key EU mem-ber Spain, backing Madrid’s position that the vote was ille-gal, but calling for dialogue.

France has been outspoken in its support of the Madrid gov-ernment during the crisis, with Macron charging recently that the separatists were motivated in part by “economic selfish-ness”. The French president told reporters in Brussels he expected the 28 EU leaders to voice solid support for Madrid. “This Euro-pean Council will be marked by a message of unity—unity with our member states facing crises, unity with Spain and very strong unity in discussions about Brexit,” he said. Rajoy waved to waiting journalists but remained silent as he arrived at the sum-mit building, where he was greeted with a bear hug by Euro-pean Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Madrid/Barcelona

Reuters

Spain’s central govern-ment said yesterday that it would suspend Catalonia’s autonomy and impose direct rule

after the region’s leader threat-ened to go ahead with a formal declaration of independence if Madrid refused to hold talks.

In a move unprecedented since Spain returned to democ-racy in the late 1970s, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he would hold a special cabinet meeting tomorrow that could trigger the move. The Socialist opposition said it backed the government but suggested the measures should be limited in scope and time.

Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, ignoring a 10am deadline to drop his secession campaign, wrote a letter to Rajoy threatening a formal declaration of independence.

The war of words increased uncertainty over a standoff that has raised fears of social unrest, cut growth prospects for the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy and rattled the euro. “If the gov-ernment continues to impede dialogue and continues with the repression, the Catalan parlia-ment could proceed, if it is considered opportune, to vote on a formal declaration of inde-pendence,” Puigdemont said.

Catalonia, which has a dis-tinctive culture and language, triggered Spain’s biggest politi-cal crisis for decades with a secession bid it put to a referen-dum on October 1. Only 43 percent of voters participated but those who did voted overwhelm-ingly to secede, while opponents of secession mostly stayed home.

Spanish courts have ruled the referendum illegal, but Puig-demont says the result is binding and must be obeyed.

The regional authorities have not made clear how and when a declaration of independence would take place and whether it would be endorsed by the

regional assembly. Rajoy plans to invoke Article

155 of the 1978 constitution, which allows him to take con-trol of a region if it breaks the law. A senior government source said the exact measures would be agreed tomorrow and prob-ably voted through the upper house Senate on October 30, giv-ing the secessionists a few days of leeway to respond before Madrid takes control.

The regional authorities could use that time to split uni-laterally, call elections in the hope of strengthening their man-date, or back down, although this is seen as highly unlikely. “From the moment the measures are known, the regional government knows what’s going to happen and has a period of time to act until 155 can be acted upon,” the source said.

The terms of Article 155 are vague and could spur more wrangling with the restive region. “The government will use all the tools available to restore as soon as possible the law and the constitutional order, recover peaceful cohabitation between citizens and stop the economic damage that the legal uncer-tainty is creating,” government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said in a statement.

Rajoy’s team met members of the socialist party to coordi-nate their next steps.Madrid’s options range from closing down the regional parliament and expelling lawmakers, to a softer and more targeted approach. Theoretically, the central admin-istration could take control of the region’s finances and police, and call a snap election.

Ischia

AFP

Tech giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter will come under

pressure in Italy this week to go further and faster in helping G7 powers tackle the ever-greater threat of extremists online.

A two-day meeting of Group of Seven interior ministers, which kicks off on the Italian island of Ischia, comes just days after US-backed forces took full control of Raqa in Syria, which had become a byword for atroc-ities carried out by the Islamic State group.

Despite the breakthrough in the battle against IS, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service said Tuesday that the UK was facing its most severe ter-rorist threat ever, particularly due to the spread of jihadist material online.

MI5 head Andrew Parker said attacks could now acceler-ate rapidly from inception to action, and “this pace, together with the way extremists can exploit safe spaces online, can make threats harder to detect”.

In a first for a G7 meeting, representatives from Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twit-ter will take part in the talks

between the seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

“The internet plays a deci-sive role in radicalization. Over 80 percent of conversations and radicalisation happen online,” said Italy’s Marco Minniti, who is hosting the summit on the vol-canic island off Naples.

“We need to study a system for automatically blocking spe-cific content. IS contaminated the web with a ‘terror malware’. The providers need to help us block this malware with an automatic antivirus,” Minniti said.

Ukraine lawmakers okay health reforms KIEV: Ukrainian lawmakers voted through a long-delayed overhaul of the health system yesterday that the state’s Western backers say will raise standards and tackle a culture of bribe-taking in surgeries and hospitals.

But opponents of the changes, including many opposition MPs, say the more Western-style system will force patients to pay for their medicines for the first time, leaving the poorest with no healthcare. The legislation lets patients choose their own doctor, rather than have one foisted on them - a move the government said would encourage medics to improve service and give them less opportunity to demand kickbacks for treatment. The bill also sets out which med-icines are paid for by the state and which ones patients will have to buy themselves.

Backers have said it would be clearer than the present system, where medicines are in theory covered by the state, but patients often have to pay to get hold of pills when supplies run short.

Berlin

Reuters

A female German politician has triggered a fierce debate by accusing a

former ambassador of sexism after he failed to recognise her at a conference and then said he was not expecting such a young and beautiful woman as a speaker.

Sawsan Chebli, a 39-year-old state secretary in the Berlin city government, said she was sitting in the front row waiting to speak at a meeting of the Indo-German Society but was not recognised by the head of

the group, Hans-Joachim Kid-erlen. When he realised his mistake, the retired former Ger-man ambassador to India reportedly said: “I wasn’t expecting such a young woman. And you are also so beautiful.”

Chebli, a member of the cen-tre-left Social Democrats, went ahead with her speech but posted on her Facebook page afterwards that she was in shock.

“Of course, I’m always expe-riencing sexism, but I have never experienced anything like what happened today,” she said. Her comments prompted an outpour-ing in German newspapers and

social media, already abuzz as million of women across the world have been sharing their experiences of sexual harassment and abuse in an online campaign using the hashtag #MeToo.

Chebli, a former spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry born to Palestinian refugee parents, was swamped with insults on her Facebook page, including sugges-tions that she wear a Muslim headscarf if she does not want to receive compliments. Kiderlen wrote to Chebli to apologise for his “inappropriate address and greeting”, the Tagesspiegel daily reported yesterday.

Spain to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy Rajoy plans to invoke Article 155 of the 1978 constitution, which allows him to take control of a region if it breaks the law.

Spain’s Prime minister Mariano Rajoy arrives in Brussels yesterday to attend the first day of a summit of European Union leaders.

Barcelona & Madrid residents ‘fed up’

Merkel, Macron back Rajoy in Catalan crisis

G7 to put squeeze on Internet giants

Sexism or compliment? Politician stokes debate

12 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017AMERICAS

Demonstrators chant during a #NoMuslimBanEver rally and march “to protest discriminatory policies that unlawfully target and hurt American Muslim and immigrant communities across the country” in Washington, DC.

Immigration protest

New York

AFP

Russia is using election interference as a “weapon of choice” to

undermine democracy worldwide and must be held accountable for this “war-fare,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said yesterday.

“When a country can come and interfere in another country’s elections, that is warfare, it really is,” Haley told a panel discussion in New York organised by the George W Bush institute.

“We didn’t just see it here — you can look at France, you can look at other countries. They are doing this every-where. This is their weapon of choice,” she said.

The US Congress is look-ing into an alleged Russian campaign aimed at influenc-ing the outcome of the 2016 election and a special coun-sel, Robert Mueller, has been appointed to oversee a fed-eral investigation into the allegations.

Election interference is war-fare “because you are making sure that the democracy shifts from what the people want,” said Haley. “We have to be so hard on this,” Haley said about the Russian role. “We have to hold them accountable.”

Hillary Clinton has pinned part of the blame for her loss to Trump in the November vote to Russian hacking of her campaign emails and use of social media. Moscow has denied the allegations. Two former US secretaries of state, Madeleine Albright and Con-doleezza Rice, told the panel that Russia was resorting to more sophisticated cyber tac-tics to weaken the US.

Utuado

AFP

It’s been a month since Hurri-cane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico and Samuel de

Jesus still can’t drive out of his isolated, blacked-out town. In fact, much of the US territory in the Caribbean is still a crippled mess four weeks after that fierce Category Four storm.

The bridge connecting Rio Abajo to the rest of the island was swept away when Maria slammed the island on Septem-ber 20. For two weeks Rio Abajo, located in a mountainous region in central-western Puerto Rico, was cut off and forgotten, with-out power or phone service.

“We didn’t know what to do. We were literally going crazy,”

said de Jesus, 35. “Those were difficult, desperate days. We could not find a way out, and the hurricane caused extensive dam-age,” he said.

During the two long weeks following Maria, the 27 families living in Rio Abajo saw their sup-plies quickly deplete. De Jesus, who has diabetes, needed to keep his insulin refrigerated. The storm blew away the island’s already decrepit power grid, so people resorted to emergency generators. “But I was running out of petrol to run the generator,” he said.

A helicopter now makes reg-ular deliveries of food, water and medicine because with the bridge washed out, there is no other way in or out of town. Peo-ple can’t wade across the river because it is contaminated with

human waste after a pipe broke when the bridge went.

Some brave souls use a pre-carious ladder rigged to get across the water, but for most people it is too dangerous. We need a bridge “to take out our vehicles and leave in case of emergency, or if there is a landslide,” he said.

Where the bridge once stood, residents set up a system of ropes, pulleys and buckets to move supplies over the river, which has been contaminated with sewer water since the hur-ricane. Over the remains of the bridge locals hung the single-star, red, white and blue flag of Puerto Rico and a sign that reads “the campsite of the forgotten.”

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello visited the sur-rounding municipality of Utuado

on Wednesday to deliver sup-plies, but he did not stop in Rio Abajo. “Utuado is certainly one of the most severely affected municipalities in all of Puerto Rico,” Rossello said. “Our com-mitment is to give it support and aid during the whole road to recovery.” Eighty-one percent of Puerto Rico remains blacked out one month after Maria struck. Clean water for drinking, cook-ing and bathing is scarce, too.

Puerto Ricans’ main obstacle to getting back to some sem-blance of normality is the slowness of the Puerto Rico Elec-tric Power Authority in getting the power grid back up and running. The lack of power has paralyzed a key industry and most busi-nesses including restaurants are closed or operating at great cost.

Washington

AFP

US regulators have approved a second form of gene therapy to fight

cancer. The treatment, called Yescarta, is the first immuno-therapy on the US market for certain kinds of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes.

Known as a chimeric anti-gen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, Yescarta modifies a patient’s white blood cells so they can attack and kill lym-phoma. The treatment is expected to cost about $373,000, and is only approved for people who have relapsed twice after

at least two other kinds of treat-ment. “Today marks another milestone in the development of a whole new scientific paradigm for the treatment of serious dis-eases,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said.

“In just several decades, gene therapy has gone from being a promising concept to a practical solution to deadly and largely untreatable forms of can-cer,” he added. “This approval demonstrates the continued momentum of this promising new area of medicine.”

The FDA approved the first gene therapy against cancer in August, a leukemia treatment called Kymriah, made by Novartis. Its cost is estimated

at $475,000. Yescarta was ini-tially developed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute in Washington, DC. A deal was struck with Kite Pharma to develop the drug. Gilead Pharmaceuticals purchased Kite for $11.9bn this year.

About 3,500 patients in the United States may be candi-dates for treatment with Yescarta, including those with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common type of Non-Hodgkin lym-phoma in adults.

Patients must first have their immune cells removed, then modified in a lab for re-infusion. Side effects can be severe, even fatal, particularly

in the first couple of weeks after treatment. These include cytokine release syndrome (CRS), when the body reacts neg-atively to the infusion of CAR-T “cells causing high fever and flu-like symptoms,” as well as the risk of brain damage.

“Both CRS and neurologic toxicities can be fatal or life-threatening,” the FDA warned.

“Other side effects include serious infections, low blood cell counts and a weakened immune system.” In a trial involving more than 100 patients with refrac-tory or relapsed large B-cell lymphoma, 51 percent went into complete remission after treat-ment with Yescarta, according to the FDA.

Richmond

AFP

Barack Obama is returning to the polit-ical arena for the first time in months after keeping a low profile

and avoiding direct confronta-tion with his White House successor.

The 56-year-old former president is scheduled to attend campaign rallies in New Jersey and Virginia to support Demo-cratic party candidates for governor. Voters in both states will decide the gubernatorial contests on November 7, one year after Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clin-ton and stormed into the White House on a wave of anti-estab-lishment fury.

The races are a potential

indicator of voter sentiment ahead of the 2018 midterm elec-tions, which will be a major test for Trump and his Republican party. “There are only two big elections this year, for governor in NJ and VA,” political science professor Larry Sabato said.

“What’s at stake is bragging rights headed into the 2018 mid-term elections,” Sabato said.

It is unclear what Obama’s message will be. The former US leader has remained largely detached from the political debate since leaving office on January 20, in keeping with presidential tradition.

Trump has meanwhile used his first nine months in the White House to methodically demolish key Obama administration poli-cies. After three months of vacation Obama began writing his memoirs. He has said little in public and granted almost no interviews. The few times Obama broke his silence was to comment on issues of national importance, such as immigration, health care and climate change.

But the 44th president may be tempted to take aim at Trump, who has frequently and publicly excoriated his predecessor.

In New Jersey, the post of

governor will almost certainly go to Democrat Philip Murphy, a Trump ally whose popularity has plummeted to record lows. New Jersey “is a runaway win for the Democrats, so Virginia is the only competitive contest. Obama is needed much more in Richmond than Trenton,” said Sabato, referring to the capitals of the two states.

Virginia is a pivotal state and the only southern US state that Clinton won in 2016. Its impor-tance is amplified by its proximity to the US capital. “If the GOP loses in Virginia, Trump will be widely blamed since he is so unpopular in a state carried by Hillary Clinton,” Sabato said.

“Should the Republicans win Virginia’s governorship, then Trump will not be viewed as such a liability for the GOP in 2018.” In Richmond, Obama will

back Ralph Northam, a former military doctor who was cred-ited Wednesday with a slight lead over Republican Ed Gillespie in a Quinnipiac poll.

Obama’s impending arrival in the city of over 220,000 people sparked long lines of people seek-ing tickets to the campaign event. Well aware of the importance of the vote, Trump has backed Gillespie and accused Northam of “fighting for the violent MS-13,” a Hispanic gang, as well as “sanc-tuary cities” that offer shelter to illegal immigrants.

Gillespie, a former adviser to president George W Bush who has become a millionaire lobby-ist, has so far kept a cautious distance from the mercurial Trump, whose backing recently failed to ensure the election of his pick in a Republican Senate race in Alabama.

Obama returns to the political arenaThe 56-year-old former president is scheduled to attend campaign rallies in New Jersey and Virginia to support Democratic party candidates for governor.

Puerto Rico mostly in the dark one month after hurricane

Trenton

Anatolia

Muslim women will be forced to remove their face coverings and

burkas to access public serv-ices, including riding a bus, under a new law passed on Wednesday by the Quebec National Assembly.

Bill 62, known as the reli-gious neutrality legislation, forbids public workers and those who wish to access a pub-lic service from wearing a face covering, including the niqab and burka. Public workers include teachers, day care workers and doctors.

The bill was introduced in 2015 but was shelved after the shooting at a Quebec City mosque, where six Muslims died while at prayer on January 29.

The government wants to keep deep separation between state and religion - to reduce the presence of conspicuous religious symbols in public. It is considered a fundamental Que-bec value that the state not promote religion.

Quebec Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee said the law is necessary for “communica-tion reasons, identification reasons and security reasons.

“This is a bill about le vivre ensemble (living together in harmony), it’s a bill about guidelines and clearly estab-lishes the neutrality of the state,” Vallee said. But the Canadian Council of Muslim Women’s Samaa Elibyari said the law is disturbing because it focuses on Muslims.

“It gives the impression that

we are a problem,” Elibyari said. Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre has criticised the bill and said the province has no right to tell city workers what to wear. He also worried about employees like bus drivers telling riders they have to remove anything that covers their faces before boarding a municipal bus.

Vallee said a woman wear-ing a niqab or burka would have to remove the clothing while using public transit.

Guidelines on how to apply the law and who will do it will be phased in by the end of next June, after consultations with groups, Vallee said.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims said it is studying its options, including the possibility of a court chal-lenge. Vallee said she expected the bill to be tested.

“In every piece of legisla-tion, there’s a risk of it being contested by those who don’t agree with it,” she said. Coderre said there could be tense situ-ations, particularly on buses.

“We have niqab police as bus drivers?” he said. “Will we refuse to provide them services if they are freezing with their children?”

Officials said the Muslim community would have an opportunity to give opinions on the face covering ban in the near future but it is possible to apply for an exemption. And those who provide spiritual guidance are exempted. Others have said the new law will not stand up to a legal challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

New Quebec law orders removal of niqab and burka to access services

US okays second gene therapy against cancer

Russia waging ‘warfare’ by interfering in elections: Haley

Residents clean their home, after Hurricane Maria hit the island in September, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, yesterday.

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Yesterday’s answer

SHOWING ATVILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER

BABY

BLU

ES

ALL IN THE MIND

AGES, ATTOSECOND, CALENDAR, CENTURY, CLOCK, DATE, DAYS, DECADE, EONS, EPHEMERA, ERAS, ETERNITY, FEMTOSECOND, FOREVER, FORTNIGHT, FUTURE, HOUR, HOURGLASS, INFINITY, INSTANT, LEAP YEAR, MICROSECOND, MILLENNIUM, MILLISECOND, MINUTE, MOMENT, MONTH, NANOSECOND, OLYMPIAD, PAST, PERIOD, PICOSECOND, PRESENT, SECOND, SUNDIAL, TIME, WATCH, WEEK, YEAR, YORE.

5:00 NEWSHOUR

6:30 People & Power

7:00 News

7:30 The Stream

8:30 Risking It All

9:00 Al Jazeera World

10:30 Inside Story

11:30 The Stream

12:00 News

12:30 101 East

13:00 NEWSHOUR

14:00 News

14:30 Inside Story

15:00 Death By Design

16:00 NEWSHOUR

17:00 News

17:30 The Stream

18:00 newsgrid

19:00 News

19:30 Earthrise

20:00 News

20:30 Inside Story

21:00 NEWSHOUR

22:00 News

22:30 UpFront

23:00 Scent From Heaven

06:45 Abandoned

Engineering

07:30 Gold Rush

09:45 Boy To Man

10:30 Garage Gold

11:00 How Do They Do

It?

12:47 Street

Outlaws

13:37 Carspotting

14:27 Misfit Garage

15:17 Street Customs

Berlin

18:32 Street Customs

19:17 Garage Gold

19:42 Garage Gold

20:07 How Do They Do

It?

20:33 How Do They Do

It?

21:00 Street

Outlaws

21:50 Carspotting

22:40 Misfit Garage

23:30 Deadliest

Catch

05:02 Wildest

Islands

10:05 Wildest

Islands

11:00 Escape To Chimp

Eden

15:35 Lone Star Law

16:30 Treehouse

Masters

17:25 Cats 101

18:20 Dogs 101: New

Tricks

18:48 Dogs 101: New

Tricks

19:15 Rugged

Justice

20:10 Escape To Chimp

Eden

20:38 Escape To Chimp

Eden

21:05 Cats 101

22:00 Dogs 101: New

Tricks

22:28 Dogs 101: New

Tricks

22:55 Wildest

11:30 Alex & Co.

11:55 Alex & Co.

12:20 Lolirock

12:45 Lolirock

15:40 Stuck In The

Middle

16:05 Liv And

Maddie

16:30 Tangled Before

Ever After

17:30 The Zhuzhus

19:10 Disney Mickey

Mouse

19:15 Liv And

Maddie

20:05 Jessie

20:30 Cracke

21:00 K.C.

Undercover

21:50 Sunny

Bunnies

22:20 Alex & Co.

22:45 Lolirock

23:05 Disney Mickey

Mouse

23:10 Sabrina Secrets

Conceptis Sudoku: Conceptis Sudoku is a number-

placing puzzle based on a 9×9 grid. The object is to

place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so

that each row, each column and each 3×3 box

contains the same number only once.

CROSSWORD

CONCEPTIS SUDOKU

Yesterday's answer

NOVO — PearlMother (2D/Drama) 10:30am, 1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30 & 11:00pm Geostorm (2D/Thriller) 10:00am, 12:20, 12:30, 2:40, 3:15, 5:00, 6:00, 7:20, 8:45, 9:40, 11:30pm & 12:00midnightMonster Family (Animation) 3D 10:00am, 2:00pm 2D 12:00noon, 4:00, 6:00 & 8:00pm One Last Heist (2D/Crime) 10:00pm & 12:00midnightRenegades (2D/Action) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00pm & 12:00midnightThe Foreigner (2D/Action) 10:00am, 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7:00, 9:15 & 11:30pmThe Son Of Bigfoot (2D/Animation) 10:00am, 12:00noon & 2:00pmBlade Runner 2049 (2D) 4:00, 7:15 & 10:30pmSecret Superstar (2D/Action) 11:00am, 2:00, 5:00, 8:00 & 11:00pmGolmaal Again (2D/Hindi) 10:30am, 1:45, 5:00, 8:15 & 11:30pm Geostorm(3D IMAX/Thriller)10:15am, 12:30, 2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 9:30&11:45pm

MALL

Secret Superstar (2D/Hindi) 2:00 & 11:15pm Monster Family (2D/Animation) 2:00, 3:45 & 5:30pmMersal (2D/Tamil) 2:30, 5:15 & 11:00pmRaja: The Great (Telugu) 4:45pmGeostorm (2D/Action) 7:30 & 9:30pm Mother (2D/Drama) 7:15 & 11:30pmThe Hatton Garden Job (One Last Heist) (2D/Action) 9:30pmGolmaal Again (2D/Hindi) 8:15pm

LANDMARKRaja: The Great (Telugu) 2:15pmMonster Family (2D/Animation) 2:15, 4:00 & 5:45pmSecret Superstar (2D/Hindi) 2:15 & 6:45pm The Hatton Garden Job (One Last Heist) (2D/Action) 5:00pmMersal (2D/Tamil) 5:00, 6:45 & 10:45pm; Geostorm (2D/Action) 7:30, 9:30 & 11:30pm; Golmaal Again (2D/Hindi) 8:00pm Mother (2D/Drama) 9:30 & 11:30pm

ROYAL PLAZA

ROXY

Mersal(2D/Tamil) 2:15 & 11:00pm Monster Family(2D/Animation) 2:30 & 4:30pmSecret Superstar (2D/Hindi) 4:45pm The Hatton Garden Job (One Last Heist) (2D/Action) 5:15pmGolmaal Again (2D/Hindi) 5:00 & 11:30pm Special Show 6:30 & 9:00pm Geostorm (2D/Action) 7:00, 9:00 & 11:30pm Mother (2D/Drama) 7:30 & 9:30pm

Monster Family(2D/Animation) 12:00noon, 2:20, 4:40 & 7:00pm Golmaal Again (2D/Hindi) 12:00noon, 3:10, 6:20, 9:30pm & 12:40amGeostorm (Thriller) 12:00noon, 2:20, 4:40, 7:00. 9:20 & 11:40pm

Mersal (2D/Tamil) 12:00noon, 3:20, 6:40, 9:20 10:00pm & 12:40am

ASIAN TOWNMersal (2D/Tamil) 12:00noon, 1:00, 3:00, 3:15, 4:15, 6:00, 6:30, 7:30, 9:45, 10:45pm, 12:00midnight & 12:45, 01:45 & 03:00am Parava (2D/Malayalam) 9:00pm Raju: The Great (2D/Telugu) 3:15pm Secret Superstar 6:00pm Golmaal Again (Hindi) 12:15 & 8:45pm

AL KHORMersal (2D/Tamil) 10:30am, 1:30, 4:45, 8:00 & 11:15pm Secret Superstar (2D/Hindi) 11:00am, 2:00, 8:00 & 11:00pm; Raja The Great (2D/Telugu) 6:00pm Golmaal Again (2D/Hindi) 5:00pm Geostorm 10:30am, 1:00, 3:30, 8:45 & 11:15pm

16 FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2017MORNING BREAK

Raynald C RiveraThe Peninsula

The inaugural edition of the Katara Photography Festi-val, which opened on Wednesday, is a feast to eye and intellect featuring an

exhibition of stunning images by five known photographers in Doha and around the world who will conduct a series of photography workshops.

Visitors to the photo exhibition being held at Katara Building 19 will witness a wide variety of innovative styles and unique perspectives that can be gleaned from the rich body of works of photographers from Ger-many, Lebanon, Qatar and the Philippines.

From the exemplary work by Ger-man photographer Jordis Schloesser taken during her trips around the world to Filipina photographer And-rea Buenafe’s perspective of Doha to Lebanese lensman Tony Hage’s inno-vative work as well as pieces by the

popular Qatari brothers, Nasser and Hassan Al-Emadi, the pictures dis-played reflect unique style and creativity. “It is an honour to be part of the festival in its first edition and to be one of the photographers cho-sen to be featured in this exhibition,” said Buenafe, a self-taught photog-rapher who has taken a career in the media industry in Qatar.

With a keen interest in architec-ture and landscape photography, Buenafe said the key to taking beau-tiful photos is to appreciate the surroundings and this is evident in around 20 photos she is showcasing she took mostly in Qatar in addition to a couple of images taken in Thailand and Hong Kong. “The theme for the exhibition is ‘Excitement’ so I based my selection of photos based on how I felt while taking them. I take photos to show people how beautiful life is,” she added.

“I think it’s a great start for the fes-tival and I’m very honoured that I can take part in it. I have been a photog-rapher for 30 years and I have

exhibited my photos a lot, but not yet in the Middle East and in Qatar that’s why I’m very happy to be here,” said Schloesser.

Though this is the first time her photos are showcased in Qatar, Schloesser is not new to Doha. She was invited by the Goethe Institut to conduct a workshop in February as part of Qatar Germany Year of Cul-ture and did a reportage for Al Jazeera 16 years ago.

“What interests me is to tell stories about people and social reality and to look for emotions that we are all share because I think through these moments of strong emotions, we can get access to other worlds which are normally unfamiliar or even alien to all of us,” she explained.

Katara General Manager Dr. Kha-lid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti said: “Katara is a valley of cultures and is an authen-tic platform that displays culture and art under one hub. The first edition of the Photography Festival is one of the prominent events that we eagerly hope that amateur and professional

photographers consider an essential platform in building their career path. Through the launch of this festival we seek to enhance the joint-cooperation and the knowledge exchange amongst the distinctive community of photog-raphers.” The photographers conduct workshops for photography enthusi-asts on the weekends throughout the festival including ‘An introduction to street photography’ by Schloesser, ‘Art of Reportage Photography’ by El hage, ‘Basics of Digital Photography’ by Buenafe and ‘Basics of Studio Lighting’ by Hassan Al-Emadi.

A photography competition was launched online on October 1, the win-ners of which will be displayed in a gallery on October 20.

Katara Deputy General Manager, Eng. Ahmad A. Rahman Al Sayed offi-cially inaugurated the festival at a VIP opening ceremony attended by ambas-sadors, officials and VIP guests.

The exhibition, which also displays old cameras and photography equip-ment, is open to the public until October 30, from 10am to 10pm.

QNA

WaishApp was developed after a directive from Oman’s govern-ment that encouraged

entrepreneurs to support the tourism indus-try, and now its creators are ready to take it to the next step.

Javier Sanchez, Rashid Al Barwani, Mohammed Al Asfoor and Pablo Domingo developed WaishApp, initially for visitors to Oman. They have submitted plans for a Qatari version to Challenge 22 - the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Lega-cy’s flagship innovation programme.

The app helps users reach activities beyond typical concierge services, thereby encouraging tourists to enjoy authentic local experiences, and Sanchez explained the ethos behind WaishApp.

“We wanted to build an app which gives people a real vibe of what’s going on in the region,” he said. “Through WaishApp peo-ple will be able to enjoy unique experiences in just three clicks. The app will have its own community - people who have a sense of discovery and enjoying their travels.”

WaishApp is one of six finalists in Chal-lenge 22’s ‘Tourism Experience’ field. If chosen as a winner, WaishApp will receive a $15,000 grant to develop the idea to proof of concept phase, along with access to var-ious experts. Now in its second cycle, Challenge 22 aims to boost innovation, busi-ness and entrepreneurship in Qatar and across the Arab world.

Al Barwani believes Challenge 22 can

help WaishApp realise its potential. “We applied to Challenge 22 because we saw it as an opportunity to get our concept out there,” said Al Barwani. “We are really keen to get the support, advice and experience we need to succeed with this business.”

Challenge 22 has already boosted WaishApp by validating the business plan, said Al Barwani. “I believe Challenge 22 has already helped us achieve what we wanted in the first place, which was to validate the concept of WaishApp and get exposure in the region. We believe if we were to win Challenge 22 this year it will help us boost our business in a big way, not only finan-cially but through the expert advice we need to succeed.”

Sanchez believes WaishApp can sup-port local Qatari businesses benefit from hosting the FIFA World Cup. “Our strategy is aligned with the local business commu-nity understanding that the World Cup is an opportunity to put them on the map,” he continued. “We aim to support the job mar-ket, expose local businesses to regional and international markets, and introduce a tech culture to help the current supply chain face 21st century challenges.”

WaishApp has the potential to signif-icantly boost tourism in Qatar, says Al Barwani. “The app will help in promoting Qatar in a big way,” said Al Barwani. “It will contain all the information you would expect from a major website, but in a sim-ple way that makes it easy for people to connect with the attractions, events and each other.”

First edition of Katara Photography Festival opens

Challenge 22: Omani entrepreneurs develop app to boost tourism in Qatar

Paris

AFP

Asterix, the plucky Gaul with the rotund sidekick, has come charging back in the

37th book in the legendary comic series, which went on sale across Europe yesterday.

“Asterix and the Chariot Race” recounts the adventures of the shrewd Gallic hero and his peren-nial partner in mischief Obelix during a mad dash down the length

of the Italian peninsula. Five mil-lion copies of “Asterix et la Transitalique”, as it’s titled in the original French, have been printed for the first edition, with two mil-lion alone reserved for France and 1.7 million for Germany.

In a sign of the enduring glo-bal appeal, it has been translated into 16 languages. In keeping with tradition the Albert Rene publish-ing house has kept the details of the story under wraps, releasing just the bare outline of the only

Asterix story set entirely on the Italian peninsula. The action takes place in 50 BC with Julius Caesar trying to prove “that all of Italy is in thrall to Rome” even though “many regions are determined to maintain their independence”.

Apart from the two Gauls, the book also features Bretons, Picts (Scots), Goths and Phoenicians. More than 370 million Asterix books have been sold since Goscinny and Uderzo first brought him to life in the Franco-Belgium comic magazine Pilote.

Asterix returns for the 37th adventure

Author Jean-Yves Ferri (left) and illustrator Didier Conrad pose with a copy of their new comic album “Asterix et la Transitalique” after an interview in Vanves near Paris, yesterday.

Emiri Land Force concludes Nasr 2017 exercise

Continued from page 1Al Hajeri said the exercise also contributed to raising

the capabilities of the participants in the command, coor-dination and control, the general staff, reconnaissance and logistics, in addition to strengthening the ability to analyze the actions of the enemy in the area of operations and increase interaction and harmony between ground forces and other units participating in the exercise.

The exercise Manager pointed out that the idea of the exercise was designed to achieve the mission of the Emiri Land Force, the Brigade of Jassim bin Mohammed, the Emiri Guard and the Armed Forces in defending the state’s land and its vital, economic, strategic and infrastructure facili-ties, by repelling ground operations and airdrop, and intercept and repel sea and air penetrations, both at night and day.

FAJRSHOROOK

04.18 am

05.34 am

ZUHRASR

11.19 am

02.36 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

05.05 pm

06.35 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 05:15 – 17:00 LOW TIDE 11:15 – 23:15

Hazy to misty at places at first be-

comes hot daytime with slight dust

and some clouds, relatively humid

by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

28oC 37oC