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Emir patronises opening of US-Islamic World ForumThe Peninsula

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani yesterday pat-ronised the opening of the US-Islamic World Forum aim-ing to explore opportunities to

strengthening cooperation between the Islamic world and the United States of America.

The opening ceremony of the Forum at Conrad Hotel in New York City was attended by State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Sweden, Annika Soder; Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Yusuf Garaad Omar; and High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations and Represent-ative of the UN Secretary-General in the Forum, Nassir bin Abdulaziz Al Nasser; along with a host of senior officials and experts, parliamentarians, academics, opinion leaders, businessmen, economists and media personnel from the United States and the Muslim world, QNA reported yesterday.

The Emir met a number of Their

Excellencies the Ministers and senior offi-cials, guests of the US-Islamic World Forum at its headquarters in New York city yesterday.

→ Continued on page 2

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the opening of the US-Islamic World Forum in New York, yesterday.

Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani with UK Secretary of Defence, Sir Michael Fallon, at the Emiri Diwan, yesterday.

Qatar Post unveils new identityIrfan Bukhari The Peninsula

Under its transforma-tion process to keep up with the digital age

and diversify its portfolio of products and services, Qatar Post yesterday launched its new identity unveiling new logo.

The ceremony was attended by the Prime Min-ister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jas-sim bin Saif Al Sulaiti, Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, Minister of Administrative Develop-ment, Labour and Social Affairs H E Dr Issa bin Saad

Al Jafali Al Nuaimi, Minis-ter of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali, Minister of Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs H E Dr Ghaith bin Mubarak Al Kuwari and Qatar Air-ways CEO Akbar Al Baker.

“The launching of new identity and strategic direc-tion of Qatar Post represents a new chapter in the achieve-ments of the modern State of Qatar and an important step in realising Qatar National Vision 2030 under the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the directives of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdul-lah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, which attaches par-ticular importance to the ICT sector and considers it as the

basis for Qatar’s vision of building a knowledge-based society and a diverse digital economy that will cater to the needs of future

generations and achieve social and economic well-being,” Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti said.→ Continued on page 4

Mohammad Shoeb The Peninsula

Defying the ongoing siege imposed on Qatar, foreign investors and companies are showing increas-

ing interest in the country to tap the thriving business opportunities in the booming Qatari economy.

Within the first hundred days of

the ongoing blockade, over 250 com-panies have already started their operations with a significant number of them shifting from the UAE, one of the blockading countries, said a top official of Qatar Chamber.

“Over the last three months, more than 250 companies have already begun their operations in a wide range of sectors, including manufacturing

industries, food and food processing, drugs, healthcare services, legal serv-ices, education, IT and IT-enabled services. And more than 100 of these newly-registered firms are from the UAE, that are shifting their operations from Dubai’s Jabel Ali Free Zone to Qatar,” Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi, Direc-tor-General of QC, said.


The Peninsula

The Minister of State of Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin Moham-med Al Attiyah and the Secretary

of State for Defence of the United King-dom, Michael Fallon, yesterday signed a Letter of Intent at the Ministry’s head-quarters, which aims to strengthen cooperation and mutual support in the military and technical fields.

The Directorate of Moral Guidance at the Ministry of Defence announced that the Letter of Intent also includes

Ministry’s proposed purchase 24 Typhoon aircraft. Both Ministers discussed aspects of cooperation in the military field, espe-cially in the field of combatting terrorism and violent extremism. The meeting also discussed the most important regional issues, QNA reported.

According to press release issued by British Embassy, Defence Secretary wel-comed Qatar’s intent to proceed with the purchase of Typhoon aircraft and the fur-ther strengthening of the UK’s defence relationship with the State of Qatar.


Hamad Port starts two new shipping linesThe Peninsula

The Director of Hamad Port Abdul Aziz Nasser Al Yafei has

announced the inaugura-tion of two new shipping routes linking the Hamad

Port to the Southeast Asia ports (Shanghai), while the other connects the port to the ports of the countries of the Mediterranean basin, and each will take one trip a week during 21 days.

→ Full story on page 5

Over 100 UAE firms shift operations to QatarQatar condemns Afghanistan attack QATAR has strongly con-demned the bombing of a local market in south-east-ern Afghanistan, causing a number of deaths and injuries. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Qatar’s firm position rejecting violence and terrorism regard-less of motives and reasons.

Qatar to purchase 24 fighter jets from Britain

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani launching new logo of Qatar Post.

The Forum has been working to build bridges of understanding between US and Islamic world and create a strong network of relations between US and Islamic leaders at all levels of government and civil society.

Foreign Minister : US-Islamic World Forum ‘important’ for addressing conflicts, political and ideological divisions worldwide | PAGE 2

Qatar Social Work Foundation provides services to over 400 beneficiaries from siege countries | PAGE 2

Qatar urges application of comprehensive IAEA safeguards to all nuclear activities inthe Middle East | PAGE 5

Siege: Qatar gains global support for wise policies | PAGE 7

INSIDE PAGES

Deputy Emir meets UK Secretary of Defence

02 MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017HOME

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met a number of Their Excellencies the ministers and senior officials, guests of the US-Islamic World Forum at its headquarters in New York city yesterday. The Emir met with State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Sweden, Annika Soder; Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Yusuf Garaad Omar; and High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilisations and Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the Forum, Nassir bin Abdulaziz Al-Nasser; Head of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Taha Ozhan, and Executive Vice-President of the Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk.

Emir patronises opening of US-Islamic World Forum in NY

New YorkQNA

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrah-man Al Thani has

underlined that the holding of the US-Islamic World Forum at this time is particularly impor-tant because of the intensification of conflicts and political and ideological divi-sions that have led to instability in many regions of the world.

In a speech at the opening of the 13th Session of the Forum entitled “Crisis and Cooperation” in New York, the Foreign Minis-ter said that some just causes of peoples are still unresolved despite the issuance of several UN resolutions on them, a mat-ter which requires directing international efforts towards implementing resolutions, enforcing international legiti-macy, stopping double standards, as well as spreading a culture of understanding and coexistence despite the differ-ence after achieving justice, even relatively, since we cannot call the reality of occupation or tyr-anny coexistence with the other.

The Foreign Minister called upon the countries of the Islamic world and the United States of America to work to deepen rela-tions based on permanent and open dialogue and on the bais of respect and mutual understand-ing which must be established as principles for dealing among the States.

The Minister stressed that the State of Qatar is making con-tinuous efforts to consolidate dialogue among civilizations and coexistence between different

religions and cultures, where national institutions such as the Doha Center for Interfaith Dia-logue, as well as the annual Doha Forum, have been established and many conferences and meetings have been held to strengthen this trend.

H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani added that this Forum was established in 2002 under the name of the Doha Conference on American Relations with the Arab and Islamic World, as part of the glo-bal efforts to address the consequences of the events of the terrorist attacks on Septem-ber 11, 2001.

The Minister, in his speech at the Forum which witnessed the participation of a number of ministers and senior officials in the State, said that the previous

period witnessed an increased manifestations of intolerance and misunderstanding of reli-gion and linking it to terrorism, stressing that religions are inno-cent of terrorism and that extremists exist in all societies and countries and belong to dif-ferent religions.

He added that there are social and economic reasons and ideological factors for the emer-gence of terrorism, noting that relations between the US and the countries of the Islamic world can affect and be affected by them.

The Minister said that the international community needs many channels of communica-tion and dialogue platforms such as this Forum to build bridges and strengthen cooperation between peoples and countries

as well as tolerance between the followers of different religions and sects and work to address the distortion caused by the hyp-ocrites and ignorance and extremists.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani added that the distinguished relation-ship between the Islamic world and the US faces a major chal-lenge of settling the Palestinian issue and ending the conflict in the Middle East, referring in this regard to the continued failure to achieve peace because of selective policies in the imple-mentation of international legitimacy resolutions and dou-ble standards, preferring to impose a policy of fait accompli on the principles of justice and equity to achieve short-term narrow interests.

Continued from page 1The Forum has been work-

ing to build bridges of understanding between the US and the Islamic world and cre-ate a strong network of relations between the US and Islamic leaders at all levels of govern-ment and civil society.

Commenting on the event, H E Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, Government

Communication Office Director, yesterday, tweeted: “The Forum is building bridges between the Muslim world and the US by dis-cussing the challenges being faced by Muslims in a world of massive political upheaval”. He added that the Forum aims to create global solidarity in con-fronting the world’s challenges such as terrorism and the refu-gee crisis.

Talks during the meeting covered a number of issues of mutual concern, mainly the most important topics listed on the Forum’s agenda.

The 13th annual US-Islamic World Forum was convened this year under the theme “Crisis and Cooperation”.

The two-day forum will touch on several issues related to the relations between the US

and the Islamic world, ending civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa region and rebuild-ing afterwards, the future of pluralism, citizenship, and reli-gion in the Middle East.

In addition to issues related to economy, security and coun-t e r t e r r o r i s m , h u m a n development, refugees and cit-ies, and the global response, science and technology, and the

role of the press and media were also discussed.

The Forum will serve as an opportunity to strengthen the relations between the Islamic world and the US by correcting misconceptions about the Islamic world and discussing current issues, in particular the vision of the State of Qatar, highlighting the bright face of Islam and Muslims and redress

the stereotypical or false con-cepts. Sheikh Saif bin Ahmad pointed out that “the US Islamic Forum is organised for the first time in the US, bringing together a selection of world leaders and intellectuals”.

The 12 editions of the US-Islamic World Forum were all held in Doha, with the exception of the one that was held in Wash-ington in April 2011.

Forum will help resolve conflicts: FM

QNA

Qatar Foundation for Social Work (QFSW) said that the centres working

under its umbrella have received more than 400 bene-ficiaries of nationals from the siege countries (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt) since the beginning of the siege until the end of August.

QFSW said in a press release yesterday that its cent-ers provide continuous services to the beneficiaries in different social fields, mainly family services, rehabilitation, coun-seling, legal, psychological and other related services.

The centers include the Fam-ily Consulting Center (Wifaq), the Protection and Social Rehabili-tation Center (Aman), the Social Development Center (Nama), Shafallah Center, the Orphans Care Center (Dhreima), the Center for Empowerment and Elderly Care (Ehsan) and the Best Buddies initiative.

The total number of benefi-ciaries in these centres reached 405, of whom 103 were Saudis, 33 UAE nationals, 44 Bahrainis, and 225 were Egyptians.

Executive Director of Qatar Foundation for Social Work Amal bint Abdullatif Al Mannai said that the services are pro-vided to beneficiaries without distinction, according to pro-fessional standards.

She underlined the

foundation’s keenness to provide all that serves the society and its stability within the framework of clear and deliberate plans and strategies, especially under the existing siege and the relentless pursuit of achieving the desired goal in maintaining a coherent society capable of standing in the face of all circumstances and challenges, in order to achieve the partnership and the complementary role of the civil society sector with the govern-ment sector and the private sector to serve all members of society in Qatar.

She added that QFSW, as one of the largest civil society organizations working in the field of social work in Qatar, continues to exercise its humanitarian work in light of its pioneering role emanating from international covenants and conventions related to its fields of work in the interna-tional community.

In June, the Family Con-sulting Center and the Protection and Social Reha-bilitation Center launched a hotline to receive contacts of individuals and families affected by the siege on Qatar.

The centers provided fam-ily, social, advisory and rehabilitation services to members of families affected by the siege, and set up a cri-sis management team comprising specialists and consultants.

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani addressing the US-Islamic World Forum in New York yesterday.

QFSW serves over 400 beneficiaries from siege nations

03MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 HOME

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

The Compensation Claims Committee, which was established to protect the rights of residents, continues to

receive complaints from people affected by the ongoing illegal blockade on Qatar. The commit-tee has so far received 6,297 complaints.

“Until now, the committee has received more than 6,000 complaints and hundreds of calls from affected residents asking about the process of filing their complaints,” an official at the Committee told The Peninsula.

The committee has also received 197 complaints from Qatar Chamber, and is expected to receive more in the next com-ing days, because the Chamber has received over 600 com-plaints from companies.

It has evaluated the damages and has legal experts to study every case. After studying them, the cases are sent to an interna-tional law firm. Most of the cases the committee has received have been transferred to the law firm, the source added.

A weekly meeting was held recently by the Committee to study the cases and remove any obstacles. The Committee is still receiving complaints at its head-quarters at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center (DECC). It will continue to receive all cases of residents affected by the

blockade and its closure will be announced through official gazette.

A few people still come to register their cases, because most of the affected citizens have already submitted their com-plaints in the first weeks after the Committee was set up.

A majority of people have lost their real estate assets due to the siege. Some of these assets were for personal use while some were part of their investment.

A high percentage of the complaints is from residents who have lost their properties, because many people had invested in these countries. These countries were encourag-ing people to invest in their real estate. The investors never expected such problems to hap-pen. They thought that any

political dispute will be solved amicably and residents would not be pulled into the contro-versy, said a visitor to the committee who didn’t want to give his name.

The second category which was affected more by the block-ade is students who have been banned and are not allowed to complete their studies in the siege countries. They were banned to take any papers

related to their studies. Qatar University and other universi-ties have received those students.

Also, animals owners have lost hundreds of their camels and their loss is estimated to be in millions of riyals.

The statistics say that there are more than 22,000 camels and other livestock seized in Saudi Arabia, and their owners are not allowed to take them from Saudi Arabia. They are also barred from sending fodder to their camels.

Many of the citizens have tried to bring back their animals but their efforts failed as the Saudi government denied entry to them.

Citizens are saying that these animals are living in danger because no one is there to take care of them. At the Committee headquarters, The Peninsula met a citizen who said that he had around 100 camels and two vehicles and he didn’t know any-thing about them. He had come to the headquarters to submit his complaint.

And the most important thing

is the families which were sep-arated for no reason and still can’t understand it especially since the Gulf countries lived like a single family and belonged to the same tribes.

Also, there are many human-itarian cases. Many families from the siege countries wish to stay in Qatar, but they fear that their governments would punish them and would not renew their doc-uments if they choose to stay here.

The committee was formed on July 9, and is chaired by the Attorney General and includes representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Min-istry of Justice as members with the possibility of coordination with several bodies in the State.

It was inaugurated by Prime Minister and Interior Minister

H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Free legal consultationA group of lawyers have

decided to offer free consulta-tions to the affected persons. Issa Al Sulaiti, who is offering free consultation, said that around 15 lawyers were providing free legal consultations to residents on how to submit their documents. “We have received about 30 calls from people affected by the blockade asking different ques-tions about how to file their cases, and we still welcome it”, he added.

He also said that “people must get their rights and should get compensation even if the dis-pute is solved because the political issue and legal issue are different.

Complaints continue to pour in over siege

A member of the Compensation Claims Committee receiving a complaint from a citizen.

A majority of people have lost their real estate assets due to the blockade. Some of these assets were for personal use while some were part of their investment. These countries were encouraging people to invest in their real estate.

UAE seized my yacht worth QR1m“I came to submit my com-

plaint about my yacht which was seized in the UAE. Its cost is around QR1m. The yacht is still with the company from which I bought it. I am communicating with some people there to see if there is any possibility to bring it here,” said a citizen, Ail Ibra-heem Al Fudala.

He added: “I brought the doc-uments needed like the invoice and other necessary papers.”

The Compensation Claims Committee so far has received 6,297 complaints & hundreds of enquiries.

Qatar Chamber has received 600 complaints from companies, of which 197 have been transferred to the committee.

Most of the complaints the committee has received have been transferred to an international law firm.

More than 3,000 files from the Qatar National Human Rights Committee (QNHRC) have been transferred to the committee.

The second category of most affected people are students, followed by livestock owners and there are more than 22,000 camels and other livestock seized in Saudi Arabia.

Several families were separated for no reason due to the unjust blockade.


Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani met yesterday with Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom Sir Michael Fallon and his accompanying delegation, on the occasion of their visit to Qatar. The meeting reviewed bilateral relations and means of boosting them, especially in the security field. The meeting also discussed a number of regional and international issues, led by the Gulf crisis.

Continued from page 1During a visit to the Gulf state

today, Sir Michael Fallon and his Qatari counterpart, Khalid bin Mohammed al Attiyah, signed a Statement of Intent concerning Qatar’s proposed purchase of 24 Typhoon aircraft.

The UK and Qatar share a close and longstanding Defence relationship, and today’s State-ment of Intent further reinforces this, deepening military

cooperation between the two, and the opportunity to further enhance the security of all part-ners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said: “After a number of years of negotiations between our two countries, I am delighted to have been able to sign today with Qatar’s Defence Minister, this Statement of Intent on the purchase of 24 Typhoon

aircraft by Qatar.” “This will be the first major defence contract with Qatar, one of the UK’s stra-tegic partners. This is an important moment in our defence relationship and the basis for even closer defence co-operation between our two countries. We also hope that this will help enhance security within the region across all Gulf allies and enhance Typhoon interop-erability across the GCC.

“The security of the GCC, of all Gulf countries, is critical to the UK’s own security. The UK and Qatar share mutual Defence interests, including countering violent extremism, and ensuring peace and stability in the region.

“Not only will the purchase of Typhoon aircraft further strengthen this strong bilateral

relationship, it will benefit Qatar’s military capability, and increase security co-operation and interoperability between the UK and Qatar and other GCC Typhoon partners.”

The Typhoon is a multi-role combat aircraft that has long-term potential to be at the forefront of air power for many

years, and today’s Statement of Intent demonstrates continued confidence in Typhoon and Brit-ish manufacturing.

In addition to supporting Royal Air Force operations pro-tecting the UK in the skies above Britain and globally, the Typhoon has already been purchased by eight nations around the world.

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanim Al Ali met yesterday with acting Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Doha, William Grant. During the meeting, they reviewed relations of cooperation between the two friendly countries and means of enhancing them in the fields of culture and sports.

Minister meets US official

Qatar to purchase 24 fighter jets from Britain

Continued from page 1

Minister Al Sulaiti under-lined that Qatar Post has all the strategic elements

to achieve the ambition in devel-oping the quality of postal services and the communication sector in general in line with Qatar Vision 2030.

He stressed the commitment to provide full support to Qatar Post to complete all the necessary requirements for transformation to the business system, to enhance the economy of the sector and increase the quality of services according to international standards.

Addressing the event Faleh Al Naemi, Qatar Post Chairman and Managing Director highlighted the importance of the organization’s transformation process saying: “Qatar Post’s modernization proc-ess is under way at full speed and is impacting all levels of the organ-ization. This journey has just begun, and we will continue to invest in order to build a sustain-able postal sector. Modern life is nurturing the development of world-class products and serv-ices and is the pillar of our leadership in the postal sector. It is both a privilege and a respon-sibility for Qatar Post to build a connected society in Qatar and to a connect our Nation to the world.

Today marks a new beginning for the postal services of Qatar.”

The transformation of Qatar Post is based on three strategic priorities: To enhance service portfolio & customer experience; to build best-in class postal oper-ations with automated postal equipment and modern IT sys-tems; and to nurture organisational capabilities for employees by building an effec-tive work environment.

“As Qatar is moving towards a knowledge-based society and a diversified economy as laid out in the National Vision 2030, Qatar Post is revolutionizing the postal industry by streamlining its oper-ations, upgrading the postal network, expanding into new areas of growth, and diversifying the postal products and services while delivering a unique cus-tomer experience,” said a statement issued by Qatar Post.

This modernization process is profoundly impacting the way Qatar Post is operating through-out the entire value chain of the postal services. Qatar Post’s new identity reflects its core values of reliability, effectiveness, openness, modernity and excellence. Qatar Post is fully embracing the digital age and diversifying its product and services portfolio while investing in e-commerce and

teaming up with key business partners both in Qatar and glo-bally. Qatar Post recently boosted its Digital Mailrooms and expanded its Global Priority serv-ice to both retail and corporate in partnership with UPS network. Its e-commerce service CONNECTED was recently streamlined to reduce the cost of shipping for the benefits of customers. Earlier this year, the organization launched Home Delivery now available to all customers already registered with a P.O Box, a first in the his-tory of postal services in Qatar.

In the months to come Qatar Post will be expanding its footprint in Qatar with the opening of new branches, kiosks and smart lock-ers as well as launching new offers for both retail and corporate cus-tomers. Following the signature of strategic partnerships with UPS, Turkish Post, Qatar Civil Aviation Authority, Aspire Zone and Al Meera, discussions are under way with new partners in Qatar and globally. Qatar Post is transform-ing the way national postal services are delivered in Qatar. The ultimate goal of this holistic transformation is to deliver best-in-class postal services to each citizen’s and each business’ door step and to position Qatar Post as a leader in the country and on a global scale.

Qatar Post unveils new identity

Minister for State of Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah (right) and Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom, Michael Fallon, signing the Letter of Intent yesterday at the Ministry’s headquarters. The LoI aims to strengthen cooperation and mutual support in the military and technical fields. BELOW Officials during the meeting.

The Peninsula

According to accurate astronomical calcula-tions by Qatar

Calendar House (QCH), the new crescent of the Hijri month “Al Moharram 1439 H” will be born on Wednesday 29 Dhul-Hijja at 8:31am.

The time set of the new crescent over Doha sky will be 21 minutes after sunset and the moon will set after sun-set time over the sky of two Holy Mosques (Makkah & Madinah) and in all the Gulf countries by different dura-tion (20 - 22 minutes), Dr Beshir Marzouk said.

For most Arabic and Islamic countries, the time set of the new crescent will be after sunset time by different time durations, where the time duration between Moon set and sunset will increase in countries at the west of Greenwich. The new crescent is possible to observe over almost of Arabic and Islamic countries sky by using astro-nomical telescopes.

New Hijri year on Thursday

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani and Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada with other officials

PM meets UK Secretary of Defence

05MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 HOME

The Peninsula

The International Primary Health Care Conference will be held in Doha on

November 17 and it provides an opportunity for primary health care experts to share knowledge and network with other profes-sionals in a global and diverse platform, says a senior official.

Huda Al Wahidi, Executive Director of Corporate Commu-nication at the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), said that the significant preparations are being made within the Cor-poration to ensure that the conference is delivered with the utmost levels of perfection, accu-racy and professionalism.

The International Primary Health Care Conference will be held with participation of a lead-ing group of local and international primary health care professionals. The conference is expected to discuss the most important issues related to this area, through many sessions and lectures that contribute to the exchange of experiences and information. Al Wahidi added that the conference would include several topics that will be covered for three consecutive days, about health systems, qual-ity improvement, management and medical practice, and health promotion and disease preven-tion, as well as education, training and capacity building, under the

slogan ‘Healthy Communities and Brighter Future.’ She also said that wide invitations that extended to experts, specialists and those concerned with pri-mary health care within and outside the region reflect the con-ference importance, especially that the group of experts who will participate in the conference through work papers, lectures, symposiums and workshops will present a summary of their expe-riences and research in the field of health care, which enables the participated countries, especially Qatar, to benefit from these expe-riences and employ it to serve the citizens.

International Primary Health Care Conference in November

The Peninsula

Qatar Genome Pro-g r a m m e ( Q G P ) recently concluded its third annual summer internship, a pro-

gramme designed to enhance the knowledge of healthcare providers with the latest genome issues related to the medical sector.

The two-week internship ‘Genome Interpretation: from Sequencing to Counselling’ was attended by a group of resident physicians and nurses at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), as well as biomedical graduates and pharmacists from Qatari universities.

The internship aims to develop the skills of interns in genomics to help them under-stand the future of precision medicine, with Qatar being one of the pioneering nations in this area. The course includes an in-depth discussion on a number of issues from genome data,

genomic reports, and some clin-ical issues related to precision medicine.

Professor Asma Al Thani, Chair of the Qatar Genome National Committee, said, “This internship aims to support workers in various health sec-tors to open up to the future of precision medicine, and to dem-onstrate its importance in all different stages of research, analysis, and treatment options, and genetic counselling; as both genomic research and medicine will play a key role in the future of healthcare worldwide.”

Dr Said Ismail, Manager, QGP, said, “In Qatar, we aim to create a medical community that is ready to integrate with genomic advancements, to pro-vide optimal and specialized healthcare, based on our belief that the efforts of all medical institutions should be combined to practically apply precision medicine.”

Fifteen interns were selected through a competit ive

screening process, due to high demand, including resident phy-sicians, nurses, and graduates from pharmacy and biomedical sciences faculties across Qatari universities.

“It was a unique experience. The subjects and the selection of lecturers were distinctive, and the best part was our sense of mutual benefit, since each of us came from a different medical background,” said Dr Sumaya Abdul Aziz, whose colleague Iman El-Ezzouani, a researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar, added, “The programme helped me understand the future prospects of medicine.”

Another intern, Dr Ahmed Al Ghabawi, a resident at HMC, shared his experience, saying, “I hope that all healthcare provid-ers become aware of the applications of precision medi-cine, to provide better care for patients.” The interns were men-tored by a group of experts in Qatar, comprising members of various national institutions.

QGP raises knowledge level among interns in genomics

Participants during the third annual summer internship, titled ‘Genome Interpretation: From Sequencing to Counselling’, hosted by Qatar Genome Programme.

The Peninsula

The Director of Hamad Port, Abdul Aziz Nasser Al Yafei (pic-tured), has announced the inauguration of

two new shipping routes linking the Hamad Port to the Southeast Asia ports (Shanghai), while the other connects the port to the ports of the countries of the Med-iterranean basin, and each will take one trip a week during 21 days.

“Hamad Port to receive more than 1,000 vessels by the end of this year and about one million TEUs in the same period,” Al Yafei said while addressing a press conference on the eve of inauguration of two new ship-ping lines. He pointed out that

the new route inaugurated today is the second direct link between Shanghai and Doha.

He said that the new lines are an important addition to enhance the work of the port and its com-petitiveness, noting that there are other shipping lines will be announced during the coming period. He added that the Hamad Port aims to complete the work of existing ports in the country and represents an important addition to the system of regional and global ports, especially as most of the ports of the region reached their capacity, noting that work is underway to make Hamad Port a major point of bringing re-export to the ports of the region.

Al Yafei said that the new lines will achieve economic gains

for the country, especially as the Republic of China is the largest source of goods to all countries of the world, adding that the direct lines with China will increase the volume of exports destined to the State of Qatar, which includes all types of goods and products. He stressed the Port’s commitment to providing all facilities available to compa-nies, adding that the Port is ready to receive all types of shipments from different regions of the world.

He pointed out that Hamad Port began to reap the economic gains since the start of its work, where it had launched about 15 direct lines so far, that contrib-ute to reducing the cost and shorten the time, which is in the interest of importers whose

goods have arrived directly from the ports of origin to Hamad Port without the need for intermedi-ate ports, pointing to the characteristic of shipping from the provision of cost to import-ers.

He said Hamad Port, which includes three major container terminals with a capacity of 7.5 million TEUs per year, will play a major role in covering domes-tic needs of goods as well as contributing to the needs of all countries in the region.

“Part of the Port’s strategy is to acquire 35 per cent of the total Middle East trade next year and is rapidly following up on this road driven by its strategic loca-tion and potential as well as the facilities it provides to compa-nies,” Al Yafei noted .

Hamad Port begins two new shipping lines

Vienna QNA

The State of Qatar called for supporting the efforts of the International Atomic

Energy Agency (IAEA) on the early application of the Agen-cy’s comprehensive safeguards agreements (CSAs) to all nuclear activities in the Middle East as a fundamental step towards the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Addressing the IAEA Gov-erning Council meeting, H E Qatar’s Ambassador to the Republic of Austria and Perma-nent Representative to the United Nations and Interna-tional Organization in Vienna Sheikh Ali bin Jassim Al Thani said that the State of Qatar believed that the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East that would

accelerate international efforts to achieve a peaceful and last-ing solution in the region and to rid the world of nuclear weap-ons. Qatar expressed regret over the lack of implementation of the international resolutions on the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle

East, stressing the importance of implementing these resolu-tions, especially in the current circumstances which are wit-nessing a serious escalation as North Korea continues its nuclear weapons program in the absence of international supervision.

Qatar backs IAEA efforts to safeguard N-activities

H E Qatar’s Ambassador to the Republic of Austria and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organization in Vienna Sheikh Ali bin Jassim Al Thani said that the State of Qatar believed that the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East that would accelerate international efforts to achieve a peaceful and lasting solution in the region and to rid the world of nuclear weapons.


QNA

Qatar Cancer Society has launched an awareness campaign to coincide

with the “Childhood Cancer Awareness Month” which falls in September each year, and aims at raising public awareness of cancer, educat-ing families and strengthening the role of society in support of children infected with the disease.

Director-General of Qatar Cancer Society, Mariam Hamad Al Nuaimi, said that cancer is considered the sec-ond cause of death in children after accidents, according to global statistics, especially that the causes of childhood cancer are often unknown but there are a number of factors that increase the risk, such as the exposure to excessive radiation or ultraviolet radi-ation, smoking during pregnancy or pre-fertilisation period and others.

Al Nuaimi noted that the Qatar Cancer Society is keen to reach all segments of soci-ety by launching awareness campaigns and activities that address all groups and ages.

In a related context, Qatar Cancer Society said that leukemia (bone marrow and blood cancers) is the most common type of cancer in children, while brain tumors and the central nervous sys-tem come second.

The Society stressed the importance of protecting chil-dren by taking a range of measures, such as reducing radiation exposure during pregnancy and focusing on breastfeeding for at least 6 months and to ensuring that all required vaccinations are given.

It also called to help chil-dren adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes healthy eating habits, exercise to maintain a healthy weight, replacing unhealthy snacks with fruits, vegetables and nuts, encour-aging children to play active games rather than electronic games. The Cancer Society also stressed the importance of early detection, which con-tributes to enhance the chance of recovery from the disease through periodic medical examinations of chil-dren and attention to any signs early and report to the doctor, especially for those most vulnerable to the disease.

Qatar Cancer Society launches campaign

The Peninsula

A multidisciplinary group of educators from Hamad Medical Corpo-

ration’s Home Healthcare Service (HCCS) recently hosted a workshop for fam-ily members who care for patients who have experi-enced a stroke. During sessions in English and Ara-bic, family members were taught the benefits of stroke management at home. They listened to lectures from pro-fessionals and were encouraged to ask questions. The workshop covered a range of topics that are important for the ongoing care and treatment.

Session on stroke management held

The Peninsula

Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. Co. (AAB), sole agents for Toyota vehi-

cles, has begun their exclusive promotion for Toyota SUVs from September 15. This is an opportunity for the prospec-tive buyers to purchase their dream SUVs at an attractive price you would have never dreamt before. AAB is offering this benefit for a limited period for limited stock.

During the campaign period, AAB is offering very attractive prices in their SUV range of vehicles where the EMI price can be as low as QR59 per day for Toyota RAV4, QR77/day for Fortuner, QR93/day for Prado and QR124/day for Toyota Land Cruiser. These are calculated based on 10% down payment and interest rate calculated at 4.5% per annum for 48-month install-ment. However, the EMI may vary depending upon the Model Grade, Model Year of

the vehicle and the Bank from where the vehicle is financed.

For more information, the prospective buyers can visit the Toyota Showroom anytime from 8am – 9pm (Saturday – Thursday) and on Fridays from 5pm – 9pm. City Center show-room is open from 9am — 10pm (Sat urday to Thurs-day) and on Fridays, the showroom is open from 5pm – 10pm. Alternately, they can also call on their hotlines 800 1800 which are operational 24 hours from Saturday to Thurs-day. In addition to the above attractive prices, the customer can also get free registration, in-house facility, 3 years’ war-ranty or 100,000km (whichever comes first) and Trade-in facility are also avail-able for all Toyota models. Terms and conditions apply.

Toyota has a very good range of SUV line-up which are known for their high Qual-ity, Durability and Reliability. Entry level model of Toyota SUV is the stylish,

comfortable and fuel efficient RAV4 which is powered by a 2.5-liter gasoline engine. Toy-ota Fortuner has a compelling design and appealing to cus-tomers with its tough and forceful appearance. Fortuner is available in 2.7L and 4.0L engines. Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. Co. provides the best after sales facility to their val-ued customers. The company operates 8 service centers across Qatar and some of the Service Centers operate seven days a week. Toyota service locations include: Toyota Main

Service Station in Industrial area, Landmark Quick Serv-ice Center, Abou Hamour Quick Service Center, Al Nayef Quick Service Center, Wakrah Quick Service Center, Aziz Quick Service Center, Al Khor Quick Service Center and the newly opened Service Center near to the Toyota Showroom (next to Al Mana Tower). Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. Co. W.L.L. was founded in the year 1958 by one of Qatar’s pioneering business families and is the leading automobile distributor in Qatar.

Toyota SUV at dream price at AAB

The Peninsula

Katara – the Cultural Vil-lage Foundation will inaugurate its first ever

Katara Photography Festival this year, while visually connecting the beauty of art and people under one roof. The advent of the fest will help ameliorate community living through the lens of art.

The festival will be a first-of-its-kind celebration of art reflecting Katara’s aim to amal-gamate well-known artists as well as amateurs in the field of photography. The fortnight long festival will showcase profes-sional photographers and their work through exhibitions, where Qatar residents will also get an

opportunity to meet the experts and know them better. To help further strengthen the country’s aspiration to embrace diversity, the photographers will repre-sent different nationalities. Additionally, the festival will also host variegated workshops that will be conducted by the chosen professionals to talk about different aspects of this art form.

HE Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, General Manager, Cul-tural Village Foundation – Katara, commented on the upcoming festival stating, “It is a great time for Katara Cultural Village to host a photography event that will help reassure and instill a sense of belonging and community in the residents of

Qatar.” With this festival, Katara Cultural Village further affirms its support towards the human development pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030, by bring-ing together all communities to celebrate the most beautiful aspect of life – Art.

The Cultural Village Foun-dation is an exceptional project of hope for human interaction through art and cultural exchange – a project made pos-sible thanks to the inspired vision, solid faith and wise lead-ership of the Father Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Keeping pace with the emerging global culture that emphasizes the importance of d i v e r s i t y i n h u m a n development.

Katara plans Photography Festival

QNA

The event for strengthen-ing the educational capacity using ‘assistive technology programme’ launched yesterday in

coordination with the Training and Educational Development Center (TEDC) at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Mada Assistive Technology Center.

The three-day event targets special education specialists, and coordinators and teachers of addi-tional educational support sections in schools.

The event aims to broaden the assistive technology services in government schools and extend the special education specialists, coor-dinators and teachers with the support, skills and knowledge needed to support students with

special needs in the field of ‘assis-tive technology’. It also aims to establish training programmes on ‘assistive technology’ in public schools and train 40 teachers in order to directly evaluate the needs of 400 students in this category.

The programme’s phases are scheduled to be implemented by December 2018, these phases include establishment, training fol-lowed by expert user projects for assistive technology by applying acquired skills.

Special needs are the main fac-tor in increasing despairing academic achievement, using ‘assistive technology’ allows spe-cial needs students to participate in classroom environments with their peers. It also develops the teachers’ skills and their cognitive output to increase student performance.

Event to broadenassistive technology services in schools

The Peninsula

To mark the 20th anniver-sary for Virginia Commonwealth Univer-

sity School of the Arts in Qatar, the university will celebrate the diversity and success of their alumni through a special exhi-bition called 20/20/20 in the Gallery at VCUarts Qatar from tomorrow to October 31.

The exhibition is curated by alumni and will showcase the work of 20 alumni from all pro-grammes, demonstrating how VCUarts Qatar prepares its alumni to take the leading edge in designing the future.

The 20/20/20 VCUarts Qatar Alumni Exhibition is an excel-lent way to discover the outstanding works of a new gen-eration of art and design talent in Qatar. “Our Alumni show reflects the intellectual and cre-ative ambiance of two decades at VCUarts Qatar and how our collective contributions to art and design has had a major impact on our students, Qatar and surrounding regions. The exhibit gives us an opportunity to see how our artists continue to build on excellence and cre-ate compelling artistry for years to come,” said Dr. Akel I. Kahera, VCUarts Qatar Dean.

20/20/20 is curated by VCUarts Qatar alumni Maryam Yousuf Al Homaid and Ahmad Oustwani. The exhibition iden-tity design is created by VCUarts Qatar alumnus Moza Khalifa Al-Suwaidi (BFA in Graphic Design, 2013), who is also a graphic designer at the Office of

Communications.Maryam Yousuf Al-Homaid

is an interdisciplinary designer holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Graphic Design and a Master in Design Studies from Virginia Commonwealth Uni-versity School of the Arts in Qatar. She is currently an Assist-ant Professor in the Graphic Design department.

Ahmad Oustwani is the Alumni Relations Coordinator at VCUarts Qatar. Ahmad holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Graphic Design with an Art His-tory minor from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar and is currently completing a Mas-ter of Science (M.S.) in Student Affairs in Higher Education from Colorado State University.

VCUarts expo to mark 20th anniversary

The Peninsula

A team from the Environ-m e n t a n d Sustainability Section at Qatar University’s (QU) Facilities and

General Services Department has calculated the QU’s carbon foot-print, with an aim to make the campus more environment friendly.

The department has calcu-lated the QU’s carbon footprint 2013 to 2015, as part of the Uni-versity’s Sustainability Initiative, a strategic commitment to envi-ronmental sustainability through research, teaching, and opera-tional activities.

The results revealed that the

average amount of emissions per person (staff and students) on QU campus was 3.33 metric tons of

CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) in 2015, while the total campus carbon footprint was 63732.98

metric tons of CO2e over the same time period. The team included QU Environmental and Sustaina-bility Specialist Eng Mays Abdalla and student from QU College of Arts and Sciences Khan Moham-med Sazzadur Rahman. It is led by QU’s Facilities and General Services Department Environ-mental and Sustainability Specialist Eng Husameldin Talballa.

Eng Husameldin Talballa noted that 2015 values provide the baseline for developing sound strategies, programs and projects, and that QU is the first university in the GCC region to measure its campus carbon footprint as an operational exercise. He added that this should be followed with

creating QU sustainability net-work, with the aim of building an expertise base that will exchange ideas on issues related to carbon emissions, and raise awareness on the importance of adopting more sustainable practices both on and outside the campus. He also noted that the team followed the internationally recognized Campus Carbon Calculator™ guide, issued by the Sustainabil-ity Institute at UNH.

QU’s Facilities and General Services Department Director Eng Mohsin Al-Hajri noted that QU Campus Carbon Footprint analy-sis for 2013-2015 will serve to develop and implement a Climate Management Plan to reduce on-campus carbon emissions.

QU goes green as it calculates carbon footprint

Eng Husameldin Talballa, Specialist at QU’s Facilities and General Services Department Environmental and Sustainability and (RIGHT) Eng Mohsin Al Hajri, Director at QU’s Facilities and General Services Department.

07MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 MIDDLE EAST

Siege: Qatar gains global support for wise policies Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

Qatar has overcome the unjust blockade imposed by siege countries and gained global support due to

wise political, diplomatic and economic policies adopted by the leadership. Qatar has shown resilience under the illegal siege, said experts sharing their insights about the blockade, during a dis-cussion held yesterday at Georgetown University in Qatar’s, Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS).

The event ‘Crisis in the GCC: Causes, Consequences, and Pros-pects’ held at the University’s Education City campus, dis-cussed the impact of the unjust blockade imposed on Qatar since June 5.

The three panelists, Dr Abdullah Baabood, director of the Gulf Studies Program at Qatar University, Dr Shafeeq Ghabra, professor of political sci-ence at Kuwait University and Dr Gerd Nonneman, professor of international relations and Gulf studies at Georgetown

University in Qatar, shared their analysis on the causes and con-sequences of the crisis, what prompted Saudi Arabia and the UAE to impose the illegal block-ade on Qatar. They also highlighted the measures Qatar has taken in response politically, economically, and diplomatically as well as how the country has successfully defeated the blockade.

Dr Baabood said, that Qatar has shown extreme resilience under the siege and has shaken the expectations of the other countries.

“Qatar has followed a high morale , in terms of how to deal with the people from the four countries in a humanitarian

aspect. If you look at the media, of the four countries, they are attacking Qatar, yet the country that is wining the hearts and minds of the people is Qatar. It is because its following a very high moral and have an ethical way of wining its goal,” he said.

“Globally Qatar is wining the crisis,” he added.

Dr Ghabra, referred the blockade quoting Winston Churchill’s saying as, “We are at the end of the beginning.”

“Qatar was managing the cri-sis well. Usually managing crisis will make tension. But I saw Qataris is calm. There was a min-ister working. There was no tension the way they managed the crisis. They opened a route

with Oman, they created a good connection with Iran, managed to workout relationships with the Europe,” he said.

“There was a one big miscal-culation in this entire approach of blockade by other countries, as a result of that Qatar was able to hold itself. In this siege, as the

words of Churchill, we are at the end of the beginning,” he added.

Dr Nonneman, during the discussion highlighted that Qatar is politically and economically strong at both local and interna-tional levels.“I think the economic means of Qatar are in place and banking sector is

strong enough. International trade has been out on place and the Hamad Port will be fully functional in the coming months. So over the coming year, Qatar will be in a better position than now,” he said. The event was moderated by Dr Mehran Kam-rava, Director, CIRS.

(FROM LEFT) Mehran Kamrava, Moderator, Center for International and Regional Studies; Shafeeq Ghabra, Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University; Dr Abdullah Baabood, Director of Gulf Studies Program at Qatar University; and Gerd Nonneman, Professor of International Relations and Gulf Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar; at the panel discussion on crisis in the GCC at Georgetown University auditorium yesterday. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

New York

QNA

The Executive Vice-Presi-dent of the Brookings Institution Martin Indyk

has expressed his appreciation to the Emir H H Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for his participation in the opening of the US- Islamic World Forum,

praising Qatar’s sponsorship of the Forum for 13 years.

In a speech at the opening of the Forum, which is currently held in New York, Martin Indyk said that the Forum was held in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and brings together international leaders to discuss differences and build bridges.

He noted that the Forum has

gathered, in 13 sessions, leaders “on the issues we face, includ-ing devastating wars, transnational terrorism, refugee issues and policies that bring the Muslim world to a lower level of terrorism”, stressing that there is no more pressing task than these issues.

He said that the Brookings Institute, which organizes the

Forum in cooperation with the State of Qatar, is dedicated to independent research. It has gathered a large number of researchers at the current ses-sion for enriching the Forum to deal with crises, pointing to the need to listen to others and build bridges as all are affected by the issues that the world is experi-encing, he added.

Call for cooperation to fight terrorism

QNA

H E Nasser bin Abdulaziz Al Nasr, High Representative for the United Nations Alli-

ance of Civilizations and the Representative of the UN Secre-tary-General to the US- Islamic World Forum said that Arab and Muslim societies are witnessing increasing injustice and intoler-ance against them.

Speaking at the US- Islamic World Forum, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New York, H E Al Nasr said that many people have been caught in the trap of distortion of Muslims through the acts of terrorist and extremist groups , such as ISIS group (Daesh) through despicable and humiliating deeds .. That these people forgot that the Muslims themselves are the first and main victims of these acts, he noted .

He said that the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, had asked him to represent him at this important Forum as he attaches great importance to the promo-tion of constructive and positive dialogue as a means of promoting mutual understanding. “He wishes you fruitful discussions and posi-tive results.”, H E Al Nasr added. Nasser bin Abdulaziz Al-Nasr said that the main objective of the United Nations Alliance of Civili-zations is to promote dialogue, understanding and tolerance, as dialogue paves the way for better understanding of others and thus “dispelling the fear of those who differ ethnically, culturally and religiously.” He pointed out that one of the objectives of the Alli-ance of Civilizations is to use a comprehensive and multi-polar approach to study the state of rela-tions between modern societies, their worldview and their mutual understanding which constitutes these relations.

UN official: Arab societies face increasing injustice and intolerance

The three panelists shared their analysis on the causes and consequences of the crisis, what prompted Saudi Arabia and the UAE to impose the illegal blockade on Qatar. They also highlighted the measures Qatar has taken in response politically, economically, and diplomatically as well as how the country has successfully defeated the blockade.

The Peninsula

The Doha Institute for Post-g r a d u a t e S t u d i e s yesterday organised ori-

entation meeting for 66 professors faculty members for the academic year 2017-2018, in the presence of Acting Pres-ident of the Institute, Dr Yasser Sulaiman Maali, and Dr Hind Al Miftah, Vice-President for Administrative and Financial Affairs.

The meeting aimed to intro-duce academic staff the important information about the Institute, whether those related to the rules, regulations and policies in force or the administrative and technical affairs and other issues of the Institute.

This year, the Institute has received 20 new university professors. The total number of professors in the institute is 66 professors, divided into 15 mas-ter’s programs, all of them from backgrounds, academic, research and professional

experience. They graduated and worked in the most prestigious Arab and international universities.

The meeting was addressed by the Acting President of the Institute, Dr Yasser Sulaiman Maali, who the professors about the Institute which established to fill a clear lack of interest in the disciplines of social and human sciences in particular in Arab countries and societies, especially in the Gulf region at the postgraduate level. Dr. Yasser called on the professors to engage in all its activities, conferences and symposia, and contribute to publishing in its scientific journals.

Dr Hind Al Miftah, Vice-President of the Institute for Administrative and Financial Affairs, welcomed the faculty. “We hope that your choice to join the Doha Institute will lead to an academic and research commitment to contribute to the development of a new gen-eration of intellectually enlightened young people.

Doha Institute holds orientation meeting

QNA

Katara will host a Sudanese economic and cultural forum between October 17 and 20. The forum is scheduled to entail a wide array of events like cultural exhibitions high-

lighting the Sudanese folklore, photography, tourism, and archeology. An economic exhibition will also be scheduled and will feature 20 Sudanese companies showcasing their products. The forum will also include a series of cultural seminars, poetry evenings and musical nights, which will be held with the partici-pation of Sudanese writers, poets, and artists.

Katara and the Sudanese Embassy in Doha hold this forum as an effort to strengthen the cultural cooperation between both par-ties through hosting events that highlight the Sudanese civilisation and to introduce the audience to all the different Sudanese cul-tures. This cooperation was agreed on during the meeting between General Manager of the Cultural Village Foundation- Katara, Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti and Cultural Counselor of the embassy of Republic of Sudan, Abdel Ilah Abusen.

Katara to host Sudanese Forum


QNA

The President of Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari said that Kahramaa offers

investment opportunities, most of which target the domestic market at about QR19bn by 2022.

Al Kuwari said during a press statement on the sidelines of the opening of the third edition of the Forum “Buy Local Products” that Kah-ramaa needs until 2022 is estimated at QR7bn, which is a direct purchase, a priority for the local market, while direct contracting contracts dur-ing the same period about QR12bn, considering these figures represent a good opportunity for national companies to enter the sector.

He also noted that the strategic water res-ervoirs project has taken important steps and has been accelerated. It is expected that the first phase of the project will be opened

during the first three months of 2018.The project, which includes the construction

of 24 reservoirs in five different locations, has been divided in some locations for more than one stage in order to benefit from the current capacity of these sites on storage, he added.

Al Kuwari noted that Kahramaa has suc-ceeded in moving forward and implementing its projects according to its schedule with the highest standards of quality despite the siege, due to its adoption of the principle of economic innovation and finding suitable alternatives locally and globally through economic open-ness and opening new channels of cooperation with different countries of the world, to diver-sify sources.

He said that Kahramaa was keen to cooper-ate with Qatar Development Bank (QDB) to enhance the private sector’s ability to enter the industries related to the electricity and water

sectors and to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises, which is in the interest of the country for economic diversifi-cation, allowing the Corporation to obtain its equipment and supplies for electricity and water companies from local suppliers.

Al Kuwari stressed that the Forum is an opportunity for Qatari suppliers, manufacturers and businessmen to enter into industries related to the electricity and water sectors of cables, transformers and switches.

He also pointed out that Kahramaa’s main objective is to get the products and equipment it needs from local manufacturers and suppli-ers and to encourage investors and entrepreneurs to enter this vital sector, and to emphasize its commitment to the directives of the State to give preference to the Qatari companies, as long as they meet the quality and efficiency standards adopted by Kahramaa.

Kahramaa offers QR19bn investment opportunities

Sachin Kumar The Peninsula

Companies participat-ing in the exhibition have lauded the exhi-bition organised jointly by Qatar

Development Bank (QDB) in col-laboration with Qatar General Electricity & Water Cooperation (Kahramaa). They said the event has helped them to clinch new deals and expand their business.

The third edition of ‘Buy Local Products 3’ exhibition began yesterday at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre.

“I was chasing a big company for about two-three years to strike a deal but the discussions did not result into any concrete result. Last year, we participated in a similar exhibition organised

by Qatar Development Bank. We had a booth in the exhibition and to my surprise, a senior official of the same company was at the event. After visiting stalls of other companies, he visited our stall and asked us to visit his office. Later on, I sealed a business deal

with the company,” Muhammad Bilal, Assistant Manager Market-ing, Al Khayarin Plastic Factory told The Peninsula. “Such events are helpful in giving important leads which can be later con-verted in deals,” he added.

The two-day event aims to support Qatar’s local manufac-turing industries involved in providing electricity, water and recycling services. The exhibi-tion seeks to connect local buyers to companies and man-ufacturers within the country.

“This kind of exhibition is very helpful for companies look-ing for new contracts. We are participating for the first time in this exhibition and I am hopeful that the exhibition will be useful in getting new orders,” Nadheem V, Project Engineer, Coastal Qatar told The Peninsula. “Another benefit of participat-ing in this exhibition is that we

Expo helps companies to expand business

Minister of Energy and Industry, H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (centre), and other officials during a tour at the exhibition ‘Buy Local Products 3’ to support Qatar Local Manufacturing at DECC yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Officials speak during the event ‘Buy Local Products 3’ to support Qatar Local Manufacturing at DECC. Pic: Sachin Kumar / The Peninsula

The two-day event aims to support Qatar’s local manufacturing industries involved in providing electricity, water and recycling services. The exhibition seeks to connect local buyers to companies and manufacturers within the country.

get to know about procedures required by Kahramaa,” he said.

“We appreciate the efforts by QDB and Kahraama to promote small and medium enterprises and local companies. It has been very help as it brings, contrac-tors, consultants, government

agencies, designers and other stakeholders to a common plat-form. We have also attended the previous two editions of this exhibition,” said Bilal.

Exhibitors were encouraged by the positive and supportive attitude of senior government

officials. “I was very happy to see many of top officials of gov-ernment departments who visited our stall and asked about our activities,” said a representative of a company having a stall in the exhibition.

Continued from page 1

Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi, Director-General of QC said: “Every successive day we are transforming the challenges in to opportunities. In a way the siege has come as a blessing in disguise for the local economy, while the same has been prov-ing as a double-whammy for the blockading countries as they are losing business oppor-tunities and market share, in addition to a significant dent in the reputation of their econo-mies in terms of investment destinations.”

Since the announcement of the blockade on June 5, Qatar has been witnessing a remark-able steady growth in the number of new firms register-ing in the country.

According to official data, Qatar saw the registration of 1,766 new companies during August 2017, witnessing a dou-ble-digit growth of over 11 percent compared to 1,590 new firms registered during the pre-vious month (July 2017).

The Director-General of QC, the country’s oldest and largest private industry repre-sentative body, highlighted that governments firm commitment about the ongoing massive scale of investments and expen-ditures on mega infrastructure projects and other develop-mental activities in the run up to 2022 Fifa games and Qatar National Vision 2030, the coun-try has come under the spot light of global investors.

He noted that the constant improvement in business-friendly environment and legislative changes, has also

helped Qatar in a big to to emerge as one of the most favourite investment destina-tions for companies.

“My phone is flooded with enquiry calls from companies and individual investors from all corner the world who are willing to invest and establish businesses in Qatar,” Al Sharqi added.

“With the opening of the new port (Hamad Port) and rapidly expanding Qatar Air-ways and Hamad International Airport, Qatar has been attract-ing companies from all over the world, especially from Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, India, Kuwait, Oman, and scores of others.”

Al Sharqi reiterated that the illegal siege against Qatar has proved self-destructive for the blockading countries. In the one hand business in those coun-tries have lost market access to the Qatari economy, and on the other, Qatar has explored new import and export destinations which are more consistent, reli-able and cost efficient.

“Look the number of options an ordinary consumer in Qatar enjoys today. Take the example of some food items such as tomatoes, chicken, milk and other dairy products… We have some 16 varieties of toma-toes at varying prices suitable to all segments of people. Sim-ilarly, we have much better milk and dairy products com-ing from the UK, Belgium, Iran, Kuwait, India, Oman and scores of other countries, in addition to fresh milk and dairy prod-ucts produced by local firms” noted Al Sharqi.

Over 100 UAE firms shift operations to Qatar Sanaullah Ataullah

The Peninsula

Eleven programmes of three colleges of Qatar Univer-sity (QU) have received

academic accreditations, taking the total list of the accredited programmes of the varsity to 37. College of Engineering (CENG) got the highest number of seven accreditations, followed by the colleges of Education (CED) which bagged three, and the Col-lege of Health Sciences (CHS) received one accreditation.

The details about the accred-iting were given by QU officials in a press conference held yes-terday to announce the academic accreditation of QU colleges of Education (CED), Engineering (CENG), and Health Sciences (CHS). The press con-ference was attended by CED Dean Dr Ahmed Al Emadi, CENG Dean Dr Khalifa Al Khalifa, and CHS Human Nutrition Depart-ment Head Dr Tahra El-Obeid in the presence of QU President Dr Hassan Al Derham, QU VP for Academic Affairs Dr Omar Al Ansari, QU officials, faculty and staff, as well as the representa-tives of the local media.

CED was awarded a 5-year accreditation by the Specialized Professional Association (SPA)/Teachers of English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL) for its Bachelor of Education in Second-ary Education/English. The College also achieved a 5-year accreditation by the SPA/Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) for its Masters of Education in Spe-cial Education (MSPED), and a 5-year accreditation by the SPA/Teachers of English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL) for its Diploma in Secondary Education/English.

CENG was awarded renewal of its five-year accreditation by the Accreditation Board for Engi-neering and Technology (ABET) for seven of its undergraduate programs — Chemical Engineer-ing, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineer-ing, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engi-neering, and Computer Science. ABET accreditation is the hallmark of excellence in applied and nat-ural science, computing, engineering and engineering technology.

CHS Department of Human Nutrition was awarded a seven-year accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Edu-cation in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND) of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). The ACEND accreditation has been awarded to three univer-sities outside the United States – QU (Qatar), Kyung Hee Uni-versity (South Korea) and Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico), making QU the first university in the Middle East to achieve this accreditation.

Commenting on this achievement, Dr Hassan Al Derham said: “The new aca-demic accreditation adds value

to QU colleges’ numerous achievements. It reflects QU’s commitment to advance the quality of its programs and the level of its graduates, and the University’s ongoing efforts to strengthen links with the industry. Accreditation is a very important process to improve the learning outcomes and to ensure that they align with the needs of the labor market. I applaud the efforts of the deans, faculty, and staff in con-t r i b u t i n g t o t h i s achievement.”

Dr Ahmed Al Emadi said: “By achieving academic accredita-tion, CED reinforces its position as the first national college of education to prepare profes-sional educators who are able to serve the community and meet the needs of the labor market, in line with international stand-ards. This achievement attests to the quality of the educational programs offered at CED and demonstrates the College’s com-mitment to ensure quality assurance and to provide an optimal learning environment that contributes to shaping the future leaders in the field of edu-cation, research and community service.”

Dr Khalifa Al-Khalifa said: “CENG has started a systematic process to apply quality assur-ance to all its programs. The College continued its efforts of re-evaluation of its programs and its academic and research goals, in line with the require-ments of its accredited status. ABET highlighted in its assess-ment report the strong links that CENG has built with the labor market, promoting student engagement in local, regional and international activities that develop their skills and capacities.”

CHS Dean and QU Biomed-ical Research Center Director Dr Asma Al Thani said: “The achievement of the ACEND accreditation is a testament that CHS Department of Human Nutri-tion meets the educational standards of ACEND and that it provides its students with the required knowledge, skills, and competencies to join the dietetics profession”. Dr Tahra El Obeid said: “The achievement of the ACEND accreditation attests to the quality of the programs offered by the Department of Human Nutrition and demon-strates their alignment with international standards.

QU receives accreditations for 11 programmes

Dr Khalifa Al Khalifa, (left) Dean, College of Engineering, Dr Ahmed Al Emadi, Dean, College of Education (centre), and Dr Tahra El Obeid, Assistant Professor of Food Technology and Human Nutrition, during the press conference at Qatar University, yesterday. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

Qatar University President Dr Hassan Al Derham.

09MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Nairobi

AFP

Doubts are growing over Ken-ya’s ability to hold a rerun of its presidential election in just

one month as key players remain unable to agree on how to conduct a credible vote, analysts say.

Bickering on all sides and con-fusion over the process have only increased as the clock ticks down to the October 17 vote, called after the Supreme Court annulled the ini-tial August election, citing widespread irregularities.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has vowed to boycott the poll if a list of demands are not met and on Sunday he launched a nationwide campaign “against any election” run by the current electoral com-mission (IEBC), which he accuses of rigging the first poll.

“The challenges are pretty extraordinary,” said John Githongo, a prominent anti-corruption cam-paigner in Kenya, who said he believed the election date “does not seem feasible because we are ask-ing people who have failed calamitously to run an election after such a short time”. A key hurdle is that the Supreme Court has yet to deliver its full judgement detailing why exactly it decided to annul Pres-ident Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory.

Chief Justice David Maraga mentioned only “irregularities and

illegalities”, notably in the trans-mission of election results.

The court has until September 22 to deliver the full ruling, which would give the IEBC little time to make any necessary changes.

“It is very uncertain,” said Nic Cheeseman, a professor of African politics at the University of Bir-mingham in England. “We don’t know if the Supreme Court is going to say something about technology, we don’t know if they are going to directly impugn any of the individ-uals in the IEBC. Will they have to be replaced? If so, how will that be done in the time frame?”

In the absence of the judge-ment, the electoral commission has pushed forward with plans for a new election, dismissing opposi-tion calls to sack its top officials.

“It was expected that the IEBC would move swiftly to undertake far-reaching reforms. So far this has yet to happen,” the Daily Nation newspaper said in an editorial on Saturday, denouncing a “stalemate which has created paralysis and is confusing the public”.

Fissures within the IEBC, mean-while, were exposed when a leaked memo showed chairman Wafula Chebukati outlining a raft of irreg-ularities in the election to the commission’s chief executive Ezra Chiloba. Kenyatta has insisted that the election go ahead as planned, accusing his longtime rival Odinga

Doubt looms overKenyan poll rerun

Bamako

AFP

The mayor of Mali’s sec-ond city, Sikasso, yesterday became the

first candidate to throw his hat into the ring for 2018 presidential elections in the troubled west African state.

Kalifa Sanogo, who made his name in textiles before entering politics, said he would stand for the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Adema), though he must win a primary before becoming the official candidate.

“At the request of thou-sands of my supporters gathered in Sikasso on Satur-day, I have accepted to present myself as a candidate in the presidential election,” he said by phone.

The declaration may sur-prise supporters of incumbent President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Cairo/Ramallah

Reuters

Hamas has agreed to disman-tle the administration that runs Gaza, it said yesterday, a major step towards hand-ing control of the

Palestinian enclave to a unity govern-ment after a decade of bitter rivalry with President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Islamist group, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007, said it had taken “a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee” that runs the territory of 2 million people, and hand power to some form of unity government.

Reunification a decade after Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah movement battled for control of Gaza may hinge on whether complex issues related to power-shar-ing —which stymied reconciliation bids in the past—can be resolved. The Fatah-led government, based in the West Bank, hailed the move, announced after Egyp-tian mediation, as “a step in the right direction”. Cairo’s efforts had presented a “historic opportunity” that could lead to a new Palestinian election and ulti-mately statehood, a spokesman told the official news agency Wafa.

Hamas and Fatah agreed in 2014 to form a national reconciliation

administration but could not agree on the details. A unity government formed after Hamas won the last Palestinian gen-eral election, in 2006, was short-lived.

Aiming to pressure Hamas to relin-quish control of Gaza, Abbas cut payments to Israel for the electricity it supplies to the enclave, leading to power provided for less than four hours on some days, and never more than six hours a day. Azzam Al Ahmad, who headed Fatah’s delegation to the talks in Cairo, told Wafa: “This step will enhance the unity of the Palestinians and end ugly division.”

The two parties did not meet at the talks which took the form of shuttle-diplomacy with Egyptian officials mediating. Ahmad said the two sides

planned to meet face-to-face but gave no date. Other Palestinian factions would join the talks later to discuss practical steps to implement the agreement, he added.

Mending fences with Western-backed Abbas would be another step in Hamas’ diplomatic push to improve rela-tions with its neighbour Egypt, which has kept its frontier with Gaza largely closed and accused the group in the past of aid-ing Islamist militants in Egypt’s Sinai desert, something Hamas denies.

The United Nations’ envoy welcomed the news. “All parties must seize this opportunity to restore unity and open a new page for the Palestinian people,” UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement, adding that the UN was ready to assist the talks in order to alle-viate hardship in Gaza. Mladenov thanked Egypt for its “tireless efforts in creating this positive momentum.”

Some opinion polls have showed that if parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would win both in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, 82, is 12 years into what was meant to be a four-year term as presi-dent and opinion polls show him to be unpopular. He has no clear successor and no new presidential election appears imminent.

Fatah welcomes Hamas pledge to end splitRamallah

AP

PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement welcomed a pledge by its Hamas rivals to accept key conditions for ending a decade-old Palestinian political and territorial split, but said it wants to see vows implemented before making the next move. Repeated attempts at reconciliation have failed since the militant Hamas drove forces loyal to Abbas from the Gaza Strip in 2007, a year after defeating Fatah in parliament elections. The takeover led to rival governments, with Hamas controlling Gaza and Abbas in charge of autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Earlier yesterday, Hamas announced that it has accepted key Abbas demands for ending the split. This includes holding general elections in the West Bank and Gaza, dissolving a contentious Gaza administrative committee and allow-ing an Abbas-led “unity government,” formed in 2014 but until now unable to start operating in Gaza, to finally assume responsibility there.

The announcement came after separate talks by Hamas and Fatah delega-tions with Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo in recent days.

Egypt relayed Fatah demands to Hamas that as a first step, it must dissolve the administrative committee, its de facto government in Gaza, and allow the unity government to take charge. “We accepted that as a sign of our good will toward reconciliation,” Hamas official Hussam Badran told The Associated Press.

“The administrative committee is now dissolved and the government can come to Gaza today to assume its responsibilities and duties,” he said.

Mahmoud Aloul, the No. 2 in Fatah, told the Voice of Palestine radio that “this is encouraging news.” However, he cautioned that “we want to see that hap-pening on the ground before we move to the next step.”

Hamas has been greatly weakened by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade, three wars with Israel and international isolation. Gaza’s economy is in tatters and residents of the territory have electricity for only a few hours a day.

Hamas agrees to hand Gaza to unity govt

of seeking to block the vote as a way of forcing the president to accept a coalition government.

The National Super Alli-ance (NASA) of opposition parties has formulated a list of demands including the dismissal of certain officials, a change in the procurement of election materials and live media cov-erage of the declaration of results at tallying centres.

“IEBC as currently consti-tuted... cannot conduct a free and fair election in October,” Odinga said on Sunday.

The opposition alleges that the August 8 election was

rigged through the hacking of an electronic vote-tallying sys-tem. It said many of the so-called 34A tallying forms, meant to back up electronic results, were delayed and often had not been signed or stamped, or were illegible or lacking serial numbers or watermarks.

French biometrics firm OT-Morpho, which provided the results transmission sys-tem, has said that an audit of its system showed no hacking or manipulation of data. But the IEBC has yet to comply with a Supreme Court order to allow independent access to

its servers. Cheeseman said that with the IEBC suffering from lost legitimacy, an ideal solution would be for rival par-ties to sit down and negotiate the path to an election which could be acceptable to all.

Increasingly bitter rheto-ric, however, has driven them only further apart. “A lot of the language has been really wor-rying,” Cheeseman said. pointed in particular to com-ments by Kenyatta referring to Chief Justice Maraga as a “crook” and saying he would “fix” the Supreme Court if re-elected. He has also threatened to impeach Odinga if he wins.

Mali mayor to run for presidency

The Islamist group, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007, said it had taken “a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee” that runs the territory of 2 million people, and hand power to some form of unity government.

Supporters of Kenya’s main political opposition, National Super Alliance (NASA) presidential flag-bearer, Raila Odinga, react during a political rally in the Nairobi suburb of Soweto, yesterday.

Ankara

Reuters

Turkey sent 80 military vehicles including tanks to its southern border

with Syria, the state-run Ana-dolu news agency said yesterday.

Citing a military source, Anadolu said the deployment was part of reinforcements for troops stationed along the bor-der. The vehicles were sent to the Iskendurun district of the southeastern province of Hatay, Anadolu said.

Late on Saturday, Anadolu also reported that the army had dispatched first aid trucks and military vehicles to the same

location, along with heavy equipment.

A third convoy of armoured vehicles was heading to Hatay’s Reyhanli district, where Tur-key’s Cilvegozu border gate with Syria is located, Anadolu said.

On Friday, Turkey’s foreign ministry said Russia, Iran and Turkey had agreed to deploy observers around a de-escala-tion zone in northern Syria’s Idlib region, which is mostly controlled by militants linked to a former Al Qaeda affiliate.

It said the observers would look to prevent clashes between forces of the Syrian regime and the opposition, and watch for ceasefire violations.

Turkey sends military vehicles, equipment to Syrian border

Kuwait City

Reuters

Kuwait has ordered North Korea’s ambassador to leave within a month as

the Gulf country downgraded diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, a North Korean dip-lomat in the Gulf region said yesterday.

The United Nations Secu-rity Council imposed new sanctions after North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test this month, and the United States called on countries to sever diplomatic and financial ties with it.

The diplomat, who asked not to be named, said the ambassador, So Chang Sik, will leave following Kuwait’s deci-sion to downgrade the North Korean diplomatic represen-tation to charge d’affaires level.

Kuwaiti officials did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

Kuwait, where around 3,000 North Koreans live, has been hosting North Korea’s sole diplomatic mission in the Gulf region.

Kuwait’s announcement comes after US President Trump met with the Gulf

state’s ruler in Washington earlier this month.

Last month the Gulf coun-try stopped direct flights to and from Pyongyang as well as halting entrance visas and commercial licences, state news agency Kuna reported, citing an official at the foreign ministry.

The Kuwait foreign minis-try said at the time it was committed to implementing Security Council resolutions on North Korea, adding that it had stopped loans to the Asian state, banned imports and cut the numbers of its diplomats in the country.

Kuwait orders North Korea’s envoy to leave within a month

Baghdad

AFP

An Iraqi vice president warned yesterday that Baghdad would not

tolerate the creation of “a sec-ond Israel” after the Jewish state became the only coun-try to support a planned Kurdish independence refer-endum in northern Iraq.

The leaders of autono-mous Iraqi Kurdistan must “call off the (September 25) referendum that is contrary to the constitution and does not serve the general inter-ests of the Iraqi people, not even the particular interests of the Kurds”, said Vice Pres-ident Nuri Al Maliki.

“We will not allow the creation of a second Israel in the north of Iraq,” Maliki, a Shiite former prime minister, said at a meeting with US ambassador Douglas Silliman, in a statement released by the vice president’s office.

A country set up on a reli-gious or ethnic base, like the Jewish state established in 1948, would not be accepta-ble, Maliki said.

Iraq warns against ‘second Israel’ in Kurdistan

Finally, there are signs of a rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah groups in Palestine. It will be premature to guess where the current efforts will lead, considering the past failures in

reconciliation attempts, but if the moves for unity succeed, it will be the best thing to happen to the Palestinians struggle for independence and can bring revolutionary changes to their struggle for freedom. The reason is that a lack of unity and the bitter enmity between Hamas and Fatah has been one of the biggest impediments to the realization of Palestinian dreams, a situation which Israel has been exploiting, and to a large extent abetting, to its advantage.

Hamas said in a statement yesterday that it has agreed to a number of steps to end the long-running feud with its rival Fatah. It has agreed to hold talks, dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections to pave the way for a Palestinian unity government. Hamas called it “a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee” that runs the territory of two million people, while Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the move, saying he would convene a meeting of leaders for discussions upon his return from New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly. Both sides have taken the primary step, and now the complex issue of power-sharing needs to be

addressed. Fatah and Hamas will require plenty of determination and an extraordinary willingness to make concessions to make the current plan work. This is because a plan to form a national reconciliation administration in 2014 did not succeed because both sides could not agree on the details.

Fatah and Hamas must realise that their enmity and the divisions they have sown in the Palestinian society have been one of the biggest impediments to the fulfillment of

Palestinian dreams. Instead of uniting against their common enemy, which is united against them, they spent their time and energy trying to weaken the other and consolidate their power. The current reconciliation bid must be the result of a realization that they have wasted precious time fighting each other, during which period Benjamin Netanyahu effectively killed the peace process and grabbed the remaining Palestinian land. It’s rare in history that a people fighting for freedom are so disunited.

Israel is expected to do everything to scupper the unity bid as it had done in the past because it will be the biggest loser. As usual, Netanyahu will say that the unity will promote terror and will harm the peace process which he has already killed.

Hamas and Fatah must overcome their differences and not fall prey to the machinations of Netanyahu.

10 MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017VIEWS

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

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

[email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

[email protected]

Palestinian unity

QUOTE OF THE DAY

If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behaviour, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed. And we all know that. Andnone of us want that. None of us want war.

Nikki HaleyUS Ambassador to the UN

Fatah and Hamas must realise that they have wasted precious time fighting each other instead of fighting their common enemy.

The announcement in July of a water prices agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been hailed as a model of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation as well as a major achieve-

ment of the Trump administration’s efforts to broker a comprehensive peace deal in the Middle East. Both the agreement and the process that yielded it, however, reveal a very different reality.

The water prices agreement is part of a larger Red Sea-Dead Sea conveyance project by Israel, Jordan and the PA to build a conduit to move Red Sea water over mountains and down into the Dead Sea basin, with three outputs: the generation of increased hydroelectric power, more desalinated water for the parties, and an increase in water for the Dead Sea.

For more than a decade, this conduit project has been the subject of tense and difficult nego-tiations among the three parties. From a Palestinian perspective, this negotiation process has been one of continuous fighting to be treated equally and fairly with the other two states, despite the fact that the Israeli army maintains overall control of occupied Palestine. Even when the parties were agreed in principle on a project, Israel used its power to force Pal-estinians to accept less than what is fair.

For example, the three parties agreed in December 2013 to a Memorandum of Under-standing on Regional Water Sharing, involving a desalination plant to be built at Aqaba, Jordan, coupled with a water swap between Israel and Jordan, and a sale of water by Israel to the Pal-estinians. For three years, Israel insisted on a price for the water that the PA considered unreasonably high and unfair. After the recent intervention by the US envoy, the PA found the price “acceptable” even though it was higher than prices it pays for other water from Israel. The PA’s acceptance is understandable only in the context of the intense pressure Palestinians face from ongoing water shortages and an inad-equate infrastructure throughout its territories, a direct consequence of Israeli control.

Israel has been able to use its occupying power to extract well over its fair share of water from the main aquifer that lies below the West Bank. Using mechanisms imposed by its army and established by the Oslo agreements, Israel severely limits Palestinian access to that aquifer, and to the surface water of the Jordan River.

The 1995 Oslo Interim Agreement estab-lished a joint water committee (JWC) to review and approve all water projects in the West Bank, with the stated objective to enhance cooperation. Unfortunately, the reality is that Israeli water experts have used this JWC process to delay or disapprove Palestinian water projects until Palestinians agree to approve water projects favouring Israel’s expanded (and illegal) settlement programme. The effect: a “quid pro quo” policy, with the Palestinian water system held hostage to Israel’s expanding settlement activity.

In 2009, the World Bank issued a highly critical evaluation of Israeli behaviour in the water sector in which it noted that Israel had

Politics of water: Stealing Palestinian resourcesDr Shaddad Attili Al Jazeera

seriously obstructed the Palestinian’s abil-ity to operate an effective water system. Another independent study (pdf) con-ducted by Amnesty International in the same year came to a similar conclusion. Two years later the French National Assembly report on its mission to the Pal-estinian territories concluded that Israel was exercising “water apartheid”.

Israel attacked these reports and the institutions that prepared them, but in a brief attempt to prove their conclusions wrong, rapidly approved a few Palestinian water projects. Within months, however, Israel returned to its delay/disapprove, quid pro quo approval strategy.

It is the data comparisons of Israeli and Palestinian water use that are ulti-mately the most damning. The World Health Organisation’s minimum standard for domestic water use is 100 litres a day. However, Israel has kept Palestinian water use in the West Bank and Gaza to well below that minimum, while providing sig-nificantly higher amounts for its own citizens and the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. On average, Israelis use 240-300 litres a day, while Palestinians living under Israeli military rule in the West Bank are limited to 20 (in some rural areas) to 79 (in urban areas), and in Gaza, the water sup-ply is not fit for human consumption. The inequality is even more glaring when con-sidering that Israeli settlers living next to Palestinians in the West Bank use an aver-age of 400 litres/day. In many places, Palestinians struggle to get enough water just to survive, while illegal Israeli settlers living right next to them water lush green lawns and fill swimming pools.

While I served as PA Minister of Water and PWA head, we launched a reform proc-ess that restructured the Palestinian water sector at all levels: managerial, regulatory and service provision. We expressed deep concern about the failure to provide fair access to the water resources in the Jordan River or those in the West Bank aquifer and opposed Israel’s rigorous blockade of Gaza, including its bombing of water and waste-water facilities during its 2009 Gaza war.

In 2010, I asked for changes in the operation of the JWC to move its process from one of Israeli domination to joint cooperation. This initiative would allow

the PWA to complete most of its projects with useful Israeli advice, but without the threat of Israeli veto, and thus provide better access to

water for Palestinian communities. I also announced that we would no longer coop-erate with the quid pro quo system used by Israel to support its programme expanding illegal settlements. Israel responded by punishing all West Bank Palestinians by withholding approval of all PWA water projects.

The continuing Israeli intransigence created serious water shortages and severe pressure on the PA to give in to Israeli demands, and by early 2017 the PA had returned to a JWC process only slightly modified in ways that allow some limited water projects — apart from drilling and rehabilitation of wells — to be imple-mented without prior JWC approval. Israel’s occupation authorities and import restrictions still control the extent and pace of Palestinian water development.

Steps towards Real Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation

Despite these challenges, we in Pales-tine would like to enjoy a cooperative relationship with Israel on water issues. Israel and the Palestinian Authority could make a good start towards that coopera-tion by focusing on three joint initiatives.

First, Israelis could work together with Palestinians to revise the operating rules of both the JWC and Military Civil Adminis-tration, with a goal of applying general international practice as occurs on shared aquifers and basins.

Secondly, Israel could join the PWA in giving a high priority to implementing a respected 2011 study of the water crisis facing Gaza residents, including recom-mendations for a sequential programme to develop an effective water supply, dis-tribution and use system in Gaza. The water supply in Gaza is currently more than 97 percent polluted, endangering the health of all Gazans and threatening the failure of the Gaza portion of the Coastal Aquifer. Israel could begin by providing the energy needed to support the proper functioning of all Gaza’s water and waste-water facilities.

Finally, Israel could join Palestine in accepting International Water Law stand-ards for allocating water within the Jordan River Basin by signing the 1997 UN Con-vention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. This action would signal Israel’s acceptance of a fair and equitable process for allocating and managing joint water resources.

Israel should not build and use its power by depriving the Palestinians it has occupied for the past 50 years of access to their fair share of their natural resources.

While the diplomatic process remains largely frozen between Israel and the Pal-estinians, by moving forward together to solve our water problems we can chart a course forward that will safeguard the vital resource of water for the future of both peoples.

The author is an advisor ranking minister at the

Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations

Affairs Department and was Palestinian Author-

ity Minister of Water and Head of the Palestinian

Water Authority (PWA) from 2008 to 2014.

While the diplomatic process remains largely frozen between Israel and the Palestinians, by moving forward together to solve our water problems we can chart a course forward that will safeguard the vital resource of water for the future of both peoples.

ED ITOR IAL

11MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 OPINION

The work of local prosecutors in cooperation with the CICIG bore fruit, and an anti-corruption movement was born. Civil society demanded results from the judicial processes and helped push for the removal of members of the corrupt political estab-lishment from office.

That same year, general elections took place and Jimmy Morales, a former comedian,was elected to the highest public office. He campaigned on being an outsider and not part of the corrupt political class. Although many thought that was true, it was clearly not the case for members of his political party, Frente de Convergencia Nacional (the National Convergence Front - FCN).

The FCN was founded by former military officials that were allegedly involved in gross human rights violations during Guatemala’s decades-long civil war. From early on, the party has sought the expulsion of the CICIG, as they saw it as a threat to the country’s “sovereignty”. This might explain why, after the elec-tion, the FCN was quick to ally itself in Congress with members of the corrupt political establishment alleg-edly tied to organised crime and the criminal networks that engulf all branches of government.

Throughout 2016, the anti-corruption move-ment led by the general prosecutor, in cooperation with the CICIG, continued to pursue a series of investigations against Guatemala’s corrupt elite. It persisted even in the face of failed attempts to intro-duce reforms to strengthen the judicial system, sabotaged by the supporters and beneficiaries of the status quo with the government and Congress.

In June 2016, a massive illegal party financing scheme was revealed. It involved over 50 high-pro-file politicians, bankers, and business owners. This rocked the foundations of not only Guatemala’s

Germany’s far-right party is about to be stronger than ever

Americans can be forgiven for thinking Germany has already successfully thwarted Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Deutsch version of the right-wing populist movements pounding on the

gates of Europe. When the overtly racist AfD’s numbers sank in the polls in March, observers across the West felt relieved to know that the Euro-pean Union’s backbone and strongest advocate would not fall to the far right.

Germans, however, feel little such relief. In fact, many are worried sick about the virtual certainty of a far-right party’s entrance to Parliament. That’s because even a small AfD presence in the Bun-destag could have the power to disrupt German politics and even derail its economy.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of things Americans just don’t understand about Germany. The first is that in parliamentary democracy, minor parties matter. The second is that given the true nature of populist disruption, populists can still ruin everybody’s day even without capturing a sin-gle branch of government.

Germany has five parties represented in its Bundestag. Two are the major parties, Angela Mer-kel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party. But there are several smaller parties, as well, each carrying 10 percent of the vote, more or less. These minor parties have access to government funding and resources, fill committee chairs, and have the

opportunity to form coalitions with the major par-ties if the electoral dice land right; they could even serve as leader of the opposition.

With the AfD set to join the Bundestag after the September 24 elections — it’s polling well above the 5 percent threshold required to make it in — it will become party number six. In fact, the latest poll shows the AfD tied for third place behind the CDU and SPD, indicating there’s a strong chance it could become the third-largest party in the German Parliament. And if the CDU and SPD continue their grand coalition, what does that mean?

That an openly racist, anti-euro, anti-immi-grant, party that has embraced nationalism will serve as the leader of the opposition in the Ger-man Parliament.

The party will be the first to speak after Merkel gives speeches; members might head up the pow-erful budget committee. That’s a terrifying prospect to anyone even remotely concerned with Germa-ny’s “war burden,” as they call it here. But the reality is that it doesn’t matter how many seats the AfD gets in the Bundestag. What matters most is that they will get any.

The AfD could garner up to 70 or so seats. But even if they perform far worse than expected, they will still have access to a vast amount of govern-ment resources, explained Timo Lochocki, an

expert on right-wing populism at the German Mar-shall Fund. Each Bundestag member is given money to hire several staffers, so even just 30 or so seats would mean AfD members will have about 100 people working for them in the Bundestag. “That means their organisational capacity will increase massively overnight,” said Lochocki. “This is of utmost importance to bear in mind.”

Up until now, the AfD has primarily had to rely on media coverage or reactions from other parties to spread the party message for members, he explained. But once it’s in the Parliament, “the party itself will have the chance to build up their momentum on their own.”

Still, it matters that Germany’s far right has no chance of winning a majority or taking the chan-cellorship, right? I hate to be the bearer of bad news. A primary way right-wing populist parties wield influence in politics is by changing how other parties behave rather than by making policy them-selves. Larger, more established parties might co-opt the populist message to attract voters, mak-ing sweeping promises they will later have to follow through on. Brexit was a perfect example of that.

Theresa May isn’t technically a member of the UK Independence Party, but she might as well be — she’s carrying out their anti-EU agenda for them.

Guatemala, as most of Central America, is known for deep-rooted corruption in its governmental institutions. Yet in 2015, the country made glo-

bal headlines for its efforts to change this.It came after massive protests

unfolded in response to a variety of high-level corruption scandals, which resulted in the resignation and indictment of former President Otto Perez Molina and his Vice President Roxana Baldetti. These major happenings opened an unparalleled opportunity for the Central American country to transform the political system and eliminate deep-rooted corruption.

At present, however, the political establishment is divided. As further anti-graft efforts have led to more than a hundred former cabinet members facing trial, entire sectors of the elite now oppose meaningful change, including current President Jimmy Morales. In a stunning move, during the early morning hours of August 25, the second anniversary of the national strike, he announced his decision to expel the head of the UN-backed inter-national commission against impunity (CICIG).

Such an extreme measure was consid-ered by many analysts an outright political suicide. The reasons that led the president go through the unthinkable have been building up over the past year.

2015: The campaign against the crimi-nal elites

The year 2015 was a watershed moment in Guatemala’s contemporary political history. The massive protests that unfolded that year were sparked by a series of exposes that revealed an intricate corruption scheme that involved the sit-ting president, vice president and a cadre of high-level cabinet officials.

Guatemala is on the verge of a major crisis

Election campaign bus of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Frankfurt Oder.

political class, but also its close links with the business elite, which until then had thought itself beyond the reach of the law.

Now, the anti-corruption probes have reached President Morales himself and his family. His brother and son have been accused of alleged fraud and embezzlement and are facing trial. Furthermore, the CICIG requested Mr Morales’s immu-nity to be lifted on the grounds of alleged illegal campaign financing. Two days later, Mr Morales declared the commis-sioner persona non grata on Twitter and ordered him to leave the country immediately. His decision was overruled by the Constitutional Court, but the political crisis is set to continue in the following weeks.

The unexpected has happened and there is little room for certainty. The situation is constantly changing and there are credible reports that the president is seriously considering dis-obeying the Constitutional Court ruling. This will plunge Guatemala into a deeper constitutional crisis and the end result of such a scenario is anybody’s guess. The national and international media, civil society, and the international com-munity have decried Mr Morales’s actions. The president’s political allies are, for the most part, members of the corrupt political establishment that seek “stability”, i.e. impunity.

Leaders of the private sector, on the other hand, are divided. They are worried that the anti-corruption efforts are creating an environment of uncertainty that would discourage possible investors and slow down economic growth. However, business elites must bear in mind that uncertainty and distrust to the country is created by widespread corruption and the corrupt political class. Without rule of law, there is no stability for anyone, let alone investors.

On the other hand, parts of civil society are still falling into the trap of equating every single political opponent to the cor-rupt establishment. Failing to recognise the nuances between factions of the private sector only plays into the rhetoric of the defenders of the status quo.

Emerging political leaders, the private sector, civil society, and popular movements must recognise that a common agenda benefits everyone except those involved in corruption. Powerful sectors of the elite which, for now, have remained on the sidelines of this process need to unequivocally support the anti-corruption efforts and a minimum set of reforms. This includes the overhaul of the judiciary and the electoral system.

A renovation of the political class is crucial. It is now clear that the current political establishment is only interested in short-term fixes and very few members are interested in a long-term plan for the country.

Yet, these efforts will be fruitless unless local leaders and members of the Guatemalan elite acknowledge that mutual concessions are necessary to consolidate a democratic rule of law. The success of the fight against corruption depends on it.

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The result of all of this, said Lochocki, is that identity politics hijacks the national conversation and people stop paying attention to core economic issues.

“There’s a reason why the Brit-ish economy is facing some problems,” he said. “This is not a problem in the short term, because the German economy is doing fine. But the European economy and the world economy are highly dependent on the Ger-man economy.”

If the AfD is able to amplify its message with its powerful new parliamentary megaphone, dynamics similar to what led to Brexit could unfold in Germany.

But certainly not all is lost. One Bundestag staffer affiliated with the SPD said it is too early to know whether the AfD will be able to wield long-term influence.

“I think the AfD will become a significant concern if they manage to establish themselves in the Ger-man political spectrum and become a permanent force on the extreme right,” said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This is not yet the case.”

The solution, the staffer and Lochocki agree, is for Germany’s conservative parties to articulate a strong conservative message that brings AfD supporters back into the fold. The AfD purveys both a conservative and an anti-demo-cratic message. Even if the CDU swings right, it will never adopt an anti-democratic platform. Merkel, we’re looking at you.

Bethany Allen-EbrahimianThe Washington Post

With the AfD set to join the Bundestag after the September 24 elections — it’s polling well above the 5 percent threshold required to make it in — it will become party number six. In fact, the latest poll shows the AfD tied for third place behind the CDU and SPD, indicating there’s a strong chance it could become the third-largest party in the German Parliament.

Alfredo Ortega FrancoAl Jazeera

A renovation of the political class is crucial. It is now clear that the current political establishment is only interested in short-term fixes and very few members are interested in a long-term plan for the country.

12 MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017ASIA

Modi inaugurates Narmada dam projectDabhoi

IANS

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi inaugurated the ambitious 138 metre inter-state Sardar Sarovar Dam

project on Narmada river on his 67th birthday yesterday, linking it with his “mission” to create a new India and roared: “I will live for your dreams, I will die for your dreams.”

The Prime Minister, who was expected to reach the dam site at Kevadiya Colony around 9.15am from Gandhinagar after receiv-ing blessings from his octogenarian mother Heeraba, had to take a de tour due to bad weather. He landed in Dabhoi and travelled to Kevadiya Col-ony by car, reaching a little over an hour later.

Addressing the valedictory of a Narmada Mahotsav organised by the ruling BJP through 85 chariots that went around the state during the last 10 days before reaching Dabhoi, an hour’s drive from the dam site, Modi said: “Today is the culmi-nation of a dream that Sardar Patel saw to end the water crisis of the states in western India much before I and many of us were born.

“There were just two mahapurush (great statesman), Sardar Patel and Babasaheb Ambedkar, in India. If they had lived even a few more years, the western states would already have had water and India would

have been on the path to progress much earlier. But it was our mis-fortune that we had to lose them,” he said speaking in Hindi to a large, attentive crowd.

He said governments formu-late and implement schemes, some of them face problems too, but “Maa Narmada is the only one which encountered the max-imum hurdles. At one time, the entire world had ganged up against the scheme, the World Bank decided and stopped the loan to the ambitious project on the pretext of environment but the people of Gujarat stood firm.

“They were committed to complete the dam even if the Word Bank stopped giving money. Even temples of this state organised donations for this dam,” Modi said, adding that the water of Narmada was not sim-ple water but “it is paaras”.

He said he had never indulged into politicking over the Narmada dam since it satiates the thirst of “lakhs of mothers, who used to trek kilometres, tribals who had to migrate far away, jawans at the borders in parched regions, mute cattle who had

strut hundreds of kilometers for water and poor farmers”.

Modi said, “This is an emo-tional moment for me. I don’t celebrate birthdays but today is ‘vishwakarma jayanti’ and today a son has blessings of lakhs of mothers. This is not a govern-ment programme, this is not a BJP event, this is a celebration of the people.

“The quantity of cement con-crete that has been used to set up this dam is incredible. The mate-rial required to construct an eight-kilometer-wide concrete road from Kashmir to Kanyaku-mari and from Kandla to Kohima has gone into putting this struc-ture,” Modi said.

“The Sardar Sarovar Project is an engineering marvel. It should be part of the curriculum of engineering studies in the country.”

Dubbed as ‘Lifeline of Gujarat’, the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam was recently increased to 138.68 meters, tak-ing the water storage capacity to 4.73 million acre feet (MAF).

This is expected to benefit the participating states Gujarat,

Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Other than water, the hydro power project at Nar-mada dam produces 1,450 MW of power too.

Earlier, on reaching Kevadiya, Modi performed reli-gious rituals and dedicated the completed Sardar Sarovar Dam project, whose foundation stone was laid on April 5, 1961, by India’s first Prime Minister Jawa-harlal Nehru.

The project has since under-gone several upheavals before seeing light of the day 56 years later. According to the Gujarat government, drinking water would be supplied to 8,221 vil-lages, 159 towns and eight cities across the state through the dam.

A total of 17.92 lakh hectares of land across 3,125 villages would be irrigated with Narmada dam waters, with flood control benefits in 30,000 hectares.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the Sardar Sarovar Dam project in Gujarat yesterday.

NEW DELHI: Arguments between passengers allotted the lower and middle berths in reserved train coaches are com-mon and in a bid to end this issue, the Railways has decided to reduce the official sleeping hours in its trains by an hour. According to a circular issued by the Railway Board on August 31, the passengers allloted to the lower berths in the reserved coaches can only sleep between 10pm and 6am and must allow those allotted middle or upper berths to sit there for the rest of the time. Earlier, the existing permissible time for sleeping in reserved coaches was between 9pm and 6am.

AGRA: River activists yesterday demanded firm steps to revive and rejuvenate the virtually dying Yamuna river. Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society President Surendra Sharma said there was an urgent need to construct a barrage some 10km downstream of the Taj Mahal to ensure that the river was always full of water behind the 17th century monument. This would also bring down the high dust level in the ambi-ent air which was proving a threat to the safety of the world heritage monument, he said. Shravan Kumar Singh of the River Connect Campaign said union Minister Nitin Gadkiri had promised that within two years steamers and ships would be ferrying tourists from Delhi to Agra but so far not a single concrete step had been taken.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Legendary playback singer K.J. Yesudas has applied for a permission to pray at the famed Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple here on the occasion of Vijay-adeshmi. Vijayadeshmi falls on September 30 this year. The letter from Yesudas, who was born to a Roman-Catholic family, was sent through a special messenger to the temple author-ities. A final decision will be taken by the temple committee.

NEWS BYTES

Railways reduces sleeping time in train

Modi’s birthday marked as ‘Sewa Divas’ by BJPNew Delhi IANS

Wishes poured in for Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi on his 67th

birthday yesterday, being observed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as “Sewa Divas” or day of service.

As the Prime Minister inaugu-rated the Sardar Sarovar project at Kevadia in Gujarat, BJP leaders and ministers took a lead in clean-liness and other campaigns.

“On his 67th birthday, wish-ing Prime Minister Narendra Modi a long life and many years of service to the nation,” Presi-dent Ram Nath Kovind tweeted.

Ministers picked up brooms and swept the streets in Delhi promoting Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman took part in a clean-liness drive at Gopinath Bazar in Cantonment area. Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan hosted an eye check-up camp and took part in cleanliness drive.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, BJP President Amit Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh greeted the Prime Minis-ter. “Seva is the best way to celebrate the birthday of Prad-han Sewak Narendra Modi,” Shah tweeted.

The project, whose foundation stone was laid on April 5, 1961, by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is expected to benefit Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Other than water, the hydro power project at Narmada dam produces 1,450 MW of power too.

Nation mourns death of hero Marshal Arjan Singh New Delhi IANS

President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi yesterday led the

nation in mourning the death of Marshal of Indian Air Force (IAF) Arjan Singh (pictured), who will be given a state funeral today morning. Remembered for his role in leading the fledgling IAF in the 1965 war with Pakistan, Arjan Singh died in a hospital here yesterday after a massive heart attack. He was 98.

His mortal remains were kept at his residence 7A, Kauti-lya Marg for people to pay respects to the war hero — the

first five star officer of the IAF.President Kovind, also the

Supreme Commander of Indian Armed Forces, said he was “extremely saddened to learn about the passing of our great and cherished air warrior — a hero of World War II who won our nation’s gratitude for his military leadership in the 1965 War”.

Modi, who was in Gujarat to dedicate the Sardar Sarovar Dam to the nation on his birthday, paid tributes to the “brave soldier”.

“Even at the age of 98, he would be dressed in uniform. He would come on a wheelchair but whenever he would see me, he would stand. He was a soldier,

he never forgot his discipline.”In Delhi, Defence Minister

Nirmala Sitharaman laid a wreath on the air warrior’s body on behalf of the Prime Minister. Sitharaman said a state funeral would be given to Arjan Singh. And if weather permitted, a fly-past may also take place to honour the soldier.

The cortege will leave at 8.30 a.m. on a gun carriage and will reach Brar Square in Delhi Can-tonment area around an hour later for the last rites.

Three service chiefs -- Admiral Sunil Lanba, General Bipin Rawat and Air Chief Mar-shal B S Dhanoa — also paid their respects.

Activists want Yamuna cleaned to save Taj

Yesudas seeks permission to pray at temple

Talks with Pakistan meaningless till it stops exporting terror: RajnathNizamabad

IANS

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh (pictured) yesterday said that talks

with Pakistan will have no meaning unless the neighbour-ing country stops exporting terrorists to India.

He alleged that Pakistan was continuing its attempts to desta-bilise India by sending terrorists and by violating the ceasefire on the borders.

Addressing a public meet-ing organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party in this Telangana town to mark ‘Telangana Lib-eration Day’, the Minister claimed that situation on the border had changed and that India is no longer a weak country.

“Some people say talks should be held. We are saying we can have talks with anybody but unless Pakistan stops exporting terror and sending

terrorists to destabilize India, talks with Pakistan will have no meaning,” he said.

Stressing India wanted good relations with all its neighbours, he recalled that it was with this intention that heads of states of all neighbours were invited to the swearing in of the new gov-ernment but one neighbour - Pakistan - never responded positively and continued its attempts to weaken India.

Stating that India is giving a befitting reply to the terror, he

said this had no parallel in the country’s history. He said after killing of five Indian civilians in the border by Pakistan in 2014, he had directed Border Security Force (BSF) to give a strong reply.

“I told Director General of BSF that India believes in non-violence and hence we will not fire the first bullet but if Paki-stan starts firing, nobody should be able to even count the Indian bullets,” he said.

Rajnath Singh vowed to root out the problems of terrorism, extremism and Maoism. He said India had emerged as a power-ful country and no power can cast evil eye on it or threaten its sovereignty.

The Home Minister said the 13 month period from August 15, 1947 to September 17, 1948 was a dark chapter in India’s history as the ruler of Hyderabad State committed repression on peo-ple, who want to merge with India.

Congress starts signature campaign against fuel price riseNew Delhi IANS

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken yesterday began a campaign in

the national capital to collect 10 lakh signatures against the rise in the price of petrol and diesel. He said the party will stage a protest on September 20 at Jantar Mantar to demand rollback of the excise and VAT (value added taxes) on petrol and diesel.

Maken arrived at a petrol pump near Zakir Hussain College, in central Delhi, along with scores of party workers to collect signatures — the party proposes to col-lect signatures of 10 lakh people from the city. Maken accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of hiking the excise duty on pet-rol and diesel by 11 times.

A mahout riding an elephant as he collects money from a driver on the National Highway, some 35kms from Dharmanagar in the northeastern state of Tripura, yesterday.

13MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 ASIA

Rain and evictions add to Rohingya miseryUkhia

AFP

Heavy monsoon rain heaped new misery yes-terday on hundreds of

thousands of Muslim Rohinyga stuck in makeshift camps in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar, as authorities started a drive to force them to a new site.

With food and water short-ages already making life tough, torrential rain brought back swamp-like conditions to many parts of the border town of Cox’s Bazar which has become a mag-net for the Rohingya.

About 7.7cm of rain fell in 24 hours and more is predicted in the next two days, the Bangla-desh Weather Department said.

Bangladesh authorities, who have already issued travel restrictions on the Rohingya, launched an operation late Sat-urday to get tens of thousands out of roadside camps and hillside shanties into a giant new camp.

The United Nations says 409,000 Rohingyas have now overwhelmed Cox’s Bazar since August 25 when the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched operations in Rakhine state. As existing camps are already full with 300,000 Rohingya fleeing earlier violence, many of the Rohingya have been forced to live in the open air or under flimsy plastic sheets.

Police toured streets with loudspeakers ordering exhausted families to go to the Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, which is

being cleared to build new shelters.

“We are shifting them from the roadsides where many of them have been staying,” Kha-led Mahmud, a government spokesman for Cox’s Bazar dis-trict told AFP.

Mahmud said gradually all the new Rohingya would be taken to Balukhali to bring order to the chaotic aid operation.

On Sunday Myanmar’s gov-ernment hinted that it may not take back Rohingya who fled across the border, accusing those refugees of having links to the militants. “Those who fled the

villages made their way to the other country for fear of being arrested as they got involved in the violent attacks. Legal protec-tion will be given to the villages whose residents did not flee,” the government’s Information Com-mittee statement said.

Previous statements have said the country will set up relief shelters in northern Rakhine for Muslims “who can guarantee they are in no way connected to the terrorists”.

On Saturday, Bangladesh police issued tough new orders banning the Rohingya from mov-ing out of designated areas. The

order even prevented them from taking shelter with friends and relatives.

Checkpoints have been set up at key transit points.

With thousands more Rohingya arriving each day, Bangladesh authorities fear the refugees could swamp other towns and cities across the coun-try. But the United Nations is already warning of intolerable conditions in the camps around Cox’s Bazar.

The rain “has doubled their misery”, said Mohammed Kai-Kislu, police chief at Ukhia near Cox’s Bazar.

Army chief urges unity over RohingyaYangon

AFP

Myanmar’s army chief has urged the country to unite over the “issue” of

the Rohingya, a Muslim group he says has no roots in the coun-try, and which his troops are accused of systematically purging.

The military says its “clear-ance operations” in northern Rakhine state are aimed at flushing out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25.

But the violence has engulfed the border region and triggered an exodus of more than 400,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, where they have told of soldiers slaughtering civilians and burning down entire villages.

UN leaders have described the campaign as having all the hallmarks of “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya, a stateless group that has endured years of persecution and repression.

The status of the Muslim minority has long been a explo-sive topic in Myanmar.

Many in the Buddhist major-ity view the group as foreign interlopers from Bangladesh and deny the existence of a Rohingya ethnicity, insisting they be called “Bengalis”.

General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s globe-trotting army chief, trumpeted that view in comments posted on his official Facebook page Saturday.

“They have demanded rec-ognition as Rohingya, which has never been an ethnic group in Myanmar. (The) Bengali issue is a national cause and we need to be united in establishing the

truth,” the post said.The defence of his army’s

operations comes amid strident global condemnation of the vio-lence, which has strapped Bangladesh with the over-whelming task of providing shelter and food to a rising tide of desperate refugees.

But inside Myanmar the army is riding a new wave of support from a public that has incubated hatred against the Rohingya for years.

Yesterday, Myanmar’s gov-ernment hinted that it may not take back Rohingya who fled across the border, accusing those refugees of having links to the militants.

“Those who fled the villages made their way to the other country for fear of being arrested as they got involved in the violent attacks. Legal pro-tection will be given to the villages whose residents did not flee,” the government’s Infor-mation Committee statement said.

Previous statements have said the country will set up relief shelters in northern Rakhine for Muslims “who can guarantee they are in no way connected to the terrorists”.

Yesterday, Myanmar’s government hinted that it may not take back Rohingya who fled across the border, accusing those refugees of having links to the militants.

A fight breaks out during the distribution of bananas in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, yesterday.

Philippines President likens rights chief to child abuserManila

AFP

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has likened the nation’s human rights

commissioner to a “paedophile” for expressing concern over the police killing teenagers in the leader’s ongoing war on drugs.

Police have reported killing more than 3,800 people in anti-drug operations since Duterte took office 15 months ago, while thousands of others have been murdered in unexplained circumstances.

The recent deaths of two teenagers have fuelled rising opposition to the campaign, with the influential Catholic Church and leftist activists among the most prominent critics.

During a speech late Satur-day, Duterte turned on Jose Luis Gascon, the head of the Commis-sion on Human Rights.

“That Gascon, how many days has he been saying: ‘teen-ager, teenager’? Duterte said.

“Why are you so interested

in teenagers? I am questioning this.”

Duterte also insisted that killing children was not excep-tional, as he accused the rights chiefs and other critics of using the teenagers’ deaths as part of a polit ical opposition campaign.

“It is all politics. Why can’t you move on to other issues that are besetting this country,” Duterte said, referring to an insurgency conducted by Islamic militants in the south of the country. “Just because a kid was ki l led? That happens everywhere.”

The policemen involved in the teenagers’ deaths initially said they killed them in self defence. However, the National Bureau of Investigation said the policemen murdered one of the boys and planted a gun on him, and are still investigating the death of the other teenager.

Public attorneys allege that police also murdered the other boy. The Commission on Human Rights responded to Duterte by

saying “remarks such as these are unhelpful and deviate the public’s attention away from critical human rights issues”.

“The death of children con-cerns us all as they are especially vulnerable and need state pro-tection,” the statement from commission spokeswoman Jac-queline de Guia said.

Duterte won last year’s pres-idential election on a law-and-order platform in which he promised an unprec-edented campaign to eradicate illegal drugs in society by killing up to 100,000 traffickers and addicts. Many Filipinos back the drug war, seeing it as a quick solution to widespread crime, according to a series of polls over the past year. Duterte and his aides frequently seek to discredit or disempower critics of the drug war. Duterte’s allies in the lower house of Congress last week voted to cut the annual budget of the Commission on Human Rights, a body mandated under the constitution, from $13.5m to just $20.

Beijing bans works in winter to improve air qualityBeijing

Reuters

Beijing will suspend con-struction of major public projects in the

city this winter in an effort to improve the capital’s notori-ous air quality, official media said yesterday, citing the municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development. All construction of road and water projects, as well as demolition of hous-ing, will be banned from November 15 to March 15 within the city’s six major dis-tricts and surrounding suburbs, said the Xinhua report.

The period spans the four months when heating is sup-plied to the city’s housing and other buildings.

China is in the fourth year of a “war on pollution” designed to reverse the dam-age done by decades of untrammelled economic growth and allay concerns that hazardous smog and widespread water and soil contamination are causing hundreds of thousands of early deaths every year.

Beijing has promised to impose tough industrial and traffic curbs across the north of the country this winter in a bid to meet key smog targets.

In the capital, it is aiming to reduce airborne particles known as PM2.5 by more than a quarter from their 2012 lev-els and bring average concentrations down to 60 microgrammes per cubic metre.

The city experienced near record-high smog in January and February, which the gov-ernment blamed on “unfavourable weather conditions”

Some ‘major livelihood projects’ such as railways, air-ports and affordable would, however, continue.

Rohingya refugees protect themselves from rain in Balukhali refugee camp near the Bangladesh town of Gumdhum yesterday.

High stakes in Myanmar ahead of Suu Kyi’s TV address Bangkok

AFP

As Rakhine state burns and Rohingya flee, Aung San Suu Kyi is preparing to

address Myanmar on the crisis for the first time — a high wire act seeking to soothe global out-rage without baiting an army that is again showing its teeth.

Suu Kyi took office last year as Myanmar’s first civilian leader after 50 years of junta rule.

She has since focused her energy on the delicate political dance between her civilian gov-ernment and the generals who still hold many of the levers of power.

Tomorrow, the Nobel laure-ate will give the biggest speech of her time in office.

The nationally-televised turn

will break a near silence since the ulcerous ethnic and religious hatreds in western Rakhine state erupted into killings on August 25, sending 400,000 Muslim minority Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh.

Some 30,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus have also been internally displaced.

In an interview with the BBC, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the stakes were high for tomorrow’s speech, call-ing it a “last chance” to stop the unfolding humanitarian calamity.

“If she does not reverse the situation now, then I think the tragedy will be absolutely hor-rible, and unfortunately then I don’t see how this can be reversed in the future,” he said.

The latest violence was

sparked by Rohingya militants’ raids on 30 police posts in Rakhine state.

The UN calls the army fight-back a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” with villages set ablaze to drive Rohingya civilians out.

Many abroad are puzzled as to how rights can be flagrantly denied to a specific group by a people who once nobly demanded their own in the face of a junta.

Suu Kyi’s televised address — likely at least in part to be in English — comes ahead of a meeting at the UN General Assembly in which Myanmar is expected to be hammered over the crisis.

But analysts say her power to stay the military is limited, and her response thus far indicates

she is choosing the lesser of two evils. “She’s signalling that her chief priority is the relationship between the government and military and that the pogrom is secondary to that,” Francis Wade, author of ‘Myanmar’s Enemy Within: Buddhist Vio-lence and the Making of the Muslim ‘Other’’ told AFP.

“This obviously raises ques-tions about the quality of leadership she seeks to bring, but also that the political game in Myanmar is worth the sacrifice of entire communities.”

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) swept the board when the military permit-ted elections in 2015.

Before they loosened their chokehold on power, the gener-als wrote themselves into the constitution, embedding their

political future with a bloc of leg-islative seats and total control over security.

Over the last two years, Suu Kyi’s gradualism, and her refusal to upset the organisation that kept her under house arrest for almost two decades, has seen the sprouting of the first green shoots of the rule of law in Myanmar.

But the eruption of violence in Rakhine and the pressure from the outside world for her to “do something about it” risks upsetting that balance.

All the more so in a country where the majority of the pop-ulation shares the military’s view that Rohingya Muslims — whom it disparagingly calls “Bengalis” — are interlopers bent on taking land and resources from Buddhists.

14 MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017ASIA

A participant dressed as Monkey King runs past Tiananmen Square during the annual Beijing Marathon in China yesterday.

Monkey King at Tiananmen

Smoke billows from houses after aerial bombings by Philippine Airforce planes on Islamist militant positions in Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao, yesterday.

Philippines unrestEx-Pakistan PM’s wife set to win bypollLahore

AFP

The wife of former Paki-stani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was on

course to win a parliamentary by-election for her husband’s seat, which became vacant when he was ousted from office, according to unofficial early results yesterday.

The Supreme Court ended Sharif’s tenure as prime minis-ter and banned him from holding public office in July fol-lowing an investigation into corruption allegations against him and his family, triggering the by-election for his Lahore seat.

Sharif’s daughter Maryam led the campaign on behalf of her mother Kalsum, the candi-date, who is being treated for throat cancer in London. The seat has long been controlled by Sharif and his allies, but the by-election was seen as a test of the popularity of his party, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz.

According to unofficial results from most of polling sta-tions, Kalsum had secured more than 59,000 votes while her main rival Yasmin Rashid from Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party had bagged more than 44,000 votes.

“Today people have given their verdict over the (court) verdict,” Maryam told a jubi-lant crowd gathered at the party’s office.

“First of all thank Allah mil-lions times because he has blessed your mother and leader with the success,” she said.

The unofficial results were compiled by officers at polling stations and handed to officials from contesting parties. Elec-tion Commission of Pakistan will announce the final and offi-cial results later this week.

Sharif’s supporters cele-brated in the streets yesterday night, dancing to drums and songs blaring from loudspeak-ers and shouting slogans while the Lahore sky was lit by fireworks.

Traditional sweets were distributed by the workers and supporters to celebrate the expected victory.

The PTI party, on course to finish second, is led by former cricketer Imran Khan, who played a key role campaigning for Sharif’s dismissal.

A candidate from the Milli Muslim League, a new political party backed by Jamaat-ut-Dawa (JuD), which is listed by the United Nations as a terror outfit, was expected to finish third in the race.

Another candidate, Muhammad Yaqub Sheikh — who ran as an independent because his party has not yet been registered — appeared on campaign posters alongside Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader of JuD, who has a $10m bounty on his head and is u n d e r “ p r e v e n t a t i v e detention”.

Japan PM considers snap vote in OctoberTokyo

Reuters

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering call-ing a snap election for as early

as next month to take advantage of his improved approval ratings and disarray in the main oppo-sition party, government and ruling party sources said yesterday.

Abe’s ratings have recovered to 50 percent in some polls, helped by public jitters over North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests and chaos in the opposition Democratic Party, which has been struggling with single-digit support and defections.

Abe told executives of his Liberal Democratic Party and its

junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, that he might dis-solve parliament’s Lower House for a snap poll after the legisla-ture convenes for an extra session from Sept. 28, the sources said.

Top LDP and Komeito offi-cials will meet today to discuss preparations, they added.

“Until now, it appeared the election would be next autumn, but ... we must always be ready for battle,” domestic media quoted Komeito party chief Nat-suo Yamaguchi as telling reporters on Saturday during a visit to Russia.

One option is to hold a snap election on October 22, when three by-elections are sched-uled, the sources said. Other possibilities are later in October

or after an expected visit by U.S. President Donald Trump in early November.

Abe will probably make a decision after returning from a September 18-22 trip to the United States, the sources said.

Abe’s ratings had sunk below 30 percent in some surveys in July, battered by suspected cro-nyism scandals and a perception that he had grown arrogant after more than four years in office.

His popularity rebounded somewhat after a cabinet reshuf-fle in early August and has since been helped by worries over a volatile North Korea, which on Friday fired a ballistic missile over Japan, its second such move in less than a month.

“If we have a snap election now, we need to explain it to the

public, including how we will cope with the threat from North Korea,” Koichi Hagiuda, a sen-ior LDP executive, told NHK.

Given that there is no need for a general election until late 2018, a snap poll could prompt criticism of Abe for creating a political vacuum at a time of ris-ing tensions over regional security. However, an early vote would not only take advantage of Democratic Party disarray but could also dilute a challenge from an embryonic party that allies of popular Tokyo Gover-nor Yuriko Koike, an ex-LDP lawmaker, are trying to form.

Abe’s coalition would be likely to lose its two-thirds “super majority” in the lower house but keep a simple major-ity, political sources have said.

Rise in suicide numbers among Afghan women Kabul

Anatolia

Up to 3,000 people are committing suicides in Afghanistan each year,

80 percent of whom are women, an official said yes-terday. Speaking at an event on suicide prevention in cap-ital Kabul, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) Com-missioner Qudri Yazdan said while suicides continue to be on the rise in the country, sev-eral cases go unreported.

“Families avoid reporting cases of female suicides due to [fear that it would tarnish their] ‘honour’.

She pointed out the alarming fact that 80 percent of the cases were females.

Thai investigators trail funds to nail down wildlife traffickersBangkok

AP

In most cases, the conviction of a Thai man trafficking rhino horns through a bizarre

scheme that involved hiring women to pose as trophy hunt-ers would have marked the end of the story.

But investigators took an unusual, next step — deciding to “follow the money” that helped bankroll the South African oper-ation. That led to a court order last year to seize Chumlong Lem-tongthai’s Thai bank accounts and other assets, including a house worth $142,000, to shut him down.

It was one of an increasing

number of cases illustrating how nations are shifting tactics in fighting a global wildlife traffick-ing market worth up to $23bn, after decades of relying on head-line-grabbing police raids that have had little overall effect in halting illicit trades.

The idea is “to pick the pocket of the wildlife traffickers and try to freeze them in their tracks,” said Steve Galster, founder of the anti-trafficking Freeland Foundation.

The approach is quickly becoming mainstream.

The UN General Assembly this week urged the world’s nations to adopt laws that allow wildlife crimes to be investigated as potential money-laundering

crimes. That allows law enforce-ment agents to use actions against traffickers such as seiz-ing assets, monitoring of financial transactions and red-flagging suspicious accounts or individuals.

With crime gangs increas-ingly turning to wildlife smuggling as a lucrative trade, experts say customs agents and police need to begin adopting these tools commonly used to fight drug lords and other crime kingpins.

“We’ve gone beyond kicking down the door and looking for animals in the back room, to looking at who’s the kingpin, who’s the transportation coor-dinator, who ultimately is the

vulnerable node in the syndicate without whom the syndicate wouldn’t work,” said Galster, whose group has teamed up with law enforcement agencies to bring down several trafficking rings in recent years.

A new report this week calls this effort “urgent,” given how quickly crime gangs are evolving.

Agencies fighting wildlife crime need to conduct finan-cial investigations after every bust — to identify broader crime networks and uncover criminal proceeds that can be frozen or confiscated, says the report by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Suspicious transactions and bank clients can be “red flagged” for agencies including financial intelligence units to monitor and investigate, it says. Watch lists of alleged poachers can be shared.

“We’ve been very slow to recognise wildlife crime as seri-ous transnational organised crime,” said Cathy Haenlein, one of the report’s authors.

The trafficking epidemic has surged in recent years as incomes in Asia have risen.

Tonnes of carved ivory, ivory tusks, rhino horns, live pango-lins and pangolin scales have been seized in just the last few months in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Students sent home from Islamic schoolJakarta

Reuters

Students at an Islamic school that Indonesian authorities have linked

to Islamic State returned home after villagers nearby demanded its closure, a school spokesman said yesterday.

A Reuters investigation published this month found at least eight staff and four students from the Ibnu Mas’ud school in Sukajaya, West Java, either travelled or tried to travel to Syria to join the jihadist group between 2013 and 2016.

Spokesman Jumadi told Reuters the school was empty after the local police chief said failure to comply with the closure demands would lead to a “big demonstration” by residents from five sur-rounding districts.

The school denies it sup-ports IS, or any other militant groups. It also says it does not advocate a violent or extreme version of Islam.

Jumadi, who goes by only one name, said the police warning prompted the school to call parents to pick up the roughly 250 students.

Police could not be immediately reached for comment.

One of the four students, Hatf Saiful Rasul, left for Syria when he was 11 and died fighting with IS a year later in September 2016.

Man dies in ‘Buried Alive’ haunted houseHong Kong

AFP

A man has died in a haunted house attraction called “Buried Alive”, as

Hong Kong’s largest amuse-ment park prepared to kick off its annual Halloween festival.

The 21-year-old man, sur-named Cheung, was hit by a coffin on Saturday, local media said. Cheung was found uncon-scious five minutes after he entered the attraction, Ocean Park chief executive Matthias Li said Saturday, expressing “deep sorrow” over the tragedy.

He was confirmed dead in hospital, police said.

“Buried Alive” is part of a

Halloween-themed festival at Ocean Park running from Octo-ber 5 to 31.

The park’s website said vis-itors would “experience being buried alive alone, before fight-ing their way out of their dark and eerie grave”.

Visitors are supposed to get inside a coffin-turned-slide, local media said, and slip through into the haunted house where they would experience what the park’s website described as “a rocky maze filled with dreadful ghouls”.

Hong Kong’s government said it believed Cheung entered the house safely but wandered off into a restricted area where he was s truck by machinery.

15MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 ASIA

Pedestrians walk on a crossing as rain falls due to weather patterns from Typhoon Talim in Tokyo yesterday. A powerful typhoon ripped into southern Japan, dumping torrential rain, grounding hundreds of domestic flights and halting train services.

Typhoon hits Japan

US ratchets up pressure on PyongyangSomerset

AP

Top advisers to Presi-dent Donald Trump yesterday warned North Korea to give up its missile and nuclear

weapons programmes and to quit making threats against the US and its allies or face destruction.

The warnings came a day after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to continue the weapons pro-grammes, saying North Korea is nearing its goal of “equilibrium” in military force with the United States. They also came as world leaders begin arriving in New York for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly this week, where North Korea will be high on the agenda.

Trump is making his first appearance at the UN General Assembly, his biggest moment on the world stage since Janu-ary’s inauguration. He is scheduled to address the world body, which he has criticised as weak and incompetent, tomorrow.

Trump tweeted yesterday that he and South Korean Pres-ident Moon Jae-in discussed North Korea during their latest telephone conversation on Sat-urday. Trump spoke with Moon from his New Jersey golf club, where aides said he was spend-ing the weekend preparing for his UN debut.

US National Security Adviser

H R McMaster said Kim is “going to have to give up his nuclear weapons because the president has said he’s not going to toler-ate this regime threatening the United States and our citizens with a nuclear weapon.”

Asked if that meant Trump would launch a military strike, McMaster said “he’s been very clear about that, that all options are on the table.”

Some doubt Kim — Trump referred to him as “Rocket Man” in yesterday’s tweet — will ever agree to give up his arsenal.

“I think that North Korea is not going to give up its pro-gramme with nothing on the table,” said Senate intelligence committee member Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

Kim has threatened Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, and has fired two missiles over Japan, a US ally in Asia, including a mis-sile launched on Friday. North Korea also recently tested its

most powerful bomb.The UN Security Council has

voted unanimously twice in recent weeks to tighten eco-nomic sanctions on North Korea, including targeting shipments of oil and other fuel used in missile testing. US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said North Korea was starting to “feel the pinch.”

Trump tweeted yesterday that long lines for gas are form-ing in North Korea and called it

“too bad.” Haley also warned of a tougher US response to future North Korean provocations, say-ing the Security Council has “pretty much exhausted” all of its options and that she would be happy to turn the matter over to Defence Secretary Jim Mattis “because he has plenty of mili-tary options.”

Mattis said after Kim tested a hydrogen bomb earlier this month that the US will answer any threat from the North with

a “massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.”

Trump has threatened to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea if the North continues with its threats. Haley said that wasn’t an empty threat from the presi-dent but she declined to describe the president’s intentions.

“If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behaviour, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any

way, North Korea will be destroyed and we all know that and none of us want that,” Haley said. “None of us want war. But we also have to look at the fact that you are dealing with some-one who is being reckless, irresponsible and is continuing to give threats not only to the United States, but to all their allies, so something is going to have to be done.”

McMaster also addressed published reports that Trump has changed his mind about with-drawing the US from a global climate agreement. And he sug-gested that Friday’s bomb attack in London could lead Trump to introduce a stronger travel ban.

The Wall Street Journal and other news organisations reported Saturday that Trump administration officials, speak-ing at a climate meeting in Montreal, discussed a compro-mise that would involve staying in the deal but revising US cli-mate change goals.

The White House denied Sat-urday that Trump’s position had changed. McMaster also said the reports are false. He said Trump decided to leave the Paris climate accord because it is bad for the American people and the envi-ronment, but that “the president’s ears are open” to possible par-ticipation in a new agreement that addresses his concerns about the original 2015 deal.

Trump said as much earlier this year when he announced his decision to withdraw.

Haley threatens North Korea with destruction Washington

AFP

Donald Trump’s adminis-tration ramped up the pressure on North Korea

yesterday ahead of a week of high-stakes diplomacy at the United Nations, warning Pyongyang will be “destroyed” if it refuses to end its “reckless” nuclear and ballistic missile drive.

With US officials and their allies scrambling to find ways to contain an increasingly bellig-erent Pyongyang, the US president will address the UN General Assembly tomorrow and then confer Thursday with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on the sidelines of the meeting.

The Security Council last Monday imposed a new raft of sanctions on North Korea — but their impact depends largely on whether China, Pyongyang’s ally and main economic partner, will fully implement them and on

Russia, which is hosting tens of thousands of North Korean workers.

Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, kept up the rhetorical pressure ahead of the upcoming meetings in New York, asserting that if the North should pose a serious threat to the US or its allies, “North Korea will be destroyed.”

As the US and its allies emphasise the diplomatic track, South Korea is also deploying a state-of-the-art US missile defense system. In their latest call, the White House said Trump and Moon had committed to “take steps to strengthen deter-rence and defense capabilities” of South Korea, offering no details of how it might do so.

Analysts say that in the event of hostilities, millions of people in the Seoul area — as well as the 30,000 US troops in South Korea — would be vulnerable to attack by the thousands of artillery pieces the North has positioned near the border, with potentially

staggering casualties.So far, every effort to per-

suade the North to back away from its fast-developing nuclear and missile programmes — including its most powerful nuclear test yet, on September 3 — has proved futile, at times even seeming to prompt new acts of defiance from Pyongyang.

At the request of the United States, the Security Council will hold a ministerial-level meeting Thursday on ways to enforce the latest sanctions, which include an export ban on textiles, freez-ing work permits to North Korean guest workers and cap-ping oil supplies.

Haley said sanctions had already provided a “punch in the gut” to Pyongyang but that strict enforcement was crucial.

Separately, Trump’s national security adviser, H R McMaster, agreed that “the critical thing is going to be to get all countries, every one, to do all they can to enforce those sanctions, to do

everything they can, short of a military conflict, to resolve this problem.”

But if diplomacy and eco-nomic pressure fail, he added, “We have to prepare all options.”

Pyongyang, an insular coun-try with few outside contacts, says it needs nuclear weapons

to protect itself from “hostile” US forces and is determined to build the capacity to deliver a nuclear warhead that could hit the US mainland.

North Korea said Saturday it was bent on nothing less than military “equilibrium” with the United States.

North Koreans watch news report showing North Korea’s Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile launch on electronic screen at Pyongyang station in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Food for thought: Eatery innovatesTokyo

Reuters

Diners have no complaints about the service at a pop-up restaurant in

central Tokyo, where the 17 waiters and waitresses all suf-fer from dementia.

“The Restaurant of Order Mistakes” — a play on the title of a classic Japanese children’s book, “The Restaurant of Many Orders” — is the brainchild of NHK television director Shiro Oguni, 38. The goal of his project, scheduled to run September 16-18, is to raise awareness about dementia ahead of World Alzhe-imer’s Day on September 21, and allow the public to interact with those who have the condition in a safe environment in which the

servers need not fear the conse-quences of any errors they might make. “It was truly great that everyone believed that they would be able to do this job, as long as they had proper sup-port in place,” Ogino said.

Makoto Ichikawa, a cus-tomer, said he enjoyed talking to a waitress who briefly forgot her role and sat down across from him to chat.

Professional cooks pre-pared the dishes for diners who were required to register in advance, at a venue in Roppon-gi’s Ark Hills complex.

The organisers included a dementia nursing care home.

Following the success of a similar pop-up restaurant in June, Ogino turned to crowd-funding to back the event.

Malaysia politician back in Najib’s partyBloomberg

Washington

A former Malaysia gov-ernment minister who shifted allegiance to

the opposition has returned to the ruling party, according to Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Muhammad Muhammad Taib, known as Mat Taib, is rejoining the United Malays National Organisation from the People’s Justice Party, or PKR, Najib told reporters yesterday.

Local reports earlier in the day said a “major announcement” would be made, sparking speculation Najib would announce snap elections.

The government is tout-ing Mat Taib’s return ahead of an election as a sign the opposition can’t deliver on its promises, especially to the ethnic Malay majority. A vote must be held by August 2018 but could come before the end of the year as Najib seeks to capitalise on disarray in the opposition.

“He realised that the opposition’s struggle, namely PKR, is in vain,” Najib said in a Twitter posting after yes-terday’s briefing, referring to Mat Taib. “I am certain he is able to contribute to the suc-cess of UMNO” and the broader Barisan Nasional rul-ing coalition, he said.

Taib doesn’t hold any par-liamentary or state assembly seat, and it’s not immediately clear what he brings to the table for UMNO.

He was dropped from the cabinet in April 2009 when Najib came to power and reshuffled his team. Taib was minister for rural and regional development at the time and had lost an UMNO party vote the prior month to become i ts deputy president.

Trump tweeted yesterday that he and South Korean President Moon Jae-in discussed North Korea during their latest telephone conversation on Saturday.

File picture of White House National Security Adviser H R McMaster looking on as UN Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during a press briefing at the White House.

16 MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017EUROPE

London

AP

The British government lowered the country’s official terrorist threat level yesterday after a second man was arrested

in connection with the attack on a London subway train where a bomb partially exploded.

The downgrading of the threat level from “critical” to “severe” means authorities no longer believe an attack is imminent. The “severe” classification, the second highest level of alert, is based on the assess-ment that an attack is “highly likely.”

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the easing of the alert indicates that police and security services are making “good progress” in the sprawling investigation into the attack on a subway train that injured 30 people during the rush hour Friday morning.

Rudd cautioned that the inves-tigation was ongoing. Police announced the second arrest early yesterday, offering the clearest indication yet that authorities do not believe the person who planted the homemade bomb acted alone.

The first person arrested was an 18-year-old man who was taken into custody Saturday in the depar-ture area of the port of Dover. The Metropolitan Police force said a 21-year-old man was arrested Sat-urday shortly before midnight in the west London borough of Hounslow. The force said the

second suspect was being held under the Terrorism Act and ques-tioned at a south London police station Sunday, but has been nei-ther charged nor identified.

Police also launched an urgent search of a property in the south-western suburb of Stanwell that authorities said was linked to the latest arrest.

They continued searching a home in Sunbury, another south-western London suburb where neighbors were evacuated on Sat-urday. During the attack on a stopped train at the Parsons Green station, a bomb hidden in a plastic bucket inside a supermarket freezer bag only partially exploded, spar-ing the city much worse carnage.

The two arrests indicate police and security services believe the attack was part of a coordinated plot, not the act of a single person. “We are still pursing numerous lines of enquiry and at a great pace,” Metropolitan Police

UK lowers terror threat level after second arrest

counter-terrorism coordinator Neil Basu said.

Residents of the Sunbury neighborhood where an armed police search started Saturday were evacuated in a rush and kept away for nearly 10 hours before they were allowed to return to their homes.

The property belongs to an elderly couple who have for years taken in foster children, including refugees from con-flict zones in Syria and Iraq.

The pair — Ronald Jones, 88, and his wife, Penelope Jones, 71 — have been honored by Queen Elizabeth II for their work with children in need of a stable home.

A friend, Alison Griffiths, said the Joneses are “great pil-lars of the community” who have taken in several hundred children in the last 40 years.

Neighbours said two young men had been staying with them recently. Police have not provided details about the extensive search, which began several hours after an 18-year-old suspect in the subway bombing was arrested at Dover’s ferry port.

The Islamic State has said Friday’s subway attack was car-ried out by one of its affiliated units. The improvised explosive device placed on the subway train only partially detonated, limiting the number of injuries.

The National Health Serv-ice says all but one of the 30 people treated for injuries has been released from the hospi-tal. One person is still being treated at Chelsea and West-minster Hospital, which has a special unit for treating burns.

Officials have raised the

number of injured from 29 to 30. That includes 19 people who were taken from the explosion site at Parsons Green station to the hospital and 11 who came in for treatment later on their own.

Home Secretary Rudd said the casualties would have been far higher if the bomb had fully detonated. Frustrated by the string of terrorist attacks in recent months, she said offi-cials will have to work harder to make bomb components more difficult to obtain.

Britain has endured four other attacks this year, which have killed a total of 36 people. The other attacks in London — near Parliament, on London Bridge and near a mosque in Finsbury Park in north London — used vehicles and knives to kill and wound.

Washington

AFP

British Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted a long-awaited state visit by

Donald Trump will go ahead as planned despite a diplomatic spat triggered by the US president’s comments after a terror attack in London.

Speaking to ABC News from Downing Street in an interview that aired Sunday, she added that London was in talks with inter-net giants Google and Facebook about “doing more” to assist authorities in tracking extremists using the web to plan attacks, an issue she said she would take up at the UN General Assembly next week.

After an explosion in the Lon-don subway early Friday injured more than 20 people, Trump on Twitter blamed “sick and

demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard.”

Britons expressed outrage at the president’s suggestion that British authorities had advance knowledge about the attackers. May herself told journalists Fri-day that “I never think it’s helpful for anybody to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation.”

Trump’s keenness to under-line a series of attacks in Britain has led to repeated outcry across the Atlantic that has helped indef-initely delay his much-vaunted state visit.

But in her ABC interview, May made clear the planned visit is still on.

“Her Majesty the Queen issued the invitation,” she said. “The president has accepted it. It’s just a question of getting dates to -- and sorting out the logistics.”

May said the point of the his-toric “special relationship”

between the two countries was that “when we do disagree we’re able to say so — and pretty bluntly.”

As an example, she cited the sharp differences over the Paris climate change agreement. “I’ve made very clear I was dismayed when America decided to pull out of that,” she said, adding that she hoped the US administration would be “able to find a way for America to come back into the agreement.”

After reports that some Euro-pean officials believed the US might return to the agreement, the White House said Saturday that it would do so only if it could negotiate more favorable terms.

May also emphasized the need to block terrorists from using the internet for planning attacks and “for the spread of extremism, of hatred, of propaganda.”

London

Reuters

Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson was accused by cabinet colleagues yes-

terday of “backseat driving” on Brexit after setting out his own vision of the country’s future outside the European Union.

Only days before Prime Min-ister Theresa May is due to speak in Italy about Britain’s planned EU departure, Johnson on Sat-urday published a 4,300-word newspaper article that roamed well beyond his ministerial brief and, in some cases, the approach set out by the government.

Interior minister Amber Rudd said it was “absolutely fine” for the foreign secretary to intervene publicly but that she did not want him managing the Brexit process. “What we’ve got is Theresa May managing that process, she’s driv-ing the car,” Rudd told the BBC’s Andrew Marr. Asked if Johnson was backseat driving, she replied: “Yes, you could call it backseat driving, absolutely.”

Johnson’s article re-ignited speculation that he would chal-lenge May for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Rudd, however, said she did not think Johnson was laying the groundwork to challenge May.

“I think that he, like I, sup-ports the prime minister at this difficult time as we try to con-clude the negotiations with the EU,” she said.

May’s deputy, Damian Green, also weighed in on Sunday, say-ing that Johnson had written a “very exuberant” article but it is “absolutely clear to everyone that the driver of the car in this instance is the prime minister”.

“It is the job of the rest of us in the Cabinet to agree on a set of proposals and get behind those proposals and get behind the prime minister,” Green told BBC TV. Johnson had written in the Daily Telegraph that Britain

would not pay to access Euro-pean markets in the future. Once out of the EU, the country should borrow to invest in infrastruc-ture, reform the tax code and set immigration levels as it sees fit, he said. A prominent Brexit cam-paigner in last year’s referendum, Johnson also repeated the Brexit campaign claim that the government would be ¤350m ($476m) a week bet-ter off outside the EU.

Government officials criti-cised Johnson for repeating the claim, saying the figure does not take into account the funding Britain receives back from Brus-sels. David Norgrove, of the UK

Statistics Authority, said he was “surprised and disappointed” that Johnson was still quoting a figure that confused gross and net contributions.

“It is a clear misuse of offi-cial statistics,” Norgrove said in a letter to Johnson on Sunday.

The timing of Johnson’s arti-cle—published a day after a bomb injured 30 people on a train in London—also drew crit-icism from some colleagues.

Reacting to the furore his article had generated, Johnson tweeted on Saturday: “Looking forward to PM’s Florence Speech. All behind Theresa for a glorious Brexit.”

Boris Johnson accused of Brexit ‘backseat driving’

May: Trump visit still on despite terror tweets

A police officer stands outside a property being searched after a man was arrested in connection with an explosion on a London Underground train, in Stanwell, near Heathrow airport, Britain, yesterday.

Rome

Reuters

FORMER Prime Minister Sil-vio Berlusconi, marking a formal return to Italy’s polit-ical stage, laid out his policy priorities yesterday for the forthcoming election, por-traying himself as a pro-European moderate.

Speaking at a meeting of his Forza Italia (Go Italy) party, Berlusconi said he wanted to lead the group into the national ballot, which is expected by next March, promising hefty tax cuts if the centre-right regained power.

Subsumed by sex scan-dals and legal woes, Berlusconi largely vanished from politics after being ousted from power in 2011.

But he has emerged from the shadows this year and Forza Italia, with its tradi-tional rightist allies the Northern League and Brothers of Italy, have combined backing of some 35 percent, according to polls, making them the largest single bloc.

“We predict a great vic-tory for the centre-right,” said Berlusconi, 81, looking thin and fit during a speech near Rome that effectively launched the Forza Italia election campaign.

While his allies have repeatedly denounced the European Union, Berlusconi said he wanted more Europe, not less, calling for common defence, foreign, industrial and fiscal policies.

“I do not think we can leave the euro,” he said, fur-ther underscoring how the anti-euro rhetoric once heard from many Italian parties is receding as the vote nears.

Berlusconi, who had open heart surgery last year, can-not run for office due to a 2013 tax fraud conviction. But he hopes the European Court of Human Rights overturns this ban when it reviews his case in November.

“I expect that Europe completely restores my hon-our ... But court or no court, I promise you that I will take part in the election cam-paign,” said the four-times premier.

If Forza Italia won power, he said he would introduce a flat tax and eliminate inher-itance tax, hike minimum pensions, offer pensions to housewives and give more to impoverished families.

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip attend a service marking the 77th anniversary of the Battle of Britain at Westminster Abbey in central London, yesterday.

The downgrading of the threat level from “critical” to “severe” means authorities no longer believe an attack is imminent. The “severe” classification, the second highest level of alert, is based on the assessment that an attack is “highly likely.”

5 dead, 30 injured as fierce storm hits western RomaniaBUCHAREST: Authorities say five people have died and at least 30 were injured during a violent storm in western Roma-nia that produced winds of up to 100km an hour. Elena Meghe-rea, a General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations spokes-woman in Timis County, said one of the two people who died in the city of Timisoara was hit by a billboard.

Two more people died in the western town of Buzias. No details were available about their deaths. Elena Tarla, an Emer-gency Situations spokeswoman for Caras-Severin County, says the storm ripped out trees and downed power lines. She says many homes are without elec-tricity. Officials warned residents to stay at home or take shelter, to remove appliances from sock-ets, and to stay away from power transmission towers. Yesterday’s storm followed days of high temperatures.

Berlusconi lays out platform, eyes victory

17MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 EUROPE

People enjoy the car-free Sunday at the streets of Brussels, Belgium.

Car-free Sunday

Paris

AP

Four young American women were attacked with acid yesterday in the French city of Mar-seille by a woman who

has been arrested, the Marseille prosecutor’s office said.

Two of the tourists were injured in the face in the attack in the city’s main Saint Charles train station and one of them has a possible eye injury, a spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press in a phone call.

She said all four of the women, who are in their 20s,

have been hospitalized, two of them for shock.

The spokeswoman said the 41-year-old female suspect did not make any extremist threats or declarations during the attack. She said there were no obvious indications that the woman’s actions were terror-related, but added that officials could not be 100 percent sure about ruling out terror links at such an early stage of the investigation.

The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity, per the custom of the French judicial system.

She did not release any fur-ther details about the suspects

or the victims, including where in the United States the tourists were from.

The Marseille fire depart-ment was alerted just after 11 a.m. and dispatched four vehi-cles and 14 firefighters to the train station, a department spokeswoman said.

Two of the Americans were “slightly injured” with acid but did not require emergency med-ical treatment from medics at the scene, the spokeswoman said. She requested anonymity in keeping with fire department protocol.

A spokesman for the United States embassy in Paris said the

U.S. consulate in Marseille was in contact with French authori-ties about the attack investigation and the condition of the American women.

US authorities in France are not immediately com-menting further on what happened to protect the pri-vacy of the American tourists, embassy spokesman Alex Daniels said.

Marseille is a port city in southern France that is closer to Barcelona than Paris.

In previous incidents in Mar-seille, a driver deliberately rammed into two bus stops last month, killing a woman, but

officials said it wasn’t terror-related.

In April, French police say they thwarted an imminent “ter-ror attack” and arrested two suspected radicals in Marseille just days before the first round of France’s presidential election. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters the two suspects “were getting ready to carry out an imminent, violent action” on French territory.

In January 2016, a 15-year-old Turkish Kurd was arrested after attacking a Jewish teacher on a Marseille street. He told police he acted in the name of the Islamic State group.

Berlin

Reuters

The first far-right party set to enter Germany’s parliament for more than a half a century says it will press for

Chancellor Angela Merkel to be “severely punished” for opening the door to refu-gees and migrants.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has also called for Germany’s immigration minister to be “disposed of” in Turkey where her parents come from, could become the third largest party with up to 12 percent of the vote on Septem-ber 24, polls show.

That is far less than similar move-ments in other European countries - in France far-right leader Marine Le Pen won 34 percent of the vote in May and in the Netherlands far-rightist Geert Wilders scored 13 percent in a March election.

But the prospect of a party that the foreign minister has compared with the Nazis entering the heart of German democracy is unnerving the other par-ties. They all refuse to work with the AfD and no one wants to sit next to them in parliament.

Leading AfD candidate Alexander Gauland denies they are Nazis, saying oth-ers only use the term because of the party’s popularity. It has won support with calls for Germany to shut its borders immediately, introduce a minimum quota for deportations and stop refugees bring-ing their families here.

“We’re gradually becoming foreign-ers in our own country,” Gauland told an election rally in the Polish border city of Frankfurt an der Oder.

A song with the lyrics “we’ll bring hap-piness back to your homeland” blared out of a blue campaign bus and the

76-year-old lawyer said Germany belonged to the Germans, Islam had no place here and the migrant influx would make everyone worse off.

Gauland provoked outrage for saying at another event that Germans should no longer be reproached with the Nazi past and they should take pride in what their soldiers achieved during World War One and Two.

The Nazis ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, during which time they killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust and invaded

countries across Europe. The AfD could end up as the biggest opposition force in the national assembly if there is a re-run of the current coalition of Merkel’s con-servatives and Social Democrats (SPD) — one of the most likely scenarios.

That would mean it would chair the powerful budget committee and open the general debate during budget consulta-tions, giving prominence to its alternatives to government policies.

Georg Pazderski, a member of the AfD’s executive board, told Reuters his

party would use parliamentary speeches to draw attention to the cost of the migrant crisis, troubles in the euro zone - which the AfD wants Germany to leave - and problems related to the European Union.

“We’ll have a voice when we’re in par-liament,” he said. “We won’t be an easy opposition.”

He expects other parties will shun the AfD for a year or two but ultimately work with it, pointing to the regional assembly in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD and Merkel’s Christian Democrats voted to set up a committee to investigate left-wing extremism.

Gauland told Reuters the AfD would call for a committee to investigate the chancellor after entering parliament: “We want Ms Merkel’s policy of bringing 1 mil-lion people into this country to be investigated and we want her to be severely punished for that.”

MPs have already changed the qual-ification for the ceremonial post of doyen of parliament to the longest-serving MP rather than the oldest, likely to have been an AfD member.

Sahra Wagenknecht, top candidate of the radical Left party, told Reuters it was important to look at individuals for com-mittees but added: “I won’t elect any AfD member who belongs to Bjoern Hoecke’s wing and who really represents Nazi views into any position of responsibility.”

Hoecke has denied that Adolf Hitler was “absolutely evil”, described Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and demanded a “180 degree turnaround” in the way Germany seeks to atone for Nazi crimes. The justice min-ister said some of the AfD’s programme like its demand to ban minarets is unconstitutional.

4 US tourists attacked with acid in France

Far-right party calls for Merkel to be punished

Paris

AFP

A London-bound British Airways flight was evacuated at Paris’s

Charles de Gaulle airport on Sunday due to a security scare, but was later cleared for take-off, the airport’s operator said.

A spokesman for Aero-ports de Paris said an incident “linked to security” had led staff to evacuate the 130 pas-s e n g e r s o n b o a r d Heathrow-bound flight BA303. “There was an inci-dent that led authorities to decide to keep the plane on the ground and to disembark the passengers a few minutes before take-off, to carry out additional checks,” the spokesman said.

The checks had been completed and passengers were due to reboard, he added. Britain has raised its terror threat level to “critical” follow-ing the bombing of a London Underground train on Friday that left 30 people injured.

Madrid

AFP

Spanish police yesterday-seized 1.3 million pamphlets and posters

supporting Catalonia’s inde-pendence referendum, the latest move to try to block the vote.

Catalonia’s pro-separatist government is determined to hold a referendum on October 1, despite it being banned by Spain’s Constitutional Court.

The documents were seized at an advertising distribution company near Barcelona, the Spanish interior ministry said in a statement.

Among the documents were about 700,000 leaflets promoting a “yes” vote in the referendum and 370,000 fly-ers with logo of the Catalan government along with 138,000 posters for the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) party.

Faced with a determined Catalan government, Spain has multiplied its efforts to crack down on the referendum, hav-ing previously seized propaganda material and

threatened to arrest Catalan mayors who allow the vote.

Also on Sunday, hundreds of people attended a meeting in Madrid to show support for the referendum, some waving pro-independence leaflets.

The meeting was held in a small theatre in the central dis-trict of Lavapies after a court banned holding it in a cultural centre owned by the town hall.

“Faced with their ban, we are determined,” Jordi Cuixart, head of Omnium Cultural, a Catalan cultural organisation, said to applause from the pub-lic inside and outside the theatre.

“We need your solidarity now more than ever. What we are experiencing today is a true breakdown of democratic process.”

Outside the meeting, some chanted “Freedom of expres-sion”, “Right to decide” and “We are not afraid” under the watch of several police officers.

“This is no longer a ques-tion of Catalans and Spaniards, it is a question of the quality of our democracy,” Maria Jose Hernandez, a 40-year-old old graphic designer, said.

Nato concerned about Russia’s transparency on military games

German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves a news conference with children at the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) party election campaign meeting centre in Berlin, Germany, yesterday.

Moscow

AFP

Russia and Iraq restored scheduled commercial air-line services yesterday for

the first time since 2004, in what officials hailed as a sign of stabil-ity returning to the war-torn

country. An Iraqi Airways plane left Baghdad at 10.31 am and landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo air-port at 2.19pm.

“The first commercial flight arrives today,” Sergei Izvolsky, spokesman for Russia’s civil avi-ation authority, said. “It is a signal on the part of the Iraqi

authorities that Russian nation-als can safely visit Iraq.”

The two countries may also later agree on air travel to the Iraqi city of Basra, Izvolsky said. Russia suspended regular flights to Iraq in 2004 after the US-led invasion in 2003 plunged the Arab country into war.

Spanish police seize pro-Catalan pamphlets

The spokeswoman said all four of the women, who are in their 20s, have been hospitalised, two of them for shock. The 41-year-old female suspect did not make any extremist threats or declarations during the attack.

Russia and Iraq restore air service after 13 years

Tirana

AP

A senior NATO official says there’s reason to be concerned about the

large-scale Zapad 2017 mili-tary maneuvers being conducted now by Russia and Belarus, since they could be seen as “a serious prepara-tion for big war.”

Gen. Petr Pavel, head of Nato’s Military Committee, told the Associated Press in an interview that Nato is increas-ing efforts to re-establish the military-to-military commu-nications with Russia to avoid any “unintended consequences of potential incidents during the exercise.”

The defence chiefs of Nato member countries were holding their annual confer-ence this year in the Albanian capital of Tirana to discuss fighting terrorism, the situa-tion in the Western Balkans and the new US strategy on Afghanistan.

The Zapad war games, being conducted this year mostly in Belarus, run until Sept. 20 and reportedly involve 5,500 Russian and 7,200 Belarusian troops.

Despite assurances from Moscow that “Nato is not con-sidered as an enemy” and that “the exercise is not aimed at Nato,” Pavel said Russians have not been transparent about the facts of the exercises.

Security scare forces BA flight to evacuate in Paris

18 MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017AMERICAS

Chicago

AFP

The US city of St Louis remained on edge yester-day after a second night of

at-times violent protests over the acquittal of a former police officer in the shooting death of a black man.

Saying police had advised them that security could not be assured, rock giants U2 and pop star Ed Sheeran called off sched-uled weekend concerts in the Missouri city.

Demonstrators spilled into city streets for a second night running on Saturday, and ini-tially peaceful rallies turned violent, with protesters break-ing windows, throwing debris,

and hurling chunks of concrete at the police, the authorities and media reports said.

Marching through two shop-ping malls, protesters chanted, “The whole damn system is guilty as hell”. The police reported at least seven arrests overnight on charges of resist-ing arrest and destroying property. Sidewalks in the inner suburb of University City were strewn with broken glass.

Ten officers had been injured late Friday as they clashed with rock-throwing protesters, according to police, who made at least 23 arrests at that time. “We will not tolerate violence,” Acting Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole told reporters.

The rioting came after a St.

Louis judge on Friday found a white former police officer, Jason Stockley, not guilty of murder-ing Anthony Lamar Smith, a suspected drug dealer, follow-ing a high-speed chase in 2011.

The case — the latest high-profile incident of police using violence against a black suspect — has touched a nerve in St. Louis, where racial tensions were heightened by the 2014 killing of a black man, Michael Brown, in the suburb of Fergu-son by a white police officer.

With the city shaken by the Stockley verdict, the U2 and Ed Sheeran concerts were among several events canceled. Others included a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert and a “Shake-speare in the Streets” event.

Entertainment firm Live Nation and U2 jointly announced the cancellation of that group’s scheduled Saturday show in a statement citing concerns about fans’ security. “We have been informed by the St. Louis Police Department that they are not in a position to provide the stand-ard protection for our audience as would be expected,” they said. “We cannot in good conscience risk our fans’ safety.”

U2 superstar Bono later posted on Instagram that he was “deeply saddened at what has happened in St. Louis” and had asked himself, “Is this 1968 or 2017?” And Briton Sheeran, in announcing that he was pulling the plug on a show set for Sun-day, said he hoped to return as

soon as possible.Stockley, the former police-

man, shot 24-year-old Smith five times after a December 2011 car chase that followed a suspected drug deal.

He was caught on an in-car camera video telling his partner, Brian Bianchi, “Going to kill this (expletive), don’t you know it.” Prosecutors brought first degree murder charges in 2016, alleg-ing that Stockley’s comments showed premeditation and that he had planted a silver revolver in Smith’s car.

But Judge Timothy Wilson acquitted Stockley, finding that the evidence on the gun, as well as the officer’s videotaped com-ment, provided insufficient grounds to convict.

New York Reuters

New York police and a host of federal agencies are preparing for the annual

traffic and security nightmare known as the United Nations General Assembly, featuring a week of speeches by US Presi-dent Donald Trump and a parade of other dignitaries.

The meeting of the world’s top leaders and diplomats, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will bring street closures, thousands of police officers and hundreds of protest-ers to midtown Manhattan, an area already plagued with gridlock on an average weekday.

“It’s the equivalent of the Super Bowl of security,” said J Peter Donald, a spokesman for the New York City Police

Department.Trump will be on hand today

and tomorrow, when he will address the body of world lead-ers for the first time. It was not immediately clear whether he would stay at his Manhattan penthouse about a mile away from United Nations headquar-ters or sleep at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

A handful of anti-Trump pro-tests in New York have been scheduled, with more sure to come. A march today to combat “white supremacy” will start from Grand Central Terminal, while the left-wing activist group Code Pink has organized a march tomorrow to the UN to protest Trump and Israeli Prime Minis-ter Benjamin Netanyahu.

Other protesters will gather outside the UN to call out specific

countries, including a rally against Iran President Hassan Rowhani.

The NYPD’s elite counterter-rorism unit, along with detectives from the intelligence bureau and officers from the aviation, har-bor, highway and traffic units, will be on hand throughout the week. Donald said the depart-ment has plenty of “muscle memory” from previous years.

“It’s a full assortment of per-sonnel from nearly every part of the police department,” Donald said. “We’ll be prepared for any-thing. We’ll have backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans.” The US Secret Service, the FBI, the Department of Home-land Security and various other federal agencies are also involved in providing security during both Trump’s visit and the general assembly.

Havana

Reuters

The United Nations’ World Food Programme said on Saturday that it was launching a $5.7m

operation in Cuba to help feed nearly 700,000 people in areas most affected by Hurricane Irma.

The monster storm ripped last weekend along the length of the northern coastline of the Carib-bean’s largest island, tearing off roofs, wrecking the power grid and damaging crops.

“This hurricane just went down the entire coastline, the volume of impact is just unprecedented,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said during a visit to Havana, after meeting with Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The WFP already had more than 1,600 tonnes of food pre-posi-tioned around Cuba available to distribute and had funds to buy

more. It would start by distributing for free rations of rice and beans in the most vulnerable areas.

Irma’s impact on food availa-bility in the a nation of 11 million inhabitants may be both short and medium-term, Beasley said.

“We are talking about 60,000 hectares of agricultural land that have been dramatically impacted, banana trees, citrus, rice maize, eve-rything,” Beasley said. Cuba would need to assess the soil’s salinity to ascertain how that would affect the next planting season, he said.

In the light of climate change, Irma could be a “sign off more things to come”, Beasley warned.

“Fifty to forty years ago, the hur-ricanes were less frequent, and less severe,” he said, adding that WFP was working with the Cuban lead-ership to prepare for such change. At the height of its strength, Irma was the first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in Cuba since 1932.

New York

AFP

Donald Trump makes his maiden address to the United Nations tomorrow, a spectacle closely

watched at home and around the world, with the potential to move armies, markets and polls.

His appearance — which aides say will last around a half-hour — is the centerpiece of a week-long marathon of remarks by world leaders, each vying to make their mark on the global stage. But the US president will need no Nikita Khrushchev shoe-banging on the table, nor the guns and olive branches of Yasser Arafat to stand out.

“We always had the sense that it was an incredibly closely watched speech,” said top Barack Obama advisor Ben Rhodes, who helped draft eight presidential addresses to the UN.

“A single line in an UNGA address could signal a new pri-oritization of a particular issue, a new policy direction and could send ripples out into the diplo-matic community that lasted for many months to come.”

Trump’s speech to the General Assembly may be even more closely watched than those of his predecessors.During eight months in office, Trump has brusquely questioned decades-old alliances and ratcheted up the heat on sim-mering disputes with foes in North Korea and Iran.

Allies and foes alike will rummage through his words for a better idea of how this

lurching superpower foresees its future place in the world.

“They are all very anxious to hear what he has to say. And I think that he will make quite an impact,” said Nikki Haley, Amer-ica’s ambassador to the UN. That Haley has already read a draft of the speech, suggests Trump may be more scripted than usual.

But that does not mean the bombastic president will embrace the UN’s typical diplo-matic platitudes and studied ambiguity. “He slaps the right people, he hugs the right people,” Haley said of the remarks.

Trump is certain to take aim at North Korea, which has embarked on a headlong rush to marry the sinister power of nuclear and ballistic weapons.

The White House has made plain its impatience with Pyongyang’s behavior, but on this, as other issues — from the Paris climate deal, to trade, to the Iran nuclear deal — Trump has struggled to calibrate his mes-sage for both domestic and foreign audiences.

His approval ratings at home are already historically low and supporters are quick to cry betrayal at any perceived devi-ation from his hardline “America First” rhetoric.

More tub-thumping at the UN would thrill his diehard fans, but bellicose warnings of impending “fire and fury” would undoubtedly make Tokyo and Seoul—both well within range of North Korean artillery or ballis-tic missiles—uneasy.

Shredding the “bad deal” that curbs Iran’s nuclear programme could burnish Trump’s hard-charging businessman brand, but would infuriate European allies and risks setting loose the dogs of war across the Middle East.

Trashing the United Nations as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time” is unlikely to win over friends among the delegates who vote on US proposals at the UN Security Council.

In New York, Trump’s audi-ence will be as much Iran’s Ali Khamenei and China’s Xi Jinping as red-cap wearing supporters in Cincinnati or Jacksonville. But if Trump were restrained and measured, would it be believable?

“One of the challenges for president Trump is that, because of Twitter, the entire world has seen him unfiltered so many times,” said Vinca LaFleur, a for-eign policy speech writer for then president Bill Clinton. The United Nations is just a 20 minute stroll away from Trump Tower, but it is an unfamiliar world for this tough-talking president.

Trump to make maiden UN speech tomorrow

NY prepares for ‘Super Bowl’ of security

St Louis remains on edge after violent protests

UN provides Cuba with food aid after Irma rips up coast

Washington

AFP

After a succession of mixed messages on the US stance on climate

change, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said yesterday that the Trump administration was seeking “ways in which we can work with partners in the Paris climate accord.”

“We want to be produc-tive, we want to be helpful,” Tillerson said on the CBS pro-gram “Face the Nation.” His comments did not amount to a reversal from US President Donald Trump’s widely crit-icized decision in June to withdraw from the landmark pact, signed by nearly 200 countries.

But Tillerson did appear to signal a softening from Trump’s earlier characteriza-tion of the deal as a “draconian” pact that impinged on American sov-ereignty and unfairly favored countries like China and India over the US.

When European environ-ment officials suggested over the weekend that the United States might be ready to reen-gage with the pact, the White House said that its position was unchanged, and that it could stay only if more “favo-rable” terms were achieved.

But Tillerson said Trump’s chief economics adviser, Gary Cohn, was studying ways the US could cooperate with other countries on what, he said, “is still a challenging issue.”

The remarks came after two devastating hurricanes struck the US mainland in recent weeks — made more intense, some scientists said, by waters warmed by climate change.

US looks to work with Paris climate accord ‘partners’, says Tillerson

UN World Food Programme Executive Director David M Beasley (centre) poses for a photo with children while visiting the Jaimanitas neighbourhood of Havana that was affected by Hurricane Irma, yesterday.

Pedestrians navigate their way through barricades amid heightened security before the start of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, yesterday.

UN General Assembly

The President’s appearance — which aides say will last around a half-hour — is the centerpiece of a week-long marathon of remarks by world leaders, each vying to make their mark on the global stage.

19MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2017 AMERICAS

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) and his Panamanian counterpart Isabel De Saint Malo at a press conference at the Simon Bolivar Palace in Panama City yesterday. Wang Yi is making his first official visit to Panama since the Central American country established formal diplomatic ties with China in June 2017.

Diplomacy

New York

AFP

The United States may again close its embassy in Cuba, which reopened two years

ago after a half-century stand-off, following a series of mystery “health attacks” on its diplomats, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said yesterday.

At least 21 members of the US mission in Havana and a smaller number of Canadians have suffered brain injuries and hearing loss in what have been reported as “acoustic attacks”, although US officials say their origin remains unclear.

The incidents began last year, and the latest was recorded in August, despite US authorities having complained to Cuban officials in February and having expelled two Cuban diplomats from Washington in May. Some of those hurt were evacuated to Florida and some treated in place.

The mission remains open, and US officials have warned that Cuba is responsible for the safety of diplomats on its soil, without accusing them directly. With the injury toll continuing to rise, and no explanation for what Washington has called an “unprecedented incident,” some US lawmakers have called for the embassy to be closed down once again.

Asked about this on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Tiller-son did not rule this out. “We have it under evaluation. It’s a very serious issue with respect to the harm that certain individ-uals have suffered,” he said.

“We’ve brought some of those people home,” he added. “It’s under review.”

US officials have said they believe some kind of sonic device was used to covertly undermine the health of staff members at the mission, who began reporting sick last year.

The American Foreign Serv-ice Association — the labor union representing US diplo-mats — spoke to 10 of those who received treatment and said their diagnoses included mild traumatic brain injury and per-manent hearing loss.

At least five Canadian dip-lomats and their families were also affected by “sonic attacks,” though none suffered perma-nent injury, public broadcaster CBC reported Friday. Canada has said Cuban officials are not suspected. The Cuban foreign ministry has said it is cooperat-ing with the US investigation into the “alleged incidents”.

On Thursday, State Depart-ment spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed the number of Americans hurt had risen to 21. “We hope that that number will not increase. We certainly can’t count that out. We are hav-ing our people medically tested,” she said. “Our folks are able to leave Havana, leave Cuba, and return back home if they wish to do so — I think we call it compas-sionate curtailment or something like that — where they’re able to switch out a job,” she said.

“The investigation into all of this is still underway. It is an aggressive investigation... and we will continue doing this until we find out who or what is

responsible for this.”The State Department, cit-

ing respect for the privacy of its employees, has not discussed the diplomats’ symptoms pub-licly, but Nauert said the form of injury “can be different in dif-ferent people.”

Relations between the United States and Cuba were restored by then president Barack Obama and his counter-part Raul Castro in 2015 after a half-century. But tensions mounted again after Obama’s successor Donald Trump, who won many Cuban American votes by promising a tough line, rolled back detente.

In June, Trump tightened rules for Americans traveling to Cuba, banned ties with a mili-tary-run tourism firm and reaffirmed the existing US trade embargo. The US embassy was closed in 1961 at the height of the Cold War when diplomatic relations broke down between Washington and Fidel Castro’s revolutionary regime.

The mission reopened as a “special interests section” rather than a full embassy under an agreement between Castro and US President Jimmy Carter. American diplomats in Havana and their Cuban rivals in Wash-ington both complained of harassment or heavy-handed surveillance — but never of sonic attack. Washington has not said whether it suspects any nation or militant group of ordering the “health attacks”, and no country is known to pos-sess the kind of acoustic weapon that could cause such apparently targeted distress.

Washington

Reuters

It is a political practice nearly as old as the United States - manipulating the boundaries of legislative districts to help one party

tighten its grip on power in a move called partisan gerryman-dering - and one the Supreme Court has never curbed.

That could soon change, with the nine justices making the legal fight over Republican-drawn electoral maps in Wisconsin one of the first cases they hear dur-ing their 2017-2018 term that begins next month. Their ruling in the case could influence Amer-ican politics for decades.

Wisconsin officials point to the difficulty of having courts craft a workable standard for when partisan gerrymandering violates constitutional protec-tions. Opponents of the practice said limits are urgently needed, noting that sophisticated techno-logical tools now enable a dominant party to devise with new precision state electoral maps that marginalize large swathes of vot-

ers in legislative elections.“There is a sense that some-

thing has gone amiss with American democracy, that there is this effort to rig the rules of the game,” said Michael Li, an expert in redistricting at New York Uni-versity School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Gerryman-dering used to be a dark art, and now it’s a dark science.” The jus-tices will hear arguments on October 3 in Wisconsin’s appeal of a lower court ruling that found that the electoral map drawn by state Republicans ran afoul of the US Constitution.

The map, drawn after the 2010 US census, enabled them to win a sizable majority of Wis-consin legislative seats despite losing the popular vote statewide to the Democrats. The party’s majority has widened since.

The justices must decide whether courts should have a say in such matters. The Supreme Court for decades has been will-ing to invalidate state electoral maps on the grounds of racial discrimination but never those drawn simply to give one party an advantage.

The justices have never set-tled on a standard by which partisan gerrymandering claims can be measured. In a 2004 case, Justice Anthony Kennedy left the door open for a “workable stand-ard” to eventually be found.

Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes sides with the liberal justices on a court with a 5-4 conservative majority, could cast the deciding vote in the Wiscon-sin case. A federal three-judge panel ruled 2-1 last November that Wisconsin’s redistricting plan violated the US Constitu-tion’s 14th Amendment

guarantee of equal protection under the law and First Amend-ment right to freedom of expression and association.

Over the decades, both Republicans and Democrats have been accused of gerrymander-ing. Since 2010, Republicans’ control of redistricting has coin-cided with major seat advantages for them in state legislatures, the Brennan Center said.

It is not just Republicans who are accused of abuses. Republi-can voters sued over districts drawn by Democratic lawmak-ers in Maryland and have appealed to the Supreme Court.

State and federal legislative district boundaries are reconfig-ured after the US government conducts a census every decade so that each one contains about same number of people, typically by the party that controls the state legislature.

The Republican National Committee and several conserv-ative groups have backed Wisconsin, but leading Republi-cans including Senator John McCain, 1996 presidential nom-inee Bob Dole and Ohio Governor

John Kasich have joined critics who argue that partisan gerry-mandering distorts the democratic process.

Wisconsin Republicans argued that election results since their redistricting plan was passed in 2011 reflect the state’s political geography, with Dem-ocrats concentrated in cities like Milwaukee and Madison and Republicans more spread out around the state. The state also took issue with metrics that the lower court used to determine that there was a significant par-tisan bias in the redistricting plan. This “social-science hodge-podge,” the state told the justices, makes it impossible for judges to fairly determine when an elec-toral map is unlawful.

“Plaintiffs’ social-science approach would sow chaos. Each legislatively drawn plan would be immediately challenged in federal court,” the state said in a legal brief to the justices.

Nicholas Goedert, a Virginia Tech redistricting expert who testified in court for Wisconsin, said the metrics may be inappro-priate because their results can

change from one election to the next. Goedert noted that large shifts in the mood of voters can cause even highly biased elec-toral maps to flip.

“Partisan maps have a ten-dency to backfire on the party that drew them,” Goedert said. The case began in 2015 when a dozen Wisconsin Democratic Party voters sued state election officials claiming the redistrict-ing law intended to discriminate against them for their political beliefs and create enduring Republican majorities.

They urged the justices to either greenlight the lower court’s method of deciding cases of partisan gerrymandering, or create their own. “Government should treat voters equally regardless of their viewpoint and we have ways to measure it,” said Danielle Lang, an attorney for the plaintiffs. If the justices rule that courts must stay out of this highly political process, vot-ers will lose, Lang said. “There would be no way for voters to rein in partisan gerrymandering, no way for voters to take back control of their government.”

Fight over electoral district maps heads to top US Court

US may close embassy in Cuba after ‘attacks’ on diplomats

Washington

Reuters

US President Donald Trump yesterday retweeted a doctored video of himself

taking a golf swing and hitting former Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, who then stumbles as she boards a plane.

Clinton had been back on the Republican president’s Twitter feed in recent days as she pro-moted “What Happened,” her new book about the 2016 pres-idential election, with Trump resuming his campaign attack of “Crooked Hillary”.

The video, retweeted by sev-eral users, shows Trump on a golf course hitting a ball before segueing to the doctored shot of a golf ball hitting then-secretary of state Clinton in the back as she is boarding a plane. The original video of Clinton, from 2011, does not show a golf ball.

“Donald Trump’s amazing golf swing #CrookedHillary,” the tweet read. Trump attacked Clinton directly last Wednesday in a pair of Twitter posts. “Crooked Hillary Clinton blames everybody (and every thing) but herself for her election loss,” he said. “She lost the debates and lost her direction! The

‘deplorables’ came back to haunt Hillary. They expressed their feel-ings loud and clear. She spent big

money but, in the end, had no game!”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said later that day that Clinton was pushing “false narratives” in the book. Clinton admits mistakes during the cam-paign in the book but gives a harsh account of factors she believes led to Trump’s victory, including alleged interference by Russia on his behalf and former FBI Director James Comey announcement that investiga-tors were looking at a new trove of emails related to Clinton.

Clinton, who has been giving a series of interviews promoting

the book, responded to Trump’s earlier criticism on Twitter with a suggestion that he read her ear-lier book, “It Takes a Village,” a picture book for children.

A senior Democrat, US Rep-resentative Adam Schiff, said the retweet did not make him ques-tion Trump’s recent outreach to Democrats but was disturbing.

“It is distressing, though, to have a president that frankly will tweet and retweet things as juve-nile as that,” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “It doesn’t help, I think in terms of his stat-ure, it doesn’t help in terms of the stature of our whole country.”

Trump hypes mock video of golf ball seen striking HillaryClinton had been back on the Republican president’s Twitter feed in recent days as she promoted “What Happened,” her new book about the 2016 presidential election, with Trump resuming his campaign attack of “Crooked Hillary”.

Buenos Aires/Lima

Reuters

Peruvian center-right Pres-ident Pedro Pablo Kuczynski plans to make

Vice President Mercedes Araoz his new prime minister and replace five other ministers in a Cabinet shuffle aimed at pla-cating the opposition-ruled Congress, three government sources said yesterday.

Kuczynski has decided to name Deputy Economy Minis-ter Claudia Cooper as his new finance minister and to replace his justice, education, health and housing ministers, said the sources. Congress, which is con-trolled by the populist right-wing

opposition party Popular Force, dismissed Kuczynski’s Cabinet in a 77-22 vote of no-confidence on Friday. That deepened a standoff that could lead to new legislative elections if lawmak-ers reject the incoming Cabinet.

Kuczynski, who took office a year ago, cannot reappoint his outgoing prime minister, Fern-ando Zavala, but can do so for other ministers. Kuczynski had been considering appointing his other vice president, Martin Vizcarra, as his new prime min-ister but opted for Araoz following a meeting with law-makers in his party who argued she would be better able to ease hostilities with the opposition, two of the sources said.

Washington

AFP

Donald Trump Jr. will testify publicly before a congressional com-

mittee probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presi-dential campaign and possible collusion by his father’s cam-paign, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

“Well, it will be this fall. I know that for sure,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, the rank-ing Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview with CNN.

It would be the first public testimony on the Russia affair by a member of President Don-ald Trump’s inner circle, and by no less a figure than his eld-est son, the co-director of the family business.

“Don Jr” already has testi-fied behind closed doors, answering questions by Sen-ate Judiciary Committee investigators for five hours on September 7. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, also testified behind closed doors before several congressional committees in July. But the lawmakers want the various Trump insiders to publicly explain, under oath, their con-tacts with Russians before and after the November election.

Peru’s Kuczynski forms Cabinet Trump’s eldest son will testify publicly on Russia: Senator

Verdict awaited

The justices will hear arguments on October 3 in Wisconsin’s appeal of a lower court ruling that found that the electoral map drawn by state Republicans ran afoul of the US Constitution.


The Peninsula

Hailing the credentials of Qatar’s candidate for Unesco’s top position, H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari,

Indian magazine ‘Indian Dominion’ has noted that Qatar’s candidature appears to be the strongest candidate.

“According to international media and political observers all over the world, Qatar’s candidature appears to be the strongest candidate. The rea-son is Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari’s highest credentials. He is a very qual-ified candidate and has a record of long and successful diplomatic career too. He is a popular figure not only in the Arab world but in Europe and Asia as well,” said Indian Dominion’.

The position of the Unesco Direc-tor-General has never been filled by an Arab. Dr Al Kawari has been focus-ing on Qatar’s efforts in cooperation with the UN to launch the Educate A Child programme that helped in the education of 10 million children around the world, promising that education, particularly in Africa, will receive special attention as the cor-nerstone of development through cooperation between Unesco and the African Union to achieve the best outcome.

Recently, Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari visited the capital of India and shared his ideas, vision and mission for Unesco with the media. He started with his concerns about the current status of Unesco and his vision after the victory: “Over seven billion inhab-itants call Earth home. How many of them are illiterate? How many actu-ally benefit from proper education? Unesco is facing a responsibility of

historical proportions. He pointed that it is our duty to massively magnify its engagement towards education.

The Indian publication said that he has been working through his diplo-matic ties to encourage countries that haven’t paid their financial dues to the organisation to pay them as well as create attractive Unesco programmes in the fields of education and culture to encourage strategic sponsors and partners. He also proposed a Davos-like conference to discuss means of solving problems and finding proper solutions, adding that he will hold talks with the United States to discuss its responsibilities towards Unesco in terms of achieving the organisation’s goal of global peace.

Unesco has a significant role in combating terrorism, the Qatari can-didate said, noting that military action isn’t enough and Unesco plays a major role in this regard because terrorism can’t be eradicated without overcom-ing poverty and ignorance, boosting awareness of the importance of edu-cation, and spreading multiculturalism. Dr Al Kawari said that Qatar nomi-nated him out of its belief in the role of Unesco in establishing peace as well as the organisation’s interest in human heritage.

Qatar hosted in 2015 the 38th ses-sion of the World Heritage Committee and called for establishing a fund to protect human heritage and donated $10m at the time.

He emphasized that although it is the first time that Qatar aspires to such an important position, he recalled that he does not only represent his coun-try but also the whole Arab world with this candidacy.

“Unesco is going through a very big financial crisis, but this is a politi-cal problem. If there are no political solutions, it will be very difficult to solve economic problems,” said the former minister of culture.

He stressed that he will work to bring back the United States as an active member of the organization and assured that the return of Americans will not only strengthen Unesco, but will help to obtain better tools to face the real threats that exist today like terrorism.

“We want to fight terrorism and the United States is one of the coun-tries that are at the forefront of this fight,” said Al-Kawari, who said that this fight is not only fought with mil-itary means but also with education.

“If we do not solve the problems of poverty, the problems related to respect for culture, then we will not be able to fight terrorism. Unesco had been setup to implement peace, so we are going to fight terrorism through Unesco with education, “he said.

He considers that an efficient way to fight terrorism is to develop critical thinking through quality education by allowing the youth to have the means to defend themselves against fanatic thoughts and doctrines.

His vision encompasses also the preservation of the world tangible and intangible cultural heritage that dark forces are trying to destroy. The world heritage is the shared human memory and those harming it are harming our collective cultural heritage.

Indian magazine praises Al Kawari’s candidacy

H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari.

10,000 students attend Awqaf’s Holy Quran classesQNA

The Holy Quran Education Centers at the Minis-try of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has resumed its work with the start of the new academic year.

About 10,000 students are attending the Holy Quran classes distributed in 111 centres all over the country.

The students follow up on their assessment according to the Ministry’s review curriculum, which includes the various classes of students, from the les-sons of the alphabet to the completion of the Holy Quran. Director of Da’wa and Religious Guidance Department at the Ministry of Awqaf Mohammed bin Hamad Al Kuwari said in a press statement that all the centres of the Holy Quran teaching were prepared in advance to meet their students and staff to follow up on their memorization and review.

Al Kuwari said that the studying time at the cen-tres is on two periods, morning and evening, the morning period is from the 8-11 am , while the evening begins after the Asr prayer and continues until before the Isha prayer. He pointed to the importance of reg-ularity and commitment of students to attend the Holy Quran classes, calling on children to better use their energies and skills and the use of leisure time in stud-ying Share’aa science through reading and memorizing the Holy Quran.

He also referred to the social and educational roles of the Holy Quran centres, noting that the children enrolling in these centres will enhance the values of Islam and raise the good morals which reflect posi-tively on their educational life.

QU to launch new courses related to blockadeSanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

Qatar University has announced adding new courses related to block-

ade imposed on Qatar in the college programs of law, soci-ology and media.

QU President Dr Hassan Al Derham yesterday announced that Qatar University was launching four new courses related to the blockade which would be optional.

Giving details about the courses, Al Derham said that one course will be presented at Law College and the subjects will be related to the blockade on the aspect of law. “College of Busi-ness and Economics will have a subject related to the economic aspect of the blockade and the College of Arts and Sciences will get two courses media and social sciences related to the blockade,” he said, while addressing a press conference to announce the academic accreditation of QU colleges of Education (CED), Engineering (CENG), and Health Sciences (CHS)..

Qatar University is mulling over launching new programs about food security, cyber

security and transport in a bid to meet the requirements of local job markets in public and private sector amid assuming importance for such specialisa-tions due to blockade.

Qatar University also showed its readiness to help local farmers in sharing experi-ences related to setting up cooling system for their green-houses. The details were given by the official of Qatar Univer-sity in a press conference held yesterday to announce the new accreditation obtained by the varsity.

The College of Engineering of Qatar University received requests from government insti-tutions to launch new programs in their specialisations. “The College received communica-tions from Qatar Development Bank and state security agency about launching two programs – agricultural science and cyber security,” said Dean of the Col-lege of Engineering, Dr Khalifa Al Khalifa. “We are conducting a feasible study to launch the programs. It could be bachelor courses or diplomas as pr the needs of the institutions” he added.

Al Khalifa said that the Col-lege of Engineering is also in

touch with the Ministry of Munic-ipality and Environment on launching a new program —agri-cultural science. “The College of Engineering has good experience related to cooling system as it coordinated with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Leg-acy in installing cooling system at stadiums. We received request from the Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment to transfer this experience in installing cool-ing system to some farms connected with the Ministry,” said Al Khalifa.

Al Khalifa said that the new courses will be proposed to the Authorities Concerned in future for approval. “Qatar University as national varsity is keen to launch specialized courses to meet the needs of the country,” he added.

The College of Health and Science is also working to launch new programs in food safety and processing. “The Min-istry of Public Health requested to Qatar University to offer pro-grams on food safety and processing,” said CHS Human Nutrition Department Head Dr Tahra El Obeid. “The college will submit the proposals for approaval next week,” she added.

MEC spots 119 violations in August QNA

The inspection campaign held by representatives from the Ministry of Econ-

omy and Commerce (MEC) in August resulted in the seizure and issuance of 119 violations, which include the non-compli-ance with prices of vegetables and fruits bulletin, non-display of product and service prices, non-display in Arabic and non-issuance of receipts in Arabic.

The violations also included failure to display the original prices alongside the discounted

prices approved by the con-cerned management, not complying to recording all explanatory statements relating to the offered commodity, not describing, advertising or dis-playing the item in a manner that contains false or deceptive data, non-existence of receipts and failure to add cards on dis-counted products.

The intensive inspections are part of the Ministry’s keenness to regulate and monitor the markets and commercial activities in the country with the aim of control-ling prices and detecting

violations to protect consumer rights to monitor if suppliers were abiding by the obligations stipu-lated by Law No. (8) of 2008 on consumer protection.

The penalties included administrative closure and finan-cial fines which vary between QR5,000 and QR30,000 accord-ing to the laws and decisions governing the work of consumer protection departments.

The Ministry confirmed it will be firm against all those negligent to those not complying to the con-sumer protection law and its executive regulations.

THE Department of Assessment in the Min-istry of Education and Higher Education is preparing to evaluate 40 public schools, 24 for boys and 16 for girls, after completing its plan for the new academic year 2017/2018.

The Department has established internal work committees to review the evaluation system, based on the observations and sug-gestions of evaluation specialists and school administrations, in line with the latest global accreditation systems. The work will con-tinue to produce the final evaluation manual and apply it in the next academic year 2018-2019, in order to give a longer period to evaluate the updated procedures.

Plan to evaluate schools

FAJRSHOROOK

04.04 am

05.21 am

ZUHRASR

11.28 am

02.55 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

05.37pm

07.07 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 03:15 – 15:45 LOW TIDE 08:45 – 22:45

Hazy to misty / foggy at places at first

becomes hot daytime with chance of

local rainy clouds by afternoon and

humid by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum31oC 39oC

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

emir patronises opening of us-islamic world forum€¦ · on qatar, foreign investors and companies...

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