Federer beats Nadal to clinch Slam No. 18

BUSINESS | 17 SPORT | 24

Qatar and Montenegro sign

air transport deal

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Volume 21 | Number 7057 | 2 RiyalsMonday 30 January 2017 | 2 Jumada I 1438

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday met Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos and his delegation. Talks dealt with bilateral cooperation and ways of developing them, as well as a number of regional and international issues of mutual interest. → See also page 2

PM meets Greek Defence Minister

Jeunghun Wang of South Korea, winner of the Qatar Masters, receiving the Mother of Pearl Trophy from Hassan Al Naimi, President of Qatar Golf Association, in the presence of Joseph Abraham, CEO of Commercial Bank, at the Doha Golf Club yesterday. Wang edged Joakim Lagergren and Jaco Van Zyl in a play-off battle to lift the Qatar Masters title.

→ See also pages 23 & 24

Jeunghun lifts Qatar Masters title

The Peninsula

Private laboratories will soon be allowed to conduct food safety tests in Qatar. Currently tests on

food for human consumption are done by the Central Food laboratory under the Ministry of Public Health.

As part of ensuring the highest level of safety of both imported and local food, the central lab is set to adopt a number of new procedures, including a ‘Halal Laboratory’ system. With stringent quality controls, there is just less than 0.01% probability of inconsum-able food entering the country, according to an expert.

“We will allow private lab-oratories to conduct human food tests, in the future. There are many who wish to open these private labs,” said Wasan Al Baker, Director of Food Safety and Environmental Health at the Ministry of Pub-lic Health (MoPH).

The food safety department had raised the issue to the Joint Human Food Control Commit-tee which in turn adopted the proposed mechanism for the

adoption of these laboratories in its meeting held on Decem-ber 14, 2016.

“Presence of private food testing laboratories will greatly benefit importers by allowing them to conduct tests on sam-ples of food that they want to import. It will help to ensure their compliance with the required specifications and standards before they start importing large shipments of such food. in case of a facility violates food regulations, an action will be taken to prevent it from happening again,” she said during an interview with Qatar News Agency.

→ Continued on page 5

Food safety tests soon in private labs

The Peninsula

Qatar Public Prosecution opened an office at Hamad International Airport (HIA)

to facilitate passengers to pay penalties if they have.

The new office allows pas-sengers who have received fines and are prevented from travel to pay their fines and lift the ban. The office will remain open round the clock, seven days in a week. The office has other

services including inquiries. Members of the public prosecu-tion are available round the clock to make necessary proce-dures in a matter of minutes.

Attorney-General H E Dr Ali bin Fetais Al Marri told report-ers that any person who is banned from travel can approach the office and pay fines if they have any. He noted that the office can only process travel bans issued by the Public Pros-ecution and not by any other

state authority. He also announced intentions of open-ing another office at Abu Samra crossing.

The new office is the latest step by the Public Prosecution in swift justice and help process some of the verdicts that might prevent passengers from leav-ing the country. The new office will also look into crimes that took place aboard planes such as smoking, making noise or not following the directions of the

cabin crew among others.The office will process lifting

the travel ban imposed on any person due to issuance of court orders in the cases of check-with-out-balance or other fines. The affected person can approach the office of Public Production at the Airport and within few minutes the travel ban will be lifted after he/she paid the due in the cases of check without balances or any other liabilities.

→ Continued on page 3

Yemen President arrives todayEMIR H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will meet today at the Emiri Diwan with President of Yemen Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, who is due in Doha for a working visit. The Emir and the Yemeni President will discuss means to promote bilateral relations in addition to a host of issues of common concern.

Qatar's support to Lebanon praisedPRESIDENT of Lebanon Michel Aoun said that Qatar's support for his country has contributed to building the country. Aoun said this during an interview with the French news channel LCI, responding to a question about his visit to Saudi Arabia and Qatar recently.

Public Prosecution Office opened at HIA

The Peninsula

Thirteen new e-projects will be implemented this year by the General Directorate

of Information Systems at the Ministry of Interior (MoI).

Last year, the department accomplished 20 projects for the ministry and its visitors.

Captain Abdul Aziz Al Rweili, Assistant Director of General Directorate of Information Sys-tems, said: “The Department achieved 20 projects last year, and is working currently to accomplish 13 new projects to serve the MoI and its visitors”.

The services provided by General Directorate of informa-tion systems crossed more than 250 e-services. About 96 serv-ices were added last year.

About 7 million e- inquiries

were registered last year, an increase of 32 percent compared to previous year. And the number of MoI website’s visi-tors reached 12 million.

The number of traffic acci-dents registered through Metrash2 mobile application was 20,352 last year.

Among the most important projects accomplished last year was the new financial system project, in addition to develop-ment of the MoI website with new e-services.

Regarding the prominent projects which the department is currently working to accomplish, Al Rweili said: “We are working to accomplish the security permit system, which aims to serve all MoI sites, and through it the secu-rity permits will be done. Among the sites is Hamad International Airport, and Hamad Port”.

He also said that the number of transactions accomplished through Metrash2 last year was more than 2 million, registering an increase of 54 percent com-pared to previous year.

The average number of Met-rash2 users daily is more than 16,000. Al Rweili added that over 250 e-services are acces-sible at the ministry's website and Metrash2, and more than 1 million transactions done through the MoI website.

Baghdad/Cairo

Reuters

A global backlash against US Pres-ident Donald Trump’s immigration curbs gathered

strength yesterday as several countries including long-standing American allies criticised the measures as discrimina-tory and divisive.

Governments from London and

Berlin to Jakarta and Tehran spoke out against Trump’s order to put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily ban travellers from Syria and six other Mus-lim-majority countries. He said the move would help protect Americans from terrorism.

The Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul-Gheit has expressed concern about the executive

order issued by the US President Don-ald Trump banning citizen of seven Arab and Muslim Countries.

In a press release in Cairo Aboul-Gheit said he hopes US administration will retract its position because this measure will negatively affect the ties between Arab societies and Americans in different aspects particularly in edu-cation, scientific researches and cultural exchanges.

Aboul-Gheit emphasised that Arab community is among top to respect law and order in the US and has made sig-nificant contribution to the American society. US has a moral obligation towards the Syrian refugees, he said.

In Germany—which has taken in large numbers of people fleeing the Syr-ian civil war — Chancellor Angela Merkel said the global fight against ter-rorism was no excuse for the measures

and “does not justify putting people of a specific background or faith under general suspicion”, her spokesman said.

“Terrorism knows no nationality. Discrimination is no response,” said French Foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, while his British counterpart Boris Johnson tweeted: “Divisive and wrong to stigmatise because of nationality.”

→ See also pages 6,13 & 15

Arab League voices concern amid global backlash against Trump’s order

MoI to launch 13 new e-projects

As part of ensuring the highest level of safety of both imported and local food, the central lab is set to adopt a number of new procedures, including a ‘Halal Laboratory’ system.

20,352 traffic accidents were registered last year through Metrash2 mobile application.

02 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017HOME

The Peninsula

An innovative cinema complex is expected to open at Msheireb Downtown Doha (MDD) this year.

Msheireb Properties and Novo Cinemas, a subsidiary of Elan Group, have signed an agreement to open the new Novo Cinemas Multiplex at MDD which will consist of standard state-of-the-art screens as well as the new VIP 7-Star offering.

The luxury 7-Star experience includes a private VIP lounge, personal butler service, fine din-ing menu selection and fully reclining automated seats. Novo Cinemas currently operates in three prime locations in Qatar including in the recently opened Mall of Qatar where it launched state-of-the-art 19 screen Megaplex.

The multiplex will be located within The Galleria, a

retail destination that Msheireb Properties envisage as ‘Home to Qatar’s New Lifestyle’. This unique shopping mall set within the city’s revitalised urban downtown area, is easily acces-sible from surrounding pedestrian and driving routes.

Debbie Stanford-Kristiansen, Chief Executive Officer, Novo Cinemas said: “As we continue to expand our presence in the

Middle East, Novo Cinemas in Msheireb Downtown Doha will be a unique addition to our col-lection. The venue will maintain Novo Cinemas’ pioneering stand-ards with integration of the latest in cinema technology, providing an unparalleled entertainment experience for visitors. We look forward to developing a cultural and innovative cinema space for this revolutionary neighbour-hood with the help of Msheireb Properties.”

Novo Cinemas, Msheireb Downtown Doha is part of a large regeneration plan to revive the old commercial district in a modern, yet traditionally Qatari manner. The renovated social and civic hub in the city centre will provide Qatari residents with an exciting neighbourhood to live, work, shop, visit, and enjoy activities with family and friends.

Abdulla Hassan Al Mehshadi, Chief Executive Officer at Msheireb Properties, said: We are

extremely pleased to welcome Novo Cinemas to our flagship project, Msheireb Downtown Doha. Partnering with this pio-neering industry leader allows us to bring our vision of a

dynamic destination to life, and support our work to revolution-ise the way people work, live and thrive. Enriching the lives of the community and its individuals is of paramount importance to our

development and we are confi-dent that Novo Cinemas premium cinematic experience will reflect our aims to deliver exceptional entertainment.”

By blending Qatar’s heritage with modern technology, and its focus on sustainability and har-mony within the environment, the project aims to build a communal space that reflects the culture and aspirations of the people of Qatar. Novo Cinemas will be the exclu-sive cinema provider in the development, bringing an unpar-alleled entertainment experience to the community.

Msheireb Downtown Doha will increase Novo Cinemas’ brand footprint to a total of 175 screens across the region. By next year, Novo Cinemas aim to have 7 IMAX screens, including three IMAX Laser and the larg-est IMAX Laser in the Middle East, helping them attain a total of more than 220 screens by the end of next year.

Innovative cinema complex to open at Msheireb

Abdulla Al Mehshadi (right), CEO of Msheireb Properties, and Jaber Al Ansari, GCEO of Novo, at the agreement signing ceremony.

7-Star facilities

The Novo Cinemas Multiplex at MDD will consist of standard state-of-the-art screens as well as VIP 7-Star facilities.

The multiplex will be located within The Galleria, a retail destination at the Msheireb.

Abdullah Al Attiyah attends NUMOV meetThe Peninsula

H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, President of Abdullah bin Hamad Al

Attiyah International Foundation for Energy & Sustainable Devel-opment and the former minister of Energy and Industry, partici-pated in the Assembly meeting of the board of directors of the Ger-man Near and Middle East Association (NUMOV) in Berlin held recently.

The meeting discussed former and future plans of the NUMOV and its financial outcomes.

Dr Gerhard Schr �der, former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, chairs the board of directors of the German Near and Middle East associa-tion. The Assembly activity extended for a period of 80 years through supporting its members of the major German companies to form and expand relations in the Near and Middle East.

The assembly facilitated the provision of necessary informa-tion to its members about developments in the countries of the region, especially in the economic, trade and investment fields. Also the assembly played a prominent role in the estab-lishment of the Qatari Business Forum in 2003.

Al Attiyah is also a member of the Board of International Management Association, which

includes prominent figures from several countries in the region.

The participation of Al Atti-yah, the founder and chairman of Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Atti-yah International Foundation for Energy & Sustainable Develop-ment, came due to the trust accorded by the NUMOV in the foundation as well as for the important part the foundation played since its initiation in 2015 as an independent foundation-and in providing independent visions about issues that affect the energy industry and sustain-able development according to

the concepts of sustainability and energy variables.

The foundation also plays an important role communicating with other relevant institutions to make solutions for the rising energy and sustainability vari-ability issues, whether in the form of research, studies or conferences.

Moreover, the foundation provides open discussions between the most influential people in governments and busi-ness, including academic, research, scientific and media institutions.

Al Attiyah is an international prominent figure in the energy and sustainability affairs. He is a member of several boards of directors of some international bodies concerned with energy and international cooperation affairs including Energy Intelli-gence Group (EIG), which is organizing oil and gas confer-ence which are considered one of the largest energy conferences in the world

He is also a member of the International Cooperation Plat-form (ICP), based in the city of Istanbul, Turkey.

UN official hails Qatar's role in crime preventionNEW YORK

QNA

Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide

Adama Dieng has hailed the efforts of the State of Qatar in supporting the international community to prevent the per-petration of terrible crimes and genocide in many parts of the world.

The UN official said that the United Nations highly appreci-ates Qatar's role and humanitarian contributions in the conflict-hit areas around the world.

"Doha has made significant contributions to 'The Respon-sibility to Protect (R2P)' commitment in many regional and international areas of con-flict, in addition to its continued support to the UN organizations in the efforts aiming to halt the terrible crimes and genocide, he said.

He pointed out the recent meeting held in Doha which he said reflected the GCC's signif-icant role in preventing serious violations and stopping geno-cide in war and conflict zones, mainly in the Middle East.

He also praised the GCC important role in achieving sus-tainable development in those areas, stressing the need to

work with the international community institutions to put an end to the abuses of vulner-able groups such as children, women and the elderly.

Meanwhile, the UN official hailed Qatar's role in succeed-ing the negotiations of the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLMA) on the basis of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, affirming the significant role of Qatar in establishing peace in Sudan in general, and in Darfur in particular.

He highlighted the huge and remarkable efforts exerted by the Qatari officials in order to end the conflict, and hailed Qatar's contributions to the efforts of development and reconstruction of Darfur and other provinces in Sudan.

The UN official said that the efforts of relief and preventing genocide come as part of com-pliance with legal and ethical obligations, noting that the United Nations has put many plans and mechanisms to develop these efforts so as to ensure the prevention of mass crimes. He noted that there is a steady increase in religious and ethnic conflicts in different regions of the world, which requires more attention and resolve urgently.

The Peninsula

Qatar Charity (QC) has pro-vided funds to a hospital in Yemen offering medi-

cal services free of cost to poor patients suffering from renal dis-eases and those fighting with cancer.

The beneficiary hospital, Dar Alshafqa, operating in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, badly needed financial support to continue the services because philanthropists supporting the hospital were unable to provide donations due to the unrest in the country.

The operational cost of Dar Alshafqa is QR470,000 annu-ally, in addition to QR220,000 for food and other expenses, including helping patients in their treatment and transporta-tion. QC contributed through a charitable contribution from a benefactor from Qatar in sup-porting the operating cost of Dar Alshafqa.

The QC support contributed to reducing the suffering of kidney and cancer patients coming from the Yemeni provinces to Sanaa, where

Dar Alshafqa provides them with food and transportation to and from hospitals.

Dar Alshafqa was founded in 2008 and it has served about 3,000 patients, providing them with adequate shelters, food, and transportation to hospitals for

treatment. Yet, the situation has worsened after the recent crisis in Yemen as many people were displaced from their provinces and dozens of patients came to Dar Alshafqa which already suf-fers from lack of facilities to accommodate the growing

number of patients.The support of the people of

Qatar through the QC has pro-vided part of the operational budget which contributed to sav-ing dozens of homeless patients, said Mansour Alghatrifi, Direc-tor of Dar Alshafqa.

Qatar Charity provides funds for hospital in Yemen

QNA

Relief work is in progress under the first phase of the Aleppo Support

Campaign that was launched during the Qatar National Day celebrations in December 2016, the Qatar Red Crescent (QRCS) said.

The campaign is conducted with the participation of five Qatari charities, QRCS said in a press release.

Last Thursday, 20 kits of medications and medical con-sumables were provided for health facilities in Aleppo and Idlib. So far, 17 kits have already been delivered to hospitals and health centres, with the remain-ing supplies to be delivered to another three hospitals.

These provisions are expected to serve more than 150,000 patients.

Two mobile clinics were dispatched, one from Anjara Health Center to Atarib Twon,

and the other from Darat Izza Health Center to Maarrat Al-Ikhwan.

Comprising physicians, nurses, midwives, and commu-nity health workers, they visited the households hosting inter-nally displaced people (IDPs) to offer primary health care, sur-vey medical needs, distribute medications for free, identify malnutrition cases among chil-dren aged six months to five years, and refer serious cases to specialist centers.

The first phase of the cam-paign is providing QR25m worth of humanitarian aid, including food, tents, clothes, and medical aid for tens of thousands of Syrians who fled Aleppo City towards the north-ern and western rural parts of the governorate.

Each Qatari charity is assigned to undertake a certain part of the relief intervention, depending on their humanitar-ian mandates.

Medical supplies sent to 150,000 in Aleppo

H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah speaking at the NUMOV meeting in Berlin recently.

Patients at the Dar Alshafqa hospital in Yemen.

03MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 HOME

The winner of the Lulu-Abu Issa Perfumes Festival promotion, Thomas (Coupon Number 034627), receiving a symbolic key of Audi Q3, 2016 from Mohamed Basheer, General Manager, Hypermarket Operations, and Rafi V S , Administration Manager of LuLu Hypermarket Group, in the presence of officials from LuLu Group and Abu Issa Marketing.

Lulu-Abu Issa Perfumes promotion winner

Montenegro and Qatar sign aviation dealQNA

The State of Qatar and Montenegro signed yes-terday an agreement

that allows both countries' national carriers to make an unlimited number of flights for passengers and cargo.

Minister of Transport and Communication H E Jassim bin Said Al Sulaiti represented the State of Qatar in signing the agreement. Representing Montenegro was Minister of Transport and Maritime Affairs Osman Nurkovic.

The agreement is the lat-est in the Ministry of Transport and the Civil Avi-ation Authority's efforts in signing agreements with more countries around the world in order to link Qatar with as many destinations as possible. The number of signed air transport agree-ment rose to about 160.

RAF opens educational centre in Java SHEIKH Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF) inaugurated yesterday an educational centre established through a donation of QR540,000 by Qatari citizens.

The centre was estab-lished in Java Island and consists of six classes, admin-istrative offices and a room equipped with computers. It also has a mosque that can take in 200 people. It also has a water well for the people of the village, estimated at 17,000.

Number of GCC visitors rises 8.49%Mohammed OsmanThe Peninsula

The number of GCC cit-izens visiting Qatar recorded an 8.49 per-cent increase in December 2016 com-

pared to the same month in 2015. About 48.5 percent of the total visitors in December were from the GCC region.

The country received a total of 2.9 million visitors last month, according to the 36th edition of 'Qatar; Monthly Statistics' bulle-tin of the Ministry of Development Planning and Sta-tistics released yesterday.

The total number of passen-gers arriving at the Hamad International Airport (HIA) in December increased by 14.87 percent and in November by 11.03 percent, compared to the

same months in 2015. The total number of arrivals

was 1.66 million in December and 1.45 million in the same month in the previous year, reg-istering a growth of 14.87 percent.

The statistics indicated that

the total number of departures through HIA in December was 1.7 million while the number during the same month in the previous year was 1.47 million, showing a growth of 15.4 percent.

The total number of arrivals recorded year-on-year (YoY) rose 14.9%, while the total number of departures recorded YoY rose by 15.4%.

The number of transits through the airport fell from 9,324 in December 2015 to 3,881 in December last year, with a 58.3 percent decrease while the number jumped by 59.6% last December compared to November.

The total number of arriv-als to Doha reached approximately 445,000 pas-sengers, and scored a monthly increase of 16.1% compared to

November 2016. The total number of departures from Doha reached approximately 476,000 passengers, and scored a monthly increase of 33.1% compared to November in 2016.

The monthly statistical bul-letin highlights some key areas like populations growth, move-ment of passengers through airports, ports and land making comparisons.

Notable in this issue is the significant increase in the number of passengers at Hamad International Airport, as the total number of arrivals reached more than 1.6 million passengers dur-ing December 2016.

The demographic statistics in the bulletin show that Qatar’s population reached more than 2.5 million at end of December 2016, attaining an annual

increase of 7.3% compared with the population at end of Decem-ber 2015, which was at 2.4 million.

The total number of births in the country reached 2,198 in December 2016, whereas the number of deaths was 217 dur-ing the same month.

The total number of mar-riages was 347 during December 2016, and the number of divorces was 118 during the same month.

The number of traffic viola-tions was 178,565 during December 2016, resulting in a monthly decrease of 2.3% com-pared with the previous month.

The total number of sold properties reached 280 during December 2016. The total value of properties sold amounted to approximately QR2.9bn during the same period.

Population surge

About 48.5 percent of the total visitors in December were from the Gulf region.

Qatar’s population reached more than 2.5 million at end of December 2016.

→ Continued from page 1

The travel ban is not unnec-essary but it was made for some reasons to serve public interests, said Al Marri.

“The office has been opened in collaboration with the Minis-try of Interior and Public Prosecution to ease and speed up the procedures required from the passengers,” said Brigadier Arar Al Rumaihi, Director of Airport Security Department.

The office will also take the necessary actions in minor cases related to the transit pas-sengers at the HIA, said Al Rumaihi.

The office will also investi-gate the crimes mentioned in the law of civil aviation about

unruly passengers like smoking in the flights and making noise or disturbing passengers or not following the instructions of cabin crew and other crimes on board, said Turky Rashid Al Muhannadi, from the Public Prosecution.

The office will open investi-gation in aforementioned cases and finalise it at the HIA without need to transfer from Airport to the police station and then to the Public Prosecution.

The cases will be decided at the same place in a bid to ease the procedures, said Al Muhannadi.

The prosecutor will investi-gate the case and take the appropriate action in setting free

the accused or sending him to judicial remand as per the seri-ousness of the case. He can keep the case or refer it to the court concerned. He can issue orders as well.

The new office will help ease the travel procedures for the passengers with travel ban issued by the Public Prosecu-tion, said Yusuf Juma Al Sulaiti, Head of the Public Production Office at HIA.

The most travel ban cases issued by the Public Prosecu-tion are related to check-without-balance, so the passenger could pay the amount of the bounced check at the office to left the ban, said Al Sulaiti.

Attorney-General H E Dr Ali bin Fetais Al Marri at the inauguration of the Qatar Public Prosecution Office at the Hamad International Airport yesterday.

HIA office to decide minor cases

Qatar-German Year of Culture from WednesdayQNA

The Qatar-Germany year of culture 2017 will kick off on Wednesday with a

concert by Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra at the Katara Opera House.

The orchestra will play four movements from "Doha Secrets" symphony which will be played featuring a number of Qatari artists, including Dana Al Ferdan, Wael bin Ali and Haamed Hussein Al Naama. From Germany, con-ductor David Niemann and Gerhard Oppitz will be on the piano.

This year will see more than a dozen events held in Doha and other in Germany.

One of them will be an exhibition on the life of some Qatari citizens in Germany. This year's events aim to strengthen the culture ties between the people of Qatar and their counterparts in Germany.

It is the sixth time that Qatari Museums holds this event. It began with Japan in 2012.

It then followed with the United Kingdom, Brazil, Tur-key and China in 2013 all the way to 2016.

The Peninsula

Hamad General Hospital’s Podiatry Clinic sees around 70 patients a day,

including a large number of diabetics.

Dr Talal Khader Talal, Head of Podiatric Services at Hamad Medical Corporation says it’s important for diabetics to get

their feet inspected every day and do an annual checkup with podi-atry clinic as part of managing diabetes.

“Inspecting your feet every day, and seeking care early in case of a foot injury, is essential for good diabetes management. Make sure your healthcare team checks your feet at least once a year – more often if you have foot

problems. Your physician can also explain the do’s and don’ts of good foot care,” said Dr Talal.

“Most patients can prevent serious foot problems by follow-ing simple steps such as examining their bare feet daily, remaining physically active, avoiding smok-ing and not crossing their legs for long periods of time. Diabetics are also advised to wear protective

shoes that are comfortable and cover the whole foot. Heels and sandals should be avoided since they expose the foot and don’t provide a level platform, making one more susceptible to injury,” he added.

Diabetes damages the small blood vessels that feed the nerves in extremities, particularly in the legs. This leads to a loss of sensation, which leaves diabetics with a condition called diabetic neuropathy.

Nerve damage can also create deformities of the foot that can be painful. Dr Talal said treatment can vary from using special insoles to support foot’s form to surgeries that fix the bone structure.

Regular podiatric check-ups from 15 years after diagnosis with Type 1 diabe-tes and from five years after diagnosis with Type 2 diabe-tes are recommended.

“If patients suffer injury they should seek treatment on the same day. Wound healing is slow for diabetic patients and we can help them to recover in a suita-ble way, preventing any possible complications from the injury,” Dr. Talal added.

04 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017HOME

Fazeena Saleem

The Peninsula

The Al Bawasil International Camp for children with dia-betes has made a positive impact on its participants and helped leading a nor-

mal life, says a senior official. The Al Bawasil International Camp

organised by the Qatar Diabetes Asso-ciation (QDA) of Qatar Foundation, to create safe and loving environment for children with Type 1 diabetes in Qatar and the region and to teaches them how they can keep diabetes in control and how to avoid its compli-cations in order to reach their full potential.

“The camp is a good opportunity to educate children with Type 1 dia-betes to avoid complications and live and independent life,” Dr Abdulla Al Hamaq, Executive Director of QDA told The Peninsula on the sidelines of Al Bawasil International Spring Camp for children with diabetes that is tak-ing place at Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence.

“In the previous camps we have been able to make a positive impact on the participants. We conduct sur-veys prior and after the camp and have noticed huge changes in the atti-tude of children about controlling diabetes and living a normal life,” he added.

A total of 60 children aged 7-11 from 12 countries, are attending the 17th Al Bawasil International Camp , which is the largest of its kind organ-ised in the region. The camp brings together children with Type 1 diabe-tes from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for a week-long learning and activity-driven experience.

An official opening ceremony of the six day camp was held on Satur-day with a variety of entertainment activities. The camp is being held under the patronage of H E Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.

The participants at the camp are from Qatar, Morocco, Lebanon, Jor-dan, Sudan, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Oman and Iran.

The intensive programme of the camp is designed to create a spirit of cooperation and affinity among

the participants through education, physical exercise and morale-build-ing social activit ies and entertainment.

Al Bawasil International Camp first begun in 1999 only for Qatari participants and in 2000 it opened for GCC while the first international participants attended the camp in 2013.

“Since the beginning of the camp every year we see more children and now we use games to give healthy messages for the kids. We also we conduct workshops with games, to entertain and educate the kids,” said Dr Al Hamaq.

Collette Hayek Biton, a nurse who is accompanying children from Lebanon for the fifth time

said, “Children benefit from the Al Bawasil to an great extend. A girl who came with me to the camp few years ago, got engaged recently and would get married soon. She learnt from the camp to take up life in a positive way.”

Educational activities of the camp include workshops that deal with diabetes and its management, such as insulin injections, dietary advice and psychosocial adjustment for those living with diabetes.

Additionally, the camp will incor-porate simple sports activities with entertainment programmes where artistic and creative sides are explored. There will also be a number of visits to local recreational and cul-tural sites of interest in Qatar.

Camp helps children with diabetes

Dr Abdulla Al Hamaq, Executive Director, Qatar Diabetes Association (third left) with other officials at the inaugural function of Al Bawasil International Spring Camp at Aspire Academy, for Sports Excellence in Doha. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

The Peninsula

OOREDOO yesterday announced that it will once again sponsor Qatar Diabetes Association ‘Al-Bawasil Camp’ for children with diabetes in 2017.

The 2017 camp, which is held under the patron-age of Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, is the seventeenth event of its kind.

In previous years, Ooredoo has helped sup-port the event by providing entertainment through its cheeky mascots the Alrabaa, or by advertising the great work the camp does to teach children how to cope with diabetes and reduce the nega-tive repercussions diabetes might bring.

This year, Ooredoo has been named official telecommunication sponsors of the event.

Fatima Sultan Al Kuwari, Director Commu-nity & Public Relations, Ooredoo said: “Ooredoo believes in enabling children to grow to best of their abilities, which is why we are proud to sup-port the camp’ to help educate children on how to deal and treat their illness. The goal of the camp is not just about education, but to enable these chil-dren a chance to live a normal life and enjoy a week of fun – something Ooredoo tries to bring Qatar through our sponsorships and events often.”

Ooredoo sponsors Al-Bawasil camp

Diabetic patients advised to get feet check-up regularly

Creating positive impact

The Al Bawasil International Camp for children with Type 1 diabetes teaches them how to keep diabetes in control and how to avoid its complications.

The Peninsula

The upcoming ‘Expo Turkey by Qatar’, which is going to be held at the Qatar

National Convention Centre (QNCC) from April 18-20, is expected to elevate the bilateral relations, including economic ties, to a whole new level.

Organised to help transform Turkey and Qatar into commer-cial powerhouses of the region, the three-day exhibition is expected to bolster Turkish-Qatari strategic partnership through trade, which may help boost the volume of bilateral trade to $1.5bn.

“Creating an opportunity where companies and like-minded business owners can get together and leverage commer-cial gains for one another was the initial thought behind to the creation of Expo Turkey by

Qatar”, said Abdul Aziz Al Emadi, CEO of QNCC and Co-organiser of the event.

Hakan Kurt, Chairman of Medyacity and Co-organiser of

the exhibition, added: “Our goal is to double our trade volume between Turkey and Qatar.”

Turkey and Qatar, come together for the first of its kind event, Expo Turkey by Qatar, to ensure greater economic poten-tial. The exhibition will elevate the partnership between the two countries to help reach its full economic potential, setting it as the economic hub for the region.

The exhibition is expected to draw considerable attention not only from the two participating countries, but also from inves-tors in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and from the international arena. Senior Turkish and Qatari government officials will also attend the expo. The event will host bilateral busi-ness and government meetings and lead to partnerships.

Al Emadi said: “This event will be the launch of an effective

economic zone in the region that will liaise with the pan-Arabia and Mena areas on economic, knowledge, trade, and cultural exchanges. By providing the needed startegic partnership

between both countries and enti-ties, we anticipate that this event will be the catalyst for future economic opportunities.”

“Expo Turkey by Qatar will prove a very productive

exhibition for economic relations between Qatar and Turkey and for investors operating in the region. Turkey and Qatar cur-rently have a bilateral trade volume of around $700m. Our goal is to double this volume, and take it to $1.5bn”, Kurt added.

“The feelings of kinship and close diplomatic relations between Turkey and Qatar take this exhibition one step ahead of others. With Expo, we aim to boost cooperation between the two countries and strengthen investment and collaboration opportunities in other Mena countries. In this context, more than 2,000 confirmed meetings are scheduled with senior gov-ernment officials as well as with Qatari businessmen and women, purchasing officials, decision-making authorities, and over 3,000 business people from the Mena region.”

Rare sight

Both the celestial bodies will predominantly appear in the evening twilight almost immediately after the sunset.

05MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 HOME

First joint event

Turkey and Qatar, come together for the first of its kind event, Expo Turkey by Qatar, to ensure greater economic potential.

The exhibition is expected to draw attention not only from the two participating countries, but also from investors in the Mena region.

Dr. Ali Bin Samikh Al Marri, Chairman of National Human Rights Committee, met at his office with Adrian Norfolk, Canadian Ambassador to Qatar, yesterday. The two leaders discussed bilateral cooperation in areas of common concerns and experiences in area of human rights.

NHRC Chairman meets Canadian Ambassador

Special parking arrangement made for Jet Skis in Bandar area in Doha Corniche. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Arrangements for Jet Skis

Continued from page 1Meanwhile, the Central Food

Laboratory will soon adopt a new system called “Halal Laboratory” that allows to know if the source of the meat is from Halal animals or from non-Halal sources. The future plans also include the development of analytical ways to make sure that the animal has been slaughtered according to the Islamic rites.

“Other new procedures that will be soon introduced at the Central Food Laboratory to help in food safety processes includes checking fraud in the different types of meat and checking the presence of any drug residue in the product,” she revealed.

The lab will also adopt new

procedures to identify unknown compounds in food products using high-resolution modes, and will work on adopting innovative ways in chemical and microbio-logical analysis of water.

She underlined that all human food entering Qatar through var-ious border are subjected to ongoing control and inspection, therefore the probability of entry of any shipment of food into the country that is unfit for human consumption does not exceed 0.01%. According to official sta-tistics, this percentages is one of the best ratios compared to other countries.

In 2016, about 3 million kilo-grams of food were rejected from entering the country because of

non compliance with the stand-ards and the GCC technical regulations, or for being unfit for human consumption

“The department ensures the safety of all kinds of food in the Qatari market whether imported from abroad or produced locally, and that all food items are sub-jected to strict controls,” she said.

Environmental Health section of the department carries out routine inspection in local food outlets and kitchens that makes food for institutions. The section also withdraws food samples on regular basis to conduct lab tests and check safety. The section also follows up the emergency cases and investigates in the various food poisoning cases.

The Peninsula

Sky gazers in Qatar will get one of the best glimpses of the close-knit brilliant

evening couple, the Moon and Venus, tomorrow after sunset. Venus will be at 4.1 degree north to Moon’s centre at 5:34 pm local t i m e , a c c o r d i n g t o astronomers.

Both the celestial bodies will predominantly appear in the evening twilight almost imme-diately after the sunset.

This is because the Moon and Venus are the second and third brightest heavenly bodies,

respectively, after the sun.“It will be best time to see

and observe Moon and Venus with naked eyes without Astro-nomical instrumentation, you can use digital cameras to take best photos for Venus with Moon,” said a statement issued yesterday by Dr Beshir Marzouk and Dr Mohammed Al Ansari of Qatar Calendar House.

The astronomers named Venus as morning and evening star, because it is the first lumi-nary one can see after sunset when it over western horizon, and it is the last luminary seen before sunrise when it over

eastern horizon.Qatar resident can see the

celestial bodies grace the evening sky in Doha’s western horizon after sunset at 5:18 pm. The Venus with Moon can be observing until moon-set at 8:38 pm over Doha sky.

Central Food Laboratory to adopt new system

‘Expo Turkey by Qatar’ to boost bilateral trade

Representatives from Qatar and Turkey give information about the exhibition.

Celestial spectacle for skygazers tomorrow

06 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Sana'a

Reuters

A US commando died in a dawn raid in southern Yemen yesterday that

killed around 30 people includ-ing al Qaeda suspects and civilians, the US military and local Yemeni officials said.

It was the first combat cas-ualty of the Trump administration and its first oper-ation in the war-damaged Arabian Peninsula nation against a powerful al Qaeda

branch that has been a frequent target of U.S. drone strikes.

The gunbattle in the rural Yakla district of al-Bayda prov-ince killed a senior leader in Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch, Abdulraoof Al Dhahab, along with other militants, Al Qaeda said.

Medics at the scene said 30 people were killed, including 10 women and three children.

The US military said in a statement that 14 al Qaeda mil-itants died in the raid, which netted “information that will

likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots.”

Three U.S. commandoes were also wounded in the operation in which a military aircraft experi-enced a hard landing and was “intentionally destroyed in place.”

“The operation began at dawn when a drone bombed the home of Abdulraoof al-Dhahab and then helicopters flew up and unloaded paratroopers at his house and killed everyone inside,” one resident said, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Syrian army retakes key rebel area DAMASCUS: The Syrian army said yesterday that it had recaptured a flash-point area from rebels near Damascus that sup-plies water to the capital.

Wadi Barada had been the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks between regime and rebel forces that tested a frag-ile nationwide truce and left millions in Damascus facing water shortages.

"Our armed forces ... have accomplished their mission by restoring security and stability in the region of Wadi Barada", the army said in a statement carried by state television.

Under a deal with the authorities, rebels can choose to stay in the area but hand over their weapons, or leave to the northern province of Idlib, last major bastion o f t h e a r m e d opposition.

US commando among 30 dead in Yemen

RABAT: Morocco has obtained the "unconditional support" of 42 members of the 54-strong African Union to rejoin the bloc at a summit which opens today, a senior Moroccan diplomat said. AU member states are expected to mull Morocco's bid to rejoin during a two-day sum-mit in Addis Ababa, and elect a new chairperson.

Morocco quit the bloc 33 years ago to protest the AU's decision to accept Western Sahara as a member, but it now wants back in and King Mohammed VI has been criss-crossing the continent lobbying for support.

Tehran/Baghdad

Agencies

As a response to US President Donald Trump's latest ban on the entry of citi-zens from seven

countries, including Iran, Tehran said it will ban Americans from entering Iran, according to media reports.

Until the US ban is lifted, Iran decided "to respond in kind after the insulting decision of the United States concerning Iranian nationals," the Dawn newspaper said, quoting the Iranian foreign ministry's statement reportedly carried by the state television.

The statement comes one day after Trump signed an exec-utive order to temporarily ban travelers from seven countries, including Iran, into the US

"Iran's foreign ministry called the decision 'illegal, illog-ical and contrary to international rules'," the news report said.

Meanwhile, the French Pres-ident Francois Hollande urged the European countries to stand united against Trump.

Iraq plans to lobby against new restrictions on travel to the United States by Iraqis, arguing the two countries need to pre-serve their alliance against Islamic State (IS), two members of the Iraqi parliament close to the government said.

Dependent on US military aid against IS, the Iraqi govern-ment has so far declined comment on an executive order signed by new US President Donald Trump on Friday that suspends the entry of travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at

least 90 days. The order stirred angry reactions in Iraq, where more than 5,000 US troops are deployed to help Iraqi and regional Kurdish forces in the war against IS insurgents. Some mem-bers of parliament said Iraq should retaliate with similar measures against the United States.

“Iraq is in the front line of the

war on terrorism (...) and it is unfair that the Iraqis are treated in this way,” parliament’s foreign affairs committee said in a statement.

“We call on the Iraqi govern-ment to retaliate for the decision taken by the US administration,” it added after a session on Sun-day in Baghdad.

Baghdad plans to lobby Washington to review the deci-sion, according to two lawmakers who declined to be identified. One of them said that the government will “explain that Iraq as a sovereign country will be forced to apply similar treatment, and that would affect negatively cooperation, includ-ing military cooperation”, in the conflict with IS.

Popular Mobilization, a coa-lition of mainly Shia paramilitary groups armed and trained by

Iran to fight Islamic State, urged Prime Minister Haider Al Aba-di’s government to expel US nationals. Influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said American citizens should leave Iraq. “It would be arrogance for you (Americans) to enter Iraq and other countries freely while bar-ring them entrance to your country ... and therefore you should get your nationals out,” he said on his website.

The US-led coalition is pro-viding critical air and ground support to Iraqi forces in the ongoing battle to wrest Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, from Islamic State.

Mosul is the last major Iraqi city still under the control of Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni group that declared a self-styled “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Dubai

Reuters

Emirates airline has had to change flight attendant and pilot rosters on services to

the United States following the sudden U.S. travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, an airline spokeswoman said yesterday.

“The recent change to the US entry requirements for nationals of 7 countries applies to all trav-ellers and flight operations crew,” the spokeswoman said in emailed comments. “We have made the necessary adjustments to our crewing, to comply with the lat-est requirements.”

A separate spokeswoman later said by phone the impact of the roster changes on the airline would be minimal due to its diverse workforce.

Emirates, the world’s largest long-haul airline, employs over 23,000 flight attendants and around 4,000 pilots from around the world including from the US, Europe and Middle East, the spokeswoman said.

The airline is owned by the government of Dubai, part of Mus-lim-majority and US ally the United Arab Emirates. It flies daily from Dubai to 11 US cities includ-ing New York, Washington DC. and Los Angeles, and will add a 12th US destination in March.

Tehran to ban Americans entering Iran

Protesters hold placards during a rally supporting refugees worldwide and in reaction to Trump's travel ban, outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, yesterday.

More African states back bid to rejoin AU: Morocco

Emirates changes pilot & crew schedules on US-bound flights

Madagascar wedding crash: 47 deadANTANANARIVO: At least 47 people, including 10 children and a newly-wed couple, were killed when a truck car-rying a wedding party and guests veered off the road and plunged into a river in Mada-gascar, police said.

7 dead as Nigerian gunmen attack convoyMAIDUGURI: Gunmen believed to be Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamic extremists attacked a convoy of motor-ists along a recently secured highway, killing at least seven people and injuring many oth-ers, including soldiers in a military escort, witnesses said. The Maiduguri-Biu highway has been one of the most dan-gerous routes in northeastern Nigeria for three years because of Boko Haram attacks.

Retaliation

Until the US ban is lifted, Iran decided "to respond in kind after the insulting decision of the United States concerning Iranian nationals," the Dawn newspaper said, quoting the foreign ministry's statement.

07MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 ASIA

A Chinese lion dance troupe performs at a park in Chinatown to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Yokohama, a suburb of Tokyo, yesterday.

Lion dance in Tokyo

3 dead & 5 missing in Malaysia shipwreckKuala Lumpur

AFP

Three Chinese passen-gers died and five are missing after a tourist boat sank in rough seas off eastern Malay-

sia, officials confirmed late yesterday, with 22 people res-cued following the shipwreck.

Twenty Chinese tourists and two of the vessel's three crew members were rescued and sent to a hospital in Kota Kinabalu after the boat sank off Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island, according to Malaysian officials.

The third crew member has not yet been found, bringing the total number of missing to six.

The sinking of the catama-ran on Saturday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday, sparked a major air and sea search covering some 400 nau-tical square miles.

The mission was halted yes-terday night due to bad weather, but will resume early today

morning, an official from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said.

The boat left on Saturday morning from the Sabah state capital Kota Kinabalu en route for Pulau Mengalum, an island known for its pristine beaches and dive sites. The boat owner reported it missing on Saturday evening.

The skipper and a crew member were found alive off a nearby island, before the discov-ery of the other survivors.

"According to the skipper, the boat was 'broken' after being hit by waves and sank," Ahmad Puzi Kahar, head of the MMEA, said in a statement.

The search and rescue involved officers from the mar-itime agency, police, navy and air force.

Malaysian Navy Chief Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badarud-din said naval ships and a C130 aircraft were used in the search.

Roughs seas and strong winds hampered rescue efforts, authorities said.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said he was closely monitoring developments. Chinese President Xi Jinping "demanded all-out search and rescue efforts" by Malaysia, his country's official Xinhua news agency reported.

It added that an emergency team, led by an official from Bei-jing's national tourism administration, had been set up

to handle the incident.China's foreign ministry said

its consulate in Kota Kinabalu had contacted Malaysian author-ities and urged them to do everything they could to rescue the tourists. "Yesterday was the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year and it should have been a happy day. Unfortunately, such a bad thing happened," Chi-na's consul-general in Sabah, Chen Peijie, was quoted as

saying by Malaysia state news agency Bernama.

An earlier disaster involving Chinese visitors to Malaysia —the unexplained disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines plane in March 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing —soured relations between the two nations. Most of the 239 people on board were Chinese and Malaysian authorities were fiercely criticised for allegedly

giving little or inaccurate infor-mation about the incident.

The shipwreck came about a week after another maritime tragedy off the southern Malay-sian state of Johor.

Several bodies washed ashore at a beach near the east coast town of Mersing in Johor on Monday after a boat believed to be carrying some 40 Indone-sian illegal immigrants capsized in rough seas.

Chen Peijie (second left), China's consul-general in Sabah, checks her mobile phone at a jetty in Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian Borneo state of Sabah yesterday, as she awaits developments after a tourist boat carrying 28 Chinese nationals was reported missing on Saturday.

22 rescued

Twenty Chinese tourists and two of the vessel's three crew members were rescued and sent to a hospital.

The boat left Saturday morning from the Sabah state capital Kota Kinabalu en route for Pulau Mengalum, an island known for its pristine beaches & dive sites.

Duterte: US building arms depot in PhilippinesMANILA: Philippine Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte accused the United States yesterday of risking regional stabil-ity by building permanent arms depots in his country, and threatened to respond by scrapping a security treaty between them.

Duterte, who has made no secret of his disdain for the US troop presence in the Phil-ippines, said Washington was bringing weapons into three provinces of his country to store permanently, which he said was a dangerous breach of a defence deal between them. "They're unloading arms in the Philippines now ... I'm serving notice to the armed forces of the United States. Do not do it, I will not allow it," Duterte told a tele-vised news conference.

"Provisions of the Visiting Forces (Agreement), there shall be no permanent facil-ities. A depot is by any other name a depot. It's a perma-nent structure to house arms."

He added: "I do not even know if there is a nuclear tip (missile) now, that they are unloading." His comments come after the Pentagon gave the green light to build ware-houses, barracks and runways this year under a 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement between the two longtime allies. If US arsenals were built in the Philippines, Duterte said he would con-sider a review of treaties.

Abe to focus on February meeting with TrumpTokyo

Reuters

US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Min-ister Shinzo Abe agreed

to meet early next month, affirming the importance of bilateral ties while setting the stage for potentially sensitive trade talks.

Trump's administration has put the focus of the Abe visit, one of the first summits of the new presidency, on starting bilateral trade talks. Japan says it is pre-paring for all contingencies in dealing with Trump, who pulled America out of an Asia-Pacific

trade deal Japan had champi-oned and who has said Japan does not offer fair access to US carmakers. "President Trump affirmed the ironclad US com-mitment to ensuring the security of Japan," during a telephone call in which they agreed to meet in Washington on February 10, the White House said.

On security, the two dis-cussed a visit this week by Defence Secretary James Mattis, the first trip to the region by a Trump cabinet member.

"President Trump and Prime Minister Abe said they would consult and cooperate on the threat posed by North Korea,"

the White House said.Abe told reporters that at the

coming meeting, "I would like to have a candid exchange of views on the economy and security issues as a whole."

The two leaders discussed the automotive industry, said senior government spokesman Koichi Hagiuda, without giving details. The White House state-ment said the two "committed to deepen the bilateral trade and investment relationship."

Trump and Abe agreed on the importance of ties between the world's No. 1 and No. 3 econ-omies, said Hagiuda, Abe's deputy chief cabinet secretary.

Indonesia 'deeply regrets' immigrant vetting plans of USJakarta

Reuters

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said yester-day the Muslim-majority

nation deeply regrets President Donald Trump's plans for "extreme vetting" of people from some Muslim countries entering the United States under new immigration orders.

In a far-reaching order that caused chaos and confusion after it was signed late on Fri-day, Trump put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and tempo-rarily barred travellers from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries.

Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim popula-tion, is not among the seven nations whose citizens face restrictions. However, when asked about Trump's plans for "extreme vetting", Marsudi said in social media message sent to Reuters: "We have deep regrets about the policy."

In December 2015, Trump called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. The idea drew fire for suggesting a religious test for immigrants that critics said would violate the US Constitution and later evolved into a proposal for

"extreme vetting". Most of Indo-nesia's 220 million Muslims practise a moderate form of Islam, although the country has some vocal Islamist groups and has suffered in the past from attacks by militants.

Indonesia has close rela-tions with the United States and many of its citizens think highly of former US President Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Jakarta.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said after Trump's inauguration he was optimis-tic that relations between the countries would strengthen, to the benefit of both.

Foreign Minister Marsudi said Indonesians seeking visas to go the United States had not faced any problems so far. She said there were "hundreds of thousands" of Indonesians in the United States. A statement on the website of the Indone-sian embassy in Washington urged its citizens in the US to stay calm, but keep vigilant.

It said Indonesian citizens should respect US laws and help ensure public order in their neighbourhoods, but also that they should understand their rights in case of any issues and directed them to the website of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Cockfighters reap Year of Rooster bonus in ThailandBangkok

Reuters

Prized birds faced off in front of thou-sands of spectators at a stadium near Thailand's capital as celebrations for

the Year of the Rooster brought a windfall for some.

Although cockfighting is banned in many countries on grounds of animal cruelty, it is a lucrative business in Thailand as well as a popular pastime. Sunday's top bird sold for over $70,000. "This year is a very good year for us. It's the year of the golden rooster. The value of the roosters has gone up," said Banchej Changyai, 55, who was running the

contest south of Bangkok on the second day of celebrations for the Lunar New Year. Each fight involves two roosters facing off in a pit. They lurch at each, inflicting damage with beaks and wings. Each round is 22 minutes long, and there can be up to six rounds depending on the roosters' endurance.

"Today, the rooster brought me a lot of money," said Narongsak Sealee, 22, after winning 500,000 baht ($14,170) at the Thedthai cockfighting stadium in Samut Prakan province. Unlike in many countries, the Thai cocks do not fight to the death. Instead, the first bird to cower away loses.

"This rooster is so good that it gives me, the owner, a great reputation and makes me

very happy," said Virat Patcharaphangkorn, after buying the event's prize rooster for 2.5m baht ($70,840).

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (centre) talks to reporters after having a phone conversation with US President Donald Trump, at his official resident in Tokyo, on Saturday.

A cockfight is seen during an event on the outskirts of Bangkok yesterday.

Arab League has warned US President Donald Trump against his plan to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The warning by an organization which represents 22 Arab

countries, and which speaks for the millions of people living in these countries, should be taken seriously by Trump if he wants friendly relations with the Arab world. The Arab world and the US have enjoyed friendly relations for decades despite changes at the top at both sides. Arab countries have looked at US as a stabilizing power, and the latter has played a key role in maintaining stability and peace in the region during periods of crises. The Palestinian issue has been one of the key factors defining this relationship and Washington’s decision so far to keep a distance on the sensitive issue of the status of Jerusalem has been crucial in winning Arab trust.

An Arab League official said in Cairo yesterday that Trump must retract his campaign pledge to move the embassy to Jerusalem. “The position expressed by President Trump while campaigning needs to be more cautious. We look to the new US administration to reconsider its position so it can better act as an objective sponsor of the peace process,” Assistant Secretary General for Palestinian Affairs Said Abu Ali said. His statement

comes amidst attempts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ratchet up pressure on Trump to fulfill his promise. There are two reasons why Netanyahu wants Trump to shift the embassy soon. First, any delay can finally lead to an indefinite postponement of the plan due to mounting Palestinian, Arab and international pressure,

and second, the Israeli prime minister is looking for political mileage and a boost to his popularity and rating as he is facing arguably the greatest pressure in his 11 years as prime minister, with police questioning him in

two criminal probes into abuse of office. “Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and it would be good if the American embassy wasn’t the only one to move here... I think that with time the majority of embassies will move to Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said.

The Arab League, Palestinians and the international community must continue to exert pressure on Trump to stop him from going ahead with the controversial and disastrous plan. Transferring the American embassy to Jerusalem would be an aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people in their eternal capital east Jerusalem. It would also violate the UN Security Council resolutions and will be “a retreat from the historical American position” on the city’s status.

08 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017VIEWS

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

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

msalim@pen.com.qa

Arab League call

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Accepting refugees is a duty of solidarity. Terrorism knows no nationality. Discrimination isno response.

Jean-Marc AyraultFrench Foreign Minister

Arab League must pile more pressure on Trump to stop his administration from moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

On January 27, US President Don-ald Trump signed an executive order to make good on his prom-ised Muslim Ban. One of the primary provisions of the order is

a ban on visas to the US to nationals from seven countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, which are all Mus-lim-majority nations.

There is something peculiar about this list. The draft of the executive order begins by citing 9/11 as a failure of the “visa-issuance process”. It blames the state department for preventing “counselor officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19 foreign nationals who went on to murder 3000 Americans.”

The overwhelming majority of those individuals were from Saudi Arabia, yet, Saudi Arabia is not on the list. Furthermore, when it comes to “homegrown terrorism” of all the Muslims accused, charged, convicted and killed, some of them are from these seven countries in Trump’s list and some are not, some are immigrants and some are American citizens, and a number of them have been entrapped by federal law-enforcement agencies. This either means that the list needs to be much longer or there is something more than national security concerns at play.

Trump promised a “Muslim Ban” as part of his election strategy. He got support for his unlikely candidacy by fomenting the already seething tide of anti-Muslim racism in the US. The way anti-Muslim racism works is that Islam and Muslims are a bogeyman, hated and feared because of how they are “different”, i.e. by how they look and what they do. Muslims are bogeymen not solely because some Muslims are guilty of violent acts against Americans.

As was reported not too long after white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black Americans in Charleston, white Americans cause the largest numbers of American deaths by terrorist acts on US soil. Yet unsurprisingly, Trump has not signed any executive orders specifically targeting white Americans. This is because Islam and Muslims have been “othered” - made to be seen as distinctly and most despicably bad and evil in the popular imagination.

Violence against women, honour killings in particular, is cited two times in the draft as something from which the US government is obliged to protect Americans. This specific practice of violence against women has been sutured to Arabs and Muslims in popular conversation. It builds on a broader narrative that Muslim women are oppressed by the men in their lives, their families and the religion they follow, and they need saving - by the US.

Recall, Laura Bush’s call to support the invasion of Afghanistan to save Muslim women. By explicitly including honour killings, Trump is basically telling his supporters “I told you I’d do something about

Trump’s Muslim ban is a dangerous distractionSuad Abdul KhabeerAl Jazeera

this bogeyman and look, I am.” And this something is doubly significant for people who believe we need to “make America great again”, because it is not only standing against the evils of “Islamic extremism”, but it is allegedly standing up for democracy and freedom. It feeds into an idea that violence against women is a particularly Muslim thing, due to their backwards culture. Yet in the US, every minute nearly 20 people, the majority of whom women, are victims of intimate partner abuse. However, Trump is not ramping up protections for violence against women here at home.

In fact, while he is marking himself the anti-honour killings crusader abroad, he is cutting funding for the Office on Violence Against Women. This means cuts to programmes around the country that try to prevent domestic violence and provide services, like

transitional housing and legal aid - services that would surely be of benefit to the white and working-class women

among Trump’s supporters.Trump also promised jobs and to that

end, he signed an executive order to push forward the Dakota Access Pipeline. But of all the jobs he promises, only about 40 will be permanent, which is peculiar considering Trump supporters presumably want permanent work. He also promised to protect Americans from the scourge of illegal immigration by building a wall. He signed that executive order this week and missing from much of that fanfare is the small detail that taxpayers, and not Mexico, will be footing part of the bill.

And while there has yet to be an executive order, Trump’s recent declaration that he would send the “feds” to Chicago to stop what he called “American carnage” at his inauguration, only thinly veils the real objective: militarisation on the home front. And while that will initially target those living in the ‘scary’ inner cities, it will ultimately compromise the liberty his supporters hold so dear.

So, what is at play here? Trump is continuing what he started on the campaign trail. He is tapping into the fear that breeds the kind of xenophobia that gets folks excited about walls and bans, only to distract them from all the promises he won’t be keeping.

In this way, these moves are a bunch of smoke and mirrors, for which Trump has become pretty famous. However, that doesn’t mean these distractions aren’t dangerous. Indeed, they are. They are a danger to the communities of colour they target. Likewise, they are dangerous for Trump supporters who will find that even with bans and walls, they will still be left behind.

Trump is continuing what he started on the campaign trail. He is tapping into the fear that breeds the kind of xenophobia that gets folks excited about walls and bans, only to distract them from all the promises he won’t be keeping.

ED ITOR IAL

Protesters gathering to denounce US President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans certain immigration, at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Dallas, Texas.

09MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 OPINION

approved or under construction in eight Indian states. Government subsidies are limited to public-sector companies that own canals or canal banks, but, if successful, private-sector involvement is inevitable.

Solar power is important to India’s future elec-tricity needs

Coal generates over 75 per cent of India’s elec-tricity and is among the cheapest energy sources available, IndiaSpend reported in May 2015.

With over 300 million Indians without reliable energy, and industrial demand growing, the need for coal-fired electricity is estimated to increase three times by 2030, with consequent environmental impacts. But in talking about what he calls the “seven horses of energy”— coal, nuclear, hydro, gas, solar, wind and biogas — Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that India’s efforts should increasingly move towards the latter three.

The real potential in a sunny country to replace fossil fuels is solar: India has a renewable-energy potential of about 895 GW, of which 750 GW is solar, as IndiaSpend reported in February 2015.

By 2022, solar energy could achieve grid-parity in India, meaning it would cost the same as other sources of electricity — although some reports sug-gest this might happen by 2018. That is the year, as another IndiaSpend report said, the renewable-energy sector, primarily solar, could generate 1 million jobs — over the 400,000 that already exist, according to a 2016 status report by Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, a global, multi-stakeholder network based out of Paris.

Solar power plants can be built faster than either coal, gas or nuclear power plants. Further, in the dec-ade ending 2014, solar installed capacity went up from 2.6 GW to 139 GW, a jump of 50 times over the initial capacity in just 10 years, largely because of falling costs and improving solar-cell technology.

The critical issue around solar installations in India is space, as IndiaSpend reported in May 2015. That is where the nation’s canals come in.

Canal-top solar power is most efficient, has longer life and saves water

The power output of ground-mounted solar pan-els decreases at a rate of 1 per cent every year for the first 10 years. However, panels mounted on Chan-drasan’s canal showed no degradation and power generated stayed stable over the past three years, according to research conducted by the Gujarat

Global opposition to President Donald Trump intensified yesterday as world leaders condemned the move to tempo-rarily limit entry from what are predominantly Muslim countries, while

Germany pledged to play a bigger role on the inter-national stage.

World leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Mer-kel criticised Trump and said their nations won’t change their immigration policies.

Merkel expressed her concerns about a ban dur-ing a call with Trump on Saturday, according to a tweeted statement from spokesman Steffen Seibert. “It is not justified to put people of a particular back-ground or religious belief under general suspicion” even as governments try to grapple with the threat of terrorism, the statement said. Merkel last week said Germany would continue to pursue a global agenda.

The growing condemnation exposed dividing lines with US allies and wasn’t limited to the world of politics: Netflix Inc’s chief executive officer said the changes were “un-American,” while Alphabet Inc’s Google advised staff who may be impacted by the order to return to the US immediately.

Two judges temporarily blocked Trump’s admin-istration late Saturday from enforcing portions of his order that would have led to the removal from US airports of refugees, visa holders and legal US resi-dents from the seven countries. Neither ruling strikes down the executive order, which will now be subject to court hearings.

“Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW,” Trump told his almost 23 million Twitter followers early yesterday. “Look what is hap-pening all over Europe and, indeed, the world - a horrible mess!”

Under the order, the admission of refugees would be suspended for 120 days. Citizens of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya would be banned from entering the US for 90 days, while the government determined what information it needed from other countries to safely admit visitors. The order didn’t list the countries, but pointed to laws that cover those seven, which were provided by the White House.

The ban is a “visible insult” to Muslims and Iran “will reciprocate with legal, consular and political undertakings,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency said. Iran also summoned Switzerland’s ambassador in Tehran in his capacity as the head of US interests in the country, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported. The US and Iran haven’t had formal diplomatic ties since shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Trudeau, in a tweet, said Canada would welcome those fleeing “persecution, terror and war. Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith.” A similar message was sent by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said refugees deserve a safe haven regardless of

their background or religion. Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said the decision was unfair.

“We do not agree with this kind of approach and it is not one we will be taking,” UK Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday in a statement, two days after meeting Trump to begin work on a trade accord. Her earlier refusal to condemn the order unleashed a flood of criticism in the UK, including from some of her own Conservative Party colleagues.

London’s first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, on Facebook called the ban “shameful and cruel” and said the new policy “flies in the face of the values of freedom and tolerance that the USA was built upon.” Mexico’s former President Vicente Fox said on Twit-ter that the executive order had “united the world” against Trump.

US Democrats labeled it a “Muslim ban” and criti-cised it as inhumane. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., likened the order to the country’s slow response to the Holocaust prior to US entry into World War Two.

“Faced with the humanitarian crisis of our time, the United States cannot turn its back on children fleeing persecution, genocide and terror,” Durbin said in a statement calling Trump’s order a “ban on Muslims in the United States.”

“During the Holocaust we failed to fulfill our duty to humanity,” he said. “We cannot allow mindless fear to lead us into another regretful

As far as the eye can see, line after line of solar panels stretch out in the midday sun beating down on the village of Chandrasan here in this eastern Gujarat district,

which squeezes in 80 more people per sq km than Indias already crowded average of 441.

But there is no land conflict involved with the Chandrasan installation because the solar panels unfurl over a 750 m length of irrigation canal.

The panels were installed in India’s sun-niest state in 2012 and now offer hope for a country three times as densely populated as China, at a time when India aims for almost a nine-fold increase in solar capacity between between 2017 and 2022 to fulfil global climate-change commitments and reduce its dependence on coal-fired power plants.

The canal-top idea was first tabled at a 2011 Vibrant Gujarat Summit by the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, said Bela Jani, a spokesperson at state-owned Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited (GSECL). The aim was to utilise the area above the canals, saving the government the cost, time and inconvenience associated with land acquisition.

Gujarat alone has a canal network of 80,000 km. Using even 30 per cent of this network for canal-top solar projects, according to GSECL estimates, 18,000 MW of power could be produced in just Gujarat — almost equal to the current coal-based installed capacity of Delhi, Rajasthan and Telangana — and 90,000 acres of land, or twice the size of Kolkata, could be saved.

In other words, installing solar-panels over 30 per cent of Gujarat’s canals could be used to meet nearly a fifth of India’s solar power targets by 2022.

Currently, about 100 MW of solar instal-lations atop and besides canals are either

Why India’s canals could help fast-forward solar energy plans

People gather to protest against the travel ban imposed by US President Donald Trump’s executive order, at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Dallas, Texas yesterday.

Energy Research and Management Institute (GERMI), a research institution promoted by the Gujarat State Petroleum Corpora-tion Ltd, a central government undertaking.

“Not only do they perform more efficiently, but because we can assume that the generated electricity is utilised in nearby areas, the transmission losses of (normally) 4 per cent and dis-tribution losses of 3 per cent are avoided,” said Sagarkumar Agravat, head of GERMI’s solar research and development.

Apart from this, since the panels are placed on top of water, they are cooled from below, which also increases their effi-ciency and enhances output by 2.5-5 per cent.

Essentially, this means the panels will last longer than 25 years, which is the average lifespan of a ground-mounted solar panel, while producing more power due to increased efficiency.

The study concluded that canal-top installations outper-form both traditional ground- mounted solar installations and systems on canal banks.

Canal-top panels, by absorbing heat, help reduce water evaporation. A 1-MW canal-top plant can save the evaporation of up to 9 million litres of water per year, according to a GSECL estimate shared with IndiaSpend, saving enough to provide 2,500 households with 10 litres of water every day for a year. As more canals are covered, the savings increase.

The use of solar energy also stops the emission of close to 1.28 million metric tonnes per year of carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas, according to this report. This is roughly equivalent to the annual energy use of 110,000 American households saved from a 1 MW plant.

Why solar power is important to India’s climate-change commitments

By 2030, global greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to reach 54-56 giga-tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2eq) -- far exceeding the level of 42 required to limit global warming to 2 degrees C by 2100, according to data from the Emissions Gap Report 2016, compiled by the United Nations Environment Pro-gramme every year. The Paris Agreement, which aims to hold temperature rise to below 2°C by 2100 compared to pre-indus-trial levels, came into force on November 4, 2016, barely a month after India ratified the treaty on October 2, 2016.

The 2016 Emissions Gap Report also states that despite full implementation of all the Paris pledges submitted by countries under their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), global temperatures are still set to rise to levels ranging from 2.9°C to 3.4°C. This means that countries must now go beyond their intended contributions if they hope to arrest global warming.

As part of its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, India has committed to source 40 per cent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. By October 2016, renewable installations amounted to nearly 15 per cent of the installed energy capacity, according to the Central Electricity Authority.

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chapter in our history.” Trump’s order would require the govern-ment “to the extent permitted by law, to prioritise refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution.” Only people who are religious minorities in their countries would be eligible.

Absent from the order was a provision from a draft of the docu-ment, obtained by Bloomberg, that would have required the Defense Department to make a plan to cre-ate “safe zones” in Syria and neighboring countries for people fleeing that nation’s civil war.

Syria is a majority Muslim nation, and US officials say that Christians fleeing the country’s civil war have largely wound up at refu-gee processing centers in areas the US government considers unsafe to work in.

State Department data show that 34 Syrian Christian refugees were admitted into the US in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, and 39 so far in the current fiscal year. By comparison, 12,486 Muslim Syr-ians were admitted in fiscal 2016 and 4,772 so far this year.

“There are Christians being processed, and processed at the same percentage at that which they apply for the program,” Lavinia Limon, president and chief execu-tive officer of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, an advo-cacy group, said in a phone interview. “So they’re moving through the process exactly in the same percentage.”

Mukta PatilIANS

The growing condemnation exposed dividing lines with US allies and wasn’t limited to the world of politics: Netflix Inc’s chief executive officer said the changes were “un-American,” while Alphabet Inc’s Google advised staff who may be impacted by the order to return to the US immediately.

Criticism of Trump ban builds from Germany to GoogleShannon Pettypiece & Steve GeimannBloomberg

10 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017ASIA

Pedestrians yesterday walk past a welcoming billboard featuring visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Islamabad. Abbas will arrive in Islamabad along with a 17-member delegation which includes five ministers, today for a three-day visit.

Palestinian President to arrive Pakistan today

15 militants dead in Philippine airstrikesManila

AP

Philippine airstrikes have killed 15 militants linked to the Islamic State group, including a suspected Indone-

sian militant, while one of Southeast Asia's top terror sus-pects was seriously wounded in the country's south, the military chief said yesterday.

Military Chief of Staff Genen-eral Eduardo Ano said the body of the suspected Indonesian mil-itant, known by his nom de guerre Mohisen, was recovered by troops along with three dead Filipino followers of militant leader Isnilon Hapilon, who was seriously wounded in the hilly outskirts of Butig town in Lanao del Sur province.

Eleven other militants were

reportedly killed, Ano said, cit-ing intelligence, but added their bodies have not been found.

Hapilon was wounded in the arm and was losing blood after air force aircraft, including FA50 supersonic fighter jets, dropped six 225kg bombs on Wednesday night and Thursday on a militant encampment in an ongoing offensive, Ano and another air force official said. It was the first time that the FA50s, which were acquired from South Korea in late 2015 as the military's only fighter jets, were deployed in a combat mission.

Four FA50s have been deliv-ered and the rest of 12 jets are to be delivered by July, air force officials said. President Rodrigo Duterte has criticized the FA50s as being inadequate for counter-insurgency operations and good only as fly-by aircraft for

ceremonies. Hapilon was being moved around by his men on a makeshift stretcher but could not escape from Lanao, about 830km south of Manila, because artil-lery-backed troops have blocked possible exit points, Ano said.

"We're making it very diffi-cult for them to move around

and survive," Ano said.The military will ask Indo-

nesian authorities for help in confirming the identity and background of Mohisen, who was not among the foreigners previously monitored as having joined Filipino militant groups in the south.

Hapilon reportedly was des-ignated to lead an Islamic State group branch in Southeast Asia and is on the US Department of Justice list of most-wanted ter-rorists worldwide with a reward of up to $5m for his capture. He moved to Butig from his strong-hold on southern Basilan island a month ago with about 30 fight-ers to look for a base, Ano said.

IS group commanders appar-ently wanted Hapilon to set up a base in Lanao, a vast region that offers more security than his mountain base on Basilan island,

so foreign militants could have a springboard to expand their influence, he said.

The ongoing offensive "is sig-nificant because it will derail their plan to expand the IS pres-ence to mainland Mindanao," said Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, referring to the southern Philippine region, the scene of decades long uprisings by minority Muslims.

Duterte has warned the emergence of IS-influenced mil-itant groups is fast looming as a major national security threat. While pursuing peace talks with two large Muslim rebel groups in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, he has ordered the military to destroy smaller but brutal extremist groups like the Abu Sayyaf, which is dreaded for cross-border kidnappings, beheadings and bombings.

Philippine activists to protest US policy todayMANILA: Philippine activ-ists will protest today against a tough immigration order by US President Donald Trump and Washington's decision to upgrade some military bases in the Philippines.

Anakbayan, a Filipino youth movement, said it would hold a "let them in" rally outside the US embassy in Manila against Trump's temporary freeze on refugees into the United States and his ban of travellers from Syria and six other countries.

Chaos and confusion ensued in the United States at the weekend and a federal judge in New York intervened to block the deportation of dozens of visitors and stranded refugees.

In November, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he hoped Trump would treat illegal immigrants fairly and trusted his judgement. Manila had then urged Filipi-nos working illegally in the United States to return before Trump took office.

Broadcaster ABS-CBN on Sunday quoted Assistant Pres-idential Communications Secretary Marie Banaag as saying it was too early to comment on Trump's immi-gration move and it was the US administration's right to make such decisions.

The Filipino group will also protest an announce-ment last week that US troops would build ware-houses, barracks and runways this year in five agreed locations under an Enhanced Defence Cooper-ation Agreement (EDCA) between the two countries.

Pakistan acquits 112 of burning Christian homesLahore

Reuters

A Pakistani court acquitted 112 suspects in the 2013 torching of hundreds of

Christian homes in the eastern city of Lahore over a rumour that one of the residents there had blasphemed, a lawyer said yesterday.

In March 2013, more than 125 homes in Lahore's Josep Col-ony were burned by a mob of more than 3,000 Muslims responding to rumours that a local Christian man, Sawan Masih, had made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

No one was killed in the incident but there was wide-spread damage to the property of the mostly destitute Christians living in the neighbourhood. Two churches and dozens of Bibles were also desecrated in the attack.

Defence lawyer Ghulam Murtaza Chaudhry said an anti-terrorism court in Lahore had acquitted 112 people accused of torching and ransacking hun-dreds of houses. "They were acquitted by the court because of lack of evidences against them," Murtaza told Reuters. "The state witnesses could not identify the accused and their statements were also contradictory."

All 112 suspects were already out on bail.

A road sweeper in his late

twenties, Sawan Masih told police after his arrest on blas-phemy charges that the real reason for the blasphemy alle-gation was a property dispute between him and a friend who spread the rumour.

In Pakistan, conviction under the blasphemy laws can carry a mandatory death sen-tence. Masih was sentenced to death in 2014, a decision he has appealed. Critics of Pakistan's blasphemy laws say they have long been used by individuals and religious groups to settle disputes.

This month, the Pakistani Senate's human rights panel said it would debate how to prevent the country's blasphemy laws being applied unfairly, the first time in decades that any parlia-mentary body had considered a formal proposal to stop the abuse of the blasphemy laws.

Many conservatives in Paki-stan consider even criticising the laws as blasphemy, and in 2011 a Pakistani governor, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by his bodyguard after calling for reform of the laws.

His killer Mumtaz Qadri was hailed as a hero by religious hard-liners. Tens of thousands of supporters attended his funeral after he was executed last year and a shrine was built over his grave soon after his burial.

Hundreds of Pakistanis are on death row for blasphemy convictions.

Two missing Pakistani activists return; third one is safeIslamabad

AFP

Two Pakistani activists who went missing early this month have been

returned and are safe, their families said, more than two weeks after their disappearance along with three others sparked protests and fears of a govern-ment crackdown.

Academic Salman Haider is "safe and fine", a family mem-ber said, confirming comments from police.

A second activist who was also a blogger was also declared safe by a member of his family, who asked not to disclose his name.

A third activist who went missing earlier this month is also safe, his family said yesterday.

The activist, named only as Asim by his family for safety reasons, was among five who went missing more than two weeks ago.

"Asim contacted us by phone on Sunday morning and told us that he is well," a rela-tive requesting anonymity said, saying the family had been receiving threats.

The days the activist were missing "were the most painful period in my life," the relative said, adding the returned blog-ger was now "in (a) safe place for some days".

The five men — who cam-paigned for human rights and religious freedom — went miss-ing from various cities between January 4 and 7, triggering nationwide protests.

No group has claimed responsibility and the where-abouts of the other two are still unknown.

But Human Rights Watch and other rights groups said their near simultaneous disap-pearances raised concerns of government involvement, which officials and intelligence sources have denied.

The returned activists have not yet recounted what hap-pened to them or where they have been the past few weeks.

Hekmatyar's return could shake up Afghan politicsKabul

AP

The only insurgent leader to sign a peace pact with Afghanistan's government

will return to the country within weeks, his chief negotiator says, in a move that could shake up Afghan politics and complicate the much wider war against the Taliban.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (pic-tured), a former warlord who battled US forces after the 2001 invasion and nursed a bitter rivalry with other Afghan fac-tions, agreed to lay down arms last year. Amin Karim, his chief negotiator, said that he would

return to the capital in "a mat-ter of weeks, not months."

Hekmatyar is seen as a potential rival to President

Ashraf Ghani and Chief Execu-tive Abdullah Abdullah, who have governed the country through a shaky, US-brokered power-sharing agreement since the disputed elections of 2014. His return could inject new polit-ical uncertainty as the government struggles to con-front a reinvigorated Taliban that has been advancing on sev-eral fronts.

The former warlord battled the Soviets in the 1980s and then took part in the civil war that erupted after their withdrawal, clashing with the so-called Northern Alliance, in which Abdullah was a leading figure. Hekmatyar was driven out when

the Taliban seized power in 1996, but returned after the American invasion, vowing to resist the foreign "occupation."

His forces were largely con-fined to just two provinces, however, and have carried out few attacks in recent years.

Last year he became the only insurgent leader to sign a peace agreement with the Afghan gov-ernment, in what many hoped would provide a model for a wider reconciliation with the Taliban. But he has yet to return to the fold.

His Hezb-e-Islami party wants his name taken off the UN and the US Treasury lists of wanted terrorists.

Pakistani youth stand beside a tree as the sun sets over Lahore yesterday.

Sunset in Lahore

Major assault

Body of a suspected Indonesian militant was recovered by troops along with three dead Filipino followers of militant leader Isnilon Hapilon, who was seriously wounded in the hilly outskirts of Butig town in Lanao del Sur province.

11MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 ASIA

Commuters driving through heavy rain in Colombo, yesterday. The Sri Lankan capital has been lashed by heavy rains causing major traffic jams throughout the city.

Riding in the rain

NEWS BYTES

BEIJING: Ye Haiyan, one of China's most prominent women's rights activists, huddled in her unheated apartment on the outskirts of Beijing, waiting to learn if the documentary that propelled her to international fame would receive an Oscar nod. Last month, "Hooligan Sparrow", a documentary follow-ing her activism on behalf of sexually abused children, made a short list for the Academy Awards. Last week, local author-ities killed her gas, water, electricity and Internet. When she learned the film was not included among the final five nom-inees announced on Tuesday, she breathed a sigh of relief. "If many people started paying attention to me because of the film, I suspect I wouldn't be able to stay in China much longer," she said.

Oscar buzz dead, China clips 'Hooligan Sparrow' wings

Shanghai

AFP

A tiger killed a visitor to a wildlife park in east-ern China yesterday

after the man apparently entered its enclosure, the sec-ond such attack in just six months, media reports said.

The incident occurred at the Youngor Wildlife Park in the city of Ningbo, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Shanghai, according to media reports which added that one tiger in the enclosure was shot dead as a result.

Video emerged online showing a tiger mauling a man in black clothing as vis-itors screamed in horror and two other tigers stood close by watching.

The tigers were eventu-ally driven away by park staff using with firecrackers and water cannon, said a report in the Beijing Youth Daily, which added that the man was rushed to hospital but later died. The reports said it was not clear how or why the man, whose wife and child had come to the park with him, had gotten into the tiger enclosure.

In July last year a woman who got out of her car at Badaling Wildlife World in Beijing was attacked and dragged away by a tiger.

Her husband leapt out of the car in pursuit, as did her mother. The mother tried to hit the beast but was attacked by two other tigers and mauled to death.

New Delhi

AFP

India's government is expected to ramp up spending in its latest

budget this week, seeking to ease the pain from a ban on high-value banknotes that slammed the brakes on the world's fastest-growing major economy.

Ahead of a series of elec-tions, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will unveil a budget on Wednesday that analysts say will aim to offset the impact from the so-called demone-tisation programme with stimulus measures.

"The overarching focus of the budget will somehow indicate a gain from pain mentality — how the pain of demonetisation helped the government get some extra resources that it can now spread around," Rajeev Malik, senior economist at broker-age CLSA, said.

Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's shock deci-sion in November to pull all 500 and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation, the Interna-tional Monetary Fund had forecast India's economy would grow 7.6 percent in 2016, faster than any other major country.

But as authorities strug-gled to print replacement notes fast enough, causing consumer spending to plunge, the IMF knocked a percent-age point off its forecast. The government's prediction is 7.1 percent growth.

By painting demonetisa-tion as a blitz on corruption and cash-hoarding that will ultimately boost tax revenues, Modi has so far escaped a major backlash. While there were massive queues outside banks in the weeks afterwards.

But voters in four states — including the key battle-grounds of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab — will have a chance to deliver their verdict when they begin going to the polls in multi-phase elections from February 4. Analysts say the polls are another reason why the government will be tempted to increase spend-ing on health, education and a rural employment scheme.

Yangon

Reuters

A legal adviser for Myan-mar’s ruling National League for Democracy

was shot dead outside the coun-try’s busiest airport yesterday after returning from a govern-ment-led trip to Indonesia.

An unidentified lone gun-man killed the veteran lawyer, Ko Ni, and injured two others in front of the main terminal of Yangon International Airport at 5 p.m., according to San Naing, Ko Ni’s assistant.

“They shot my boss. He is

dead. I am beside his body and there’s blood on the floor,” San Naing told Reuters by phone.

Images posted on social media appeared to show a pool of blood around the slain law-yer’s head. Police have detained a suspect, but the motive was unknown so far. Ko Ni was a prominent member of Myan-mar’s Muslim minority.

The shooting comes amid heightened communal tensions in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under pressure over a secu-rity operation in an area of the country’s northwest that is pop-

ulated mostly by Muslims.A police official in the capi-

tal, Naypyidaw, told Reuters a Myanmar citizen from the cen-tral Myanmar city of Mandalay had been arrested.

The official, who declined to be named as he was not author-ised to speak to media, did not provide additional details about the suspect.

Ko Ni, an expert in constitu-tional law who advises the party led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, had joined a delegation to Indo-nesia led by Information Minister Pe Myint, the assistant said.

Shanghai

Reuters

CChina's audit office found that $2.56bn earmarked for water pollution pre-

vention work in 2016 was not effectively used, Xinhua reported yesterday.

The funds were meant to go towards 397 projects in 18 provinces, with some regions seeing serious failings in enforcing environmental pro-

tection laws, said the report.China's National Audit

Office has told 31 provinces to check use of funds to treat water pollution, Xinhua said.

In December, the audit office said more than 3,000 people had been punished and 160 billion yuan in funds "rec-tified" during an audit of the 2015 budget. In August, China's top economic planner said it would audit 1.8 trillion yuan in special construction funds.

UN commission in Bangladesh to review Rohingya plightDHAKA: A delegation of the Kofi Annan commission arrived in Bangladesh on Saturday to see the latest condition of the Rohingyas arriving from the Arakan region of Myanmar. The three-member delegation will visit Cox’s Bazar to see firsthand the condition of the Rohingyas. The delegation then will meet foreign minister Abul Hasan Mahmud Ali in Dhaka. Foreign ministry officials said three members of the Advisory Com-mission on Rakhine State— U Win Mra, U Aye Lwin, Ghassan Salamé arrived in Dhaka in the afternoon. They are sched-uled to visit Cox’s Bazaar yesterday where they will meet the newly arrived Rohingyas, local administration officials and representatives of United Nations. The delegation will also attend a discussion organised by the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) before leav-ing on February 1.

`0.86m stolen from Delhi ATM

Protest against GST Council decisions

NEW DELHI: In a strange incident, unidentified robbers broke into an ATM here and stole Rs0.862m from it while leaving the rest of the money in the machine "untouched", police said yesterday. The incident was reported on Sat-urday night after the HDFC Bank learnt about the missing amount from one of its ATMs installed on Vikas Marg in east Delhi. "A case under charges of stealing has been registered. We suspect over the role of bank employees and other con-nected people behind the incident as the missing amount was taken out of the ATM without damaging the machine," Deputy Commissioner of Police Omvir Singh said. As some nuts and bolts of the machine were found loose during inves-tigation, it gives a clear indication towards staff members of the bank, the officer said.

NEW DELHI: Tax officers and employees across the country will wear black bands at work today to protest against certain decisions taken by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Coun-cil, the staff associations announced here. Central Board of Excise and Customs officials's associations in a statement yesterday said that they would protest the erosion in central government's authority to levy and collect taxes through this token gesture on January 30, which is officially designated as Martyr's Day to mark the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on that day in 1948. The members of Indian Revenue Serv-ice, All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officers, All India Central Excise Inspectors' Association and All India Central Excise and Service Tax Ministerial Officers Association will all participate in this protest.

Myanmar ruling party lawyer shot dead

Funds to fight water pollution misused

Tiger kills man at China zoo as visitors watch

India looks to ease pain from cash crunch in budget

Lucknow

IANS

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav yesterday predicted more than 300 seats in the

assembly election to the Sama-jwadi Party-Congress alliance which Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi likened to the "Ganga-Yamuna milan".

Addressing a joint press con-ference with Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav said the people of Uttar Pradesh had made up their mind and were backing the newly-forged alliance to the hilt.

Asked why he had tied up with the Congress if his claims of work done in his five-year tenure were true, the 43-year-old Chief Minister said the new alliance was needed to "take ahead the good work".

"We were and are sure of crossing the majority mark on our own. But now with the 'hand' joining the 'cycle', we are confi-dent of crossing the 300 seats mark," he added. Gandhi said the Congress and Samajwadi Party were akin to the two wheels of a

cycle which was moving ahead in complete harmony.

The Congress leader endorsed Akhilesh Yadav's pre-diction of winning over 300 of the 403 seats and said the two parties would now on work together to defeat communal forces and the "politics of anger".

Later, Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav took out a joint road show here. Amidst cheering by party

workers, the two leaders stood atop a specially improvised 'rath'.

Congress activists were clearly outnumbered by Sama-jwadi Party supporters as they raised slogans like "Jai Akhilesh, Phir se Akhilesh."

The 12-km road show began from Hazratganj and took the two leaders to various parts of Lucknow.

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi said his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was an asset to the Congress.

Asked if Priyanka Gandhi will campaign in the staggered Uttar Pradesh election, Gandhi said: "Priyanka has been of tre-mendous help to me and I have been to her. Whether she cam-paigns or not is her choice. She is an asset to Congress."

Asked if Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav will campaign, he said: "Campaign strategy will not be divulged now." Talking about Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawati, the Congress leader said: "I personally respect Maya-watiji. BSP ruled the state and made a few mistakes but my respect is intact for her.

"There are a lot of differences between Mayawatiji and BJP," he added. "The BJP spreads anger and makes people fight. There is a threat to the nation from their (BJP) ideology. There is no threat

to the nation from Mayawati's ideology.

There is no comparison between the two."Rahul Gandhi also said the Samajwadi-Con-gress alliance was like the

"Ganga-Yamuna milan".Gandhi said the alliance

would "fight fascist forces" such as the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

300 seats predicted for Cong-SP alliance in UP

Samajwadi Party President and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav and Vice-President of Congress Party Rahul Gandhi attending a joint press conference in Lucknow, yesterday.

UP Assembly election

Akhilesh Yadav said the people of Uttar Pradesh had made up their mind and were backing the newly-forged alliance to the hilt.

Rahul Gandhi said the Congress and Samajwadi Party were akin to the two wheels of a cycle which was moving ahead in complete harmony.

12 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017EUROPE

Tough task ahead

Whoever wins is expected to face an uphill task with polls showing the Socialist candidate being eliminated in the first round of the election in April.

Polls currently suggest Francois Fillon is most likely to win, ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Dancers, known as Kukeri, perform during the International Festival of the Masquerade Games in Pernik, near capital Sofia in Bulgaria, yesterday.

Celebratory mood

Paris

AFP

France’s Socialists voted yesterday to pick their candidate for this year’s presidential polls as a fresh scan-

dal engulfed election’s conservative frontrunner Fran-cois Fillon.

Socialist voters headed to polling stations yesterday for the primary run-off vote between leftwinger Benoit Hamon and centrist ex-prime minister Manuel Valls.

Hamon, a 49-year-old former education minister, won the first round last weekend and has dominated the race with his radical proposals on work, state aid and the environment.

Valls, 54, says his experience makes him a more credible choice and claims his rival’s tax-and-spend programme would condemn the party to inevita-ble defeat.

Whoever wins is expected to face an uphill task with polls showing the Socialist candidate being eliminated in the first

round of the election in April after five years of unpopular rule by Socialist President Fran-cois Hollande.

Polls currently suggest Fil-lon is most likely to win, ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron. The top two candidates from the April 23 first round will go through to the

final vote on May 7.But Fillon’s campaign was

embroiled in new controversy yesterday, days after reports his wife had been paid as a parlia-mentary aide without working.

The Mediapart website and the Journal du Dimanche news-paper claimed he had also paid himself from public funds intended for assistants in the French upper house.

The allegations date from 2005-2007 from his time in the senate where he is alleged to have written himself cheques of up to €25,000 ($27,000), the reports said. “How can we not consider that there are forces at work to silence me and to weaken my candidacy, or even try to pre-vent me from appearing?” Fillon told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper yesterday.

He called it a “plot” and vowed to fight “with all my strength and to the end.”

He will address a Paris rally to try to shore up support, after an Odoxa poll Friday which showed his approval ratings fall-ing four points to 38 percent.

Last week, French

Berlin

Reuters

Leaders of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) endorsed former European

Parliament President Martin Schulz yesterday as their candi-date to run against conservative Angela Merkel in September’s national election, sources famil-iar with the decision said.

About 35 members of the party’s executive committee voted unanimously for Schulz, 61, to become the party’s new leader and its chancellor candi-date, the sources said.

The centre-left party on Tues-day had announced it was nominating Schulz to replace cur-rent party leader Sigmar Gabriel, who said he was standing aside to enhance party’s chances in Sep-tember 24 election. The decision was seen as a sign that the SPD is serious about ending its role as a junior partner in Merkel’s current right-left coalition.

German news magazine Der Spiegel portrayed Schulz as the party’s saviour yesterday, car-rying a photo on its front cover of a beaming Schulz with the headline “Saint Martin.”

A poll of 1,046 voters carried out last week showed Merkel’s Christian Democrats would get 34 percent of the vote if the elec-tion were held today, while the SPD would win 23 percent.

The anti-immigrant Alterna-tive for Germany (AfD) would become the third largest party in parliament with 13 percent of the vote, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos.

The Greens would win 11 percent, with the Left party seen winning 10 percent, a slight increase from previous polls.

The SPD wants to form a coalition with smaller parties on the left, but most analysts still

think another right-left coalition is the most likely outcome of September’s election.

Polls suggest that Schulz has a better chance than Gabriel, though still very small, of unseating Merkel, who has led Germany since 2005 and is Europe’s most powerful leader. Merkel’s grand coalition with the SPD has governed since 2013.

Merkel’s conservatives have been bleeding support to the AfD

since the chancellor’s decision in August 2015 to keep Germa-ny’s borders open to refugees, a policy that has seen more than a million migrants enter Ger-many over the past two years.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said yesterday that Ber-lin had made mistakes with its open-door policy and was try-ing to learn from them.

authorities opened a preliminary inquiry into allegations that Fil-lon’s Welsh-born wife Penelope collected half a million euros as a parliamentary aide—for little to no work. Investigators are also looking into payments she alleg-edly received from a magazine owned by a friend of Fillon.

Fillon, who won the conserv-ative Republicans’ nomination last year with promises to slash

public spending and restore morality in politics, insists that his wife’s role was real.

The Socialist primary has con-firmed a chasm within ruling party, between a pragmatic, centre-left camp led by Valls and a staunchly leftist faction around Hamon.

Hamon won a first round of voting last week that whittled can-didates down from seven to two, taking 36 percent to Valls’s 31.5

percent. Around 7,500 polling sta-tions opened, with voters able to cast their ballots after paying one euro to participate.

One of the biggest winners of primary could be former econ-omy minister Macron. Macron, who quit the Socialist government last year to run for president as an independent, is drawing large crowds at his rallies and is creep-ing up on Fillon and Le Pen in polls.

French Socialists vote amid Fillon scandal

Berlin

Reuters

THE leader of Bavaria’s sis-ter party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats called for ending sanctions imposed against Russia by Europe and the United States for its invasion of Crimea and its military actions in Ukraine.The sanctions should be lifted this year, Bavarian state pre-mier Horst Seehofer, leader of Christian Social Union (CDU), told the Bild am Son-ntag newspaper yesterday.

“I’m arguing for realpoli-tik not sabre-rattling,” Seehofer told the newspaper. “We have to be clear about different positions, such as about annexation of Crimea, while working to promote sensible business ties.”

Merkel and other EU lead-ers, by contrast, have insisted the sanctions must remain tied to progress on Minsk peace process aimed at ending vio-lence in eastern Ukraine.

That message was reiter-ated by German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault during a joint news conference in Paris.

Merkel spoke with US President Donald Trump, but their joint statement made no mention of sanctions issue. Trump this week said he was only in early stages of consid-ering ending the U.S. sanctions against Russia.

Trump and Russian Pres-ident Vladimir Putin also spoke by telephone and agreed to try to rebuild US-Russia ties and to cooperate in Syria, the Kremlin said yesterday.

Seehofer said he also favoured a broader rap-prochement between Russia and the West, and agreed with calls to reopen the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised countries to include Russia.

Russia used to be part of the so-called Group of Eight (G8) meetings until it was sus-pended in 2014 after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula following a popular uprising in Kiev that toppled its pro-Mos-cow president.

Warsaw

AFP

POLISH prosecutors will on Tuesday present what they believe is proof that

Solidarity freedom hero Lech Walesa collaborated with the communist-era secret police, the national news agency PAP reported, yesterday.

Citing unnamed sources close to the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which prosecutes crimes from the communist-era and from the Nazi occupation, the PAP said that a team of forensic experts had come to that conclusion notably through handwriting analysis.

The 73-year-old former president and Nobel Peace lau-reate has been battling the allegations since last year, when the IPN seized previously unknown secret police files from the widow of a communist-era interior minister.

The IPN has said the files include a collaboration agree-ment signed with “Lech Walesa” and his alleged codename “Bolek”.

Walesa, who co-founded the independent Solidarity union and then negotiated a bloodless end to communism in Poland in 1989, has repeatedly denied the authenticity of the documents and once again called the accu-sations a “lie” yesterday.

He enigmatically admitted however last year to having “made a mistake” and in the past had said he signed “a paper” for the secret police during one of his many interrogations.

A book published by the IPN in 2008 alleged that while the regime registered Walesa as a secret agent in December 1970, he was cut loose in June 1976 due to his “unwillingness to cooperate”.

Poles have mixed feelings about Walesa. His boldness in standing up to the communist regime is still widely respected, but the combative and divisive tone of his later presidency earned him scorn in many quarters.

Madrid

AFP

A SPANISH couple and their 12-year-old daughter died after hundreds of pounds of clothes they were stocking in boxes fell on them while they slept, a local daily reported yesterday.

The couple, who lived in city of Alicante, were keep-ing clothes in boxes stacked in their bedroom to sell them off again.

Their eldest, 18-year-old daughter made grim discov-ery when she woke up, found that the flat was quiet, went into her parents’ room and found all the boxes collapsed on the bed, it said.

She couldn’t see her par-ents or her sister under what was estimated to be one to two tonnes of clothes, and called the police.

Officers managed to locate and pull out younger daughter, but were unable to revive her. Firefighters were later called in for help to extract the parents from under the mountain of clothes.

Mayor of Evry, Francis Chouat, stands behind former French prime minister and candidate for left-wing primary Manuel Valls as he casts his vote during the second round of left-wing primary in Evry, yesterday.

Germany's Schulz declared as chancellor candidate

Former European Parliament president Martin Schulz reacts at a meeting of Social Democratic Party at party headquarters in Berlin, where Schulz was appointed SPD party leader, yesterday.

3 dead in Spain after mountain of clothes falls on them

Merkel’s ally calls for quick end to Russian sanctions

Handwriting ‘proves’ Poland’s Walesa was spy: Report

13MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 EUROPE

Phone diplomacy

Both sides during their phone call demonstrated a mood for active, joint work on stabilising and developing Russian-American cooperation, the Kremlin said.

However, the Kremlin made no mention of the issue of US sanctions imposed on Moscow over its role in Ukraine crisis discussed by the two leaders.

People walk their dogs during a sunny winter day in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, yesterday.

Enjoying sun in the snow

Moscow

Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed to try to rebuild US Russia

ties and to cooperate in Syria, the Kremlin said, after the two men spoke for the first time since Trump’s inauguration.

US-Russia relations hit a post-Cold War low under Barack Obama administration and Trump has made clear he wants a rap-prochement with Moscow if he can get along with Putin, who says he is also keen to mend ties.

“Both sides demonstrated a mood for active, joint work on stabilising and developing Rus-sian-American cooperation,” the Kremlin said in a statement, add-ing that Putin and Trump had agreed to work on setting up their first meeting.

“The chat took place in a positive and business-like tone.”

For Putin, who faces possible re-election next year, an easing of US sanctions imposed on Moscow over its role in the Ukraine crisis

would be a major coup.But the Kremlin made no

mention of the subject being dis-cussed, referring only to the two underlining importance of restoring mutually-beneficial trade and economic ties.

Trump said on Friday he was only in the early stages of con-sidering whether to lift the

sanctions, as British Prime Min-ister Theresa May, other foreign officials and US lawmakers cau-tioned that such a move would be premature.

The most tangible outcome of the phone call, as the Krem-lin described it, appeared to be what it said was an understand-ing that jointly fighting international terrorism was a priority and that the two nations should cooperate in Syria.

“The presidents spoke in favour of setting up genuine coordination between Russian and American actions with the aim of destroying Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria,” the Kremlin said.

That could signal a major policy change as, for now, coop-eration is largely limited to coordinating to ensure that the two countries’ air forces operate safely and that the risk of acci-dental confrontation or collision is minimised.

The Kremlin said Trump and Putin had agreed to establish “partner-like cooperation” when it came to other global issues such as Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear

programme, tensions on the Korean peninsula and the Israeli-Arab conflict.

They also agreed to stay in regular contact and had both said

they wanted each other’s nation to flourish, the Kremlin said.

“He (Putin) reminded (Trump) that our country has supported America for more than two

centuries, was its ally in two world wars and now views the US as its most important partner in the fight against international terrorism,” the Kremlin said.

Berlin/Washington

Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump under-

scored importance of the Nato alliance and vowed to work more closely together to com-bat terrorism and militancy, the two leaders said in a joint statement.

Merkel and Trump spoke by telephone about Nato, situation in the Middle East and North Africa, their ties to Russia and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, according to a statement approved by both countries.

“The leaders recognised that Nato must be capable of confronting 21st century threats and that our common defence requires appropriate invest-ment in military capabilities to ensure all allies are contribut-ing their fair share to our collective security,” Merkel and Trump said in the statement.

Trump accepted Merkel’s invitation to attend a summit of G20 industrialised countries in Hamburg in July, and said he looked forward to welcoming Merkel to Washington soon.

The statement made no mention of Trump’s executive order limiting immigration or his moves to cancel free trade deals, issues that have drawn criticism from German Foreign Minister

Sigmar Gabriel and other Ger-man officials in recent days.

The joint German-US state-ment, by contrast, highlighted areas of common interest and stressed importance of ties between the United States and Europe’s largest economy.

The language on Nato came after Trump called the alliance “obsolete”, but it highlighted the need for reforms and updates.

Trump has repeatedly crit-icised Nato members such as Germany that do not spend two percent of gross domestic prod-uct (GDP) on their militaries.

Merkel has said Germany will work to increase its defence spending — now at 1.19 percent of GDP – but also warned that it would take time to achieve the goal.

Trump has also said Merkel made a “catastrophic mistake” by allowing more than a mil-lion refugees, mostly Muslims fleeing war in the Middle East, to come to Germany.

For her part, the German leader, who is seeking a fourth term in office, has refrained from being too critical of Trump, although she pointedly offered to work closely with him on the basis of “democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for human dignity, regard-less of origin, skin colour, religion, gender or political inclination”.

Paris

AFP

French President Francois Hollande (pictured) warned his new US coun-

terpart Donald Trump against adopting a protectionist stance and called on him to respect the principle of accepting refugees.

During a telephone conver-sation between the two leaders Hollande stressed “economic and political consequences of a protectionist approach”, Elysee Palace said in a statement.

“Faced with an unstable and

uncertain world, withdrawal into oneself is a dead-end response,” Hollande was quoted as saying.

He added that defending

democratic principles required compliance with “the principles on which it is founded, in par-ticular the acceptance of refugees”.

In addition to his freeze on refugee settlement Trump has also announced that visa appli-cations from seven Muslim countries—Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen - are on hold for at least 90 days.

Hollande also insisted on “the importance for the planet of the implementation of the Paris convention on global warming”.

Trump has announced plans to undo climate policies and pro-mote domestic energy development as part of his “America First” agenda.

The two leaders also dis-cussed relations with Russia, with Hollande stressing “his wish to pursue and intensify dialogue on all subjects,” while adding that the Western sanctions in place against Moscow over the situation in Ukraine should not be lifted.

Hollande and Trump “agreed to continue with their discus-sions on essential issues,” according to the Elysee.

Berlin

Agencies

The leaders of Britain and Germany joined other American allies yesterday

in criticising President Donald Trump’s US entry ban for peo-ple from some Muslim-majority countries, even as far-right pol-iticians on the continent celebrated the move.

A spokesman for Theresa May said the British Prime Min-ister does “not agree” with Trump’s order and will challenge the US government if it has an adverse effect on British nation-als. The official comment came after May refused to condemn the ban during a visit to Turkey

to meet with Turkish leaders. German Chancellor Angela

Merkel also regrets the travel ban. “She is convinced that even the necessary, resolute fight against terrorism doesn’t justify putting people of a particular origin or particular faith under general suspicion,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

Merkel raised the issue dur-ing a phone call with Trump citing the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention that calls on signa-tories to take in people fleeing war, Seibert said.

“The German government will now examine what conse-quences the US government’s measures have for German cit-izens with dual citizenship and,

if necessary, represent their interests toward our American partners,” he said.

An initial joint US-German statement following the call made no mention of the topic of refugees or travel bans.

Among the first leaders to voice criticism was French Pres-ident Francois Hollande, who said “when (Trump) rejects the arrival of refugees, while Europe has done its duty, we should respond to him.”

Meanwhile, nationalist and far-right groups in Europe applauded US travel restrictions.

The Dutch anti-Islam pop-ulist Geert Wilders said in a tweet: “Well done @POTUS it’s the only way to stay safe + free.

I would do the same. Wilders, whose Party for

Freedom is polling strongly before the country’s March 15 election, later tweeted: “No more immigration from any Islamic country is exactly what we need. Also in The Netherlands. For Islam and freedom are incompatible.”

The far-right National Dem-ocratic Party in Germany celebrated what it described as “the massive restriction on the entry of pseudo-refugees and Muslims to the USA.”

“For the first time ever one can say from a nationalist perspective: keep going, USA,” the party wrote on its Facebook page.

In Paris, French Foreign

Minister Jean-Marc Ayraults said for the plight of refugees is a duty, and fear of terrorism is not a legitimate reason to refuse them sanctuary.

“Accepting refugees is a duty of solidarity,” Ayrault said in a tweet. “Terrorism knows no nationality. Discrimination is no response.”

French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron weighed in with his own view of Trump’s actions on immigration, including his plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

“I stand with the people flee-ing war and persecution. I stand with the people defending our values #NOBanNoWall” his tweet said.

London

Reuters

BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May faced severe criticism from lawmakers across Britain, including from her own party, for not speak-ing out against US President Donald Trump’s curbs on immigration.

When asked about the ban at a joint news confer-ence with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Ankara, May declined to voice any criticism and replied Washington was responsible for its policy on refugees.

Her stance on Trump’s ban was met with anger from across the political divide.

“Trump really is a sicken-ing piece of work,” lawmaker Sarah Wollaston, a member of May’s Conservative Party, said on Twitter. She said Trump should be snubbed by parlia-ment when he comes for a visit to Britain later this year.

“I don’t care how special the relationship is, some lines just shouldn’t be crossed,” Conservative lawmaker Heidi Allen said. A third Conserva-tive member of parliament, Nadhim Zahawi said he would be banned from the US as a British citizen of Iraqi origin. “A sad sad day to feel like a sec-ond class citizen,” he tweeted. “Sad day for the USA.”

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of opposition Labour Party, said May should have stood up to Trump. “It should sadden our country that she chose not to,” he said.

Putin and Trump agree to rebuild US-Russia ties

FROM LEFT: US President Donald Trump joined by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice-President Mike Pence, Senior Advisor Steve Bannon, Communications Director Sean Spicer and National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington.

US President and Merkel vow to fight terrorism

Respect principle of accepting refugees: Hollande

UK lawmakers slam May over Trump move

European leaders oppose Trump travel ban

14 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017AMERICAS

Graft scandal

What started as an investigation into money-laundering has morphed into a corruption scandal so large that it has shocked Brazilians long accustomed to graft in politics.

Investigators say more than $2bn in bribes were paid out in a kickback scheme.

The dragon dance is performed during celebrations to mark the Chinese Lunar New Year at the Liberdade district in Sao Paulo, Brazi.

Dragon dance in Brazil

Curitiba

AP

The lead federal pros-ecutor in a massive corruption investiga-tion roiling Brazil says that recent develop-

ments could double the size of the case, a staggering possibil-ity given that the probe has ensnared many of the country’s elite, threatens to bring down President Michel Temer and is expanding to other Latin Amer-ican countries.

Nearly three years after the first arrests in March 2014, the so-called Car Wash investiga-tion has no end in sight, said Deltan Dallagnol, coordinator of the task force in the state of Parana, where the operations began and are still largely cen-tered under the jurisdiction of Judge Sergio Moro.

“I would say that the new plea agreements could allow the Car Wash operation to double its size in the future,” Dallagnol said, declining to go into detail because the cases were ongoing.

What started as an investi-gation into money-laundering has morphed into a corruption scandal so large that it has shocked Brazilians long accus-tomed to graft in politics. Investigators say more than $2bn in bribes were paid out in a kickback scheme that was centered at state oil company Petrobras and included major construction companies like Odebrecht. In the last few years, dozens of politicians and top businessmen have been con-victed and jailed, and many more are facing charges.

Dallagnol said the investi-gation “lives at risk” because of forces trying to snuff it out. He said the pressures were increas-ing as the number “of powerful people caught up in it grows by the day.”

Dallagnol said the loss of

No end in sight for ‘Car Wash’ probe in Brazil

Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki, who was overseeing a large part of the investigation and died in a plane crash last week, was a huge blow but ulti-mately would not derail the many cases in progress.

He said that while many believed the investigation was creating a “new Brazil,” its long-term impact depended on whether Latin America’s larg-est nation took measures to reform its political and judicial systems. He likened it to an ill patient who goes to the doctor and gets a diagnosis but doesn’t act on the medical advice.

“Unfortunately, we are still at the diagnostic stage,” said Dallagnol, who studied law in Brazil and then did a master’s degree at Harvard University.

Dallagnol said the Car Wash investigation was succeeding thanks to a four-pronged strat-egy: Plea bargains that lead to new revelations, operational “phases” that build on each other, close cooperation between justice and legal offi-cials, and a transparent communication strategy that includes divulging details of cases once arrests are made.

Dallagnol also praised Moro, the judge, saying his vast

knowledge of laws related to corruption and ability to suc-cinctly apply the law were key factors. To many Brazilians, fed up with corruption and their political leaders, Moro and Dal-lagnol are heroes, a designation that Dallagnol flatly rejects.

“We are just doing our jobs,” he said. The investigation has become so large that it is expanding to other states and judges. The arrest warrant issued Thursday in Rio for Eike Batista, previously one of the world’s richest men now wanted for allegedly making bribes, is a testament to how far the Car Wash investigation and its off-shoots have gone.

Last year, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with dozens of executives of con-structor Odebrecht. The agreements, expected to be made public early this year, are believed to have damning evi-dence of bribes against top politicians in Brazil and possi-bly in other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Peru and Venezuela.

Temer, who has been fin-gered in other plea bargains but never charged, could be removed by the electoral court if Odebrecht plea bargains detail illegal campaign financing that he has long been accused of accepting. Temer has denied wrongdoing.

Dallagnol brushed off criti-cism of the tactics used during the investigation, which have included building cases based in part on plea bargains, wire taps and making accusatory statements about defendants who have not been convicted.

While detailing money laun-dering and corruption charges against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Septem-ber, Dallagnol called Silva the “the maximum commander of the corruption scheme identi-fied as Car Wash.”

Oswego

AP

When the Nine Mile Point reactor first went online, Richard

Nixon was president, the Beatles were still a band and Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fuku-shima weren’t yet bywords for the hazards of nuclear power.

Almost 50 years later, New York state is betting big on the future of Nine Mile Point, one of the nation’s two oldest nuclear plants. The state is putting up $7.6bn in subsidies to ensure that the plant and two other upstate nuclear plants stay open, part of New York’s strategy to lean on nuclear energy as it ramps up renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric.

But even as Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration

embraces nuclear power upstate, it’s moving to shutter the Indian Point nuclear plant some 30 miles north of New York City. To crit-ics, Cuomo is making a political calculation that favors jobs and energy upstate, and safety and the environment downstate.

“These things have an expi-ration date, and they’re really pushing it,” said Sue Matthews, who worked for contractors building Nine Mile Point’s second reactor in the 1980s. She said her opposition to the plant makes her the “most hated” woman in town.

Nuclear plants around the nation are at a similar cross-roads, with more closures likely as owners become reluctant to spend increasingly large sums operating ageing plants. Located on the shores of Lake Ontario, Nile Mile Point is a wonder of Cold War-era engineering, with

miles of colored pipes and wires snaking through long corridors to a cathedral-sized turbine room. Anyone getting close to the reactor is fitted with a small dosimeter to monitor exposure, and must step inside a phone-booth-sized radiation scanner.

The plant’s first reactor went online in 1969, sharing the nation’s-oldest honor with the Oyster Creek plant in New Jer-sey. Immediately adjacent to Nine Mile Point is a second, 42-year-old nuclear plant, Fit-zPatrick, which was slated to close before Cuomo’s nuclear bailout package was approved. A third, the 47-year-old Ginna nuclear power plant, is located just east of Rochester. Closing the plants would devastate an upstate community that like most of upstate New York has struggled over the decades.

New York Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s plan for a southern bor-der wall will cost billions

of dollars and has already sparked a diplomatic rift with Mexico. It’s also going to be bad for the planet. Concrete is a potent source of greenhouses gas, and Trump’s “great wall” will need a lot of it—more than double the amount in Hoover Dam, according to engineers at New York University and Uni-versity College London.

A 1,600km wall would require an estimated 275 mil-lion cubic feet of concrete. It would release as much as 1.9 million tonnes of carbon diox-ide into the atmosphere, according to Christoph Mein-renken, an associate research scientist at Columbia Universi-ty’s Earth Institute. That’s more than the annual emissions from every home in Pittsburgh.

“The carbon footprint of a wall that size would be huge,” Dan Millis, borderlands pro-gram coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Arizona chapter, said.

Trump’s executive order to build the wall comes as nations around the globe push to reduce greenhouse gases and meet goals set under the Paris Climate accord. Last year was the hottest on the record, with temperatures inching ever loser to the level scientists say would be catastrophic, according to the United Nations.

The US needs to invest in infrastructure and many worth-while projects will require concrete, said Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and climate pol-icy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists. But those projects should be in line with the broader goal of fighting glo-bal warming.

Most of the carbon dioxide from concrete comes from its main ingredient: cement. The cement industry accounts for about 5 percent of global car-bon dioxide emissions, according to the Earth Institute. That’s in part because it’s made by heating limestone, a proc-ess that releases carbon, and also because it requires the equivalent of about 400 pounds (181 kilograms) of coal to crank out a single ton of cement.

To be clear, these emissions figures are estimates. Trump hasn’t issued precise specifica-tions for the wall, saying on various occasions it would cover about 1,000 miles and be anywhere from 35 feet to 50 feet tall. The estimates com-piled by Bloomberg assume a steel-reinforced wall, 1,000 miles long, 35 feet tall and 18 inches thick, producing 1.2 mil-lion to 1.9 million tons of carbon dioxide.

The carbon footprint will also vary depending the qual-ity and composition of concrete. And Trump could always skip concrete and opt for a fence, as Republican leaders have suggested.

Bogota

AP

Criminal gangs are attempt-ing to take over coca-growing regions in

Colombia being abandoned by the leftist rebels to expand cul-tivation of the plant used to make cocaine, a leader of the largest guerrilla movement said.

The threats against commu-nities in the northern Colombia and elsewhere have increased as a peace deal reached last year between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia begins to be

implemented, the rebel leader known as Pastor Alape said Fri-day. Sixteen activists have been killed so far this year, Alape said, and authorities acknowledge some of the slayings may be the beginnings of a turf war waged by the powerful Usuga Clan and other groups to prevent a joint FARC-government eradication program from taking hold. “It’s generating a situation of terror,” said Alape, adding farmers might be driven off the land because of pressure by armed militias.

Alape’s warning comes as Colombia’s government strug-gles to rein in a booming coca

harvest that has caught the Trump administration’s atten-tion and could make it it harder to pacify areas the FARC is deserting. On Friday, the gov-ernment unveiled plans to wean farmers off the drug trade as part of the peace deal meant to end a half century of fighting.

The goal is to remove 50,000 hectares of coca crops within the first year by providing farmers who voluntarily destroy the ille-gal crops with a monthly stipend of around $350 as well as loans, one-time subsidies and technical assistance to plant legal crops.

The rebel-supported

campaign initially will focus on 40 municipalities responsible for more than half of Colombia’s coca production. The total price this year will be around $350m, a fig-ure the government says represents a huge savings over what it would cost to forcibly eradicate the same amount of coca without guarantees it won’t be replanted.

“This is much more cost-effi-cient and furthermore ensures that territories are transformed and peoples’ lives are changed,” said Rafael Pardo, the govern-ment’s top post-conflict strategist.

HAITI is holding a final round of legislative contests that close a repeatedly derailed election cycle that started in 2015.

President-elect Jovenel Moi-se’s political faction and its allies are hoping to increase their majority in the Parliament in yesterday's eight Senate runoffs. Voters are also choosing 5,500 municipal authorities in local elections that are years overdue and whose tardiness has frus-trated many.

Alix Pierre is one of hun-dreds of voters who flocked to a polling station in the Canape Vert section of Haiti’s capital. He says he was relieved elections were concluding “after it took such a long time.”

Turnout elsewhere appears to be paltry.

New York bets big on two oldest nuclear plants

Scientists warn border wall bad for planet

A man looks the voting lists at the Lycee National of Petion Ville, in the commune of Petion Ville, Port-au-Prince, yesterday during the local and legislative elections.

Haiti holds final round of polls

Colombia gangs moving into drug-producing areas

Trudeau welcomes all immigrants

15MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017 AMERICAS

Demonstrators yelling slogans during anti-Donald Trump immigration ban protests inside Terminal 4 at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California.

Washington

AP

Missing from President Donald Trump’s blitz of immigration orders this

week was any mention of the fate of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants protected from deportation by former President Barack Obama.

That omission has left immi-gration advocates hopeful Trump has softened his opposition to what he once dubbed “illegal amnesty,” while others say he has quickly abandoned a core cam-paign pledge.

Trump and Republican lead-ers in Congress have said they are working on a plan that will address the status of the roughly 750,000 immigrants currently protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as “DACA.” The program allows young people who were brought into the

country illegally as children to stay and obtain work permits.

Neither the president nor GOP leaders have disclosed details on their discussions, although both have suggested those currently protected under the program won’t face immedi-ate deportation.

Whether they will be allowed to continue to work remains unclear. Trump said this week he intends to reveal a proposal within a month.

“They shouldn’t be very wor-ried,” Trump told ABC News this week. “I do have a big heart. We’re going to take care of eve-rybody. ... Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried.”

Trump’s delay and the tone of his remarks were a striking shift from his campaign rhetoric, in which he vowed to quickly end the program and labeled it amnesty.

Washington

AFP

Donald Trump hurtled through his first week in power, punching out at

critics, dishing up “alternative facts,” polarising public opinion and making good on an electoral promise to shake up Washing-ton. One week into the Trump era and there is a serious case of political whiplash in America’s capital.

Just a week ago, an outsider who never before held elected office rode into town. Seven days later, norms and doctrine that have guided the United States for decades are being re-examined. Trump’s down-to-the-studs gut job began with a feisty inaugu-ral address: a call to arms that tested old distinctions between left and right.

“Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or

from one party to another,” he said. “We are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giv-ing it back to you, the people.” The establishment “elites” in big cities, in politics and the media were no longer the technocrats in charge of the world’s only super-power, they were the enemy.

The new president also put the rest of the world on notice.

For the last 75 years, Amer-ica had been what Barack Obama described as the “indispensable nation”—the glue that bound the global order.

The era of Trump would be the era of “America first,” he said, of naked self-interest and zero-sum diplomacy. Old alliances would be reassessed, new alli-ances would be explored.

Before his inauguration, many asked if the presidency would change Donald Trump, or whether Donald Trump would change the presidency.

Barely 20 minutes into his

four-year term, anyone who was listening had their answer.

Before arriving to the Oval Office, Trump’s strategists had decided to use the first few weeks to unleash a daily wave of executive orders. The aim was to unbalance opponents, define Trump as a man of action and slake his supporters’ thirst for change. For much of middle America, globaliation, automa-tion and the Great Recession had been apocalyptic.

Politics had passed them over and worse, they felt steam-rollered by “coastal elites” in America’s “culture wars” over abortion, gay rights, immigration, global warming and religion.

Trump had won the election by promising to be their cham-pion, and he was going to — as Ronald Reagan said — “dance with the one that brung ya.”

For the most part, the CEO-in-chief put forward actions that could have come from any

Republican in the country: defunding abortion, preening the military and approving oil pipe-lines. But it was coated with a thick veneer of nationalist and populist rhetoric, and accompa-nying policies championed by top aide Steve Bannon. Trump ripped up a trans-Pacific trade deal designed to counterbalance China’s regional economic power, imposed a ban on refugees from Syria and migrants from seven other Muslim countries.

He ordered planning to begin to build a wall on Mexico’s south-ern border and picked a very public fight with Mexico’s pres-ident Enrique Pena Nieto, who cancelled a trip to Washington.

The United States, a nation founded by migrants, was now willing to shut its doors. Not since Obama’s election or perhaps the Iraq War has America’s image around the world changed so dramatically and so quickly.

But Trump supporters saw

an outsider sticking up for them and sticking it to the elites. “Get used to it,” said Trump aide Kel-lyanne Conway, boasting that Trump had delivered a “shock to the system”. “And he’s just get-ting started,” she said.

But it was not all positive for Trump. The White House is far from purring. Key positions have yet to be filled and the decision making process is haphazard. Trump aides were forced to pub-licly row back suggestions of a 20 percent border tax on Mexi-can goods and defend a chaotic rollout of the refugee and migrant ban.

Throughout the week, Trump engaged in intemperate outbursts about the size of his inaugural crowd, alleged election fraud and perceived media persecution. Pri-vately, in call after call, he complained to top aides about press coverage. The impression was of a man focused on his image more than running the country.

Trump also seemed like a a man for whom becoming US president was not adulation enough. Spokesman Sean Spicer—between tirades and missteps — offered a window onto the soul of the White House.

“There’s this constant theme to undercut the enormous support he has,” Spicer said. According to a Quinnipiac poll, Trump’s approval rating at the end of his first week stood at 36 percent. But critics saw a more sinister motive for the outbursts, particularly Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that three million people voted illegally in the election.

Mindy Finn, who ran as a independent vice presidential candidate, summed up Trump’s strategy as “sow chaos, deepen division and consolidate power.” For his harshest critics, the ques-tion is now whether Donald Trump breaks the presidency, or whether the presidency breaks Donald Trump.

Trump shakes up Washington and the world in a week

New York

Reuters

US judges in at least four states blocked federal authorities from enforc-

ing President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting immigration from seven Mus-lim-majority countries.

Judges in Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington state, each home to major interna-tional airports, issued their rulings late yesterday, follow-ing an order on Saturday night by US District Judge Ann Don-nelly in New York’s Brooklyn borough. Donnelly had ruled in a lawsuit by two men from Iraq being held at John F Kennedy International Airport.

While none of the rulings struck down the executive order, the growing number of orders could complicate the administration’s effort to enforce it. Trump’s order on Fri-day halted immigration from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and stopped the resettle-ment of refugees for 120 days. The new Republican president said these actions were needed “to protect the American peo-ple from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.”

Condemnation of the order was swift and broad-based. Democratic politicians and civil rights groups weighed in, as well as US allies who view the actions as discriminatory and divisive.

Democratic attorneys gen-eral from California, New York and other states, meanwhile, were discussing whether to pur-sue their own legal challenges.

The US Department of Homeland Security yesterday said it “will comply with judicial

orders,” while enforcing Trump’s executive order in a manner that ensures those entering the United States “do not pose a threat to our country or the American people.”

Across the United States, lawyers worked overnight to help confused international travelers at airports. Activists and lawyers tracking the arriv-als said some Border Patrol agents appeared to be disre-garding the various court orders.

“There is really no method to this madness,” Becca Heller, director of the New York-based International Refugee Assistance Project organization, told reporters on a conference call.

Supporters of Trump’s order said authorities acted properly

in swiftly taking steps to enforce it.

“It is better (to) be safe than sorry,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the conservative Center for Immi-gration Studies in Washington.

Lawsuits brought on behalf of more than 100 individual travelers have been filed around the country, some activists and lawyers have estimated.

In Boston, US District Judge Allison Burroughs yesterday issued a temporary restraining order blocking the removal of two Iranians who have taught at the University of Massachu-setts, and had been detained at the city’s Logan International Airport. That order was set to last seven days, and appeared to go further than Donnelly’s by barring officials from detaining, as well as removing, approved refugees, visa holders and per-manent US residents entering from the seven countries. Don-nelly’s order forbade only removal.

Matthew Segal, legal direc-tor of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachu-setts, in a statement called Burroughs’ order “a huge vic-tory for justice” in the face of what he characterized as Trump’s “unconstitutional ban on Muslims.”

In Alexandria, Virginia, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema late on Saturday barred the Homeland Security agency from removing an estimated 50 to 60 legal permanent residents who had been detained at Dulles International Airport, which serves the Washington, DC, area.

That order also required the agency to let those individuals speak with lawyers, according to the Legal Aid and Justice Center in Virginia.

More judges restrict immigration order

Ottawa

AFP

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed Canadian immi-

grants in a sunny Twitter message written in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s order temporarily banning all refugees and many Muslims from traveling to the United States.

“To those fleeing per-secution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeTo-Canada,” Trudeau posted on Twitter.

After speaking with Washington, Canadian officials said late Saturday that Canadian citizens, including those with dual citizenship, would not be subject to Trump’s restrictions.

“We have been assured that Canadian cit-izens traveling on Canadian passports will be dealt with in the usual process,” said Trudeau spokeswoman Kate Pur-chase. On Saturday, Canadian airline WestJet said it would reimburse passengers prevented from traveling to the United States under the new policy.

“In the event there are foreign nationals from these countries on West-Jet who are denied entry, we will be providing them with a full refund.”

Washington

AP

President Donald Trump acted Saturday to fulfill a key portion of his pledge

to “drain the swamp” in Wash-ington, banning administration officials from ever lobbying the US on behalf of a foreign gov-ernment and imposing a separate five-year ban on other lobbying.

Trump has said individuals who want to aid him in his quest to “Make America Great Again” should focus on the jobs they will be doing to help the American

people, not thinking ahead to the future income they could rake in by peddling their influence after serving in government.

“Most of the people standing behind me will not be able to go to work,” Trump joked, referring to an array of White House offi-cials who lined up behind him as he sat at his Oval Office desk. The officials included Vice Pres-ident Mike Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus, senior strategist Steve Bannon and counselor Kel-lyanne Conway. “So you have one last chance to get out.”

Trump said he talked about the ban a lot during the

campaign and “we’re now putting it into effect.”

In a pair of separate actions, Trump took steps to begin restructuring the White House National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. He also gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president’s top military advisers, 30 days to come up with a plan defeat the Islamic State group. Scores of people have been killed in terrorist acts that IS has carried out overseas or has inspired on US soil.

Under an executive order that Trump signed in the

presence of the news media, every political appointee joining the executive branch on or after Jan. 20 — the day Trump took office — must agree to the lob-bying bans. That includes avoiding, for five years after leaving, lobbying the agency they worked for.

Trump is allowed to waive any of the restrictions.

Questions had been raised about how the bans would be enforced. The order says they are “solely enforceable” by the US government “by any legally available means,” including debarment proceeding within

any affected executive branch agency, or civil court proceedings.

Former appointees who are found to have violated the ban may also be barred from lobby-ing their former agency for up to five years, on top of the five-year period covered by the pledge, the executive order states.

Trump said the order super-sedes one that President Barack Obama signed on January 21, 2009, that banned anyone from lobbying the government for a period of two years after leav-ing. Trump said Obama’s order was “full of loopholes.”

Backlash grows

Judges in Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington state, each home to major international airports, issued their rulings late yesterday, following an order on Saturday night by US District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York’s Brooklyn borough.

Condemnation of the order was swift and broad-based. Democratic politicians and civil rights groups weighed in, as well as US allies who view the actions as discriminatory and divisive.

Trump sets 5-year and lifetime lobbying ban for officials

Trump and GOP search solution for ‘Dreamers’

16 MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2017MORNING BREAK

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Artistes of the company "Off" perform during a parade on the street Canebiere yesterday in Marseille, France.

Artistes parade

Fireworks light up the sky to mark the Lunar New Year celebrations of the Year of the Rooster in Hong Kong yesterday.

Fireworks light up Hong Kong sky

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Culinary schools struggle with enrolment declineMontpelier

AP

With enrolment in culinary institutes in decline and pro-grammes across the US

closing their doors, schools such as the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, which gradu-ated celebrity chef Alton Brown, and the Culinary Institute of Charleston, South Carolina, are committed to stay-ing relevant and in demand.

"We're constantly looking for new ways and opportunities to grow our school," said Michael Carmel, head of culinary arts in Charleston. "It's not necessarily a numbers game, but a quality game. We need to stay current with trends and have to be able to offer our students opportunities."

The reasons for the challenges fac-ing the industry are varied, Carmel and others say. Tuitions can be relatively

expensive, while federal financial aid for these "career colleges" has tight-ened since 2014. Graduates with a high debt load often move into low-paying restaurant jobs.

In addition, there is an abundance of restaurant positions that provide on-the-job training for those looking to get into the business without accruing debt. Carmel said younger students aren't necessarily seeking the high stress factor and long hours of restau-rant work, instead placing a high value on a regular schedule, benefits and quality of life issues like time with family.

Despite the challenges, schools like the New England Culinary Institute, where enrolment has fallen from about 800 in 1999 to around 300 today, are consolidating, cutting expenses where possible and adjusting curriculum to attract students.

The school is also expanding

instruction about the business side of the industry. "Even our founding chef has always said a chef is a business-man," said Philip Stevens, spokesman for the Institute.

New England's school, which co-founder and former president Fran Voigt recently announced was facing imminent sale but remains optimistic of remaining in Vermont, two years ago partnered with the United States Coast Guard and Sandals Resorts to teach new cooking techniques, another way to expand its reach.

Carmel's programme is also tak-ing steps to attract more students. The Culinary Institute of Charleston, which has seen enrolment fall by 25 percent over the past three years, has begun reaching into high schools to offer col-lege-credit programmes, and partnering with local restaurants and the Metro Chamber of Commerce to assist with student tuition.

He hopes those steps will halt the enrolment decline, adding: "We believe it will level out within the next few years."

Other schools have not been as for-tunate, with many well respected culinary programmes shutting their doors. Le Cordon Bleu was founded in the 1800s in Paris. With that school, which Julia Child attended, will remain open, the last of the 16 Cordon Bleu programs across the US have ceased new enrolment and are closing.

In Minnesota alone, three of the five major culinary schools have announced they are shutting down. Southern New Hampshire University's culinary pro-gramme announced earlier this month that the culinary programme will likely be eliminated, noting that enrolments have dropped by more than a third and applications are down 29 percent over the last four years. A final decision is expected in February.

'I Don't Feel at Home' wins top prize at SundanceLOS ANGELES: "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore," a movie long on ambition and longer in title, came away with the top prize as the Sundance Film Festival. Starring Elijah Wood, it was announced at its world premiere in the Utah mountains last week as the only festival entrant with a gram-matical sentence as its title.

"Green Room" actor Macon Blair's directorial debut is a bloody crime comedy with an escalating body count in the best traditions of Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, the Coen brothers and Paul Tho-mas Anderson. The Netflix financed movie co-stars Mel-anie Lynskey as a nursing assistant worn down by peo-ple's unkindness who snaps when her house is burglarised. It won the grand jury prize in "US dramatic competition" section.

Shyamalan's Split rules US box office for second weekLos Angeles AFP

Split, the latest M. Night Shyamalan (pictured)thriller about a man who

imprisons three teenage girls in an underground bunker, topped the North American box office for a second week, pre-liminary Hollywood figures showed yesterday.

The movie — by the Indian-American director also responsible for the "Sixth Sense" and other films in the horror genre — stars James McAvoy as a man with 23 dif-ferent personalities who preys on three girls. It earned $26.3m in estimated ticket sales during the weekend. Family-friendly "A Dog's Purpose" about a canine who continually comes back to life as different dogs searching for meaning, raked in some $18.4m in its first week.

The film came in second despite a call by animal lovers for a boycott after video foot-age emerged of an apparently terrified German Shepherd being forced into rushing water

on the set. Third place went to "Hidden Figures," the true-life story of three black women mathematicians who helped Nasa put the first men in space, which sold $14m in tickets.

Sci-fi action-thriller "Resi-dent Evil: The Final Chapter" landed in fourth place with $13.9m in its first weekend out.

In fifth place was "La La Land," a nostalgic tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood musi-cals. It earned an estimated $12.1m over the weekend after garnering a boatload of acco-lades, including a record eight Golden Globes earlier this month.

Fake leopard skins used to save live catsEbuhleni

AP

At least 1,200 men in ceremonial attire danced at a mainly Zulu gathering in South Africa yesterday, wearing

a mix of hides of illegally hunted leopards and Chinese-made, spotted capes designed by conservationists to reduce demand for the real thing.

The phalanxes of dancers with shields, headgear of ostrich feathers and other

regalia evoked the proud traditions of one of South Africa's main ethnic groups, as well as the piety of the participants, whose Shembe religious movement blends Chris-tian and indigenous beliefs.

The event in Ebuhleni, north of the coastal city of Durban, also testified to an openness to change because roughly half the men were wearing fake leopard skins rather than genuine pelts, symbols of power because of the predator's grace and lethality.

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