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“The Trump administration is encouraging all sides to end the dispute and has offered to host talks at the Camp David presidential retreat, but only Qatar has agreed to the dialogue,” H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said.

Volume 22 | Number 7349 | 2 RiyalsSaturday 18 November 2017 | 29 Safar 1439 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Tuganov claims top prize on penultimate day

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Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Leader of the Democratic Minority in US the Senate, Chuck Schumer, and Leader of the Democratic Minority in the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Discussions during the two meetings dealt with bilateral relations and ways to boost and the develop them, the developments in the Gulf and the Arab region, as well as a number of international issues of common concern.

The Peninsula

Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdul-rahman Al Thani has

said that Qatar has US backing to resolve the ongoing crisis with a Saudi-led alliance.

“The Trump administration is encouraging all sides to end the dispute and has offered to host talks at the Camp David presidential retreat, but only Qatar has agreed to the dia-logue,” H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said yesterday, Bloomberg reported.

The Deputy Prime Minister

Qatar has US backing to resolve crisisWhat happened to Qatar is being repeated in Lebanon. Saudi and UAE must respect international law.Qatar is strong US ally in war on terrorism.

and Foreign Minister said he will meet Secretary of State Rex Till-erson next week after having talks this week with Senate For-eign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker and rank-ing member Ben Cardin as well as other congressional leaders.

“The Middle East needs to be addressed as the top priority of the foreign policy agenda of the United States,” he told reporters in Washington yesterday. “We see a pattern of irresponsibility and a reckless leadership in the region, which is just trying to bully countries into submission.”

Asked about the prospect of the Saudi-led bloc taking mili-tary action, the Deputy Prime Minister said though Qatar hopes that won’t happen, his country is “well-prepared” and can count on its defence part-ners, including France, Turkey, the UK and the US, which has a base in Qatar.

“We have enough friends in order to stop them from taking these steps,” but “there is a pat-tern of unpredictability in their behaviour so we have to keep all the options on the table for us,” he said. On the US military presence, “if there is any aggression when it comes to Qatar, those forces will be affected,” he added.

→ Continued on page 3

The Peninsula

The Cultural Village Foundation- Katara signed a Memorandum

of Understanding (MoU) with Boston Global Institute on Thursday. Katara General Manager Dr. Khalid bin Ibra-him Al Sulaiti and Boston Global Institute Executive Director Dr. Randya Kemer were present at the signing.

Dr. Al Sulaiti said the MoU aimed “to promote commu-nication and exchange of knowledge in the fields of education, scientific research and vocational training, as well as the establishment of beneficial joint conferences, seminars and workshops.”

“Signing such agreements with many national and inter-national organizations stems from Katara’s keenness to ben-efit from international expertise to enhance knowl-edge and spread the culture of creativity and innovation, in addition to building national capacities that are aligned with Qatar National Vision 2030, which is founded on providing knowledge to all generations while responding to the needs of society, which is one of Katara’s priorities and at the top of its objectives that it seeks to achieve for the benefit of the citizens,” he added.

Dr. Kemer expressed her gratitude to Katara and said: “We are looking forward to work closely with the Cultural Village on relevant work-shops and training in the field of culture and heritage.”

→ Picture on page 3

Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

The high profile third Inter-national Primary Health Care Conference opened

yesterday in the presence of H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health, and discussed ways to enhance med-ical practices and skills of health care providers.

Held under the theme “Healthier Communities, Brighter Future”, the three-day conference will review primary care challenges and develop-ments, provide a platform to drive change and enhance best practice.

More than 700 international healthcare experts, policy mak-ers, primary care specialist, surgeons, physicians and health practitioners attended the open-ing ceremony held at the Ritz Charlton - Doha.

“Following the wise leader-ship of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani to invest in the nation’s health and wellness as a key priority of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, we are honored to reflect this drive through our commitment to the continued development of pri-mary healthcare services,” said Dr Mariam Abdulmalik,

Irfan Bukhari The Peninsula

For the first time, Qatar youth team will partici-pate in Dragon Boat

Festival set to take place on November 24.

Earlier, the amazing boat racing competition was held in March this year. Organised by Qatar Dragon Boat and spon-sored by the Saracen Community Initiative, “The Saracen Winter Dragon Boat Festival 2017” is set to be the largest competition to date with over “550 athletes” participating in the one-day competition.

Jeff Ching, event organiser, told The Peninsula: “Despite the recent political situation, our competitions continue to attract a diverse crowd of competitive and recreational dragon boat athletes. We are expecting a larger turnout this year com-pared to the previous festival held in March 2017.”

The mission of Qatar Dragon Boat is to promote the growth and development of dragon boat racing in Qatar at all levels of competition. “We strive to maintain the cultural traditions of the sport and to

promote health and commu-nity through the sport of dragon boat racing.” Ching said: “This year, we have introduced and developed the first Qatar youth team to participate in our com-petition as well.”

He said that Qatar Dragon Boat will hold two league races, which will be divided into a Pre-mier League and a Recreational League. “The Premier League will host men, mixed and women races and the Recreational League will feature teams that practice irregularly. The races are open to the public for free to watch and enjoy the event fes-tivities at the Grand Hyatt Doha.”

Ching said that there is an enormous potential for the sport of dragon boat racing to continue its growth trajectory in Qatar. “Our competitions keep grow-ing every year and this year we had to turn away teams due to overcapacity. One of the key attributes of dragon boat racing is that almost anyone can partic-ipate and there are many teams to choose from in Qatar.”

After “The Saracen Winter Dragon Boat Festival 2017”, the next dragon boat festival is scheduled for 2018 National Sports Day.

Call to lay foundation for healthier communities

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari (centre), Dr. Mariam Abdulmalik (fourth left), Managing Director of Primary Health Care Corporation; Dr. Ahmad Al Shatti (second left), Consultant, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Director, Occupational Health Department, Ministry of Public Health of Kuwait; and officials at the International Primary Health Care Conference 2017 held at the Ritz-Carlton in Doha yesterday.Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

Managing Director of Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) in her opening remarks.

“The conference will con-spicuously signalize a celebration of what has been already achieved, a focus on promoting healthy lifestyle, pre-vention, early diagnosis and the provision of long-term support to patients and their families.

The next three days will lay foundations for future develop-ments in primary healthcare globally. It will present a plat-form for knowledge sharing, a forum facilitating discussions of best practice and a stage rein-forcing Qatar’s legacy to promote the health and wellbe-ing of people through the provision of outstanding health-

care service,” she added.Also the opening session

featured Dr Ahmad Al Shatti, Consultant, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Direc-tor, Occupational Health Department , Ministry of Pub-lic Health of Kuwait as the keynote speaker.

→ Continued on page 3

In a first, Qatar youth team to take part in Dragon Boat racing

Katara inks MoU with Boston Global Institute

02 SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017HOME

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

The Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment is waiting for final result of

an ongoing experiment under a research project to allow the farmers to use peaceful atomic energy in a bid to boost the agri-cultural produce, said an expert.

“The preliminary results of the project were impressive and clear and have positive impact on the environment as well as wild and edible plants in Qatar, said Hamad Saket Al Shamari, Assistant Director of the Agricul-tural Research Department at the Ministry.

Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of a conclusion ceremony of workshop to train the employees for the imple-mentation of the project, Al Shamari said that the use of atomic energy as a methodology is available at the Department.

“We are conducting practical research in a certain area after a success in this area it can be deployed to farmers according to the mechanism and strategy within a specific protocol as per the final results of the project,” said Al Shamari.

He said that the preliminary result of the project was very positive and now we are wait-ing for final result. It is under process as the input will give output on which the outcome will be concluded, he added.

“ All research projects of the Agricultural Research Depart-ment are related to food security that assumed importance after unjust blockade.”

“We at the Department have first five year plan under Qatar National Vision Qatar 2030 that focus basically on food security programme in the country,” he added.

He said that the forthcoming five year plan also have many

project that needed approval from authorities concerned and they will be announced soon.

The Department in collabo-ration with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), held a ten day workshop on use of atomic energy peacefully and safely in agricultural sector to ensure the food security in the country.

The workshop aimed at enhancing the capacity of researchers and employees of the Department on plant breed-ing and studying the variability between mother plant and newly developed plants among many others.

Al Shamri noted that the workshop was fruitful in boost-ing the capability and skills of the employee of labs run by the Department and Qatari fields through using peaceful nuclear energy on growing the plant and seeds to serve the purpose of national food security programme.

Initial result finds N-energy can be used to boost agriculture

The Peninsula

Over 5,000 Qatar residents came together to raise awareness about diabe-

tes during the 8th annual walkathon organised by the Landmark Group & Qatar Dia-betes association.

Dr Abdulla Al Hamaq the Executive Director of Qatar Dia-betes Association, Qatar Foundation said: “During November, people from all over the world are taking part in Dia-betes Walks to mark the World Diabetes Day. We organize our walkathon annually to create diabetes awareness and to rec-ognize the people live with diabetes in Qatar and worldwide.”

“By walking and during the whole day events we took important steps towards devel-oping a wider understanding of the diabetes. We are indeed thankful and pleased with the partnership of the Landmark Group who are shared with us the responsibility in highlighting

the importance of making healthy lifestyle choices. And I also would like to thank Qatar Foundation for their valuable support and efforts to make this walkathon a real success”

Santosh Pai, COO Landmark Group Qatar, said: “Every year, this platform helps to remind people of the magnitude of the threat posed by diabetes and the simplicity with which the con-dition can be managed. Through the Beat Diabetes initiative, Landmark Group encourages people to stay proactive about their own health and the well-being of their loved ones.”

Starting at 2.30pm in the afternoon Oxygen park, Educa-tion City buzzed with participants in blue T shirts and Caps. Families gathered in excitement. Large groups repre-sent ing schools and organizations cheered loudly in support of the walkathon and posed for group photos, while children lined-up to have their faces painted.

Fitness First led a

pre-walkathon mass warm-up session that was followed by Santosh Pai & Dr. Abdulla Al Hamaq releasing blue balloons - symbolic of diabetes aware-ness - to flag off the walkathon. At the end of the 1.5 km walk, participants were treated to a complimentary healthy

breakfast. To reinforce the core message of early detection, free blood glucose testing booths were set up at the venue.

Recent figures from the sev-enth edition of the International Diabetes Federation’s (IDF) Dia-betes Atlas indicate that the number of people living with

diabetes around the world is expected to rise from 415 million to 642 million by 2040. A sed-entary lifestyle, unhealthy eating habits and low levels of aware-ness are noted as key contributors to the rapid inci-dence of type 2 diabetes in Middle East and North Africa.

Walkathon held to raise awareness on diabetes

The Peninsula

The Ministry of Munici-pal i ty and the Environment repre-

sented by the General Cleanliness Department and the Municipality of Al She-haniya launched a campaign to clean some of the roads within the administrative boundaries of the municipal-ity, during which large amount of waste was removed.

The campaign was part of efforts to maintain hygiene in Rawd and municipal areas in general.

Mohammed Saif Tashal Al Hajri, Director of Al She-haniya Municipality, said that cleaning campaigns will con-tinue during the coming period in order to maintain hygiene and environmental health.

Ministry launches cleanliness campaign

The Peninsula

Nearly 30 organisations in Qatar’s technology sector gathered at

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) to meet and network with students in the computer science and infor-mation systems fields.

The second annual Careers Platform: Technology Edition provided an oppor-tunity for employers in the growing high-tech sector to meet the next generation of high-tech professionals.

Michael Trick, dean of CMU-Q, stressed the impor-tance of bringing together students and experts in the technology sector: “These organizations are more than just potential employers, they are a resource for our stu-dents to learn how the industry is growing in Qatar. Sometimes a small piece of information can open up a new world of career possibilities.”

Tech employers interact with CMU-Q students

Raynald C Rivera The Peninsula

The traditional ‘Dasha’ ceremony, held in the olden days when pearl divers ventured out on the sea, yesterday

marked a nostalgic send-off to Qatari sailors taking part in the third Fath Al Kheir voyage head-ing to Oman and Kuwait.

Qatari maritime folk songs, which echoed along the shores

of Katara Beach, brought nostal-gia to Qatari elders and visitors

of the seventh Katara Traditional Dhow Festival as the 16 sailors led by Captain Mohamed Youssef Al-Sada and Abdullah Al-Tamimi bade goodbye to officials and their loved ones before they embarked on their month-long journey.

As soon as the crew boarded the dhow, they hoisted the main-sail which bore the Tamim Al Majd image and began their voy-age which would take them to Oman and Kuwait then back to Katara in time for the National Day celebrations on December 18.

Minister of Energy and Industry H E Mohamed bin Saleh Al Sada, Cultural Adviser to the Emiri Diwan H E Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari and Katara General Manager Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti were joined by

Qatari elders and the crew’s rel-atives during the ceremony witnessed by festival visitors from all walks of life.

The voyage has been a bien-nial event conducted as a highlight of Katara Traditional Dhow Festival. It aims to revive the ancient seafaring heritage Qatar shares with other coun-tries in the region as well as promote values such as hard work, patience and resilience among the new generation.

The members of the crew were selected from aspirants who underwent medical and physical tests to assess their abil-ity to withstand the challenges of the long journey.

One of the largest traditional dhows in the country, Fath Al

Kheir was built for the then Emir in 1983 by Amireya workshop to promote tourism trips of the Ministry of Information and Tourism. The 45-metre long dhow is now part of the collec-

tion of Qatar Museums. Fath Al Kheir first sailed in

2013 as a highlight of the festi-val carrying 40 crew members. It embarked on a 27-day jour-ney around GCC. It was followed by a 48-day journey to Oman and India two years ago with 26 crew members on board.

Meanwhile, the festival con-cludes today and has among its features 85 dhows and 47 hand-icraft and food stalls from Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Turkey, India, Greece, Zanzibar and Iran.

Traditional maritime com-petitions and performances from various traditional bands from the participating countries are among the other attractions at the five-day festival which has seen thousands of visitors.

Sailors get nostalgic send-off at third Fath Al Kheir voyage

The voyage has been a biennial event conducted as a highlight of Katara Traditional Dhow Festival. It aims to revive the ancient seafaring heritage Qatar shares with other countries in the region as well as promote values such as hard work, patience and resilience among the new generation.

Qatari sailors bid goodbye to officials at the Dasha ceremony held yesterday at Katara Beach.

Qatari sailors wave goodbye as they head towards Fath Al Kheir which will take them on a month-long journey to Oman and Kuwait and back.

Katara Traditional Dhow Festival concludes today and has among its features 85 dhows and 47 handicraft and food stalls from Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Turkey, India, Greece, Zanzibar and Iran.

Hamad Saket Al Shamari (second left), Assistant Director of the Agricultural Research Department at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, and Dr Rajbir Sangwan (third left), Director of UNIDO, giving a certificate to trainees on closing session of training with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Using Nuclear Techniques to Enrich Agricultural Research for Sustainable Food Security in Qatar yesterday. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

Qatar residents during the launch of ‘Beat Diabetes’ initiative at Oxygen Park. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

03SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017 HOME

The Peninsula

Tomorrow, in France and throughout the world, nearly 2,000 hotels will

open doors to everyday heroes – men and women who are fire-fighters, nurses, teachers, craftspersons and local shop-keepers - who work every day to serve their communities.

It’s an opportunity for hotel-iers and their employees, which

are also deeply involved into the life of the neighbourhood, to thank them and share a moment with them around a breakfast, a barbecue, a concert, etc.

AccorLocal is a local services offer that give shopkeepers the opportunity to offer their prod-ucts within the Group’s hotels; On the other hand, hotels are given the chance to promote their hospitality services to a non-resident clientele.

AccorHotels hence connects the convenience of digital to its hospitality expertise and the local experience to introduce a new way of interacting locally for communities living in the vicin-ity, hotels and local businesses.

While the aspiration to buy local sometimes stumbles upon time constraints, and because the purchase and delivery of online products do not always allow for a trust-based and local

relationship, the Group now ena-bles communities neighboring its hotels to enjoy 24/7 access to the services of their local craft-persons, shopkeepers and other providers within their hotels.

Through AccorLocal, hotel-iers are free to determine the services they wish to propose, based on local needs and on their own relationships with local shopkeepers.

Besides, other services are

p r o v i d e d through larger partnerships and include: bouquets deliv-ered to the hotel’s reception with AccorLo-cal’s special bouquets in collaboration with Pampa, Ber-gamotte and others; yoga, pilates and relaxation classes provided by Oly Be in a room let by the hotel; quality bread delivered by

Poilâne, Nespresso capsules pick-up and deposit points accessible 24/7, a pay-by-the-hour car rental service with AccorLocal offered by Hertz 24/7.

The hotels themselves also feature many services now offered by AccorLocal.

AccorHotels celebrates 50th anniversary

The Peninsula

Four of the Arab world’s top innovators will vie to be crowned winner of Qatar

Foundation’s Stars of Science Season 9 in a special finale edi-tion of the show to be filmed in the Sultanate of Oman next week.

The setting for the season finale was chosen as part of the show’s recent collaboration with the Oman Technology Fund (OTF) and is in line with the show’s airing on several regional broadcasters, offering new and exciting opportunities to show-case Stars of Science to fans across the Arab world.

As the season approaches its nail-biting decider round, the Fantastic Four are running neck-and-neck; one of them will become the best Arab innovator,

while the remaining candidates will be ranked accordingly. Vot-ing has already started and will run until 2pm (GMT) Thursday, November 23. To choose your favorite Stars of Science innova-tion, vote online at www.starsofscience.com.

In the first customer valida-tion episode, fans of Meshal Alshahrani and Mohammed Al-Jefairi jubilantly watched their favorite innovators sweep into the finals. Meanwhile, Wassim El Hariri’s supporters had a bit-tersweet night; their hero was fearless every step of the way, yet was ultimately eliminated.

The most recent episode proved to be a night of high drama. Fouad Maksoud impressed the judges and cus-tomers with his quick wit and confident demeanor. He took the lead in the jury scoring, leaping

into the finale. In the duel between Ahmad Nabeel and Mohamed Farag for the last finale spot, Ahmad’s quick think-ing won the jury over. He edged past Mohamed with a mere three-point margin. Audiences will certainly miss the thorough approach Mohamed brought to his work.

Stakes are the highest they’ve ever been, and the finalists are feeling the pressure. Each entre-preneur will have the opportunity to convince the pub-lic why their innovation will make a difference in the region and beyond. Voters and the Stars of Science jury will then declare the verdict during a thrilling finale filmed from Muscat, Oman, next week with the collabora-tion of the OTF.

Meshal intends to help Mus-lim Hajj-goers better navigate

Mecca with his Hajj Navigation Bracelet. The invention will direct Muslims to important places during the pilgrimage, minimizing their chances of get-ting lost.

Mohammed aims for a more accessible and enjoyable sign language instruction for those with hearing impairments. His innovation, the Deaf Interactive Robotic Teacher, is a device that uses the latest technological advancements to teach sign lan-guage to children.

Ahmad wants to make sur-geries safer for both doctor and patient with his automated, self-cleaning laparoscope with a virtual beam that will support surgeons and medical students and save time in the operating theater.

Fouad Maksoud’s innovation is a great advancement in the

nanotechnology field. The mul-tifunctional machine can be used for various purposes, such as

making clothing waterproof and integrating healing medicine into the fibers of bandages.

4 innovators to vie for crown at Stars of Science show

The Peninsula

Abdullah bin Hamad Al Atti-yah, Chairman of The Al-Attiyah Foundation,

joined a strategic roundtable dis-cussion at The Centre for Global Energy Policy (CGEP), the research centre within the School of Inter-national and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University, New York, on November 16.

World renowned experts, including Jason Bordoff, Former Advisor President Obama for Energy and Climate Change, and Charif Souki, Chairman of Tellu-rian Inc., joined H.E. Al-Attiyah to discuss global gas market devel-opments; the influence of geopolitics; and the future for gas. The main objective of the roundtable was to facilitate open exchange of thoughts between the different participants in a closed-door setting.

The group commenced their in-depth discussions during a welcome dinner at the University on the Novem-ber 15, and continued the dialogue in a more formal setting the following day.

The conversation was a great opportunity for Al-Attiyah to share his insights on the future of gas in Qatar; Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export opportunities and the country’s adaptation to the new competitive gas landscape. “Global natural gas demand is not growing at the same pace it used

to, it has slowed to a pace of around 1.5% since 2010, whereas global LNG production capacity will increase by 100 million tonnes to reach 350 mil-lion tonnes per annum in few years’ time,” Al-Attiyah highlighted.

The majority of Qatar’s natural gas is located in the huge offshore North Field, which spans an area roughly equivalent to Qatar itself.

He explained how the recent lift-ing of the moratorium on the North field and the country’s strategic goal to raise liquefaction capacity by almost 30% to reach 100 mega tonnes per annum is the right answer to for the country to compete in global gas markets.

This new objective is essential to

ensure the sustain-ability of Qatar’s LNG exports in the long-term. With this new target, Qatar would retain its position as the larg-est LNG producer in the world.

Regarding the impact on other LNG projects worldwide, he emphasized that Q a t a r ’ s g a s resources enjoy a

competitive cost base which is passed to customers; thus making Qatar’s gas very attractive for

many importers.Regarding current geopolitical cir-

cumstances in the GCC, Al Attiyah clarified that it was not initiated by Qatar. Any exit scenario should be obtained through thorough dialogue between the countries involved and should not overlook the interest of any party at the expense of the other. How-ever, energy security will of course remain very high on the agenda for every country.

He concluded by noting that the competition in global gas markets is set to intensify in coming years, and that a zero-sum competition should be avoided, as it is not in the interests any stakeholder.

Abdullah bin Hamad shares insights on LNG future

Fouad Maksoud (left) and Ahmad Nabeel (right) bid farewell to Mohamed Farag (center) during a Stars of Science customer validation episode.

Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Chairman of The Al-Attiyah Foundation, speaks during the discussion at The Centre for Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University, New York.

Katara General Manager, Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti (right), and Boston Global Institute Executive Director, Dr. Randya Kemer, at the MoU signing at Katara on Thursday.

MoU signing

Continued from page 1“Already, the boycott is impacting the

US-led coalition fighting Islamic State mil-itants in Iraq and Syria,” the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister said.

Qatar’s C-17 transport aircraft are the main planes ferrying logistical support to coalition partners, such as Jordan and Tur-key. But because Qatari planes are barred from flying over Saudi, Bahrain and the UAE, “we have only one pathway to fly, which is via Iran,” so that if there’s an emer-gency the planes may have to land in the Islamic Republic, he added.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that the Dep-uty Prime Minister and Foreign Minister yesterday compared Saudi Arabia’s polit-ical manoeuvres in Lebanon to its boycott of his country, and accused Riyadh of a dangerous escalation.

He said Qatar is ready to come to the table to resolve the dispute under US medi-ation. But he maintained Qatar’s tough stance, arguing that Riyadh is responsible for detonating a series of Middle East cri-ses, by intervening in Lebanon, boycotting Qatar and bombing Yemen. “This is some-thing we have just witnessed in the region: Bullying small countries into submission,” the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister said, suggesting that Saudi aggres-sion is a new regional threat.

“Exactly what happened to Qatar six months ago is happening now to Lebanon,” he said. “The leadership in Saudi and the UAE should understand that there is a world order that should be respected. Inter-national law should be respected,” he said.

“There is no right for any country to inter-fere in other countries,” he argued, warning: “There is a pattern that is very risky for the region, and very intimidatory.”

Separately in an interview with MSNBC, the Deputy PM and Foreign Min-ister said Qatar was a strong US partner in war against terrorism.

To a question about allegations on sup-porting terrorism, H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said it was prop-aganda and in fact the entire campaign was started with such baseless accusations. Qatar was strong US partner in war against terrorism and was hosting centre of com-mand for global coalition base as a big ally in war against terror. The Deputy PM and Foreign Minister said Qatar was front run-ner in fighting against ideology of terrorism through supporting education in vulnera-ble countries and was supporting education of 7m children in East and Central Asia.

He said that the US always expressed its appreciation for this relationship and there was no indication that it wanted to close its base in Qatar. “In fact, we are developing this relationship further.”

The Deputy Prime Minister and For-eign Minister said Qatar was getting support from the US for putting this crisis to an end but it was behavior and attitude of Saudi Arabia and the UAE which had laid siege Qatar and were taking illegal actions against Qatar. He said that terror-ism was bigger threat in the region but siege countries attitude was undermining the threat through anti-Qatar campaign.

Continued from page 1He discussed about laying

the foundation for healthier communities and a brighter future saying: “Primary health centers are cornerstones in the health care delivery system, essential setting for health, well-being, and necessity for sustainable development for individual for individuals, com-munities and countries.”

Dr Al Shatti further focused on concepts and initiatives including Sustainable Develop-ment Goals (SDG’s), Eastern Mediterranean Regional (EMR) health priorities, strategies and roadmaps, current situation analysis with non-communica-ble diseases (NCD’s) as living

examples and Healthy Cities ini-tiative, health and climate change, culture and behavior.

Around 58 workshops and lectures are scheduled to be held

as part of the conference by experts from around the world including countries such as the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, and from Oman, Kuwait and

Lebanon as well as leading experts from Qatar.

Prominent speakers at the conference include, Lord Ara Darzi, Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, The Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery at Imperial College and the Insti-tute of Cancer Research.

He will deliver a keynote speech tomorrow on “Innova-tion in Primary Care and Community Services”. Differ-ent sessions held on the first day of the conference included dis-cussions on minor surgical skills, knee and shoulder examination workshop and identifying and supporting the Autistic Child in the community workshop.

Qatar has US backing to resolve crisis

Call to lay foundation for healthier communities

Dr. Ahmad Al Shatti (left), Consultant, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Director, OHD, MoH - Kuwait, and Dr. Mariam Ali Abdulmalik, MD, FFACS - Senior Consultant, Family Medicine and Managing Director Primary Health Care Corporation, speak at the International Primary Health Care Conference 2017, at The Ritz-Carlton, Doha yesterday.Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

04 SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Baghdad AFP

The Iraqi army retook the last town in the country still held by the Islamic State group yesterday as the jihad-

ists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” faced collapse on both sides of the border with Syria.

The lightning recapture of the small Euphrates valley town of Rawa in an offensive launched at dawn came as the jihadists were also under attack for a sec-ond day in the last town they still hold in Syria, Albu Kamal just over the border.

The Islamic State group (IS) has lost 95 percent of the cross-border “caliphate” it declared in Iraq and Syria in 2014, the

US-led coalition fighting it said on Wednesday.

Its losses include all of its major bastions, virtually confin-ing it to pockets of countryside.

Government troops and par-amilitary units “liberated the whole of Rawa and raised the Iraqi flag on all of its official buildings,” General Abdelamir Yarallah of Iraq’s Joint Opera-tions Command (JOC) said.

An army general contacted by a reporter at the front had predicted that the battle would be swift as “the majority of IS fighters who were in the town have fled towards the Syrian border.”

The JOC said appeals had been made for several days to the town’s Sunni Arab residents to listen to radio broadcasts for instructions on what to do when the army entered.

Rawa was bypassed in an offensive by the Iraqi army that resulted in the recapture of the

strategically important border town of Al-Qaim earlier this month.

The stretch of Euphrates val-ley abutting the border with Syria has long been a bastion of Sunni Arab insurgency, first against US-led troops after the invasion of 2003 and then against the Shiite-led govern-ment in Baghdad.

The porous frontier became a magnet for foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria, which Baghdad accused of turning a blind eye, and a key smuggling route for arms and illicit goods.

US-led troops carried out repeated operations with code names like Matador and Steel Curtain in 2005 to flush out Al-Qaeda jihadists.

The region swiftly fell to IS

when its fighters swept through the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in 2014 before proclaiming its “caliphate”. The jihadists once controlled a territory the size of Britain but they have succes-sively lost all their key strongholds, including Raqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

Over the border in Syria, IS still holds around 25 percent of the countryside of Deir Ezzor province but are under attack not only by government forces but also by US-backed Kurdish-led fighters.

In the border town of Albu Kamal, the Syrian army was bat-tling IS fighters who mounted a surprise counterattack last week, pushing out government forces who had retaken it last month.

Iraq forces retake last IS-held townThe lightning recapture of the small Euphrates valley town of Rawa in an offensive launched at dawn came as the jihadists were also under attack for a second day in the last town they still hold in Syria, Albu Kamal just over the border.

Ankara Reuters

Iran accused France of fuel-ling tension in the Middle East by taking a “biased” stance on

Tehran’s regional policy, state TV reported yesterday.

“It seems that France has a biased view towards the ongo-ing crises and humanitarian catastrophes in the Middle East Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying.

“This view fuels regional conflicts, whether intentionally or unintentionally,” he said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday that France was wor-ried about Iran’s involvement in the Middle East crisis and its dis-puted ballistic missile programme.

“Iran’s role and the different areas where this country oper-ates worries us,” Le Drian told a joint news conference with his Saudi counterpart Adel Jubeir in Riyadh.

“I am thinking in particular of Iran’s interventions in regional crises, this hegemonic tempta-tion and I’m thinking of its ballistic programme,” he said.

Iran has repeatedly rejected France’s call for talks on its mis-sile programme, saying it was defensive and unrelated to a nuclear agreement with world powers struck in 2015.

Paris suggested that new European Union sanctions against Iran may be discussed over its missile tests. But EU for-eign policy chief Federica Mogherini seemed to dismiss that idea on Tuesday, keen to avoid risks to the hard-won deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear activ-ity. Shia-dominated Iran and its regional arch-rival Sunni Saudi Arabia, are involved in proxy

wars across the region, backing opposite sides in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.

Jubeir told Reuters on Thurs-day that the kingdom’s actions in the Middle East were a response to what he called the “aggression” of Iran.

Qasemi said Jubeir was repeating baseless claims, the state news agency IRNA reported on Friday. “Saudi Arabia’s for-eign minister’s gestures and his blame game will definitely not reduce the responsibility of this country in undermining the regional stability and security,” Qasemi said.

Iran: French stance threatens regional stability

Ankara Reuters

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that Turkey needed to

clear the Afrin region of north-west Syria of Kurdish YPG militia fighters, who have been in the forefront of the battle there against Is lamic State insurgents.

Erdogan, speaking in Ankara to officials from the ruling AK Party, also expressed disappoint-ment with the United States, which backs the YPG.

Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is des-ignated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. “We need to

cleanse Afrin of the structure there called the YPG terrorist organisation,” Erdogan said.

Turkey has long been angered at the United States’ support for the YPG and Erdogan has repeatedly accused Wash-ington of violating the alliance between the two countries.

“We are greatly disappointed by the United States not keeping its promises. Many issues that we could have resolved easily...were pushed to a dead-end,” he said.

Turkey has expressed dis-pleasure at the U.S. stance towards a deal between the YPG and Islamic State under which hundreds of militants withdrew from the Syrian city of Raqqa before it fell to the Syrian Dem-ocratic Forces.

Erdogan has previously said that Afrin would be on Ankara’s a g e n d a a f t e r i t s

current operation in Syria’s Idlib province, where Turkey and Russia have set up observation points under a “de-escalation” deal agreed by Ankara, Moscow and Tehran to ease the

bloodshed in the six-year-old Syrian conflict.

Erdogan said considerable progress had been made in Tur-key’s military operation in Idlib due to the co-operation of the

three powers. Russia and Iran back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey supports rebels opposing him, but all share a common foe in Islamic State.

Clear Syria’s Afrin of YPG militia: Erdogan

Beirut Reuters

Lebanon’s Foreign Min-ister, Gebran Bassil, said yesterday a crisis trig-

gered by the resignation of its prime minister was part of an “attempt to create chaos in the region”, local television stations reported.

Saad Al Hariri quit as prime minister in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia two weeks ago, saying he feared assas-sination and criticising the Saudis’ regional arch-rival Iran along with its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

The actions of Hariri, a Sunni Muslim leader and long-time Saudi ally, plunged Lebanon into a political cri-sis, putting the country centre stage in the rivalry.

He has yet to return to Beirut and is expected to leave Saudi Arabia this week-end for France, where he will meet with President Emmanuel Macron.

Bassil is touring European and other capitals seeking diplomatic help to end the crisis. “We will respond and we have the full capacities to do so, but we hope it doesn’t get to that,” Bassil was quoted as saying from Moscow by Lebanese broadcasters Al Jadeed, Al Manar and LBC.

French officials said they did not know how long Har-iri would stay before returning to Beirut, but hoped his visit would help ease the crisis by demonstrating he was not being held in Saudi Arabia. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil, in Ankara Thursday. Turkey’s Foreign Minister said they discussed bilateral relations and regional issues, which directly affect both Turkey and Lebanon.

Harare AFP

Zi m b a b w e a n President Rob-ert Mugabe

attended a university graduation ceremony yesterday, making a defiant first public appearance since the military takeover that appeared to sig-nal the end of his 37-year reign.

Mugabe, 93, had been confined to house arrest after the military took over the country.

But yesterday, he walked into the cer-emony venue in Harare dressed in a blue academic gown and tasselled hat, before listening to speeches with his eyes closed and applauding occasionally, a correspondent reported.

The generals took over late on Tuesday after vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa was abruptly sacked and Mugabe’s wife Grace emerged in prime position to succeed her increas-ingly frail husband.

Mugabe has ruled Zimba-bwe since independence from Britain in 1980.

Many citizens were stunned by the military’s intervention, sparked by the bitter succes-sion battle between Grace and Mnangagwa.

Analysts say the military leadership was strongly

opposed to the rise of Mugabe’s ambitious 52-year-old wife, while Mnangagwa has close ties to the defence establishment.

Mugabe and the army chiefs held talks on Thursday, but no official statement has been issued on the status of negoti-ations that could see him eased out of office.

Government television showed Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, at Thurs-day’s talks standing smiling alongside army chief General Constantino Chiwenga. Mnan-gagwa, 75, was previously one of Mugabe’s most loyal lieuten-ants, having worked alongside him for decades.

Hariri crisis an attempt to create regional chaos: Lebanon FM

Mugabe makes 1st public appearance amid pressure

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the Justice and Development (AK) Party’s provincial heads meeting in Ankara, yesterday.

Nairobi Reuters

Two people were killed yes-terday as Kenyan police tried to disperse support-

ers cheering a convoy carrying opposition leader Raila Odinga from the airport to central Nai-robi, a photographer said.

Police fired tear gas at the convoy and used water cannon as they tried to stop it reaching the capital’s main business dis-trict, live footage on Kenyan TV showed. Some protesters threw stones at police. TV footage showed two vehicles on fire.

The deaths occurred as police and protesters fought on one of the main roads leading to the business district, the

photographer said. Police spokesmen did not immediately respond to phone calls.

Odinga has called for a “National Resistance Movement” to protest against the outcome of a repeat presidential election last month which saw President Uhuru Kenyatta win a second, five-year term with 98 percent of the vote after Odinga boy-cotted the contest. Only 39 percent of registered voters took part. The repeat poll was ordered by the Supreme Court after it annulled the results of the August election, won by Keny-atta, over procedural irregularities.

In what is seen as the last chance for legal scrutiny of the vote, the court will rule on

Monday on cases that seek to nullify the rerun election.

The political crisis has stirred fears for the stability of the east African nation, a regional hub for trade, diplomacy

and security. Earlier on Friday, demonstrators threw up burn-ing barricades on Mombasa Road, the highway that links Nairobi’s downtown business district and the airport.

Two dead as Kenya police clash with protesters

Supporters of Kenyan’s opposition party National Super Alliance (NASA) react following the sound of gunshots during a demonstration in Nairobi, yesterday.

Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, makes his first public appearance four days after the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) took over control of government in Harare, yesterday.

05SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017 ASIA

Sitharaman refutes Congress charges on jet dealNew Delhi IANS

Rejecting the Congress’ allegations of irregu-larities in the Rafale fighter jet deal, Defence Minister Nir-

mala Sitharaman yesterday said the government had to go for emergency procurement, add-ing it is cheaper than under an earlier unconcluded deal.

The Congress charges vis-a-vis the deal with France on the purchase of 36 Rafale jets was “politically motivated” and “shameful”, she told a press con-ference called after the opposition party alleged irregularities in the government-to-government deal.

Sitharaman accused the

Congress of doing a “disservice” to the armed forces by failing to ink the deal even after decade-long negotiations when it was in power at the Centre.

“The decision to buy 36 Rafale jets was taken to address the urgent need of the IAF (Indian Air Force) because the earlier United Progressive Alli-ance government did not pay attention to defence prepared-ness of the armed forces... it (UPA) was indecisive for 10 years to address this critical necessity of fighters for the IAF,” the Min-ister said.

“The allegations are politi-cally motivated since they are not able to find any corruption in this government,” she added.

“It is disappointing that a

responsible opposition without checking facts can come out to say this,” she said.

Sitharaman said the National Democratic Alliance government went for “emergency” procure-ment of the fighter jets, adding that the deal it cut for 36 aircraft was “far better” than what the UPA “would have obtained for 126”.

Asked if it meant the price under the deal is lesser, she quipped: “Absolutely”. She how-ever did not give any figures on the price.

“Comparison in the price is wrong. The price we arrived at is lesser. To bicker over price as though they served prepared-ness... it is shameful.”

Sitharaman said that the deal

was signed after approval from the Cabinet Committee on Secu-rity and following all due processes. “It is a baseless argu-ment—not a single procedure has been violated. No procedure was violated,” she said.

Responding to opposition party’s charge, she said that a “transfer of technology” was not

sought in this deal as it was not viable and it could have esca-lated the price.

“It is simple economics—when you are talk of buying 126 aircraft, asking for transfer of technology makes sense. When you are going for emergency procurement of 36, it does not make sense for transfer of tech-nology to be included... there was no benefit from this transfer, the price would have increased and not reduced,” the Defence Min-ister said.

On the allegation that a pri-vate company benefited, the Minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had no role in choosing a business delegation that went to Paris when the deal was announced.

India, France agree on security tie-upNew Delhi IANS

After officials of India, the US, Japan and Australia held the first-ever quad-

rilateral meeting in Manila last week on the security and devel-opment of the Indo-Pacific region, India and France yester-day agreed to cooperate on the security architecture of the Indian Ocean region.

“In terms of maritime secu-rity, both sides discussed increasing cooperation in the Indian Ocean region where the presence of India and France is very important,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in a joint address to the media with French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian after delegation-level talks here.

“This cooperation is aimed at ensuring unhindered trade and movement and security of the international sea lanes, fight-ing maritime terrorism and piracy, creating awareness about the oceanic region, building capacities on regional and inter-national platforms and

increasing coordination at the official level,” she said.

Her comments come after Sunday’s India-US-Japan-Aus-tralia meeting in the Philippines capital where the officials agreed that “a free, open, prosperous and inclusive” Indo-Pacific served long-term global inter-ests, giving impetus to an emerging quad of democracies amid China’s rising military and economic power.

Sushma Swaraj said that in Friday’s talks, both sides dis-cussed all bilateral issues and matters of regional and global concern.

The India-France relation-ship was elevated to that of a strategic partnership in 1998. India is the only country in Asia with which Paris has such a relationship.

Stating that both India and France were for a multi-polar world, she said that defence and security cooperation, space cooperation and civil nuclear cooperation formed the three pillars of the bilateral relationship.

She said that both sides also agreed to make their military

logistics stronger. “France has been a partner in our space pro-gramme from the very beginning,” she said. “We have together started many projects and have completed many mis-sions. Today, we discussed ways to give a clear shape to our space cooperation.”

In terms of civil nuclear cooperation, the Indian minis-ter said that both sides agreed on an early start to the work on the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant (JNPP).

French utility EDF and Nuclear Power Corp of India Limited (NPCIL) signed an agree-ment in March 2016 to construct six reactors of the JNPP, each of 1,650 MW.

Sushma Swaraj said France has supported India’s bid for membership in the UN Security Council as in the Multilateral Export Control Regime that includes the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.

“We have also agreed to

further strengthen our cooperation, both at the bilateral and multilat-eral levels, in the fight against terrorism,” she said.

“We have appealed to all countries in the world to unitedly oppose those countries which finance and provide safe havens to terrorists,” she said.

On economic ties between India and France, Sushma Swaraj said that with bilateral trade standing at $10.95bn, there was immense scope to increase this.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj (right) listens as French Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian speaks during a press conference in New Delhi yesterday.

Sri Lanka cancels police leave after gang violenceColombo AFP

Sri Lanka has cancelled all police leave and stepped up patrols in Jaffna after

a wave of violence in the island’s former war zone, a minister said yesterday.

Jaffna is the heartland of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority and was the epicentre of the long separatist war that ended in 2009. Tensions per-sist between troops deployed in the area and the local Tamil population, and last year the government accused the mil-itary of backing a gang terrorising civilians in the area.

Yesterday Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayaka said authorities were grap-pling with a fresh wave of gang-related violence, but denied it was related to last year’s unrest.

He said eight people had been seriously wounded in two days in Jaffna, which lies 400km north of Colombo, in what appeared to be an extor-tion racket.

“We have already arrested six people from this new gang and we are looking for several others,” he said.

BJP to move court against AAP govtNew Delhi IANS

Accusing Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejri-wal of misleading the

public over pollution in the NCR, the BJP on Friday said it will approach the Supreme Court over non-utilisation of green cess by the AAP gov-ernment and thus “violating” court order.

“Our party will move a contempt plea in the Supreme Court on the issue of non-uti-lisation of environmental cess fund,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari told reporters here.

EC grants JD-U’s symbol to NitishNew Delhi IANS

In a major setback to rebel Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav, the

Election Commission yesterday ruled that the group led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is the “real party” and hence entitled to use the par-ty’s “Arrow” poll symbol.

In its order, the poll panel said: “The respondent group led by Nitish Kumar has dem-onstrated overwhelming majority support in the legis-lature wing as well as majority in the National Council of the party, which is the apex-level organisational body of the party.

“Accordingly, the group led by Nitish Kumar is hereby rec-ognised as the Janata Dal-United in terms of Para-graph 15 of the symbols order.”

“Consequently, the group led by Nitish Kumar is entitled to use the reserved symbol ‘Arrow’ of the party as a recog-nised state party in Bihar,” it said.

Sharad Yadav, a former President of the JD-U, broke away from Chief Minister and JD-U President Nitish Kumar after the latter joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led

National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in July this year.

The Election Commission referred to the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Sadiq Ali vs Elec-tion Commission of India (AIR 1972 SC 187) case wherein the apex court upheld the princi-ple of test of majority support in the organisational and legis-lative wings.

The Sharad Yadav faction had contended that the election of the 195 National Council members done in October 2016 and submitted to the EC on November 10, 2016 was not valid as the party’s constitution was not adhered to in the process.

It submitted that the Com-mission should look into the numerical strength of the National Council of the party constituted in 2013.

However, the EC in it order pointed out that “there was no objection from the petitioner against the said list prior to the present application”.

It further said that the Com-mission “does not go into disputed questions regarding membership issues and valid-ity of internal elections of the party” and that the aggrieved party can “approach appropri-ate party forum or competent courts for the purpose”.

BJP announces first Gujarat candidates listGandhinagar/New Delhi IANS

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday announced its first list of 70 candidates

for the first phase of the Gujarat assembly elections, giving tick-ets to five of the 14 defecting Congress MLAs.

Staying ahead of the

opposition party in making the announcement, the BJP has repeated 49 sitting MLAs from their respective constituencies.

This runs contrary to spec-ulations that many sitting BJP MLAs will be denied tickets this time.

Five Congress MLAs who changed over to the BJP in August — Raghavjibhai Patel,

Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Ram-sinh Parmar, Mansinh Chauhan, and CK Raulji — have been given t i c k e t s f r o m t h e i r constituencies.

These Congress rebels had sup-ported the BJP against Congress heavyweight leader Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha election.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has been re-nominated from his

traditional Rajkot West constitu-ency, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel from traditional Mehsana seat, and state BJP chief Jitubhai Vaghani from Bhavnagar West. Earlier, Vaghani had refused to contest. Surprisingly, contrary to speculations, both Patidar Ana-mat Andolan Samiti members Varun Patel and Reshma Patel are not in the first list.

Elusive Indonesia politician hospitalisedJakarta AFP

The speaker of Indone-sia’s parliament, implicated in a $170m

corruption case, was in hos-pital yesterday after a bizarre drama in which he claimed to have been injured in a car crash shortly after a failed raid on his palatial estate.

The story has dominated headlines and news broad-casts this week in the graft-riddled nation, where images showed a grim-faced Setya Novanto laying in a Jakarta hospital.

Critics lashed out at Novanto, accusing him of try-ing to dodge anti-corruption officials.

The Congress charges vis-a-vis the deal with France on the purchase of 36 Rafale jets was “politically motivated” and “shameful”, the Defence Minister said.

Parliamentary speaker Setya Novanto (on stretcher) is accompanied by his spouse Deisti Astriani Tagor (right) as he is transferred to another hospital in Jakarta yesterday.

06 SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017ASIA

N Korea rules

out dialogue

on N-weaponsGeneva Reuters

North Korea yester-day ruled out negotiations with Washington as long as joint US-

South Korea military exercises continue, and said that Pyongyang’s atomic weapons programme would remain as a deterrent against a US nuclear threat.

In an interview North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Han Tae Song, brushed off the new sanctions which the Trump administration has said it is pre-paring, as well as the possibility of North Korea being added to a US list of states sponsoring ter-rorism. South Korea and the United States agreed yesterday to keep working for a peaceful end to the North Korean nuclear crisis, but a US envoy said it was difficult to gauge the reclusive North’s intentions as there has been “no signal”.

Han, asked about those bilateral talks in Seoul, replied: “As long as there is continuous hostile policy against my coun-try by the US and as long as there are continued war games at our doorstep, then there will not be negotiations.”

“There are continued mili-tary exercises using nuclear assets as well as aircraft carri-ers, and strategic bombers and then... raising such kinds of mil-itary exercises against my country,” he said.

He, who is ambassador to the UN’s Conference on

Disarmament, was speaking at the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) mis-sion in Geneva, where the DPRK and the United States secured a 1994 nuclear deal which later fell apart.

He said he had no informa-tion on when North Korea might test a ballistic missile again, after the last one two months ago.

“The DPRK, my country, will continue to build-up its self-defence capability, the pivot of which is nuclear forces and capability for a trium-phant... strike as long as US and hostile forces keep up nuclear threat and blackmail,” Han said.

“Our country plans ultimate completion of the nuclear force,” he said. China said on Thursday that a “dual suspen-sion” proposal to handle North Korea was still the best option, after US President Donald Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping had rejected a “freeze for freeze” agreement.

Pakistan issues ‘last warning’ to road-blocking protestersIslamabad Reuters

Pakistan’s government yes-terday issued a final warning to members of a

hard-line Islamist party who have blocked a main road into the capital since last week, rais-ing fears of a violent clash as they refuse to budge.

Hundreds of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party have been blocked the road to Islamabad for nearly 10 days, demanding that the minister of law be sacked for what they term blasphemy.

“You all are being given a last warning,” the Islamabad deputy commissioner said in the order.

A court had already ordered the party to end the protest, the

order added. “After this final announcement, you all are being warned to end the illegal sit in immediately.”

Tehreek-e-Labaik blames the minister, Zahid Hamid, for changes to an electoral oath that it says amounts to blasphemy. The government puts the issue down to a clerical error.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law has become a lightning rod for Islamists, especially since 2011 when the liberal governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was murdered by a bodyguard for questioning the law that mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam.

A spokesman for the Labaik party, Ejaz Ashrafi, refused to comply with the order.

“We’re not moving,” he said by phone form the sit-in.

A government official, Khalid Abbasi, said the protesters had set up pickets along the route they are occupying manned by party members carrying iron rods and sticks.

Since they got the warning, he said, hundreds of more party workers have joined the sit-in.

Fearing violence, the government has blocked several roads with shipping containers to corral the protesters, but that has caused hours-long traffic jams in and around the capital.

In 2007, a confrontation between authorities and supporters of radical preachers at an Islamabad mosque led to the death of more than 100 people.

“All resources can be used to break this sit-in,” the deputy commissioner’s warning said.

UNHCR expects ‘modest’ return of Afghan refugees Islamabad Internews

The United Nations High Commissioner for Ref-ugees (UNHCR) said

that the pace of return of Afghan refugees back home from PAkistan is expected to remain modest in 2018.

However, the UNHCR cannot reduce the impact that the general elections in Paki-stan next year may have on Afghan refugees.

The ‘refugee affected and hosting areas (RAHA) pro-gramme, a key element of the ‘solutions strategy for Afghan refugees’ (SSAR), will con-tinue to support host communities and promote peaceful coexistence.

The SSAR is a multi-year regional framework that seeks solutions for Afghan refugees living in a protracted situation.

It offers a comprehensive and integrated framework for joint interventions aimed at facilitating voluntary repatri-ation and sustainable reintegration, while at the same time providing assist-ance to host communities and countries.

Pakistan hosts more than 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees, with the number of refugees returning from the country declined from some 370,000 in 2016 to around 50,000 in the Erst three quar-ters of 2017.

In Pakistan, the UNHCR expects to disengage from its protection cluster responsi-bilities in relation to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by 2018, after building the capacity of the authorities.

The UN refugee agency says that the protracted Afghan ref-ugee situations in Iran and Pakistan require long-term solu-tions, with a focus on the creation of conditions conducive to voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan and support for ref-ugee-hosting communities.

The UNHCR has launched ‘Appeal 2018-2019‘ which lays out the financial resources that will be required for the agency‘s pro-gramme to protect and improve the lives of 68 mil-lion people of concern.

The appeal presents the proposed budgets for the 2018-2019 $7.508bn.

Shelling, air strikes as Philippine troops hunt militantsManila Reuters

Philippine troops shelled positions held by a small group of pro-Islamic State

militants in southern marshland yesterday, as the military pushed on with a new offensive after the country’s biggest urban battle in decades.

The army estimated 2,000 villagers had been displaced by

several days of operations in a region straddling two provinces on the island of Mindanao, as the army went after the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), a small and splintered rebel group inspired by Islamic State.

The latest operation follows the end last month of what was the Philippines’ biggest battle since the Second World War, in which troops took five months to crush an alliance of Islamic

State loyalists inclding BIFF fighters in Marawi City.

The occupation of the city by the militants and their dogged resistance spread alarm in the region about the rise of extremism and radical aspirations to create an Islamic State caliphate.

Captain Nap Alcarioto, spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division, said troops were shelling BIFF gunmen in support of ground attacks in an area of

marshland between the provinces of Maguindanao and Cotobato, about 170km from Marawi. “We are still awaiting results of operations,” he said.

The army said it was fighting a BIFF faction led by Abu Toraypie, a man allied with the Maute group, the biggest militant group in an alliance that led the Marawi conflict.

Toraypie and some of his men had escaped from Marawi

and the army was trying to prevent them from regrouping, the army said. Military aircraft dropped bombs on another BIFF wing in a town close by.

The BIFF broke away from the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) a decade ago after becoming disillusioned with a protracted process with the government to grant autonomy to the country’s only predominantly Muslim region.

Bomb plot foiled before Asean summitManila AFP

A plot to bomb a Manila shopping mall as US President Donald

Trump and other world lead-ers arrived in the city for a summit has been foiled, Phil-ippine police said yesterday.

Three alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group were arrested on November 10, authorities said, a day before leaders began descending on the capital for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and other meetings.

“A terror attack could have happened if not for that interdiction,” the police said in a statement, adding that pistols and grenades were seized from the suspects.

Police said they monitored one suspect’s Facebook posts, in which he hinted at a plan to launch terror attacks in Manila.

Philippine National Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa (right) speaks during a press conference at the PNP headquarters in Manila, as three alleged plotters (left) are displayed to the media.

Asia, Europe ministers to hold talks on RohingyasDhaka AFP

A host of foreign ministers from Asia and Europe descend on Bangladesh

yesterday for talks on the Rohingya refugee crisis that has left the impoverished nation reeling.

An estimated 618,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled mainly Buddhist Myanmar since a military crackdown was launched in Rakhine in August, which the United Nations and watchdogs have said amounts to ethnic cleansing.

The talks will discuss international support for Bangladesh, according to an EU statement.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A H Mahmood Ali will take his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Japan, together with the European Union’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini, to the

border town of Cox’s Bazar tomorrow to see the camps.

“It is hoped that the visit will garner further international support for the Rohingya community,” said a Bangladesh foreign ministry statement. The ministers will also meet Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Meanwhile, one person was injured when military trucks hit landmines in Myanmar’s trou-bled Rakhine State this week, state media said yesterday.

Three landmine blasts caused extensive damage to three military trucks in Rakhine’s central Minbya township on Wednesday morning, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

The landmines were “apparently targeting” army convoys, it added. Later that day, another landmine exploded near the village of Vethali in central Rakhine as seven military trucks passed.

South Korea and the United States agreed yesterday to keep working for a peaceful end to the North Korean nuclear crisis, but a US envoy said it was difficult to gauge the reclusive North’s intentions as there has been “no signal”. Members of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party gather during a sit-in in Rawalpindi yesterday.

07SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017 EUROPE

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev in St Petersburg, yesterday.

Putin hosts Kyrgyz President

Talks to form coalition in Germany drags onBerlin AFP

Tough talks to form Ger-m a n y ’ s n e x t government stretched into overtime yester-d a y , p u t t i n g

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s polit-ical future in the balance since failure to produce a deal could force snap elections.

Merkel’s liberal policy on ref-ugees, which let in more than a million asylum seekers since 2015, has come back to haunt her, with a motley crew of poten-tial partners digging in their heels on diametrically opposed demands over immigration.

After weeks of quarrelsome exploratory talks, Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the left-leaning Greens are hoping to find enough common ground to begin formal coalition negotiations.

The awkward bedfellows have been pushed together by September’s inconclusive elec-tion, which left Merkel badly weakened after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) lured millions of voters angry

over the refugee influx.Merkel had initially said she

wanted to wind up the negotia-tions by Thursday, but marathon overnight talks failed to produce a breakthrough.

Party leaders resumed their high-stakes haggling at midday yesterday, and negotiators have signalled that the talks could drag into the weekend. “We shouldn’t put ourselves under pressure,” said Peter Altmaier, Merkel’s chief of staff.

He also voiced optimism about reaching a deal, saying that

“the problem is solvable”.But the deputy leader of the

liberal FDP, Wolfgang Kubicki, sounded more pessimistic, warn-ing that “the positions have hardened”.

Merkel herself acknowl-edged that “it will definitely be difficult, but it’s worthwhile to go into round two today.”

After suffering a humiliating loss at the polls, the centre-left Social Democratic Party has gone into opposition and ruled out returning to a grand coalition with Merkel.

The chancellor, who has steered Germany through crises including the global financial meltdown and the eurozone’s debt woes, therefore risks hav-ing to face new elections if she fails to get the CSU, the FDP and the Greens on board.

But the potential tie-up, dubbed a “Jamaica coalition” because the parties’ colours match those of the Jamaican flag, is untested at the national level, and questions abound about how sta-ble such a government would be.

“It’s not just the chancellor’s fourth term that depends on the success of Jamaica, but her entire

political career,” the best-selling Bild newspaper said.

A 62-page working document that could form the blueprint for an agreement showed that the parties remain at odds over sev-eral issues, with migration among the most contentious.

Merkel’s Bavarian CSU allies want a cap on migrant numbers, pitting them against the Greens who want to ease restrictions on family reunifications for asylum seekers.

“It is very, very important for us to stop immigration from growing,” said CSU chief Horst Seehofer, who faces a crucial state election next year.

The FDP’s Kubicki said his party had “tried to build bridges”, urging the Greens to soften their stance.

But the ecologists appear to be in no mood to compromise after already watering down key campaign pledges to overcome deadlocks on the environment.

The Greens notably aban-doned demands to shut down coal-fired power plants and phase out internal combustion engines in cars by 2030, and called on the other parties to show the same flexibility.

At the same time, Green pro-posals to make more-polluting diesel cars less attractive and close the country’s 20 dirtiest coal plants have also met with resistance from the conserva-tives and the FDP.

Secretary-General of German Christian Social Union Andreas Scheuer (centre) and Christian Democratic Union Secretary-General Volker Kauder at a meeting of the parliamentary group in Berlin yesterday.

Serbian, US paratroopers jump together to boost tiesBelgrade Reuters

Paratroopers from Ser-bia and the United States jumped side-by-

side just north of Belgrade yesterday as part of a train-ing tailored to bolster ties between the Balkan country and Nato.

The exercise dubbed Winter 2017, may raise eye-brows in Moscow which wants to keep Serbia, a Slavic and Orthodox Christian ally under its umbrella, and is worried over possible Nato expansion in the Balkans.

It is also a long way from 1999 when Nato bombed what was then Yugoslavia because of its policies towards Kosovo.

Although the European Union is Serbia’s single larg-est trade partner and investor, Russia controls its oil and gas supplies. Moscow has also sought to bolster military ties with Belgrade with the dona-tion of six MiG-29 fighter jets.

Serbia is one of the few Balkan countries not in the 28-member Nato which is hugely unpopular there due to its 1999 bombing campaign.

Alliance troops are still deployed in Kosovo, Serbia’s former southern province, whose 2008 independence has not been accepted by Bel-grade, Russia, China and some EU members.

Ukraine opens case as inter-agency conflict escalatesKiev Reuters

Ukrainian prosecutors said yesterday they were investigating a case that

could involve the head of the national anti-corruption bureau, the latest in a merry-go-round of law enforcement officials tak-ing action against each other.

Prosecutors are checking an audio recording of a man reading out a wiretapping tran-script to unknown persons,

which could constitute the ille-gal sharing of classified information.

They are trying to establish whether the voice belongs to bureau director Artem Sytnyk. Contacted for comment, a spokes-woman for the bureau said Sytnyk was travelling abroad.

Ukraine’s political leaders want to convince their interna-tional backers they are serious about tackling entrenched corrup-tion but have made only limited progress, delaying billions in new

loans. “An investigation into the possible disclosure of secret doc-uments has been registered,” General Prosecutor Yuriy Lut-senko said in a televised briefing.

“If it is confirmed that this document’s status was secret and if it is confirmed that it was done by that law enforcement official, then he will have problems with the law,” he said.

The bureau, known by its acronym NABU, and a sister anti-corruption agency known as

NAZK were both set up after pro-Western leaders took charge of Ukraine in 2014, following a wave of unrest and the escape into exile of a Kremlin-backed former leader.

Lutsenko’s statement caps a week of allegations flying around between different agencies.

On Monday, a senior prose-cutor told Reuters that senior political leaders were trying to bury corruption investigations through a change to the criminal code that would result in NABU

being overloaded with case work.On Tuesday, NABU said it HAD

opened a case against NAZK after allegations by a whistleblower, who also accused President Petro Poro-shenko’s office of exerting improper influence over the agency. The pres-ident’s office denies the allegation.

On Friday, as well as prose-cutors announcing an investigation into NABU, NABU said it had opened a case in October against Lutsenko at the behest of a court, but gave no details of the investigation.

Notorious Sicilian Mafia boss diesRome Reuters

Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the Sicilian Mafia’s most pow-erful boss of the 20th

century who was convicted for ordering dozens of murders, died of natural causes early yesterday after almost a quar-ter of a century in jail.

Riina, who turned 87 on Thursday, died in the prison ward of a hospital in Parma, the northern Italian city where he had been serving 26 life sen-tences for homicides committed between 1969 and 1992. His vic-tims included the two magistrates who led the campaign to bring mob bosses to justice.

He had fallen into a coma after complications during surgery a few days ago, and his family had been given permission to be by his side on Thursday, the Justice Min-istry said.

Nicknamed “the Beast”, Riina began his violent crimi-nal career on the streets of Corleone after the Second World War Two and became the Sicilian Mafia’s boss of bosses when it reached its 20th century apex.

Riina oversaw a flourishing economic period for organised crime group Cosa Nostra, or “Our Thing”, when it was traf-ficking heroin to the eastern United States and pulling the levers of political power in Pal-ermo and Rome.

But due to Riina’s savagery, hundreds of mobsters broke their code of silence in the 1980s and 1990s and testified against him, allowing magis-trates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to uncover the long-hidden secrets of Cosa Nostra and prosecute its lead-ers for the crimes of its soldiers.

Riina’s January 1993 arrest, after more than 20 years as a fugitive, came just months after Falcone and Borsellino were blown up on his orders, and coincided with the tumultuous downfall of Italy’s corrupt post-war political system.

Since then, Riina has been held under high security with little access to his family in accordance with a law written to prevent bosses from com-manding from prison. However, he remained a powerful figure within the mob even behind bars and refused to cooperate with investigators until the end.

Matteo Messina Denaro, a Riina ally who has been a fugi-tive for 25 years, is the highest ranking boss still at large, but it is unlikely he will be able take power, John Dickie, a British historian and author of the book “Cosa Nostra”, said.

“Cosa Nostra is internally and politically divided in a way that makes it almost ungovern-able, and this division dates back to Riina’s campaign for power in the 80s,” Dickie said.

HRW slams Russian foreign agent media lawMoscow AFP

A Russian law that could force international media outlets to register as “for-

eign agents” in response to US pressure on Kremlin-backed TV channel RT is an attack on free speech, Human Rights watch said yesterday.

The legislation, which won unanimous backing from Rus-sia’s lower house this week and

is set to be voted on in the Sen-ate, would allow Moscow to target foreign media in a simi-lar way it has punished NGOs with international funding.

Many NGOs have closed in response to the intense scrutiny. Under the new legislation, US and other foreign media would have to present themselves as such on all paperwork and sub-mit to intensive scrutiny of staffing and financing.

“The US government’s

misguided decision to request for RT to register under (the For-eign Agents Registration Act) gave the Kremlin a platform to retaliate, and they have done so with a full throttle attack on media freedom,” said Hugh Wil-liamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“But sadly, the bill will not simply hurt foreign media, but worse, unjustifiably limit Rus-sian citizens’ right to access

information and ideas,” he said.“This legislation is tailor-

made to be selectively and politically enforced, and to silence voices they do not want Russian people to hear.”

The justice ministry said Thursday it had already con-tacted US-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to tell them they risked being forced to label themselves as “foreign agents”.

Merkel, who has steered Germany through crises including the global financial meltdown and the eurozone’s debt woes, risks having to face new elections if she fails to get the CSU, the FDP and the Greens on board.

Like all other sectors, Qatar has made huge strides in the field of primary health care. According to an international survey that classifies world countries in terms of prosperity, Qatar has been ranked 15th among

the top health care systems in the world; another proud moment for the country.

The ranking is important because the quality of the health care system, including a country’s basic mental and physical health, health infrastructure, and the availability of preventive care, was taken into account for the classification.

Health is one of the key aspects of human development, and progress in health care is an integral part of Qatar National Vision 2030. Keeping this in mind, Qatar yesterday hosted the International Primary Health Care Conference under the banner of “Healthier Communities, Brighter Future”.

“Following the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to invest in the nation’s health and wellness as a key priority of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, we are honoured to reflect this drive through our commitment to the continued development of primary healthcare services,” said Dr Mariam Abdulmalik, Managing Director of Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) in her opening remarks.

“The conference will present a platform for knowledge sharing, a forum facilitating discussions of

best practice and a stage reinforcing Qatar’s legacy to promote the health and wellbeing of people through the provision of outstanding healthcare service,” she added.

The Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) was established in implementation of Emiri Decision No. 15 issued on February 20, 2012. It is dedicated to providing the highest levels of health care to the country’s population.

Holding the conference in Qatar at a global level underscores the State’s interest in the health sector and demonstrates the magnitude of spending

and investment in the primary health care systems to build healthier societies.

The health sector in Qatar continues to provide its services with quality and efficiency without interruption despite the siege imposed on Qatar for around six months. All health projects were completed within stipulated time and no project in the health sector was affected by the siege imposed on Qatar.

The blockade did not have an impact on the delivery of services provided by primary health care facilities. The medicine and medical equipment supply to all health centers were also not interrupted due to blockade. The health care system in Qatar is implemented through a clear strategy, and aims to be one of the best health sectors in the region and in the world.

08 SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 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-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

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

Quality health care

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Zimbabwe has an opportunity to set itself on a new path, one that must include democratic elections and respect for human rights.

Rex TillersonUS Secretary of State

The conference will present a platform for knowledge sharing, a forum facilitating discussions of best practice and a stage reinforcing Qatar’s legacy to promote the health and wellbeing of people through the provision of outstanding healthcare service.

The Sultanate of Oman celebrates today, (November 18) the 47th National Day, a day of pride and glory for all the loyal people of Oman, who express their gratitude,

appreciation and love to HM Sultan Qaboos bin Said who revived the ancient glories of Oman and built a full-fledged modern state based on equality and citizenship and seeks to achieve progress, growth and rule of the law for all citizens, renewing the covenant and loyalty to move forward under his banner and behind his wise leadership.

On this glorious day, Omanis feel proud of the achievements made throughout the past 47 years of the blessed renaissance march under the wise leadership of HM Sultan Qaboos bin Said to establish a modern state, which is wit-nessing the world’s contribution to civilization and intellectual presence in the active regional and international forums and achievements of development realized at the internal level in a testimony to the volume of government efforts that have been made since the dawn of the blessed renaissance through development plans and programs, which focused and con-tinue to focus on the people and society. It covered all sectors such as education and higher education, health and social services, electricity and water services, transport, com-munications, ports and airports, and the labor market that accommodates the efforts of men and women alike.

On this glorious anniversary that the nation takes pride in year after year carries a great leader’s march, a promise and a sincere endeavor despite the great challenges to restore Oman’s long-standing status, in which HM the Sultan laid the foundations of national unity as a solid foundation on which sustainable develop-ment efforts are based in the different fields. Oman has become, as outlined by HM the Sul-tan, an oasis of security and prosperity as well as a modern state where all Omanis enjoy decent living, security and safety.

Over the last few decades, the Sultanate of Oman has achieved great milestones in the areas of health, education, basic services and infrastructure, which have raised the living standards of citizens to high levels. These achievements were made possible through the sectoral policies of all government units through the optimal use of resources and allo-cations. The state budget for the year 2017 aims to maintain and strengthen these achieve-ments within the framework of the priorities available through maintaining the level of basic government services such as health, education, training, electricity, water, telecommunications and social security assistance, and to work on improving the quality of the basic government services as much as possible and the high standard of living.

The Omani government has started the National Program for Enhancing Economic Diversification (Tanfeedh), which is one of the national programs of the ninth five-year plan 2016-2020 in a bid to maximize the benefits from the natural and other resources in sectors under special economic conditions and chal-lenges facing the country and other oil producing and exporting world countries as the contribution of oil and gas in GDP declined after the sharp drop in oil prices in world mar-kets and the continuation of that since mid-2014, which was and still is a major source of income. However, these conditions created a new environment to meet these challenges.

Oman celebrates 47th National DayThe Sultanate aims to focus on the

local and international markets to finance these investment projects in accordance with innovative financing solutions in the medium and long term, where innovative finance is one of the most important sec-tors in terms of supporting the plan during the course of the employment sector and the labor market.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has praised the solid financial measures the Sultanate’s government took to reduce the country’s budget defi-cit by increasing the efficiency of the tax system, controlling the current spending and reducing capital spending. The IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for the Mid-dle East and Central Asia said that the Sultanate is making great and continued efforts to encourage the growth of for-eign investment.

On the economic front, the trade bal-ance of the Sultanate had a surplus amounting to Omani Riyal (RO) 492.5 million at the end of the first quarter of 2017, according to preliminary statistics issued by the National Center for Statis-tics and Information. Among projects in the oil and gas sectors, the Sultanate announced this year the completion of the first phase of the Khazzan gas field project, which includes the drilling of 200 wells connected to the central processing unit.

Since the beginning of the blessed renaissance, education has seen close attention from HM Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Statistics showed that 588,339 stu-dents were enrolled in the current academic year 2017-18 distributed over 1,129 public schools in the different prov-inces of the Sultanate. The number of teachers this year was 56,000, while the number of school administrators and technicians was 10,641.

The total number of students at the Sultan Qaboos University this academic year was more than 16,000 in the bach-elor’s degree. The number of students enrolled in institutions of higher educa-tion in the Sultanate was 135,493, including 65,199 students in government institutions and 70,294 in private ones. Omani students enrolled in universities and colleges abroad were 6,297.

In translation of H M Sultan Qaboos bin Said’s keenness to nurture the Omani youth, develop their abilities and make use of their energies to

contribute effectively to the comprehen-sive development process that the country is undergoing in this era, the cabinet issued a statement in October confirming that it has been carrying out all steps supporting this approach. The council set a plan and program to pro-vide to the national workforce 25,000 opportunities for job seekers as a first stage in the public and private institu-tions of the country, with implementation to begin in December. In addition, the council also approved the executive steps that will enable the gov-ernment to continue to absorb more job seekers according to plans and programs for this goal. The Sultanate has given early attention to building and develop-ing an integrated system for food security, including building a strategic food stock system, liberalizing the importing of commodities, stabilizing prices, supporting some commodities, increasing food production and estab-lishing many government companies in this field. For example, Mazoon Dairy Company SAOC (MDC), part of Oman Food Investment Holding Company, signed this year a contract on the main construction of the integrated dairy project, which will be held in Al Sunainah in the governorate of Al Buraymi at a cost of RO 28m, with production starting by the end of 2018.

On the other hand, the Information Technology Authority is working on cre-ating an infrastructure that helps the government to achieve the readiness of digital transformation within the frame-work of the Digital Oman Strategy, an integrated and comprehensive strategy covering all areas of information tech-nology and e-government is one of the seven pillars of the strategy. The author-ity also works on preparing the infrastructure as well as rehabilitation of the society and paying attention to infor-mation security as the Sultanate has achieved a positive transformation in these areas and in the three basic laws related to creating a sophisticated legal environment for electronic transactions. There are more than 1,100 government entities (institutions and its branches) across the country offering 234 inte-grated electronic services within the government network.

The Sultanate has always affirmed in international forums that peace and dia-logue are necessary and important for humanity and that establishing them is a collectively responsibility and that the United Nations must work in this direc-tion and its role requires the support of various countries and the international community to promote national and international interests, and this can only be achieved by giving a strong role to the United Nations to protect humanity from conflicts and wars. The Sultanate also stressed that political and economic con-flicts are the result of the inability of the international community to commit to providing support and assistance to the least developed countries, resulting in many problems and conflicts such as the issue of global migration from different continents. It also created concepts of chaos, revolutions, and instability in many regions and action and cooperation should be addressed to solve it.

Omanis feel proud of the achievements made throughout the past 47 years of the blessed renaissance march under the wise leadership of HM Sultan Qaboos bin Said to establish a modern state, which is witnessing the world’s contribution to civilization and intellectual presence in the active regional and international forums.

ED ITOR IAL

QNA

09SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017 OPINION

withdrew from a runoff vote after government forces beat, killed or intimidated thousands of opposition voters.

Ironically, he’s now been undone by the same advancing years that once protected him from internal challengers who previously seemed con-tent to wait for time to take its toll. Since he entered his 90s, this dynamic changed as it became clearer that Grace Mugabe, an ambitious woman more than 30 years her husband’s junior, was angling for her own shot at the presidency. The scheming and backstabbing culminated last week in the firing of Vice President Mnangagwa – a onetime favorite as Mugabe’s successor – in what was seen as a move to strengthen Grace Mugabe.

Q “Keeping it in the family” isn’t always possible.

Trying to transfer power to a close family mem-ber is hardly an unusual strategy for an ailing potentate. In countries that are not constitutional monarchies, however, it can be a divisive or impos-sible process.

Dubbed “Gucci Grace” within Zimbabwe for her reported shopping habits, Mugabe’s wife was never popular. Perhaps more importantly, her growing influence alienated and upset established figures in the ruling Zanu-PF party and government structure. They were clearly beginning to move against her before last week’s ouster of Mnangagwa.

Nor are the Mugabes the only dominant family in Africa to have had a bad week. Earlier this year, Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos handed power to his deputy after 37 years in office as part of the deal that also put his daughter Isabel in charge of state oil firm Sonangol. It lasted less than three months – she was fired on Wednesday in a move

The speed of events in Zimbabwe this week has taken even experi-enced Africa watchers by surprise. An effective army take-over; President Robert Mugabe

placed under house arrest and his wife – and would-be successor – reportedly fleeing the country. It’s still unclear who will end up running Zimbabwe. But who-ever prevails will need the backing of both the military as well as China, Zimbabwe’s primary foreign investor.

By Thursday, reports indicated the 93-year-old Mugabe was still trying to persuade top generals that he should be allowed to serve out his presidential term until elections next year. The generals were believed to favor handing power to Mugabe’s former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Here are some key lessons from what we now know:

Q China is emerging as a key power-broker on the continent

Nobody in Beijing or Harare is saying whether China was told in advance about plans for the takeover. Shortly before Zim-babwean tanks took to the streets, however, the Chinese Defense Ministry made a point of reporting that Zimbabwe’s top military commander had met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing the previ-ous week.

The news was widely reported, partic-ularly in southern Africa, alongside the breaking coup developments. Many regional observers suspect China, which backed guerrilla fighters from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union move-ment during its war against then-Rhodesia’s white minority regime, was in the loop on events in Harare, and broadly supportive.

With Beijing strikingly increasing its holdings in sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade, expect this kind of signaling to be a key part of events on the continent from now on.

Q No autocrat lasts foreverDescribed by a U.S. ambassador as a

“brilliant tactician,” Mugabe was regarded as one of the great survivors of interna-tional politics. Charming and utterly ruthless, he was willing to use ethnic divi-sion, death squads, media manipulation and a host of other unsavory tools to crush all opponents. In 2008, his main rival

Lessons from Zimbabwe’s coup

analysts said was a clear attempt by new incumbent João Lourenço to trim family power.

Q Entrenched power structures are just that. EntrenchedWhen he was ousted from office last week, it briefly looked

like the end of the road for Mnangagwa. Now, the man some-times nicknamed the “Crocodile” looks likely to be handed power by the actions of the Army.

This is not a uniquely Zimbabwean situation. Egyptian Pres-ident Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is in many respects a similar character, a senior Army official who projected himself as a safe pair of hands through the chaos that followed the ouster of Hosni Mubarak and his sons.

Q Imagery and narrative are crucial.The speed and success of the military takeover in Zimbabwe

contrasts dramatically with the July 2016 attempted coup in Tur-key. Then, a relatively small group of military officers attempted to move against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Taking on a leader who was at the peak of his powers rather than an ailing nonagenarian, they faced a tougher task than their Zimbabwean counterparts. But the Turkish plotters also failed to seize key gov-ernment buildings and allowed Erdogan to address the nation and coordinate with still-loyal military units.

In Zimbabwe, the military appears to have been united. Little force was used – and in at least one case, a poorly-maintained tank was unable to make it to the capital. None of that particu-larly mattered. The speed with which Mugabe was contained, the television appearance of a military spokesman and the visible presence of armored vehicles on streets was enough to show that the political reality had changed.

Whoever takes over in Zimbabwe now will need the back-ing of the military, but that doesn’t mean those behind the seizure of power can expect a free rein. By Thursday, China’s closely-watched state-run “Global Times” was warning that prolonged instability in Zimbabwe might deter further Chinese investment. For Africa, the end of the Mugabe era may mark the start of a new chapter in China’s involvement on the continent.

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Reopening Bahrain and Qatar’s territorial dispute

As the five-month-old Gulf dispute prolongs, Bahraini-Qatari relations are growing signifi-cantly more tense. In recent weeks, Bahrain’s public prosecutor has charged two Shi’ite opposition leaders with spying for Doha, Man-

ama has called for freezing Qatar’s Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) membership, and authorities in the island kingdom have announced that they will not allow Qatar’s nationals and residents to enter Bahrain without obtaining a visa. On top of such allegations and announcements, Bahrain’s reignition of a 19th century-rooted territorial dispute with Qatar earlier this month marked yet another escalation of tension in Manama and Doha’s inimical relationship.

On November 4, Bahrain made a sovereign claim to the Hawar Islands (which it owns) and the coastal town of Zubara, situated in the Qatari peninsula’s northwestern corner and internationally recognized as Qatari territory. Bahrain’s Al Khalifa and Qatar’s Al Thani rulers have dis-

puted these territories throughout history, dating back to the latter’s ascension in the

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe arriving for a graduation ceremony at the Zimbabwe Open University in Harare, where he presides as the Chancellor, yesterday.

Qatari peninsula during the mid-19th cen-tury. Prior to the signing of the Agreement of 1868, in which the British recognized the Al Thani family’s representation of the tribes of the Qatari peninsula, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa royals had settled throughout land that belongs to Qatar.

By 1986, Bahrain and Qatar nearly went to war over their disputed territories rich with gas and oil deposits, yet Saudi media-tory efforts averted such a conflict. In 1991, Doha referred the sovereign dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In March 2001, the ICJ awarded Zubura and the Janan Islands to Qatar and the Hawar Islands to Bahrain. The ICJ also ruled on the territorial status of two reefs in dispute: Al Dibal (awarded to Qatar) and Al Jaradah (awarded to Bahrain). This 2001 ruling was the most complicated case brought before the ICJ and its resolution marked the only time that two Arab states resolved a sovereign dispute through the international court.

Despite the ICJ’s verdict, there is a clear view in Manama of the Doha’ control of Zubara as a violation of Bahrain’s sover-eignty. On November 4, the Arabian island state issued a press release (“Sovereignty and legitimate rights: Historical facts”), which declared that Zubura was “cut off forcibly” from the Bahrainis who have “every right” to claim this land and to “dispute the legitimacy of the Qatari rule on the northern territory”. The statement said that “Bahrain has endured the intolerable and conceded many of its internationally documented historic rights in order to distance the GCC from bilat-eral differences”. In a reference to the GCC’s establishment in 1981, the statement affirmed that the leadership in Manama “agreed to postpone the claim of its rights, accepted the losses and gave up what is rightfully hers in order to ensure the unity of the Gulf”.

Although unclear how or if Bahrain will act vis-à-vis Zubara, Manama’s reopening of this territorial dispute highlights the Qatar crisis’ historical and tribal dimensions. Seem-ingly, all of Bahrain’s grievances against Qatar are now being aired. Bahraini condem-nation of Qatar is not new, yet the GCC’s unravelling is creating a new regional envi-ronment in the Arabian Gulf whereby Bahrain is now challenging the ICJ’s 2001 rul-ing on the island kingdom’s territorial dispute with Qatar, whereas Manama had been silent on the issue over the past 16 years in the interest of the six-member Council that somewhat united Bahrain with Qatar, at least symbolically and in principle.

Since the Gulf dispute broke out, Bah-rain’s longstanding grievances with Qatar have manifested in harsh condemnations of the leadership in Doha on a routine basis. Bahraini officials have accused their Qatari counterparts of plotting subversive activities in the island kingdom and sponsoring Ira-nian-backed terrorism in the archipelago, while Bahraini media outlets now routinely referred to the “regime” (not “State”) of Qatar, as if describing the Islamic Republic. The reignition of this territorial dispute came shortly after Bahrain’s Foreign Minister declared that Bahrain will not attend the GCC summit, planned for next month, if Qatar attends without complying with the blockad-ing countries’ demands for reestablishing diplomatic and economic relations.

When analyzing Manama’s approach to the Gulf dispute, one must consider the extent to which Bahraini foreign policy is under Saudi Arabia’s thumb. Since 2011, Bah-rain has relinquished substantial amounts of autonomy in exchange for financial and security support from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi which have brought all Arabian Gulf states into closer alignment on regional issues, from

the Qatar crisis to Yemen’s civil war and from containing Iran to weakening Lebanese Hez-bollah while backing the Egyptian regime. Although Bahrain was the first country to announce severing ties with Qatar on the morning of June 5—followed minutes later by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Riyadh issued the orders. The reignition of this terri-torial dispute between Manama and Doha is ultimately about the Quartet applying more pressure on Doha with Bahrain using its his-toric claims to territory on mainland Qatar as a lever.

If Bahrain were to make moves to chal-lenge Qatar’s sovereignty over Zubura, a likely outcome would be Manama receiving strong condemnation throughout the inter-national community. Consistent with other aspects of Qatar’s response to the five-month-old blockade, officials in Doha are pointing to international law and interna-tional institutions such as the ICJ in favor of their positions on various issues stemming from the Gulf dispute from trade to academia and human rights to aviation. Unless the ICJ reopens the dispute, Qatar will have the ICJ’s ruling from 16 years ago as a solid basis for its legitimate sovereign claim to Zubura despite Bahraini grievances.

Regardless of what the Bahraini leader-ship seeks to achieve in making sovereign claims to Zubura, Manama is contributing to a sense of hostility in Bahraini-Qatari relations. The reignition of this territorial dispute threatens to further eliminate the potential benefits that both Bahrain and Qatar could have continued to capitalize on following the ICJ’s 2001 ruling while heightening the risks of the Gulf dispute escalating further.

Dr Khalid Al-Jaber is Director, Gulf International Forum and Giorgio Cafiero is CEO, Founder, Gulf State Analytics.

Bahrain’s reignition of a 19th century-rooted territorial dispute with Qatar earlier this month marked yet another escalation of tension in Manama and Doha’s inimical relationship.

Peter AppsReuters

Dr Khalid Al-Jaber & Giorgio Cafiero

10 SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017EUROPE

Climate talks

end; delegates

claim progressBonn AP

Global talks on curb-ing climate change wrapped up yester-day, with delegates and observers claim-

ing progress on several key details of the 2015 Paris accord.

The two-week negotiations focused on a range of issues including transparency, finan-cial assistance for poor nations and how to keep raising coun-tries’ targets for cutting carbon emissions.

“We are making good progress on the Paris agreement work programme, and we are on track to complete that work by the deadline,” Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama told diplomats hours before the meeting in Bonn, Germany, was due to conclude.

Bainimarama, who presided over the talks, faced the chal-lenging task of reconciling the often conflicting positions of rich and poor countries, especially when it comes to what each side needs to do to curb climate change.

By late yesterday, two main issues remained unresolved: the question of how far in advance rich countries need to commit billions in funding to help devel-oping nations, and a dispute over whether Turkey should have access to financial aid meant for poor countries.

Signatories of the Paris agreement want to keep global warming significantly below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. That goal won’t be achieved unless countries make further efforts to sharply reduce carbon emis-sions caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels.

Observers say the US dele-gation played a largely constructive role during the talks, despite the Trump admin-istration’s threat to pull out of the Paris accord.

While one group of Ameri-can officials led by White House adviser George David Banks raised eyebrows by hosting a pro-coal event during the talks, a second group consisting of sea-soned US negotiators quietly got on with the painstaking job of refining the international climate rulebook, said Elliot Diringer, a veteran of such UN meetings.

“It’s a smaller team but a

strong team,” said Diringer, who is the executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Washington think tank. “From all accounts they have been playing a con-structive role in the room advancing largely the same posi-tions as before.”

Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Insti-tute for Climate Impact Research, cautioned that while the Bonn talks might be consid-ered a diplomatic success, little concrete progress has been made on tackling what he called the “coal trap.”

“We are being pressured by the mass of available coal: it’s very cheap on the market but it’s very expensive for society because of air pollution and cli-mate change,” he said, noting that Japan, Turkey, Egypt and

Indonesia plan to keep invest-ing in coal-fired power plants — a major source of carbon emissions.

”I don’t think we’ve done enough here on the rulebook,” said Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid, which represents poor country interests at the talks—citing a lack of “diplomatic leadership” since the departure of the Obama administration.

”We need to have Germany, France, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Japan stepping up and providing real leadership that will actually help deliver the ambition of Paris.”

Union of Concerned Scientists analyst Alden Meyer said a key dispute was money, with developing countries demanding more certainty and transparency from rich nations on their promise to raise climate

finance to $100bn per year by 2020.

Developed nations, he said, “don’t want to make three- or four-year projections of what they are going to provide, year by year. But the developing countries have dug in hard on this one.”

Environmental groups voiced disappointment at Ger-man Chancellor Angela Merkel’s failure to announce a deadline for her country to stop using coal, even as other nations such as Canada, Britain and France committed to a phase-out dur-ing the talks.

Leadership hopes are now being pinned on President Emmanuel Macron of France, who is hosting a climate summit in Paris next month to mark the second anniversary of the land-mark accord.

People in polar bear costumes rest next to a fire yesterday after a performance created by Danish artist Jens Galschiot during the COP23 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany.

Britain names first female ‘Black Rod’ in historic changeLondon AFP

Britain’s state opening of parliament will be managed by a woman

for the first time in 650 years, after the appointment yester-day of Sarah Clarke as the first female “Black Rod”.

Tasked with banging on the House of Commons door to summon MPs to the Queen’s Speech, Black Rod plays a key role in the open-ing of British parliament following an election.

The role falls to a mem-ber of the House of Lords — from where the monarch addresses lawmakers—and the new appointment will see Clarke named the first “Lady Usher of the Black Rod”.

The former director of the Wimbledon tennis champi-onships, Clarke will take up the role of managing politi-cal players in January after “Gentleman Usher” David Leakey steps down.

Clarke said she was “both deeply honoured and delighted” to be offered the post. “The House of Lords is a place where the smallest detail is as important as the big picture and the depth of heritage and tradition is sec-ond to none,” she said.

As well as managing the state opening of parliament, Black Rod also runs other cer-emonial state events.

Clarke’s staff will include the Lords’ doorkeepers and the Yeoman Usher, who is in charge of carrying the mace used to bang on the House of Commons door.

Prince’s vision spurs new Cornwall coastal villageNewquay AFP

In his long wait to become Britain’s king, Prince Charles has pursued his

passion for architecture. His latest brainchild is a new neighbourhood in a deprived area of Cornwall in England’s southwestern corner.

“Nansledan” (“Broad Val-ley” in Cornish) is an extension of the seaside resort of Newquay, popular with surfers and young revellers, and aims to provide environ-mentally friendly housing and give a shot in the arm to the former mining region’s economy.

“We are looking to create a viable community... we will be building a school, we’re building a church, offices, shops,” said Alastair Martin, from The Duchy of Cornwall, the prince’s estate.

With an architectural focus on combining tradition and modernity, the new one- and two-storey houses line neat streets with Cornish names.

The homes’ stone and pastel-hued facades as well as the slate roofs are a delib-erate effort to help blend the homes in with the area’s older buildings.

Unlike many suburbs where the car is king and eve-rything is a drive away, Nansledan has its own amen-ities and is a short walk to the shore and town centre.

Developers hope the project will regenerate and diversify Newquay’s econ-omy, which currently relies on tourism and low-paid sea-sonal jobs.

Broadening of Brexit talks could be in doubt: EU leadersGoteborg AP

European Union leaders warned Britain yesterday that it must do much more

to convince them that Brexit talks should be broadened to cover future relations and trade from next month onward.

At an EU summit in Sweden, Prime Minister Theresa May’s government was urged to clar-ify how much Britain will pay in settlement of its financial accounts with the bloc and to ensure that there is no hard bor-der created between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

“I made it very clear to Prime Minister May that this progress needs to happen at the begin-ning of December at the latest.

If there is no sufficient progress by then, I will not be in a posi-tion to propose new guidelines on transition and the future rela-tionship” at the summit in Brussels on December 14-15, said EU Council President Donald Tusk.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, 2019, but it must complete the complex and unprecedented departure proc-ess by next October so that parliaments can ratify any agreement.

May desperately wants to discuss future relations and trade, and EU leaders have sug-gested they could be ready to expand the talks next month if “sufficient progress” is made on the divorce bill, the status of Irish borders and the rights of citizens

hit by Brexit. “Great Britain need to clarify what they mean with the financial responsibility,” the summit host, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, told reporters in the city of Goteborg.

“We all hope that we can decide on the next phase but we still have some way to go,” he said.

Britain has suggested that it might be willing to pay €20bn ($23n) to fulfil its financial com-mitments, while EU officials have said the figure would more likely be between 60 and €100bn ($71-118bn).

When Tusk was told that Britain’s chief negotiator, David Davis, believes Britain is doing most of the compromising, he countered: “I really appreciate

Mr Davis’s English sense of humour.”

Irish Prime Minister Leo Var-adkar said there is no chance of progress unless he gets clear guar-antees that Brexit will not result in any new barriers between his country and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

“We’ve been given assur-ances . that there will be no hard border in Ireland, that there won’t be any physical infrastruc-ture, that we won’t go back to the borders of the past,” Varad-kar said. “We want that written down in practical terms in the conclusions of phase one.”

“It’s 18 months since the (Brexit) referendum. It’s 10 years since people who wanted a ref-erendum started agitating for one. Sometimes it doesn’t seem

like they’ve thought all this through,” he said, of May’s government.

The British government insists that the preliminary issues and future relations are inextri-cably linked and should be discussed together, and May remained hopeful that she will get the green light from EU lead-ers at their next summit in Brussels on December 14-15.

“Of course we want to move forward together, talking about the trade issues and trade part-nership for the future,” she said.

“I look forward to the Euro-pean Union responding positively to that so we can move forward together and ensure that we can get the best possible arrangements for the future.”

Belgian prosecutors want Puigdemont extraditedBrussels AFP

Belgian prosecutors asked a judge yesterday to extradite axed Catalan-

separatist leader Carles Puigdemont to Spain to face sedition charges over his region’s independence drive, with the court setting a date of December 4 for the next hearing.

Madrid issued a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont and four of his former minis-ters after they fled to Brussels last month and ignored a sum-mons to appear before a Spanish judge, claiming they would not get a fair trial.

Lawyers for the Catalan separatists said prosecutors had formally asked the judge

to approve the warrant dur-ing a hearing behind closed doors in Brussels yesterday—the first round in what could become a protracted court-room battle.

“The prosecutors asked for the execution of the European arrest warrant” issued by Madrid, lawyer Christophe Marchand told reporters after-wards at the Palace of Justice in Brussels.

The proceedings were post-poned until December 4, when the defence will put their case, a prosecutor’s statement said.

”This decision was made to ensure that all parties involved can prepare and clarify their position regard-ing the execution of the European arrest warrants,” the statement added.

Lawyers of axed Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont talk to the press at the Palace of Justice in Brussels yesterday.

“We are making good progress on the Paris agreement work programme, and we are on track to complete that work by the deadline,” Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said.

11SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017 AMERICAS

Shoppers wait in line to pay for purchases as the holiday shopping season kicks off with ‘El Buen Fin’ (The Good Weekend), at a Sam’s Club store, in Mexico City, yesterday.

Holiday shopping

Santiago AFP

After four years of socialist rule, Chile is expected to revert to the right in elec-

tions tomorrow, with Sebastian Pinera set to return as president, confirming a shift to conservative leaders across Latin America.

Opinion polls make Pinera, a 67-year-old billionaire

businessman sometimes referred to as “Chile’s Berlus-coni”, the hot favourite to return to the presidency he occupied from 2010-2014.

The last comprehensive opinion poll of an uneventful election campaign, in late Octo-ber, gave him a 34.5 percent share of the vote in resource-rich Chile, one of Latin America’s strongest economies.

However, he is likely to fall short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off on December 17. Socialist candidate Alejandro Guillier is his closest challenger, polling just 15.4 percent.

Pinera grew his vast fortune, estimated by Forbes as $2.7bn, from his founding of a credit card company in the mid-1970s, and interests in Chilean airline LAN and TV channel Chilevision.

His likely return comes when much of the region has reverted to conservative governments after periods of leftist rule.

Chile is set to be the latest domino to fall after electoral successes by Mauricio Macri in Argentina, Pedro Pablo Kuczyn-ski in Peru and Brazil’s elevation of Michel Temer to replace impeached leftist Dilma Rousseff.

Caracas/Bogota Reuters

Veteran Venezuelan opposition leader Antonio Ledezma, under house arrest after his 2015 arrest

for alleged coup plotting, escaped across the border to Colombia yesterday.

Ledezma, the best-known detained opponent of leftist Pres-ident Nicolas Maduro after Leopoldo Lopez, said he had gone past 29 police and army controls during a clandestine, overland journey that he kept secret from his loved ones.

“I ask my wife and daughters to understand. They have suf-fered long hours of anguish without knowing where I was,” he told reporters in the Colom-bian border town of Cucuta after crossing a bridge from San Anto-nio in Venezuela. “It was my decision alone.”

The 62-year-old former Caracas metropolitan mayor had spearheaded street protests against Maduro in 2014 that led to months of violence and 43 deaths. Maduro mocked him as “The Vampire”, and officials accused him of helping violent hardliners, including dissident military officers plotting to top-ple the president via air strikes.

Ledezma denied those charges as being trumped up. “Welcome to freedom!” tweeted former Colombian President Andres Pas-trana, who is close to Venezuela’s opposition and the families of other jailed activists.

“I salute Antonio Ledezma, moral compass for Venezuela,” said Organization of American States (OAS) head Luis Almagro, who has also been a vocal backer of Venezuela’s opposition.

With a 2018 presidential election looming, an array of major Venezuelan opposition figures are now in exile, deten-tion or barred from holding office. They say Maduro has turned Venezuela into a dicta-torship, while the government accuses them of joining forces with a US-led global plot to top-ple him.

Before boarding a private plane to Bogota, Ledezma said

he was planning a “global pil-grimage” to fight for political freedom in Venezuela. He thanked Colombia’s government, which also recently gave asylum to another high-profile Venezue-lan dissident, former state prosecutor Luisa Ortega.

“It’s time for him (Maduro) to step aside and allow a transi-tion government,” he said. “Maduro cannot keep torturing the Venezuelan people, he’s kill-ing Venezuelans with hunger.”

The South American Opec nation of 30 million people is suffering a fourth year of brutal recession, with the highest infla-tion in the world, shortages of food and medicines, and many people having to skip meals or suffering preventable illnesses.

Ledezma, along with another opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, has been part of the more militant wing of Venezue-la’s opposition coalition. Both oppose a planned new political dialogue between the opposition and government scheduled for early December in the Domini-can Republic.

“I left my flag with Maria Corina Machado, in whom I trust completely,” Ledezma told reporters. State media have long demonized Ledezma, repeatedly showing a video where detained student radical Lorent Saleh

praises him as “an old fox ... the politician who most supported the resistance”.

“Chavistas”, as government supporters are known after Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, have also long vilified him for supporting a brief 2002 coup and accused him of corrup-tion. Intelligence agents took Ledezma from his office in the banking district of Caracas in

February 2015 after breaking down doors and firing shots in the air. He was originally held at the Ramo Verde military prison before being placed under house arrest.

Ledezma won the Caracas mayoralty in 2008, but some of his functions and funding were quickly transferred to a new, pro-government office. Upstaged by younger opposition leaders,

Ledezma was not viewed as a future presidential candidate.

Machado told reporters Ledezma had been under increasing pressure from author-ities and had faced threats to return him to Ramo Verde due to his opposition to the political dialogue. “We believe in real negotiations, but only ones that lead to the exit of the dictator-ship,” she told reporters.

Venezuela oppn leader flees to Colombia

The former mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, 62, speaks with journalists at Camilo Daza International Airport in Cucuta, Colombia, yesterday, after escaping house arrest in the Venezuelan capital.

With a 2018 presidential election looming, an array of major Venezuelan opposition figures are now in exile, detention or barred from holding office.

View of the”Blue Water” river main waterfall, in Tumbala municipality, Chiapas state, Mexico.

San Cristóbal de las Casas AFP

The Agua Azul waterfalls in southern Mexico are a playground of bright tur-

quoise water cascading over limestone steps. But after a pow-erful earthquake hit the country, they dried up — and the area’s once-booming tourist economy along with them.

The state of Chiapas, where the falls trickle near the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque, was the epicenter of the 8.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Mexico on September 7, killing 96 people. Besides flattening houses and buildings across a broad swathe of southern Mexico, the quake,

along with thousands of after-shocks, also altered the bed of the Agua Azul river.

The tremors — together with the normal erosion of the lime-stone whose minerals give the water its bright colour — col-lapsed a portion of the river’s left bank, said Mexico’s National Water Commission.

That shifted the flow of water to another branch of the river and caused the water level to drop by nearly a metre (three feet), leaving the falls completely dry in many places.

Locals watched in alarm this month as the water dried up from one day to the next, mak-ing them fear for the future of a tourist attraction that draws

thousands of visitors a day from around the world.

“If there are no tourists, there are no jobs,” local businessman Juan Manuel Hernandez said. The government vowed to study the problem and seek a solution. But not content to sit back and wait, locals have taken matters into their own hands.

Using shovels and pickaxes, they partially restored the riv-erbed to its original course, bringing back a trickle of the famously bright blue water. After moving as much stone and sediment as they could by hand, they have asked the authorities for heavy machinery they hope will help them bring the falls back to their full flow.

Turquoise waterfalls dry up after Mexico earthquakes

Buenos Aires AFP

Argentina’s navy said yesterday that it has launched a search

operation for one of its sub-marines with a crew of 44 which has been reported missing off the south coast.

The navy said it had not had contact with the subma-rine, the San Juan, for 48 hours. “We have not been able to find, or have visual or radar communication with the submarine,” navy spokes-man Enrique Balbi told a news conference.

The TR-1700 class diesel electric submarine had been returning from a routine mis-sion to Ushuaia near the southernmost tip of South America, to its base at Mar del Plata, around 400km south of Buenos Aires.

The San Juan’s last contact with the navy command was on Wednesday morning, Balbi said. Argentina said it launched an air and sea search on Thursday, involving a destroyer and two corvettes.

An initial search in an area around the sub’s last known position, some 430km off the southeastern Valdez peninsula, provided no clues. Balbi said the search was hampered “because it was carried out at night and in bad meteorological conditions prevailing in the area of operations”.

The navy denied a press report that there may have been a fire onboard. Balbi appealed for caution.

Washington AFP

The US Congress on Thurs-day overwhelmingly authorised $700bn in

national defence spending for next year, a substantial increase over Donald Trump’s request, and sent the measure to the president for his signature.

The National Defence Authorization Act of 2018 is a negotiated compromise between the two chambers of Congress. The Senate passed it Thursday on a unanimous voice vote, two days after it cleared the House on a vote of 356 to 70.

The bill is some $26bn above Trump’s initial military budget requests, and about 15 percent higher than the authorization in 2016, the last full year of Barack Obama’s presidency.

It provides for $626bn in base budget requirements, $66bn for Overseas Contin-gency Operations, or war-fighting, and an additional $8bn for other defence activi-ties. Increased spending is allocated for new F-35 fighter jets, ships and M1 Abrams tanks, military pay is raised by 2.4 per-cent and $4.9bn is reserved for Afghanistan security forces,

including a program integrat-ing women into the country’s national defence.

It also authorizes $12.3bn for the Missile Defence Agency to bolster homeland, regional, and space missile defenses, including the expansion of ground-based interceptors and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system, which has been recently deployed in South Korea. The figure is substan-tially more than Trump’s baseline missile defense request, at a time of heightened tensions with North Korea over its testing of nuclear devices and ballistic missiles.

Lawmakers including Sena-tor John McCain, a defence hawk who routinely berates adminis-trations for not spending enough to improve defense readiness, praised the bill’s passage as a sign Congress was eager to rebuild military strength.

McCain said he hoped Trump would sign the measure and “acknowledge that this is the level of defence spending necessary to meet current threats, prepare for the chal-lenges of an increasingly dangerous world, and keep faith with our men and women in uniform.”

$700bn defence bill sent to Trump for signature

Argentine navy says submarine missing

Businessman Pinera closes in on Chile presidency

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Yesterday’s answer

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AL KHOR

Yesterday's answer

Justice League (2D/Action) 10:00, 10:30, 11:30am, 12:00noon, 12:30, 1:00, 2:00, 2:45, 3:00, 4:30, 5:30, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 8:15, 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, 11:00, 11:15pm & 12:00midnightThor: Ragnarok (2D/Action) 10:10, 12:45, 3:30, 6:15, 9:00 & 11:45pmMonster Island (2D/Animation) 10:30am, 12:30, 2:30 & 4:30pm Wonder (2D/Horror) 6:30, 9:00 & 11:30pmFemale Fight Squad (2D/Action) 10:00am, 2:00, 6:00 & 10:00pmJigsaw (2D/Horror) 12:00noon, 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnightBoo: 2 A Madea (2D/Horror) 10:00am, 2:30, 7:00 & 11:30pm Escape Room (2D/Thriller) 12:15, 4:45 & 9:15pmMurder On The Orient Express (2D/Drama) 10:30am, 1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30 & 11:00pmJustice League(3DIMAX/Action) 11:30am, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30 & 12:00midnight

Tharangam (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 11:00pm Monster Island (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 4:00pmJustice League (2D/Action) 5:30, 7:30, 9:30 & 11:30pmGhost Bride (2D/Tagalog) 5:15pm Wonder (2D/Drama) 7:15pm Tumhari Sulu (Hindi) 8:30pm Seven Sundays (Tagalog) 9:15pmTheeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2D/Tamil) 2:15 & 5:30pm Khair Wa Baraka (2D/Arabic) 11:30pm

Tharangam (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 11:00pm The Giant King (Animation) 5:00, 7:00 & 9:00pm Monster Island (2D/Animation) 3:00 & 5:00pmJustice League (2D/Action) 7:30, 9:30 & 11:30pm Ghost Bride (2D/Tagalog) 7:00pm Khair Wa Baraka (2D/Arabic) 9:00pm Female Flight Squad (2D/Action) 11:00pm Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2D/Tamil) 5:15, 8:00 & 11:00pm

Tumhari Sulu (Hindi) 2:30 & 8:00pm Tharangam (2D/Malayalam) 5:15pm Monster Island (2D/Animation) 3:00 & 5:00pmGhost Bride (2D/Tagalog) 5:30 & 7:30pm Justice League (2D/Action) 7:30, 9:30 & 11:30pm Wonder (2D/Drama) 9:30pm Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2D/Tamil) 2:30 & 11:00pm Female Flight Squad (2D/Action) 11:30pm

Tharangam (Malayalam) 12:30, 3:30, 3:45, 6:30, 9:15 & 9:30pm; Theeran (Tamil) 12:30, 1:30, 3:30, 4:30, 6:30, 7:30, 9:30 & 10:30pm Tumhari Sulu (Hindi) 6:45pm Sherlock Toms (Malayalam) 1:00pm

Justice League (Action) 11:15am, 12:45, 1:45, 3:15, 4:15, 5:45, 6:45, 8:15, 9:15, 10:45 & 11:45pm Theeran (Tamil) 11:15am, 2:15, 5:15, 8:15 & 11:15pm

Mother Island (Animation12:00noon, 1:50, 3:40, 5:30 & 7:20pm Wonder (Drama) 12:00noon, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30 & 10:00pmJustice League (Action) 12:00noon, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30 & 10:00pm Tharangam (Malayalam) 12:00noon, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 & 11:55pm

Theeran (Tamil) 3:00, 9:10pm & 12:00midnight

15SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2017 MORNING BREAK

A visitor looks at a complete mammoth skeleton that is displayed before its auction by Aguttes auction house in Lyon, yesterday.

Mammoth auction

FAJRSHOROOK

04.33am

05.53 am

ZUHR 11.19 am

ASR 02.24 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

04.47 pm

06.17 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 05:15 – 16:15 LOW TIDE 11:30 – 22:30

Moderate temperature daytime and

scattered clouds with weak chance

of rain at places.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

23oC 29oC

AP

A well-preserved issue of the 1938 comic book that first featured

Superman is heading to the auction block. Profiles in His-tory announced Friday that it will sell a copy of Action Com-ics #1 at a Dec. 19 auction in Los Angeles. The comic, which features Superman hoisting a car over his head on its cover, is expected to sell for between $800,000 to $1.2m.

The auction house says the comic is in its original con-dition and has been rated in fine/very fine condition. The sale comes a few months before the 80th anniversary of Superman’s debut.

Book on Superman’s 1st appearance to be auctioned

Berlin Reuters

Films about terrorism, migra-tion and the struggle for women’s rights swept Ger-many’s Bambi awards, with Chinese dissident and film-

maker Ai Weiwei urging the star-studded audience to keep faith in humanity.

“Courage not only belongs to the people who accept the refugees, but also the 65 million people who have lost their homes, who keep some hope in their minds,” said Weiwei, a refu-gee himself who has lived in Berlin since 2015. “We must trust in courage ... we must trust in humanity,” said Weiwei, who was honoured for his film “Human Flow.”

The Bambi awards have been awarded annually since 1948 to those with vision and creativity. The 2017 ceremony reflected the many crises erupting around the world.

Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin won a Bambi for his Oscar-nom-inated film “In the Fade,” which stars German-born Diane Kruger as a woman whose husband and young son are killed in a far-right bomb attack.

Akin, the son of Turkish immi-grants, made the film as a response to growing right-wing violence in Ger-many. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won seats in the lower house of parliament for the first time in the Sept. 24 election, after campaigning against Germany’s deci-sion in 2015 to allow in over a million mainly Muslim migrants.

“Racism is crap - here and every-where in the world,” Akin said.

Alicia von Rittberg was honoured as female actor of the year for her por-trayal of a headstrong nurse in “Charite”, a television series set at Ber-lin’s famed Charite hospital near the end of the 19th century, who fights to become a doctor.

Former German President Joachim

Gauck, who helped lead East German protests before the fall of the Berlin Wall, won a Bambi award for a life-time of service.

Gauck saluted the 30 million peo-ple in Germany, over a third of the population, who volunteer their time to work with refugees and on many other programmes. “We have lots of

unsolved problems, but we have become a role model for many, he said.

Others recognised during the star-studded evening included German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who said she was “living proof that if you dare to dream ... great things can happen,” and German singer and television host Helene Fischer.

Films about migration and terrorism win German Bambi awards

Nurse Waltraud Huber receives the Bambi trophy from German singer Florian Silbereisen during the Bambi 2017 Awards ceremony in Berlin, yesterday.

Miami AFP

Passenger pigeons were once so plentiful they could darken the day-

time sky when they flew over North America, but oddly, their abundance may have played a role in their extinc-tion, researchers said.

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, the pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius), evolved quickly and in the process, lost certain traits that might have been useful for surviving in smaller groups, said the study in the journal Science. The findings have implications for other creatures threatened by swift changes in the world around them.

“Our results suggest that even species with large and stable population sizes can be at risk of extinction after a sudden environmental change,” said the study led by Beth Shapiro, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Numbering three to five billion before they began to decline in the 1800s due to a surge in hunting, these social birds were once “the most abundant bird in North America, and possibly the world,” said the report.

And although large pop-ulations of animals tend to be genetically quite diverse, researchers were stunned by their analysis of four extinct pigeon genomes, which were compared to two modern

carrier pigeons.They found that passen-

ger pigeon diversity was “surprisingly low,” said the study. Researchers also found areas of very high diversity in the genomes, which told researchers the birds had been around for 20,000 years or more -- another sur-prise. The last passenger pigeon died in a US zoo in 1914.

Until now, the prevailing theory was the birds went extinct due to a booming commercial hunting indus-try that forced their populations to become demographically isolated, leading to lots of inbreeding, lower genetic diversity and weaker health.

But the latest findings

suggest the reason was more complex. The birds evolved quickly and may have adapted to large social groups, hunting and breed-ing together.

Flying in gargantuan masses, their sheer size pro-tected them against predators.

But in smaller groups, the theory goes, these defenses fell short, leading the birds’ relatively quick die-off in the matter of a few decades.

“Passenger pigeons may have evolved traits that were adaptive when their popula-tion was large but that made it more difficult for them to survive after their population was diminished by the com-mercial harvest,” said the report.

Passenger pigeons needed big flocks to survive

Los Angeles Reuters

George Clooney will make his return to television in a serialized adaptation of

“Catch-22,” Paramount Televi-sion said , nearly 20 years after he left hit show “ER” to become one of film’s biggest names.

Clooney will direct and star in the six-episode series, based on US author Joseph Heller’s darkly comedic 1961 novel “Catch-22,” for Viacom Inc’s Paramount Television and Anonymous Content, shooting in early 2018, the studio said.

The show has not yet been acquired by a network for dis-tribution but is likely to draw eager bidders given Clooney’s involvement.

“Catch-22” follows a

US soldier named Yossarian during World War Two, who is infuriated that his own army keeps raising the number of missions that a soldier must complete to be released from duty. Yossarian’s only way to avoid the missions is to declare insanity, but the only way to prove insanity is a willingness to embark on dangerous mis-sions, thus creating the novel’s absurd ‘catch-22.’ Clooney, 56, will play Yossarian’s com-mander, Colonel Cathcart. No other cast has yet been announced. The actor’s move to television comes on the heels of Oscar-winning stars such as Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kid-man, Julia Roberts, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas, who have all taken on small screen projects in recent years.

George Clooney makes TV return with ‘Catch-22’

London IANS

Are you a dog lover? Your care and compassion for pets, espe-cially dogs, can help you stay

away from heart diseases. Dog own-ers have a low risk of developing cardiovascular diseases that further enables them to reduce the risk of mortality, a new research confirmed.

The study, published in the

journal Scientific Reports, states that dog owners in general had a higher level of physical activity, which could be counted as the one reason to pre-vent heart diseases. Other reasons might involve an increased well-being and social contacts or effects of the dog on the bacterial microbiome in the owner.

“Dog ownership is especially prominent as a protective factor for people living alone, which is a group reported previously to be at higher risk

of cardiovascular disease and death than those living in a multi-person household. Perhaps a dog may stand in as an important family member in the single households,” said Mwenya Mubanga, researcher at the Uppsala University in Sweden.

“The results showed that single dog owners had a 33 per cent reduction in risk of death and 11 per cent reduction in risk of cardiovascular disease dur-ing follow-up compared to single non-owners. Another interesting

finding was that owners to dogs from breed groups originally bred for hunt-ing were most protected,” Mubanga added. The research team reviewed more than 3.4 million dog owners, aged between 40 to 80 years, over a period of 12 years, in order to study the association between dog ownership and cardiovascular health.

A total of more than 3.4 million individuals without any prior cardio-vascular disease in 2001 were included in the researchers’ study.

Having a pet dog can lower heart disease risk

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