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Two injured as Ghubra petrol station catches fi re

Staff Reporter

MUSCAT: Two people were in-jured and some vehicles were damaged in a fi re at a petrol sta-tion in Al Ghubra on Tuesday.

While the Public Authority of Civil Defence and Ambulance

(PACDA) offi cials said they were investigating the cause of the fi re, they advised motorists to exercise caution while fi lling petrol.

Sending out instructions on Twitter, they asked motorists to switch off the vehicle’s engine while refuelling.

They also asked people not to smoke or talk on mobile phones at petrol stations.

The tweet from PACDA urged people to report any spillage to the staff . They also asked petrol sta-tion attendants to ensure that the fuel pump nozzle is disconnected

from the car fuel tank before the vehicle leaves.

On June 3, a car caught fi re while refuelling in Bidbid at around 8am. In another incident, on June 2, a car caught fi re at a petrol station in Yanqul.

During the previous incidents,

a PACDA offi cial had told the Times of Oman that with the high temperatures being recorded in the country, incidents of fi re were triggered off quite easily. The of-fi cial called on motorists to install fi re extinguishers in their vehicles and to abide by the rules.

P R O B E O N

HM sends greetings

MUSCAT: His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has sent a cable of congratulations to President Dr Olafur Ragnar Grímsson of Iceland on his country’s National Day. In his cable, His Majesty the Sultan has expressed his sincere congratulations and best wishes of good health and happiness to President Grímsson and the peo-ple of Iceland further progress and prosperity. -ONA

C A B L E

BLAZE: The Al Ghubra petrol station seen up in fl ames, and right, fi refi ghters try to put out the blaze. -O K Mohammad Ali

‘Expats should get minimum wage in Oman’

REJIMON K, FAHAD GHADANIreji@timesofoman.comfahadnews@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: A call for expat work-ers in Oman to get a guaranteed minimum wage under revised labour laws has come from a lead-ing trade union member in the Sultanate.

“At present, there is no mention of minimum wages in the labour law either for nationals or mi-grant workers. However, in 2013, a ministerial decree ensured that nationals were guaranteed a min-imum wage, even though it was not mentioned in the labour law,” Mohammed Al Khaldi, board member of General Federation of Oman Trade Union (GFOTU), told the Times of Oman.

“But the migrant worker was left in the lurch. Bringing in a sys-tem can improve the entire labour system in Oman,” said Moham-med Al Khaldi.

In 2013, the Ministry of Man-

power issued Decree No. 222, which mandated, eff ective from July 1, 2013, that the minimum salary of Omanis working in the private sector was to be increased to OMR325 from the existing OMR200. Accordingly, private sector establishments were told to increase the minimum salaries of Omani employees being paid less than OMR325.

The call to introduce minimum wages for migrant workers has not been welcomed by all though.

Ahmed Al Busaidi, Majlis Al Shura member, said he felt that there is no need to consider such a move as it would complicate the

labour market. “Wages should be decided between the employers and employees,” he said.

Al Busaidi also added, “If any-one gets less than they were promised they should approach the Ministry of Manpower or their ministries.”

Negative consequencesAhmed Al Hooti, member of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also feels that intro-ducing such rules would lead to negative consequences.

It is important to see that mi-grant workers get what they are promised at the time of recruit-ment rather than ensuring mini-mum wages for them, he said.

However Shaji Sebastin, a Muscat-based social worker, said, “If the new labour law guaran-tees minimum wage system for migrant workers too, it would be a great move. This can solve a lot of Omani labour market issues. Of course, in the job contract, the salary is mentioned. But as minimum wage is not a rule for migrant workers in Oman even when they are doing the same job, migrant workers get employed for diff erent salaries.”

Shaji added, “Minimum wage can also help migrant workers’ home country governments to prepare their citizens while they are getting ready to take up jobs in Oman. When the guarantee comes from the labour law, the migrant can feel more secure. It can protect migrant work-ers from being denied decent salaries.” >A6

Offi cial from General

Federation of Oman

Trade Union says

the revisions in the

labour law should

help expats too

OMANFirms to give special offers to businessmen

1 A number of companies have joined hands with the Public Authority for Small and

Medium Enterprises Development (riyada) to provide special off ers to entrepreneurs. The call centre of the Muscat Municipality will also be used for SMEs. >A3

OMANMinistry of Health to monitor drug prices

2 Regular inspections will be carried out by the Directorate General of

Pharmaceutical Aff airs and Drug Control of the Ministry of Health to check prices of drugs at pharmacies. The inspection will be conducted by the department concerned. >A5

SPORTSKhan clan to propel squash in Oman

3 A person who is impressed with the growth of squash in Oman, is a member of the

Khan clan, which has ruled the sport for many years. For those who have played squash in Oman years ago, it will ring a bell. We are talking about Yousaf Khan. >C1

T O P T H R E E I N S I D E S T O R I E S

A6Minister of Justice to open Sumail mosque

Moon sighting committee for Ramadan to meet today

MUSCAT: Moon Sighting Main Committee for 1436 AH led by Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Salmi, Minister of Awqaf and Religious Aff airs, will meet on Wednesday evening.

Members of the committee in-clude His Eminence Sheikh Ahmed bin Hamad Al Khalili, Grand Mufti of the Sultanate, Sayyid Harbi bin Hamad bin Saud, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Awqaf and Reli-gious Aff airs, Eng. Khalid bin Hilal Al Busaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, Sheikh Abdul-lah bin Rashid Al Siyabi, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court, Sheikh Ahmed Al Khatib, Judge of the Supreme Court in Salalah.

The reports of the Astronomical Aff airs at the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Aff airs point out that the calculations on the sight-ing of moon for the Holy Month of Ramadan 1436 AH show that the moon may be sighted in all the gov-ernorates on Wednesday evening, if the skies are clear and there are no aerial factors to aff ect vision.

The moon is expected to be vis-ible for more than 40 minutes in Oman. It will set in Muscat at 7.30pm and the sun will set at 6.55pm. In Salalah, the moon will set at 7.43pm and the sunset will be at 6.59pm. This means the moon will set 44 minutes after the sunset. -ONA

B E G I N N I N G O F R A M A D A N

The moon is expected to be vis-

ible for more than 40 minutes

in the governorates of Oman.

Omani rials is the

minimum salary

guaranteed to

a citizen in

the private sector

325

Oman’s expatriate workforce counted at 1.6 million by MayMUSCAT: Oman’s expatriate workforce reached 1,614,545 by the end of May 2015, according to statistics issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Informa-tion (NCSI), marking a 0.6 per cent increase since last April.

In April 2014, the number was 1,604,158. Holders of preparatory school certifi cates comprised a majority of expatriate workers while the holders of higher diplo-mas, Masters degrees and PhDs showed a drop.

Indians comprise the bulkAs for the nationalities, Indians comprised the bulk of expatriate workers in the Sultanate.

The Indians working in the Sultanate numbered 626,721, an increase of 1.1 per cent, which in-

cluded 34,259 females and 592,462 male workers.

Workers from Bangladesh numbered 557,606, an increase of 0.6 per cent. This fi gure com-prised 26,710 female workers and 530,896 males.

The percentage of Pakistani workers also increased 0.3 per cent to reach 215,781, which included 1,155 females and 214,626 males.

The number of Ethiopian ex-patriates showed a drop of 3.1 per cent. From 29,880 workers, fe-males made up a whopping 29,607 and males numbered just 273.

Female workers also constitut-ed a majority of Indonesian expa-triates. They numbered 38,269 out of a total of 38,914.

The number of expatriates com-ing from the Philippines touched

32,075, which included 21,474 fe-males and 10,601 male workers.

Egyptian workers decreased 0.2 per cent to reach 23,373 comprising 4,885 females and 18,488 males.

Nepalese workers numbered 12,781, which included 3,409 fe-males, while the number of Sri Lankan workers reached 13,843 of which 7,070 were females.

The number of workers from other nationalities touched 63,571, showing a growth rate of 1.5 per cent. The largest number of expa-triates was recorded in the Muscat governorate, which accommodat-ed 722,983 workers, an increase of 0.7 per cent. It was followed by North Al Batinah, which accom-modated 208,857 expatriates, an increase of 0.4 per cent. >A6

D A T A

0

1

2 million

Expatriate workers by May 2015

Source: National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI)

India 626,721

Bangladesh 557,606

Pakistan 215,781

Ethiopia 29,880

Indonesia 38,914

Philippines 32,075

Egypt 23,373

Nepal 12,781

Sri Lanka 13,843

Others 63,571

1,527,241 1,565,523

December2013

October2014

May2015

By gender By nationality1,425,966

188,579

Male Female Private Public

By sector

1,303,637

310,908

Graphics

1,614,545

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Corporates, riyada to support SMEsELHAM POURMOHAMMADI elham@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: A number of compa-nies have joined hands with the Public Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Develop-ment (riyada), to provide special off ers to entrepreneurs.

Under the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) signed on Tuesday, the products and ser-vices of these companies in vari-ous fi elds, including training and development, will be off ered to SMEs at discounted rates, said a riyada offi cial.

“It shows the real partnership between the government sec-tor and the private sector for the benefi t of SMEs,” the offi cial told reporters after the signing cer-

emony attended by Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Masoud Al Sunaidy and a num-ber of other senior offi cials and entrepreneurs.

The MoUs were signed with Oman Air, Omantel, Bank Nizwa, Tecnimont Civil Construction, Maire Tecnimont, Insight for Fi-nancial and Business Consult-ing, DHL Express, Oman Data Park and Prosper Management Consultancy.

The call centre of the Muscat Municipality will also be used for SMEs as part of the coopera-tion between the municipality and riyada.

The offi cial noted that those entrepreneurs who are registered with riyada and hold ‘riyada card’ can utilise the services and prod-

ucts off ered under the signed MoUs. There are above 500 riyada card holders, he said.

He added that more companies are expected to come on board to support SMEs in cooperation with riyada.

The progress made on the deci-sions of the symposium for SMEs held at Sultan Qaboos University earlier this year was also discussed during the event. A number of government bodies, including the Ministry of Education, the Min-istry of Higher Education, riyada, the Ministry of Housing, the Min-istry of Civil Services, the Min-istry of Finance and the Tender Board, delivered presentations on the latest steps that they have taken to implement the decisions related to SMEs.

Under the agreement,

the products and

services of these

companies in various

fi elds, including

training and

development, will be

off ered to SMEs at

discounted rates CORPORATE PARTNERS: Entrepreneurs who are registered with

riyada and hold ‘riyada card’, can utilise the services and products

off ered. – AR Rajkumar/TIMES OF OMAN

A4 W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

OMAN 21Colleges and universities across the Sultanate,

and over 700 students will be taking part in

the Sharikati competition this year.

Ramadan: Month for purification

ELHAM POURMOHAMMADIelham@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: Ramadan is a golden opportunity to purify both soul and the body through renewing fo-cus on God and a healthy lifestyle, say religious and health experts in Oman.

As the country is awaiting the arrival of the holy month of bless-ings, Hilal Al Rashdi, an adviser at the Ministry of Awqaf and Re-ligious Aff airs, said, “Fasting is

one of the things that is been men-tioned in all religions as it has a very good spiritual impact on any human being. Ramadan is a time to remember the poor, and fast-ing makes you more patient, down to earth and appreciative of what you have.”

Speaking to the Times of Oman, Al Rashdi said that the spiritual impact of fasting will be stronger

if it is accompanied by reciting the Holy Quran, remembering Allah, praying and indulging in acts of charity.

All these good deeds will help purify the ‘inner side’ of the hu-man being and brings ‘inner peace’, he said.

“When you want to pray and stand in front of the Creator, not only do you clean your body but

you also cleanse your soul. Also, the more you recite the Quran, the closer you become to Allah. If you want to talk to Allah, pray, and if you want Allah to talk to you, recite the Quran,” said Al Rashdi.

Acts of charityCommenting on the rewarding act of charity, the advisor said that it is a blessing from God and the

person who donates something should consider it an opportunity granted by Allah.

“When you donate something to somebody, you are practically giv-ing him something but basically he is taking whatever Allah has decid-ed for him that very day, that very moment, that very time and from that very person,” he said.

“So you have been directed,

shown the way, given the means and given the wealth by God as if you are a messenger from Allah to give the charity to that person. So you are doing your job. You are not doing that person a favour. He is doing you a favour,” added Al Rashdi.

He also noted that charity should be given with ‘sincere in-tentions’ and not to ‘show off ’.

Health benefi tsApart from the spiritual impact of fasting, health experts believe that it can help rejuvenate the body and bring the focus back on the signifi cance of a healthy diet and lifestyle.

“The many benefi ts of Ramadan are not only spiritual, and fast-ing can help a lot in reforming our body,” Ahmed Hamed Al Wahaibi, senior consultant in Family Medi-cine at the Ministry of Health, told the Times of Oman.

“Studies have shown that during fasting, the blood vessels have less fl uid and this increases the immu-nity of the body,” he said, adding that even the dead cells in the body are replaced.

Al Wahaibi said that people can reap numerous health ben-efi ts from fasting if they follow a healthy and balanced diet and also continue it even after Ramadan.

As the country awaits

the arrival of the holy

month of blessings,

experts spell out the

spiritual and physical

benefi ts of fasting.

Ramadan is a time

to help the poor

and for good deeds

Ramadan is a time to

remember the poor, and

fasting makes you more

patient, down to earth

and appreciative of

what you have

Hilal Al RashdiAdviser at the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs

Studies have shown

that during fasting, the

blood vessels have

less fluid and this

increases the immunity

of the body

Dr Ahmed Al WahaibiSenior consultant, Ministry of Health

Sharikati graduates continue their entrepreneurial growthTimes News Service

MUSCAT: As new entrants to the Sharikati programme begin to plot out their business plans and decide on their products and ser-vices in Injaz Oman’s Sharikati 2015 programme, past graduates are carrying on the legacy of the entrepreneurial experience and innovation.

Among one of the transforma-tional stories from the Sharikati programme is that of Bella Luna Productions working from the National Business Centre in the Knowledge Oasis.

Sulaiman Al Mahrooqi took part in the Sharikati 2013 as part of Masaar, a student company that created applications for a grocery shopping and restaurant services system. Equipped with new skills

and knowledge, Al Mahrooqi de-cided to explore a new challenge, and today, he is one of the four founders of Bella Luna Produc-tions, a photography and video production company that pro-vides its services to conferences, exhibitions, corporate events, and weddings.

Al Mahrooqi stated, “We were freelancing as Bella Luna before Sharikati, but after completing the programme we decided to uti-lise what we learnt to establish our own company. We acquired new skills in management, client communications, leadership, and delivery of pitches, in addition to business development plans.”

Similarly, the student company Rawand from the Sultan Qaboos University, which participated in 2013, were not recognised for

any award when they took part. However, Rawand continued to grow and develop until it became an offi cially recognised business creating and selling electronic accessories. The company cre-ates branded electronic devices, such as multipurpose branded key chains that can be served as micro-USBs and a fl exible safety device.

Yousuf Al Hadhrami, CEO of Rawand, said, “What I learnt through the Sharikati programme was the cornerstone for establish-ing a real company. This was by far the most invaluable experience the competition gave us. ”

This year, Injaz Oman will be de-livering the largest and most com-petitive Sharikati competition yet, with 21 colleges and universities across the Sultanate, and over 700 students taking part.

Y O U T H P O W E R

NEW AVENUES: The four founders of Bella Luna Productions, a

photography and video production company, and right, Rawand’s

electronic accessories products have made the company a known

brand in the Sultanate.–Supplied photo

Past graduates of the Sharikati programme are carrying

on the legacy of the entrepreneurial experience and

innovation. This year, Injaz Oman will be delivering the

largest Sharikati competition yet, with 21 colleges and

universities of Oman, and over 700 students taking part

I WISH brings laughter and joy to children with cancer

Times News Service

MUSCAT: On Tuesday, the play-room at the children’s oncology ward at the Royal Hospital rang out with laughter and squeals of joy from the more than 30 chil-dren suff ering from cancer, who had gathered there for a pre-Ramadan party organised by Puja Khimji and Karen Van de Ruit, co-founders of I WISH.

“This was a slightly scaled down version of the bigger party that was to be held last Thursday at the hospital’s recreation centre, but it had to be cancelled due to the bad weather forecast,” said Puja.

Karen and Puja were deter-mined to do something special for the children, even if it was on a small scale. So, along with the nurses at the oncology ward, they arranged a party complete with food, drinks, cupcakes and gifts for the 30 child patients and their family members. A magician en-tertained the children - and the adults - with his amazing tricks.

“I WISH is not a registered organisation and does not ac-

cept monetary donations, so they depend on donations in kind de-livered directly to the patients. They act as middlemen receiving ‘wishes’ from patients and then sourcing people to fulfi l these wishes. Several people and com-panies helped make this party possible. The teachers and chil-dren of the International School of Oman donated educational toys for 30 children and organised the magic show, the staff of Price-waterhouseCoopers donated 10 tablet computers to some needy children and Leila Zawawi pro-vided food, drinks and cupcakes for all the children, their families and hospital staff ,” said Karen.

“We are hoping to follow this successful event with another party, possibly after the summer, for the nurses and doctors at the ward who do a stellar job looking after the patients. As always, we look forward to support from the community and want to take this opportunity to thank all the peo-ple who have donated wishes over the three years since I WISH was started,” they said.

P R E - R A M A D A N P A R T Y

FUN AND GAMES: Karen and Puja, along with the nurses of the Royal Hospital’s oncology ward,

arranged a party complete with food, drinks, cupcakes and gifts for the 30 child patients and their

family members.–OK Mohammed Ali/TIMES OF OMAN

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Ministry to monitor drug pricesTimes News Service

MUSCAT: To check the prices of drugs at pharmacies, regular inspections will be carried out by the Directorate General of Phar-maceutical Aff airs and Drug Con-trol (DGPA & DC) of the Ministry of Health.

“The inspection will be conduct-ed by the concerned departments in the DGPA & DC in collaboration with the Directorates General of Health Services in all the gover-norates to ensure imposition of new prices which come into eff ect from July 1,” said a senior offi cial of the ministry.

From July 1, the ministry has reduced the prices of 1,180 drugs including antibiotics, drugs for the

respiratory system and respira-tory diseases, and drugs for eyes, nose, ears and throat diseases. Drugs for various cancer-related diseases, haematology and some blood products and vaccines are also on the list.

The ministry notifi ed that the new prices must be set by the re-spective offi cial agents on all reg-istered drugs. “The agent should change the prices at all pharmacies in case the drug is on the revised price list. These lists are available at the MoH website and are con-tinuously updated as and when re-quired,” added the offi cial.

Therefore, the ministry has asked everyone to view those lists on its website (www.moh.gov.om). Anyone who observes any altera-

tion in prices or any other anomaly should call the ministry’s Contact Centre on 24441999.

Earlier, in October 2014, the government had revised and re-duced the prices of 1,400 drugs sold in private sector pharma-cies from fi ve therapeutic groups. These are cardiovascular drugs, endocrine drugs, and gastrointes-tinal drugs, in addition to drugs for skin diseases, and musculoskeletal and joint drugs.

The list of reduced prices had been circulated to the agents of companies in the Sultanate on February 2015.

Each agent will have to take re-sponsibility for amending the pric-es of the drugs in all pharmacies, the ministry said.

C O N S U M E R W E L F A R ETIME Hotels set for Oman debut

RAHUL DAS rahuldas@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: TIME Hotels Man-agement, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), plans to enter the Oman market soon.

“We are planning at least two hotels in Oman. One is in Muscat and the other is in Salalah,” said Mohamed Awadalla, CEO, TIME Hotels in an interview with the Times of Oman.

He, however, confi rmed that the property in each of the places has not been fi nalised, and cur-rently they are looking at land and some existing properties as well.

“We have properties in the UAE, Egypt and Qatar and my next destination is Oman,” con-fi rmed Mohamed Awadalla.

He also described Oman, which has got a very rich culture, as a very promising destination for tourists.

“For this, I will be visiting Oman quite often this year to take things forward,” he said.

International exposureAn international hotelier with over 28 years of experience, Awadalla has worked with some of the leading global hospitality companies, including Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Inter-national, Rotana Hotels and now TIME Hotels Management L.L.C.

TIME Hotels Management are currently managing 10 ho-tels in the UAE, Egypt and Qatar

while four other hotels are in the pipeline.

“We are planning to open 20 hotels in the Gulf Cooperation Council region by 2020,” he said.

He also said that there is a growing demand across the GCC for new budget brands with a quality pedigree from respected operators that travellers can trust to deliver comfort, connectivity and creativity when it comes to supporting services and facilities.

“For this we are very excited to debut our brand in Oman soon,” he said.

He also unveiled the details of a second hotel in Doha plus news on the Dubai Healthcare City prop-erty status and imminent launch of the TIME Express brand.

Located in Al Khail, just 10 minutes from Hamad Interna-tional Airport in Qatar, the four-star hotel is scheduled to open in the fi rst quarter (Q1) of 2017.

“It has been a busy year for TIME Hotels with the launch of our fi rst luxury resort in Hurgha-da, Egypt, plus a raft of announce-ments including two new Resi-dences in Abu Dhabi, our fi rst footstep into Doha, and a new fi ve-star hotel for Dubai. We have also launched a number of new corporate initiatives such as our Slow Food programme and taken our hugely successful Carbon Off -set Hotel Stay into its second year. Now we are setting our goal in the

Oman market,” he said.He also provided a detailed

update on the status of two prop-erties currently under develop-ment, the TIME Royal Hotel & Spa, Dubai, and TIME Rako Hotel, Qatar.

The fi rst fi ve-star UAE-based property for the company, the 277-room TIME Royal Hotel is located in the Dubai Healthcare City, adjacent to the popular Wafi shopping and leisure complex.

Medical tourismSet to open in 2016, it will have a strong medical tourism focus with facilities specifi cally de-signed to accommodate the needs of wellness tourists, such as signature spa featuring temper-ature-controlled pools, gymna-sium with rehabilitation equip-ment, and health and juice bar. It will also have 20 rooms accessible to the diff erently-abled.

The other property will be the four-star 112-room Time Rako Hotel & Suites, situated in Al Wakra on the outskirts of Doha.

TIME Hotel’s pipeline of cur-rent projects also includes the fi rst in its TIME Express brand.

“The three-star no frills, city centre-based concept will target budget-conscious business trav-ellers and will launch in Dubai with a 133-room property, which is set to open in Q3 2016,” the ho-telier added.

TIME Hotels

Management has

ambitious plans for

Oman. The UAE-

based company’s

CEO says they are

planning at least two

hotels in Oman —

one in Muscat and

the other in Salalah

We have properties

in the UAE, Egypt and

Qatar and my next

destination is Oman...

We are planning to

open 20 hotels in the

GCC region by 2020

Mohamed AwadallaCEO, TIME Hotels

A6

OMANW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Giving back to the community by championing social and economic development has always been a key part of our goals and the Goodwill Journey remains an essential part of our strategy

Kumail Al Moosawi, chief people and corporate aff airs offi cer at Ooredoo

Free mammography test during Ramadan

Times News Service

MUSCAT: A mobile mammog-raphy unit of the Oman Cancer Association (OCA) will off er its screening services through-out Ramadan, the OCA said in a statement.

The unit will be available for free mammography at the OCA headquarters in Al Ghubra be-tween 9.30am and 1pm and from 10pm to 11.30pm.

For further information, one can call 24498716 and 80077477, said the statement.

Yuthar Al Rawahy, chairper-son of the association, had ear-lier told the Times of Oman that around 10 of the 1,547 women who were screened at the mobile mammography unit of the Oman Cancer Association in 2014 were diagnosed with cancer. According to her, the mobile unit initiative,

which aims to provide free mam-mography screening to all women in Oman, has been very successful since its launch in 2009.

Regular examinationsSince 2009, 14,333 women have been screened, and 55 have been diagnosed with cancer, she said at

the time, highlighting the impor-tance of regular examinations.

It is said that for women over the age 40, regular mammogram examinations are recommended every two years and they should carry out monthly self-examina-tion of the breast a few days after the menstrual cycle.

A mobile unit will

be available for free

mammography at

OCA headquarters in

Al Ghubra between

9.30am and 1pm and

10pm to 11.30pm

The mobile unit,

which provides

free mammography

test to all women in

Oman, has been very

successful since its

launch in 2009

Yuthar Al RawahyChairperson, OCA

Ooredoo plans donations for local communitiesTimes News Service

MUSCAT: After months of prepara-tion, Ooredoo has announced plans for its two-week Goodwill Journey. Now in its 11th year, the company’s leading corporate social responsibil-ity is held every Ramadan to provide charitable organisations and local communities with life-enriching support. This year’s journey, the fi rst since rebranding, will focus on empowering remote communities, developing fi nancial independence among women, and delivering train-ing workshops to improve lives in a sustainable way.

Ooredoo will, for the fi rst time this year, be giving the public an opportu-nity to get involved and be part of the family by making their own goodwill donations. Donation boxes for chil-

dren’s toys and gifts will be placed at a number of stores and distributed throughout the journey. “Our aim this year is to achieve bigger and better results to help families and communities by empowering them through advanced education, skills training, and charitable donations, and using our brand presence to in-spire others to touch the hearts of those in need.

“Giving back to the community by championing social and economic development has always been a key part of our goals and the Goodwill Journey remains an essential part of our strategy,” said Kumail Al Moo-sawi, chief people and corporate af-fairs offi cer, at Ooredoo.

“I would like highlight the tre-mendous contribution of the Oore-doo family volunteers, who, for

many years, leave their families be-hind during Ramadan and travel to spread smiles across the Sultanate. This year they will head as far north as Musandam before stopping at Ad Dakhiliyah governorate on their way back to Muscat. The second phase will take our volunteers to Masirah and Dhofar,” he said.

First launched in 2005, Oore-doo’s goodwill journey takes fasting goodwill ambassadors on a voyage of compassion, generosity and ena-blement, covering the length and breadth of Oman.

Since the inaugural event, Oore-doo volunteers have travelled more than 48,000 kilometres and visited over 160 charitable organisations and associations, resulting in sup-port for more than 10,000 people through this initiative.

G O O D W I L L J O U R N E Y

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: Donation boxes for children’s toys

and gifts will be placed at a number of stores and distributed

throughout the journey.– Supplied photo

Oman Tourism College invites applications for new coursesTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Opening the doors to an exciting world of career opportunities in tourism and al-lied sectors, the Oman Tourism College has invited applications from candidates for its newly launched undergraduate pro-grammes in Tourism and Events Management.

The three programmes – B.Sc (Hons) in Tourism and Hospital-ity Management, Tourism Mar-keting and Event Management – are open to both Omani and non-Omani candidates. Classes are scheduled to start by mid-September.

“All the three undergraduate programmes are designed to cre-ate industry-ready profession-als. The Oman Tourism College is the only specialised college in Oman off ering Bachelor’s programmes in Tourism Mar-

keting and Event Management disciplines. We provide our stu-dents with the most advanced facilities that are geared to fully meet the requirements of the industry,” said Dr Shoba Zacha-riah, assistant dean at OTC. The degrees will be awarded by the

Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland. With the Sultanate wit-nessing amazing growth in the tourism and allied sectors, the demand for qualifi ed profession-als is immense, and the trend is here to stay.

“In today’s world, there is a great demand for people with soft skills. Not just companies in the tourism sector, but busi-nesses across sectors including government bodies, are looking for candidates with soft skills. All three programmes have special modules focussing on the de-velopment of soft skills,” added Dr Zachariah.

A total of 60 seats are avail-able for Tourism and Hospitality Management, while the intake fi gures for Tourism Marketing and Event Management cours-es are 40 each. The minimum qualifi cation for entry to the pro-grammes is 12 years of schooling.

C A R E E R O P P O R T U N I T I E S

NEW COURSES: Students are

provided with the most ad-

vanced facilities. – Supplied photo

Minister of Justice to open Sumail mosqueSUMAIL: As delegated by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Minister of Justice Sheikh Abdul Malik bin Abdullah Al Khalili will open Sultan Qaboos Mosque in the Wilayat of Sumail in the Governo-rate of A’Dakhiliyah next Friday.

The mosque is spread over 41,473 square metres in Al Mad-darrah region with a built-up area of 5,700 square metres and the remainder is dedicated for plants, and public parks.

The mosque has main prayer area, a VIP lounge, a room for the preachers, a library, three class-rooms, maintenance room, admin-istration offi ce and guard room.

The praying area, stretching over 1,730 square metres, can ac-

commodate 2,403 people. The lob-by can accommodate 121 people, in addition to the central area which can have 338 people. The mosque is provided with a prayer area for women which can accommodate 268 women.

Facilities The facilities also include a library, two 50-metre high minarets, 402 parking lots, green spaces and small garden for children.

In addition to the achievements witnessed by the wilayat during the blessed era of His Majesty Sul-tan Qaboos bin Said, the Sultan Qaboos Mosque in the Wilayat of Sumail is one of the landmarks of the blessed Renaissance. -ONA

S U L T A N Q A B O O S M O S Q U E

LANDMARK: The mosque is spread over an area of 41,473 square

metres in Al Maddarrah region. – ONA

Equal

benefi t

urged for

expatriates

The Indian government has been planning to reject emigra-tion clearance to the Gulf coun-tries if they do not agree to pay recommended minimum wages prescribed by its embassies for diff erent categories of Indian workers.

As per an agreement between Oman and India, “the mini-mum salary of the housemaid should be OMR75- (Omani Rial seventy-fi ve) per month. Besides sponsor will have to provide bank guarantee of OMR1,100 as security deposit to the Embassy of India, Mus-cat. The deposit shall be used for any unpaid dues, salary and legal obligations. The deposit shall be paid to sponsor after he/she produces visa cancella-tion/transfer papers and a let-ter from housemaid specifying that all dues have been paid.”

A senior offi cial at Interna-tional Trade Union Confedera-tion (ITUC) hoped that the new labour law will consider provi-sions which guarantee equal benefi ts and wages for both national workers and migrant workers in Oman.

Progressive steps“Oman has taken progressive steps in the past when com-pared to their neighbours with regard to the rights of workers. As trade unions were also in-volved in the process of making the new labour law, we hope that there will not be any discrimi-nation against migrant workers when compared to Omanis in terms of wages and benefi ts,” Walid Hamdan, ITUC’s region-al lead organiser for Arab states, told the Times of Oman.

While commenting on the two-year visa ban for migrant workers who fail to submit a no-objection certifi cate from the previous employer, the offi -cial said this issue has also been seriously discussed. “Oman will have reasons to imple-ment such a decision. However, we are aware that the issue of a migrant worker’s rights to mobility is being seriously dis-cussed. We hope that Oman has a solution soon,” added the offi cial.

Meanwhile, the Oman trade union also added that the government should reverse the decision and fi nd a work-able solution to streamline the labour market.

“We are aware that existing projects are being delayed and new ones are stuck due to a shortage of migrant workers. It is the paucity of legal workers which persuades companies to depend on illegal workers,” said the trade union leader, citing the recent arrest of illegal work-ers at the airport project site.

L A B O U R L A W

< FROM

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Male expats reach 1,425,966Dhofar governorate came third with 177,484 expatriates at a growth rate of 0.3 per cent compared to fi gures recorded last April.

The statistics issued by the Na-tional Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) also indicat-ed that the number of male work-ers among the expats reached 1,425,966 while the number of female workers was 188,579.

The largest number of expatri-ate workers was working in the private sector. These totalled 1,303,637, and included 1,273,391

males and 30,246 females, by the end of May last. These numbers constituted a 0.7 per cent increase compared to the fi gures recorded in April 2014. They were followed by workers in the family sector (workers of families and indi-viduals at their own expense) who reached 250,600. Most of them were females who numbered 137,328 compared to 113,272 re-corded last May. This was an in-crease of 0.5 per cent.

The expatriate workers in the government sector came third. They numbered 60,308 compris-

ing 39,303 males and 21,005 fe-males, a decrease of 0.1 per cent compared to the fi gures recorded last April.

As for the educational level of the expatriate workforce in Oman, a majority of labourers held preparatory school cer-tifi cates. The number of those labourers reached 592,970 com-prising 526,619 males and 66,351 females. This category was fol-lowed by labourers who could read and write, whose numbers reached 423,732 which included 49,218 females.

D A T A

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A7

REGIONW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Opposition leader Ali Salman, who heads Al Wefaq political association, was sentenced to four years in jail for inciting disobedience and hatred in the country.

Judicial source, Bahrain

Egypt sentences Morsi to death over mass jail break

CAIRO: An Egyptian court sen-tenced deposed President Mo-hamed Morsi to death on Tuesday over a mass jail break during the country’s 2011 protests and issued sweeping punishments against the leadership of Egypt’s oldest group.

The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and four other Brotherhood lead-ers were also handed the death penalty. More than 80 others were sentenced to death in absentia.

The Brotherhood described the rulings as “null and void” and called for a popular protest on Friday. Judge Shaaban El Shami, said the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s top religious authority, had said in his opinion that the death sentence was permissible for the defend-ants who had been referred to him.

Wearing his blue prison suit, the bespectacled and bearded Morsi listened calmly as Shami read out the verdict in the case re-lating to the 2011 mass jail break, in which Morsi faced charges of killing, kidnapping and other of-fences. Shami had earlier given the former president a 25-year

sentence in a case relating to con-spiring with foreign groups.

Morsi appeared unfazed, smil-ing, and waving to lawyers as other defendants chanted: “Down, down with military rule,” after the verdicts, which can be appealed, were read out at the court session in the Police Academy.

The rulings mark another setback for leaders of the Mus-lim Brotherhood, and increase the chances of its youth taking up arms against the authorities, breaking what the group says is a long tradition of non-violence.

The court last month convicted Morsi and his fellow defendants of killing and kidnapping police-men, attacking police facilities and breaking out of jail during the 2011 protests against Mubarak.

Prosecutors said at the time the Brotherhood planned to send “ele-ments” to foreign countries.

Upon their return, prosecutors said, they would join forces with militant groups in the Sinai Pen-insula, the Egyptian territory that borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

The death sentence request had drawn criticism from the United

States, other Western govern-ments and human rights groups.

After Tuesday’s sentencing, a senior Muslim Brotherhood member said the trial had “fallen below all international standards”. “This verdict is a nail in the coffi n of democracy in Egypt,” Yahya Ha-mid, a former minister in Morsi’s cabinet and head of international relations for the Brotherhood, told a news conference in Istanbul.

Western diplomats say Egyp-tian offi cials have acknowledged that executing Morsi would risk turning him into a martyr. The

Brotherhood, the Middle East’s oldest group, has survived dec-ades of repression, maintaining popular support through its chari-ties. Morsi, Badie and 15 others were given life sentences - which under Egyptian law, means serv-ing 25 years - for conspiring with the Palestinian group Hamas, which rules Gaza. They included senior Brotherhood fi gures Essam El Erian and Saad El Katatni.

The court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leaders Khairat El Shater, Mohamed El Beltagy and Ahmed Abdelaty to death in the same case. Death sentences were also handed to 13 other defend-ants in absentia.

In reading his verdict, Shami said that the Brotherhood had a history of “grabbing power with any price” and had “legalised the bloodletting of the sons of this country and conspired and col-laborated with foreign entities .... to achieve their diabolical aims”.

“We were expecting all these verdicts today,” lawyer Mohamed Shibl, who defended Beltagy, told Reuters. Badie already has a death sentence against him and Morsi has a 20-year sentence in yet an-other case. Morsi has said the court is not legitimate, describing legal proceedings against him as part of a coup led by former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in 2013. Morsi’s court-appointed leader, Samir Mahfouz, said the would appeal the death sentence verdict.

Sisi, now president, says the Brotherhood poses a grave threat to national security. The group maintains it is committed to peaceful activism. — Reuters

The Brotherhood

described the rulings

as ‘null and void’ and

called for a popular

protest on Friday

Iran opposition fi gure gets rare airtimeTEHRAN: Iranian state tel-evision has taken the rare step of giving airtime to a high-ranking member of a silenced reformist opposition leader’s party.

Javad Haghshenas was a found-ing member of Etemad Melli (Na-tional Confi dence), the party led by Mehdi Karroubi, a former par-liament speaker held under house arrest since February 2011 for dis-puting the result of a presidential election two years earlier.

Karroubi, a candidate, and Hos-sein Moussavi, a fellow reformist who declared he had won the bal-lot and who is also under house arrest, are denounced by hardlin-ers as seditionists who tried to fell the regime. The contested poll result gave birth to the country’s so-called Green Movement, but

incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad, a hardline conservative, was offi cially declared the winner. Street protests that followed were put down by the authorities, with dozens of civilians killed in the biggest political crisis in the coun-try since the 1979 revolution.

Head-to-head debateOn Monday night Haghshenas was a guest in a head-to-head de-bate with Hamid Reza Taraghi, a conservative politician, about President Hassan Rouhani’s fi rst two years in power.

The programme, which was repeated on Tuesday morning, normally features supporters and opponents of the government but the latest edition was more nota-ble for Haghshenas inclusion.

The one-hour programme focused on a spate of concerts which, despite being approved by the culture ministry, have been cancelled at the last minute by other authorities with little ex-planation. Karroubi and Mous-savi, a former prime minister, face an uncertain future. Some want them to face trial, and their fi erc-est opponents say they should be executed. Their images are banned in Iranian media. They were placed under house arrest at the same time after calling for fresh demonstrations to try to re-vive the Green Movement.

Although the reformist camp fell into the wilderness afterwards, and two parties were outlawed, Karroubi’s National Confi dence was not banned. Two new re-

formist parties — Nedaye Iranian (Voice of Iranians) and Ettehad Mellat Iran (Iranian National Uni-ty) -- have also been formed ahead of legislative polls next February. Rival parties are already position-ing themselves for those elections. On Tuesday it was announced that 10 former ministers and offi cials from Ahmadinejad’s government have formed a new party.

Yekta (Unique -- an acronym for the “Companions of the compe-tence and evolution of the Islamic Republic) said it had programmes for all areas of government, but no offi cial links with the former pres-ident. Ahmadinejad has kept a low profi le since leaving offi ce, but he made a limited return to the polit-ical scene in February by creating a new offi cial website. — AFP

I R A N I A N S T A T E T E L E V I S I O N

Al Wefaq’s leader gets four yearsin prison

DUBAI: A court in Bahrain on Tuesday jailed prominent opposi-tion leader Ali Salman.

Salman was sentenced to four years in jail for inciting disobedi-ence and hatred in the country, a judicial source said.

But he was acquitted of the more serious charge of seeking to over-throw the government and change the political system.

Salman, 49, was also found guilty of “insulting an offi cial body,” the source said, referring to the interior ministry.

Tight securitySalman was present for the ver-dict, which was delivered amid tight security outside the Manama court, witnesses said. He heads the Al Wefaq political association, which once held the most seats in Bahrain’s parliament.

On Tuesday, Al Wefaq slammed the “false” ruling against Salman and demanded his release.

“We reject anything less than a non-guilty verdict for Sheikh Ali Salman. We consider this a false and injust ruling that is based on an illogical case and lacks sound foundations,” Al Wefaq said in a statement.

The prosecution said in a state-ment it was looking into the basis for Salman’s acquittal and that it would consider an appeal “if there were legal grounds for that”.

The prosecution said Salman was convicted of “public incite-ment” against naturalised Bah-raini citizens and had accused them of being disloyal to the country. — AFP

B A H R A I N

SWEEPING PUNISHMENTS: Egypt’s ex-president Mohamed Morsi greets Muslim Brotherhood mem-

bers also behind bars after their verdict at a court at the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, on Tuesday. – Reuters

Ensure proper disposal of garbage.

Don’t litter a beautiful country like OMAN.

A8

INDIAW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

‘PM Modi has jumped to rescue of Lalit Modi’

JANJGIR/NEW DELHI: Con-tinuing his attack on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Lalit Modi issue, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the man who had promised to bring back black mon-ey has now “jumped to the rescue” of a “man of black money”.

Talking to reporters during his padayatra here, the Congress vice-president said, “Who is Lalit Modi? He is man of black money.In the world of cricket, he is man of black money. Now Modi ji is jump-ing to his rescue.”

He said that the entire nation re-members Narendra Modi promis-ing voters during the election cam-paign last year to bring back black money and deposit Rs1.5 million in each bank account.

“Now when the time has come Modi ji is saving Modi. BJP can say all they want to, but the truth is that PM is saving a man with black money,” he said. Replying to an-other question on the beleaguered External Aff airs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rahul said, “Swaraj has no meaning in the government. Only one person matters in the govern-

ment and that is Narendra Modi. Narendra Modi runs the govern-ment and the country.”

This is the second consecutive day that the Congress leader has targeted the primeminister on the ‘Modigate’ controversy.

“Lalit Modi is a symbol of black money. Mr Modi is standing be-hind Mr Modi. Who’s Sushma Swarajji? She means nothing in this government,” Rahul had said on Monday.

Replying to a question about BJP standing behind Swaraj, Ra-hul said, “Of course, the party will stand behind Sushma Swarajji. The party is Mr Modi. Mr Modi is standing behind Mr Modi.

“It is not a question of Sushma ji resigning, PM Modiji should sack Sushma Swaraj ji from the govern-ment.” The Congress Vice Presi-dent said Modi, “who wears a Rs 15 lakh suit,” prefers to go to Australia and the US. “If Modiji takes off his Rs 15 lakh suit and comes here to these villages, he will see the value of MNREGA,” he said.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday sought to

do some damage control by coming out in defence of Sushma Swaraj over her help to scam-tainted Lalit Modi while Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi continued to be target-ed in the ‘Modigate’ by Congress.

Two days after the raging con-troversy broke out triggering a po-litical storm for the Modi govern-ment, Jaitley, Swaraj, who holds the External Aff airs portfolio, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh met in the Home Ministry and discussed the entire issue for an hour before Singh and Jaitley held a press conference.

Allegations baseless“All allegations levelled are base-less. Her (Swaraj) statement and that of the party President (show) that whatever she did was with good intentions.

“She acted bona fi de. The entire government and the party are one on the issue. There should be no doubt on this,” Jaitley said with Singh by his side.

Jaitley’s defence of his cabinet colleague comes two days after party President Amit Shah and

Rajnath Singh had asserted that Swaraj had acted on humanitar-ian considerations in the matter of helping former IPL boss Lalit Modi get travel documents from Britain. Modi, former IPL boss, has taken refuge in London for over fi ve years after the Enforce-ment Directorate levelled money laundering and other charges against him involving an amount of Rs 1,700 crore and wants him for investigations in India in the 2009 IPL scam.

Speculation has been rife over the “silence” of Jaitley after the controversy broke out on Sunday over Swaraj’s help to Lalit Modi.

There have been reports that the Finance Ministry and the External Aff airs Ministry are involved in a blame game over who should ap-peal against the Delhi High Court order quashing the revocation of Lalit Modi’s passport in August last year.

The fi nance minister also said that a “light blue corner” notice has been issued against Modi in 2010 and that continues to be valid even on Tuesday. - PTI

Now when the time

has come Modi ji is

saving Modi. BJP

can say all they want

to, but the truth is

that PM is saving

a man with black

money, Congress

vice president Rahul

Gandhi saidPROTESTS: Members of Youth Congress hold posters and shout slogans against External Aff airs Min-

ister Sushma Swaraj in the row over helping scam-tainted former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi obtain

British travel papers, in Bengaluru on Tuesday. - PTI

Indian Ocean warming has weakened monsoon

WASHINGTON: Rapid warm-ing of the Indian Ocean in the past century has led to a signifi cant decrease in summer monsoon rainfall over the central-east and northern regions of India, a new study led by an Indian scientist said on Tuesday.

An international team of re-searchers led by Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, found that the summer monsoon rainfall during 1901-

2012 showed a weakening trend over parts of South Asia.

The reduction in rainfall was signifi cant over the central-east and northern regions of India, along the Ganges-Brahmaputra basins and the Himalayan foot-hills. In the study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, the research-ers reported that the reduction in summer rainfall over central-east India during the past century is about 10 to 20 per cent.

“The Gangetic plains of India are the most heavily populated, and where agriculture is still largely rain-fed.Hence a signifi -cant reduction in rainfall over this region can be detrimental to the socio-economic livelihood in this region,” Koll said. The re-searchers used climate model experiments to demonstrate that the reduction in rainfall is linked to the rapid warming of the In-dian Ocean, especially its western part, during the past century. -PTI

S T U D Y

NDA ally wants Bihar

CM candidate to be

chosen ‘unanimously’

PATNA: The Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), latest party to join the National Democratic Al-liance (NDA) in Bihar, on Tues-day refused to accept the chief ministerial candidate in the com-ing Assembly poll and suggested that the candidate be “unani-mously” chosen at a meeting of all alliance partners.

Answering questions by re-porters whether the party accepts senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi as the CM candidate, HAM state president Shakuni Chaud-hary said, “How can we accept an-ybody as the CM candidate? The NDA has not declared anybody’s name for it till now. He should be chosen unanimously at a meeting of all alliance partners.”

Chaudhary, however, says that normally the bigger party in an alliance nominates its leader as chief ministerial candidate and “the decision of the bigger party is acceptable to other partners in an alliance”.

Praising the leadership of HAM leader and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, Chaudhary said, “Manjhi has decided to con-test the Assembly polls in the state” though the constituency for him was yet to be fi nalised.

He also asserted that wind would blow Manjhi’s way and the party or alliance whom he sup-ports will win in the elections.

HAM, formed after Manjhi re-belled against JD-U and resigned as Chief Minister on February 20 this year, declared last week that it would contest the Bihar polls scheduled in September-October in alliance with the NDA.

Meanwhile, remaining non-committal about its Chief Min-isterial candidate for Assembly polls in Bihar, Union Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Ananth Kumar on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will go to the hustings by projecting its development agenda under

the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Describing the upcoming Bihar assembly polls as a con-test between the ‘jungle raj’ of Lalu-Nitish Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad and senior Janata Dal (United)(JD(U)) leader Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development and good govern-ance agendas, Kumar told report-ers here that the electorate will embrace the Prime Minister’s agendas and reject Lalu and Nit-ish, who symbolized ‘jungle raj’.

“I am confi dent that the elec-torate of Bihar will reject the jun-gle raj being fostered by Lalu and Nitish during the assembly polls,” the union minister said.

In another development, state unit JD(U) chief Bashistha Narayan Singh took a dim view of the BJP not being confi dent to declare its Chief Ministerial can-didate for Bihar and wondered as to “how a party which cannot de-cide on naming its chief ministe-rial face can go to the people with confi dence for a mandate.” - PTI

N D A P A R T N E R

I am confident that the

electorate of Bihar will

reject the jungle raj

being fostered by Lalu

and Nitish during the

assembly polls

Ananth KumarChemicals and fertilizers minister

All allegations levelled are baseless. Her (Swaraj) statement and that of the party President (show) that whatever she did was with good intentions. She acted bona fi de. The entire government and the party are one on the issue. There should be no doubt on this

Arun Jaitley, Finance minister

A9

INDIAW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

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Nitish and BJP in a war of words over Yoga Day functions in Bihar

PATNA: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Modi on Tues-day castigated Bihar Chief Minis-ter Nitish Kumar for his snide re-marks against Amit Shah and Baba Ramdev vis-a-vis promotion of International Yoga Day on June 21.

He also slammed Nitish for not organising an offi cial function to promote the exercise in Bihar.

“Kumar has needlessly attacked BJP president Amit Shah and yoga guru Baba Ramdev for promoting the International Yoga Day sched-uled for June 21... being himself a yoga supporter and practitioner, he should have organised offi cial functions to promote the ancient exercise form,” Sushil told report-

ers here. The former deputy chief minister complimented yoga guru Ramdev for yeoman service to pro-mote the ancient exercise form as a fi tness activity in the country and across the world.

Nitish had on Monday taken a dig at Ramdev for maximising his skills as a yoga expert to brand himself as a business and market-ing guru.

Defending Ramdev’s business activities, Sushil said the yoga guru was a self-made man for which he deserved kudos and not brickbats.

Countering Nitish’s charges that the Centre has ignored Bihar by not scheduling an offi cial func-tion in Bihar on the International Yoga Day, Sushil said the exer-cise regime was not a fi efdom of one party or one government and

anybody interested in it or under-standing its health benefi ts could organise a function.

Nitish should have organised a camp to coincide with the Interna-tional Yoga Day for policemen and prisoners in view of their stressful life, the BJP leader said.

On Nitish’s charge that the BJP has other motives in promoting Yoga, Sushil said that the chief

minister was ignorant about 177 countries embracing yoga and even the UN recognising its vir-tues by coming forward to cel-ebrate Yoga Day on a global level.

On the BJP promoting yoga in Bihar in a big way, the senior BJP leader said it would organ-ise statewide camps on June 21 to enable people to join in various arts of the exercise form to tone up

their mind and body. BJP national president Amit Shah too would at-tend one of the camps in the state capital next week, he said and urged other political parties to or-ganise such camps for their leaders and workers.

Sushil Modi said his party would incorporate the ancient fi tness re-gime in school curriculum as an optional activity in Bihar if elected to power in the Assembly polls lat-er this year.

Optional activity“Yoga will be made an optional ac-tivity in the school curriculum in Bihar and one or two periods will be earmarked for the students to perform physical and mental exer-cises prescribed by the art,” he said.

The BJP leader also criticised Nitish for describing former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi as a betrayer and describing him as ‘Vibhishana’, the younger brother of Ravana.

“Going by his own interpre-tation, if he has called Manjhi a ‘Vibhishana’ then he must have described himself as Ravana..... in that scenario, the Dalit leader has done the right thing by walking out of the Ravana camp and joined us as we represent ‘Ram Rajya’,” he added. - PTI

The BJP slammed the

Bihar chief minister

for not organising an

offi cial function to

promote the exercise

in the state

REHEARSAL: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh makes an impromptu stop at North Block to watch the ministry offi cials practising

yoga ahead of the International Yoga Day in New Delhi on Monday. - PTI

Jaguar fi ghter aircraft crashes near Allahabad

ALLAHABAD: A Jaguar fi ghter aircraft of Indian Air Force(IAF) crashed on Tuesday morning during a training sortie in Chaka area of the district and both the pilots ejected safely, the second such incident this year.

The aircraft had taken off at 7:25am from IAF’s Central Air Command at Bamrauli on the outskirts of the city and crashed at 8.47am in an uninhabited fi eld close to a Food Corporation of India warehouse at Chaka, about 50km away, IAF and police said, adding there was no casualty. A court of inquiry had been ordered into the incident.

A huge fi re broke out as soon as the aircraft hit the ground and fi re brigade was pressed into ser-vice. A small part of the wreckage caused minor damage to a bound-ary wall of one of the buildings, police said.

“Both the pilots had appar-ently sensed that something was wrong as they ejected before the

aircraft came crashing down,”Additional Superintendent

of Police (trans-Yamuna), Alla-habad, Ashutosh Mishra, said.

“Since there were no people nearby, the crash resulted in no injuries. No noticeable damage to property was visible either. A small part of the wreckage went fl ying off and caused minor dam-age to a boundary wall of one of the buildings nearby. Both pilots also landed safely,” he said.

Fire brigade was pressed into service as the wreckage had caught fi re. Locals came rush-ing to the spot in large numbers after hearing the crash. They did their bit in assisting the fi re bri-gade personnel. The fl ames were doused after nearly an hour.

“The aircraft has broken into smithereens as a result of the crash,” Mishra added.

“A number of IAF personnel also arrived at the spot. They took the two pilots who had a close shave,” the Additional SP said.-PTI

N O C A S U A L T Y

WRECKAGE: Security personnel and onlookers stand next to the

wreckage of an Indian Air Force (IAF) Jaguar fi ghter aircraft after

it crashed while on a training sortie on the outskirts of Allahabad

on Tuesday. - Reuters

Detergent found in milk sample of Mother Dairy

AGRA: The UP Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday said it has found detergent in one of the samples of Mother Dairy’s milk packets, a claim contested by the Delhi-based company.

“Results showed that the sam-ples were sub-standard and one of the two contained detergent,” UP FDA offi cial in Agra, Ram Naresh Yadav, said.

The samples had been picked up from Mother Dairy’s collection centres in Bah in November 2014.

“The samples were fi rst sent to Lucknow and later to Kolkata on the demand of the company,” Yadav said.

Mother Dairy, however, has

categorically denied any adul-teration of milk it supplies in pouches.

Sandeep Ghosh, the head of Milk, Fruits and Vegetables Sec-tion at Mother Dairy in Delhi, said, “Mother Dairy milk un-dergoes four levels of thorough testing at various levels — input, processing, dispatches and even at market level.”

Every tanker of milk reach-ing at plants passes a series of 23 stringent quality tests to check any deviation from defi ned pa-rameters. These tests assist in detecting contamination of milk through water, urea, detergent, oil, etc, he said. - PTI

C L A I M C O N T E S T E D

A10

PAKISTAN W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

AFGHAN REFUGEE DAYAfghan refugee girls wearing traditional dresses play with a mobile phone while watching a friendly cricket match between Pakistani students and a team from

the Afghanistan Embassy during an event on the eve of Afghan Refugee Day in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Tuesday. — Reuters

Foreign aid groups told to re-register or pack up bags

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday announced that all in-ternational aid groups operating in the country must re-register themselves with authorities within three months as part of a wider crackdown that has in-volved sealing the offi ces of Save the Children.

The decision, which will require the groups to undergo a fresh as-sessment by intelligence agencies

before they are given the green light to remain in Pakistan, was taken during a meeting chaired by Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif, his offi ce said in a statement.

“After discussions, the meeting decided that all INGOs (Interna-

tional Non-government Organisa-tions) presently working in Paki-stan will continue to function for a period of six months within speci-fi ed areas of operation allowed by the concerned authorities,” it said.

“It was further decided that in

order to streamline the function-ing of the INGOs in Pakistan, all INGOs will complete the process of their fresh registration with the Government of Pakistan within three months.”

Pakistan has toughened its

policies towards international aid groups in recent years, accus-ing them of covering for spying operations.

Undermining PakistanSave the Children’s offi ces in Paki-stan were sealed last week and its operations remained suspended Tuesday, despite media reports the government had reversed an order halting its work in the coun-try. Authorities accused the char-ity of “working against the coun-try”, and threatened to expel more foreign aid groups for supposedly undermining Pakistan.

In 2012 the government ex-pelled the expatriate staff of Save the Children, which has worked in Pakistan for over 35 years and em-ploys 1,200 Pakistanis.

Shakeel Afridi caseThat move came after Pakistani intelligence services accused the charity of links to doctor Shakeel Afridi, whom the CIA allegedly used to carry out a fake vaccina-tion programme as they searched for Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Save the Children has always vehemently denied any link to ei-ther Afridi or the CIA.

The United States on Friday warned Pakistan it was only hurt-ing itself by its actions against aid groups. — AFP

The decision, which

will require the

groups to undergo a

fresh assessment by

intelligence agencies

before they are given

the green light to

remain in Pakistan,

was taken during a

meeting chaired by

PM Nawaz Sharif

CRACKDOWN: A sealed lock is seen at the gate of Save the Children charity’s offi ce in Islamabad, on

June 12, 2015. Pakistan has toughened its policies towards international aid groups in recent years,

accusing them of covering for spying operations. — Reuters

Pakistani doctors live in fear after spike in deadly attacksKARACHI: Dr Raza was wait-ing for his next patient when two young men walked into the con-sultation room, took pistols from a bag and shot him six times.

Left for dead, the Pakistani physician was badly wounded but somehow survived.

Raza, who gave only one name to protect his identity, is one of dozens of doctors to be targeted by extremist militants and criminals in recent years, spreading dread among senior medics and putting pressure on Pakistan’s overbur-dened health system.

“I tried to duck by covering my face, and I took the brunt of the bullets on my arms and fi n-gers,” Raza said of the attack a few months ago in the southern port city of Karachi.

“One bullet got defl ected by a stone-studded ring on my fi nger,” he told Reuters. He said the round may otherwise have hit his head.

Raza was initially treated at a Karachi hospital before he and his family went into hiding. Realising he needed specialist treatment to restore full function to his hands, he travelled to Australia for more surgery. When he called friends to tell them he and his family had ar-rived safely, they told him another colleague had been killed.

A record 26 doctors were killed in Pakistan last year, according to police, three times the number in

2010. Most were in Karachi, Paki-stan’s teeming commercial hub of 20 million people, where militant violence and crime are common.

Of those attacked, a dispropor-tionate number, including Raza himself, have been from a minority community.

“Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activists re-vealed in interrogations they tar-get these doctors,” Khurram War-is, an offi cer of Karachi’s Counter Terrorism Department.

Senior physicians are relatively wealthy, making them vulnerable to ransom kidnappings, while se-curity offi cials say militants also prize doctors as targets because they are well respected members of society and easy to hit.

The two are often linked since militants fi nance their operations through extortion, according to police offi cials.

Medical groups say that un-less the government can stop

the killings, a trickle of doctors fl eeing the country may become a fl ood, undermining eff orts to ensure Pakistan’s population of around 190 million has access to basic services.

More than 9,000 out of nearly 200,000 doctors registered with the Pakistan Medical and Den-tal Council (PMDC), a regulatory body, have left Pakistan in the past three years.

The Pakistan Medical Asso-ciation (PMA) does not track why doctors leave, but says fear of at-tack is a major factor. Some doc-tors who stay in Pakistan have for-tifi ed their offi ces.

Others, including Raza, have shut up shop entirely. He is consid-ering seeking asylum overseas.

Saira Afzal Tarar, Minister of State for National Health Services, said that in addition to Karachi doctors emigrating, some in Quet-ta, another city prone to sectarian

violence, are deciding to work in safer areas of the country.

“As law and order is improving (in Karachi), we hope that things will get better,” she told Reuters. “We are trying everything in our power to improve the situation.”

The PMA did not have sta-tistics on how many clinics had shut due to fears of violence or actual attacks.

Mirza Ali Azhar, general sec-retary of the PMA, says the situ-ation could become acute within 10 years.

“Pakistan may have to import doctors,” he said.

In one recent case Azhar re-counted, a doctor was working in the operating theatre when he re-ceived a call telling him he would be killed as he left the hospital.

The doctor fl ed to the airport in an ambulance, met his family there and they left the country on the fi rst fl ight. — Reuters

F O R C I N G E X O D U S

A record 26 doctors were killed in Pakistan last year,

according to police, three times the number in 2010. Most

were in Karachi, a teeming commercial hub of 20 million

people, where militant violence and crime are common

Army rescues Afghanistan soldier near Bajaur region

RAWALPINDI/BANNU: Paki-stani troops on Tuesday rescued an Afghan soldier who got severely injured in exchange of fi re with terrorists near Bajaur Agency.

According to an ISPR state-ment, Afghan authorities request-ed for evacuation and treatment of the injured soldier opposite Bajaur Agency, 600 meters inside the Af-ghan territory.

Pakistani troops quickly re-sponded to the request and shifted the injured soldier to Hospital in Khar area of Bajaur.

At least 2,763 militants have been killed in Operation Zarb-e-Azb, a military off ensive launched against militants in North Wa-ziristan a year ago.

Bannu attackMeanwhile, a police constable was killed on Tuesday when armed assailants opened fi re at him in the main Saddar area of Bannu district.

Offi cials confi rmed the death and told The Express Tribune that Police constable Javed was on his way to work when a few motorcy-clists opened fi re at him.

A police offi cial said the inci-dent took place near Sheri Kala, adding that this was one of the many incidents in which police of-fi cials were being gunned down by militants. — Express Tribune

E X C H A N G E O F F I R E

Seven more prisoners executed in Punjab

MULTAN: Pakistan on Tues-day hanged seven prisoners, bringing the total number put to death since executions re-sumed last December to 160, offi cials said.

Seven executions took place in several cities in the central province of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwa-la, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sialkot and Bahawalpur.

All of those executed had been convicted of murder.

ResumptionExecutions in Pakistan re-sumed in December, ending a six-year moratorium, after Taliban militants gunned down 154 people, most of them chil-dren, at a school in the restive northwest.

Hangings were initially rein-stated only for those convicted of terrorism off ences, but in March they were extended to all capital off ences.

‘Reinstate moratorium’The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium.

Amnesty International esti-mates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have ex-hausted their appeals. — AFP

C O N T R O V E R S Y

As law and order is improving (in Karachi), we hope that things will get better. We are trying everything in our power to improve the situation

Saira Afzal Tarar, Minister of State for National Health Services

A11

WORLDW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

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NATO fumes as Russia aims to boost its nuclear arsenal

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Rus-sia will boost its nuclear arsenal by more than 40 intercontinen-tal missiles this year, in a move slammed as “sabre-rattling” by NATO. The declaration from the Kremlin leader came as Russia reacted with fury to reports that the US is planning to bulk up its military deployments in eastern Europe, with tensions between Russia and the West at their high-est since the end of the Cold War over the confl ict in Ukraine.

“This year the size of our nu-clear forces will increase by over 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles that will be able to over-come any, even the most techno-logically advanced, missile de-fence systems,” Putin said at the opening of an exhibition of mili-

tary hardware outside Moscow. NATO head Jens Stoltenberg

said Putin’s remarks were part of a dangerous pattern of behaviour by Moscow. “This nuclear sabre-rattling by Russia is unjustifi ed, destabilising and it is dangerous,” Stoltenberg said.

Russia has an estimated 7,500 nuclear warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, of which around 1,780 are deployed on missiles or at military bases.

The United States, in compari-son, has some 7,300 warheads with 2,080 of them deployed.

Poland and other countries in eastern Europe have been rattled by Russia’s actions in Ukraine, where it annexed the Crimea pen-insula in 2014 before pro-Moscow separatists began fi ghting Kiev’s forces in the country’s east.

Kiev and its allies accuse Mos-cow of sending in troops and armour to back the separatist confl ict, but Russia has denied the claims. NATO has moved to reassure Russia’s nervous Eastern European neighbours, launching US-led drills in the Baltic states and Poland earlier this month.

US heavy weaponsThe New York Times reported at the weekend that the Penta-gon was poised to station heavy weapons for up to 5,000 American troops in several Eastern Euro-pean and Baltic countries to deter Russian aggression.

The proposal, if approved, would be the fi rst time since the end of the Cold War that the US has had heavy military equipment -- including battle tanks -- in new-er NATO members that were once

under Moscow’s infl uence as part of the Soviet Union.

Poland said on Sunday it is in talks with the United States on the possibility of Washington storing heavy weaponry on its soil.

The US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said F-22 fi ghter jets could be deployed to Europe as the standoff with Mos-cow rumbles on, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Russia’s foreign ministry lashed out at the possible US deployment to the region, warning that the move by Washington could “take on a life of its own”.

“The United States is fuelling tensions and nurturing its Euro-pean allies’ anti-Russian fears, also because it plans to use current tensions to expand its military presence and hence strengthen its infl uence in Europe,” the ministry

said in a statement Monday. Russia’s Deputy Defence Min-

ister Anatoly Antonov on Tuesday accused NATO of “pushing (Mos-cow) towards an arms race,” state-run agency RIA Novosti reported.

Putin on Tuesday toured the vast arms fair displaying Rus-sia’s latest hardware, accompa-nied by senior defence offi cials, at a site outside the capital that is set to become a “Patriot Park” aimed at showcasing Moscow’s military might.

Putin, who enjoys sky-high ap-proval ratings and has pumped vast sums into rebranding Rus-sia’s once dysfunctional armed forces, praised the country’s mil-itary-industrial complex as a “lo-comotive for innovation”.

Many nations across Eastern Europe are jittery over Russia’s expansionism in Ukraine. — AFP

The declaration

from Putin came as

Russia reacted with

fury to reports that

the US is planning to

bulk up its military

deployments in

eastern Europe, with

tensions between

Russia and the West

at their highest since

the end of the Cold

War over the

confl ict in UkraineSABRE-RATTLING: A Russian serviceman walks past the Buk-1M missile system at the Army-2015

international military forum in Kubinka, outside Moscow, on Tuesday. — Reuters

Poland and other

Eastern Europe

countries have been

rattled by Russia’s

actions in Ukraine,

where it annexed the

Crimea Peninsula

in 2014 before

pro-Moscow

separatists began

fighting Ukrainian

forces in the

country’s east

Trump joins race for US presidency

NEW YORK: Property tycoon Donald Trump, one of America’s most fl amboyant and outspoken billionaires, threw his hat into the 2016 race on Tuesday for the White House, promising to make America great again.

The 69-year-old long-shot can-didate ridiculed the country’s cur-rent crop of politicians and vowed to take on the growing might of China in a speech launching his run for the presidency.

“I am offi cially running for president of the United States and we are going to make our country great again,” he said from a podium bedecked in US fl ags at Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

The tycoon strode onto the stage after sailing down an escalator to the strains of Rockin’ In The Free World by Canadian singer Neil Young after being introduced by daughter Ivanka.

His announcement follows years of speculation that the man known to millions as the bouff ant-haired host of American reality TV game show The Apprentice would one day enter politics.

American dreamTrump identifi es as a Republican and has supported Republican candidates in the past. But in his speech he did not explicitly say if he was running for the party’s nomination or as an independent.

He trails in polls behind ri-val Republican candidates. Last month, just fi ve per cent of voters said would vote for Trump at the Republican primary, according to the Quinnipiac University.

And in March, 51 per cent of all voters said they would defi nitely not vote for him, another Quinni-piac poll found. But none of that deterred Trump.

“Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and bet-ter and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again,” he said. — AFP

L O N G - S H O T C A N D I D A T E

COMMEN ARYT I M E S O F O M A NW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Founder: Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali Chairman and Editor-in-Chief: Mohamed Issa Al ZadjaliDeputy Editor-in-Chief: Anees bin Essa Al Zedjali Chief Executive Offi cer: Ahmed Essa Al Zedjali

Printed and published by: Muscat Media GroupP.O. Box 770, Ruwi, Postal Code: 112, Sultanate of Oman.

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It is impossible to know whom American voters will choose as their next president. But it is cer-tain that the choice will have profound conse-quences, for better and

for worse, for the entire world.More than anything else, this

refl ects the continuing reality of American power. It also refl ects the near-certainty that the next president will inherit a world in considerable turmoil. What he or she chooses to do, and how he or she chooses to do it, will matter a great deal to people everywhere.

That said, it is diffi cult to know what role foreign policy will play in determining who will next oc-cupy the Oval Offi ce. The 2016 election is still 17 months away. A lot can, and will, happen between now and then.

Two related but distinct po-litical processes – the Democratic and Republican parties’ nominat-ing contests – will play out over the next year. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is the Demo-cratic frontrunner, though her nomination is not a foregone con-clusion. In any case, foreign policy probably will play little role in the decision, as the issues that most concern voters likely to partici-pate in the Democratic primary elections are domestic and eco-nomic in nature.

The Republican side is far more crowded and uncertain, and it seems far likelier that foreign poli-cy will play a large role in choosing the party’s nominee. The economy is improving under President Barack Obama, making it a less attractive political target. Global turbulence, by contrast, has given

the Republicans more room to at-tack Obama and the Democrats.

Nonetheless, a few foreign-policy issues will dominate the conversation in both parties. One is trade, which is both a domestic and international matter. Obama is seeking Trade Promotion Au-thority, a necessary prelude to gaining congressional support for the Trans-Pacifi c Partnership (TPP), which would reduce bar-riers between the US and 11 other Pacifi c Rim countries. Many – but not all – of the Republican candi-dates back the TPP; the politics on the Democratic side is more hostile to the deal, making it po-tentially risky for any Democratic candidate to support it.

A second issue certain to domi-nate both parties’ nominating de-bates is Iran and the international negotiations to contain its nuclear programme. One can expect many of the Republican candidates to be critical of any proposed deal. Questions will be raised about which sanctions are to be eased and when; about the terms of com-pliance inspections; and about what will happen once some of the limits on Iran’s nuclear activi-ties expire. Democratic candidates are more likely to be sympathetic to whatever is negotiated; but there are certain to be diff erences among candidates on both sides.

A third issue is climate change. Pope Francis will boost the issue’s salience when he releases a major statement on it next week. Like-wise, planning for the United Na-tions Climate Change Conference in Paris in December will keep the issue in the news. Democrats will be more supportive of more far-reaching US commitments, al-

though, again, diff erences of view will emerge on both sides.

A fourth cluster of issues in-volves the Middle East. There is little appetite on either side for large-scale military interven-tion in Iraq and Syria to counter IS. But there will be heated de-bate – and considerable postur-ing – over what should and should not be done.

Then there are all the other is-sues, from Chinese assertiveness in Asia to Russian revanchism in Ukraine. The rhetoric, espe-cially on the Republican side, will be muscular.

One hopes that what emerges from the parties’ nominating processes is insight into how the successful candidates answer three big questions.

The fi rst concerns how much importance, in absolute and rela-tive terms, the nominee assigns to foreign policy. If one thinks of national security as two sides of a coin, with foreign policy on one side and domestic policy on the other, how likely is each to land face up for the next president? This is the classic “guns versus butter” debate over how resources, from dollars to presidential atten-tion, should be allocated.

Second, what are the purposes and priorities of foreign policy? The realist tradition in interna-tional relations focuses on infl u-encing other countries’ foreign policies and places less emphasis on their internal aff airs.

The main alternative tradition takes the opposite tack, arguing that other countries’ domestic af-fairs are what matter most, wheth-er for reasons of morality and prin-ciple. — Project Syndicate

Foreign policy key in US presidential poll

It is difficult to know what role foreign policy will play in determining who will next occupy the Oval Office. The 2016 election is still 17 months away. A lot can, and will, happen between now and then

Letters, containing not more than 200 words with full name, address and telephone number, may be sent by mail (Times of Oman, P.O. Box 770, P.C. 112, Ruwi), by fax (24813153) or by e-mail (akhtar@timesofoman.com)

AFTER OBAMA

This time last year, migrants from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied minors, were streaming into the United States, creating a problem for border communities

and Obama administration offi cials. With far fewer people reaching American soil this year, it is tempting to conclude that the crisis is ebbing. That would be a mistake.

Thousands of desperate Central Americans fl eeing violence, pov-erty and, in some cases, persecution, are continuing to embark on per-ilous journeys north. A growing share, though, are being turned back at Mexico’s southern border.

“The root causes of migration haven’t gone away,” said Maureen Meyer, an expert on migration trends who has analysed recent data from immigration authorities in Mexico and the United States. “Things are certainly not getting any better.”

American immigration authorities along the southern border de-tained more than 70,400 non-Mexican migrants between October and April of this year, a majority of whom are from Central America. That represented a considerable decline from 162,700 detained dur-ing the same period 12 months earlier. Meanwhile, Mexican offi cials stopped nearly 93,000 Central American migrants between October and April of this year, far exceeding the 49,800 detained in the same period 12 months earlier. As the White House scrambled to fi nd solu-tions to the border crisis last year, offi cials urged Mexico to do more to protect its southern border. The Mexican government deployed more law enforcement offi cers along the border and made it harder for mi-grants to travel as stowaways aboard freight trains. That has meant that fewer Central Americans who have reason to seek asylum are getting a chance to make their case. — The New York Times

Migrant crisis woes

John Ellis Bush (Jeb) -- grandson of the late Sen. Prescott Shel-don Bush, son of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, brother of former President George Walker Bush and heir to

the political estate known as the “Bush network” -- has a fi ght on his hands. And anyone who cares about politics -- not just Republican or presidential politics, but honest politics -- has a stake in this fi ght.

The former governor of Florida, who previously served on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies, had hoped to spook rivals out of the Re-publican presidential primary with a showing of fi nancial and party support. He may yet produce the fi nancial war chest, courtesy of a super-PAC that amounts to the conjoined twin of his campaign. But endorsements and votes are going to be won hard or not at all.

The most interesting thing about Bush’s campaign, which he an-nounced Monday, is how he plans to earn that support. Last year, Bush said that for his party to be successful in 2016, its nominee had to be willing to “lose the primary to win the general.” Appealing too strenu-ously to Republican base voters would alienate the general electorate.

Following such advice will be harder than off ering it. So far, how-ever, Bush has largely been true to his word. He has refused to sign the anti-tax pledge that constricts Republican policy-making. And he has stood his ground in favor of immigration reform -- with a path to le-galization for undocumented immigrants who are longtime residents of the US - - and the Common Core educational testing standards that he has long and vigorously championed.

Bush has also been a successful governor of a large, diverse and complex state. He has a sharp mind for policy and the ability to mas-ter unscripted encounters with voters and the news media. His com-mitment to diversifying his party is the surest path to its success in the 21st century. And -- especially compared with that of some of his primary opponents - - his view of government’s role in society is no-table for its generosity. “My core beliefs start with a premise that the most vulnerable in our society should be in the front of the line, not the back,” he said in a campaign video released in advance of his offi cial announcement. It’s worth recalling that just a decade ago, Bush was one of the most conservative governors in the US, implementing edu-cation reforms and tax cuts and championing socially conservative causes that alarmed Democrats. That he enters the Republican pri-mary hobbled by his family name is perhaps unavoidable. That some Republicans are calling him too moderate to be their standard-bearer should give more Republicans pause. If Bush continues to campaign on his own terms, not only his party will benefi t -- the nation might, as well. — Bloomberg View

Bush’s goal is to expand

the Republican Party

R I C H A R D N . H A A S S

Need to ensure that best quality of food is suppliedThis refers to the news story, Public Authority of Consumer Protection to ensure availability of commodities in Oman during Ramadan, (June 15). The PACP deserves all praise for being vigilant and prudent enough in ensuring the continuous supply of commodities at their normal prices or lesser rates, so that peo-ple do not suff er during the Holy Month of Ramadan. However, beyond the quantity of food and the rates, the quality of the food supplied should also be checked with stricter and frequent inspec-tions. This is the time of the year when vendors hope to make quick profi ts and therefore tend to keep food supplies beyond their expira-tion dates, or try to sell food stored in poor conditions. The consum-

ers too should be vigilant while making their purchases and not hesitate to report any violations to the concerned government author-ities. Together let us make the holy month hassle-free.Anna KavalamMuscat

An urgent repair of safety bar in Al Hail is required This refers to a safety hazard in Al Hail North near the underpass going in the direction of Al Hail South. For nearly a month a safety bar of this tunnel is broken at one end and it seems it could fall at any time. If such an eventuality were to happen it would most likely cause serious injuries or even prove be fatal. Younis Al BalushiAl Hail

People opposing pop corns in cinema may be joking This refers the recent letters in your newspaper calling for ban-ning of eating pop corn in cinema halls. It all seems to be a joke to me. One goes to watch movies to have fun. In my opinion people calling for a ban on pop corns in theatres are perhaps thinking they go there to take examinations. If they want to have undivided attention during the screening of the fi lm, it would be better for them to do so privately in their own houses.Mohammad Jawad Al Khuwair

Ban on trucks plying on roads not being followed This refers to the online news story, Royal Oman Police bans heavy trucks during Ramadan

peak hours (June 16). Such deci-sions are always welcome. In my opinion, in other months when they are prohibited from plying on the roads during the offi ce hours, they can still be seen fl outing the rule openly. Vinod Lall Aryachalil Muscat

Appalled to see zoo animals being killed This refers to the news report about zoo animals roaming on Georgian capitals’ roads after fl oods. I am truly surprised that the owners didn’t have any safety measures in place. It was sad to see so many animals being killed mercilessly when they could not be captured alive. Raza Ali Muscat

READERS’ FORUM

Words are but the signs of ideasSAMUEL JOHNSON

website: www.newindiaoman.com

NEW INDIA ASSURANCENew India off ers a wide range of HEALTH INSURANCE COVERS to you/family/employee.

PERSPEC IVET I M E S O F O M A N W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5T I M E S O F O M A N A13

Summer is upon us, and with it peak US airline travel: This July, more than 80

million passengers will cross American skies.

But what’s good for vacation relaxation is terrible for the envi-ronment. According to the WWF, airline travel is the fastest grow-ing source of global greenhouse gas emissions, leaving trucking and coal-burning power plants in their wake. Already, the 3 billion fl ights each year produce about 5 percent of the world’s output from all sources.

Yet even those who want, ur-gently, to fi ght global warming have been slow to deal with the impact of air travel. Think of those high-profi le do-gooders who fl ew 550 private jets to confab at Da-vos about carbon dioxide levels in January. The Environmental Protection Agency only just de-clared that air travel contributes to global warming and that it will begin regulating greenhouse emissions by carriers under the Clean Air Act.

Why, when car travel is peren-nially in the hot seat, has this is-sue got so little attention? We’ve got electric cars, smaller cars, cars with great gas mileage. Why

haven’t we seen the same techno-logical evolution with planes?

The answer is that airplanes pose a fundamentally diff erent engineering problem. They have to do work to carry their fuel through the air, so are limited by the energy density of the storage medium. Increasing effi ciency of aircraft engines and wings will help, but only to a point.

And a lot of the “easy” fi xes have been made. Companies like Boe-ing and Airbus have been working for fi ve decades to build planes that burn less fuel, innovating ma-terials and making computer-aid-ed tweaks to aerodynamic design. They’ve increased use of strong, lightweight materials like carbon fi ber laminates that now make up more than 50 per cent of a modern passenger jet’s airframe. They also developed sophisticated turbo-fan engines that are signifi cantly more effi cient than older models. Their newest aircraft (released in 2000) use half as much fuel per mile as the jets of a half-century ago (Cars and SUVs are about 40 percent more effi cient today.) And engineers say there are few fi xes left. “The present technology is already highly optimised,” says writer and aircraft designer Peter

Garrison. “The low-hanging fruit has been plucked.”

An alternative idea would be to write off conventional technology as a dead-end, and instead invest in radical approaches like solar-powered aircraft. The topic has been in the news lately, thanks to the photovoltaic-encrusted ex-perimental plane Solar Impulse. The plane, currently in Japan, is part of a 12-year project by Swiss adventurers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, who want to fl y around the world.

To save energy, Solar Impulse is neither pressurised nor climate controlled, so that temperatures in the tiny cockpit swing between 86 F and -4 F.

And it is slow. Solar Impulse cruises at a languid 56 mph, about one-tenth the speed of a typical commercial jet. The reason is simple aerodynamics. As it fl ies, a plane disrupts the air it moves through, and this takes power. The faster it goes, the more power it will consume. Very effi cient airplanes, like gliders or human-powered airplanes, have long, thin wings designed to move slowly through the air. That’s appealing for aeronautical engineers, but not to travellers. — The Washington Post

SEMINAR ON INFORMATION MUSCAT: Dr Hamid bin Shadha Al Marjan, electronic information network adviser at the Ministry of Information, yesterday gave a lecture at the Press Club on informa-tion and local issues. The lecture was part of the information seminar being organised by the Ministry of Information. Dr Al Marjan talked about the roll of mass media and local issues, focusing on the roll of women in the society as an issue which should be given attention. “The woman is part of the society and social setup,” Dr Al Marjan said, assessing the negative sides in ignoring this issue. Dr Al Marjan then outlined the roll being shouldered by the electronic information network Omanet at the Ministry of Information. Despite its limited resources, Omanet currently responses to over 2,000 inquires per month.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Americans are focused on the atrocities of extremist terrorists and the economic and political challenges posed by superpower China while having little recognition of the potential peril from Russia

It could have been President Barack Obama issuing a fi rm warning — measured, devoid of bellicose threats

— to Vladimir Putin that the West would keep the pressure on as long as Russia in-terfered with Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Instead, it was Jeb Bush, the for-mer Florida governor and a leading 2016 Republican presidential aspirant, speaking at a news conference in Berlin on last Wednesday.

The political implication is minimal. It’s not clear Russia will be a top issue in the presidential race, and Bush has big-ger problems than sounding a bit like the president on one foreign policy matter. But the similarity of tone underscores the how diffi cult and problematic US-Russian relations are.

Obama, his Republican critics not-withstanding, has been pretty resolute since Putin took over Crimea and began assisting separatists in eastern Ukraine last year. In response to the aggression, the US has initiated tough economic sanctions and ‘isolated’ Russia.

The instinct among many in America, including more than a few politicians, is to see Putin as a rouge and Russia as a pale copy of the old Soviet Union — “a gas station masquerading as a country,” as Republican Senator John McCain is fond of saying.

Russia’s economy is weak, reliant on the slumping oil and gas market, and suf-fering from the sanctions. But the coun-try remains a huge military threat with a lethal nuclear arsenal, exhibits a public nationalism that feeds on restoring the glories of yesteryear and is an important player on global issues such as Syria, Iran and terrorism.

Two recent articles in the National Interest, published by the Center for the National Interest, illuminate the risky challenges the United States faces in dealing with Putin. (This is the for-mer Nixon Center, no hotbed of mushy peaceniks.)

Dimitri Simes, a Russia expert who runs the center, and Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and confi dant of De-

fence Secretary Ashton Carter, wrote that ratcheting up pressure could play into Putin’s hands. For example, a num-ber of Obama’s critics are calling on him to supply lethal arms to Ukraine, but Simes and Allison warn that might pro-vide a “pretext” for Russia to respond “with arms or even troops, initiating a game of escalation.”

Anti-West hawks In Moscow, they report from personal observations, the anti-West hawks are ascendant: “Putin is not the hardest of the hard-liners in Russia.”

Les Gelb, a former diplomat and lead-ing member of the US foreign policy establishment, notes that Russians felt humiliated by the West after the fall of communism. They lost a quarter of So-viet territory, half the population and much wealth. Thus, he argues, it’s “total-ly unrealistic to think the West can gain Russian restraint” unless Russia is dealt with as a great power.

The US and Russia, he says, have to adopt a “Détente Plus” strategy of di-plomacy, which he acknowledges that “formidable segments of the policy com-munities on both sides will not reconcile themselves to.”

Meanwhile, Americans are focused on the atrocities of extremist terrorists and the economic and political chal-lenges posed by superpower China while having little recognition of the potential peril from Russia.

This threat is the subject of “Impe-rial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine and the New Cold War,” by Marvin Kalb, a former diplomat and Russian scholar, to be pub-lished this autumn. In a recent blog post, he wondered whether the US is “stum-bling towards confl ict with Russia.” Re-fl ecting the reasoned postures taken by Bush and Obama, Mike McFaul, the US ambassador to Russia until last year and a nemesis of the regime, warns that there are no quick fi xes: “The United States-Russia confl ict is not going to be resolved in weeks or months; this challenge will take years, even decades.” — Bloomberg View

The risky challenges the US faces in dealing with Putin

TODAY IN HISTORY1815 Napoleon defeats the Prussians at the

Battle of Ligny. 1907 The Russian czar dissolves the Duma

in St. Petersburg. 1935 President Roosevelt’s New Deal

legislation is passed by the House of Representatives.

1940 French Chief of State, Henri Petain

asks for an armistice with Germany.

HISTORYNET.COM

GraphicsGraphic News /

Paris Air Show orders

Source: Flightglobal

Commitments(firm orders and letters of intent)

Sukhoi

Bombardier

ATR**

Comac*

Embraer

Boeing

Airbus

3

6

35

78

103

79

146

Airbus and Boeing kicked off the week-long Paris Air Show with orders for more than 200 aircraft. ATR, Bombardier, Comac and Embraer also secured new orders

*Commercial Aircraft Corporationof China

French-Italian Avions de transport regional

**450Total

commitments

Mention innovation, and you would get an earful on how in-

novative we all are. By looking at the growing list of start-ups in Pakistan, the dazzling in-novation hubs and the brand new apps, the long waitlists of students trying to get into the IT programmes and the chest-thumping exercise of institu-tions in being the pioneers of e-governance, we are remind-ed that innovation, somehow, begins with programming a computer and ends with a smartphone.

Others, who are unable to programme, can be very smart, perhaps, but not tru-ly innovative. Some others would be generous enough to include other fi elds of scienc-es and engineering under the grand umbrella of innovation, but even that is really pushing the defi nition and must not extend any further.

Indeed, the growth of the tech start-up culture is prom-ising, and transparency in gov-ernance is a step in the right direction, but if our defi nition of innovation is suff ering from severe myopia, our ability to change things will be just as limited as the defi nition itself.

Our inability to appreciate and acknowledge innovation in social and the fi nancial sectors, in it being inclusive of new ideas and approaches from the humanities and so-cial sciences, is creating a lim-ited vision for the future that is both extremely constrained in its scope and far from sustainable.

Whether it is strong argu-

ments in favour of humanities and the social sciences for an inclusive, tolerant and un-derstanding society, the well-founded arguments against the Higher Education Com-mission’s treatment of schol-ars outside natural and physi-cal sciences, or the problems in the social sector that can-not be solved by just another app, our failure to recognise, respect and reward innovative thoughts and ideas is creat-ing high barriers to our own development.

For this one, it is hard to pin the blame on a foreign non-governmental organisations or our eastward neighbours.

Policy debatesOur myopic defi nition of in-novation is not only ostra-cising those who are outside the folds of engineering and the sciences, it is also aff ect-ing our ability to engage in policy debates in the interna-tional arena.

The recent European Un-ion meeting on innovation policy for economic and so-cial impact, held in Helsinki last week, had exactly zero representation of scholars or researchers working in Paki-stan, though both our north-ern and eastern neighbours, along with researchers from countries across the globe, were well represented.

As I inquired further about the lack of Pakistani repre-sentation, I was told that the only interest from Pakistani colleagues was on technology and IT innovation, with little interest in innovation policy, social innovation or debates on inclusive innovation.

ChallengesThe loss was certainly ours, where, not only did we not benefi t from the richness of the debates, but we also lost out on the opportunity to learn from others who may have used the vehicles of innova-tion and innovation policy, to address social, economic and developmental challenges.

Now, we have two options, we can either dismiss this as a giant conspiracy against us, like we often do, or we can recognise this as a major weakness in our intellectual landscape, and do something to change it.

Our current fi xation with innovation as the domain of a single group within society shows that we are more inter-ested in exclusion than inclu-sion, a trait not too unfamiliar in the domains of other social and political problems.

The fabric of our soci-ety, and the brilliant minds within its folds, is rich and di-verse, in culture, training and knowledge.

The problems faced by the nation are equally di-verse in their evolution and scope. It is only fi tting that our innovative ideas, to solve these problems, embrace the same diversity of origin and scholarship. — Express Tribune

Innovation sans insight

Making air travel safer for environment

M . H A M I D Z A M A N

J E F F W I S E

A L B E R T R . H U N T

Our inability to appreciate and acknowledge innovation in social and the financial sectors, in it being inclusive of new ideas and approaches from the humanities and social sciences, is creating a limited vision for the future that is both extremely constrained in its scope and far from sustainable

A14

GLOBAL EYEW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

CHINA: Old residential buildings are demolished with controlled blasting in Chongqing municipality, China, on Tuesday. The buildings were demolished within fi ve seconds to make way for the construction of

a future traffi c hub, according to local media. — Reuters/China Daily

UNITED STATES: NAACP member Kitara McClure, left, cries as she hugs Angela Jones, right, during a

protest in front of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) headquar-

ters in Spokane, Washington on Monday. Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights advocate who has been accused

of falsely claiming she is black, announced her resignation as leader of a local branch of the NAACP in

Washington state. — Reuters

SWITZERLAND: Seized counterfeit pans and utensils await destruction at Swiss Customs in Geneva,

Switzerland, on Tuesday. About one tonne of counterfeit cooking items were destroyed. — Reuters

INDONESIA: A woman uses a telescope with an SLR camera attached to spot the new moon to mark the beginning of Ramadan in Sura-

baya, in eastern Java province, on Tuesday. — AFP

ITALY: Migrants wait near the sea, in the city of Ventimiglia at the

French-Italian border, on Tuesday. Italy warned that EU solidarity

is at stake if the 28-nation bloc fails to reach a deal on sharing the

burden of the Mediterranean migrant crisis. — AFP

AZERBAIJAN: A police watch tower is silhoutted during sunset in

Baku, Azerbaijan. — Reuters

A15

WORLDW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Houthi rebels rule out talks with Yemeni government

GENEVA/JEDDAH: Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Tuesday accused Saudi Arabia of trying to sabotage UN peace talks in Geneva and ruled out negotiations with the internationally recognised ex-iled government, saying it lacked legitimacy.

In Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s exiled president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi reiterated that his govern-ment will only discuss with re-bels a Security Council resolution ordering their withdrawal from seized territory.

The rebels fi nally joined talks on Tuesday afternoon as they ar-

rived a day late after being strand-ed in Djibouti — a fact they blamed on Riyadh. But rebel negotiating team member Mohammed Zubai-ri defi antly told reporters: “We re-fuse any dialogue with those who have no legitimacy.”

He said they instead wanted

talks with Saudi Arabia, which has been leading an aerial campaign against the rebels since March 26, “to stop the aggression”.

Badly-neededThe United Nations is desper-ately trying to get the rebels, who

control a large swath of terrain including the capital Sanaa, and the exiled government to agree to a badly-needed humanitarian truce. But any hope of a thaw ap-peared bleak with Hadi repeating on Tuesday that his side was only prepared to discuss with the re-

bels a Security Council resolution ordering their withdrawal from seized territory. A UN-chartered plane carrying the rebels had left Sanaa on Sunday afternoon but was forced to wait in Djibouti for nearly 24 hours, forcing them to miss Monday’s opening of the talks and a meeting with UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

AccusationThe rebels accused Egypt and Su-dan of not allowing their plane to fl y through their airspace.

“It was Saudi Arabia which asked its allies” to take the action with the aim of “torpedoing the negotiations”, Adel Shujah, anoth-er member of the rebel team, told AFP after arriving in Geneva.

He said they were able to travel on to Switzerland after the United States intervened.

In the Saudi city of Jeddah, the Hadi told an extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that “our delegation in Geneva will only discuss the terms of applying (Resolution) 2216”.

His comments were carried by Yemen’s offi cial Saba news agen-cy. The meeting was attended by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.— AFP

Rebel negotiating

team member

Mohammed Zubairi

said they wanted

talks with Saudi

Arabia to stop

the aggression

18 killed, 98 injured as passenger train hits lorry, derails in TunisiaTABIKA (TUNISIA): At least 18 people were killed and 98 injured on Tuesday when a train hit a lor-ry and derailed at a level crossing in one of Tunisia’s worst railway disasters, offi cials said.

Most of the dead were passen-gers on the morning rush hour train which hit the lorry in the vil-lage of Tabika, around 60 kilome-tres (40 miles) south of Tunis, the transport ministry said.

“We received the bodies of 17 people,” said Riadh Khlifi , direc-tor of El Fahes hospital a few kilo-metres from the accident scene, “and another dead person was sent to Zaghouan hospital”.

He added that among the 98 hurt, three were in a critical con-dition and had been sent to the capital for treatment.

The interior ministry said the train had been en route to Tunis from Gaafour, 120 kilometres to the southwest.

The collision happened at around 6:30am (0530 GMT).

Transport Minister Mahmoud

Ben Romdhane said the accident happened because there was no barrier at the crossing, but this was disputed by the Tunisian National Railway Co (SNCFT). “The main cause of the accident is the non-existence of a barrier... and protection at the crossing,” he told radio station Shems-FM.

“In Tunisia, there are 1,150 rail crossings. Only 250 are equipped with signal posts and barriers

and only 150 have lights. This is insuffi cient.” But SNCFT spokes-man Hassen Miaad told Tunisian radio there was “a stop sign and a railway crossing sign at the level crossing”.

Crashes commonTrain crashes are common in Tunisia, where much of the rail network is dilapidated, but Tuesday’s accident was the deadliest in recent memory. The presidency said it had called for an inquiry “to determine the cause of this catastrophe”. Wit-nesses spoke of mangled wreck-age at the scene and dead bodies strewn across the tracks. — AFP

R A I L W A Y D I S A S T E R

Al Qaeda chief of Yemeni branch killed

DUBAI: Al Qaeda has confi rmed that its second-in-command, the chief of its powerful Yemeni branch, was killed in a US drone strike, in the heaviest blow to the militant network since the death of Osama bin Laden.

Already struggling with the rise of rival militants from the IS group, Al Qaeda has suff ered a se-ries of setbacks in recent months with several commanders report-ed killed. In a video statement, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) confi rmed that Nasir Al Wuhayshi was dead.

Western targetsWuhayshi “was killed in a US drone attack that targeted him along with two other mujahe-deen”, who were also killed, said the statement read by prominent Al Qaeda militant Khaled Omar Batarfi and dated June 15.

AQAP — which was behind sev-eral plots against Western targets including the deadly attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris earlier this year -- said it had named its military chief Qas-sem Al Rimi as its new leader.

US offi cials were earlier report-ed to have been reviewing intel-ligence to confi rm that Wuhayshi was killed in a CIA drone strike on June 9. — AFP

U S D R O N E S T R I K E

In a video statement, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) confi rmed that Nasir Al Wuhayshi was dead.

PEACE TALKS: The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, centre, sits

with Yemeni rebels during Yemen peaces talks on Tuesday in Geneva. – AFP

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Thousands of Indonesians fl ee volcanic eruption

JAKARTA: More than 10,000 villagers have fl ed a rumbling volcano in western Indone-sia this month, most in recent days after a series of violent eruptions, an offi cial said on Tuesday.

Authorities raised the alert status of Mount Sinabung, on Sumatra island, to the highest level at the start of June after detecting a sharp increase in activity.

Back to lifeThe volcano, which came back to life two years ago after a pe-riod of inactivity, erupted vio-lently at the weekend, spewing hot ash and rocks high into the air. Sinabung -- which killed 16 people in a fi erce eruption last year -- was continuing to belch out a thick plume of smoke high into the sky Tuesday, covering homes far away with a coating of ash. Around 7,500 residents have been evacuated from their villages following the weekend eruptions, disaster agency offi -cial Tri Budiarto said. — AFP

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WORLDW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

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Hong Kong on high alert as new democracy showdown loomsHONG KONG: Hong Kong’s leader warned on Tuesday that violence will not be tolerated as six people were charged with conspiracy to cause an explosion ahead of a crucial vote on a China-backed electoral reform package this week.

Security has been stepped up across the Chinese-ruled city, in-cluding at government buildings and train stations, as it braces for a fresh showdown over plans for how its next leader is elected in 2017.

Authorities are taking no chanc-es after mass pro-democracy pro-tests crippled parts of the former British colony late last year and presented China’s Communist

Party leadership with one of its big-gest political challenges in decades.

“Hong Kong society should not tolerate any illegal activities.

Whether these are violent or non-violent, we should not allow any illegal activities to be justifi ed,” Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said in a televised briefi ng.

Ten people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to manu-facture explosives, police said on Monday, adding that some be-longed to a radical group.

Six people were charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to cause an explosion.

Police said they would patrol in-side the city’s Legislative Council

overnight ahead of the debate due to start on Wednesday.

A vote is due by the end of the week. Pro-democracy protest-ers are staging evening rallies throughout the week.

ProposedBeijing has proposed a direct vote for Hong Kong’s next leader in 2017, but only from among pre-screened, pro-Beijing candidates.

Democracy activists say that makes a mockery of China’s prom-ise of universal suff rage.

“If the pan-democrats stub-bornly insist on vetoing the pro-posal, democracy in Hong Kong will come to a standstill,” said Song

Ru’an, a Chinese Foreign Ministry offi cial in Hong Kong.

The head of China’s Hong Kong Macau Aff airs Offi ce, Wang Guangya, in an interview with two pro-Beijing newspapers, reiterat-ed Beijing’s desire to see the elec-toral package passed.

He said that if the electoral framework were accepted, there would still be room for changes in future.

With tensions running high be-fore the debate, Hong Kong’s In-dependent Commission Against Corruption has also said it is inves-tigating allegations by an unidenti-fi ed legislator that he was off ered a bribe to vote for the package.

Some of those arrested in the raids belonged to a little-known group called the National Inde-pendent Party, media reported on Tuesday.

According to its Facebook page the group was set up in January, but the page has now been deleted.

A June 1 post purportedly from the group warned that, if the re-form package was passed, “Hong Kong people should be mentally prepared there will be casualties”.The Global Times, a widely-read tabloid published by the Chi-nese Communist Party’s offi cial People’s Daily, said in an edito-rial that following the fi nding of the explosives, Hong Kong risked

descending into chaos.Rising tensions have resulted

in a new front of radical activism in Hong Kong, where some groups have staged small but disruptive protests targeting mainland Chi-nese visitors.

Anger has also spilled over to football crowds, with supporters of the Hong Kong team loudly booing the Chinese national anthem on Tuesday night at the start of a local World Cup Asian zone qualifying match against the Maldives.

Some fans turned their backs and others chanted “we are Hong Kong” in a repeat of similar scenes last week before Hong Kong’s match against Bhutan. - Reuters

C R U C I A L V O T E

Bangladesh

upholds death

sentence of top

Jamaat leader

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s highest court Tuesday upheld the death sentence against a top Jamaat leader for war crimes during the country’s battle for independ-ence, prompting his opposition party to call a general strike in protest.

Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mu-jahid could now be hanged within months after the Su-preme Court dismissed his ap-peal against the sentence for the murder of scores of intellectu-als during the 1971 confl ict.

The 67-year-old is one of about a dozen leaders of Bang-ladesh’s largest party Jamaat-e-Islami, a key opposition group, convicted by a controversial war crimes tribunal set up by the secular government in 2010.

The convictions have trig-gered the country’s deadliest vi-olence since independence with some 500 people killed, mainly in clashes between Jamaat ac-tivists and police.

Security was tight ahead of Tuesday’s ruling, with heavily armed police and border guards surrounding the court in Dhaka and patrolling nearby streets.

But widespread violence was unlikely following a recent crackdown against the opposi-tion by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Jamaat, thousands of whose supporters have been arrested in the crackdown, called the strike for Wednesday, branding the trial of its general secretary “farcical”.

“Mujahid is a victim of the government’s conspiracy,” Jamaat’s acting chief Moqbul Ahmed said in a statement.

Mujahid was found guilty in 2013 of leading Al Badr, a notorious militia that carried out “exterminations” of Bang-ladeshi intellectuals including top writers, journalists and pro-fessors towards the end of the nine-month war. - AFP

W A R C R I M E S

Taliban warn

IS leader not

to interfere in

Afghanistan

KABUL: The Taliban on Tues-day warned the leader of the IS group against waging a parallel insurgency in Afghanistan, af-ter a string of defections.

The group also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh, has never formally acknowledged having a presence in Afghani-stan but fears are growing that the group is making inroads in the country.

In a letter addressed to IS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the Taliban insisted that “jihad (holy war) against the Ameri-cans and their allies must be conducted under one fl ag and one leadership”.

“The Taliban does not con-sider the multiplicity of jihadi ranks benefi cial either for jihad or for Muslims,” said the letter signed by the Taliban deputy leader Mullah Akhtar Moham-mad Mansoor. The statement demonstrates a growing disqui-et within the Taliban about the creeping infl uence and popular-ity of IS within insurgent ranks, analysts say. - AFP

G R O W I N G I S I N F L U E N C E

MARKEWWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5B

Muscat

6,493.78- 0.61

- 0.01%

Dubai

4,079.05- 38.52

- 0.94%

Abu Dhabi

4,545.11- 3.92

- 0.09%

Saudi Arabia

9,536.92- 24.78

- 0.26%

Kuwait

6,258.69- 21.07

- 0.34%

Bahrain

1,364.91+ 0.23

+ 0.02%

Qatar

11,873.55- 29.68

- 0.25%

CURRENCY RATES* DRAFT RATES (OMR1)* GOLD PRICES*Forex rates vs OMR1*

US Dollar ................................. 2.58

Euro ............................................2.28

Pound ...........................................1.65

Indian Rs ............................ 166.00

Pak Rs ....................................260.01

Bangla Taka.......................199.36* Rates are as of Jun 16

Source: Bank Muscat

Indian Rs ...................................166.75

Pakistan Rs ............................ 263.20

Sri Lanka Rs .......................... 344.25

Bangla Taka.............................201.70

Phil Peso .................................... 116.25

* Rates as of Jun 16 Source: Oman UAE Exchange

Muscat 24ct per gm (OMR) .......15.20

Muscat 22ct per gm (OMR) .......14.65

Dubai 24ct per gm (Dh) ............143.25

Dubai 22ct per gm (Dh) ............ 136.00

* Rates as of Jun 16

Source: Malabar Gold & Diamonds

Type ............................Delivery...........Price

Oman Crude ............. (Spot) .........$61.66

Dubai Crude ............. (Spot) .........$61.26

Murban Crude ........ (Spot) ........$63.29

Arabian Light ......... (Spot) ........$60.86

N.Sea Brent ............... (Spot) ........$63.82

West Texas Int ....... (Spot) ........ $59.75

CRUDE OIL PRICE

DIGEST VIDEO

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South Korean firm plans auto spare parts project in Sohar

A E JAMESbusinesseditor@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: A South Korean mul-tinational company is planning to build an automobile spare parts manufacturing project in Sohar to produce aluminium automobile wheels, a top-level offi cial of South Korean Embassy here told Times of Oman.

‘Strategic location’Daesik Kim, Korea’s ambassador

to Oman, said that the proposal for building the project was at an early stage of negotiation with Omani partners. “Korean companies are realising the importance of Oman as strategic location.”

Kim said that Korean compa-nies in the recent past were mostly engaged in oil exploration fi eld in Oman. Now they have interest in the manufacturing sector as Posco, a Korean fi rm, has already tied up with Sun Metal (a joint venture be-tween Oman and Indian investors)

for building a steel project in Sur.Referring to bilateral trade be-

tween the two friendly countries, the ambassador said Korea im-ports are mainly liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) and crude oil. Korea im-ports $4 billion worth LNG from

Oman and another $1 billion worth crude oil, taking the total import value to $5 billion a year. Korea’s exports to Oman mainly consist of automobiles and white goods, with a total value of around $1 billion.

“LNG imports are on a long-

term basis and the imports from Oman are likely to remain the same or decline this year due to a fall in energy prices in the interna-tional markets,” noted Kim.

Also, Korean fi rms are partici-pating in construction projects in Oman — both in government and private projects.

Oman-Korean partnershipCiting the best example of Oman-Korean partnership in developing Duqm Drydock, he said Korean fi rm Daewoo Shipbuilding & Ma-rine Engineering’s participation in Duqm enables Oman to learn from Korean fi rm’s know-how and expertise.

“This is a good example of trans-fer of expertise and know-how.” Both parties have a ten-year oper-ation and management agreement to ensure complete organisation for talent, experience and technol-ogy to the benefi t of Oman in the

diversifi cation of its economy,” he further added.

Kim also said that his coun-try has a close economic relation with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the case of UAE, Korea has a close tie-up in health-care sector. He said that Omani youths can get training in South Korea in various fi elds. When Ko-rea started its economic develop-ment, the country depended on developed nations for know-how and transfer of technology.

And now, he said, Korean fi rms are known for its world-class technology in several industries, including ship-building, automo-bile, information technology and healthcare.

Proposal for building the project was at

an early stage of negotiation with Omani

partners, said South Korea’s ambassador

to Oman

Renaissance to hold key meetingTimes News Service

MUSCAT: An extraordinary general meeting of Renaissance Services shareholders will be convened on July 6 to seek ap-proval for repurchasing 423.14 million mandatory convertible bonds (MCBs). A scheme for the repurchase of 423.14 million MCBs of OMR43.16 million issued in 2012 will be discussed during the ex-traordinary general meeting.

The meeting will be held at 3 pm at the premises of the Capital Market Authority (CMA).

According to a company state-ment, the approval of the scheme is subject to the availability of fi -nancing. Another objective of the meet-ing is to consider and approve the issuance of Perpetual Cumula-tive Capital Certifi cates by the company’s wholly owned over-seas subsidiary, with a coupon to be determined at the time of issue

based on market conditions to raise up to $200,000,000 through conventional or Sukuk fi nancing.

Mandatory Convertible BondsRenaissance Services had issued 423,141,678 MCBs at an issue price of OMR0.102, amounting to OMR43.1 million MCBs in July 2012 to its shareholders on a rights basis. The purpose of the issuance was to provide capital for fi nancing the investment re-quired for the company’s growth and to strengthen the company’s balance sheet.

The MCBs off er investors an annual cash coupon of 3.75 per cent and shares in the company upon conversion, which aggre-gate to an internal rate of return of 16.9 per cent for MCB holders.

The conversion of MCBs is scheduled to be carried out in three equal tranches commenc-ing from July 2015, with the re-maining two tranches in July 2016 and July 2017.

C R U C I A L I S S U E S

Daesik Kim. — Picture by A R Rajkumar/Times of Oman

HAVE YOUR SAY Send us your comments at facebook.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com haveyoursay@timesofoman.com

Private wealth in Oman grows 35%Times News Service

MUSCAT: Private wealth in Oman grew by an impressive 35.4 per cent in 2014, accord-ing to a new report by the Bos-ton Consulting Group titled ‘Global Wealth 2015: Winning the Growth Game, released on Tuesday.’

In Oman, the growth of pri-vate wealth was driven mainly by equities. After all, between 2013 and 2014, the amount of wealth held in equities rose by a robust 146.3 per cent while bonds and cash and deposits grew by 7.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively.

Based on BCG’s study, Oman is poised for further growth (8.6 per cent) in the next fi ve years, with the wealth breakdown anticipat-ed to be 47 per cent in cash and deposits, eight per cent in bonds, and 45 per cent in equities.

Over the next fi ve years, across Oman, private wealth held in eq-uities is expected to increase at a compounded annual growth rate

(CAGR) of 11.6 per cent. In par-allel, bonds will grow by 4.9 per cent and cash and deposits will see a 6.7 per cent jump.

Private wealth in that segment rose by a remarkable 116.8 per cent in 2014.

With a projected CAGR of 12.9 per cent over the next fi ve years, this segment is expected to see continued growth. This will be triggered by both a large number of new households entering the segment and growth in average wealth per household.

In Oman, private wealth held by the lower high net worth seg-ment (those with between $1 mil-lion and $20 million) grew at a rate of 35.8 per cent in 2014. It is forecasted to grow by 8.7 per cent over the next fi ve years.

The Global Wealth 2015 re-port addresses the current and future size of the market – nota-bly the projection that the Asia-Pacifi c region (excluding Japan) will surpass North America as the wealthiest region in the world in 2016.

B O S T O N C O N S U L T I N G G R O U P R E P O R T

B2

MARKETW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Orpic enters into pact with Japanese agency

Times News Service

MUSCAT: A memorandum of agreement (MoA) to cooperate on various technical topics has been signed by Orpic, Oman’s national refi nery and petrochemical com-pany, with Japan Cooperation Center, Petroleum (JCCP).

Raphael De Loenen, chief oper-ating offi cer of Orpic, said, “Orpic has worked with JCCP for more than 10 years, mainly on our Mina Al Fahal operation. How-ever, this MoA extends our as-sociation for the next three years and will include Orpic’s plants in Sohar and Muscat.”

Japan Cooperation Center, Pe-

troleum is a non-profi t organisa-tion, founded to promote friendly relations between oil-producing countries and Japan. It is a mem-bership-based organisation, com-prising 18 engineering companies, 12 oil companies and two banks.

Technical studies“The agreement includes techni-cal studies to identify opportuni-ties for enhancing operations and

maintenance practices of refi ner-ies in Oman and Japan, as well as a personnel exchange programme, which will enable both parties to share the expertise, skills and experience of our people,” the offi cial said.

“The MoA will support us in meeting the ultimate goal of inter-national cooperation in petrole-um industries,” De Loenen added.

Training programmes, aimed at

exchanging information and ac-cess to Japanese technologies, as well as seminars in refi nery opera-tions, maintenance, instrumenta-tions and management, will all be delivered as part of the agreement. “We appreciate this opportunity to partner with Japan Coopera-tion Center, Petroleum and look forward to the benefi ts that will be generated for both organisations, from our association,” he said.

Raphael De Loenen,

chief operating offi cer,

said Orpic has worked

with JCCP for over 10

years, mainly at Mina

Al Fahal operation

Boeing extends lead with order for new 100-single aisle planesPARIS: Boeing extended its lead over Airbus on the second day of the Paris Air Show, pulling in the biggest deal yet at the expo with 100 single-aisle planes that gives it almost twice the haul of its arch-rival.

The order, by leasing company Aercap Holdings, is for 100 737 MAX 8 aircraft valued at about $10.7 billion at list price. The ac-cord is the biggest transaction yet at the trade show by numbers and value, as both manufacturers seek to maintain their momentum and unveil more deals in the next days.

The accord, which Aercap said was “intensely” negotiated over the course of last year, gives Boe-ing a tally of about $29.6 billion in total, almost double Airbus’s $15 billion. The advantage is a sur-prise lead for the United States manufacturer, which typically trails Airbus at the Paris Show, considered the European manu-facturer’s home turf.

“This is a big day for us, it’s a real highlight of the show,” said Ray Conner, the head of Boeing’s commercial aircraft unit.

Aercap chief executive offi cer Aengus Kelly said the deal came together in the fi nal days before the show, with Boeing telling the leasing company that it wanted to ‘make this happen’. Aercap is also interested in the larger 737 MAX 9 to help replace aging models in its fl eet, Kelly said in an interview after the signing.

Boeing also announced another purchase agreement for the 737 MAX 8 on the second day, for 10 units by SMBC Aviation Capital.

Emerging marketsEmerging-market carriers in-cluding PT Garuda Indonesia, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Qatar Airways went shopping for long-haul jets, a sign of faster travel growth in those regions than elsewhere. Heading into the Paris expo, analysts had played down sales prospects for Boeing and Airbus wide-bodies.

Embraer extended its advan-tage over Bombardier Inc. in re-gional aircraft, winning fi rm jet orders for $2.6 billion from cus-tomers including lessor Aircastle and United Continental.

Bombardier had one customer,

Deutsche Lufthansa’s Swiss unit, convert a CSeries order to take 10 of the larger version of the new plane instead of the smaller CS100, and another, Canada’s WestJet Airlines, exercise op-tions to add fi ve Q400 turboprops.

Production pipelineGaruda signed up for 30 Air-

bus A350s and the same number of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners to-gether worth almost $17 billion, while Saudia, as the Arab carrier is known, placed the fi rst order for a regional version of the Air-bus A330. Qatar Airways bought 10 of Boeing’s upgraded 777X plus four 777 freighters, valued at a combined $4.8 billion. Garuda’s Dreamliner deal has a list price of about $7.7 billion, while the A350 component is worth more than $9 billion. - Bloomberg News

A V I A T I O N

Foreign investors buy less than 5% of Saudi stocksCAIRO: The day the world’s big-gest oil exporter allowed foreign investors direct access to its stock market, they bought shares in less than 5 per cent of equities.

By the end of Saudi Arabia’s trading day on Monday, quali-fi ed foreign investors (QFIs) held seven out of 170 stocks directly, owning less than a tenth of a per-centage point of each company, according to data on the Tadawul Stock Exchange website.

Saudi International Petrochem-ical Company was the biggest win-ner after QFIs bought 0.02 per cent of the stock.

Anticipation had been building since July when Saudi Arabia said it will allow approved investors from outside the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to own lo-cal shares directly amid a push to diversify its $752 billion economy away from oil. HSBC was one of the fi rst QFIs to trade Saudi stocks directly, it said in a statement.

“There has been no rush to ac-quire QFI status,” Hootan Yazhari, the Dubai-based head of Middle East and North Africa (Mena) and global frontier markets equity re-search at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said by phone on Tuesday.

“Many global investors we’ve met with have suggested they’re going to wait and see.”

Settlement systemThe biggest issue for foreign in-vestors is the pre-funding of trades given the current T+0 settlement cycle, Yazhari said. While the CMA said on its website that it has no intention of changing the sys-tem, the stock market is studying it, the Tadawul’s chief executive offi cer Adel Al Ghamdi said in an interview on Monday. T+0 refers to same-day settlement.

QFIs also invested in Arab Na-tional Bank, Rabigh Refi ning & Petrochemical, Mouwasat Medical Services, Dallah Healthcare, Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company and Bupa Arabia for Co-operative Insurance. Their hold-ings in each stock is 0.01 per cent, according to the Tadawul website.

Mouwasat Medical was the only stock out of the seven to rise on Monday. The benchmark Tad-awul All Share Index of equities declined 0.9 per cent, trimming its gain this year to 15 per cent.

Shares in Tadawul are trading at 17 times of the estimated earnings for 2015. - Bloomberg News

A C C E S S T O F O R E I G N E R S

SEALING THE DEAL: Japan Cooperation Center, Petroleum, is a non-profi t organisation,

founded to promote friendly relations between oil-producing countries and Japan. - Supplied photo

B3W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

MARKET

Oman’s export agency gives nod to credit limits for over OMR5 millionTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Export Credit Guar-antee Agency (ECGA) of Oman board has approved credit limits for more than OMR5 million at its meeting on Sunday.

The fi fth meeting for 2015 was chaired by Said bin Saleh Al Ki-yumi and attended by the board members. During the board meet-ing, various topics were discussed related to ECGA of Oman services in promoting non-oil exports.

At the meeting, rhe board of directors of ECGA of Oman re-viewed and approved various

applications received from poli-cyholders to obtain credit limits cover against their local as well as export sales.

Domestic credit insuranceThe total credit limits approved during the board meeting amount-ed to OMR5,391,000 of which the total credit limits approved un-der domestic credit insurance amounted to OMR2,545,000 while the credit limits approved under the export credit scheme amounted to OMR2,846,000.

Export Credit Guarantee Agen-cy of Oman sanctioned credit

limits in favour of 20 export poli-cyholders. While the number of overseas buyers whom approvals were made for reached 19 buyers.

It is worth mentioning that the board approved credit limits against the UAE buyers for an amount of OMR2,716,000 or 50 per cent of the total credit lim-its approved by the board during the meeting.

Moreover, the board of direc-tors approved a claim for loss submitted by one of its policy-holders against their foreign buy-er where the claim amount was OMR59,928.

E X P O R T C R E D I T

Said bin Saleh Al Kiyumi

Exceed Gulf expands regional reach; opens bigger offi ce in MuscatTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Exceed Gulf, a leading IT service provider in the Gulf Co-operatiob Council (GCC) region, has shifted its operations to a big-ger offi ce at Muscat Grand Mall, which was opened under patron-age of Dr Salim Sultan Al Ruzaiqi, chief executive offi cer of the Infor-mation Technology Authority.

From this new premium loca-tion, Exceed Gulf endeavours to stay within reach of its clientele. Located in the heart of the city, the new offi ce will go a long way in establishing Exceed Gulf as a pre-ferred IT service provider, cater-ing to a wide range of customers across GCC.

Exceed has established presence across the GCC region, Asia, Afri-ca, and South America, with head-quarters set in Abu Dhabi. The new offi ce location in Muscat will not only aid the brand to carry out op-erations in Oman market directly but also provides fi ner IT services quickly to all clients in the nation.

Strong portfolioAhmad Chayati, General Man-ager, Exceed Gulf asserts, “A lead-ing IT service provider and Mi-crosoft Gold Partner, Exceed has set a benchmark in the industry through a strong portfolio stud-ded with all-round IT services. Through our new offi ce, we en-deavour to situate ourselves closer

to our clientele to always be avail-able to cater to their needs.”

On his part, Fawzi Al Harrassy, managing director of Exceed Oman, reaffi rmed the company’s

dedication to improving the stand-ards of services in Oman, high-lighting that Exceed employs over 60 people in its technical and engi-neering staff , including around 40

Omani nationals. Referring to Ex-ceed’s professional development eff orts, Al-Harrassy announced the company is still working on de-veloping and expanding its teams.

Earlier in 2015, Exceed Gulf received an honorary award from Dubai Ministry of Labour for its remarkable services. In the past, it also received recognition awards for being a preferred partner from leading technology syndicates in-cluding Microsoft, Dell and Qlik.

AamerShikho, Oman branch manager, Exceed Gulf said, “It feels good to see how Exceed has become a big brand across GCC. We are expanding at a fast pace. Opening the new offi ce in Mus-cat will help us provide extensive

support to our clients and enable them to run their tasks smoothly without any hindrance. We be-lieve in providing our customers best value for their money and this shift is location is another step towards achieving it.”

“We are proud of Exceed’s achievements in the Sultanates in 2008. Our metrics speak for themselves, as we evolved from 4 employees in 2008 to around 60 today, with the client base reach-ing 70 organisations from the public and private sectors. Our records include training around 3000 candidates in various IT do-mains, all of which occupy impor-tant roles in their organisations,” Shikho added.

N E W O F F I C E

Used car startup turns to US seeking $1 billion value

NEW YORK: SellAnyCar.com has shown that used-car sales in the Middle East can be turned into a point and click exercise. Now its founder is hoping that United States venture capital in-vestors will give his company a $1 billion valuation.

Saygin Yalcin met investors in New York and California this month, seeking to raise as much as $100 million to help fund an expansion into Europe. The fund-raising could value his company at about $1 billion he said in an inter-view in New York.

Yalcin, 31, is coming to the US to capitalise on soaring private valu-ations and record fundraising by venture capital fi rms. American venture funds had an estimated $76 billion in uninvested capital at the end of 2014, compared to just $1.5 billion for those in the Middle East, says PitchBook Data.

“We believe now is a good time to raise money in the U.S., where startups are raising at signifi cant-ly higher valuations and probably more than they need,” Yalcin said.

SellAnyCar.com buys used cars of any condition from individuals and auctions them to businesses, including dealerships. The com-pany off ers free inspections and valuations of the vehicles, and owners can accept or reject the price. The deals are conducted on a mobile application.

It now operates in four coun-tries in the Middle East, is launch-ing in Germany soon and plans to expand elsewhere in Europe.

Unicorn statusVenture capital investors in Dubai, where the company is based, generally limit invest-ment rounds to between $20 mil-lion and $25 million, Yalcin said, which wouldn’t cover the costs needed to expand the business. Other than scaling the technology platform, his company also has to build out logistics and payment systems, he said.

There are now more than 100

startups in the world valued at $1 billion or more, with 14 new such ‘unicorns’ joining the ranks be-tween January 1 and April 14, ac-cording to data from CBInsights. Two-thirds of these are US based.

Still, Yalcin will face some chal-lenges if he’s pitching investors with no experience in the Middle East, since funds already will-ing to invest in the region prob-ably have an established presence there, said Michael Dempsey, a

research analyst with CBInsights.“You need to go to players will-

ing to invest in a new market,” Dempsey said. They may be re-luctant to invest in an emerging market because “there’s a lot more uncertainty around how consum-ers will adapt to technology and how to scale in the country.” Yal-cin declined to off er details on the company’s fi nancials, but did say that several hundred businesses source cars from his company.

Turkish descentYalcin grew up in Germany and is of Turkish descent. He moved to Dubai more than fi ve years ago to tap into the emerging technol-ogy scene in the area, starting Sukar.com, a shopping website. He sold that Souq.com, the largest e-commerce platform in the Mid-dle East, in 2012, and SellAnyCar.com was founded the next year.

Expansion means more than launching the app in a new coun-try. Because no companies ex-isted to ship the cars, Yalcin had to build a platform for individual truck drivers to contract for de-liveries, he said.

He also had to obtain multiple licenses and work with govern-ments to operate his company in each country and principality, he said. For startups in the Middle East, “you’re not usually build-ing just a business model,” Yalcin said. “We have to create an entire infrastructure and pioneer the industry.” - Bloomberg News

SellAnyCar.com

buys used cars of

any condition from

individuals and

auctions them to

businesses, including

dealerships

India’s exports drop for sixth straight month

NEW DELHI: India’s exports fell for a sixth straight month, the longest losing streak since 2009, weakening the rupee and boost-ing pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to spur demand in Asia’s third-largest economy.

Overseas shipments fell 20.2 per cent in May from a year ear-lier and imports dropped 16.5 per cent on lower oil prices, the Com-merce Ministry said in a state-ment on Tuesday.

That left a $10.4 billion trade defi cit, smaller than May’s $11 bil-lion gap that economists in a sur-vey predicted would hold.

The trade data “are a mixed bag,” Shilan Shah, Singapore-based India economist for Capital Eco-nomics, wrote in a report.

“Overall though, the data sup-port our view that India’s external position no longer poses the same threat to the economy as was the case in 2013.”

Gold importsGold imports are unlikely to surge as much as they did in previous years, leaving the current-ac-count defi cit at a more sustain-able level, he said.

The country’s record foreign ex-change reserves will serve as a line of defense against any volatility, the Reserve Bank of India said on June 2.

That’s even as a weakening ru-pee and acceleration in infl ation indicates room is decreasing for governor Raghuram Rajan to low-er interest rates further.

Oil imports fell 41 per cent to $8.54 billion while gold shipments rose 10.5 percent to $2.42 billion. Exports of gems and jewellery fell 13 per cent to $3 billion and petro-leum products dropped 59 per cent to $2.4 billion. - Bloomberg News

E C O N O M Y

RAISING MONEY: Saygin Yalcin met investors in New York and California this month, seeking to raise

as much as $100 million to help fund an expansion into Europe. The fundraising could value his

company at about $1 billion, he said in an interview in New York. – Bloomberg News

HAVE YOUR SAY Send us your comments at facebook.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com haveyoursay@timesofoman.com

Exceed has presence across the GCC region, Asia,

Africa, and South America, with headquarters in Abu

Dhabi. The new office location in Muscat will not only

aid the brand to carry out operations in Oman directly

but also provides finer IT services quickly

Mahindra to supply parts to Airbus, Boeing

SYDNEY: Mahindra Group, own-er of India’s biggest sport-utility vehicle maker, plans to sell air-plane parts to Boeing and other manufacturers after striking a supply agreement with Airbus.

The establishment of the plant near Bengaluru, the southern Indi-an city formerly known as Banga-lore, is a ‘giant leap’ for India’s as-pirations in the aerospace market and the Airbus contract is just the “tip of the iceberg,” Anand Mahi-ndra, chairman of the Mumbai-based group, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker and Olivia Sterns from the Paris Air Show.

Mahindra plans to supply more than a million parts a year to Air-bus under the contract and will start deliveries later this year, the Indian company said. Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi, championing his Make in India campaign, wants to fuel more manufacturing activ-ity in his country and held talks with US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter this month to encourage the production of more United States military hardware there.

Airbus’s multi-year contract en-visages manufacture and supply by Mahindra of a variety of metallic components that will be fi tted into several aircraft. - Bloomberg News

I N D I A N F I R M

B4

MARKETW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

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MUSCATSECURITIES MARKET

SHARE PRICE BULLETIN FOR TUESDAY, JUNE 16

REGULAR MARKET .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

OM0000001681 ............OMAN AND EMIRATES INV. HOLDING ........... 4,299,552 .......512,195....................118 ............0.117 ........... 0.121............ 0.117 ............0.119 ............. 0.115 ............ 0.004 ............. 3.478 ................ 0.119 .............. 0.118................... 0.119 ................... 14,503,125 .........0.100

OM0000001772 ............AL ANWAR HOLDING............................................... 2,532,609......670,330................... 130 ........... 0.262 ........... 0.266 ...........0.261 ........... 0.265 .............0.260 ........... 0.005 ............. 1.923 ................0.265 ..............0.264...................0.265...................34,582,500.........0.100

OM0000002028 ...........GULF INTERNATIONAL CHEMICALS ..............14,300 ...............3,368........................6 ........... 0.236 ........... 0.236 ...........0.235 ........... 0.236 .............0.232 ........... 0.004 ............. 1.724 ................0.235 ..............0.234...................0.236....................4,956,000 ..........0.100

OM0000001160 ............NATIONAL GAS ...............................................................6,020 .............. 2,404........................2 ........... 0.396 ...........0.400 ...........0.396 ........... 0.400 .............0.394 ........... 0.006 ............. 1.523 ................0.400..............0.396...................0.400 ................. 20,000,000 ........0.100

OM0000005005 ...........ALMAHA CERAMICS .................................................. 56,041 ............ 30,599......................19 ........... 0.540 ........... 0.548 ...........0.540........... 0.546 .............0.538 ........... 0.008 ............. 1.487 ................0.546 ..............0.546...................0.550...................28,665,000 .........0.100

OM0000002200 ...........AHLI BANK .................................................................... 316,247 ............ 67,135........................6 ............0.212 ........... 0.213 ...........0.210 ........... 0.212 .............0.209 ........... 0.003 ............. 1.435 ................0.212 ..............0.210...................0.212 ..................302,107,663 ........0.100

OM0000002820 ...........GULF INVESTMENT SERVICES ......................... 1,158,163 ....... 165,120.....................44 ............0.140 ........... 0.144 ...........0.140 ........... 0.143 ............. 0.141 ............ 0.002 ..............1.418.................0.143 .............. 0.141...................0.143 .................... 8,414,580 ..........0.100

OM0000001962 ............AL MADINA INVESTMENT ................................... 444,960........... 35,580..................... 26 ........... 0.079 ........... 0.081 ...........0.079 ........... 0.080 .............0.079 ............0.001 ............. 1.266 ................0.079 ..............0.079...................0.080 ...................16,572,111..........0.100

OM0000003968 ...........OOREDOO......................................................................... 25,770 ............ 20,301........................3 ............0.780 ........... 0.788 ...........0.780 ........... 0.788 ............. 0.780 ........... 0.008 ............. 1.026 ................0.780 ..............0.780...................0.788 ..................512,944,053........0.100

OM0000001525 ............OMAN INVESTMENT AND FINANCE .............. 1,329,180 ......322,028..................... 65 ............0.241 ...........0.243 ...........0.241 ........... 0.242 .............0.240 ........... 0.002 ............. 0.833 ................0.242............. 0.242...................0.243 ..................48,400,000 ........0.100

OM0000003125 ............GLOBAL FINANCIAL INVESTMENT ................ 3,284,312 ......396,202..................... 39 ............0.120 ........... 0.122 ...........0.120 ............0.121 .............0.120 ............0.001 ............. 0.833 ................ 0.121 ..............0.120...................0.122 .................. 24,200,000 ........0.100

OM0000002366 ...........AL BATINAH DEV. INV. HOLDING ...................... 141,000 ............18,023......................13 ............0.128 ........... 0.128 ...........0.127 ........... 0.128 ............. 0.127.............0.001 ............. 0.787 ................0.127 ..............0.126...................0.127 ....................3,840,000 ..........0.100

OM0000002374............UNITED FINANCE ..................................................... 338,512.............51,078......................11 ............0.150 ........... 0.151 ............0.150 ............0.151 ............. 0.150.............0.001 ............. 0.667 ................ 0.151 ...............0.151...................0.152 ...................46,925,506 .........0.100

OM0000002226 ...........AL JAZEERA SERVICES ........................................... 30,000 .............11,040........................ 1 ........... 0.368 ........... 0.368 ...........0.368........... 0.368 .............0.366 ........... 0.002 ............. 0.546 ................0.368 ..............0.368...................0.370...................22,523,172 .........0.100

OM0000004933 ...........AL SUWADI POWER .................................................. 343,287 ............71,254..................... 22 ........... 0.207 ...........0.209 ...........0.207........... 0.208 .............0.207 ............0.001 ............. 0.483 ................0.207............. 0.202...................0.207 .................148,596,519 ........0.100

OM0000002168 ............AL ANWAR CERAMIC TILES .................................83,983 .............36,185......................12 ........... 0.428 ........... 0.434 ...........0.428........... 0.430 .............0.428 ........... 0.002 ............. 0.467 ................0.434..............0.434...................0.436.................. 127,371,883 ........0.100

OM0000001087 ............OMAN UNITED INSURANCE ................................. 66,177 .............19,256......................11 ........... 0.295 ........... 0.295 ...........0.290 .......... 0.291 .............0.290 ............0.001 ............. 0.345 ................0.290............. 0.290...................0.295...................29,100,000 .........0.100

OM0000001483 ............NATIONAL BANK OF OMAN ................................. 300,000 .........100,800......................14 ........... 0.336 ........... 0.336 ...........0.336 ........... 0.336 .............0.336 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.336 ..............0.330...................0.336..................450,478,644 .......0.100

OM0000001517 ............HSBC BANK OMAN .............................................................. 93 ..................... 13........................ 1 ............0.135 ........... 0.135 ...........0.135 ............0.135 ............. 0.135 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.135 ..............0.134...................0.135 ................. 270,042,227 .......0.100

OM0000001749 ............OMAN CEMENT .......................................................... 447,505 .........246,128........................5 ........... 0.550 ........... 0.550 ...........0.550 ........... 0.550 .............0.550 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.550 ..............0.550...................0.560 ................. 181,979,991 ........0.100

OM0000001889 ............SALALAH MILLS .................................................................550 .................. 822........................2 ............1.495 ........... 1.495 ...........1.490 ............1.495 ............. 1.495 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................1.490 .............. 1.435...................1.600 ................... 72,003,781 .........0.100

OM0000002440 ...........AL SHARQIA INVESTMENT HOLDING ............. 77,377 .............10,792..................... 10 ............0.140 ........... 0.140 ...........0.139 ............0.139 ............. 0.139............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.139 .............. 0.138...................0.139 ...................12,510,000 .........0.100

OM0000002846 ...........GULF INV. SER. PREF SHARES ................................ 9,568 ............... 1,148........................ 1 ............0.120 ........... 0.120 ...........0.120 ........... 0.120 .............0.120 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.120 ..............0.120...................0.125 ...................10,966,894 .........0.100

OM0000003000 ...........ALMAHA PETROLEUM PRODUCTS MAR. ......... 5,660 .............12,395........................ 1 ............2.190 ........... 2.190 ...........2.190 ........... 2.190 .............2.190 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................2.190 ............. 0.000...................0.000 ................. 151,110,000 ........0.100

OM0000003026 ...........OMAN TELECOMMUNICATION ..........................56,409 ............ 98,304......................16 ............1.740 ........... 1.745 ............1.740 ............1.745 ............. 1.745 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................1.740 ...............1.735................... 1.740 ................1,308,750,000 ......0.100

OM0000003521 ............GALFAR ENGINEERING AND CON. .................. 461,361 ............ 60,345..................... 36 ............0.132 ........... 0.132 ...........0.130 ............0.131 ............. 0.131 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.130 ..............0.130................... 0.131 ................... 37,987,463 .........0.100

OM0000003661 ............VOLTAMP ENERGY .....................................................75,000 .............31,950........................ 1 ........... 0.426 ........... 0.426 ...........0.426........... 0.426 .............0.426 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.426..............0.426...................0.452...................25,773,000 .........0.100

OM0000004768 ...........AL MADINA TAKAFUL ............................................. 207,666 ............18,686......................18 ........... 0.090 ...........0.090 ...........0.089........... 0.090 .............0.090 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.090..............0.089...................0.090 .................. 15,750,000 .........0.100

OM0000001418 ............RAYSUT CEMENT ........................................................ 13,350 .............20,501........................2 ............1.545 ........... 1.545 ...........1.535 ............1.535 ............. 1.550............-0.015 ........... -0.968 ...............1.535 .............. 1.530................... 1.535 ................. 307,000,000 .......0.100

OM0000003398 ...........BANK SOHAR................................................................ 363,940 ............67,693..................... 25 ............0.188 ........... 0.188 ...........0.186 ........... 0.186 ............. 0.188............-0.002 ........... -1.064 ...............0.186 .............. 0.185...................0.186 ..................268,107,840 ........0.100

OM0000002796 ...........BANK MUSCAT ............................................................ 426,539 .........234,550......................18 ........... 0.550 ........... 0.552 ...........0.548........... 0.550 .............0.556 ...........-0.006 ............-1.079................0.548 ..............0.542...................0.552................1,260,502,428 ......0.100

OM0000004925 ...........AL BATINAH POWER ...................................................17,972 ...............3,649........................4 ........... 0.206 ...........0.206 ...........0.203........... 0.203 .............0.207 ...........-0.004 ........... -1.932 ...............0.203..............0.203...................0.206 .................137,002,148 ........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 16,933,103 .3,339,872...................682 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ......32........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

PARALLEL MARKET ................................................................................................................................................................................. OM0000001723 ............OMAN ORIX LEASING ................................................. 7,000 ............... 1,050........................2 ............0.150 ........... 0.150 ...........0.150 ........... 0.150 ............. 0.139.............0.011 ............. 7.914.................0.150 .............. 0.147...................0.150 ...................36,207,606 .........0.100

OM0000001368 ............CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS IND. ....................31,209 ...............1,280........................3 ............0.041 ........... 0.041 ...........0.041 ........... 0.041 .............0.040 ............0.001 .............2.500 ................0.041 ............. 0.040...................0.041 ....................3,485,000 ..........0.100

OM0000001566 ............OMAN FISHERIES .......................................................26,974 ............... 1,592......................11 ........... 0.060 ...........0.060 ...........0.059 ........... 0.059 .............0.059 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.059 ..............0.058...................0.059.................... 7,375,000 ..........0.100

OM0000002564 ...........AL HASSAN ENGINEERING................................... 30,000 ...............3,000........................2 ........... 0.100 ........... 0.100 ...........0.100 ........... 0.100 .............0.100 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.100 ..............0.099...................0.100.................... 7,520,800 ..........0.100

OM0000004420 ...........BANK NIZWA ................................................................ 735,816 ............. 53,715..................... 25 ........... 0.073 ........... 0.073 ...........0.073 ........... 0.073 .............0.073 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.073 ..............0.072...................0.073..................109,500,000 .......0.100

OM0000001400 ...........OMAN FLOUR MILLS .................................................10,460 ............... 5,149........................9 ........... 0.502 ...........0.502 ...........0.484........... 0.492 .............0.504 ...........-0.012 ........... -2.381 ...............0.484..............0.480...................0.506 ..................77,490,000 .........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 841,459 ............65,785..................... 52 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ........ 6........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

BONDS MARKET ........................................................................................................................................................................................ OM0000005971 ............B.MUSCAT COMPL. CONVR. B.B.3.5 ................... 4,356,861 ......431,320..................... 22 ........... 0.099 ........... 0.099 ...........0.098........... 0.099 .............0.099 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.099 ..............0.099...................0.100...................32,092,000 ........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 4,356,861 ......431,320..................... 22 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. .........1........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

ISIN .................................................. SECURITY NAME ...............................................................................................VOLUME ..............TURNOVER ................... TRADES ...........OPEN PRICE ............. HIGH .................... LOW ............... CLOSE PR. ..........PREV. CLOSE.......... DIFF (RO) .................DIFF % ......................LAST PR............... LAST BID .....................LAST OFFER ................. MARKET CAP ........PAR VALUE

O M A N S T O C K S

INDICESIndex .................................................High .................Low ..................... Value ............... Prev . Value.......... Diff ...............Diff %MSM30 Index ........................................6,506.01 ...............6,493.78 ................... 6,493.78 ...................6,494.39 ...................-0.61 .................. -0.01Financial Index .................................... 7,942.59 ...............7,909.56 ................... 7,922.80 ................... 7,907.46 ..................15.34 ................... 0.19Industrial Index ................................... 8,430.84 ...............8,418.09 ....................8,419.72 ...................8,420.66 ..................-0.94 .................. -0.01Services Index .......................................3,515.20 ...............3,508.79 ................... 3,515.20 ...................3,508.25 ....................6.95 ...................0.20MSM SHARIAH INDEX....................1,039.65 ............... 1,037.89 ................... 1,038.50 .......................997.81 ................. 40.69 ...................4.08

Trading SummaryVolume ................ Turnover ..........Trades .............. Market Cap............. Up ............Down ............. Equal .........Sec. Traded22,131,423 ................. 3,836,977 .....................756 ................15,017,583,001 ................ 19 ........................5 .................... 15 .........................39

Index falls marginally

MUSCAT: Oman’s general index — MSM30 Index — re-mained range-bound and closed at 6,493.78 points, down by 0.01 per cent. The MSM Sharia Index closed at 998.35 points, up by 0.05 per cent. Oman & Emirates Hold-ing was the most active in terms of volume while Al Anwar Hold-ing was the most active in terms of turnover.

Oman Orix Leasing, up by 7.91 per cent, was Tuesday’s top gainer, while Oman Flour Mills, down by 2.38 per cent, was the day’s top loser.

A total number of 756 trades were executed during the day’s trading session generating turno-ver of OMR3.83 million with over 22.13 million shares changing hands. Out of 39 traded securi-ties, 19 advanced, fi ve declined and 15 remained unchanged. Omani Investors were net buyers for OMR618,000 while Foreign Investors were net sellers for OMR599,000 followed by GCC & Arab Investors for OMR19,000 worth of shares.

Financial Index gained 0.19 per cent to close at 7,922.80

points. Oman Orix Leasing, Oman & Emirates Holding, Al Anwar Holding, Ahli Bank and Gulf Investment Services gained 7.91 per cent, 3.48 per cent, 1.92 per cent, 1.44 per cent and 1.42 per cent respectively. Bank Mus-cat and Bank Sohar declined 1.08 per cent and 1.06 per cent respectively.

Industrial Index declined mar-ginally by 0.01 per cent and ended at 8,419.72 points. Construction Materials, Gulf International Chemicals, Al Maha Ceram-ics and Al Anwar Ceramics in-creased 2.50 per cent, 1.72 per cent, 1.49 per cent and 0.47 per cent respectively. Oman Flour Mills and Raysut Cement de-clined 2.38 per cent and 0.97 per cent respectively.

Services Sector Index closed at 3,515.20 points, up by 0.20 per cent. National Gas, Ooredoo, OIFC, Al Jazeera Services and Al Suwadi Power increased 1.52 per cent, 1.03 per cent, 0.83 per cent, 0.55 per cent and 0.48 per cent respectively. Al Batinah Power declined 1.93 per cent to close at OMR0.203. — United Securities

Oman Orix Leasing, up by 7.91%, was the

top gainer, while Oman Flour Mills, down

2.38%, was the day’s top loser

editor@timesofoman.comwebeditor@timesofoman.com

SEND US YOUR VIEWS AND COMMENTS Sensex declines; rupee dipsMUMBAI: Indian stocks de-clined, with the benchmark stock-index halting a two-day gain, amid a retreat in regional eq-uities before the Federal Reserve meet and euro-area fi nance min-isters discuss Greece’s debt crisis.

Housing Development Finance Corp. was the worst performer on the S&P BSE Bankex, which fell for the fi rst time in three days. Vedanta and Tata Steel both fell at least 1.5 per cent each. Bharat Petroleum Corp. slid to a three-week low after the fi nance minis-try is said to have proposed selling a stake in the state refi ner. Finan-cials and energy were the worst-performing groups on the MSCI India Index.

The S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.6

per cent to 26,434.66 at 1:01pm in Mumbai, while the MSCI Asia Pacifi c Index declined 0.7 per cent. Stocks were set to halt two days of gains as investors weighed the monsoon’s progress. Rainfall and its impact on food costs will be key to further rate cuts, the Reserve Bank of India said June 2 after cutting rates a third time this year.

Rupee at 21-month low The rupee continued to fall against the American currency for the fourth day on Tuesday, slipping by another 10 paise to close at 21-month low at 64.26 per dollar on sustained dollar de-mand from banks and importers ahead of the US Federal reserve

meeting amidst foreign capi-tal outfl ows. The domestic unit opened higher at 64.05 from its previous close of 64.16 at the In-terbank Foreign Exchange (Fo-rex) market on initial selling of dollars by banks and exporters.

But, it dropped afterwards to 64.3050 before ending at 21-month low at 64.26 per dollar on fag-end dollar demand from banks and importers, disclosing a loss of 10 paise or 0.16 per cent from its last close after moving in a range of 64.0500 and 64.3050 during the day.

The rupee had last ended at 65.24 per dollar on Sept 6, 2013.

The rupee has dropped by 42 paise or 0.66 per cent in the four days. — Agencies

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Civil Service ministry, Gulf Research Analysis ink pact

MUSCAT: The Ministry of Civil Service signed an agreement with local Omani research and con-sultancy agency Gulf Research Analysis recently to conduct a government service performance evaluation programme.

The programme, in its fi rst stage evaluates the performance of 11 government ministries, the fi rst of which is the Ministry of Manpow-

er, says a press release. However, the programme goes

beyond evaluation. The objec-tives of the programme involve improving front line government services in terms of delivery, cus-tomer service and the steps in-volved in obtaining a government service. The programme also seeks to establish better dialogue and intercommunication struc-

tures between diff erent govern-ment departments and ministries and encourage an environment where obstacles to service deliv-ery are solved before they become a problem. Once implemented, the

programme also includes moni-toring phases to assess service performance from the perspective of government service users over time, which will tell ministries how their users see them and high-

light areas of poor performance that require improvement.

The programme is the product of a two-year research process into government services to un-derstand the wants, needs and expectations of government ser-vice users in both the public and private sectors. This agreement, a public private partnership be-tween the government and private sector, will carry on this process and continue to share knowledge and expertise.

Harith Suleiman Al Brashdi, di-rector and owner of Gulf Research Analysis, when asked what makes this programme diff erent from other government initiatives, said: “Gulf Research Analysis’ special-ist understanding of the social and corporate mindsets, behaviours and cultures of Oman means that we can identify problems and solu-tions within the right context. This leads to better problem solving and realistic solutions that are more likely to succeed.”

The government service performance

evaluation programme is the product of a

two-year research process into government

services to understand the wants, needs and

expectations of government service users in

both the public and private sectors

GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE: (Right) Sayyid Salim Musalim Al

Busaidi, undersecretary for Administrative Development Aff airs at

the Ministry of Civil Services, exchanging the signed documents

with Eng. Harith Suleiman Al Brashdi, director and owner of Gulf

Research Analysis. – Supplied photo

TSC off ers special savings with Ramadan discountsMUSCAT: The Sultan Centre (TSC) is off ering its customers a special savings with discounts up to 45 per cent across a wide selec-tion of merchandise.

The promotion which began on June 10 will continue till June 24

giving TSC customers a chance to stock up on their favourite items for the holy month of Ramadan, says a press release.

Shoppers can take advantage of irresistible off ers ranging from groceries and produce to a range

of housewares item. The current promotion is being run across all seven TSC’s stores across Oman.

So hurry over to your nearest Sultan Centre today, to take ad-vantage of great savings on your favourite items.

P R O M O T I O N

AOL 'Yogathon'

to mark Yoga

Day on June 21

MUSCAT: Come June 21 and ‘yoga’ will be the catalyst to dis-solve all boundaries as 3,000 locations around the globe will become one by the practice of the ‘12 pose yoga sequence’, a basic yoga sequence to com-memorate the International Day of Yoga.

International Yoga DayIn Oman, to mark the global cel-ebration of UN International Yoga Day on Sunday, June 21, the Art Of Living (AOL) Foun-dation Oman is organising the event ‘Yogathon 2015’ at Baush-er Sports Complex, Main Hall, Muscat, supported by the Min-istry of Sports Aff airs, Ministry of Health and Embassy of India, says a press release.

The fi nale will have a yoga demonstration in separate ses-sions for ladies and men and a felicitation ceremony, with participants performing the 12-pose yoga sequence.

All are welcome to attend the fi nale event.

C O M M E M O R A T I O N

Omanexpo presents investment opportunities at Euro-Arab ForumMUSCAT: Nader Abbas, general manager, Omanexpo, speaking at the fi rst Euro-Arab Forum themed ‘The Middle East-New Opportu-nities for Bulgarian Businesses’ at the Hilton Sofi a in Sofi a, Bulgaria recently, presented the various business and investment oppor-tunities in Oman, highlighting the government’s priority sectors of food processing, healthcare, medi-cal education, pharmaceuticals, transport infrastructure, con-struction and manufacturing.

Apart from emphasising the modern infrastructure in place in Oman, free market access through the country’s trade agreements, and Oman’s business-friendly environment, Abbas cited the government’s initiatives to boost spending on these sectors while focusing on the market poten-tials that Omanexpo’s major trade shows such as The BIG Show, Food & Hospitality Oman and Oman Health Exhibition & Con-ference off ers, says a press release.

A news release by the Bulgar-

ian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) mentions that “The conference provided infor-mation about three of the most visited and most comprehensive exhibitions in one of the richest and fastest-growing countries in the Arab world—Oman.

"The exhibitions are Oman Health — health, medical technol-ogy and equipment, Food & Hos-pitality Oman — for the food in-dustry, and The BIG Show Oman — building, construction and in-terior design exhibition.”

The forum was organised by Euro-Arab Business Forum (EABF), Ltd. in cooperation with BCCI with the support of the Pub-lic Authority for Investment Pro-motion and Export (Ithraa) and the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, Bulgaria. Ithraa also presented the opportunities in sectors identifi ed by the government as areas for economic development growth and investment.

Abbas addressed a diplomatic gathering comprising offi cials

from the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, Bulgaria, ambassadors from Qatar, Iraq, Kuwait, Sudan and Palestine, including Ali Al-Kathiry, representative in Bul-garia for Oman, and about 150 Bulgarian companies represent-ing the food, health, construction and mining sectors.

He says “I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to pre-sent Oman as a potentially large market for companies in Bulgaria to explore and invest in. This comes at an opportune time when Bulgaria is seeking to shift invest-ment focus on emerging markets in the Middle East, Oman in par-ticular. As Oman is dependent on imports, this will hopefully pave the way for new investment in tourism, construction, medical tourism, and mining exploration, for which Bulgaria is commit-ted to provide business support. We are pleased to have received a positive response from a good number of Bulgarian companies for our events."

B U S I N E S S O P P O R T U N I T I E S

Badr Al Samaa Falaj Al Qabail celebrates 1st anniversaryMUSCAT: Badr Al Samaa, Falaj Al Qabail completed its fi rst anniver-sary in May.

Various events were organised to mark the occasion. The anni-versary celebrations were inaugu-rated by Ali Mohammed Hamdan Al Sheikh, director, Administra-tive and Financial Department of Manpower, North Batinah Gover-norate, says a press release.

Badr Al Samaa in coordination with Falaj KMCC organised a free blood donation camp and it was inaugurated by Dr Vidhyanandh Vaidhya, Regional Epidemiologist, the Ministry of Health, North Bati-nah Governorate. More than 70 people donated blood in the camp. Dr Asha Ashik, Internist, enlight-ened the public about the clinical aspects of blood donation. The do-nors were given one year free con-sultation in Badr Al Samaa Group of Hospitals.

Shamsudheen, president, Falaj KMCC, Manoj Kumar, manager, Badr Al Samaa Hospital, Sohar, Na-vas, general secretary, Falaj KMCC, Aneesh Mohanan, manager, Badr Al Samaa, Falaj, doctors, support staff and various other dignitaries were present on the occasion. Dr Danish Sardar, paediatrician deliv-

ered the vote of thanks. A free medical camp was also

organised. Specialist doctors, nursing and paramedical staff participated in the camp that lasted for three days. It provided opportunity to working class, who are employed, with various companies and associations, to have one to one consultation with most experienced doctors. Over 400 patients registered, were ex-amined, screened and counselled for occupational diseases, tropi-cal diseases, diabetes, hyperten-sion, gastro intestinal problems, chest and pulmonary diseases and skin. New cases, latent diseases and conditions were detected and brought to the fore, and an aware-

ness of health and healthcare was impressed upon.

Patients were educated about their conditions and free treat-ment was given. Those requiring specialised medical attention were referred, for expert management.

Board of directors Abdul Latheef, V. T. Vinod and P.A Mo-hammed said, “We are grateful to the public of Batinah region, whose continuous support helped us to establish our name in the region. We expect your continued support and cooperation in future. We also appreciate the branch head, the doctors, paramedical staff , nursing staff and all other support staff , for their ceaseless eff orts and valuable contributions to Falaj branch.”

S P E C I A L O C C A S I O N

Khimji Ramdas participates in OER business summit

MUSCAT: The Khimji Ramdas Group was a key participant in the recently concluded OER Busi-ness Summit 2015, which brought business leaders together in an animated discussion on challeng-es and choices before the govern-ment in a scenario of plummeting oil prices.

Pankaj Khimji, director at Kh-imji Ramdas was among the group of speakers at the panel discussion titled ‘Life at $50 a Barrel’.

The ensuing debate addressed concerns faced by government and private sectors - as businesses from both economic segments grappled with falling oil prices - and the way forward in success-fully overcoming the challenges that followed, says a press release.

Khimji put up a list of recom-mendations that were viewed as possible solutions to companies – especially those operating in the private sector – on how to leverage the prevailing trend of low oil pric-es to turn around businesses and

promote economic growth. Some of the key strategies proposed by Pankaj Khimji included increased economic diversifi cation, greater autonomy to the private sector, the addition of VAT where necessary, freeing up government labour poli-cies and resolving issues relating to red-tape in conducting business.

Increasing effi ciencies and pro-ductivity, he argued, would be far more benefi cial to the economy in

the long run than the usual prac-tice of retrenchment in order to curb costs. “In the private sector, if we shed fi ve per cent of our staff it adversely aff ects the sentiments of existing employees as well as productivity. A possible and more eff ective option would be to cap salary increases instead. Both gov-ernment and private sectors need to discuss ways on how to increase effi ciencies in industries so we can

be more competitive,” Pankaj said.On the subject of government

involvement in the private sector he said, “The government should listen to challenges faced by the private sector in conducting busi-ness. For future businesses to carry on, the government needs to allow ease of regulations. One sug-gestion is to set up a committee to focus on strategies to make doing business in Oman effi cient, easy and eff ective.”

Pankaj also explained how the levy of taxes and duty could allow companies in the private sector greater independence in busi-ness. “We recommend that the government levy service charges and free up the economy. Let me hire people as long as my busi-ness grows and I’m paying the taxes to the government. Also if skilled workers even after going through diff erent procedures are not up to par we should be able to select, replace and hire replace-ment staff accordingly.”

K E Y P A R T I C I P A N T

ISC ladies organise Italian cuisine demoMUSCAT: How does one man-age to look glamorous and con-jure up a delicious, well planned, meal so eff ortlessly? Well, that’s exactly what Pallavi Nigam Sa-hay managed to do at the Ladies Wing get-together at the Indian Social Club recently.

Not only did she show the la-dies how to put together a fi ve course Italian meal in record time, she also added a few Ital-ian words to their vocabulary! Besides the cooking enthusiasts, there were those who had caught a glimpse of Pallavi’s culinary expertise, thanks to Thursday magazine, who eagerly turned up to witness the chef in action.

Needless to say, they were not disappointed. With her easy going manner, and the comfortable way in which she fi elded questions from the enthusiastic group, the session was a big hit. As the ad-

age goes, “the taste of the pudding is in the eating”; likewise having tasted not only the Tiramisu at the end of the session, but also the other scrumptious prepa-rations, one came away with a feeling of having temporarily been transported to the beauti-ful land of culture, art, history and culinary delights – surely a feast for the eyes and food to tan-talise the taste buds.

G E T - T O G E T H E R

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Honda Oman announces mega deals

MUSCAT: Omasco, the author-ised distributors of Honda vehi-cles in the Sultanate, announced a unique Ramadan off er along with exclusive benefi ts and off ers on their Honda line-ups.

Major highlights The off er extends till the end of Ramadan and includes free in-surance (Oman and UAE), free service package for 3 years /50K km (up to 80k km on select mod-els), free registration and a free gift (that includes a Black and

Decker car hand vacuum) with each model purchase. Custom-ers will also get a chance to win OMR500 during daily raffl e draws and OMR1,000 on weekly raffl e draws, says a press release.

Selfi e contest During the holy month of Rama-dan, customers can walk into Honda showrooms in Muscat or Sohar and take a ‘selfi e’ against the Ramadan backdrop placed inside the showroom and post it on their social media profi le us-ing the #hondaoman hashtag. All participants will enter a draw and can win a weekly prize of a 55 inch Panasonic TV every week during Ramadan and a CBR 250R Honda motorcycle in the last week of the holy month.

Adil Al Zadjali, National Sales Manager, Honda, said: “This year’s Ramadan off er is in a way refl ec-tive of the spirit of the holy month. Ramadan is the month of giving and our off er says it all. It is our way of showing gratitude to all our valued customers, who have pat-ronised Honda over the years. We are confi dent that we can jointly work towards providing custom-ers the very best through our off er.”

This Ramadan, customers can take advantage of the smartphone

mobile app which features nu-merous benefi ts it brings. Users can book service appointments, browse Honda’s latest off erings and gain real-time information on the Honda vehicle range including in-depth specifi cation details, all at the click of a button.

2016 Honda City The 2016 City, which has been developed as a global sedan, en-compasses the best of Honda’s technologies to deliver advanced sporty design, best comfort and best fuel effi ciency in the cat-egory. The Honda City has under-gone a complete design change based on a grand concept of an “advanced cool sporty car” that has a stunning presence with its

dynamic stance, outstanding fuel effi ciency, comfortable and spa-cious interiors. It aims to refl ect sophistication and vigor while in motion and a striking charisma when stationary.

2016 Honda Accord The Accord refl ects its status as a dynamic, intelligent sedan with deeply sculpted sharp character lines in the exterior. The vehicle is equipped with a bold chrome grille to enhance the expressive charac-ter of the car keeping the local taste in mind. All grades are equipped with daytime running lights and LED brake lights. LED headlights and LaneWatch camera for the V6 Sports grade adds to the sophistica-tion of the modern sedan.

Honda CR-VWith a sophisticated overall look and feel, the Honda CR-V boasts a 2.4 litre i-VTEC 4-cylinder engine and Continuously Variable Trans-mission (CVT). It has a fuel econo-my rating of 23/31 for front drives and 22/30 for 4 wheel drives. As standard equipment, every CR-V incorporates an electronic stabil-ity control system, antilock brakes with brake assist, driver and front-passenger airbags, side curtain airbags with roll over sensor and a front seat design that can help re-duce the severity of neck injury in the event of a rear collision.

Honda Pilot The Pilot is Honda’s midsize 4x4 off ering, and their largest off ering at this time. The new look features a new standard grille, new front and rear bumpers, and optional new wheels, along with a few other cabin additions. The Pilot can seat eight people at a pinch.

The standard 3.5-litre V6 en-gine features variable cylinder management (VCM) which al-lows it to operate on half the cyl-inders when power is not needed, improving fuel economy. Pilot Touring has navigation system and rear entertainment system as standard features.

Honda Odyssey The Honda Odyssey, the upmarket minivan, is aimed at big families, and is longer, wider and lower than the previous version. It comes in LX, EXL and Touring trim lev-els. Mechanical specs include a 3.5-litre V6 with cylinder-shutoff technology, a 6-speed automatic, MacPherson strut front and dou-ble-wishbone rear suspension, 17-inch or 18-inch alloy wheels and an 80-litre fuel tank. Odyssey Touring has navigation system and rear entertainment system as standard features.

Extended showroom timing Honda has extended the opening hours for its key Honda showrooms across Oman in order to better ac-commodate their patrons and en-able them to visit the showrooms at a time that is convenient for them. During Ramadan the extended hours provide additional fl exibility.

Honda commitment Honda is confi dent that its show-rooms will continue to welcome increased footfalls with auto en-thusiasts over the coming weeks of Ramadan to avail of the promo-tion. Giving brings joy during the holy season and the current Rama-dan off er is testament to this.

Omasco off er will run

till end of Ramadan.

Customers will also

get a chance to win

OMR500 during daily

raffl e draws and

OMR1,000 on

weekly raffl e draws

SECTION

RECRUIJ O B P O S T I N G S

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Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus. — Jim Collins

Managing your

after-hours

work demands

HAVE you ever gotten an e-mail from your supervisor’s secretary late one afternoon, just as you were wrapping up for the day, saying: “The boss needs to see you now”? Or worse, the summons came late Friday when you had plans to enjoy the night with your family?

What is it about 5pm that seems to entice managers to fi nd more pressing things for their employees to do?

I have heard from employees lamenting the fact that their bosses pile on more work or ask to see them after hours and on the weekend. Some of these re-quests are legitimate, and some jobs require critical immediate decisions and actions. But do all jobs? Do all these tasks have to be done right away or can some of them wait until the following morning or after the weekend?

Some of you may think such people are lucky they have jobs and should stop complaining. People should feel fortunate to have a job, and many are work-ing hard to do well — in many cases even putting in extra hours, especially with reduced staff s in many fi rms today. But the real issue is what can we do to better manage expectations for after-hour work without getting fi red?

Good communication is im-portant in any conversation you have with your boss. Clear, concise comments, delivered in a calm tone and face-to-face are your best bet. E-mail or texting your concerns is not the best way to approach these issues.

Ask your manager to priori-tise your assignments. Some-times bosses are not even aware of the vast number of projects they have dumped on their employees.

Present data to your boss about the hours you have worked. Maybe you’re supposed to work 40 hours but your man-ager has had you working 60 to 70 for the past month. Perhaps you were initially helping out since staff had left and positions had not yet been fi lled. Docu-ment what you have been doing and calmly share it.

Work with your manager to set more realistic expectations. This can help eliminate or post-pone the extra work your boss throws at you.

Before you talk to your manag-er, practice what you’ll say. Have someone role-play the scenario so you can practice how you will respond to questions or issues. This will give you increased con-fi dence when you do meet.

If the conversation gets heated, take a break. It’s better to come back to the issue again when both parties have had more time to refl ect.

While you might have the goal of getting your boss to change his or her practice of dumping work on you after hours, sometimes just getting them to listen to your concerns and be willing to talk with you again might be a good fi rst step. If they do listen, follow up (within a day) with a note or email thank-you for their time and willingness to listen.

Bosses can also do some things:

Rethink “the boss needs to see you” e-mails or messages with-out any explanation. They can come across as a summons and be very stressful for your em-ployees, especially if they don’t know why you want to see them.

If you want healthy (less-stressed) employees, don’t send e-mails after hours on week-days or weekends in jobs where the work does not have to be done right away.

If you have to send an email regarding work after hours, let your employee know if he or she has to respond right away. Cer-tainly don’t fl ag it as urgent if it really isn’t.

Allow your employees time in the evenings or weekends to see their families and friends, to engage in their hobbies, and to reconnect with their commu-nities. Not only will they come back more refreshed, but they may become more loyal as well. — Joyce E. A. Russell/The Washington Post

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Sonata named Best Midsize Sedan in 2015

MUSCAT: Hyundai Motor Com-pany has once again received praise from the region’s most re-spected motoring experts, with the all-new Sonata being named Best Midsized Sedan of 2015 by leading Middle East and Africa motoring magazine, Automobile.

The award-winning all-new So-nata was launched in the Middle East and Africa in September 2014 and became the second Hyundai model to feature the brand’s Flu-idic Sculpture 2.0 design concept, while also off ering modern styl-ing, excellent performance, and practical application of the latest technologies such as smart trunk

function and blind spot detection, says a press release.

Now in its seventh genera-tion, the all-new Sonata deliv-ers maximum driver confi dence through the inclusion of top safety features and a new suspen-sion, which provides the driver with a smoother overall ride. Pio-neering safety technology such as vehicle stability management, hill assist control and electric parking brake are all included. Three engine options are avail-able: a newly launched 2.0L four cylinder Turbo gasoline direct injection (T-GDI) engine, a 2.0 L multi-port injection (MPI) unit

and a 2.4 L MPI engine. Automobile is one of the re-

gion’s most respected motoring magazines and has a circulation that spans the whole of the Mid-dle East and parts of Africa. The magazine was founded in 1994 and is based in Lebanon. General Manager and Editor-In-Chief, Ibrahim Fakhri is one of the re-gion’s most highly respected mo-toring journalists.

Commenting on the accolade, Fakhri said: “The all-new Sonata has been subjected to numerous performance tests as part of our judging process and it is a deserv-ing winner of the midsize sedan award. Not only does this model look great but it also exceeds in the engine option category.”

“Since it fi rst arrived in the Middle East and Africa in 1988, the Sonata has proven extremely popular with the region’s car buyers. Awards such as this one from Automobile demonstrate that the all-new Sonata is per-fectly equipped to continue this success,” said Jin (James) Kim, vice president and head of Hyun-dai operations in Africa and the Middle East.

The award-winning all-new Sonata was

launched in the Middle East and Africa in

September 2014 and became the second

Hyundai model to feature the brand’s Fluidic

Sculpture 2.0 design concept

Bank Muscat launches SME digital information channelMUSCAT: Bank Muscat, the fl ag-ship fi nancial services provider in the Sultanate, as part of its commitment to sustainable so-cial development and promoting the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, launched a dedicat-ed digital information channel for entrepreneurs under the auspices of Said bin Saleh Al Kiyumi, chair-man of Oman Chamber of Com-merce and Industry, at the bank’s head offi ce on Monday, in the pres-ence of Abdul Razak Ali Issa, chief executive of Bank Muscat.

al Wathbah SME TV from Bank Muscat is the fi rst educational video channel in the banking sec-tor in Oman with the sole objec-tive of helping SMEs gain 24/7 access to vital information that help drive their business further. The initiative comes as part of the bank’s commitment to sustain-able social development, comple-menting government eff orts in strengthening the role of SMEs in the economic development of Oman, says a press release.

The dedicated online channel for SME customers mainly in-cludes videos featuring experts sharing critical information on subjects that help SMEs gain in-depth understanding about busi-ness operations integral to suc-ceed. Al Kiyumi congratulated

Bank Muscat for launching the unique al Wathbah SME infor-mation channel. “The bank’s ini-tiatives to encourage the country’s youth to embark on self-sustain-able employment initiatives are in line with the directive of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said to support the SME sector and strengthen its role in the economic development of Oman,” he added.

Abdul Razak Ali Issa said: “Bank Muscat is proud to launch yet an-other unique initiative to enhance support to the SME sector in Oman. The SME information channel will play an important role in fi lling the gaps and empowering entrepre-neurs to chart successful business ventures. The information chan-nel marks a clear progression of the well-defi ned strategy pursued by the bank in line with the directives of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said to support the SME sector, es-pecially youth, in Oman.”

The primary objective of al Wathbah SME TV, accessible on Bank Muscat website, is to provide a common platform to educate and update SMEs on the latest rules, regulations, challenges and op-portunities for SME business ven-tures etc. The SME channel will be updated on a regular basis to high-light topics relevant to SMEs.

Ilham Al Hamaid, AGM – SME Credit, Marketing and Regional Corporates, said: “The objective of al Wathbah SME channel is to provide relevant information and impart the required skills and guidance for entrepreneurs to es-tablish successful business ven-tures in Oman. In light of the busi-ness environment in Oman which off ers tremendous opportunities and challenges for the SME sector, Bank Muscat remains committed to creating self-employment op-portunities for citizens across the Sultanate.”

A L W A T H B A H S M E T V

WWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COM

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SECTIONC W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

STUNNED RAFA NADAL CRASHES OUT AT QUEEN’S Rafael Nadal suff ered a shock fi rst round exit from the Wimbledon warm-up event at Queen’s Club as the Spanish star was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 6-4 by unheralded Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov on Tuesday. >C6

COM7, 2 0 1 5

AL UEEN’S

rst

as 6-7 ian y. >C6

Guam stun India, Aussies survive scare, Japan heldSINGAPORE: Guam stunned India to move to the top of their 2018 World Cup qualifying group on Tuesday, while Japan saw their campaign get off to a rocky start as they were held to a goal-less draw by Singapore.

Reigning Asian champions Australia scraped past a gritty Kyrgyzstan with a 2-1 victory.

South Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates, mean-while, had no such problems with all winning their opening match-es in their bids to qualify for the 2018 tournament in Russia.

The tiny Pacifi c island of Guam produced Tuesday’s most re-markable result, with the Matao winning 2-1 against the oppo-nents who are currently 33 spots ahead of them in the Fifa world rankings.

Looking to build on their 1-0 win over Turkmenistan on Thursday, Guam took the lead at the GFA National Training Cent-er after 38 minutes when Bran-don McDonald headed in Ryan Guy’s long throw-in.

Travis Nicklaw extended the advantage in the 62nd minute when he received a long pass from his elder brother Shawn and fi red home on the turn.

Sunil Chhetri got a consolation goal for India with the last kick of the game but it did little to take the shine off the result for Guam, who moved to the top of Group D

with six points from two games.Australia will count them-

selves lucky that they didn’t suff er a similar fate as India. Mile Jedi-nak gave the Socceroos an early lead in the second minute of the game when his free kick from 25 yards out wasn’t stopped by the Kyrgyzstan keeper Valery Kashu-ba. But then instead of buckling under the pressure, the home side went on the attack and caused quite a few problems for the rag-ged Aussie defence.

The second half saw a similar script with Kyrgyzstan extremely unlucky not to score as they hit the side netting three times. But then in the 67th minute Tommy Oar, who had come on as a substitute just nine minutes earlier, scored the second goal for Australia.

Kyrgyzstan tried to keep up the attacking tempo but could only fi nd a consolation goal through Azamat Baimatov in injury time.

It left the central Asians ruing the missed chances that could have caused a big upset.

Japan, meanwhile, dominated their opening match in Group E in the second round of Asian qualifying against Singapore but they failed to make their posses-sion count against the Lions at a packed Saitama Stadium 2002.

The Blue Samurai are aiming to qualify for a sixth consecutive World Cup, but Singapore goal-keeper Izwan Mahbud made a

string of excellent saves to deny the home side, including a pair of superb stops to keep out second-half headers by Shinji Okazaki and Keisuke Honda.

Honda went closest to breaking the deadlock with a 73rd minute free-kick that came back off the crossbar.

The stalemate meant that Sin-gapore moved to the top of Group E with four points following their 4-0 win against Cambodia on Thursday.

Afghanistan are level with sec-ond-placed Syria on three points.

South Korea, who are eyeing a ninth consecutive World Cup ap-pearance, started well in Group G as goals in either half by Lee Jae-Sung and Bayer Leverkusen’s Son Heung-Min gave them a 2-0 win over Myanmar.

China also made an excellent start in Group C with striker Yang Xu netting a hat-trick in a 6-0 thrashing of Bhutan at Thimphu, but Asian Cup semifi nalists UAE had to work hard for a 1-0 win over Timor Leste in Group A as Omar Abdulrahman netted the only goal 10 minutes from time.

Hong Kong lead the way in Group C after a 2-0 win over Mal-dives, Thailand sit atop Group F after winning 2-0 at Chinese Taipei and North Korea are front-runners in Group H following a 4-2 victory over Uzbekistan in Pyongyang. - AFP

W O R L D C U P Q U A L I F I E R S

KHAN CLAN READY TO PROPEL SQUASH IN OMAN

T.K. MOHANDOSSsportseditor@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: One person who is highly impressed by the growth of squash in Oman is none other than a popular member of the Khan clan, which has ruled the sport for many years.

We are talking about Yousaf Khan. For those who have played squash in Oman

many years ago, it will ring a bell. But for the new generation, it is heartening

news to know that this squash personality is still very much in the Sultanate and also is ready to impart his knowledge for the upcoming squash racquet wielders.

Coming to the point, Yousaf is the fi rst cousin of Pakistani legend and former world champion Jahangir Khan.

Jahangir had lately launched a campaign in Pakistan to revive the sport and Yousaf says he is ready to bring in Jahangir’s legacy for the benefi t of squash players in Oman. Yousaf, like Jahangir, has been a top player in Pakistan, having repre-sented the country in many international tourna-ments. He has also been a prominent contender

in the national scenario in Pakistan. Yousaf’s highlight was in playing the World Champion-ship in Karachi 1984, where he defeated England No. 1 Lars Kuvent only to fall to world No. 2 Hiddy Jahan in the second round.

Speaking to Times Sport: “I don’t know if any-one remembers about World Grand Prix played in Oman. In the tournament played at the Al Falaj Hotel courts, where I faced the likes of world No. 16 Qamar Zamam of Pakistan.”

Adding on, Yousaf reminded the days when he was No.1 player in Oman and his avatar as the Gulf champion. Yousaf won the Gulf crown during the 1986 Gulf Championship held in Ma-nama, Bahrain. “For the past 25 years I have been playing and teaching the sport,” he said. “I contin-ue to do what I can to spread the game and help in developing the future players.”

Sensing that there is a renewed vigour in the sport in Oman, Yousaf said: “I am pleased to hear that squash is picking up in Oman. Young Omanis have the talent but the need is of good trainers.”

On his idea of imparting his knowledge, Yousaf said: “My plan is to visit schools and col-leges and spot the talent. But it depends if I get a chance. I am also planning to meet the current crop of players and share my ideas for the benefi t of the game.”

He went on to say that to make the sport popu-lar, Oman should have more squash tournaments. “If needed I have also a plan to invite Jahangir Khan for Oman’s squash tournaments. Having him as a guest will boost the squash further,” said Yousaf. “As we all know Jahangir is running his own squash academy in Karachi and his exper-tise is sure to help the game in Oman.”

— Photo by JUN ESTRADA/Times of Oman

Yousaf Khan, the

fi rst cousin of the

legendary squash

player Jahangir

Khan, is promising

to bring in former

world champion’s

legacy for the

benefi t of Oman’s

squash players

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SPORTSW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

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Mohit sees himself as a beginner

NEW DELHI: Speedster Mohit Sharma, who calls himself a “be-ginner in international cricket” attributes his recent success in in-ternational cricket to the opportu-nities that was given to him by his IPL and India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Mohit has played 20 ODIs and four T20s since making his de-but international debut in August 2013. It would be fair to say that he is a regular in the limited overs squad, if not in the playing XI. However, the soft spoken cricketer from Faridabad sees his position in the side diff erently.

“Actually I still see myself as beginner. The only big diff er-ence (since debut) has been that I spend double time on my bowling and fi tness. When you fi nally get to play for India, then you realise how tough it is keep doing well and maintain your place in the team,” Mohit told PTI before leaving for Bangladesh for the three-match ODI series.

Next month, he is set to travel to Zimbabwe, a place where he donned the India jersey for the fi rst time in 2013 following a suc-cessful IPL with Chennai Super Kings. Mohit may not be in the ‘express league’ like Umesh Yadav or Varn Aaron, but has made good use of his strength, which is con-sistently bowling an accurate line and length.

Ask him about his evolution as a bowler in the last two years, the 26-year-old has plenty to say.

“I think am a lot wiser now. I am able to assess the situation much faster than earlier times. I have experienced major changes in my body as well, the fi tness has in-

creased and because of that I have gained speed as well. Overall, I feel much more knowledgeable about the game. “I am very much a begin-ner but learning can’t stop even if

you become a very big player. When you enter international cricket, you instantly get to know what to do at what time just by sitting in the dress-ing room. Besides that, the pressure

situations teaches you a lot.”And he doesn’t like if you only

call him a line and length bowler.“I may not be super quick but I

think I bowl at a decent pace. I have

been consistently hitting 135-140 kmph and that’s decent speed. And it not just about pace for me. I focus on landing the ball in the right areas and leave the rest to the conditions. Having said that, I understand that I need to improve improve my pace further,” he retorts.

Like many others, luck has played a substantial role in Mohit’s fl edgling career. He replaced an in-jured Ishant Sharma in World Cup squad and ended up playing in all eight matches, taking 13 wickets at an average of 24.15.

“Really feel fortunate to be part of that squad and whatever chances I have got so far, it has been made possible by Mahi bhai (Dhoni). Anyone who is new to in-ternational cricket cannot do well without the support of his captain. I feel lucky to playing under him in IPL and in the Indian team.

“The best part about him is that he helps you out in all matters, on and off the fi eld. But I did not feel this way when I just joined Chen-nai Super Kings.

“When I was new at Super Kings, he did not used to talk to me much. And when your captain is not talk-ing to you, you often feel that you are doing something wrong. But I realised it was not like that when I eventually spoke to him.

“The fi rst thing he told me that ‘if I would have straightaway come to you and spoken, you would have felt the pressure of doing well. I know you have already done well in Ranji Trophy and you will do here as well’. For a beginner like me, those words coming from Mahi bhai gives you a huge push.”

While he spends a lot of time with Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) when he is with the Indian team, Ashish Nehra is his ‘go to man’ in IPL.

“I have grown up watching Ashu bhai (Nehra) bowl. He advises you in every phase of the game. How to bowl on a particular pitch, how to bowl in a specifi c situation.

Normally, we underestimate the length ball in T20s but he has made me understood that length is very important part of your bowling.

“For example, it is rare you see AB (de Villiers) or Chris Gayle, hit-ting a length ball for a six. Either we pitch it too full or too short. Be-fore they try something, the bowler ends up trying a lot and ends up giving loose balls,” explains Mohit.

We conclude the chat by asking him about his Test ambitions.

“As I said before, I am working a lot on my fi tness. If get an opportu-nity, I am full ready for the fi ve-day format.” - PTI

Speedster Mohit

Sharma, who calls

himself a “beginner

in international

cricket” attributes

his recent success in

international cricket

to the opportunities

that was given to him

by his IPL and India

captain Mahendra

Singh Dhoni

LONG WAY TO GO: Mohit Sharma is set to travel to Zimbabwe, a place where he donned the India jersey for the fi rst time in 2013 following

a successful IPL with Chennai Super Kings. – File photo

Dhoni & Co. gear up for ODI series against BangladeshDHAKA: Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be back in the saddle after over a month-long break as eight players join India’s squad and get battle-ready to face Bangladesh in a three-match ODI series starting Thursday.

Dhoni along with Stuart Bin-ny, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Suresh Raina, Mohit Sharma, Dhawal Kulkarni and Ambati Rayudu arrived here yesterday to face the hosts in the limited-overs matches.

India, who had gained a moral victory by making Bangladesh follow-on in the rain-hit one-off Test match that ended Sunday, are looking to carry on their good showing even as some of the Test players returned home.

India’s team manager Biswarup Dey informed that the team gave a send-off to the players returning home.

“Team India decided to go out last night. We decided to

celebrate because of the good performance. Some of the Test players are leaving and so it was also the last day with all the play-ers together,” Dey was quoted as

saying on ‘thedailystar.Net’.The ODIs slated for June 18,

21 and 24 in Mirpur have all been assigned reserve days due to mon-soon showers in the country.

India last played a bilateral se-ries in Bangladesh in 2014 when the Suresh Raina-led side got past the hosts 2-0 after the fi nal ODI was washed off . - PTI

C R I C K E T

BACK IN BUSINESS: Indian ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni , left, and Test skipper Virat Kohli,

right, attend a practice session at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka. – AFP

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SPORTSW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

England are far more ‘scary’ now

LONDON: New Zealand coach Mike Hesson believes his side are now facing a far more “scary” England team com-pared to the one the Blackcaps thrashed at the World Cup.

In February, New Zealand hammered England by eight wickets in Wellington en route to a World Cup fi nal which they lost to co-hosts Australia.

The Blackcaps skittled out

England for just 123 on that oc-casion, with Tim Southee taking a New Zealand one-day interna-tional record seven for 33.

New Zealand then chased down their meagre target in a mere 12.2 overs, with skipper Brendon McCullum blasting 77 in 25 balls. But Hesson’s men haven’t had things all their own way during their ongoing fi ve-match one-day international se-

ries in England. The fi rst ODI at Edgbaston saw England make 408 for nine in a 210-run win — both national records.

New Zealand levelled the se-ries with a 13-run Duckworth/Lewis success at The Oval but only after England, initially chasing 399 for victory, had been 345 for seven and needing 54 more runs from 37 balls when rain stopped play.

The Blackcaps, however, went 2-1 up at Southampton on Sunday after restricting England to 302 all out.

But they still needed a New Zealand record third-wicket stand of 206 between Kane Wil-liamson (118) and Ross Taylor (110) to take them close to completing a three-wicket win which was only sealed with an over to spare.

England’s team at the Rose

Bowl contained just four sur-vivors from their Wellington humiliation in skipper Eoin Morgan, batsman Joe Root, wicket-keeper Jos Buttler and fast bowler Steven Finn.

Dangerous EnglandImproving England’s standing in 50-over cricket is a key aim for new director of cricket An-drew Strauss and now the likes of opener Alex Hales, all-round-er Ben Stokes, leg-spinner Adil Rashid and left-arm paceman David Willey are being given a chance to show what they can do at international level

Hesson, asked if England’s performances in the series so far had been a surprise, given how poor they had been at a World Cup where they crashed out in the fi rst round and didn’t beat a Test nation, told report-

ers in Southampton on Monday: “They are a completely diff erent team, a diff erent team in so many ways.

“If this side was at the World Cup, I think they would certain-ly scare a few teams in terms of the way they play,” he added.

“They haven’t quite nailed it yet, but you are never going to straight away. But on their day, crikey, they are dangerous,” insisted Hesson ahead of the fourth ODI at Nottingham’s Trent Bridge ground on Wednesday.

England have cited New Zealand as an example to follow in 50-over cricket but Hesson said: “No-one owns a particular style.

“I think England are playing a brand of cricket that puts you under the pump unless you are really on-song.”

New Zealand too have a slightly diff erent look to the team that played at the World Cup, with Ben Wheeler given a debut at the Rose Bowl on Sunday after fellow left-arm seamer Trent Boult was ruled out of the rest of the tour with a back injury.

Wheeler, 23, responded with an impressive three for 63, while novice left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner took one for 30 in fi ve overs, and Hesson said: “Ben, you couldn’t expect much more from a debutant, taking three of the top seven wickets and being there at the end with the bat.

“The beauty of the squad is that we trust everyone to take on key roles. We certainly gave them (Wheeler and Santner) key roles, we didn’t hide them, and they stood up.” - AFP

New Zealand coach Mike Hesson thinks

England are playing a brand of cricket

that puts one under the pump

unless a team is really on-song

Home conditions give England ‘edge over Australia in Ashes’LONDON: Pakistan’s veteran all-rounder Shahid Afridi has said England’s home ground ad-vantage gives them an edge over Australia in the upcoming Ashes series, which starts in less than a month in Cardiff , England.

England have not lost to Aus-tralia on home soil in Ashes for 14 years and Afridi, who recently concluded a brief stint with Eng-lish Twenty20 side Northamp-tonshire, said England’s bowlers will lift themselves in their own backyard.

“England will have advantage of playing in home conditions. Their bowlers know a thing or two about bowling in England. If you notice they have always bowled better in England as com-pared to other countries,” Afridi was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia (CA) on Monday.

“They may have struggled in the One-Day Internationals (ODI) lately (against New Zea-land) but in Tests we can expect a good contest from them. I can’t pick one team as favourite to win the Ashes but I think England will have a slight advantage due to home conditions,” he said.

Australia completed a 2-0 se-ries clean sweep against the West Indies last week, the same oppo-nents England drew with 1-1 all in April and May.

England drew their most recent

Test series 1-1 against New Zea-land with questions surround-ing England’s middle-order bat-ting and bowling unit still largely unanswered.

Afridi also revealed the two Australians that have caused him the most grief over his 19-year international career are Glenn McGrath and Michael Clarke.

Afridi was dismissed fi ve times in 25 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and once in Tests against McGrath.

“The bowler I always admired

and found really tough was Glenn McGrath,” Afridi said.

“He is the sort of bowler you can’t hit blindly. He just does not give you a chance to hit. I don’t think I have seen a better new-ball bowler than him in my career.”

Afridi said as a bowler he fi nds current Test skipper Clarke the most diffi cult to dislodge.

“I think Michael Clarke was the best Australian batsman I bowled to. It is because his footwork against spin is extremely good,” 35-year-old Afridi said. — IANS

CR I CKET

I can’t pick one team

as favourite to win

the Ashes but I think

England will have a

slight advantage

Shahid AfridiPakistan all-rounder

Teen spinner snares seven on debut

LONDON: Teenager Matt Carter enjoyed the most suc-cessful debut by an off -spinner in the English County Cham-pionship for 77 years when he took seven for 56 to bowl Not-tinghamshire into a strong po-sition in their First Division match away to Somerset on Monday. Somerset were well-placed at 112 for two in reply to Nottinghamshire’s fi rst innings 410 —which included former Zimbabwe batsman Brendan Taylor’s 152 — when 19-year-old Carter started to make in-roads from the River End.

He took seven wickets in just 12 overs at a cost of 45 runs.

Carter’s fi gures were the best by a spinner on Championship debut since Australian Jack Walsh took seven for 46 for Leicestershire against North-amptonshire in 1938.

“My fi rst ball was a nervous one, but the lads were talking to me and after my fi rst over was fi nished I felt a lot more confi -dent,” said Carter. “It’s always nice to see a ball turn, especially on day two, and that is a bonus for me because my height al-lows me to get extra bounce.

“When I fi rst started bowl-ing I didn’t turn the ball much, but now I have worked on a few things and turn it more.” — AFP

FEAT

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SPORTSW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

The Wave, Oman Air look to maintain domination at Cardiff

MUSCAT: Cardiff , the United Kingdom, has proved a happy hunting ground over the years for Oman Sail’s teams as they ruled the Welsh waves with three back to back wins between them, but the pressure is now on to maintain the winning streak and earn valu-able points in this year’s Extreme Sailing Series.

The Wave, Muscat took the Car-diff crown in 2014 and 2013, claim-ing victory ahead of 2012 winners Oman Air. Both crews are back again this year to battle it out for the fourth successive Omani win.

“We have done a few events in

Cardiff now and it has been pretty good to us over the years but we feel like we must win this one. We want to win this one,” said Leigh McMillan, skipper of The Wave, Muscat, who last month turned his hand to racing the foiling GC32s along with his core crew Nasser Al Mashari and Pete Greenhalgh, and after just four days of training swept to victory on board Sultan-ate of Oman at inaugural the Bul-litt GC32 Racing Tour in Austria.

“We were level at the top of the 2015 Extreme Sailing Series lead-erboard with SAP Extreme Sail-ing Team before the last event

in Qingdao, China, but lost out to them in the end. We have had some success here before and look forward to repeating it again this year. We learned quite a lot during our GC32 experience and it helped to highlight a few things we had stopped doing. In Cardiff , we know what to expect – it is a skinny patch of water and it is often breezy, so the racing will be exciting and fast paced and we are hoping to come out on top.”

The Wave, Muscat bowman, Nasser Al Mashari, has been a winner on both Oman Air and The Wave, Muscat in Cardiff and is ex-cited about returning to one of his favourite venues.

“We have done very well in Cardiff previously – it is a great venue and we love to sail there. It is a tight reaching course and very windy but our teamwork is getting better and better, so hopefully we can achieve another win in Car-diff for The Wave, Muscat and Oman,” he said.

The Wave, Muscat currently stands in second place on the over-all leaderboard, just one point be-hind SAP Extreme Sailing Team

after three events, while Stevie Morrison’s Oman Air are in 5th place and keen to pull out all the stops in a venue that many of the crew consider ‘home’ waters.

“Hopefully we will get some good support in Cardiff and that will give us an advantage,” he said. “We will certainly be quite com-fortable in our home environment and I hope that will show in our performances. We learned some lessons in Qingdao and have had some good discussions since, so if we can execute what we have set down as areas that we can improve on, then I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t get on the podium.

“Oman Air won this event in 2012 and, although none of us were on board then, we would hope the boat knows its way around the course!”

Racing at the Extreme Sailing Series Act 4, Cardiff presented by Land Rover, starts on Thursday June 18 and continues through to June 21 2015. It is one of the narrowest city-centre stadium racecourses on the global tour with racing often very tight and action packed.

The Wave, Muscat took the Cardiff crown in

2014 and 2013, claiming victory ahead of

2012 winners Oman Air. Both crews are back

again this year to battle it out for the fourth

successive Omani win

SMOOTH SAILING: File picture of last year’s Extreme Sailing Series at Cardiff . – Supplied photo

Ahmad eyeing change in fortuneMUSCAT: Paul Ricard in the south of France will host the longest race of the Blancpain Endurance Series season so far this coming Saturday, 20th June, where Ahmad Al Harthy is eye-ing a change in fortune for the Oman Racing Team.

While the successful squad is enjoying a strong season in the Avon Tyres British GT Champi-onship, where Ahmad and team-mate Daniel Lloyd are currently fi fth in the driver standings and lead the ‘Silver Cup’ classifi ca-tion, their Blancpain campaign has been less than straightfor-ward up to now.

Even so, the team’s pace with its Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 has been clear and at Paul Ricard this weekend there will be a very strong determination from the duo, who will be part-nered by Endurance Series team-mate Jonny Adam, to chalk-up a fi rst points-scoring top 10 fi nish of 2015.

At six hours in duration, the Paul Ricard 1,000km on Saturday will be double the length of the fi rst two rounds of the Blancpain season and will therefore provide an even greater challenge for the 60-plus car grid.

Added to that, the race will begin at 17.00 (local time) so the chequered fl ag won’t fall until darkness has blanketed the Le Castellet venue, providing an-other variable for the drivers to get to grips with and a challenge Ahmad is relishing.

“It’s true we haven’t had the season we wanted up to now in Blancpain but we know we can turn things around at Paul Ricard”, said the Aston Martin Middle East and North Africa ambassador, “The pace has been there, we proved that at Monza and Silverstone, but a variety of things have gone against us un-fortunately.

“Our car is working very well, the Aston has been a pleasure to drive all year in Blancpain and also British GT, and the team has been doing a fantastic job. Some-

times motor racing is like this, you have all of the pieces of the jigsaw in place and just need a bit of good fortune! I’m confi dent we can have a strong weekend at Paul Ricard.”

Last year during the corre-sponding event, the Oman Racing Team – which is backed by Oman Air, Oman Ministry of Sports Af-fairs, Ooredoo, National Bank of Oman and Al Hashar Group – se-cured a top 10 Pro Cup result. So far in the 2015 Blancpain season, Ahmad and team-mates Lloyd and Adam have a best fi nish of 15th position in the headline Pro Cup from last month’s visit to Silverstone.

Practice and pre-qualifying at Paul Ricard will take place on Friday, with fi nal qualifying fol-lowing on Saturday. Round three of the 2015 season will get under-way at on Saturday.

M O T O R S P O R T S

I’m confident we

can have a strong

weekend at

Paul Ricard

Ahmad Al HarthyOman Racing Team

OMAN TENNIS ASSOCIATION OFFICIALS, SPORTS CLUBS DISCUSS MINI TENNIS PROGRAMMEOman Tennis Association offi cials and the coaches of various clubs held a meeting to

evaluate the mini tennis programme and discuss various developmental aspects. The

Oman Tennis Association was represented by Salman Al Balushi (Head of the working

team), Siddiq Al Hashmi (National teams head coach), Dr. Ahmad bin Al Saeedi (board

member) , Basel Ouajeeh (Technical Coordinator) and the club coaches were Yehya Al

Kharousi (Nizwa Club ), Salem Al Mashaykhi (Jaalan Club), Hamad Al Waheibi (Bidiya

Club), Saeed Al Seyouti (Quriyat Club) and Hamad Al Harasi (Bashayer Club). — Supplied photo

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Blatter could remain Fifa head if suitable candidate not found

ZURICH/NEW YORK: Sepp Blatter could go back on his prom-ise to stand down as Fifa president, a former adviser said on Monday, even as U.S. prosecutors revealed a plea deal with a past Fifa execu-tive who told investigators about bribes and kickbacks.

Klaus Stoehlker, who advised Blatter during this year’s Fifa elec-tion campaign, told Sky News that Blatter could remain head of world soccer’s governing body if a “con-vincing candidate” to replace him did not emerge.

Fifa said in a statement that Stoehlker, who was in a meeting when contacted by Reuters and unable to comment, was no longer working with Blatter.

Blatter said on June 2 that he would step down as Fifa presi-dent. He is under pressure to leave sooner rather than later as U.S. and Swiss authorities widen investiga-tions into bribery and corruption at the organization.

European Union lawmakers are among those calling for his imme-diate departure.

Also on Monday, U.S. pros-

ecutors revealed their plea agreement with Chuck Blazer, showing that the former Fifa ex-ecutive committee member se-cretly provided authorities with information for nearly two years before he admitted guilt in court in November 2013.

Blazer was the former general secretary of Concacaf, soccer’s

governing body in North and Cen-tral America and the Caribbean and a Fifa executive.

Fifa underwent yet another blow to its prestige on Monday when the Nobel Peace Center said it was ending its cooperation with the governing body.

The center was behind the Handshake for Peace initiative,

which had been enthusiastically promoted by Blatter over the past three years.

As the international probe in-tensifi ed, pressure mounted at the Swiss body to stabilize its leader-ship. But Blatter has changed his mind in the past. In 2011, he said his fourth mandate would be his last but he stood again this year.

A Swiss newspaper on Sunday, the Schweiz am Sonntag, reported that Blatter had received mes-sages of support from African and Asian football associations, asking him to rethink his decision to step down. Blatter was honoured by the support and had not ruled out re-maining in offi ce, the newspaper reported, citing an anonymous source close to him.

Africa’s soccer confederation (CAF) said on Monday that it had not heard of any of its members asking Blatter to stay on. “At CAF level we are not aware of any Af-rican countries who have written to ask Blatter to stay on,” Kalusha Bwalya, a CAF executive commit-tee member and president of the Football Association of Zambia, told Reuters.

English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke does not think Blatter will have a change of heart.

“I think it (a U-turn) is extreme-ly unlikely. I think it would be very controversial,” Dyke told Reu-ters. “There would be a rebellion amongst a lot of people (if he did).”

Insiders at the Union of Euro-pean Football Associations (Uefa) told Reuters that European soc-cer’s governing body was left per-plexed by the reports that Blatter would stand again and that the plot would be too outrageous even for a Hollywood script.

Offi cially, European soccer’s governing body did not want to comment, but the German football association (DFB) called on Blat-ter, who is staying on until the elec-tion, to leave quickly.

“We only know the media re-ports which strengthen our clear position,” spokesman Ralf Koett-ker told reporters.

“Blatter’s announced resigna-tion must be formally completed as soon as possible.”

Domenico Scala, the offi cial overseeing the process of choosing a new president, said that Blatter’s departure was an “indispensable” part of planned reforms to soccer’s governing body. - Reuters

Klaus Stoehlker,

who advised Blatter

during this year’s Fifa

election campaign,

told Sky News that

Blatter could remain

head of world soccer’s

governing body

if a “convincing

candidate” to replace

him did not emerge

WILL HE RECONSIDER? Speculations of a U-turn by Sepp Blatter is emerging. – File photo

KUALA LUMPUR: The Asian Football Confederation re-mains unmoved by reports that Sepp Blatter may seek to stay on as Fifa president despite announcing his intention to resign amid a major corruption scandal. Support for Blatter’s leadership has traditionally been strong in the 46-nation Asian bloc but the AFC declined to throw its weight be-hind any push to keep the Swiss in power for a fi fth term.

“With regard to recent media

stories, the Asian Football Con-federation confi rms its position as previously outlined, namely that the AFC takes note of the Fifa President’s intention to step down at an Extraordinary Congress scheduled to be called later this year or early 2016, which will be the subject of the upcoming Fifa Executive Com-mittee meeting on 20 July,” the AFC said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Tues-day. “AFC fully respects the decision of the Fifa President

to step down and is sure that it was taken after deep and care-ful consideration.”

Africa’s soccer confedera-tion (CAF) said on Monday it had not heard of any of its members asking Blatter to stay on. “At CAF level we are not aware of any African countries who have written to ask Blatter to stay on,” Kalusha Bwalya, a CAF executive commit-tee member and president of the Football Association of Zambia,said. - Reuters

Asia unmoved by reports of possible Blatter U-turn

Chuck Blazer was US informant since 2011

NEW YORK: Chuck Blazer, the American who blew the whis-tle on Fifa’s giant corruption scandal, worked secretly for US prosecutors from 2011 while still on Fifa’s executive commit-tee, court documents show.

According to a 19-page plea agreement, unsealed by a feder-al court in New York late Mon-day at the request of media out-lets, Blazer began helping US authorities as early as Decem-ber 29, 2011. The 70-year-old was still a member of Fifa’s ex-ecutive committee at the time. He was suspended in disgrace only in 2013.

In the deal, he pleaded guilty to 10 counts, including rack-eteering, tax evasion, and wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies. He agreed to co-operate in exchange for a re-duced sentence. The document, dated November 25, 2013, was signed by Blazer and US At-torney General Loretta Lynch, then attorney for the eastern district of New York.

In it, Blazer agreed to hand over all relevant documents, keep his cooperation under wraps and testify in New York and anywhere else in the world at the request of US prosecutors.

Blazer acknowledged that he earned more than $11 million from 2005 to 2010, and agreed not to oppose any future ban imposed on him by Fifa or any other football governing body.

Blazer also agreed to pay out-standing income tax from 2005-2013, a fi ne of more than $2.4 million and a second amount to be determined by the court in advance of sentencing.

From 1990 to 2011 Blazer was general secretary of Concacaf, overseeing their entire opera-tions from New York, and from 1997 to 2013 he was the only US representative on Fifa’s execu-tive committee. — AFP

F I F A S C A N D A L

Fifa says Nobel Center decision ‘isn’t fair play’ZURICH: Fifa reacted with bit-terness on Tuesday over the No-bel Peace Center’s plan to end cooperation over the Handshake for Peace initiative, saying the decision was “not fair play” and obstructed anti-discrimination.

In an unusually strongly-word-ed statement, soccer’s governing body added that it was disap-pointed to hear about the news through the media. “We are dis-appointed to have learned from the media about the Nobel Peace Center’s intent to terminate the cooperation with Fifa on the Handshake for Peace initiative,” said Fifa in a statement.

“Fifa is reluctant to accept this unilateral approach on what is a joint initiative between the football community and the Nobel Peace Center (NPC). This action does not embody the spirit of fair play espe-cially as it obstructs the promotion of the key values of peace-building and anti-discrimination.”

The NPC announced on Mon-day that it was ending its link with soccer’s scandal-plagued governing body and did not give a specifi c reason. Fifa said NPC executive director Bente Erich-sen phoned president Sepp Blat-ter on Tuesday morning and that

she “continued to believe in this initiative and hoped it would live on in football with Fifa”.

The Oslo-based NPC was be-hind the Handshake for Peace Initiative, something that had been enthusiastically promoted by Blatter for three years.

Simple gestureFifa encouraged pre-match hand-shakes between team captains and offi cials as the Handshake for Peace and was also hoping to in-troduce it at the end of matches.

“The Handshake for Peace ini-tiative combines football’s inter-national reach with the simple gesture of a handshake to promote peace and fair play,” said Fifa.

“At Fifa’s tournaments, players and offi cials use the Handshake for Peace to set a good example in front of both the fans inside the stadium and the wider public watching games on television.”

Fifa said the Handshake for Peace would remain protocol at the U-20 World Cup in New Zea-land and the women’s World Cup in Canada. The NPC’s announce-ment came three days after Inter-pol suspended a 20 million euros ($22 million) arrangement with Fifa. — Reuters

D I S A P P O I N T E D

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Winning Wimbledon remains the dream of Victoria Azarenka

BIRMINGHAM: Former world number one Victoria Azarenka says she still dreams of winning Wimbledon, despite revealing some of the frustrations and un-certainties she has suff ered in the last couple of years.

Repeated injuries have prevent-ed Azarenka from winning a title for 22 months, and she endured an up-and-down fi rst round at the Wimbledon warm-up event in Bir-mingham on Tuesday.

She was fi ve times within a point of going 0-5 down against Varvara Lepchenko, an American ranked outside the top 30, before fi ght-ing back, with a mixture of fi erce hitting and varying confi dence, to win 7-6 (9-7), 6-4.

Azarenka started to serve com-mandingly and successfully take risks with ground-stroke at-tacks whilst whittling away that big leeway.

But she still needed to save a set point at 6-7 in the tie-break, and recover from the disappointment of losing her service break in the

second set before prevailing.“The most important thing I

changed was the mindset,” she said. “It can put you down or lift you up. So it is part of your job to choose which way you want to go — up or down.”

Though some of the Belarusian’s diffi culties stemmed from these inner uncertainties, the best ele-ments of her performance suggest-ed that at the age of 25 she could still have signifi cant successes ahead. A turning point at break point down in the fi fth game of-fered insight into Azarenka’s state of mind, for she stopped mid-rally to request a video replay of a Lep-chenko drive only to see it depicted as plumb on the baseline.

That may have caused anger to overcome anxiety, for she respond-ed with a brilliant combination of cross-court ground strokes to get back to deuce, and followed it with two pressurising returns of serve to break. She was often a diff erent player after that, usually dominating the rallies, though she was helped to make the even more important sec-ond service break by an indiff erent ninth game by Lepchenko.

This provided Azarenka with a platform for recovery which, de-spite two further hiccups, she en-terprisingly used to raise her game

by striking the ball more and more freely. It was, she concluded, “still a dream” to win Wimbledon.

“It’s everyone’s dream to win it — and it’s defi nitely still mine.”

She next plays Zarina Diyas, the world number 34 from Kazakh-stan, and could have a quarter-fi nal with Karolina Pliskova, the impressively rising world number 12 from the Czech Republic.

Encouraging formEarlier another former world number one, Jelena Jankovic, also made a winning start, though more comfortably than Azarenka.

The Serbian is also making her way back from injuries and over-came Tereza Smitkova, the world number 62 from the Czech Repub-lic, 6-4,6-4.

The loquacious Jankovic, a for-mer Wimbledon mixed doubles champion, has not enjoyed a good grass court Grand Slam for four years, and this year is playing two build-up tournaments instead of one to try to put that right.

Here she was in encouraging form both with deeds and words.

“This match went very well. I served very well from the begin-ning until the end, and I was wait-ing for my chances to break my op-ponent,” Jankovic said. - AFP

Repeated injuries

have prevented

Azarenka from

winning a title for

22 months, and she

endured an up-and-

down fi rst round

at the Wimbledon

warm-up event

in Birmingham

on Tuesday

CELEBRATION: Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka reacts after beating US

player Varvara Lepchenko on Day Two of the Aegon Classic. – AFP

LONDON: Lleyton Hewitt insists he can still make some noise in his fi nal appearance at Wimbledon despite being forced to bid a premature fare-well to Queen’s Club.

Hewitt, famous for his shrieked war cry of ‘C’mon’ whenever he wins an impor-tant point, is embarking on a prolonged goodbye tour before retiring after next year’s Aus-tralian Open and would love to roll back the years at Wimble-don later this month.

The 34-year-old Australian won Wimbledon in 2002 and regards the brief grass-court season as his favourite time of year on the ATP Tour.

Hewitt’s hopes of making a strong farewell run in the Wimbledon warm-up event at Queen’s were shattered by Kevin Anderson as the big-serving South African saved a match point en route to winning 6-7 (5/7), 7-5, 6-2 in their fi rst round clash in west London on Monday.

That was the injury-ravaged Hewitt’s fi fth defeat in six matches in 2015. But he remains convinced he can still cause an upset or two at Wim-bledon given a decent draw.

“The last two weeks I’ve played a couple of pretty good grass court players. It would be nice to play someone that’s not quite as good as those two on grass fi rst up at least,” Hewitt said.

“You’re in the hands of the gods, though, when you’re not seeded. You can come up against anyone. But as I showed for the majority of the fi rst two sets today, I felt like

my standard of tennis was still pretty damn good.”

In reality, Hewitt has been on the decline for several years due to his advancing age and injuries and his ranking has dropped to 117 as a result.

All guns blazingHis last Grand Slam quar-terfi nal appearance came at Wimbledon in 2009, but that lacklustre record won’t stop the feisty Australian going down all guns blazing at the All England Club in two weeks time. “It was always in my mind that I wanted to come back and play Wimbledon one more time, and obviously here at Queen’s,” he said.

“I love this time of the year. As soon as I got to London and started preparing for Wimble-don and Queen’s I felt right at home straightaway.

“Obviously Wimbledon, going back there as a former champion and member, it’s a pretty special place.”

Although Hewitt was unable to win another Grand Slam af-

ter taking the Wimbledon title, the former world number one, whose other major triumph came in the 2001 US Open, says he has no regrets about his career path.

“Even though I was young, I made a lot of sacrifi ces up until that point as well to try and be the best tennis player I could be,” he said.

“It’s a relief, I guess, in some ways, too, that you can go out there and enjoy that you’re a former winner of probably the biggest tournament there is in the world. “To me it doesn’t really matter if you win it once or fi ve times. I’m pretty sure I’ll take what I got.”

Once his grass-court fare-well is complete, Hewitt will turn his attention to helping Australia make a strong run in this year’s Davis Cup, while also serving as a father fi gure to young compatriots Nick Kyr-gios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.

“I’m going to work my sched-ule around the Davis Cup. For the rest of year that will be the priority,” he said. - AFP

Hewitt still planning to make Wimbledon impact

ON A GOODBYE TOUR: Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt attempts a

return during his lost match against Kevin Anderson. – AFP

Stunned Nadal crashes out at Queen’sLONDON: Rafael Nadal suff ered a shock fi rst round exit from the Wimbledon warm-up event at Queen’s Club as the Spanish star was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 6-4 by unheralded Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov on Tuesday.

Nadal’s dismal defeat against the world number 79 is the lat-est in a growing list of lacklustre performances in a troubled 2015 campaign for the former world number one.

The 14-time Grand Slam win-ner was beaten at the French Open for only the second time in his glittering career when Novak Djokovic won their quarter-fi nal clash in Paris.

As a result, Nadal’s ranking has plunged to 10th -- his lowest posi-tion for a decade -- and to add in-sult to injury he will now head to Wimbledon, which gets underway later this month, with renewed questions about a decline that hit another low with this setback in west London.

It was the second time this year Nadal had lost to an opponent outside the top 50 after his Janu-ary defeat to world number 127 Michael Berrer.

Nadal, back at Queen’s for the fi rst time in four years, wasn’t ex-pected to have any problems with Dolgopolov after the confi dence booster of winning the grass-court tournament in Stuttgart last week -- his fi rst title on the sur-face since lifting the Wimbledon

crown fi ve years ago.He even had Jose Mourinho in

his corner as the Chelsea manager sat courtside just behind Nadal’s uncle and coach Toni.

Yet it was Dolgopolov who forced the pace and the 26-year-old from Kiev secured the fi rst break in the second game, unfurl-ing a spectacular cross-court fore-hand winner on the run.

Dolgopolov came into the tour-nament on a three-match losing streak, but he had won his last meeting with Nadal — at Indian Wells last year — and continued to dominate from the baseline as he closed out the set.

Decisive momentIn a dramatic second set tie-break,

a blistering forehand at 5-5 gave Dolgopolov a match point, but Na-dal saved it with a nerveless serve.

The fi fth seed then produced a perfectly-timed volley to se-cure a set point that he convert-ed when Dolgopolov dragged a backhand wide.

Nadal looked fi rmly in control after breaking in the third game of the fi nal set, but he let the mo-mentum, and a 4-2 lead, slip away when, after being given a warning for a time violation, he allowed Dolgopolov to break back.

There was more frustration for Nadal at 4-4 when he wasted three break points and that proved the decisive moment when Dolgopo-lov unloaded a searing winner on match-point in the next game to

steal a sensational victory.Earlier, French Open champion

Stanislas Wawrinka gave short shrift to Nick Kyrgios’s claims that his 6-3, 6-4 victory was the result of the Australian’s physical and mental fatigue.

The Swiss second seed swept through his fi rst round clash in just 49 minutes to set up a second round meeting with big-serving South African Kevin Anderson.

But, while Wawrinka was on top form, emerging star Kyrgios attributed his poor performance to an illness and home sickness after a lengthy spell on the road.

“I’ve been sick for the last week. I’m obviously not feeling great,” Kyrgios said.

“I almost found it diffi cult to get myself engaged and didn’t want to be there. I’ve been battling men-tally a bit.”

Wawrinka, however, was un-impressed by Kyrgios’s com-plaints and said the brash youngster’s comments in press conferences had to be taken with a pinch of salt.

“I think he’s saying a lot of things every day. It doesn’t really surprise me,” he said.

“I read before the match he was ready, excited for the challenge, and now he was sick.”

Meanwhile, defending Queen’s champion Grigor Dimitrov moved into the second round with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory against 2010 win-ner Sam Querrey. - AFP

Q U E E N S C H A M P I O N S H I P

SHOCK EXIT: Spain’s Rafael Nadal watches a moment during his

his fi rst round match. – Reuters

WWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMSECTIONC W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5LIFE & STYLE

Nenets of Russia are among the world’s last true nomads, true to their traditions, true to their heritage

The nomads The nomads on ‘the edge on ‘the edge of the world’of the world’It’s dark and I’m fumbling to undo

the numerous layers I’m wear-ing, without falling into the deep snow. Then out of the starry

night, an antler prods my bottom. Be-fore long, I’m surrounded by a group of reindeer, apparently attracted by the salt in my urine. Any notions of privacy seem to have evaded them.

These are the far fringes of the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia’s Arctic and for a couple of weeks I’m living here with a family of Nenets reindeer herders. Indigenous to the region, Nenets are among the world’s last true nomads. There are around 45,000 throughout Russia of which 12,000 live in Yamal; 7,000 of them migrating 2,000km each year by reindeer-drawn sleighs (the rest stay in settlements). They travel, with the seasons, from the forest tun-dra south-west of the Yamal Peninsula in Nadym District in mid-March, north up to the Kara Sea in mid-August, where polar bears prowl. Then, they re-trace their steps – constantly seeking fresh pastures for their herds.

In the Nenets language, Yamal means “edge of the world” and my jour-ney there certainly lives up to expecta-tion. After reaching Moscow, there’s a three-hour fl ight to Salekhard, the re-gional capital teetering on the edge of the Arctic Circle. I’m with my fi xer, Ed; an Englishman who now lives in Mos-cow, and speaks fl uent Russian, having spent many years living with nomadic groups throughout Siberia. He has also worked with several fi lm crews; the Nenets way of life forms part of Kate Humble’s new, three-part BBC2 series, Living with Nomads.

In Salekhard we climb into a Tre-kol, a monster ATV (all-terrain vehi-cle) with chest-high wheels. “If we fall through the ice it will fl oat,” Ed ex-plains. It is only possible to reach the tundra village of Yar Sale in this way between mid November and mid May, when the river is frozen — there are no roads. From June to October, you’d have to take a ferry.

Seven hours later, we arrive at a wooden bungalow, belonging to a lady called Galina, where we spend the night. Inside, it’s so hot I almost pass out. Her family walks around as if dressed for summer, oblivious to the fact that it’s minus 25 degree Celsius outside. A cat dozes under a radiator. Next morning — after what will be my last shower for more than a week — we travel by snowmobile to the nomad’s camp, through snow that appears pearlised in the sun. It’s night when we fi nally arrive, and radiant ghost-like fi gures bounce around the sky. The Northern Lights illuminate two chums — tepee-like tents covered in reindeer

skin — and the wooden sleighs that are scattered haphazardly around, some piled with raw meat. All around is nothing but the fl at expanse of tundra. An extended family of around 15 Nen-ets is housed here. Inside one of the chums, Nadia — with her hair in two long plaits — sits sewing, using thread made from reindeer sinew. Achum, her husband, is making a reindeer har-ness from a mammoth tusk. “There are fossilised remains of mammoths and other ice age giants beneath the per-mafrost here,” Ed explains.

The following day, the family will pack up and move as they do every cou-ple of days. My camera freezes during the night, and my fi ngers are numb; yet there is no time to delay. The chums need to be dismantled on to the sleighs. Vasili gets a bottle from one of the sleighs, though it too has frozen.

Suddenly, without warning, the pace picks up. Hundreds of reindeer stampede towards me, husky dogs yip-ping behind them. Lassos cartwheel through the air as the men catch cer-tain bulls, shouting “hey ho”, and tack-ling the animals to the ground. “These reindeer have been trained to pull the sleighs,” Ed says. “Even at the speed they are running the men can recog-nise each one.”

Using a snowmobile, Achum drives the reindeer, with their towering ant-lers, towards us. Nenets rub shoulders with the modern world, their traditions now incorporating mobile phones and generators. In spite of more than 70 years of communism and the construc-

tion of a gas pipelines across their land (the world’s biggest gas fi elds are here), their way of life carries on.

Before the migration begins, it’s time for tea. We sit in the snow, dunk-ing sweet biscuits into the hot tea from blood stained cups. Raw reindeer meat is eaten hungrily, so the snow is also red. “It’s warm today, we’re having a picnic!” Vasili exclaims. He’s serious. While it’s minus 20 degree Celsius to-day, temperatures often plummet be-low minus 50C.

Nadia feeds a biscuit to a pure white reindeer with piercing blue eyes. “All tundra Nenets families have several reindeer which they hand-rear,” she explains. “They sleep in our chums and are loved like family.” These are young deer that have lost their parents; they are treated like pets until they are strong enough to be released into the herd. They will never be killed by the family, but given to another when too old to migrate.

Soon, we’re off . The transport rein-deer are dressed with bells and regalia by the women, who themselves are resplendent in sunglasses, big sumptu-ous white hats, and long reindeer fur coats with embroidered trims.

Days are spent alternating between these magnifi cent migrations and life at the camp. One day, Achum points at the sacred sleigh. An idol sits on top of it, dressed in reindeer hide. “It protects our reindeer,” Achum says. “Inside the sledge are wolf, sable, and polar bear furs which defend us from evil spirits and give us good luck while hunting.”

Nenets life is rich with beliefs. Be-tween the central stove and the back of the chum, there is an imaginary line, which no woman can cross without se-rious consequences.

Another day we come to a chum, with bloodied reindeer skins hanging outside, and rosy-cheeked children playing, with scant regard to the cold. The couple has seven children. One must be just days old and lies swaddled in reindeer fur.

“When we’re born we are wrapped in fur, when we die our body is laid under fur; and in between all our life is spent living with, eating and wearing rein-deer,” Vasili explains.

On my last day with Vasili’s family, the light is golden as we arrive at camp. I marvel at the tundra’s beauty. Every-one is moving fast; the chums are up quickly and then that glorious moment — the fi re is lit. The thick, heavy rein-deer fur door thumps down behind me, and the warmth on my face is delicious.

Nadia spreads out a bright plastic tablecloth and we tuck into supper. In-stant mashed potato has never tasted so good. -Kate Eshelby/The Independent

There are around

45,000 Nenets throughout

Russia of which 12,000 live

in Yamal; 7,000 of them

migrating 2,000km each year

by reindeer-drawn sleighs

C8

EXTRAW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Using IBM’s ‘virtual

supercomputer’, the world’s

dormant home PCs have been

‘borrowed’ for life-saving research

CROWDSOURCED COMPUTING

HAS CHANGED THE WORLD

WHAT DO DOCTORS, alien

enthusiasts and you and I have

in common? We can all play a

crucial role in discovering cures

for diseases. While some of the

above may not have the exper-

tise — or, indeed, brain power —

to make scientifi c discoveries for

themselves, all of our computers

and mobile phones can help re-

searchers while we sleep.

The World Community Grid

(WCG) is a virtual supercom-

puter, created by millions of

home computers worldwide. It

is tackling problems from child-

hood brain cancer to Aids, water

purifi cation to more effi cient so-

lar power. Now, the grid is help-

ing to fi nd a cure for Ebola. And

anyone can take part by signing

up and creating an account for

their PC or mobile phone, choos-

ing projects and downloading

the revelant software.

Stanley Litow, president of

the IBM International Founda-

tion, was part of the team who

came up with the WCG concept

10 years ago. Their somewhat

unusual inspiration came from

those aforementioned extra-

terrestrial enthusiasts. “We saw

a project asking people to donate

power from their PCs to fi nd out

more about aliens,” Litow says.

“In our citizenship project we

started asking, ‘What is the po-

tential of this technology? Could

we do something similar that

would have real social

impact?’” So they

developed the humanitarian

grid. While alien-spotters who

joined the Search for Extrater-

restrial Intelligence (Seti) may

have found their research results

disappointing, their idea is likely

to prove a crucial contribution

to cures of the future. Within a

year of Litow conceiving of the

project, the WCG was involved

in invaluable cancer research.

“It caught on very quickly. We

were already receiving dozens

of requests for supercomputers

and for power to help accelerate

research because of reductions

in budgets,” Litow explains.

“When it was launched at

IBM, it was very new technology.

Even now, when people donate

power on their computer, they’re

surprised it’s possible. The tech-

nology only works if there are

massive numbers of people in-

volved. There are now more than

three million devices involved,

and 700,000 people donating

processing power.”

Whenever a computer is

dormant, it will start running

research. This means that sci-

entists searching for cures, who

are faced with millions of com-

pounds — one of which may be

the key to disabling a disease

— can accelerate their research.

It would take years to examine

each compound in a laboratory.

Computer modelling accelerates

this process by identifying the

most likely compounds for lab

testing. This either requires ac-

cess to a supercomputer — which

can cost a million pounds, a sum

that’s inconceivable to

underfunded

research teams — or they can

partner with the World Commu-

nity Grid virtual supercomputer.

Since the project’s inception,

volunteers on the WCG have

powered two dozen research

projects, donating more than a

million years of computing time

collectively, and performing

more than 2.2 billion calcula-

tions for scientifi c research.

In the case of Ebola, scientists

are busy analysing how prom-

ising chemical compounds re-

act when they encounter the

virus. Professor Erica Ollmann

Saphire at The Scripps Re-

search Institute in California,

says, “We need to do everything

to stop this virus. We have in-

formation in my lab that will

tell us how to fi ght it, but we

need computational power to

calculate which drugs will best

fi t. If hundreds of thousands

of people on this grid each do

a small piece of the calculation,

it will let us do in weeks what

would otherwise take us hun-

dreds of years.”

Dr Igor Jurisica, professor

at the University of Toronto, is

working on a project to discover

markers that help to predict sus-

ceptibility to cancer and how

likely it is to spread. He says,

“World Community Grid is being

used to perform computer analy-

sis. This will achieve two impor-

tant goals. First, we will fi nd use-

ful markers that have potential

to improve cancer treatment

— by fi nding it earlier, identify-

ing high-risk patients, or pre-

dicting which patients may or

may not benefi t from specifi c

treatment. Second, this analy-

sis will help us to identify such

groups of markers faster,

benefi ting many

other diseases.” There have al-

ready been huge developments.

The Chiba Institute of Technol-

ogy in Japan identifi ed seven drug

candidates to use in new medi-

cines to fi ght neuroblastoma, one

of the most dangerous childhood

cancers. Scientists screened more

than three million chemical com-

pounds in a massive, virtual exper-

iment that would have taken more

than 55,000 years if performed

on a personal computer with a

single-core processor. Initial tests

showed that, even at low doses,

these drug candidates are eff ec-

tive at killing cancer cells with no

apparent side-eff ects. Meanwhile,

the Harvard Clean Energy Project

screened 2.3 million compounds

— the most extensive investi-

gation of quantum chemicals

ever performed — to produce an

open database listing promising

compounds for further develop-

ment by those looking to develop

cheaper, more effi cient solar cells.

The WCG software loaded

on each volunteer’s device re-

cords where it left off until as-

signments are completed. Com-

pleted calculations are sent

back to servers in Toronto and

forwarded to researchers. Then,

new assignments are given to

volunteers’ computers. The grid

is funded and managed entirely

by IBM. Teams at the computer

corporation help manage techni-

cal details so scientists can focus

on their research. “All projects

are open, so everyone can share

fi ndings, as they may be help-

ful in other areas,” Litow says.

“The value of the research that

has been done magnifi es the in-

vestment many times over.” Ari

Fishkind, spokesman for IBM,

emphasises that there are no

security concerns. “We’ve had

billions of calculations without

a single virus to compromise pri-

vacy or interfere with the

operation of vol-

unteers’ computers. IBM stress-

tests the software programming

of each project to ensure there

are no vulnerabilities. By design,

it’s relatively dumb software that

can only be used for one specifi c

task — ferrying assignments to

remote devices, and shuttling re-

sults back. All communications

between volunteers’ devices and

World Community Grid are en-

crypted and authenticated. Indi-

viduals, companies, universities

and government agencies trust it

to keep their data safe.”

Litow says IBM is in discus-

sion with Apple, Samsung and

Sony and a range of non-tech

companies about how they can

help. “Political leaders and uni-

versities can get behind this

and see the social and economic

value. It costs nothing, the op-

portunity is so great and we have

ample evidence that there are no

downsides.”

He believes that, the more

people involved, the quicker

we’ll see huge breakthroughs. “If

you’re an individual who cares

about making a breakthrough,

here’s your opportunity,” he

urges. Users can choose their

priority, and push their power

to cancer, Ebola or particular

environmental research. They

can invite everyone in their

network to do the same; sign

up as teams or as individuals,

and track the number of calcu-

lations being done to help the

research. “Writing a cheque is

good,” he says. “But it’s not per-

sonal involvement.”

Mark Wills, 44, a pastor,

signed up his PCs because he

wants “to make a difference

to the world”. He says, “My

father-in-law and my grand-

father both died from cancer.

I have contributed more than

four years of research to map-

ping cancer markers. I cannot

fully express how wonderful

that makes me feel.”

-Genevieve Roberts/The Independent

TRUMAN Capote said, “Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”

I hope this column is a well-written third act of this deal.

Yesterday, we studied the play in four hearts after West began the defence with three rounds of diamonds. South ruff ed and ran the heart 10 to take fi ve spades, three hearts, one club and the trick-three diamond ruff . Today, though, do you see how four hearts can be defeated?

Finally we have the right auction. North, knowing that a 4-4 fi t is almost

always better than a 5-3 fi t, plans to raise hearts. But with such strong hearts and spades, North control-bids (cue-bids) four clubs over three hearts.

This says that North is raising hearts with four-card support, really likes his hand, and has the club ace. Here, of course, South signs off in four hearts. (If North has fewer than four hearts, he continues with either three spades or three no-trump.)

West leads the diamond ace, and East signals enthusiastically with his 10 to indicate the queen, the honor touching the two promised by West’s

opening lead. Now West should lead his diamond two. This shows that he started with exactly four diamonds. (If he had only three, he would have cashed the king before playing the third round. And if he had fi ve, would have led his original fourth-highest at trick two.)

East takes this trick and knows that South is now out of diamonds. East can also see his trump trick. So he should shift to the club 10, hoping to establish a fourth defensive winner there, which is exactly what happens.

- Phillip Alder

C9

ENTERTAINMENT

One more trip down this deal’s road

B I G N A T E

B O R N L O S E R

M A R M A D U K E

A C E S O N B R I D G E

K I D S P O T H E A L T H C A P S U L EC R O S S W O R D

Answer to previous puzzle

WITH LOVE

W E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

Send us a colour photograph of the child (below 16 years) whose birthday you are

celebrating, along with his/her full name, date of birth, address, telephone number

and parents’/your name to Times of Oman, With Love, PO Box 770, PC 112, Ruwi

or through e-mail to extra@timesofoman.com

ACROSS

1 Vice — 6 Ghost towns11 Island welcomes13 Han Solo’s Millennium —14 Bottle top15 Coyote plaints17 Garden-pond fi sh18 Lyric poem19 Attack like a hawk20 Devotee’s suffi x21 Payment to the landlady23 At present24 Robert E. and Spike25 Cook in a wok

27 Interior designs29 Daintily use a napkin31 Tractor-trailer32 Sprang up35 Netherlands sight38 Incline39 Author — Rand41 Coral islets43 Collected sayings44 Silver or Scout46 Somber evergreen47 Tackle a slope48 Comforter stuffi ng49 Andy Capp’s quaff 50 Lease signer52 Off ended the nose54 Thoroughly

profi cient55 Squander

DOWN

1 Bravery 2 Drops syllables 3 Gopher or marmot 4 Teacher’s warning 5 Pleased sighs 6 Rough fi le 7 Safety-testing org. 8 More yucky 9 Bronco snaggers10 Grumpy moods12 Seeded13 Violet or orchid16 Lumber

22 Type of pool24 Mr. Spock’s forte26 Hip-hop music28 Spanish hero El —30 Scram! (2 wds.)32 Joined33 Galahad’s mother34 Tinted36 Arctic canoes37 Shoelace hole38 — luego!40 “Faint heart — won ...”42 Norse neighbour44 Transmitted45 Took a gun out of its holster51 News agcy.53 Apiece

C I N E M A S C H E D U L EC I N E M A S C H E D U L E

SHARONJune 18

NIRUPA LAKSHMI NARAYANANJune 18, 2006

BASSAM MUBARAKJune 19, 2008

BAHJA CINEMA

STARS CINEMA

Film Information - 24540856 / Advance Booking - 24540855Website: www.albahjacinemaoman.com

For More Information 24789032, 24786776 Website: www.isurf.co.om

Film information 24791641 / 24786776

Jurassic World (Action / Adventure)Cast: Chris Pratt, Judy Greer, Ty Simkins3:00, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45 & 11:55 pmCP No: 1495 (PG12)

Preservation ( Horror /Thriller) Cast: Wren Schimidth, Pablo Schrieber, Aron Staton1:15 & 11:55 pmCP No: 1496 (15+)

San Andreas (Action / Thriller) Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Alexandra Deddario, Carla Gugino1:00 & 5:15 pmCP No: 1381 (PG)

Hamara Adhuri Kahani (Romance) Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Rajkumar Rao3:00, 7:15 & 9:30 pmCP No: 1497 (PG)

Premam (Mal) (Com) Cast: Nivin Pauly, Anupama Parameshwaran & Sai Pallavi 3:30, 6:30, 9:30 pm at Cinema MainRomeo & Juliet (Tamil) (Act/Rom) Cast: Jayam Ravi & Hansika Motwani 3:30, 6:30 & 9:30pm at Cinema -2 Hamari Adhuri Kahani (Hindi) (Rom) Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Rajkummar Rao, Sara Khan 3:45, 6:45 & 9:45 pm at Cinema-3 Chandrettan Evideya (Mal) (Rom/Com) Cast: Dileep, Namitha and Anu Sree 3:45, 6:45, 9:45 pm Cinema -4 Next Change: Laila O Laila ( Mal ) Eli (Tamil) Kakka (Tamil)(Subject to change)

Jurassic World (Act, Adv) (3D) (PG12)Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins9:15, 11:45 pmJurassic World (Act, Adv) (2D) (PG12)Cast : Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, 2:00, 6:45 pmSpy (Action, Comedy) (18+)Cast: Jude Law, Raad Rawi, 7:15, 9:30 pmDil Dhadakne Do (Drama, Rom) (TBC)Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shetty, Priyanka Chopra5:00, 8:15 pmInsidious Chapter 3 (Horror) (15+)Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, Angus Sampson3:00, 11:30 pmBetter Living Through Chemistry (Comedy, Drama) (15+)Cast: Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde5:30 pmSan Andreas (Act, Adv) (3D) PGCast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino4:30, 11:45 pmA Mouse Tale (Animation) (PG)Cast: Tom Arnold, Drake Bell, Miranda Cosgrove2:00, 3:45 pm

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard9:30 & 11:45pmGold Class: 8:45 & 11:15 pmJurassic World (2D) (Act/Adv) (PG12)Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard10:30am; Gold Class: 12:45pmSpy (2D) (Action/Comedy) (18+)Cast: Jude Law, Raad Rawi, Melissa McCarthy2:45 & 7:15pm; Gold Class: 3:15 pmInsidious Chapter 3 (2D) (Horror) (15+)Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott11:45 pmDil Dhadakne Do (2D) (Dra) (PG12)Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shetty, Priyanka Chopra6:00 pm; Gold Class: 5:30 pmA Mouse Tale (2D) (Animation) (PG)Cast: Tom Arnold, Drake Bell, 10:30 am, 12:45 & 2:30 pmBetter Living Through Chemistry (2D) (Comedy/Drama) (15+)Cast: Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Michelle Monaghan4:15 pm

Hamara Adhuri Kahani (2D)(Dra) (PG)Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan 9:00pmSan Andreas (3D) (Act) (PG)Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario12:15 & 5:00pmJurassic World (3D) (Act/Adv) (PG12)

SCREEN 1Hamari Adhori Kahani (Rom/Drama) – PGCast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan and Rajkummar Rao3:30, 9.45 pmDil Dhadakne Do (Rom/Dra ) – PG12Cast: Anil Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Shefali Shetty, Anushka Sharma, Priyanka Chopra 6:45 pm

SCREEN 2Dil Dhadakne Do (Rom/Dra ) – PG123:30, 9:45 pmHamari Adhori Kahani (Rom/Dra) – PGCast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan and Rajkummar Rao6:45 pm

San Andreas - 3D (PG) (Action | Drama) Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino9:15, 11:30 pmSpy - 2D (18+) (Action | Comedy)Cast: Jude Law, Melissa McCarthy6:30, 11:45 pmDil Dhadakne Do - 2D (PG12) (Drama) Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shetty, Priyanka Chopra 3:00 pmJurassic World - 2D (PG12) (Action)Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard2:40 pmJurassic World - 3D (PG12) (Act | Sci- )Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, 6:45, 9:15, 11:45 pmBetter Living Through Chemistry - 2D (15+) (Comedy| Drama)Cast: Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde3:00, 7:25pmPreservation - 2D (15+) (Horror)Cast: Wrenn Schmidt, Pablo Schreiber5:00 pmA Mouse Tale - 2D (PG) (Animation)Cast: Tom Arnold, Drake Bell, Miranda 3:00, 4:45pmHamari Adhuri Kahaani - 2D (PG) (Drama | Romance)Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Rajkummar Rao, Sara Khan4:45, 9:10 pmPremam - 2D (M) (TBC) (Com | Romance)Cast: Nivin Pauly, Anupama Parameshwaran 8:45 pm

Jurassic World - 2D (Act/Adv) (PG12)Cast: Chris Pratt, Ty Simpkins, 3:00 pmJurassic World - 3D (Act/ Fi) (PG12)4:45, 9:15, 11:30 pmA Mouse Tale – 2D (Animation) (PG)3:00, 5:05pmSan Andreas – 3D (PG) (Act, Dr)6:45pmHe Who Dares: Downing Street Siege– 2D (PG) (Action)Cast: Tom Benedict Knight,11:45pmPremam – 2D (Com, Romance) (TBC)Cast: Nivin Pauly, Anupama Parameshwaran; 8:45pmDil Dhadakne Do – 2D (PG12) (Drama)Cast: Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra 3:30pmRomeo Juliet – 2D (Tamil) (Dr) (PG)Cast: Jayam Ravi, Hansika Motwani6:30pmHamari Adhuri Kahaani - 2D (D) (TBC)Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan9:15 pmSpy - 2D (18+) (Action, Comedy)Cast: Jude Law, Raad Rawi 7:00, 11:45pm

Jurassic World (3D) (Action) (PG12) Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins, 4:15, 9:30, 11:45 pmJurassic World (2D) (Act | Adv) (PG12) Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins 2:45pm

San Andreas (3D) (12+) (Act, Dra, ) Cast: Dwayne Johnson, 5:15 pmHe Who Dares: Downing Street Siege (2D) (12+) (Action) Cast: Tom Benedict Knight, 11:55 pmSpy (2D) (18+) (Action, Comedy) Cast: Jude Law, Raad Rawi, 12:30, 11:30 pmInsidious: Chapter 3 (2D) (15+) (Hor) Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, 2:00, 10:05pmDil Dhadakne Do (2D) (PG12) (Dra) Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Anil Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra; 2:15pmJurassic World (3D) (PG12) (Sci-Fi ) Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, 7:15, 9:30, 11:45pmJurassic World (2D) (PG12) (Sci-Fi ) Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, 12:00 pmRomeo Juliet (2D) (PG) (Com) Cast: Jayam Ravi, Hansika Motwani, Vamsi Krishna, 5:45pmHamari Adhuri Kahaani (2D) (PG) (Drama, Romance) Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, 7:30pmBetter Living Through Chemistry (2D) (15+) (Comedy, Drama) Cast: Sam Rockwell, 5:45pmA Mouse Tale (2D) (PG) (Animation) Cast: Tom Arnold, 12:15, 4:00 pm

A Mouse Tale (Animation) (PG) Cast: Tom Arnold, Drake Bell11:30 AM, 5:00 pmSpy (Action | Comedy) (18+) Cast: Jason Statham, Jude Law, Melissa McCarthy6:45pmHamari Adhuri Kahaani (Hindi) (Drama | Romance) (PG); 9:00 pmCast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya BalanDil Dhadakne Do (Hindi) (Dra) (TBC) 01:15pmPremam (Mal) (Com| Rom) (TBC) 11:45 AM, 6:30 pm

SCREEN 3Tanu Weds Manu Returns (Romance/Drama/Comedy ) – PGCast: Kangana Ranaut, R. Madhavan, Jimmy Shergill, Deepak Dobriyal3.45, 6.45, 9.45 pm

Romeo Juliet - 2D (T) (PG) (Com)Cast: Jayam Ravi, Hansika Motwani, Vamsi Krishna, 6:15 pmHe Who Dares: Downing Street Siege - 2D (12+) ActionCast : Tom Benedict Knight, Simon Phillips11:50 pm

C10

FIND-IT-ALLW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

PHARMACIESRound the clockAl Hashar Pharmacy, Ruwi: 24783334; Appolo Medical Centre, Hamriya: 24782666; Muscat Pharmacy, Ruwi: 24702542, Salalah: 23291635; Atlas Pharmacy, Ghubra: 24503585; Ruwi 24811715Muscat RegionApollo, Al Hamriya. Tel: 24787766Muscat, A Seeb Market. Tel: 24421691Muscat, Al Khuwair. Tel: 24485740Muscat, Al Hail South. Tel: 4537080Dhofar RegionMuscat, Al Nahdha Road, Salalah. Tel: 23291635

HOSPITALSAl Amal Medical & Health Care Centre: 24485052Atlas Hospital: Ruwi: 24811743/ Ghubra: 24504000Al Musafi r Specialised Medical Clinic: 24706453Hatat Polyclinic LLC,Ruwi: 24563641, Azaiba: 24499269, Sohar: 2683006Al Raff ah Hospital: 24618900/1/2Al Massaraat Clinic & Laboratory: 24566435Al Makook Medical Coordinance Centre: 24499434Apollo Medical Centre, Hamriya: 24787766, 24787780Capital Polyclinic: 24707549Badr Al Samaa Polyclinic, Ruwi: 24799760/1/2Capital Clinic, Seeb: 24420740Ceregem National Raak: 24485633Dr Harub’s Clinic: 24563217Elixir Health Centre: 24565802Emirates Medical Centre: 246045401st Chiropractic Centre: 24472274Hamdan Hospital: 23212340International Medical Centre LLC: 24794501/2/3/4/5Kims Oman Hospital: 24760100

24 Hrs Emergency: 24760123Lama Polyclinic, Sohar: 26751128, MBD: 24799077, Al Khuwair: 24478818Magrabi Eye and Ear Hospital: 24568870Muscat Private Hospital: 24583600Welcare Diagnostic and Treatment Centre, Al Khuwair: 24477666Al-Hayat Polyclinc LLC: 22004000

ROYAL OMAN POLICEEmergencies and inquiries: 9999General Directorate of Passport and Residence: 24569603Directorate General of Customs: 24521109Traffi c violations inquiries: 24510228Public Relations Admin: 24560099

ACCOMMODATIONAl Bahjah Hotel: 24424400Al Bustan Palace: 24764000 Al Khuwair Hotel Apartments: 24478171Al Madina Holiday Inn: 24596400Al Maha International Hotel: 24494949Al Fanar Hotel: 24712385Al Falaj Hotel: 24702311Al Qurum Resort: 24605945Azaiba Hotel Apartments: 24490979Beach Hotel: 24696601Bowshar Hotel: 24491105Coral Hotel Muscat: 24692121Crowne Plaza Muscat: 24660660Crystal Suites: 24826100Golden Tulip Seeb: 24510300Grand Hyatt Muscat: 24641234Haff a House Hotel: 24707207Hotel Muscat Holiday: 24487123InterContinental Muscat: 24680000Majan Continental Hotel: 24592900Marina Hotel: 24711711Midan Hotel Suites: 24499565Mina Hotel: 24711828Muttrah Hotel: 24798401

Nuzha Hotel Apartments: 24789199Oman Dive Centre: 24824240Park Inn: 24507888Qurum Beach House Hotel: 24564070Radisson Blu Hotel: 24487777Ramee Dream Resort Seeb: 24453399Ramee Guestline Hotel: 24564443Ruwi Hotel: 24704244Safeer Hotel Suites: 24691200Sheraton Oman Hotel: 24772772Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa: 24776666The Chedi Muscat: 24524400The Treasurebox Muscat Hotel: 24502570Sifawy Hotel +968 24749111Juweira Hotel +968 23239600

AIRLINE OFFICESMuscat Airport Flight information (24 hours): 24519456/24519223Aerofl ot: 24704455, Air Arabia: 24700828, Air France: 24562153, Air India: 24799801, Air New Zealand: 24700732, Biman Bangladesh Airlines: 24701128, British Airways: 24568777, Cathay Pacifi c: 24789818, Egypt Air: 24794113, Emirates Air: 24404400, Ethiopian Airlines: 24660313, Gulf Air: 80072424, Indian: 24791914, Iran Air: 24787423, Japan Airlines: 24704455, Jazeera Airways: 23294848, Jet Airways: 24787248, Kenya Airways: 24660300, KML Royal Dutch Airlines: 24566737, Kuwait Airways: 24701262, LOT Polish Airlines: 24796387, Lufthansa: 24796692, Malaysian Airlines: 24560796, Middle East Airlines: 24796680, Oman Air: 24531111, Pakistan International Airlines: 24792471, Qatar Airways: 24771900, Qantas: 24559941, Royal Jordanian: 24796693, Saudi Arabian Airlines: 24789485, Singapore

Airlines: 24791233, Shaheen Air: 24816565, SriLankan Airlines: 24784545, Swiss International Airlines: 24796692, Thai Airways: 24705934, Turkish Airlines: 24703033

MUSEUMSBait Al Baranda: Corniche (seafront opp fi sh market), Open from Saturday to Thursday 9am to 1pm and 4 to 6pmNatural History Museum: Al Khuwair, Tel: 24604957, Open from Saturday to Wednesday: 8am to 1:30pm; Thursday: 9am to 1pmMuseum of Omani Heritage: (former Omani Museum), Madinat Al Alam, Sat-Wed 8am to 1:30pm, Thursday - 9am to 1pm, Tel: 24600946Armed Forces Museum: Bait Al Falaj, Tel: 24312651, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm; Thurs 9-12pm and 3-6pm; Fri 9-11am and 3-6pm. Al Hoota Caves 24498258; Turtle Beach 96550606/96550707Children’s Science Museum: Shatti Al Qurum, Tel: 24605368, Open from Saturday to Wednesday: 8am to 1:30pm, Thursday: 9am to 1pmOman-French Museum: near Muscat Police Station, Tel: 24736613, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm, Thurs: 9am to 1pmBait Al Zubair, Muscat: Tel: 24736688, Al Saidiya St., Muscatmuseum@baitalzubairmuseum.comOpen from Sat to Thurs: 9:30am to 6pm.National Museum Ruwi: Tel: 24701289, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm, Thurs: 9am to 1pmSohar Fort Museum: Tel: 26844758, Open from Saturday to Wed: 8 to 1:30pm Thurs: 9am to 1pmMuscat Gate Museum: at Al Bahri Road, Muscat open from Sat to Wed 8am to 2pm

W E A T H E R

OMAN

Max 42Min 28

Max 37Min 30

Max 38Min 31

Max 45Min 30

Max 36Min 27Max 44

Min 29

Max 43Min 28

Max 33 Min 29

Clear to partly cloudy skies over the governorates of Al-Wusta and Dhofar with chances of isolated rain and mainly clear skies over rest of the Sultanate with chances of convective clouds development over Al-

Hajar mountains and adjoining areas during evening associated with isolated rains and occasional thundershowers. Chance of late night and early morning low level clouds or fog patches over the coastal areas of Oman Sea and the Arabian Sea.EXPECTED WIND: Along the coastal areas of Dhofar and Al-Wusta governorates wind will be southwesterly moderate to fresh and will be easterly to northeasterly light to moderate during day becoming variable light at night over the Oman Sea coast, while over rest of the Sultanate it will be easterly to southeasterly light to moderate.

SEA STATE: Rough to very rough along southeastern coast with a maximum wave height of 4.0 metres and moderate along rest of Oman’s coast with a maximum wave height of 2.25 metres.HORIZONTAL VISIBILITY: Good over most of the Sultanate becoming poor during fog formation and thundershowers.THE NEXT 48 HOURS OUTLOOK: Partly cloudy to cloudy skies over governorates of south Al-Sharqiya, Al-Wusta and Dhofar with chances of isolated rain. Chances of convective clouds developments over Al-Hajar mountains and adjoining areas during evening and chances of rain and occasional thundershowers. Chances of late night and early morning low level clouds or shallow fog over most of the Sultanate coast.

Max Min

GULFAbu Dhabi 38 29Doha 42 28Dubai 39 27Kuwait 43 30Manama 40 29Riyadh 43 26

WORLDAthens 34 20Baghdad 43 24Beijing 34 24Berlin 19 14Boston 24 14Cairo 39 19Colombo 29 27Frankfurt 22 13Hong Kong 31 27Istanbul 24 18Johannesburg 9 -3Kuala Lumpur 31 25Lisbon 30 18Paris 24 16Perth 20 13Singapore 30 28Tokyo 28 18Toronto 20 15

WORLD

Max 28Min 21

Max 39Min 24

Max 24Min 11

Max 36Min 29

Max 29Min 16

Max 19Min 13

Max 18Min 10

Max 34Min 27

LISTINGS

LONG DISTANCE BUS TIMINGS (OMAN NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY SAOC) *SUBJECT TO CHANGE

QURIYAT - SUR - JAALAN (Route 36)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 15:00 Quriyat 16:30 Daily15:00 Sur 18:00 Daily15:00 Jaalan 19:30 Daily

FROM JAALAN-SUR-QURIYAT (Route 36)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 05:30 Sur 06:45 Daily05:30 Quriyat 08:30 Daily05:30 Ruwi 10:00 Daily

TO AL BURAIMI (Route 41)06:30 Sohar 08:50 Daily06:30 Buraimi 11:00 Daily08:00 Buraimi 14:30 Daily via Ibri13:00 Sohar 15:45 Daily13:00 Buraimi 17:40 Daily16.00 Sohar 18.35 Daily16.00 Buraimi 20:20 Daily

TO AL BURAIMI (Route 41)07:00 Sohar 08:55 Daily07:00 Ruwi 11:40 Daily13:30 Ruwi 20:20 Daily via Ibri13:00 Sohar 14:55 Daily13:00 Ruwi 17:40 Daily13:00 Sohar 19:20 Daily17:00 Ruwi 22:15 Daily

TO SINAW (Route 52)17:30 Sinaw 20:50 Daily

TO SINAW (Route 52)07:00 Ruwi 10:25 Daily

To Yanqul (Route 54)14:30 Nizwa 16:50 Daily14:30 Yanqul 19:30 Daily

To Yanqul (Route 54)06:00 Nizwa 08:40 Daily06:00 Ruwi 11:00 Daily

TO IBRI (ARAQI) (Route 54)08:00 Nizwa 10:20 Daily08:00 Al Araqi 12:30 Daily

TO IBRI (ARAQI) (Route 54)15:40 Nizwa 17:55 Daily15:40 Ruwi 20:20 Daily

TO SUR (Route 55)07:30 Sur 12:00 Daily14:30 Sur 18:45 Daily

TO SUR (Route 55)06:00 Ruwi 10:45 Daily14:30 Ruwi 19:00 Daily

TO FAHUD - YIBAL (Route 62)06:30 Fahud 10:30 Daily06:30 Yibal 11:15 Daily

TO YIBAL - FAHUD (Route 62)12:30 Fahud 13:15 Daily12:30 Ruwi 17:30 Daily

TO DUBAI (Route 201)06:00 Sohar 08:30 Daily06:00 Dubai 11:30 Daily13:00 Sohar 15:30 Wed,Thur13:00 Dubai 18:30 Wed,Thur15:00 Sohar 17:35 Daily15:00 Dubai 20:55 Daily

TO DUBAI (Route 201)07:30 Sohar 10:50 Daily07:30 Ruwi 13:40 Daily13:00 Sohar 16:15 Thur-Fri13:00 Ruwi 19:10 Thur-Fri15:30 Sohar 18:45 Daily15:30 Ruwi 21:35 Daily

TO MARMUL-SALALAH (Route 100)07:00 Salalah 20:00 Daily10:00 Marmul 20:30 Daily10:00 Salalah 23:30 Daily19:00 Salalah 07:40 Daily

TO SALALAH -MARMUL (Route 100)07:00 Ruwi 19:50 Daily10:00 Marmul 13:15 Daily10:00 Ruwi 22:30 Daily19:00 Ruwi 07:30 Daily

TO MARMUL (Route 101)06:00 Marmul 16:50 Daily

SALALAH TO DUBAI (Route 102)15:00 Dubai 07:00 Daily

TO MARMUL (Route 101)06:00 Marmul 16:30 Daily

DUBAI TO SALALAH (Route 102)15:00 Salalah 07:00 Daily

TO DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (Route 204)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 07:00 Fujairah 11.45 Daily07:00 Sharjah 13.30 Daily07:00 Dubai 14.00 Daily

FROM DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (Route 204)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 16:00 Sharjah 16:30 Daily16.00 Fujairah 18.15 Daily16.00 Ruwi 23.00 Daily

FROM MUSCAT (RUWI) TO MUSCAT (RUWI)

WEDNESDAY

FLT NO ARRIVALS FROM ETA WY648 KUWAIT  0005WY406 CAIRO  0005WY676 JEDDAH  0005WY672 MEDINA  0005WY682 RIYADH  0010WY914 SALALAH  0020WY916 SALALAH  0120TK774 ISTANBUL  01354H583 DACCA  0200PK229 LAHORE  0215GF560 BAHRAIN  0325FZ035 DUBAI  0340QR1132 DOHA  0345EK866 DUBAI  0350ET624 ADDIS ABABA  0350EY384 ABU DHABI  0400WY114 FRANKFURT  0515WY412 AMMAN  0635WY658 BAHRAIN  0635WY638 ABU DHABI  0640WY902 SALALAH  0645WY644 KUWAIT  0650WY686 RIYADH  0655G9841 RAS AL KHAIMA  0655WY144 MALPENSA  0705WY668 DOHA  0715WY674 JEDDAH  0735WY132 PARIS  0735WY102 LONDON HEATHROW  0740FZ043 DUBAI  0800WY432 TEHRAN  0805WY422 BEIRUT  0805WY602 DUBAI  0805WY342 LAHORE  0825NL768 LAHORE  0830WY202 BOMBAY  0835WY236 HYDERABAD  0900G9114 SHARJAH  0905WY282 BANGALORE  0910WY226 COCHIN  0920EK862 DUBAI  0930WY242 DELHI  0935IX549 TRIVANDRUM  0955WY252 MADRAS  0955QR1128 DOHA  1000EY382 ABU DHABI  1010IX443 COCHIN  1020QR8550 DOHA  1035WY3922 DUQUM OMAN  1035WY652 BAHRAIN  10409W530 TRIVANDRUM  1045WY918 KHASAB  1115WY604 DUBAI  1115WY3302 MUKHAIZNA  1120GF562 BAHRAIN  1130FZ037 DUBAI  1140WY372 COLOMBO  1140IX337 CALICUT  1155PA450 LAHORE  1215WY822 KUALA LUMPUR-SINGAPORE  1215WY818 BANGKOK  1220WY634 ABU DHABI  1220WY904 SALALAH  1230WY670 DOHA  1250WY324 KARACHI  1300WY332 KATHMANDU  1305WY606 DUBAI  1340WY906 SALALAH  1440WY920 KHASAB  1445WY348 ISLAM ABBAD  1515G9119 SHARJAH  1525FZ045 DUBAI  1535WY3304 MUKHAIZNA  1550WY656 BAHRAIN  1610QR1126 DOHA  1650WY204 BOMBAY  1655WY292 CALICUT  1710WY264 LUCKNOW  1740WY664 DOHA  1745EK864 DUBAI  1745WY232 HYDERABAD  1750WY246 DELHI  1750WY254 MADRAS  1750WY610 DUBAI  1800GF564 BAHRAIN  1810WY216 TRIVANDRUM  1820G9116 SHARJAH  1905WY274 JAIPUR  1910WY646 KUWAIT  1920FZ047 DUBAI  1940WY908 SALALAH  2000RG125 ABU DHABI  2005WY632 ABU DHABI  2005WY386 MALE  2020WY614 DUBAI  2025WY848 JAKARTA  2035WY338 KATHMANDU  2040FZ049 DUBAI  2100AI977 BANGALORE-HYDERABAD  2105KL441 AMSTERDAM-DOHA  2105WY124 MUNICH  21059W534 COCHIN  2115AI973 DELHI  21256.00E+81 BOMBAY  2130BA073 LONDON HEATHROW-ABU DHABI  2140WY624 DUBAI  2150AI907 MADRAS  2200WY312 CHITTAGONG  2210LX242 ZURICH-DUBAI  2225QR1134 DOHA  2225GF566 BAHRAIN  2240LH616 FRANKFURT-DOHA  2245WY717 ZANZIBAR-DARESSLAM  2250WY328 KARACHI  2250EY388 ABU DHABI  2300WY414 AMMAN  2300WY910 SALALAH  23109W540 BOMBAY  2315AI985 BOMBAY  2325WY662 DOHA  2335WY636 ABU DHABI  2340WY654 BAHRAIN  2340WY928 SALALAH  2345WY816 BANGKOK  2350WY612 DUBAI  2355WY696 DAMMAM  2355

THURSDAY

FLT NO ARRIVALS FROM ETA

WY424 BEIRUT  0005WY676 JEDDAH  0005WY648 KUWAIT  0005WY682 RIYADH  0010WY914 SALALAH  0020BG021 DACCA  0100CV610 LUXORE  0115WY916 SALALAH  0120TK774 ISTANBUL  01354H585 DACCA  0200PK225 KARACHI  0215GF560 BAHRAIN  0325QR1132 DOHA  0345EK866 DUBAI  0350ET624 ADDIS ABABA  0350EY384 ABU DHABI  0400PK291 ISLAM ABBAD  0410MS930 CAIRO  0410FZ041 DUBAI  0415WY114 FRANKFURT  05154H586 DOHA  0600WY658 BAHRAIN  0635WY638 ABU DHABI  0640WY902 SALALAH  0645WY644 KUWAIT  0650WY686 RIYADH  0655WY154 ZURICH  0700WY144 MALPENSA  0705WY678 MEDINA  0710WY668 DOHA  0715WY674 JEDDAH  0735WY102 LONDON HEATHROW  0740FZ043 DUBAI  0800WY602 DUBAI  0805WY346 ISLAM ABBAD  0815NL768 LAHORE  0830WY272 JAIPUR  0830WY202 BOMBAY  0835WY236 HYDERABAD  0900G9114 SHARJAH  0905WY226 COCHIN  0920EK862 DUBAI  0930WY210 GOA  0935WY242 DELHI  0935WY212 TRIVANDRUM  0950WY252 MADRAS  0955QR1128 DOHA  1000EY382 ABU DHABI  1010IX817 MANGALORE  1010IX443 COCHIN  1020WY652 BAHRAIN  10409W530 TRIVANDRUM  1045WY604 DUBAI  1115WY918 KHASAB  1115GF562 BAHRAIN  1130WY372 COLOMBO  1140FZ037 DUBAI  1140IX337 CALICUT  1155WY822 KUALA LUMPUR-SINGAPORE  1215WY818 BANGKOK  1220WY634 ABU DHABI  1220WY904 SALALAH  1230BG023 DACCA-CHITTAGONG  1230WY670 DOHA  1250WY332 KATHMANDU  1305PA950 SIALKOT  1310CV611 MADRAS  1315WY606 DUBAI  1340WY3302 MUKHAIZNA  1350WY632 ABU DHABI  1355WY906 SALALAH  1440WY920 KHASAB  1445WY3922 DUQUM OMAN  1510FZ045 DUBAI  1535KU677 KUWAIT-ABU DHABI  1540SV530 JEDDAH  1550WY344 LAHORE  1605QR1126 DOHA  1650WY204 BOMBAY  1655WY292 CALICUT  1710WY264 LUCKNOW  1740WY664 DOHA  1745EK864 DUBAI  1745WY254 MADRAS  1750WY232 HYDERABAD  1750WY246 DELHI  1750WY284 BANGALORE  1750WY3932 SOHAR  1805GF564 BAHRAIN  1810TG507 BANGKOK-KARACHI  1900G9116 SHARJAH  1905WY374 COLOMBO  1915WY646 KUWAIT  1920FZ047 DUBAI  1940WY908 SALALAH  2000RG125 ABU DHABI  2005WY614 DUBAI  2025WY848 JAKARTA  2035WY338 KATHMANDU  2040WY434 TEHRAN  2055FZ049 DUBAI  2100KL441 AMSTERDAM-DOHA  2105WY124 MUNICH  21054H561 DACCA  21159W534 COCHIN  2115AI973 DELHI  21256.00E+81 BOMBAY  2130BA073 LONDON HEATHROW-ABU DHABI  2140WY624 DUBAI  2150UL205 COLOMBO  2155AI907 MADRAS  2200WY312 CHITTAGONG  2210LX242 ZURICH-DUBAI  2225QR1134 DOHA  2225GF566 BAHRAIN  2240LH616 FRANKFURT-DOHA  2245WY414 AMMAN  2300SG061 AHMEDABAD  2300EY388 ABU DHABI  2300WY910 SALALAH  2310WY910 SALALAH  23109W540 BOMBAY  2315AI985 BOMBAY  2325WY662 DOHA  2335WY662 DOHA  2335WY636 ABU DHABI  2340WY654 BAHRAIN  2340WY816 BANGKOK  2350WY612 DUBAI  2355WY696 DAMMAM  2355WY612 DUBAI  2355

FLT NO DEPARTURES TO ETD 9W539 BOMBAY  0020AI986 BOMBAY  0020WY657 BAHRAIN  0055WY637 ABU DHABI  0105WY235 HYDERABAD  0110WY281 BANGALORE  0110WY201 BOMBAY  0115WY685 RIYADH  0115WY643 KUWAIT  0120WY251 MADRAS  0120WY341 LAHORE  0145WY601 DUBAI  0145WY431 TEHRAN  0155WY371 COLOMBO  0155WY123 MUNICH  0200WY847 JAKARTA  0215WY241 DELHI  0215WY901 SALALAH  0215WY667 DOHA  0225TK775 ISTANBUL  02304H584 DACCA  0300PK230 LAHORE  0315WY331 KATHMANDU  0350EK867 DUBAI  0450ET625 ADDIS ABABA  0450EY385 ABU DHABI  0500FZ036 DUBAI  0510QR1133 DOHA  0515WY651 BAHRAIN  0645GF561 BAHRAIN  0715WY3921 DUQUM OMAN  0740G9842 RAS AL KHAIMA  0745WY603 DUBAI  0750WY903 SALALAH  0750WY3301 MUKHAIZNA  0800WY917 KHASAB  0815WY347 ISLAM ABBAD  0830WY669 DOHA  0835WY323 KARACHI  0835FZ044 DUBAI  0845WY633 ABU DHABI  0900WY815 BANGKOK  0905WY291 CALICUT  0915WY215 TRIVANDRUM  0915WY253 MADRAS  0915NL769 LAHORE  0930WY717 ZANZIBAR-DARESSLAM  0940WY263 LUCKNOW  0940WY385 MALE  0945WY821 SINGAPORE-KUALA LUMPUR  0945WY843 MANILA  0955G9115 SHARJAH  0955WY231 HYDERABAD  1000WY905 SALALAH  1020WY605 DUBAI  1020WY203 BOMBAY  1025WY245 DELHI  1040EK863 DUBAI  1045IX554 TRIVANDRUM  1045WY337 KATHMANDU  1050QR1129 DOHA  1100EY383 ABU DHABI  1105IX442 COCHIN  1120WY311 CHITTAGONG  11409W533 COCHIN  1145WY919 KHASAB  1145QR8550 DUBAI WORLD CENTRE-DOHA  1205WY655 BAHRAIN  1215GF563 BAHRAIN  1215WY273 JAIPUR  1220FZ038 DUBAI  1225WY3303 MUKHAIZNA  1230IX350 CALICUT  1255PA451 LAHORE  1315WY113 FRANKFURT  1320WY663 DOHA  1330WY143 MALPENSA  1350WY645 KUWAIT  1350WY101 LONDON HEATHROW  1400WY423 BEIRUT  1415WY153 ZURICH  1420WY927 SALALAH  1430WY413 AMMAN  1440WY405 CAIRO  1440WY609 DUBAI  1445WY907 SALALAH  1540WY675 JEDDAH  1615G9110 SHARJAH  1615FZ046 DUBAI  1620WY631 ABU DHABI  1640WY613 DUBAI  1710QR1127 DOHA  1750WY327 KARACHI  1810WY623 DUBAI  1840WY681 RIYADH  1840WY647 KUWAIT  1845WY909 SALALAH  1850GF565 BAHRAIN  1855EK865 DUBAI  1910WY695 DAMMAM  1915WY661 DOHA  1920WY653 BAHRAIN  1920G9117 SHARJAH  1955WY913 SALALAH  2000WY635 ABU DHABI  2015FZ048 DUBAI  2025WY611 DUBAI  2035RG126 ABU DHABI  2045WY915 SALALAH  2100FZ050 DUBAI  2145AI978 HYDERABAD-BANGALORE  2200KL442 DOHA-AMSTERDAM  2220WY817 BANGKOK  22259W529 TRIVANDRUM  22306.00E+82 BOMBAY  2245AI908 MADRAS  2300AI974 DELHI  2310WY677 MEDINA  2310GF567 BAHRAIN  2325LX243 DUBAI-ZURICH  2325BA072 ABU DHABI-LONDON HEATHROW  2330QR1135 DOHA  2330WY673 JEDDAH  2350EY381 ABU DHABI  2355LH617 DOHA-FRANKFURT  2355

FLT NO DEPARTURES TO ETD 9W539 BOMBAY  0020AI986 BOMBAY  0020WY657 BAHRAIN  0055WY637 ABU DHABI  0105WY225 COCHIN  0105WY235 HYDERABAD  0110WY211 TRIVANDRUM  0110WY685 RIYADH  0115WY201 BOMBAY  0115WY643 KUWAIT  0120WY251 MADRAS  0120WY345 ISLAM ABBAD  0125WY601 DUBAI  0145WY371 COLOMBO  0155WY123 MUNICH  0200WY901 SALALAH  0215WY241 DELHI  0215WY847 JAKARTA  0215WY667 DOHA  0225BG022 CHITTAGONG-DACCA  0230TK775 ISTANBUL  0230WY209 GOA  02554H585 DOHA  0300PK226 KARACHI  0315WY331 KATHMANDU  0350CV610 MADRAS  0355EK867 DUBAI  0450ET625 ADDIS ABABA  0450EY385 ABU DHABI  0500FZ042 DUBAI  0510MS931 CAIRO  0510PK292 ISLAM ABBAD  0510QR1133 DOHA  0515WY651 BAHRAIN  06454H586 DACCA  0700GF561 BAHRAIN  0715WY903 SALALAH  0750WY603 DUBAI  0750WY917 KHASAB  0815WY669 DOHA  0835FZ044 DUBAI  0845WY633 ABU DHABI  0900WY373 COLOMBO  0900WY815 BANGKOK  0905WY343 LAHORE  0915WY253 MADRAS  0915WY291 CALICUT  0915NL769 LAHORE  0930WY263 LUCKNOW  0940WY821 SINGAPORE-KUALA LUMPUR  0945G9115 SHARJAH  0955WY231 HYDERABAD  1000WY283 BANGALORE  1000WY3301 MUKHAIZNA  1000WY905 SALALAH  1020WY605 DUBAI  1020WY203 BOMBAY  1025WY631 ABU DHABI  1030WY245 DELHI  1040EK863 DUBAI  1045WY337 KATHMANDU  1050QR1129 DOHA  1100IX818 MANGALORE  1100EY383 ABU DHABI  1105IX442 COCHIN  1120WY311 CHITTAGONG  11409W533 COCHIN  1145WY919 KHASAB  1145WY3921 DUQUM OMAN  1210WY655 BAHRAIN  1215GF563 BAHRAIN  1215FZ038 DUBAI  1225IX350 CALICUT  1255WY113 FRANKFURT  1320WY663 DOHA  1330WY645 KUWAIT  1350WY143 MALPENSA  1350WY101 LONDON HEATHROW  1400BG024 CHITTAGONG-DACCA  1400PA951 SIALKOT  1430WY927 SALALAH  1430WY405 CAIRO  1440WY413 AMMAN  1440CV611 LUXORE  1445WY433 TEHRAN  1445WY907 SALALAH  1540WY3931 SOHAR  1600WY675 JEDDAH  1615FZ046 DUBAI  1620KU678 KUWAIT  1640SV531 MEDINA-JEDDAH  1650WY613 DUBAI  1710QR1127 DOHA  1750WY623 DUBAI  1840WY681 RIYADH  1840WY647 KUWAIT  1845WY909 SALALAH  1850GF565 BAHRAIN  1855EK865 DUBAI  1910WY695 DAMMAM  1915WY661 DOHA  1920WY653 BAHRAIN  1920G9117 SHARJAH  1955WY913 SALALAH  2000TG508 KARACHI-BANGKOK  2005WY635 ABU DHABI  2015FZ048 DUBAI  2025WY611 DUBAI  2035RG126 ABU DHABI  2045WY915 SALALAH  2100FZ050 DUBAI  2145WY411 AMMAN  22054H561 JEDDAH  2215KL442 DOHA-AMSTERDAM  2220WY817 BANGKOK  22259W529 TRIVANDRUM  22306.00E+82 BOMBAY  2245AI908 MADRAS  2300UL206 COLOMBO  2305WY705 DARESSLAM-ZANZIBAR  2310WY677 MEDINA  2310AI974 DELHI  2310GF567 BAHRAIN  2325LX243 DUBAI-ZURICH  2325QR1135 DOHA  2330BA072 ABU DHABI-LONDON HEATHROW  2330WY673 JEDDAH  2350EY381 ABU DHABI  2355LH617 DOHA-FRANKFURT  2355

A I R L I N E S

—www.met.gov.om

PRAYER TIMINGS

Dhuhr 12.13pm

Asr 3.30pm

Maghrib 7.00pm

Isha 8.23pm Fajr (Tomorrow) 3.53am

Sunset 6.55pm

Sunrise (Tomorrow) 5.20am

High tide 8:52pm 10:37am

Low tide 3:44am 3:40pm

BORN today, you are always one to stand up for yourself and your rights. You never let a personal wrong stand unanswered. But you are just as quick to defend others; you will always step in to protect anyone who seems unable to defend him or herself. Indeed, you are likely to consider it a personal mission in life — one that can indeed last a lifetime — to do what you can for others in need. You are caring, generous and eager to see others grow and evolve. You are not the kind to do everything for another — for that may yield only more failure and disappointment — but rather you will teach others how to prevail on their own.

You are highly creative, and you will always do things in a way that can be recognised as yours and yours alone. Some may claim that there is no real artistry in what you do, but this is only sour grapes, the opinion of those who cannot match you in some way. The truth is that you do, indeed, have the artist’s touch.

Also born on this date are: Venus Williams, tennis player; Barry Manilow, singer-songwriter; Greg Kinnear, actor; Igor Stravinsky, composer; Thomas Haden Church, actor; Mark Linn-Baker, actor; Newt Gingrich, politician; Jason Patric, actor; M.C. Escher, artist; Joe Piscopo, actor and comedian; Ralph Bellamy, actor; Will Forte, actor; Dan Jansen, speed skater.

Are you sure you’re sending out the right signals? Others may not react the way you hope they will. Why is that?

VIRGO [AUG. 23-SEPT. 22]

LIBRA [SEPT. 23-OCT. 22] LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL[S[[[S[S[S[[S[SS[SSSS[S[[[[SSSSSSSSSS

SCORPIO [OCT. 23-NOV. 21] S[

SAGITTARIUS [NOV. 22-DEC. 21] S[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

AQUARIUS [JAN. 20-FEB. 18]

See if you can do something in a new way — if only to prove to someone that you can. You certainly have room to manoeuvre.

You may fear doing the very thing that is best for you, and you surely have good reasons. Still, you can conquer that fear.

Putting your needs fi rst may prove more diffi cult than expected, as there are others whose needs are somewhat greater than your own.

You are proud of the work you have done recently, and you’re hungry for greater recognition. You may have to go searching for it!

You may be surprised to discover what you are feeling, as you’ve been avoiding the truth in subtle, but eff ective, ways.

You may not believe what you see with your own eyes or hear with your own ears, but many are warning you that you must face the truth.

You are getting something out of a certain situation that others do not see or appreciate as you do.

PISCES [Feb. 19-March 20]

There’s no reason to think that your current path won’t get you where you want to go. Still, be prudent!

GEMINI [MAY 21-JUNE 20]

CANCER [JUNE 21-JULY 22]

LEO [JULY 23-AUG. 22]

CAPRICORN [DEC. 22-JAN 19]

Y O U R B I R T H D A Y

ARIES [March 21-APRIL 19]

TAURUS [APRIL 20-MAY 20]

You’re eager to see those around you having just as much fun as you are, and you can do more to make sure that they do just that!

You’re nearing a certain point in your anticipated path that may well be fraught with danger. You can take necessary steps.

Are you willing to admit defeat? If not, you’re going to have to buckle down and assert yourself in a way you haven’t in the past.

C11

EXTRAW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

YOUR BIGGEST ROAD HAZARD IS IN YOUR HAND A TIMES OF OMAN

HANDS-FREE DRIVING INITIATIVE

The video game industry’s biggest trade show is in full swing at Los Angeles and all gamers’ eyes

are turning to the Los Angeles Convention Centre

VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY’S NEXT BIG THING

The annual show, called the Electronic Entertainment Expo or “E3,” is a week-long celebration of

all things video games. On Sunday night, Bethesda Softworks kicked things off with an announce-ment-packed press conference in which it detailed its post-apoc-alyptic Fallout 4 — which will be set partly pre-apocalypse for the fi rst time — its demon-destroying chainsaw-heavy shooter Doom 4, fi ghting game Battlecry, and the assassin game Dishonored 2. The company also introduced a social network just for its many titles called Bethesda.net, showed off a newly released update to El-der Scrolls Online and surprised the crowd by introducing a stan-dalone iOS game based on Fall-out. The game is called Fallout Shelter and draws inspiration from games such as The Sims to let you control an underground colony post-nuclear attack.

Here are some major storylines

to watch from E3 this year.

Virtual RealityFrom a gadget perspective, virtual reality is the story at this year’s E3. While we’ve seen demos and heard buzz about the technology at past shows. But these things are getting real now — these gadgets have shipping dates.

Oculus and Microsoft have teamed up to say that Xbox One games will be compatible with the Rift through users’ PCs. Mean-while, Sony has its own “Project Morpheus” virtual reality headset that the company is expected to talk about during its presentation. Overall, there are 22 virtual reality exhibitors on the show fl oor, said Michael Gallagher, chief executive of the Entertainment Software As-sociation, which puts on E3.

Games, games, gamesWe already ran through the list of games that Bethesda showed off dur-ing its press conference, and that is just scratching the surface. It’s more

or less a given that we’ll get more information about new titles from favourite franchises such as Call of Duty, and Assassins Creed, Forza and Gears of War plus updates of music titles Rock Band and Guitar Hero — remember those?

Microsoft’s expected to reveal details about some of those titles as well as Halo 5 during its confer-ence. Ubisoft will likely focus on titles including Assassins Creed: Syndicate, and updates on antici-pated titles such as The Division. Electronic Arts is slated to reveal more about Star Wars Battlefront and Mirror’s Edge among other titles. Sony is likely to pull Mor-pheus out for a demo or two, and is also likely to talk about a new “Un-charted” title and to off er more de-tails about its ambitious exclusive adventure game, No Man’s Sky.

Nintendo, as per usual, is opting not to do a big press conference, but is streaming an announce-ment to fans shortly. The com-pany is expected to show off its latest Star Fox title. The company

has said that it won’t be releasing new information on its upcoming Legend of Zelda game, but there is chatter that it may step up with a new Metroid game.

MobileThere are 70 mobile exhibitors at E3 this year, showing that the in-dustry understands that the aver-age gamer is likely to be more often than not huddled over a smart-phone screen these days.

The show traditionally has been focused on the console world, but Gallagher said that the ESA is committed to working with more mobile studios to pull them into the fold.

But you can also expect to see traditional studios put more emphasis on mobile games as well. Bethesda announced three games that work on mobile devices in its presenta-tion — a companion app to Fallout 4 for iOS and Android, the iOS-only Fall-out Shelter, and a strategy card game, Elder Scrolls: Legends that will run on PCs and iPads.

Moving beyond gamesGames, of course, are the heart and soul of the show. But you can expect to see some of these com-panies shift their focus slightly away from the pure console games we’ve come to know and love. Mi-crosoft has already made clear that it wants the Xbox to be more than just a gaming console, with its en-tertainment features, and it will be interesting to see if the company expands that ambition — and how.

Bethesda set the tone for this with the introduction of Bethesda.net which is a digital platform that will host discussion forums, fan modifi cations to games and grant insider access to members.

Fan engagement is a major part of this year’s show — the show fl oor opens to 5,000 consumers for the fi rst time, showing that the industry is trying to stay on top of social and playing trends that drive gaming in an always-con-nected world that doesn’t centre around the living room anymore. -Hayley Tsukayama/The Washington Post

World’s thinnest light bulb is here

IMAGINE HOW thin a light ‘bulb’ could be? Well, it could be just one atom thick! Using graphene — an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon — as a fi lament, scientists have demon-strated for the fi rst time an on-chip visible light source. The visible light from atomically thin gra-phene is so intense that it is visible even to the naked eye, said researchers.

A chocolate a day keeps heart diseases at bayIF YOU are worried about the health of your heart, here’s a sweet solution. Researchers have found that eating up to 100 grams of chocolate every day is linked to lower heart disease risk. There does not seem to be any evidence for cutting out chocolate to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, the researchers said in the study published in the journal Heart.

Scratching an itch is fruitful, says studyTHE PLEASURE that you receive by scratching an itch is due to “overac-tivity” in the areas of the brain involved in mo-tor control and reward processing. “Despite being pleasurable, scratching can lead to increase in the intensity of itch as well as pain and skin damage,” said fi rst author, Hideki Mochizuki, assistant professor of dermatology, Temple University School of Medicine in the US. -IANS

BR I E FS

C12

EXTRAW E D N E S DAY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

What happens when science itself is under scrutiny?RETRACTION WATCH

The crimes and misde-meanours of science used to be handled mostly in-house, with a private word at

the faculty club, barbed questions at a conference, maybe a quiet dismissal. On the rare occasion when a journal publicly retracted a study, it typically did so in a cryp-tic footnote. Few were the wiser; many retracted studies have been cited as legitimate evidence by others years after the fact.

But that gentlemen’s world has all but evaporated, as a remark-able series of events last month demonstrated. In mid-May, af-ter two graduate students raised questions about a widely reported study of the eff ect of political can-vassing on opinions of marriage, editors at the journal Science, where the study was published, began to investigate. What fol-lowed was a frenzy of second-guessing, accusations and com-mentary from all corners of the Internet — Retraction as serial drama, rather than footnote. Sci-ence offi cially pulled the paper, by Michael LaCour of the Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles, and Donald Green of Columbia, on May 28, because of concerns about LaCour’s data.

“Until recently it was unusual for us to report on studies that were not yet retracted,” said Dr Ivan Oransky, an editor of the blog Retraction Watch, the fi rst news media outlet to report that the study had been challenged. But new technology and a push for transparency from younger scientists have changed that, he said. “We have more tips than we can handle.”

The case has played out against an increase in retractions that has alarmed many journal editors and authors. Scientists in fi elds as di-verse as neurobiology, anaesthesia and economics are debating how to reduce misconduct, without creating a police-state mental-ity that undermines creativity and collaboration.

“It’s an extraordinary time,”

said Brian Nosek, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and a founder of the Centre for Open Science, which provides a free service through which labs can share data and protocols. “We are now seeing a number of eff orts to push for data repositories to facilitate di-rect replications of fi ndings.”

But that push is not universally welcomed. Some senior scientists have argued that replication often wastes resources. “Isn’t reproduc-ibility the bedrock of science? Yes, up to a point,” the cancer biologist Mina Bissell wrote in a widely cir-culated blog post. “But it is some-times much easier not to replicate than to replicate studies,” especially when the group trying to repli-cate does not have the specialised knowledge or skill to do so.

The experience of Retraction Watch provides a rough guide to where this debate is going and why. Oransky, who has a medical degree from New York University, and Adam Marcus, both science

journalists, discovered a mutual interest in retractions about fi ve years ago and founded the blog as a side project.

They had, and still have, day jobs — Marcus, 46, is the manag-ing editor of Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News, and Oransky, 42, is the editorial director of Med-Page Today (he will take a posi-tion as distinguished writer in residence at NYU later this year).

In its first year, the blog broke a cou-ple of retraction stories that hit the mainstream news media — includ-ing a case involving data faked by an anaesthesiologists who later served time for health care fraud. The site now has about 150,000 unique visi-tors a month, about half from out-side the United States.

Oransky and Marcus are par-tisans who editorialise sharply against poor oversight and vague retraction notices. But their focus on evidence over accusations dis-tinguishes them from watchdog forerunners who sometimes came off as ad-hominem cranks. Last

year, their site won a $400,000 grant from the John D. and Cathe-rine T. MacArthur Foundation, to build out their database, and they plan to work with Nosek to man-age the data side.

Their data already tell a story.The blog has charted a 20 to 25

per cent increase in retractions across some 10,000 medical and science journals in the past fi ve years — 500 to 600 a year today from 400 in 2010. (The number in 2001 was 40) The primary causes of this surge are far from clear. The number of papers pub-lished is higher than ever, and journals have proliferated, Oran-sky and other experts said. New tools for detecting misconduct, like plagiarism-sifting software, are widely available, so there’s reason to suspect that the surge is a simple product of better de-tection and larger volume.

Still, the pressure to publish attention-grabbing fi ndings is stronger than ever, these experts said — and so is the ability to “bor-

row” and digitally massage data. Retraction Watch’s records sug-gest that about a third of retrac-tions are because of errors, like tainted samples or mistakes in statistics, and about two-thirds are because of misconduct or sus-picions of misconduct.

The most common reason for retraction because of misconduct is image manipulation, usually of fi gures or diagrams, a form of deliberate data massaging or, in some cases, straight plagiarism. In their dissection of the LaCour-Green paper, the two graduate stu-dents — David Broockman, now an assistant professor at Stanford, and Joshua Kalla, at California-Berkeley — found that a central fi gure in LaCour’s analysis looked nearly identical to one from an-other study. This and other con-cerns led Green, who had not seen any original data, to request a re-traction. (LaCour has denied bor-rowing anything.)

Data massaging can take many forms. It can mean simply exclud-ing “outliers” — unusually high or low data points — from an analy-sis to generate fi ndings that more strongly support the hypothesis. It also includes moving the goal posts: that is, mining the data for results fi rst, and then writing the paper as if the experiment had been an attempt to fi nd just those eff ects.

“You have exploratory fi ndings, and you’re pitching them as ‘I knew this all along,’ as confi rma-tory,” Nosek said.

The second leading cause is plagiarising text, followed by re-publishing — presenting the same results in two or more journals.

The fourth category is faked data. No one knows the rate of fraud with any certainty. In a 2011 survey of more than 2,000 psychologists, about 1 per cent admitted to falsifying data. Other studies have estimated a rate of about 2 per cent. Yet one off ender can do a lot of damage. The Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel published doz-ens of studies in major jour-nals for nearly a decade based on faked data, investigators at the universities where he had worked concluded in 2011. Sus-picions were fi rst raised by two of his students.

“If I’m a scientist and I fab-ricate data and put that online, others are going to assume this is accurate data,” said John Budd, a professor at the University of Missouri and an author of one of the fi rst exhaustive analyses of re-tractions, in 1999. “There’s no way to know” without inside informa-tion. -Benedict Carey/The New York Times

News Service

Richa to soon start shooting ‘Chalk n Duster’

RICHA CHADHA, who has completed shooting Pooja Bhatt’s production Cabaret, says she has signed up Chalk n Duster, which is Bollywood’s well-known makeup artist Subhash Singh’s maiden production venture. Also featuring veteran actress Shabana Azmi, Chalk n Duster will see Richa in a cameo role.

Ishita Dutta is talented, says Ajay Devgn

AJAY DEVGN who is awaiting the release of his upcoming fi lm Drishyam, says his co-star Ishita Dutta is “talented and focussed”. Ishita, who is making her Bollywood debut with the fi lm, plays Ajay’s elder daughter.

Priyanka to shoot for ‘Gangaajal 2’ in Bhopal

PRIYANKA CHOPRA has jetted off to Bhopal to begin shooting for Prakash Jha’s Gangaajal 2. Priyanka will be seen playing the role of a policewoman in the police-drama, which is a sequel to the hit 2003 fi lm that starred actor Ajay Devgn. “A sense of quiet... Inner balance... Time to discover the calm in the eye of the storm. Heading to Bhopal to start,” the actress tweeted. -IANS

BR I E FS

A steady increase in

retractions of studies

has alarmed journals

and scientists, raising

diffi cult questions

about how research

is conducted

W W W.T I M E S O F O M A N . C O MSECTION

CONNECT H E D A I LY G U I D E

D

D4 VACANCY CARGO D7

W E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

RENT D2

DAILY GUIDEEmail: dailyguide@timesofoman.com classifi eds@timesofoman.comTel.: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461

FOR RENT

Basement Store, 146 SQM,

Wadikhabeer, Opposit Al-Hassan.

99441193, 93004802

We have 2BHK fl ats in Ghubra

North 18th November Street new

Mars Hypermarket fl ats with 2

rooms, 3bathrooms large sitting

hall & kitchen. Contact: 93782735 /

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Furnished room for rent at

Al Khuwair R.O 225/- for family only.

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We have offi ces in Ghala, Ghubra,

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available, open space, 2 BHK, 3 BHK.

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We have 230 sq metre show room

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Retail shop or any business Golden

opportunity. Contact: 93782735 /

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We have 1 BHK, 2 BHK fl ats in

Mabela + brand new building very

nice fi nishing on the main road,

1BHK 175/- OMR , 2BHK 200/- OMR.

Contact: 93782735 / 99208033

Shop /Comn /Resi building 1 & 2

bed fl at available in Wadi Kabir (near

Lulu). Contact: 99451168

One bed rooms fl at RO 200/-

Wadi Al Kabir. Contact: 99451168

Misfa land for rent 1000 SQM.

Contact: 99451168

1 BHK fl at in Al Khuwair, 2 months

only. Contact 99792181

3 BHK Flat in Azaiba.

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Labour Camp for Rent in Wadi Kabir.

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2 BHK Flat in Al Khuwair. Contact

99792181

4 BHK single villa in Al Khuwair.

Contact: 97616158

4 & 5 BHK villa in Al Khuwair.

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We have small building commercial

for staff accommodation in Bowsher.

There are 4 fl ats & 1 shop can be

used for store or staff accommoda-

tion. Contact 93782735 / 99208033

5BHK villa available for rent, near

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Contact-99366191

We have 1 BHK, 2BHK, 3BHK fl ats

in Ghala very nice building on main

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ing available. Contact: 93782735 /

99208033

5 BHK Villa with parking & backyard

garden in Al Khuwair (House No.

1110 & Way No. 3914 ), near Radis-

son hotel, is available for rent @ RO.

1000/- p.m. Contact : 99024087 /

92620773

Independent rooms in Qurum /Al

Hail. Contact 95529970

Offi ce / shop near Oman house

Muttrah. Contact: 99233116

3 Bedroom fl at with 3 attached toi-

lets, split A/C, brand new available,

behind Kims Hospital.

Contact 95225662

1,000 sq mtrs industrial land in Mis-

fah Industrial area near to Khanco.

OMR 1,500 Monthly. It has Electricity

and boundary wall. Tel: 99333479 or

95215360

Tent for wedding Iftar party for rent.

Contact: 97380496/ 96242910/

94029752

3BHK special apartment at

Al Khuwair with wardrobe and A/C.

Contact : 94232344

Villa for rent (family residence) :

New 4 bedroom villa with majlis,

family hall and outside kitchen. With

split AC in Al Khoudh phase 7 close

to Seeb polyclinic. Call 99332525

(owner).

2BHK fl ats in Al Khuwair.

Contact: 97616158

Deluxe 4 bedrooms, living, dining

4 bathrooms with split AC in Ghubra.

Contact: 95282986 / 24707340

D2 W E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

We have 5 BHK villa in Al Khuwair

33, 5 rooms, 6 bathrooms, sitting

hall, Majlis & large kitchen suit-

able for offi ce or families. Contact:

93782735 / 99208033

Apartments near Indian School

Ghubra (2 BHK with 5 split AC units).

Contact 94652485 / 99273774 /

99202278

Apartments near Al Nahdha Tow-

ers/ Vachas Hypermarket Azaiba –

Ghala (1 & 2 BHK with split AC units).

Contact 94652485 / 99273774 /

99202278

3BHK fl at for rent in Al Khuwair.

Villa type building with only 2 fl ats,

separate entrance, fully renovated.

Way No. 3922, building No 1839,

behind Al Aktham Restaurant.

Contact: 99462980

2BHK at Azaiba 2 room, 1hall, din-

ing, 3 bathrooms. Contact: 99224748

/ 99425665

2BHK at Al Khodh commercial area

2 rooms, 1 hall, 2 bathrooms.

Contact: 99224748 / 99332297

Flat for rent in CBD Ruwi.

Contact : 92820734

New fl ats for rent in Wadi Kabir.

Contact : 92130703 / 96045478

Flat for rent in Al Khuwair.

Contact : 98151674

1BHK R.O 190/- & 2BHK R.O 250/- &

Store 140 sqm R.O 250/-

near Medical Darsait.

Contact: 98748925

Printing press and stamp making

for sale/leasing, with full machiner-

ies at Salalah. ready position. Visa

available. Contact 99749440 /

93986530.

2 bedroom fl at at Hamriya, main

road with A/C. Contact 99331448

Flat in South Al Hail, 2 bedrooms,

Majlis, 2 bathrooms, kitchen RO

250/-. Contact 93221474

Deluxe 1, 2 BHK fl ats in Darsait,

AL Khuwair 1deal for offi ce &

residence. Contact 99369081

/99142314

1BHK, 2BHK, 3BHK new fl at avail-

able at Mabela in front of Modern

English School Contact: 96239126

Furnished fl ats for rent in

Al Buraimi, daily, weekly, monthly.

Contact 97819981 / 93593336

Flat in Ruwi Mumtaz 2 BHK RO 300

or 1 BHK 250 RO. Contact 98588240

Flats for rent behind Indian School.

Contact 99777122

2 BHK apartments AL Khuwair with

Balcony 350/- & 4 BHK villa

Al Khuwair with Garden 800/-.

Contact: 95178930

2BHK fl at for rent near Muscat

Municipality, Darsait, big terrace,

nice location, rent OMR 325/-.

Contact: 96241707

Two air-condition fl ats in excel-

lent condition behind City Center

Carrefour Al Seeb no 1: 4 bedrooms &

family hall No 2, 2 bedroom & family

hall. Contact: 93366421

1BHK fl ats at Muttrah near Oman

House. Contact: 93231403

Shop/Offi ce 68 SQM, Wadi kabeer,

Opposite Al-Hassan. Contact

99441193, 93004802

2 BHK, 2 baths, Split A/C, Wadi ka-

beer, Near Indian Elementary School.

Contact 99441193, 93004802

Shop/Offi ce, 56 SQM, Wadikabeer,

Opposite Al-Hassan.

Contact 99441193, 93004802

500 sq mtrs offi ce space on mezza-

nine fl oor near Royal Hospital. OMR

6.500 per sq mtr. Tel: 99333479 or

95215360

3 rooms with attached bath room,

hall Brand new in Mabelah near

Sharahe Noor. Contact 99663905/

99415119

Flat in Amerat, Phase 5, 4 rooms,

3 bathrooms, kitchen with A/C.

Contact : 95522405

Luxury 3 BHK fl at in Al Wattaya

with split A/C & private parking.

RO.500/- Contact – 93191111

Villa of 5 BHK in Al Ansab with split

A/C. RO.650/- Contact – 93191111

2 BHK fl at in Al Ansab with split

A/C. RO.250/- Contact – 93191111

3BHK 8 Nos fl ats in Ghobrah.

Contact: 97616158

Flats for rent Al Ansab (Ghala) 2

bedrooms, 2 toilets, 1sitting room &

kitchen. Contact: 94229023

3 bedroom at Al Khuwair 33. House

No. 866, Way No. 4712. Contact

Mohamed : 99580484, Ahmed :

99486805, Awadh 95525509

Commercial 3 BHK fl at in Al Ghobra

18 Nov Street. RO 700/-

Contact 93191111

2 BHK fl at in Al Azaiba near sea,

with split A/C. RO.340/-

Contact – 93191111

Brand new 6 BHK villa in Al Azaiba

with split A/C & lift. RO.1200/-

Contact – 93191111

4 Ware house at Barka Falaij.

Contact: 99337857

1BHK Ghubra R.O 275/-.

Contact 92144045

For rent 3 industrial land.

Contact 92702891/ 95490842

1BHK Mumtaz R.O 250/-.

Contact: 97799175

Flats shops and store for rent in

Ruwi, MBD Honda road.

Contact 97293708 / 92433127

Flats, shops and basement for rent

in Khuwair, behind RAWASCO.

Contact: 99441122 , 95893518

3000 sq mtrs Industrial landß,

in Barka Sanaiya, with electricity

400KW, shed, staff accommodation

and offi ce. Ready to start any kind

of factory. Contact 99384255.

Flat at Darsait. Contact 99326879

FOR SALE

Clinic for sale in al amerat.

Contact:93753655

Used & refurbished Porta

cabins, Toilets unit avail-

able for sales. Contact: 99215560

Email:omegaunitedoman@gmail.

com

A/C 2 Ton, window type for sale,

3 years old, Samsung, ro 45/-

Contact 98564647

2,560 sq mtrs industrial land in

Wadi Kabir main road, First line on

way to Al Bustan hotel. Possible to

make petrol station or hotel. OMR

990 Thousand. Tel: 99333479 or

95215360

60,000 Sq Mtrs Agriculture Land in

Misfah, can be changed to Industrial

Land. OMR 29 Per Square Meter.

Tel: 99333479 or 95215360

3BHK & 2BHK in Darsait.

Contact 94268564

Bath attached room for rent

Al Khuwair. Contact 99743569

Labor camp available with all facili-

ties at Sohar Falaij (Near Sohar Sea

port) - Contact – 92982172

Flats for rent in Muttrah near Oman

house 2 BHK. Contact: 97009734 /

92629232

For rent in Darsait new fl ats.

Contact: 99777351

For rent in Darsait, new fl ats.

Contact: 99311525

Flats/villas owned by ROP pen-

sion fund available for rent in

Muscat. Contact 99349526

Villa for rent : 4 bedroom villa

with kitchen available in Azai-

ba. Sharing / Family. Contact :

98048207/99261773

Villa for rent - Al Seeb/Al Mawelah

- Block 5 - 4 bedrooms with attached

bathrooms, Majlis, 2 halls, kitchen

and storeroom. split Ac and carpark.

Contact 99564616

2BHK Darsait R.O 325/-, 300/-.

Contact: 92144045

DAILY GUIDEW E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5 D3

ACC. WANTEDAVAILABLE

FOR SALE

Party & Wedding equipment rentals.

Full line, from Tables, Linen & Skirting,

Chairs & Chair covers, Cutlery, Crock-

ery, Glassware, Chafi ng Dishes, Ice

Sculptures, to Large Sound Systems

and spectacular lighting. Call Andrea

9606 2222 for Catering and Croyden

9623 5555 for Sound & Light.

www.tunesoman.com,

E-mail: info@tunesoman.com

Required a room or studio fl at in

Darsait / WadiKabir /Ruwi area.

Contact : 95405033

5 Flats of 1 bedroom for Sale in

Boushar: OMR 35 Thousand each.

Monthly income OMR 270

Tel: 99333479 or 95215360

3 fl oor commercial building in

Muttrah behind Police. Generating

income of OMR 18 Thousand annu-

ally. Neat and well maintained. Built

on 197 sq mtrs land. 2 tailor shops

on ground fl oor and 6 fl ats. OMR

207 Thousand. Tel: 99333479 or

95215360

23,886 Sq Mtrs Agriculture land

with water well in Al Salwa, Barka.

OMR 260 Thousand. Tel: 99333479

or 95215360

Ice cream & juices shop in Ruwi,

good location for sale, 1.5 mt fi sh dis-

play machine for sale. #92150455

Well running Bricks Factory for

Lease in Seeb. Contact. 99711003

Beauty parlor for sale near Muscat

Palace monthly rent 350/- OMR

serious buyers. Contact: 91902154

Training center with license.

Contact: 91121277

Commercial land for sale 3000 m

in quriyat road main high way can

use as a petrol station license avail-

able asking price 350,000

For more information please call on

99070701 with out name

Super market in (Hairoon Hairithi)

Thamrith road. # 98189810 / 99675190

Shop for sale in Ibra and Bid Bid.

Contact: 95304693

MOTOR VEHICLE FOR SALE

Yaris 2008, 1.3, 229 kkm full option

2100 expected. Contact: 93289652

Tata bus - 66 seater model -2008

KM, 85, 673, dealer service. Contact:

99444341 & 99352790

Expatriate driven Yaris 2008 model

100,000 kms & land rover 2005

model 93000 Kms, excellent condi-

tions. Contact : 97094797

Ford Explorer 4WD, 2010 XLT, au-

tomatic km 72000, 4 yrs old, under

warranty. Agent serviced. Owned by

one owner (expat) white colour,

very good condition.

Contact 92824047

TATA bus make model 2012 &

Peugeot boxer van make model

2013. Contact: 93895941

Peugeot 206-2007 Model, expat

driven. Contact 99209285

2 Prime Movers Man 2008 with 40

ton petrol tank each working at the

moment in Al Maha. Price OMR 35

Thousand each. Contact 97000155

or 92688692

Land Cruiser 2012. Contact

99336093

Hyundai Accent 2004, fully auto-

matic. Contact: 99045803

Excellent big room, with A/C

kitchen available near

Ontc busstation (Ruwi).

Conatct 95569740

Semi furnished room with at-

tached bathroom for Executive

bachelors at CBD area behind

chamber of commerce. Contact:

96389375/93554942

MATRIMONIAL

MATRIMONIAL

RC girl (28 yrs) hailing from

kanjirappally dioces working in

Royal Hospital looks for suitable

alliances. Contact: 92801093 /

97498373

Hindu Ezhava family, settled in

Muscat looking for suitable groom

working within Oman for their

daughter 25 yrs (MBA) working

with a reputed company in Muscat.

Contact : 98689663

ACC. AVAILABLE

Furnished single / sharing room for

EXE bachelor at Rex Road with WIFI

available. Contact 92873832

Furnished attached bathroom at

Mumtaz area. Contact: 93103337 /

95212017

Sharing fl at in Wadi Kabir.

Contact: 99335057

Spacious bedroom, toilet & kitchen

in Wadi Kabir.

Contact : 96098443

Furnished single rooms available

for Executive bachelors at Ruwi.

Contact: 98049288

Semi furnished single room for

Executive bachelors behind Kamat

Restaurant Al Khuwair.

Contact 94271085

Furnished room attached bath for

lady in Wadikabir (Mars Hypermar-

ket) – 95941515

TRANSPORTATION

Required 40 feet open trailers to

UAE, on trip basis for transporting

our goods. Contact: 99352790 /

98037854

Transportation. Contact: 98178135

Transportation. Contact: 98505294

Transportation. Contact: 98244078

Transportation. Contact:

95190627

Alliance invited for a Nair girl 24 yrs, 5ft, 1”, fair, slim, B.Tech

graduate reputed family of

Ernakulam dist. (Star Thiruvonam

Sudhajathakam) fi nancially sound,

from parents of B.Tech nair boys

from Trissur, Palakkad and

Eranakulam dist. .

Contact :00919495924302

email: raveendrandr@yahoo.com

NRI

Ready / under construction apart-

ments / villas. Near guruvayur.

Contact: 00919846877773

Available Duplex flat 1900 sqmt

with 3 bedroom and complete POP

made at Manipal (Indrali) also fi t-

tings and accessories are branded

from Gulf. #96440811 / 93804434

Pick & Drop anytime Contact:

91653903

Pick & Drop any time. Contact:

97014786

Pick & drop with car & driver

available any time. Contact:

9615828/ 96502406/92218001

DAILY GUIDED4 W E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION VACANT

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com classifi eds@timesofoman.comTel.: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461

CATERING

DOMESTIC HELPER

BEAUTICIAN

HOSPITALITY

ADMIN

ENGINEER

EDUCATION

EDUCATION

SALES / MARKETING

SALES / MARKETING

ADMIN

Required looking for full time House-maid for Omani family at Mabela, visa

available. Contact 92454170

SECRETARIAL & OFFICE

Required Offi ce Assistant

160+25+Acc, Contact 99454425

ACCOUNTANT

MISCELLANEOUS

A company from UAE require 2 merchandisers in retail food

supply, store keeper with English

and invoicing experience. Email:

yesterdaysun@hotmail.com

Mason, C.C.T.V, Technician, Electri-cian cum Plumber. Contact: 99383044

Urgently required: (1) female dermatologist with minimum 3 years

experience (2) female Omani recep-tion coordinator for a medical center

in Qurum. Contact: 96062933

Indian Female M.C.A 4 years of

experience looking for suitable posi-

tion as as programmer/lecturer/Web

Designer/Admin.

Contact No: 99486374.

Indian male 2+yrs oman exp in HR.

joing immediatly. release available.

Contact :93671437

Over 14 years of gulf experience in

Admin /HR /Logistics, fl uent in Ara-

bic & English with D/L looking for

suitable position.Contact 95824598

Indian Female 25 MBA in HR look-

ing for a suitable opening in Admin/

Hr. Contact 97013375

Indian female 29 MBA (HR) BSc,

4 yrs exp in HR& Admin looking suit-

able placement. Contact : 95619537

Indian female with 10 yrs of experi-

ence in HR/Banking/Operations

seeks a suitable placement.

Can be contacted on 98919015 or

sherianne.coelho@gmail.com

MBA (international business) from

London, 4 years of UK experience in

operations with D/L, looking for suit-

able position. Contact 91710075

Indian female MBA – HR 1 and half

years experience seeking suitable

job. Contact : 99257214Teachers required: Teachers for KG,

Grade I to IV class in English, Maths,

Science, Computer & Art. Qualifi ca-

tion: Degree in relevant subjects & B

Ed; IELTS or TOFEL plus two years

experience preferred. Please apply

to: burj@alhakkim.com

Male 24, B.Com /PGD having 2

years experience in accounts and

inventory fi eld looking for suitable

job on visit visa. Contact: 94129550

Indian male, well experienced in

Accounts & Admin looking for a suit-

able vacancy. NOC available.

Contact 98717938

Accounts part time, up to fi naliza-

tion of monthly accounts. Handled

by a CA. contact 96293120

Indian male, with B.Com 1 year expe-

rience in Accounts or Sales, on visit

visa, Cont... 98295101

Indian male M.Com 6 yrs experience

in accounts up to fi nalization in Oman

co having Oman D/L, available to join

immediately with NOC.

Contact: 98363897

Email: prince9496@hotmail.com

Senior Document Controller MCA

Indian male 9+ year’s total experi-

ence 5+ years experience in Gulf in

oil & gas sector and construction

fi eld on visit visa in Oman.

Contact: 95388197

Email: rojanchristopher@gmail.com

Indian male, B.Com, well experienced

in Accounts & Admin, knowledge

of Tally ERP 9 experience in Oman

with valid Oman driving license. NOC

available, looking for suitable job in

Oman, join immediately.

Contact 94245039

Accounts & fi nance Indian male

B.com M.B.A (F) Tally ERP9, 35 years,

8 years experience 1.5 years Oman

family visa N.O.C available.

Contact: 93257426

Email: sibigeorp@gmail.com

Senior Accountant 13 years experi-

ence FMCG & retail Noc available.

Contact: 93473942

Indian male B.Com Accountant 10

years in Oman experience in ac-

counts (upto fi nalization) & Admin

knowledge of tally ERP9, focus RT.

Having NOC & D/L looking for suit-

able job in Muscat.

Contact: 93086105

MBA Indian male looking for suitable

position having 2 years working

experience as an accountant now in

Oman a visiting visa.

Contact: 99424803

Young, energetic 24 yrs, ACCA

fi nalist, Advanced diploma in Ac-

counting and business, seeking suit-

able placement in accounts, fi nance

or audit. Contact : 92430152,

Email: rau_dey@yahoo.com

Sudanese Accountant seeking job

in Nizwa state experience 10 years 3

years in Saudi Arabia, 7 yrs in Sudan.

Contact : 97796394 / 94003247

Urgently required baker (tandoori

bread maker) for a restaurant.

Contact 92764880

Chinese shawarma cook & helper wanted. Contact 95529970

Family in Muscat seeking to hire an experienced butler. Hotel experi-

ence is preferred. Candidate must

hold a valid driver’s license. Please

send CV’s on

vacancyinmuscat@gmail.com

Required Accountant with 3 yrs. exp.

in construction company.

Email : wadcocareers@gmail.com

A leading excellent grade company

at Muscat looking for Junior Accountant with min.1 year Gulf

experience. Please send CV to

pmjino@gmail.com

Urgently required Junior Accountant. Please send CV: hr.azatllc@gmail.com

Urgently required Indian experi-ence Beautician (good package) in

Al Hail, visa available.

Contact : 92139922 / 92284899

Required Beautician visa available,

salary accommodation.

Contact: 91902154

MEDICAL

MEDICAL

SKILLED

Required Gynecology, General Phy-sician, Dentist, Staff Nurses, Lab technicians, Pharmacists,X Ray technicians. Contact : 95133572 / 96064925

Email: kunoozghala@gmail.com

Wanted Staff Nurse for a polyclinic

in Sohar. Contact :93457270

Driver & Business co coordinator speaking English urgently required.

Contact : 95327813

DRIVER

Required Counter Salesman for

building materials in Salalah.

Contact 99496142

Urgently required Sales & Marketing Executive for Electri-

cal & lighting products with Oman

driving license. Send CV at Email :

albasilinternational@gmail.com

Marketing Executive for digi-

tal painting company. Contact:

94356769 / 96936564

Looking for Outdoor Salesman for

heavy equipment spare parts.

Contact - 93292015,

Email: mail.om@gulfcenter.co

Required male or female candidate with 5 years experience in renting of

properties. Interested candidates may

please mail to alqurumprop@gmail.com

Urgently required outdoor Sales Executive for furnishing company

with valid Oman D/L and minimum 3

years experience. Contact 93231403 /

rainbowfurnishing156@gmail.com

Required Sales man - 1 Person

Qualifi cation. Gulf Experienced

- Minimum 5 Years with Oman

Driving Licence Language - English

Education:- Any Degree Further

Contact :Mr. Abdul Hameed Na-

shabat - Mobile No: 97414307 and

-92807399 amn@yaqeeneng.com

Urgently required Sales and Market-ing Executive for Graphic designing

company. Contact: 96727631

mail: smartgraphic518@gmail.com

Urgently required Advertising & Me-dia Sales Executives with Oman D/L.

Trainee positions available for Fresh-

ers. Email: jobs@interacoman.com

Urgently required a silk Screen printer with good knowledge and

release letter or NOC. Contact:

93280288 or send CV to

albayanstamps@gmail.com

Indian male 22 yrs B. Com Graduate

1 year exp in Accounts, currently on

visit visa. Looking for suitable job.

Contact 94341848 /

Email – mohdhaji7272@gmail.com

B.com graduate with NOC more

than 4 years of experience in Oman

with valid Oman driving license for

a suitable job ready to join immedi-

ately. Contact: 98976252

Indian male, B.Com, 1 year Exp in

Accounts/ Sales, on Visit Visa,..

Contact – 98295101

MBA Graduate with 6 yrs exp in

fi nance/accounts/ auditing. Special-

ized in accounts payable dept, Ora-

cle app user, profi cient in Sap (fi co)

end user & tally 9.0. lean &six sigma

certifi ed trainer on visit visa.

Contact – 91967213 / 99064780

Accounts part time works up to

fi nalization on monthly basis. Profi t

& loss A/C and fi nancial statements,

MS Reports Etc. Contact: 96247295

ACCA affi liate , BSc Honors in ap-

plied Accountancy advance diploma

in Accounting and Business, CAT

Affi liate 1 year hand on working

experience of Oman, with Oman

driving license looking for a suitable

placement in Audit fi rm. Having

NOC can join immediately.

Contact : 98989970

Indian male, 32 years, M. Com.

7 out of 9 years experience in Oman

in Accounts/fi nance. Having NOC and

valid Oman D/L. Contact 98277143,

Email: anzarks@gmail.com

Indian male 25 yrs B.com having

experience in accounts for 3 yrs

currently on visit looking to job.

Contact: 97937868 Email:

rehman.naseer999@gmail.com

Chef for Yacht. International cuisine.

Minimum 15 years chef experience.

alibadawy@gmail.com

Required Site Supervisor with 5

yrs. exp. in construction company,

electronic technician with 3 yrs

experience in gate motors systems.

Email : wadcocareers@gmail.com

Leading Construction company requires HSE Offi cer with minimum

4 to 5 years experience in building

construction line. Send your CV :

hseoman2015@gmail.com

(NOC require).

Urgently required for a fi rst grade construction company Graduate Civil Engineer (5 years experi-

enced) shuttering carpenter mason

(Block, Plaster, Tile Fixing)

Civil Foreman building work.

Contact: 24700373/ 99427674

Fax: 24701368

Email: rajma@omantel.net.om

Mechanical / Civil Site Supervi-sor; diploma / ITI fi tter; 3-4 year’s

exp in supervision of Erection work

of sheds, customer coordination,

and project execution. Omani D/L is

must. Contact: hr@khancogroup.com

/ 99102383

Construction Company in Oman

urgently requires following candi-

dates: BE Civil Engineer, minimum

3-5 years gulf experience & Civil site foreman, minimum 5 years gulf

experience, diploma not required.

Email: applyforoman@gmail.com

Construction Company in Oman

urgently requires the following:

B.Sc Civil Engineer, minimum 3-5 yrs Gulf experience.

Civil Site Foreman, minimum 5 yrs

experience with operating knowl-

edge of Tally. Please Email CV ;

applyforoman@gmail.com

Required swimming pool Engi-neer/ civil /M& P / Draughtsman with D/L, Preferred gulf experience.

Email: jvacancy05@gmail.com

ACCOUNT. & FINANCE

ACCOUNT. & FINANCE

SITUATION WANTEDSIT. WANTED

SITUATION WANTEDSIT. WANTED

Tanzanian male, 25 yrs Accountant

successful experience in Tanzania

looking for suitable placement in any

fi eld. Contact : 96710154

Tunisian lady has Professorship in

social and economical sciences and

accounting, diploma in Experimen-

tal Sciences degree in English for

media. Contact 95391050,

aysser2013@gmail.com

M.Com, CA (Article ship), 15 years

Gulf experience looking for suitable

position in fi nance & accounts on

visit visa valid up to 10/7/2015.

Contact: 97767828, knowledge of

quickbooks, Tally 9, Focus V.5 Email:

altabhossain2008@hotmail.com

An Indian lady Chartered Account-

ant with fi ve years experience

(including article ship) on family

visa in Oman looking for a suitable

job. #9621 0347 / 9943 5346,

shincycrajan@gmail.com

Beautician exp Gulf, looking job

from India. Contact 99531802

BEAUTICIAN

Required Large format printer operator – for HP. Graphic Designer. Send CV to hr.oman@yahoo.com

DESIGNER

Vacancy for Omani PRO for Customs duties in Sohar. Email:

arabianseabridge@gmail.com,

Mob: 97990844

Required professional Teachers

for teaching Science, Mathematics,

Accountancy, Business Studies &

English IELTS/ TOFEL in schools &

Universities. Contact 99674870

Urgently required G.P doctor with

or without MOH license for one

month from 01/07/2015.

Contact: 93824902

Sales Coordinator : Mechanical

Diploma holder with 3-4 yrs exp. in

sales department preferably in Metal

fabrication Company. Omani D/L is

must. Contact: 99102383

hr@khancogroup.com

Finance Manager, CPA, with more

than 15 yrs. of experience in GCC.

Fully knowledgeable in Finance,

General & Management Accounting .

NOC available. Contact 96209331

Indian male with total 5 year

experience (2 years experience in

Accountant cum sales co ordinator

in a FMCG Company in Oman) in

accounts fi eld and NOC available.

Looking for suitable job #92130188

Indian Accountant: Male, M com,

7 Yrs experience in Accounts up to

fi nalization, having knowledge of

ERP, Tally, seeks suitable placment.

contact 93950138 Email:

lijinrajan123@gmail.com

DAILY GUIDEW E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5 D5

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION WANTED

ENGG. / TECHNICAL

ENGG. / TECHNICAL

DESIGNER

DRAUGHTSMAN

LOGISTICS

ENGG. / TECHNICAL

Quantity Surveyor with 5 Years ex-

perience (one year in Oman) looking

for job. Contact 91090036

Mechanical Engineer, Indian, 24

years with Piping Engineering,

Autocad, Ansys NX- Cad, pro-e,

Catia & PDMS now on visiting visa

seek suitable placement. Contact:

99168054 / 96684345

Email: : mbkishore@hotmail.com

BE ,Electrical Engineer with 5 Years

Gulf Experience in Underground

cable & Overhead line in HT and LT,

Distribution Substation, MEP. Oman

D/L available. NOC available. Con-

tact:95054644, 00918807888109,

speninsam@gmail.com

Quantity Surveyor or Site Engineer

in civil, 5 years experience in Oman

have valid Oman driving license

looking for suitable posts, NOC avail-

able. Contact: 96394948/ 98294919.

Email: asvinsha@gmail.com

Civil Engineer, Expatriate Female, 3

yrs experience, on visit visa seeking

suitable placement.

Contact: 99195433

Iraqi Engineer specialized in

telecommunication net working &

PC experience in nuking network

and security systems. Contact:

92898329 / 99249124

Electronics & communications

Indian male, 2 years experience

seeking suitable placement.

Contact: 99456725 / 94678625

D.A.E Civil 4 years exp in land

surveyor and building work worked

on AutoCAD, T.S and G.P.S 1 year

exp in Oman looking for placement.

Contact: 92140890 / 98780156

Email: engrsafi ullah91@gmail.com

Indian male 24 yrs B. Tech (Mech.

Eng) on visit 1 yr experience in

production fi eld looking for suitable

placement. Contact: 98925685

Indian male, 28 yrs, Electronics &

Instrumentation Engineer with 4 yrs

experience in Industrial Automa-

tion (SCADA) seeking suitable job.

Contact 93154156 / 98416190

Indian male 23 yrs B.Tech Civil hav-

ing 2 years exp, currently on visit

visa looking for suitable job.

Contact: 98031034

Email: musheer786.mm@gmail.com

B.Tech in Electronics Engineering, Indian male 26 years with around 5

years of experience (Including work

experience in Japan) looking for a

job in any fi eld & can join imme-

diately. Contact: 91902646 Email:

ajumalmajeed@gmail.com

MEDICAL

MISCELLANEOUS

Indian female Dentist MOH Oman

passed seeking a suitable placement

in capital region. Contact– 91377681

hashimsarawat@gmail.com

Indian female looking for suitable

position 2nd rank in MSC microbiol-

ogy, fresher now on visiting visa.

Contact : 91633089

Email: mansytk4@gmail.com

Indian male Nurse, 31 years

Oman prometric passed 6 yrs ICU

experience. Contact : 94195150 /

92758895

Lab Technician, Civil (8yrs Gulf ex-

perience) looking for a suitable job

(NOC available) Contact-93344378

Omani Mechanical Engineer, has

3 years experience ,has HSE, H2S,

Riggers/Banks men Permit, Draw-

ing / cad, SCBA, Safety Leadership

and Initial Fire Response Courses.

good with computer and English

language looking for suitable job.

Contact 99224319-98454500

Indian male 22 Mechanical Diplo-

ma holder Engg with HVAC certifi ed,

having 1 year exp. seeking suitable

position. Currently available on visit

visa. Contact - 92835952

DRIVER IT

IT

MANAGER/ SUPERVISOR

EDUCATION

Omani Citizen searching a job in

the fi eld of computer especially in

data base professional in operating

Oracle SQL, PL/ SQL, form6i, Report

6i. Contact 96977368

Email: talaloml@yahoo.com

B.E Computer Science, Indian lady,

with 2 years experience in Oman

looking for suitable job in Muscat

having valid GCC driving license.

Contact: 97738624

Indian male, completed diploma in

Computer technology fresher, seek-

ing suitable position, currently on

visit visa. Contact : 93596096

M.Sc 3+ years exp from France &

India in IT Support Engineer / Hard-

ware & Networking / Server support

/ scientifi c system support looking

for suitable position. Indian, male

on visit visa, contact 98898781/

anoopys@gmail.com

Computer Networking/Facility

Mgmt 5 Yrs of Exp Holds B.E(ECE),

CCNA Looking for Good Opportunity,

Indian - Visit Visa. Contact 91911792/

arafakdnl@gmail.com

Indian male, B.E ( computer science

engineer), MBA (fi nance), OCA certi-

fi ed, having 5 years of experience in

oracle Dba/ oracle apps Dba, seeks

a suitable position in the fi eld of IT.

Contact: 96212062

email: zubairkhan11@gmail.com

MBBS lady Doctor experienced in

Medical insurance, direct billing,

preauthorization’s life rating, claims

registration, client query handling &

hospital insurance queries seeking

suitable placement.

Contact : 97763918

Email: minmaths@yahoo.com

Well experienced MOH Licensed

Indian GP Doctor looking for locum /

permanent position in the

Capital area. Contact 98140024

email:drgpoman@yahoo.com

Light driver. Contact: 96313100

Driver looking for job.

Contact: 99507039

Paksitani Driver with 6 yrs

experience looking for job.

Contact: 93985087

Driver with car 3 years experience

looking for job. Contact: 92041902

Driver available with car and with-

out car. Contact 96771598

Pakistani male light vehicle driver

with 2 yrs exp looking for job.

Contact : 96342684

2 years experience driver looking

for job in companies or residence,

release available. Contact: 98051400

Pakistani, male light vehicle driver

looking for job. Contact 97943750

Driver light with 5 yrs experience,

knowing English, Arabic, Hindi,

education B.A. Contact 98522914

Light driver valid GCC license look-

ing for job. Contact 99531802

Indian male, 3 yrs exp. as Driver in

Oman looking for job.

Contact 98238043

Light duty driver looking for job.

Contact: 94040926

Driver with car. Contact:

97705694/98988208

Looking for job driving Bangla-

deshi. Contact : 94077119

Looking for job driving Bangladeshi.

Contact: 97418036

Light driver for job. Contact:

95779594

Driver light. Contact: 91020999

Pakistani driving available.

Contact : 96913836

Driver looking for job with visa,

release available, 5 yrs driving

experience. Contact: 96261895

Faruqu.

Light Driver needs Job.

Contact: 93284327

MCA, BCA with 2 yrs relevant expe-

rience seeking suitable opportunity.

Contact: 96377039

Ware house In charge or store

keeper 27 yrs Gulf experience 4 yrs

in Oman NOC available.

Contact: 97657823 Email:

rusaikmzm_2009@yahoo.com

Indian Female with over 9 yrs ex-

perience with good communication

skills seeks jobs in customer service

or sales fi eld. Contact : 96108289,

shijipaul84@gmail.com

Part- Time Accountant, well experi-

ence senior accountant ,doing all

type of accounting works, Finaliza-

tion, Budgeting available.

Contact 98803439

13 Years UAE experienced in MNC &

reputed fi rms logistics distribution

looking for a suitable placement, on

visit visa contact 99838743,

gani.dawood@gmail.com

10 yrs exp in Oman in logistics-

have Oman D/L-looking for suitable

placement-contact 96410767 .

Contact email: harishkts@yahoo.com

Architect designer experience in

Architecture design in 2D, 3D visit-

ing to site : 2 years experience (in

Oman), fl uent Hindi & English. Email:

zhussain9950@gmail.com

Contact: 94253074

Architect and Interior Designer 8

years experience design and execution

working with 3D max, AutoCAD, photo

shop, BOQ, NOV available looking for

suitable placement. #95273166

Graphics Designer/ prepress C.T.P

Pagination 3 yrs exp. in Muscat

Photoshop Illustrator, Indesign,

CorelDraw autocad premier preps

appoge Indian male now on visit

visa. Contact 97436606

Indian female 23 yrs, Autocad Civil

Draftsman with 3ds max & rivet, 3

yrs exp. looking for suitable vacancy

in Muscat now on visit visa.

Contact: 95601266.

20years exp CAD Drafts man

looking for suitable post.

Contact: 94027838 / 99020636

Indian male Diploma in Mechani-

cal Engineer with 14 years Gulf

experience in heavy equipments and

vehicles valid Oman driving license.

NOC available looking for a suitable

placement. Contact: 91985028 /

95463430

Indian male 47 years DM Civil, PG

PGDMM, I& M, having 25 years of

experience Manager in Civil, Stores

Purchase, Inventory, cargo,

transports, Admin ,

looking for best job in Muscat.

Currently on visit visa. Contact:

91170749 / 97672647 Email:

gdp4767@gmail.com

Site Engineer(Civil) Diploma in

Civil Engineering / Supervisor 6

years experience (with N.O.C).

Contact : 99512416.

Electrical Engineer Pakistani male

4 years B. Tech & 3 years’ diploma

seeking a suitable placement.

Contact: 96752080

Email: ilyasoader97@gmail.com

BE (Electrical), MBA, certifi ed

PMP and Chartered Engineer with

10 years experience in EPC Project

management for substation con-

struction (onshore/off shore) GCC

employed Indian, seeking oppor-

tunity to lead challenging projects,

position in managerial role.

Email ID: jacobmval@gmail.com

Structural Engineer 4 years experi-

ence Indian, will handle projects

independently, able to get

Municipality approvals easily.

Contact: 91668044

Indian male 29 years Civil Engineer

diploma 4 years Oman experience,

2 years road construction looking

placement. Contact: 93298395

N.O.C available

Sudanese Industrial Engineering &

Management, experience 12 years

in QA/QC and production. Contact:

94041960 / 94044784,

Email: mekkimedani@hotmail.com /

mekkimedani78@gmail.com

Indian Male, IT Support Engineer,

2 yrs in Oman & 5 yrs Indian experi-

ence. Contact 97311847

Indian male, B.Tech Mechanical

having 4 years experience with QA/

QC / CSWIP looking for a suitable

position. Contact: 99447106

Email: dhanubhasi87@gmail.com

Btech computer science graduate

2015 passout.. Android application

marketing.. Having good communi-

cation skills and mindset to work in

a team. Contact 91024385

Electrical Eng. Degree (MEP) need

suitable job of construction 12 yrs exp.

Email: mohd.ateeq.khan@gmail.com

Engineer with 3 yrs experience in

Indian in MEP, HVAC& mechanical

maintained fi eld on visit visa looking

for suitable job. Contact 99191535

Email: fareed029@gmail.com

*Classifi ed Advertisement space booking with text, should be done till 12.00 noon for next day’s publication.

* Subject to space availability

B.Com Diploma in Material manage-

ment having 12 years experience in

local / overseas prelease, logistics,

ware house. NOC available.

Contact: 96477638

SALES / MARKETING

Project / Construction Manager-

Electrical 15++in OMAN and UAE,45

yrs, married,D/L Oman, Qatar &

UAE),Manage with Arabic, Good

Knowledge in Metro Viaduct, UG &

OG stations, Live airport projects,

multi cuisine hospital project (Cleve-

land clinic Abu Dhabi,). Holding of

FEWA, ADCC and OMAN electri-

cal license. Contact Venkatesh on

+97477394707/

geetvenkat2002@gmail.com

Indian male, with 8 yrs exp. in

Oman (BA- Graduate) working as

a project Sales Coordinator, with

Oman D/L, looking for suitable job,

ready to join immediately with NOC.

Contact 95245057

DOMESTIC HELPER

Looking for job for House maid.

Contact : 93599302

Laundry Housekeeping profession-

al looking for a opening in Oman

with 18 years experience.

Contact : 91957861

Experienced, competent, English

teacher for high school and college.

Contact: 91954541

Indian female MCA, Three years

experience in teaching fi eld, seeks

placement currently on visit visa.

Contact: 93431567

Email: fi vona.mel@gmail.com

English Teacher female (M. A. B. Ed)

Having 14 years experience with

11 years experience in Oman with

reputed institute and school.

Contact: 92289080 / 99318276

Email: babujosev@yahoo.com

SALES / MARKETING

Indian Male, M.B.A. (U.K) 10 Yrs of

Experience, looking for suitable posi-

tion in Sales/Marketing/Retail/ H.R/

Admin. Contact No: 99271903.

Indian male MBA 7 years experience

in Hospitality industry, operation,

sales & marketing looking for suitable

vacancy. Contact 92115860

Email vibin.py@gmail.com

MBA Graduate with D/L looking for

sales or marketing jobs.

Contact 94143154

Email: rinojnathen008@gmail.com

Male BA with D/L having 6 years

exp Oman wanted suitable job in

sales, inventory, procure.

Contact : 92191026

Indian female MSc, MPHIL (Chem-

istry) 3 years Teaching experience

currently on visit visa seeking suit-

able position. Contact : 96916534 /

91969756

Omani female exp in PRO with

Oman D/L. Contact: 91161736

Looking for good job 2 years

experience Oman sales marketing

valid driving license Indian Kerala.

Contact : 98626682

Graduate having 6 yrs experience

Lubricant sales looking for sales job

with D/L. Contact : 93410723

Indian male, MBA with 5 yrs of

experience as a Lecturer in Depart-

ment of Marketing & Business

Management, looking for suitable

position. Contact 93126770

Sales & marketing professional

having 5 yrs exp with D/L.

Contact 92262680

Outdoor salesman with car looking

for job. Contact 91615715

Indian male, 34 yrs, 10 yrs exp. in

UAE in sales & merchandise with

valid GCC license, looking for suitable

position. #93438747 / 93033252

Indian male, 39 yrs having 15 yrs

Gulf experience (UAE, Qatar, Oman)

in sales & marketing looking for a

suitable position with NOC.

Contact 94054730

Sales man looking for a opening in

Oman with 18 years Gulf experience.

Contact: 91957861

8 years store experience Indian

male looking for placement. N.O.C

available. Contact: 98456535

Indian 23 years B.Com Graduate,

2 years experience in Sales knowl-

edge of TALLY, ERP & MS Offi ce.

Contact: 93134643

Email : syedismailnoor@gmail.com

8 years purchase experienced

Indian male looking for job. N.O.C.

available. Contact: 98161323

Indian male, B.Sc (Mathematics)

PGDBM (Marketing). 9 yrs of Oman

experience in sales in midlevel

management, NOC available.

Valid Oman D/L. Contact: 95278838

Email: anup2p4p@yahoo.com

SKILLED/UNSKILLED

Experience skilled candidate with driver license seeks position in

sales in Salalah. Contact: 98579382

Mason, sh/carpenter, steel fi tter, looking job. Contact 95175192

Electrician, Plumber, Welder , exp

gulf and india looking job.

Contact 99531802

Helper /cleaner looking for job.

Contact 95175192

SECRETARIAL/OFFICE

Indian female completed computer

literacy program (patiently funda-

mental, MS Offi ce, word processing)

and off set printing, seeking suitable

job in Muscat. Contact : 97236545

Email: sun2giri@gmail.com

25 Indian female B.S.C. Fashion

Technology. 5 years experience in

textile industry as a merchandiser

and good in fashion marketing.

Currently available on visit visa,

seeking for a suitable job.

Contact 96990368.

Email: simmy.missy@gmail.com

TOURS & TRAVELS

Indian male Diploma, civil engineer

4.3 year experience at building

construction and consulting com-

pany with Oman driving licence

and N.O.C available seeking suitable

placement contact 95989500 email

cv.shihabedappal@gmail.com

Indian female, B.Tech biotechnology with strong computer

skills and 2 years experience as

associate research analyst (Media

Monitoring) in Nasdaq Oman seek-

ing growth oriented jobs. Contact

92044603 /918056169148 or

angeline.babithac@gmail.com.

IT Desktop Support Engineer 2 years Oman 3 years in Indian Exp.

Contact 91937060

Network system Engineer B.E / ECE

+ CCNA & Ms certifi ed with 4+ yrs exp

looking for a job. Currently in Oman on

visit visa. Contact: 92589502

Email: careersjegan@gmail.com

Male 26 completed MBA and have

1.5 years experience, good knowl-

edge of computer, software’s, looking

for job in procurement / warehous-

ing. On visit visa till 5th Sep /2015.

Contact: 00968 91795092

Email: jameel6345@gmail.com

IT & Media Sales specialist looking

for job opportunities also decent

exposure to H.R & customer relations

currently in Muscat on visit visa

kindly. # 96238199 or 99874205

Email Id: m_cadri@rediff mail.com

Indian Male, B.Com Graduate, 23,

with experience in Sales looking for

suitable placements.

Contact 98371144

Pakistani Female Bachelor of

Information Technology with 8

years’ experience in Banking, Sales,

business development, retail & cus-

tomer service seeking for a suitable

placement. Having valid D/L& NOC

available. Contact 94699970 shehla.

chohan@gmail.com

Indian male 45+ yrs , 20 yrs exp as

sales supervisor in India looking for

indoor sales /stores /cashier or any

suitable placement can speak Hindi

, English, Malayalam, Tamil, kannada

can join immediately on visit visa.

Contact 93086105/33016546

Pakistani male 34 yrs Intermedi-

ate 2 yrs exp in sales & marketing

in Oman. Looking for suitable job.

Contact - 92146864

MISCELLANEOUS

Tunisian women looking for a job,

khnows english,frensh, italian and

arabic. Contact: 91171838

Indian male, post graduate, cur-

rently in Oman on visit visa.

Seeks suitable placement.

Contact 92388346

Indian male 60 years old have 30

years Muscat experience in all offi ce

works with Omani driving license.

Contact: 99024055

Male, 30 years Accountant, 1 year

Oman experience in accountants,

fi nance. Seeking suitable position in

Muscat .Can join immediately, NOC

available. Email: lalitbls1@gmail.com

Call: 97903175

Sudanese male, 31 year old, have 3

year Diploma in electrical engineer,

5 year experience in diff erent activi-

ties. Contact; +96894549609

More than Ten years of experience

in Sales & Marketing, Advertisement

and Credit Control and Logistics&

Administration.

Contact; 91076608 / 99322748

MCA IT Professional Indian Female

seek placement in Teaching/ Non

Teaching fi eld. Presently on visit

visa. Contact 9588 7051,

Email: ashwininakod@gmail

Indian female BA graduate. My total

experience is 4 and half year in Call

Center looking for jobs in admin

and HR. Contact : 96089143, Email:

sharanjit_kaur2009@yahoo.com

Key Account Executive, Indian

male, currently working with a

reputed FMCG company Oman is

looking for a placement asap, NOC

will be given. Valid Omani driving

license. Total experience in Oman is

12yrs and particularly in Sales is 8

1/2 years. Contact 95589765 Email :

agnelfrancis@yahoo.co.in

DAILY GUIDE Tel. 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com

D6 W E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION WANTED

Sudanese male (B.Sc Computer sci-

ence) (diploma computer engineer-

ing) 6 yrs. experience DBA Oracle pl-

sql, MS sql-server ,ms visual studio

vba, network. Contact :91415886

Indian male with 8 yrs experience

in FMCG in Oman as Sales Supervi-

sor looking for suitable placement.

NOC available. Gsm: 96495206

B.Sc. Mechanical Engineer Su-

danese 3 yrs of exp. In industrial

fi eld available in muscat on vist

visa seeking suitable job . Contact:

95868922, Email: almouthanaos-

man@yahoo.com

IT system and Printer engineer ME,

5Years bank IT Management exp in

India looking for full time job visit

visa contact 94462150

24 year Indian Chartered Account-

ant male with 3yrs of experience is

seeking suitable placement in Mus-

cat, currently on visit visa & ready

to join immediately. Contact him on

98201476 or email at

lokeshkaluri@gmail.com

MCA IT Professional Indian Female

seek placement in Teaching/ Non

Teaching fi eld. Presently on visit

visa. 9588 7051,

ashwininakod@gmail.com

ACCA Affi liate, Indian, 2.5Years

experience in Audit/ Finance in Big

6 Audit Firm and Oil Accounting in

PDO, For Permanent Placement for

Finance or Accounts or Audit. Re-

lease NOC Available on hand.

Contact #95140445,

a.saran891@gmail.com

Finance ACCA Affi liate, Worked as

an Auditor with 2.5 Years Experience

in reputed fi rm, Handled independ-

ent audit/fi nance assignments,

Looking for permanent placement,

NOC available. #95140445.

a.saran891@gmail.com

Piping Design Engineer, Indian

male 27, looking for suitable place-

ment in Piping Design & Engineer-

ing. Having 7 years of experience in

AutoCAD. Also familiar with PDMS

(11.6 Version),CAESAR ll. Contact :

97351786 / 96143708, E-mail :

mohammednazeer07@gmail.com

Indian Male, Graduate, 11 years

Sales experience in Lighting /

Industrial products, ready to join

immediately. GSM: 9710 5356

Indian heavy duty driver with 8

years experience in oman available

with NOC. GSM : 93601943

GSM : 94496457

Over 15 years experience in Gulf.

Interior Architect, Lebanese Nation-

ality, on visit visa seeking a suitable

Placement. 96268005.

Indian male, 28 yrs MBA (HR/M) 2

years experience in Indian Oman in

HR & admin seeks suitable place-

ments. NOC available.

Contact 97484159

Email: rameshkapa86@gmail.com

M.Sc 3+ years exp from France &

India in IT Support Engineer / Hard-

ware & Networking / Server support

/ scientifi c system support looking

for suitable positions. Indian, male

on visit visa, contact 98898781/

anoopys@gmail.com

Indian male, 34years having 10

years of experience in Sales, Sales

Coordination and Administration.

Experienced in SAP and MS Offi ce.

NOC available. Contact # 94686594

British Beauty Therapist looking

for suitable position. please contact

:97175240

Indian Male MBA Marketing/HRM

3 year experience with Omani D/L,

seeking suitable jobs.

Contact: 97424188

email: dharwesh@gmail.com

Indian, Male, 23 years, BE Electri-

cal, having 2 years experience in

Electrical Works-H.T. cabling etc, &

Construction, looking for a suit-

able placement. # +968 96927880

(Oman), +91 9765376109 (India),

Email: rahulrevi6@gmail.com

Indian Female M.Com with Comput-

er Skills and Four Month Experience

as Accountant ,Currently On Family

Visa Looking for a Suitable Place-

ment, Available Immediately.

Contact : 95846642,

Email : dhanyashree91@yahoo.com

ACCA Affi liate, Experience in audit/

fi nance of 2.5 years in Big 6 Firm

and Oil industry, looking for suitable

permanent placement, Release NOC

available. Contact: #95140445

a.saran891@gmail.com

B.Tech Computer Engineer Wanted

job to work on(IT/Banking/Admin-

istrator/Technical/Offi ce works)

having NOC with the limited time

from (04/06/2015 to 13/06/2015).

Mobile:98402389

email:naresh6672@gmail.com

Indian male Executive Secretary

having vast experience in admin,

logistics & procurement well versed

with computer .seek suitable place-

ment. Contact : 99514286

Highly Qualifi ed & Experienced

Finance Manager Pakistani with

USA , UK & Canadian Degrees , CPA

,ACCA-UK . MBA-USA ,IFA- Financial

Consultants Canada , Corporate

Analyst USA Professional of Banking

, Audits ,ERPs & Profi t Maximizations

( NOC available ) call 94 504505 –

94403270

27 year Indian female who has 4

years of experience with logistics

function in distribution of spares

for both heavy machinery & wind

turbine parts. Kindly contact me on

+91 9790769104

E-mail: joemohana@yahoo.co.in

Looking for managerial post (full

time ), More than Ten years of experi-

ence in Team Development ,Training,

planning, Administration, Sales

& Marketing, Advertisement and

Credit Control and Logistics. Contact

91076608 / 99322748. RELEASE &

NOC AVAILABLE

Indian male MBA (U.K), 10 Years

of experience in Admin, Sales, HR,

stores and logistics seeks suitable

placement. Contact 99271903.

Indian Female MCA, 4 plus Years of

experience in Web designing, Admin,

P.A, seeks suitable placement.

Contact 99486374

8 Years successful experience,

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT, Indian

male,29 years. Presently working in

Oman as a Senior Accountant

with oman Driving license seeks

suitable opportunity.

GSM: 97705854

MISCELLANEOUS

7 and half years experience working

accounts / inventory manager look-

ing suitable job. Contact: 96991782

Email: srinivasu.sp@gmail.com

Indian female , MCA BCA, certifi ca-

tion PL SQL , 6months training PHP,

date warehouse looking for suitable

placement. Contact : 95694330

Email: mondkashyapodl@gmail.com

B.Com with more than 5 yrs exp.

looking for an accounts part tome

job work. know with tally.

Email-shilpa_62@yahoo.com

Part- time accountant, well experi-

ence senior accountant , doing all

type of accounting works, fi naliza-

tion, budgeting available.

Contact : 98803439

Indian male, looking for a part time

accounting job. Having additional

knowledge & experience in

HR admin & purchase.

Contact 99196621

HSE Advisor, NEBOSH IGC, Indian

male, 4 years experience in con-

struction and oil fi elds, seeking suit-

able jobs. Gsm: 97458900,

Mail: miroshbabu@gmail.com

Highly Experienced Finance

Manager, CPA ,ACCA-UK . MBA-USA

, Professional of Banking, Audits ,

ERPs Sap , Management as Team

Leader and Problem Solver call 94

504505 / 94403270

Indian male MBA Finance presently

OMAN IN visit visa, 26 years, look-

ing for an accountant job.

Contact 95240641, email Id

mohammadabdulazharuddin@

gmail.com

Admin Executive, 31, Indian Male,

having 9+ years exp. in reputed

companies. Seeking suitable place-

ment in any gulf region. Contact

+968 99276601 & 97693456. email :

muralimahdav77@gmail.com

Indian Female, 24yrs, M.COM (Ac-

counts) having 3yrs experience

in Accounts, HR, Administration,

Customer Service. Good Computer

Profi ciency. Seeking Suitable Posi-

tion. Visa Transfer/NOC Available.

Contact: 99654913

MEP Quantity Surveyor-Estima-

tion-Project, 10 Years Experience

(3 years in Oman). Having NOC &

Oman D/L, looking for suitable job,

Contact - 98291626

Indian house maid looking full time

job. Contact : 98254909

B.E. Civil Engineer age 27, total 3

years of experience in Mumbai look-

ing for placement asap in oman now

on visit visa of 1 month

ph 9571 3441

Email. Khatrialeem@gmail.com

Indian Male, 29 years, CCNP, MCITP

having Bachelor degree and 6 years

of experience in Networking looking

for job. 96760618 /

varghese.manthara@gmail.com

ACCA affi liate, with 2.5 years

experience in Big6 audit fi rm and

Oil industry, looking for permanent

placement in Accounts/Audit.

Release available

Contact :95140445

a.saran891@gmail.com

Sudanese male, 31 year old, have 3

year Diploma in electrical engineer,

5 years experience in diff erent activ-

ities . Mobile No ; +96894549609

Indian Female, Commerce Gradu-

ate, Total 9 yrs of experience in

India. worked as Accounts Assistant

and Business executive seeking for

suitable placement.

Tel : 96173533/24222457

Email : topranidivya@gmail.com

8 yrs exp Site supervisor cum 2d,

3d Draughtsman (holding Omani

driving license) seeking job.

Contact : 93790601

Indian Male, 29 years, CCNP, MCITP

having Bachelor degree and 6 years

of experience in Networking looking

for job. 96760618 /

varghese.manthara@gmail.com

B.E. Civil Engineer from India with

3 years of experience looking for

suitable vacancy in oman now on

visit visa. Contact 9571 3441,

Email . Khatrialeem@gmail.com

Indian male 21 IT Eng. networking &

computer hardware diploma, 1 year

experience, currently on visit visa

looking for a suitable job.

Contact 96036273

email: faizanfarooqui23@gmail.com

Indian, 32 years, completed M.A.

English, M.Sc. Psychology and B.Ed

in English. Searching for suitable

job in the fi eld of teaching. To

Contact: 00968 99869535

Email: sahadkeyi33@gmail.com

Iraqi Pharmacist with 15 years

experience as regulatory aff airs and

Marketing Manager seeking job in

pharmaceutical co.

Mobile 96720441

Indian Male 24 years, Looking for a

Suitable Job in Telecom / Network-

ing. 1 year sales experience. MSc.

Communications Engineering &

Valid Driving license. Ph: 91280121.

Email: jackrprasad@yahoo.com

Female Executive Assistant/Execu-

tive Secretary with 27+ experience,

worked with top management/

Board in fi nancial services with

shorthand skills & Omani driving

license, seeks suitable placement.

call 95941515

26 years Indian male with MBA &

PGDFM, Total 3.8 years experience

in Administration, seeking suit-

able placement in any gulf region.

Holding Oman valid driving license.

Contact :94501423

24 year Indian Chartered Account-

ant male with 3yrs of experience is

seeking suitable placement in Mus-

cat, currently on visit visa & ready

to join immediately. Contact him on

98201476 or email at

lokeshkaluri@gmail.com

SITUATION WANT-

EDSIT. WANTED

*Classifi ed Advertisement space booking with text, should be done till 12.00 noon

for next day’s publication. * Subject to space availability

B.Sc. Mechanical Engineer Suda-

nese 3 yrs of exp. In industrial fi eld

available in Muscat on visit visa

seeking suitable job .

Contact: 95868922, Email:

almouthanaosman@yahoo.com

Indian Male MBA with two year

experience in H.R as a H.R As-

sistant, Now in India, Seeking

for an urgent suitable position.

Contact:-98620260 / 93895992 ,

Email:-deepakmb4@gmail.com

8 years successful experience.

Senior Accountant, Indian male,29

years, presently working in oman

as a senior accountant with oman

driving license. NOC available. seek

suitable opportunity. gsm: 97705854

DAILY GUIDEW E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5 D7

SITUATION WANTEDCARGO

Dolphin Watch, Dhow Cruise

with Buffet, & Land Tours Al- Ainain

Marine Tours Contact- 98029602,

92808636

RENT A CAR

RENT A CAR

TOURS

GOOD NEWS

GOOD NEWS

Ayurvedic treatment for joint pain,

backache, paralysis massage, steam

bath, obesity, spondylitis IDEAL ,

CARE Ayurvedic Clinic 18 November

street, Azaiba. Contact 99639695 /

99117987

FREE INFORMATION ABOUT IS-LAM. If you would like to know more

about Islam, please call: 99425598,

96050000, 99353988, 99253818,

99341395, and 99379133.

For ladies: 99415818, 99321360,

99730723

Orvisit: www.islamfact.com

Ayurvedic treatment for backache,

paralysis, arthritis etc & massage,

All Season (Vaidyaratnam).

Contact 24475280 / 95371554 /

92504980 www.siddhayur.com

Genuine Ayurvedic treatments &

massage, Ayurvedic clinic at

Al Khuwair. Contact 24478618 /

97263637 /93309131

Butter cup rent a car presents fantastic off ers all vehicles are model 2016.

Contact : 97249449

Available car with driver daily,

weekly and monthly basis.

Contact : 95518612

Ayurvedic massage backache, joint

pain & neck pain etc.

Contact: 98254909

DRIVING

Learn driving with professional

only automatic. Contact

94022250

DAILY GUIDE Tel. 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com

D8 W E D N E S D AY, J U N E 1 7, 2 0 1 5

SITUATION WANTEDSERVICES

SITUATION WANT-SERVICES

SITUATION WANT-SERVICES

Specialist available for explosive

growth in term of restructuring

all modules of businesses with

over 30 years of experience across

continents with a decade in Oman.

Contact 96733578

Email : profi toman@gmail.com

Split & window A.C servicing &

maintenance. Contact 93769089 /

95323517

House shifting & transporting.

Contact 92490422

Carpet & sofa cleaning, house clean-

ing. Contact 99542979 / 98855815

Split & window A.C servicing &

maintenance. Contact: 96236476

Window & split unit A.C servicing

& repairing. Contact 99557080

Split & window A.C servic-

ing & maintenance. Contact

93769089/95323517

Air condition maintenance split

and window services AC specialist

ducted and package type unites.

Contact: 98667326

Carpet Shampoo, marble & tile

polishing, pest control & anti-ter-

mite treatment, general cleaning

painting, Plumbing, Electrical,

shifting. Contact Mundhir

Al-Rizaiqi trading. L.L.C.

# 24810137, 99450130

Ramadhan Gifts with company

name printable advertisement

on t-shirt, clock.

Contact: 98796982

House shifting packing.

99657644 / 98518013

WEBSITE

WEB, ERP and Business Intelli-

gence (BI) creation and man-

agement at rock bottom price.

Contact: http//webviewoman

CLASSES

COMPUTER

ACCOUNTANTS AND CONSULTANTS

WE ARE PROVIDINGACCOUNTING/ AUDITING

TAX/ CONSULTINGCONTACT: 24 567 251 / 95 498 033

GUARANTEED CLEANING: Carpet

& sofa shampooing, Contact

99314807/24792998

MARBLE CRYSTALLIZATION restore the original shine of

your marble. Contact 24793614/

99314807

House shifting. Contact

99708138

Learn Cup cakes, exotic cakes, Icing

decorations, handicrafts.

Contact 95941515

BUSINESS

General Investors. Contact

99674870

SITUATION WANT-MANPOWER

Available for longer period : Mig

Welder 5 nos, General worker with

PDO pass 10 nos, Helper 10 nos,

Mason 8 nos. Contact 99610703

SITUATION WANT-

EDSIT. WANTED

Water proofi ng ABUQABAS-

Contact 99320217/24788722

Marble Restoration, Mosaic tiles

polishing, carpet shampooing,

maintenance.Contact ABU QABAS-

99320217 /24788722

Finance ACCA Affi liate, 2.5 years

experience in audit/fi nance and oil

company in reputed fi rms. Looking

for suitable permanent place-

ment. Release available. Contact

95140445, a.saran891@gmail.com

B.E Biomedical Engineer, having 5

years of experience in Diagnostics

division seeking suitable position.

94151658

Indian Male 34 years Mechanical

Engineer 3 years of Experience seek-

ing suitable placement immediately

Contact: 91991435, 93310821

Electronics and instrumentation

Engineer 28 year Indian male, elec-

trical, electronic, industrial, building

& automation exp of 4+ yrs in India.

Contact - 93154156

CCNP Network Professional with 6 years experience having

Bachelors degree on visit visa looking

for suitable job. #96760618 email:

varghese.manthara@gmail.com

Indian female with MBA (Finance)

on visit visa, seeks immediate place-

ment. Phone: 968-98430089

Civil Engineer, Diploma, Male 25, 3

years experience in site, CAD, 3d, MS

Project, Seeking job in Oman.

Contact 92875345,

jubincivileng@gmail.com

Indian male, Engineer, BE Mechani-

cal, having with 21 years of experi-

ence in India and 13 years in Oman,

In production, project management,

quality control and assurance and

MR for ISO and API Standards look-

ing out for a suitable placement

in Oman. GSM: 00968 97311616.

E-MAIL: fahazasa@yahoo.com

Indian female B.ED & BCA looking

for a suitable placement in school

or admin offi ce, having 5 yrs exp in

same fi eld. Contact – 97384206 /

rani_sweet786@live.com

Indian female, B.Com. knowledge of

MS Offi ce & Tally, 4yrs experience in

Accounts &admin dept. looking for

good placement in any fi eld.

Contact.98928220

CCNP Network Professional with 6

years experience having Bachelors

degree on visit visa looking for

suitable job. Contact: 96 76 06 18

Indian male, total experience is 5

years in Retail industry. Currently

supervisor in Sun and sand sports

Muscat City centre.

Contact : 96994345.

Email : jsp.jsr85@gmail.com

SITUATION WANTEDCHANGE OF NAME

SITUATION WANTEDLOST

SITUATION WANTEDCHANGE OF COMPANY NAME

We, Sebastian Mannamthuruthil George (name of father as per the pass-

port holder of Indian passport No. J 5561755 and Jemini Sebastian (name of

the mother, holder of Indian passport No. F 6582603) having permanent ad-

dress in Mannamthuruthil House, Edathua PO, Alappuzha, Kerala (complete

postal address in India) and presently residing at the following address in

Oman, P.B No. 2542, P.C No. 112, Sultanate of Oman, here by solemnly affi rm

and declare to change the name of our child Master Unni George Sebastian

(name as per present passport), holder of Indian passport No. J5562354

date of issue 26/06/11 issued at Muscat. The name of our child will be

henceforth known as George Sebastian (new name for all purposes). Any

objection towards change of name of our minor child may please be com-

municated to Embassy of India, Muscat , Diplomatic Quarters, Al Khuwair,

PB No. 1727, PC 112, Ruwi, Sultanate of Oman.

Obaid Mosbah AlSheyadi & his Partner for Trad joint Company which

is recorded under the commercial register in directorate general for trade

industry number 3307972 is going to change its name to Zajel Alshmal Al

mumayza for Trad joint Company. This is to inform anybody who concerns

about that.

Mohammad Monju has lost Bangladeshi Passport No. AF 3382562. Finder

please handover to ROP