Volume 23 | Number 7824 | 2 RiyalsFriday 8 March 2019 | 1 Rajab 1440 www.thepeninsula.qa

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BUSINESS | 14 SPORT | 18

Arnaus, Walters share Qatar Masters lead

Qatar-New Zealand working

to boost economic relations

Members of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy's (SC) Accessibility Forum recently visited Al Wakrah Stadium to review its facilities for people with disabilities. The visit forms part of the SC's drive to ensure the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is the most accessible tournament in history. Saeed Al Marri, from the Qatar Social and Cultural Centre for the Deaf, described the accessibility plans as 'extraordinary'. �P3

US Democrats bar Fox News from hosting poll debates

QNA WASHINGTON

The US Democratic National Committee (DNC) have announced that Fox News won’t be permitted to broadcast any of its 2020 presidential primary debates, following a report published in The New Yorker about the close relationship between the Trump adminis-tration and the conservative cable network.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez said on Twitter, “Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate rela-tionship between President Trump, his administration and FOX News has led me to con-clude that the network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates.”

“Just to be clear, Fox News will not serve as a media partner for the 2020 Demo-cratic primary debates,” he added.

QNA DOHA

The Ministry of Finance announced yesterday that it has issued bonds worth $12bn in international financial markets.

The State of Qatar has achieved a successful return to the international financial markets with a total of three tranches worth a total of $12bn.

The first tranche included five-year bonds worth $2bn and the second tranche for 10 years worth $4bn, while the third tranche is for 30 years worth $6bn, and as in the previous year, the value of tenders on Qatari bonds amounted to more than $50bn, the Ministry said in a statement .

The interest rate on bonds issued by the Min-istry of Finance on behalf of the State of Qatar was 90 basis points over US Treasury bonds on five-year bonds, and the 10-year bond rate was 135 basis points, while the 30-year bond interest rate was 175 basis points above US Treasury bonds, it added.

Qatar is the first country in the world to issue Formosa bonds on the Taipei Stock Exchange since 2018.

The 2049 bonds for 30 years are expected to be dual-listed on both the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the Taipei Stock Exchange to ensure access to the deepest pockets of liquidity available through these markets.

Qatar calls for efforts to stop human rights violations from siegeQNA GENEVA

The State of Qatar has expressed the hope that the Office of the High Commis-sioner for Human Rights and the relevant mechanisms of the Council would continue efforts to stop human rights violations resulting from the continued blockade and unilateral coercive measures imposed on Qatar since June 2017, docu-mented in the report of the substantive mission of the Office of the High Commis-sioner, which visited Doha, and

working to compensate the victims and hold those respon-sible accountable.

In this regard, it stressed the High Commissioner’s statement that the failure to respect all human rights in a balanced manner would have a negative impact on the three pillars of the work of the United Nations: peace, security, development and human rights.

This came in the speech delivered by Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri, Per-manent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United N a t i o n s O f f i c e i n

Geneva yesterday, during the interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner for Human Rights under item (2) of the agenda of the Human Rights Council.

Ambassador Ali Khalfan said that the continuation of grave violations and crimes against the Syrians require the international community to act to protect them and to hold those responsible accountable.

He said that the political solution agreed upon by all seg-ments of the Syrian people to meet their legitimate demands is the only solution that would

end the crisis and maintain the unity, independence and sover-eignty of Syria.

He stressed that the contin-uation of the Israeli occupation, the ongoing construction of set-tlements and the unjust siege on Gaza, the targeting and killing of peaceful Palestinian demon-strators and all other violations documented in United Nations reports would not have been possible without the silence and inability shown by the interna-tional community to hold all Israeli officials accountable for violations and crimes against the people Palestinian conflict.

Ambassador Ali Khalfan called on all conflicting parties in Libya and Yemen to exercise restraint and abide by interna-tional humanitarian law and to proceed with negotiations with the participation of all compo-nents in order to stop fighting and achieve national reconciliation.

Concluding, the Ambassador stressed the support of the State of Qatar for the efforts of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and its Office for the Pro-motion and Protection of Human Rights.

Accessibility for disabled people to FIFA World Cup stadium hailed

Govt reaffirms support for farms to boost productionTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Minister of Municipality and Environment (MME), H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie said yesterday that the Ministry is keen to provide full support to productive agri-culture, animal and fish farms to increase their production.

The Minister was speaking with a group of owners of local farms, where he was briefed on the obstacles and difficulties in increasing agricultural production.

The Minister lauded the important and effective role played by the owners of farms in the past by increasing agricul-tural production and raising self-sufficiency in local production of several agricultural commodities.

H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz said that Qatar gives great importance to the agriculture

sector because of its role in achieving food security. Helped by the various initiatives taken by the Ministry and proactive role of the private sector, the self sufficiency in food production of Qatar has increased significantly.

According to the data of MME, Qatari market has reached attained self sufficiency in some product categories such as poultry, fresh milk and shrimp.

Country’s self sufficiency in poultry has reached 124 percent while it is 105 percent in case of fresh milk production. The pro-duction of shrimp in the country is now able to meet the local demand fully.

H E the Minister of Munici-pality and Environment noted the importance of agricultural marketing to improve the quality of agricultural pro-duction, and the role of the Min-istry in supporting farmers through opening winter vege-table markets for marketing local agricultural products.

The Minister called on farmers to adopt modern tech-niques of farming to conserve water and overcome the obstacles related to soil salinity, high temperature and so on.

The Assistant Undersecretary of Agriculture and Fisheries Affairs at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment Sheikh Dr Faleh bin Nasser Al

Thani had said earlier that the country achieved high levels of self-sufficiency in some agricul-tural and animal products and country’s food security strategy is proceeding successfully.

The Ministry is preparing to announce an initiative for egg production during the next agri-cultural exhibition. The initiative will help in meeting over 70

percent of the local market demand for eggs.

The Assistant Undersecretary confirmed that all agricultural commodities targeted in the food security strategy will be fully covered within a few years.

MME plans to introduce advanced LED farming tech-nology in Qatar which will bring radical changes in agriculture

sector as the technology will help improve the quality and quantity of products.

The new technology is also called closed-door-farming where LED lighting is used in place of sunlight and air-conditioner is used instead of natural ventilation to solve the problem of hot weather during summer.

Minister of Municipality and Environment, H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie meeting with owners of local productive farms, yesterday.

Qatar issues bonds worth $12bn in global markets

The Minister of Municipality and Environment called on farmers to adopt modern techniques of farming to conserve water and overcome the obstacles related to soil salinity, high temperature and so on.

02 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019HOME

Qatar: Grave violations against Syrians escalating under impunityQNA GENEVA

The State of Qatar has affirmed that serious violations of human rights and crimes committed against the Syrian people for nine years, both by the Syrian regime and its allies or by terrorist groups, are increasing and escalating in light of full impunity, both nationally and internationally.

This came in a statement by the Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the U N Office in Geneva, Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri, during the 40th session of the Human Rights Council on the issue “Bridging the Gap between Human Rights Investigations and Reports and Criminal Accountability of Basic Crimes, an Example of United Nations Cooperation in the Context of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

He said in view of the inability or unwillingness of the national judicial system in Syria to assume its legal responsibilities, prosecute and hold those responsible for these violations and heinous crimes, and the failure of the inter-national community to refer the Syrian file to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State of Qatar has supported all efforts aimed to promote accountability in Syria, pointing out that the Prin-cipality of Liechtenstein and the State of Qatar submitted a reso-lution to the UN General Assembly to establish an independent and impartial mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for crimes against humanity in Syria. Reso-lution 71/248 was adopted on December 21, 2016, with 105 countries voting in favour.

The Permanent Represent-ative of Qatar noted that the success and progress made regarding the mechanism’s work would pave the way and encourage many States and other

stakeholders to exert further efforts, procedures and legal measures, including investigations by a number of States within the framework of the universal juris-diction as a rule of law mechanism to ensure fair justice and to combat impunity for crimes and serious violations of international law, international humanitarian law and human rights.

Close cooperation between the international mechanism and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria and cooperation with States, rel-evant actors and Syrian civil society organizations with a view to organizing the exchange of information and evidence would have a significant impact on ensuring accountability, justice and redress for Syrian victims, Al Mansouri said, pointing out that this is a prerequisite for reaching a political solution in accordance with the Geneva Declaration 1 and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and for achieving a lasting and comprehensive peace in Syria.

Al Mansouri appreciated the

position of all countries and parties that provided financial support to the international mech-anism, calling for continued support to enable it to carry out its mandate and tasks in the best way. He underlined that an inter-national conference on “national, regional and international mech-anisms to combat impunity and ensure accountability under inter-national law” will be held on April 14-15 in Doha in cooperation and coordination between Qatar National Human Rights Com-mittee (NHRC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and the European Parliament. Many rep-resentatives of States, non-gov-ernmental organizations, experts and lawyers will participate in the conference, he added.

The Ambassador reiterated Qatar’s firm position in supporting the legitimate demands of Syrian people and the international mechanism in order to facilitate and accelerate the advancement of fair and independent criminal proceedings in accordance with international law.

The Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the UN Office in Geneva, Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri, during the session in Geneva.

QU’s Biomedical Research Center hosts workshopTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) at Qatar University (QU) in coordination with the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), organised and hosted a workshop on “Bioinformatics and Laboratory Investigations of Emerging Pathogens and Epidemics,” which was supported by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF).

The workshop aimed at introducing medical and public health professionals to the new bioinformatics approaches that are used in outbreak investiga-tions of emerging and re-emerging pathogens including viral and bacterial pathogens.

The connectedness of popu-lations across the globe through international travel and trade, along with the increase of newly emerging pathogens, has led to the rapid spread of diseases. This is illustrated by the SARS-coro-navirus outbreak in 2003 and the global spread of pandemic H1N1 in 2009. To mitigate the risks of

emerging diseases for public and veterinary sectors, coordinated and collaborative approaches across domains of infectious dis-eases (ID) are essential. With the above observations comes the notion that preparedness planning is needed to ensure ade-quate response to emerging ID cases or outbreaks.

Qatar faces several chal-lenges with respect to prepar-edness for emerging ID threat-ening veterinary and human health. Qatar also has a heavy influx of foreign labor with expa-triates constituting 94 percent of a total labor force of 1.3 million people and originating from countries in Africa and Asia endemic for zoonoses. These increasing demands will go hand-in-hand with increased risks for introduction of zoonoses into the country, which raises the alarm about the importance of preparedness planning, and building the knowledge to ensure effective responses to emerging infectious disease cases or outbreaks.

This event hosted interna-tionally renowned experts from

the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), which is a world leader in genomic and bioinformatics research.

The workshop was a Cat-egory 1 - Accredited Group Learning Activity as defined by the Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioners Accreditation Department and qualified for a maximum of 30 credit hours for all topics. The event drew the participation of over 35 health care professionals from different institutes in Qatar. The opening session was delivered by Prof. Asma Al Thani, QU College of Health Sciences (CHS) Dean and BRC Director, followed by QNRF representative talk by Dr. Mohammed Jarrar, Senior Manager of Biomedical and Health Research and Associate Professor in QNRF.

The workshop was mod-erated by Dr Hadi Yassine, BRC Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases. During the four-day event, participants attended dif-ferent theoretical sessions, fol-lowed by hands-on trainings on advanced bioinformatics tools in the field of ID.

The participants during the workshop.

Bowel cancer preventable and treatable: ExpertFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

Bowel cancer patients have a chance of a 90 percent survival rate, when the disease is caught at an early stage. Screening can detect cancer before it has a chance to progress into later stages that are harder to treat, according to an expert.

According to a recent data from Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health, among the top malignant primary sites of cancer in Qatar, 10.23 percent instances reported were for bowel cancer.

“Bowel cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Qatar and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths

in both men and women in the country,” said Dr Shaikha Abu Shaikha, Manager of Screening Programs at Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC).

“We are committed to educate the public about the importance of prevention and specifically about limiting their risk of developing a disease such as bowel cancer by taking steps such as making lifestyle changes and being screened for bowel cancer regularly. Screenings are particularly important as bowel cancer can be non-symptomatic and the disease can develop without any early warning signs,” she added.

As part of Qatar’s National Cancer Program, PHCC, through

its highly successful “Screen for Life” program, is making breast and bowel screening available in different locations of the country at its state-of-its-art screening suites in Al Wakra, Leabaib and Rawdat Al Khail health centres. Bowel Cancer Screening is for men and women aged 50-74 years with no related symptoms and it is recommended to get screened every year.

Also there are many asso-ciated facts which can help someone make a wise decision. Bowel cancer is not a man’s disease, it can affect both men and women.

Bowel cancer cannot be pre-vented and this type of cancer begins with small growths on the

inner wall of the colon and rectum, called polyps.

These can develop and exist over a long period of time before becoming cancer. Screening can find these polyps and they can be removed before they become cancer.

Most people with bowel cancer do not have a family member with the disease. Sta-tistics reveal that only 10-20 percent of people that are diag-nosed with bowel cancer have a family history.

A polyp is a precancerous lesion that may eventually progress into bowel cancer if not detected at the right time. Regular screening can help prevent the situation from arising.

Qatar, New Zealand review bilateral relations

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand, Fletcher Tabuteau, currently visiting the country. During the meeting, bilateral relations and ways of boosting them were discussed, as well as matters of common concern.

Qatar affirms initiatives to provide quality educationQNA GENEVA

Qatar has affirmed its keenness in education is not limited to the provision of this right to its citizens and residents, but also it adopted international and regional initia-tives aimed at providing quality education for millions of children who have been deprived of this right due to poverty, armed conflict, insecurity, disasters and discrimination. This came in a statement by the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the UN Office in Geneva, Ambassador H E Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri, on the sidelines of the 40th session of the Human Rights Council on the issue “Education in the 2030 agenda - No one left behind: children with disabilities, girls, forcibly displaced children and minorities”.

As part of Qatar’s keenness in

education, he referred to the Protect Education in Insecurity and Conflict (PEIC) Programme, which is a founding member of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), and the Educate A Child programme, which suc-ceeded as an unprecedented ini-tiative to enrol 10 million children in school through the implemen-tation of more than 65 projects in 50 countries, in partnership with 82 global partners.

This year, he said, marks the 30th anniversary of the UN Con-vention on the Rights of the Child, which is the most widely ratified human rights treaty, and which states that the right to education is among the basic rights of the child, pointing out that this anni-versary represents a valuable opportunity for all parties to exert further efforts to provide and protect this right.

He also stressed that access to quality education is an essential foundation for achieving sus-tainable development, and is the real gateway to the enjoyment of all other rights, underlying the importance of working together to implement the fourth goal of the sustainable development, namely ensuring the provision of quality, equitable and compre-hensive education for all, as well as all other relevant goals.

The envoy said that the goal of education for all cannot be achieved without the full recog-nition and realisation of the right to education for all children without discrimination through concerted international and national efforts to overcome obstacles and promote and support good practices which are one of the main goals of this high-level event.

03FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 HOME

Meeting of GCC Ground Forces Commanders concludes

The 18th meeting of GCC Ground Forces Commanders ended yesterday, after running for two days at the General Secretariat headquarters in Riyadh. The delegation of the State of Qatar was chaired by the Deputy Commander of the Qatari Amiri Land Force, Brigadier General Saeed Haseen Al Khayarin. During the meeting, they discussed issues related to joint military action and ways to enhance cooperation between the ground forces, in addition to a brief presentation on the unified military leadership of the GCC countries.

Qatar, Tajikistan

review bilateral ties

DUSHANBE: The Minis-

ter of Foreign Affairs of the

Republic of Tajikistan, Sirod-

jidin Muhridinovich, met with

the Ambassador of the State

of Qatar to Tajikistan, Ibrahim

bin Mohammed Al Abdul-

lah. During the meeting, they

discussed the bilateral rela-

tions and ways to boost and

develop them, as well as top-

ics of common interest. QNA

OFFICIAL NEWS

Qatar condemns

attack in Iraq

DOHA: Qatar expressed

strong condemnation and

denunciation of the attack

on security forces in northern

Iraq, which resulted in deaths

and injuries. In a state-

ment, the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs reiterated Qatar’s

firm stance rejecting violence

and terrorism regardless of

the motives and causes. The

statement expressed the

State of Qatar’s condolences

to the families of victims as

well as to the government

and people of Iraq, wishing

the wounded speedy

recovery. QNA

Accessibility Forum

praises facilities at

Al Wakrah StadiumTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Members of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy’s (SC) Accessibility Forum recently visited Al Wakrah Stadium to review its facilities for people with disabilities. Organised by the Community Engagement Division, the visit forms part of the SC’s drive to ensure the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is the most accessible tournament in history.

The members were given a tour of the stadium and provided with specific information related to accessibility, such as the prox-imity of disabled parking spots and wheelchair access. Members also tested one of the washrooms to ensure it is suitable for people with disabilities.

Moza Al Harami, Senior Architect, accompanied members on the visit and explained the sta-dium’s commitment to accessi-bility. “Today’s visit is important because it allows us to receive feedback from the very people who will visit and benefit from the stadium when it is completed,” said Al Harami. “We are com-mitted to ensuring that our sta-diums are accessible as possible – and we couldn’t do that without input from groups such as the Accessibility Forum. We are still at a stage where we can change certain aspects of the stadium to support accessibility and will take all the recommendations we have received into consideration.”

In addition to learning about

the stadium’s accessibility fea-tures, members were given a full overview of the construction project, which will soon be com-pleted. They also learned about the legacy plans for the venue, which include the development of a school, wedding hall, cycling and running tracks, restaurants and other amenities. Members were also briefed on the SC’s Workers’ Welfare Standards.

Saeed Al Marri, from the Qatar Social and Cultural Centre for the Deaf, described the acces-sibility plans as ‘extraordinary’.

“I’m very proud of Qatar’s efforts to make the country more accessible for people with disa-bilities,” said Al Marri, who was speaking in sign language. “The work being done at Al Wakrah Stadium is extraordinary and I’m looking forward to returning when the construction has been completed to test all the different accessibility features.”

Al Marri travelled to Russia with the Accessibility Forum during last summer’s World Cup and is confident Qatar will be better equipped for hosting people with disabilities.

Talib Al Marri, from Qatar Rehabilitation Centre, said: “The SC has offered members of the disabled community a golden opportunity to leave a positive mark on the country’s World Cup journey. I would like to thank the SC and Qatar for considering their needs and ensuring the 2022 World Cup will be a smooth expe-rience for them.”

The dignitaries at the opening of the Palestinian Cultural Days.

Palestinian Cultural Days open in DohaQNA DOHA

Palestinian Cultural Days opened yesterday in Doha, attracting dozens of ambassadors and diplomats accredited by the states.

The ceremony began with the national anthems of Qatar and Palestine. On display, there was a large model of Al Aqsa mosque that also had replicas of its streets and stores.

The Ambassador of Palestine to Qatar, Mounir Abdullah Ghanam, said that the event was prepared, designed and carried out by Palestinian school staff, teachers, students and students. He added that the message was to highlight Al Quds Arab identity, and to stress that Al

Quds is a capital for Palestine. He added that another message was to show that Palestinians remain connected to their land.

Responding to a Qatar News Agency (QNA) question on Qatari support of Palestinian cause, the Ambassador that the school in Qatar expresses its thanks to Qatar’s Amir, government, and people for their constant support of the Palestinians’ right of an independent state with Al Quds as its capital.

For his part, Deputy Ambas-sador of Palestine in Doha and the supervisor of Palestinian schools in the country, Dr Yehia Zakaria El Agha, said in a statement that Palestinian Days is the most important cultural event related to Palestine that takes place in Qatar.

He said that visitors to the large replica of Al Quds will see all its famous 11 gates. He added that the model was an imple-mentation of what the students took in their class. He noted also that the paintings of the students were all related to Al Quds.

For her part, Secretary-General of Qatar National Com-mission for Education, Culture and Science (QNCECS) Dr Hamda Hassan Al Sulaiti stressed on the importance of celebrating Pal-estinian heritage, praising the organizers of the event for their ability to recreate Al Quds with its streets and traditions.

Al Sulaiti added that the commission has a special interest in the Palestinian cause, given it is the central issue of all Arab and Muslim organizations.

Chief of Staff meets with Iraqi Air Force Commander

The Chief of Staff of the Qatari Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General (Pilot) H E Ghanem bin Shaheen Al Ghanem, met with the Iraq’s Air Force Commander Lieutenant-General, Anwar Hamad Amin. They reviewed bilateral relations and the means to enhance them.

Participants in Joint Al Jazeera Shield Drills 10 honoured

The leadership of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia honoured the heads of delegations participating in the Joint Al Jazeera Shield Drills 10, in which a Qatari Force participated alongside the GCC Forces. The Commander of the Qatari Force, Brigadier General Khamis Mohammed Dablan, exchanged shields and souvenirs with the Commander of the Eastern Province, Assistant Commander of the Eastern Province and Commander of Al Jazeera Shield Forces.

Over 7,000 people visit kite festivalTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Over 7,000 visitors have flocked to the Aspire Zone Foundation park for the third edition of the Aspire International Kite Festival. Families from Qatar’s communities revelled in a fun-filled atmosphere to learn about the latest and greatest trends in kite making and flying.

The blue skies about Aspire were filled with a hundred vivid kite designs that were inspired by creatures from the desert and the sea. Kites reflecting colourful whales, fish, octopuses, giraffes were joined by a gigantic dragon and a series of horses.

Commenting on the huge number of visitors that were in attendance, a member of the organising committee of the Aspire International Kite Fes-tival, Tahani Khalifa Al Suwaidi, said: “The fact that thousands of visitors were scattered across Aspire park during the very first day of the festival exceeded our

expectations. Guests were treated to exclusive kites designed by international teams. I would like to invite people from all walks of life to come and see activities on offer at the Festival.”

This year’s edition of the fes-tival saw kites portraying con-temporary designs from all over the world. From the Eastern par-ticipants, India’s team was seen flying their handmade bright kites that depicted the rich her-itage of India.

On the other side of the field, the French kite professionals flew kites displaying French modern and contemporary art. The Italian team was also present with their spectacular kites at the very centre of the field. The Kuwaiti team’s impressive presence was strongly felt, with kites flown by the team comprising of Abdel-rahman Al Faresi, Mohammed Al Farasi, Mubarak Marzooq, Mohammed Al Mosowy, and Saoud Al Ghareeb.

Qatari Amiri Air Force

takes part in JADEX

DOHA: The Qatari Amiri

Air Force has participated

in Joint Air Defense Exer-

cise (JADEX), carried out by

the US Air Force at Al Udeid

Air Base. During the exercise,

air drills were carried out

by Mirage aircraft (2000-

5) and B-1 aircraft against

F-15 aircraft. This exercise is

a simulation of the theater

operations, as well as a sim-

ulation of medium-range

ballistic missile threats. QNA

04 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Algerian lawyers and journalists take part in a protest against their ailing president’s bid for a fifth term in power, in Algiers, yesterday.

Bouteflika warns against chaos ahead of protestsAFP ALGIERS

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika warned yesterday of the risk of “chaos”, on the eve of major planned protests against his bid for a fifth term in office.

The 82-year-old leader, who has been in Switzerland since late February for medical reasons, said in a message released by the official APS news agency that trouble-makers may try to infiltrate the rallies to provoke turmoil.

“Many of our fellow citizens” have demonstrated across the North African country “to peace-fully express their views,” he was quoted as saying.

“However, we must call for vigilance and caution in case this peaceful expression is infiltrated by some insidious party... which could cause chaos.”

He made no mention of demonstrators’ demands that he back down from his bid to seek re-election in April 18 polls, which has sparked waves of protest.

But echoing other senior Algerian officials, he warned of a return to the “national tragedy” of Algeria’s decade-long civil war and of the “crises and tragedies caused by terrorism” in neigh-bouring countries.

Algeria has largely avoided the conflicts unleashed by the Arab Spring uprisings that brought down rulers in neigh-bouring Tunisia and Libya.

But discontent, particularly among the country’s youth,

turned to anger in February as the veteran leader announced another bid for power.

In office for two decades, Bouteflika uses a wheelchair and has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013.

Israel razes 2 Palestinian homes in West BankANATOLIA RAMALLAH

Israeli forces yesterday demol-ished the home of a Palestinian man accused of killing two Israeli soldiers in a shooting attack in the West Bank last December.

Israeli bulldozers destroyed the home of Assem Barghouthi in the village of Kubar north of Ram-allah at dawn yesterday, according to witnesses.

Witnesses said that Israeli forces had cordoned off the area surrounding the targeted home, triggering clashes with dozens of Palestinian youths. Israeli soldiers then reportedly used live ammu-nition to disperse the crowds.

The Israeli authorities accuse Barghouthi of killing two sol-diers and injuring eight Israeli settlers last year in two sep-arate shooting attacks in the West Bank. Assem was arrested by Israeli forces on Jan. 8 fol-lowing a monthlong manhunt. Assem’s brother, Saleh, was shot dead by Israeli forces last December for his alleged involvement in the attacks.

The Israeli army still relies on “emergency” legislation dating back to the British Mandate period (1920-1948) to demolish Pales-tinian homes whose owners are accused of carrying out attacks on Israelis.

In the West Bank city of

More suspected IS members leave holdout in SyriaAP BAGHOUZ, SYRIA

Scores of suspected IS members, including foreign fighters, were screened and searched for concealed weapons and explosives yesterday after leaving the last pocket of territory held by the Islamic State group in Syria.

The men, their faces covered with dust, were divided into three groups - Syrians, Iraqis and other nationalities. Their names were taken and they were fingerprinted outside the eastern village of Baghouz, where the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by US troops, have been battling the militants since September.

On Wednesday, hundreds of evacuees walked through the dusty desert plateau to get on trucks to carry them to displaced persons camps miles away. Meanwhile, lines of men walked guided by SDF troops to another corner of the plateau to be screened and searched.

As IS’s defeat neared, the anger of defiant supporters

among the evacuees increased.On Wednesday night, seven

Yazidis, including two women, arrived at the SDF-controlled side. One of them identified herself as Israa, 20, and said she was sold as a sex slave to 10 dif-ferent men. Many Yazidis, fol-lowers of a minority faith, are still missing five years after IS militants stormed Yazidi towns and villages in Iraq’s Sinjar region and abducted women and children.

Yesterday, the two Yazidi women - Israa and Adiba Murad, both 21, took off their veils and burned them in front of women fighters of the Women’s Pro-tection Units, or YPJ, that is part of the SDF.

Thousands of people have trickled out of Baghouz in the last few days, a wave of evacu-ations that has brought the IS a step closer to defeat at the hands of the SDF.

Palestinian leader calls for boycott of new US embassy unitAP/JERUSALEM

The Palestinian leadership is urging the international community to boycott the newly created US Embassy unit that will handle rela-tions with Palestinians. Palestinian official Saeb Erekat issued a statement calling upon the diplomatic community “not to engage in any kind of formal relationship or collaboration” with the new Palestinian affairs unit, which will take over the responsibilities of the shuttered US consulate. The US move to close the consulate earlier this week was the latest decision from the Trump adminis-tration to infuriate the Palestinians, who view the closure as a “down-grade” and “new assault” on the prospect of a US-brokered solution to the conflict. The unit will grant ambassador David Friedman, a staunch supporter of the Israeli West Bank settler movement, authority over US relations with the Palestinians.

Israeli election monitor blocks Arab party, clears far-rightistsREUTERS/JERUSALEM

Israel’s election monitor disqualified an Arab party described by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as supporting terrorism from a national election in April, while approving far-right Jewish candi-dates who may be key to his hope of winning a fifth term.

The Central Elections Committee voted 17-10 to bar the joint Arab party Raam-Balad from the election in accordance with a motion filed by Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.

Likud alleged that Balad “championed the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state”, and said that Raam, through its alliance with it, should also be disqualified. The committee also struck down motions by a liberal Jewish movement and centre-left politicians against Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir, adherents of late anti-Arab rabbi Meir Kahane. The motions branded their Jewish Power party as racist.

Palestinians remove the wreckage after Israeli warplanes targeted Hamas’ armed wing Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades position in Khan Yunis, Gaza, yesterday.

Nablus, meanwhile, the Israeli army demolished another Pal-estinian home on the pretext that it had been built without official permission. At dawn yesterday, two bulldozers backed by dozens of soldiers stormed the village of Burqa near Nablus before demolishing the structure, which had been owned by a local Palestinian.

Burqa is located in what the Oslo Accords designate as “Area C” of the West Bank, over which Israel enjoys full administrative and security control.

Palestinians are forbidden to build structures in Area C without first getting permits from the Israeli authorities, which are almost impossible to obtain. Signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liber-ation Organization, the Oslo Accords divided the occupied West Bank —including East Jeru-salem — into Areas A, B, and C.

Area A falls under the Pales-tinian Authority (PA)’s adminis-trative and security control; Area B falls under the PA’s adminis-trative control and Israeli

security control; and Area C falls under the exclusive adminis-trative and security control of Israel.

In a related development, Israeli forces detained 17 Pales-tinians in overnight raids carried out across the West Bank, according to the Israeli army.

Israeli warplanes targeted a Hamas position in the blockaded Gaza Strip early yesterday. Fighter jets reportedly struck a military site affiliated with the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing.

Sudanese protesters defy emergency measures to rally in KhartoumREUTERS/KHARTOUM

Hundreds of protesters hit the streets in several neighbourhoods of Sudan’s capital Khartoum yesterday and security forces rounded up a number of demonstrators calling on President Omar Hassan Al Bashir to step down, witnesses said. It was the latest in a series of protests against Bashir and his National Congress Party across Sudan since December 19. It is the most sustained popular chal-lenge to Bashir since he took power in a military coup 30 years ago.

Witnesses said that activists chose a women’s day theme for yesterday’s protests and many of the hundreds who turned out in Omdurman, across the Nile river from the centre of the capital, and in eastern Khartoum, were female.

Ethiopia says $1.3bn needed to assist displaced peopleAP ADDIS ABABA

Ethiopia is appealing for $1.3bn from the international community to assist 8.3 million displaced due to ethnic conflict as well those vulnerable to climate shocks and disease.

“As I speak today, 8 million people require emergency food or cash assistance,” said Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia’s disaster

prevention chief, speaking at a press conference in the capital. He said that most of the displaced are in the country’s Oromia and Somalia regions. “Out of these, 4.5 million of them have an acute need of humanitarian assistance,” he said.

Ethiopia’s number of inter-nally displaced people nearly doubled in 2018 creating the need for so much humanitarian assistance in 2019, he said.

Ethiopia was engulfed in ethnic-based conflicts in several parts of the country in recent months, notably between the Oromo and Somali ethnic groups, over identity questions and conflict over resources. Con-frontations still persist in other parts of the East African nation, especially between ethnic Amharas and Tigreans in north and north-western Ethiopia.

“Ethiopia is at a transition,”

added Mitiku. “Some of the humanitarian challenges are from conflict hazards we have been seeing in recent months, and it is affecting many people. they are an unfortunate effect of transitional periods.”

An estimated 2.7 million dis-placed people and returnees benefited from assistance last year, but that funding will not go beyond March 2019. “Some 4 million children and pregnant

and lactating women will require therapeutic supplementary feeding and in excess of 600,000 children under five will require treatment for severe acute mal-nutrition. This is huge,” said Aeneas Chuma, the U.N. human-itarian coordinator in Ethiopia. “With its generous open-door policy, Ethiopia continues to provide a safe haven to over 900,000 people fleeing from neighboring countries.

Comoros president survives assassination attemptAFP MORONI

Comoros President Azali Assoumani survived an attempt on his life yesterday as he criss-crossed the country drumming up support ahead of polls on March 24, his campaign director said.

But the opposition insisted the incident on Anjouan island, which Azali’s team said left the president unscathed, was “not at all credible”.

Tensions are high on the Indian Ocean archipelago after a brief armed insurrection on

Anjouan island last year, and Azali’s victory in a controversial referendum that could keep him in power until 2029.

“People left explosives at the top of a mountain to cause an avalanche when it exploded” just as Azali’s convoy passed, said his campaign director Houmed Msaidie. “The president’s car stopped in time,” he added.

Fuses were found at the scene, Msaidie said, adding that the sound of the blast led Azali’s military escort initially to suspect a rocket attack. While no one was hurt in the “attempted

assassination... the sole objective was probably to prevent the elections being held,” he said.

“But the elections will go ahead despite (this) intimi-dation,” he said at a scheduled campaign rally in Anjouan.

Ibrahim Mohamed Soule, campaign director of the oppo-sition Juwa coalition, said Azali’s team “creates fake attacks or fake incidents to deter people from participating in the elections freely”. He said that if the incident was confirmed “we condemn it because the only combat should be at the ballot box.”

Egyptian actor sentenced to 8 years in absentiaAP CAIRO

An Egyptian actor known for his criticism of President Abdel-Fattah Al Sissi’s government says a military court has sentenced him in absentia to eight years in prison in two separate cases.

Amr Waked, a 45-year-old actor living in Spain, said yes-terday his lawyer told him he was convicted of “dissemi-nating false news and insulting state institutions.”

The lawyer, Malek Adly, says he’s asking authorities for more details.

Waked, who has been residing in Barcelona since October 2017, says he has no knowledge of what the cases against him are about. He says he cannot return to Egypt.

He is a UN goodwill ambas-sador and is internationally known for his role in the 2005 thriller “Syriana.”

Egypt has waged a wide crackdown on dissent and the media, jailing thousands of people.

As IS’s defeat neared, the anger of defiant supporters among the evacuees increased.

05FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 ISLAM

Rajab: The month of peace, pluralism

ASLAM ABDULLAH

Rajab is the seventh month of Islamic Lunar Calendar. This month is a prelude to Ramadan, the ninth

month in the Islamic calendar in which Muslims are commanded to observe fasting from sunrise to sunset. It is also one of the four sacred months besides, Muharram (Islamic month 1), Dhul Qa’dah (Islamic month 11) and Dhul Hijjah (Islamic month 12). During these four months hostilities and conflicts have been forbidden and have to come to an end or halt. Additionally, it is also the month remembered for one of the most sacred events to take place in the history of Islam when a human being was chosen by the Creator of the uni-verse to visit the world reserved for the life hereafter.

The event known as Al Isra’ wal Miraj which took place on the 27 day of Rajab with its mys-terious dimensions still incom-prehensible to the human mind. Israa is an Arabic word referring to Prophet Muhammad’s mirac-ulous night journey from Makkah to Jerusalem – specifically, to the site of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jeru-salem – as referred to in Surah Al Israa in the Quran.

It is believed to have been

followed by the Mi’raj, his ascension to heaven. According to some of the Hadith scholars this journey is believed to have taken place just over a year before Prophet Muhammad migrated to from Makkah to Madinah, on the 27th of Rajab.

Muslim scholars have often focused on recommended acts of worship during this month. However, some of these recom-mendations are the subject of debate and scrutiny. The spectrum of opinion range from attaching no specific value to any special act of worship in this month to sanctifying events and particular acts of worship. For instance some scholars have pre-sented some ahadith (sayings of the Prophet) recommending fasting at least once in the month of Rajab, while the others have rejected those ahadith declaring them weak. Unfortunately, few scholars have presented the sig-nificance of the month for a plural society beyond its rele-vance for Muslims. This has shifted the focus from the real significance of the month.

In essence the month of Rajab and the events occurred therein highlight three important features.

Conflicts and hostilities must come to an end to attain peace and commitment to divine

guidance.Human beings have the

capacity to reach the peak of their existence by learning about the hereafter.

Islam is the continuation of the divine guidance and the main objective of the faith is to revere, respect and deliberate the diversity of the divine guidance.

Path to PeaceRajab is declared a sacred

month, hence all hostilities must come to an end in this month. Although divine guidance has always encouraged humanity to refrain from executing their anger into unfavorable actions, there is a special emphasis made

during the four sacred months as it provides a month long reminder. The focus helps them to recognize and control their egos and desire and to refrain from hateful acts of taking revenge especially if it inflicts harm on other. The idea is simple that for four months in a year, a universal understanding in the sense of an ethical framework that people agree to self-restrain and work towards peace in a com-mitted and dedicated manner. People are encouraged not to indulge in anything that can lead to conflicts either at home or in the world at large. This type of thinking would be enough to enable people to live peace throughout the year ensuring that the message of the sanctity of human life is preserved.

Peak of HumanityFrom an Islamic perspective,

the experience of Isra and Miraj, journey to Jerusalem and then ascension to heavens in one night is a significant event in the history of humanity. For the first time, a messenger was invited to heavens to experience the worlds that are yet to emerge and then report it back to the believers. Whether it was physical or spir-itual, is beside the point. What is significant is that a human reached a peak of incomparable proportions that is still beyond human comprehension. Obvi-ously, it is implied that only truly a blessed human being with minimal flaws was allowed to have this experience. The event connects humanity with the hereafter and gives assurance to the believers that it is within the reach of every human being.

Path to PluralismProphet Muhammad in his

ascension to heavens was first taken to Jerusalem. Why was this a one stop flight? Why was it not direct? This is a very significant issue as it emphasizes the unity of all monotheistic religions and underscores the commitment of all religious communities to respect each other. There was no Muslim place of worship in Jeru-salem at that time. There were symbols of Jewish and Christian faiths. There were Sabians also present. The presence of the Prophet in the holy lands estab-lishes the principle of religious pluralism and unity of monothe-istic faiths. Rather than engaging in conflicts these faiths should work hand in hand to ensure that people develop a better under-standing of their relations with the divine.

These were the essential messages that the month of Rajab highlights. Some of the recommended acts of worship include an emphasis on worship which are generally accepted to increase a person’s spirituality. For example:

1. The Prophet (PBUH) fasted every Monday and Thursdays as documented in many authentic ahadith.

2. The Prophet (PBUH) rec-ommended doing zikr (remem-bering God).

3. Finally the Prophet (PBUH) always asked his followers to give to the poor and the needy all the time.

These acts of worship prepare one to welcome the month of Ramadan.

www.islamcity.org

SPAHIC OMER

Whenever a believing man reads the Quran, he knows that Allah speaks directly to him,

and every “you”, “he” or “they” men-tioned therein denotes, one way or another, precisely him, following which a believing man cannot stay indifferent or unmoved. Behind every “you”, “he” or “they”, he imagines his own name being spoken.

By the same token, whenever he prays, thanks, supplicates, remembers, beseeches or implores Allah, a believing man knows the weight and profundity of “You” and “He”, which he extensively articulates in his communication models. He knows that he talks to the One Who is “near”, listens and responds; Who is nearer to a man than the man to himself.

It is in this context that Allah says in the Quran that supplications should be made humbly, silently and not loudly: “Invoke your Lord with humility and in secret” (Al A’raf, 55). About Prophet Zakariyya (Zechariah), Allah says: “When he called to his Lord a call in secret” (Maryam, 3).

The Prophet (PBUH) also admon-ished some people who raised their voices while supplicating: “Be merciful to yourselves (i.e., don’t raise your voices), for you are not calling a deaf or an absent one, but One Who is All-Hearer, All-Seer. The One Whom you call is closer to one of you than the neck of his animal” (Sahih al-Bukhari).

It follows that if a person feels he has to pray or supplicate loudly, lest he might be unheard or misunderstood, he needs to examine his faith, for there are, surely, some serious flaws in it. Life is all about drawing closer to Allah and feeling how near He with His Knowledge, Might, Compassion and Munificence, is. The closer to Allah a person gets, the more overwhelmed, more benevolent, more tranquil and, at times, even more introvert he becomes. His total being becomes engrossed in enjoying and “feasting” on the boons generated by his spiritual triumph. He increasingly loses interest in frivolous and worthless things and pastimes, regarding them as serious distractions and deviations. They tend to rob a person of his most precious moments, experiences and opportunities.

His communication patterns with his beloved Creator and Master then

becomes impeccably effective and high-yielding. Most of the time, such patterns do not exceed the softness of the whispers, even though the whole spir-itual kingdom resonates with them. Such is the relationship between Allah and His true servants that sometimes the mere vibrations of their hearts, or the reflections of their minds, connote the most potent, most effective and most hearkened supplications. Outward silence is often the best communication mode. Indeed, a believer’s heart is a place that effectively never sleeps, and is always connected with the highest spiritual order of things, meanings and experiences. The closer to Allah he gets, the quieter, more inaudible, more dis-creet and more tranquil in his worship activities he becomes.

This paradigm applies to any rela-tionship with individuals who genuinely love and care for each other. They are often seen not talking much to one another, and when they do, they do so softly and quietly. They simply whisper, or speak in undertones, to each other. This is so because their hearts are together, and are one. And it is right in their hearts that most of their commu-nication unfolds and mutual under-standing takes place. Their united hearts talk, though the separated physical bodies appear still and silent. Regardless, they perfectly understand each other. On the diametrically opposite side stand relationships with individuals who gravely misunderstand each other. They often, as a rule, quarrel, screaming and shouting at one another. They do so because, even though they are physically side by side, their hearts are worlds apart. They recognise that very well and so, feel they have to scream and shout. They know, no matter what, they will not be heard by the one(s) on the other side. Hence, such squabbles never solve anything. They are simply vain attempts to out-scream and out-shout one another. There is rarely any room for reason and sanity in such situations.

Prophets’ calling Owing to this importance of com-

munication with Allah, each and every prophet’s mission paid special attention to it. Communicating with Allah was seen as a logical, plausible and natural process, for Allah is a Personality (Huwa or He) — not a mere abstract conception

of philosophy -- with a Nature of His so sublime that it is far beyond our limited conceptions; He exists, but in such a way that He is the Ever-Living, Self-Sus-taining; He created and sustains the world; and He sent prophets to mend people’s ways and create for them suitable communication patterns with their Creator and Master.

For example, when Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham, peace be upon him) con-fronted his unbelieving and rebellious people, he among other things tried to bring home to them the inappropri-ateness and danger of polytheism. His focus was the delusion, futility, use-lessness and unresponsiveness of their home-grown idols and deities. They simply could not communicate in any way, nor could they benefit or harm anybody. They were but a fragment of dead matter to which only mentally incapacitated and spiritually dead indi-viduals could be devotedly attached: “Deaf, dumb and blind -- so they will not return (to the right path)” (Al Baqarah, 18).

Ibrahim said to his father, an idol-maker: “O my father! Why do you worship something that can neither hear, nor see, nor yet profit you in any way?” (Maryam, 42).

This is a segment of Ibrahim’s dis-cussion with his polytheistic people: “Ibrahim, are you he who has done this to our gods?” He answered: “Rather it was this supreme one who has done it. So ask them, if they can speak.” Thereupon they turned to their (inner) selves and said (to themselves): “Surely it is you who are the wrong-doers.” Then their minds were turned upside down, and they said: “You know well that they do not speak.” Ibrahim said: “Do you, then, worship beside Allah a thing that can neither benefit you nor hurt you? Fie upon you and upon all that you worship beside Allah. Do you have no sense?” (al-Anbiya’, 62-67).

Ibrahim also said to his people con-cerning their fraudulent gods and their inability to communicate: “Do they listen to you when you call (on them)? Or do they profit you or cause you harm?” (al-Shu’ara’, 72-73).

And about Allah, his Almighty Creator and Lord -- with Whom Prophet Ibrahim enjoyed such a close rela-tionship that Allah said that He took him for a friend (khalil) (al-Nisa’, 125)

– Ibrahim said that it was He: “Who created me, and it is He Who guides me; Who gives me food and drink, and when I am ill, it is He Who cures me; Who will cause me to die, and then will bring me back to life; and Who, I hope, will forgive me my faults on the Day of Judgment” (Al Shu’ara’, 78-82).

Why can’t we see Allah?One may ask why we cannot see

Allah, although we can communicate with Him so closely. In a nutshell, we cannot see Allah because, first, there is nothing like Him (Al Shura, 11). Our eyes, and other senses and faculties, are things and thus, can only see other things belonging to the corresponding existential realms. They cannot see, hear or recognise beyond the orb of our eve-ryday existential things and objects.

Second, nobody says that humans will not see Allah. Both the Holy Quran and the Prophet’s sunnah are explicit that believers will see Him in Paradise (jannah). The vision will be as clear and certain as seeing “the moon on the night when it is full” and “the sun on a cloudless day” (Sahih al-Bukhari).

What is more, seeing Allah will be the best reward in Paradise; whereas not seeing Him will be the worst and most painful chastisement for the inhabitants of Hell. Seeing Allah is the greatest blessing and joy, so it is withheld for the place of ultimate blessing and joy, namely Paradise, and it is reserved exclusively for believers. This, in addition, serves to believers as a strong motive to continue doing good in this world and never get bored or give up. It goes without saying that not seeing Allah is only a temporary decree for Allah’s true servants, who are closest to Him in this world. Seeing Allah in Paradise could also imply the pinnacle, or culmination, of their incessant drawing closer to Him.

Third, we cannot see Allah now and here because we are trapped in time and space, while He is beyond them. Time and space are Allah’s creation. He is not fettered by them; we are. Conse-quently, man cannot think except along the lines of time, space and matter. Once the hindrances posed by the time and space factors of this world are elimi-nated in the Hereafter -- or modulated, together with man himself and his various faculties, so as to make them suitable and fitting for the conditions of the Hereafter – seeing Allah will appear

utterly viable and sensible, especially for those who wil l be Paradise-bound.

Even in this world, man can see instantly and directly very little and a very few things. Man is myopic or short-sighted, so to speak. He cannot see more because of a myriad of time and space factors and influences standing between him and things, incapacitating him from seeing more. To see more, man must overcome, or eliminate, those factors and influences. The problem, therefore, is not with things and objects, but with man and his limited abilities.

For example, a person sitting in a windowless room can only see the room’s interior. To see outside, he must leave the room; that is to say, he must overcome the room as a hindrance to seeing outside. Moreover, to see a friend in a nearby town, 50 km away, the man must travel that much; that is, he must overcome the hindrance of the nec-essary distance and time that separate him from seeing the friend. The same principle applies to seeing everything else that lies outside the parameters of the windowless room.

Similarly, for a person to see his friend who passed away two years ago, he will have to travel back in time two years or more; that is to say, he will have to deal with the unsurmountable time hurdle, or barrier, in order to see his friend. Also, for a person to see his future grandchildren, he will have to travel into the future as much as necessary; that is, he will again have to contend with the unassailable time difficulty.

At any rate, to see and experience things, man must free himself from the physical milieus and situations wherein he, as substantially a physical being himself, is confined or imprisoned.

The whole issue is about man and his weaknesses, exacerbated by the spatial and temporal parameters and constraints within which he operates. Yet, there are many other things right inside man, or everywhere around him, which man cannot see, but which unde-niably exist. Some of those things are radio waves as a type of electronic wave used to transmit data for satellites, com-puter networks and radio, atoms as the smallest building blocks of matter, air or oxygen, ultraviolet light, gravity, the mind, the soul, emotions, quantum par-ticles, the actual size of the universe, etc. www.islamcity.org

The relationship between Allah and His true servants

Rajab is one of the four sacred months besides, Muharram (Islamic month 1), Dhul Qa’dah (Islamic month 11) and Dhul Hijjah (Islamic month 12). During these four months hostilities and conflicts have been forbidden and have to come to an end or halt.

06 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019ASIA

Grenade attack in Jammu leaves one dead, attacker held

IANS JAMMU

A 17-year-old youth was killed and some 30 others were injured yesterday when a grenade flung by a militant exploded under a parked passenger bus at Jammu’s main bus stand. The attacker was arrested within hours.

Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh told reporters that the police had arrested Yasir Javaid Bhat alias Arhaan of Kulgam dis-trict in the Kashmir Valley on charges of throwing the grenade.

Yasir Bhat was said to be aligned with the Hizbul Muja-hideen outfit.

The thunderous explosion occurred around 11.50am when the General Bus Stand, as it is known, was teeming with people.

Inspector General of Police Manish Kumar Sinha said the grenade rolled under the parked bus that was headed to Uttarakhand.

The blast also injured pas-sengers in a nearby bus which was set to leave for Amritsar in Punjab.

Sinha said the dead was iden-tified as a 17-year-old male from Uttarakhand. “Four others have suffered critical injuries,” the officer said. Witnesses thought the explosion was probably a tyre burst. “But when we approached the site, we saw people lying injured and in critical condition,” said Sunil Kumar, 26.

Yesterday’s is the third such attack at the Jammu General Bus Stand by militants in the last nine months.

Police said the militant attacker was caught while trying to flee from Jammu.

At a press conference where the militant was produced, Inspector General Manish Sinha said that the police started scanning CCTVs after the blast.

“We were able to identify the suspect who was wearing a jean jacket and was carrying a red rucksack... Checkposts were set up at different places. He was apprehended at the Toll Plaza in Nagrota outside Jammu city,” the officer said.

“He was put to sustained questioning after which he con-fessed to the crime. He revealed that he was tasked to carry out the attack by a Farooq Bhat alias Umer, the district commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in Kulgam.”

Police said Yasir Bhat left the Valley on Wednesday and reached Jammu yesterday morning with the grenade.

Asked if he had accomplices in Jammu, the officer said: “This can only be known after sus-tained interrogation.”

Jammu and Kashmir Gov-ernor Satya Pal Malik expressed grief at the loss of life and injuries in the terror attack.

He sanctioned Rs 5 lakh for the next of kin of the dead and Rs20,000 to each injured person.

Police detain activists of the Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress during a protest demanding resignations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over allegations of corruption in a Rafale fighter planes deal, in New Delhi, yesterday.

Why is Modi afraid of probe into Rafale, asks RahulIANS NEW DELHI

With the Centre threatening a probe over stealing of “privileged documents” related to Rafale deal from the Defence Ministry, Congress President Rahul Gandhi yesterday demanded an investi-gation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for conducting parallel negotiations and delaying the delivery of the French jets to India.

Addressing the media here, Gandhi said that the stolen doc-uments clearly state the Prime Minister was responsible for the delayed delivery and inflated price of the jets.

“The government now says it will investigate the media for the Rafale files being stolen. But the one (Modi) who conducted parallel investigation why will he not be investigated? “If the doc-uments have been stolen, that means they are authentic and

they clearly state that parallel negotiations were carried out by the Prime Minister, the price of the jets were inflated and the delivery of the jets was delayed.

“Let there be investigation about the documents but at the same time also investigate the Prime Minister’s role in the Rafale (deal),” said Gandhi.

Referring to the Centre’s arguments in the Supreme Court during hearing of petitions seeking recall of its December 14 verdict giving a “clean chit” on the purchase of the Rafale jets, Gandhi said the sole objective of the government and its machinery was to defend the “chowkidar” (watchman).

With the government rejecting the Congress party’s persistent demand for a probe by a Joint Par-liamentary Committee (JPC), Gandhi asked why Modi was afraid of investigation into the deal.

“Why isn’t the Prime Minister allowing an investigation against

himself if he is not guilty? Why did he refuse a JPC? If there is nothing wrong in the deal, then let there be an investigation. Modi should say he is not afraid of any probe and allow investigation into the deal,” asserted Gandhi.

Citing the documents, Gandhi said that the Indian negotiating team clearly stated that the Prime Minister carried out parallel negotiations to enrich his industrialist crony by Rs 30,000 crore in the deal.

“It’s a blatant case of cor-ruption, it is clearly stated that the Prime Minister of India carried out a parallel negoti-ation. Why should there not be a criminal investigation? “The problem in India is, there is a criminal investigation only on people who oppose Modi,” said Gandhi, who a day earlier had called for an FIR against him saying there was enough evi-dence to prosecute him for cor-ruption in the deal.

SC order on mediation in Ayodhya case todayIANS NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce yesterday its order on whether to or not to send the contentious Ram Janmab-hoomi-Babri Masjid Ayodhya title dispute case for mediation even as the main parties advo-cating construction of temple have conveyed their opposition to the court’s suggestion.

The notice, issued by the top court registry yesterday, said that the Ayodhya title dispute matter would be listed on February 8 for pro-nouncement of order before the five-judge constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice S A Bobde, Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S Abdul Nazeer.The order was reserved on Wednesday.

“It is about mind, hear and healing the relationship. We have read history and know history. We have no control over what had happened in the past... Babar invading, whether there was a mosque or temple. We are only concerned with resolving the dispute,” Justice Bobde had said in the course of the hearing on Wednesday.

He had also made it clear that the court was conscious of the impact of the issue on the body polity.

The court had also indi-cated that the mediation pro-ceedings would not be open to media reporting, with Justice Bobde saying, “”It should not be reported, once the mediation process is on.” However, the hearing saw Justice Chandrachud sounding a divergent view, citing the non-binding nature of the outcome of the mediation as opposed to adjudication which is binding.

TMC’s O’Brien hurls ‘fact bombs’ at PMIANS KOLKATA

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien yesterday hurled a series of ‘fact bombs’ at Prime Minister Narendra Modi criti-cising various central schemes and pointing at his failure.

Addressing Modi as “Mitron56inch”, he said, “face these! FactBomb 1 Response to an RTI filed by a news website shows insurance companies owe farmers Rs2,800 crore since the launch of PM Fasal Bima Yojana”.

“The two-month claim set-tlement deadline has long passed, but dues still remain unpaid,” O’Brien tweeted.

Criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party government for the poor show on job creation, the Trinamool leader said: “Where are the jobs? 11 million Indians lost their jobs during 2018, as per a CMIE study.

His next fact bomb was tar-geted at the ‘Startup India’ scheme. “StartupIndia is failing India! In the first 30 months since its launch, only four percent of startups recognised by the government were cer-tified for tax exemption under the scheme,” said the Tri-namool spokesperson.

All four accused of beating up Kashmiris in Lucknow arrestedIANS LUCKNOW

All four accused of thrashing three Kashmiri dry fruit sellers here after calling them “stone-pelters” on Wednesday have been arrested, police said yesterday.

Briefing the media about “the unfortunate incident”, Director General of Police (Law & Order) Anand Kumar and Additional Director General of Police

(Lucknow) Rajeev Krishna, said they had arrested the accused, who were identified as Bajrang Sonkar, Amar, Himanshu and Anirrudh.

Sonkar, who was arrested earlier, is affiliated to the Vishwa Hindu Dal (VHD) and has a dozen criminal cases registered against him including one of murder, Senior Superintendent of Police Kalanidhi Naithani said.

The attackers were initially booked under the Indian Penal

Code, but non-bailable offences have also been included now, he added. The officials also said that the victims have been assured of security to carry out their business and have been provided medical care and compensation for the losses they incurred.

The attack took place on Wednesday when a group of saffron-robed youths came out of a car and pounced on the Kashmiri men who were selling

dry fruits on the Daliganj Bridge. The vendors were beaten up mercilessly, witnesses said, and their wares were thrown around.

The attackers called the victims “stone-pelters” and asked them to produce their Aadhaar cards. The Kashmiris obliged but the attackers con-tinued to beat them.

No one came to the rescue of the victims. It was only after someone called the police that

the Kashmiris were saved.Two of the injured vendors

went away before police arrived there but a third, identified as Afzal, was taken to the local police station. Afzal was ques-tioned for over an hour before an acquaintance vouched for him.

No FIRs were registered against the attackers initially. It was only after a video of the incident went viral on the social media that police did so.

Pictures of women are displayed at an International Women’s Day photo exhibition in Colombo, yesterday, ahead of International Women’s Day, which is celebrated every year on March 8.

Display of women’s power

Conjoined twins return to Bhutan after separation surgeryAFP THIMPU

Bhutanese conjoined twins Nima and Dawa Pelden made a trium-phant return to their home country yesterday, able for the first time in their lives to move around without falling over each

other. Relatives, well-wishers, doctors and a media pack thronged the country’s sole international airport to welcome back the 19-month-old girls, who until their surgery in Australia had been joined at the stomach and shared a liver.

The girls were born facing

each other and when one walked, the other had to move backwards.

A team of 25 surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Mel-bourne separated the sisters in November. They have made a dramatic recovery since.

“My emotions are inde-scribable,” said their mother Bhumchu Zangmo, as she watched the two independent girls.

Zangmo spent six months away with the children, commu-nicating with family back home by mobile phone.

Biggest mass grave in Sri Lanka unrelated to civil war, court hearsAFP COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s biggest mass grave predates the country’s bloody civil war by hundreds of years, according to an independent carbon dating report unveiled in a court yesterday.

The remains of over 300 men, women and children were found last year at a site in the northern Mannar district, where ethnic Tamil guerrillas fought security forces during a 37-year ethnic war that ended in May 2009.

Sri Lanka’s Office on Missing Persons (OMP) funded tests on the remains to determine whether the victims were killed during the conflict, which claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people.

But a Miami-based labo-ratory concluded that the victims likely died up to 615 years ago — predating even the first European colonisation of the Indian Ocean island by the

Portuguese — according to tes-timony in the Mannar magis-trates court.

Tamil Tiger rebels and gov-ernment forces both held Mannar district at different times during the conflict, as did troops from neighbouring India, who were deployed in the country in the late 1980s.

The mass grave in the former war zone was discovered by construction workers.

The OMP, which is inde-pendent of the government but has a state mandate, said just over 300 skeletal remains had been found, including the remains of about 20 children.

The office has wide powers to investigate cases of people still missing after the civil war. Both soldiers and Tamil rebels were accused of targeting civilians. About 19,000 people, including 5,000 security per-sonnel, are still unaccounted for after the conflict, a 2013 gov-ernment panel said in 2013.

“He (the attacker) was put to sustained questioning after which he confessed to the crime. He revealed that he was tasked to carry out the attack by a Farooq Bhat alias Umer, the district commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in Kulgam” Inspector General Manish Sinha said.

07FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 ASIA

Pakistan detains

121 in crackdown

on banned outfitsAGENCIES ISLAMABAD

Pakistan intensified its crackdown against banned outfits yesterday, with the government announcing it had taken control of 182 religious schools and detained more than 100 people.

Members of two groups accused of attacks on Indian soil were targeted in the operation, which was announced on Monday, following an insurgent attack in the Indian-adminis-tered Kashmir that killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel last month.

Pakistani officials said the crackdown was part of a long-planned drive and not a response to Indian anger over what New Delhi calls Islama-bad’s failure to rein in militant groups operating on Pakistani soil.

The Interior Ministry said law enforcement agencies had placed 121 people in “preventive detention” as part of the crackdown that began this week.

“Provincial governments have taken in their control man-agement and administration of 182 seminaries (madaris)”, the ministry said in a statement, referring to religious schools.

The interior ministry said other institutions from different groups had been taken over, including 34 schools or colleges, 163 dispensaries, 184 ambu-lances, five hospitals and eight

o f f i c e s o f b a n n e d organisations.

A government official said the security forces detained members of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which claimed responsi-bility for the February suicide attack, and the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) organisation.

JuD, which operates hos-pitals and a fleet of ambulances, is estimated to run about 300 madrasas across the country. Pakistan’s government banned the group this week.

JuD calls itself a humani-tarian charity but the US State Department has designated it a “foreign terrorist organisation” and calls it a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based group accused of orchestrating attacks in India, including the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.

JuD called the crackdown unfair and said it would seek to counter the government action in courts. “The whole nation is asking that what message the government wants to send by sealing welfare organisations and kicking students out,” said JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid.

Female police commandos use machine guns during a combat training near Nowshera in northwest Pakistan, yesterday.

Empowering women in tackling terrorism

China calls on Islamabad, New Delhi to start dialogueREUTERS BEIJING

China has called upon Pakistan and India to show restraint and launch dialogue as early as possible.

Beijing has also praised Pakistan’s “restraint” and will-ingness to talk to India to ease the recent tensions between the two South Asian countries.

Visiting Pakistan on Wednesday, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said Beijing and Islamabad were “all weather” strategic partners and that they always supported each other, China’s Foreign

Ministry said in a statement yesterday.

“China has paid close attention to the present situation between Pakistan and India, and appreciates Pakistan’s remaining calm and exercising restraint from the beginning, and per-sisting in pushing to lower the temperature with India via dia-logue,” the ministry paraphrased Kong as saying.

China maintains that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected and does not want to see “acts that violate the norms of international rela-tions”, Kong added.

“China calls on Pakistan and India to refrain from taking actions that aggravate the situ-ation, show goodwill and flexi-bility, launch dialogue as soon as possible, and work together to maintain regional peace and stability,” he said.

China is willing to con-tinue to play a constructive role in this regard, the Chinese foreign minister added.

The Foreign Ministry said Kong had met Prime Minister Imran Khan, Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi during his visit to Islamabad.

Pakistan airspace reopens today INTERNEWS KARACHI

Pakistan will completely reopen its airspace and a number of airports today, days after the country shut down its airspace and many airports amid heightened tensions and aerial engagement with India.

According to the Civil Avi-ation Authority of Pakistan (CAA), flight operations will remain suspended at Rahim Yar Khan, Sialkot, Skardu, Gilgit and Sukkur airports until 1pm today, when Pakistan’s airspace reopens completely.

The Civil Aviation Authority added that operations at those airports where flight operations have already resumed will continue as per normal till 5am on March 15.

Increased activity at N Korean missile site: SeoulAGENCIES SEOUL

South Korea’s military yesterday said it was carefully monitoring North Korean nuclear and missile facilities after the coun-try’s spy agency told lawmakers that new activity was detected at a research centre where the North is believed to build long-range missiles.

Defence Ministry spokes-woman Choi Hyun-soo said the US and South Korean militaries were closely coordinating intel-ligence over the developments at the North’s missile research center in Sanumdong on the out-skirts of the capital, Pyongyang, and also at a separate long-range rocket site. She did not elaborate on what the developments were.

A lawmaker who attended

a closed-door intelligence briefing said National Intelli-gence Service director Suh Hoon said his agency had mon-itored increased vehicle movement at the Sanumdong facility. Suh said in the briefing on Tuesday that vehicles were transporting supplies, but avoided specific answers when lawmakers pressed him on what they were for, the law-maker said.

Suh also told lawmakers that North Korea is restoring facilities at a rocket launch site in Tongchang-ri that it partially dismantled last year as part of disarmament steps. While the NIS believes North Korea has not produced plutonium for nuclear weapons in months, signs of uranium use have been seen at an enrichment facility

at North Korea’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, the law-maker said.

The revelations follow the collapse of talks in Vietnam last week between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Pres-ident Donald Trump over what the Americans said were excessive North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for a limited offer to partially shutter the Yongbyon site.

Kim said in a New Year’s address that he was committed to his high-stakes summitry with Trump, but also warned he may need to pursue a “new way” if the United States continues to insist on unilateral demands and sanctions.

North Korea didn’t immedi-ately respond in its state media.

Mahathir stresses freedom of navigation in South China SeaAP MANILA

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad yesterday said that China should define its “so-called ownership” in the disputed South China Sea so other claimant countries can start to gain benefits from the resource-rich waters.

Mahathir stressed the impor-tance of freedom of navigation in the busy waterway, saying in an interview in Manila that if there were no restrictions and sanctions, “the claims made by China will not affect us very much.”

Malaysia, the Philippines, China and three other govern-ments have been locked in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China has claimed virtually the entire sea but has refused to define the extent of its claims except for a vague line with nine dashes on its maps, complicating the disputes.

Efforts by the Philippines, for example, to explore for undersea deposits of oil and natural gas in

Reed Bank west of its Palawan island province have been stymied for years by Chinese protests and claims to the off-shore region. The Philippines has declared a moratorium on explo-ration in the area in the past

because of Chinese threats.“We have to talk to China on

the definition of their claims and what is meant by their own-ership or so-called ownership they claim to have so that we can find ways of deriving some

benefits from them,” Mahathir said. “I think that whatever may be the claim of China, the most important thing is that the South China Sea in particular must be open to navigation,” Mahathir said. “There should be no

restriction, no sanction, and if that happens, then I think the claims made by China will not affect us very much.”

During talks in Manila between the visiting Malaysian leader and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, the territorial conflicts were high in the agenda.

“We emphasised the impor-tance of maintaining and pro-moting peace, security, stability, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight over the South China Sea,” Duterte said after the meeting, adding that force or the threat of it should not be resorted to. Duterte thanked Malaysia for brokering peace talks between the Philippine government and Muslim guerrillas in the south. The rebels have become leaders of a new Muslim autonomous region in the country’s south under a peace deal.

“I’m glad to see that, at last, peace has come to the southern Philippines. Development cannot take place in war. In war, we destroy but in peace we build,” Mahathir told a business forum in Manila.

Islamabad says the crackdown is part of a long-planned drive and is not being conducted under pressure from anyone.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (left) and Malaysian Prime Mahathir Mohamad during a welcoming ceremony for the Malaysian leader in Manila, yesterday.

AFP SEOUL

North Korea yesterday attacked ongoing joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington as an “all out challenge” to moves towards peace on the Korean peninsula.

The US and South Korea agreed on Sunday to replace two major war games that take place every spring - the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle drills - with a shorter “Dong Maeng” or “Alliance” exercise which kicked off this week.

The move was designed to further ease tensions with the North following the dramatic detente since early 2018.

But the North’s official KCNA news agency has now warned that the ongoing nine-day drills were an “all out chal-lenge” against efforts for peace and stability.

“The suspicious activities by the US and South Korean mil-itary are a reckless violation of the joint statement signed by Washington and Pyongyang and North-South declarations that commit to ending hostil-ities and easing military ten-sions,” it said.

There are close to 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, and their annual drills with South Korean soldiers have always infuriated the North.

North slams new Korea-US drills

Court dissolves Thai party for princess’ PM bidAFP BANGKOK

A key party linked to Thailand’s powerful Shinawatra clan was dissolved by a court yesterday, just weeks before a general election, over its ill-starred bid to front a princess as a candidate for premier.

Thai Raksa Chart, which is tied to ex-premiers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, proposed Princess Ubolratana as its prime ministerial candidate if its bloc emerged with a lower house majority after the March 24 election.

It was an unprecedented move in a constitutional mon-archy where royals are offi-cially above the political fray, and prompted a rare public rebuke by her younger brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who issued a royal command declaring the party’s move “inappropriate”.

The Election Commission alleged that Thai Raksa Chart had committed an act “hostile to the constitutional monarchy” and called for its dissolution.

On Thursday judges of the Constitutional Court voted unanimously to dissolve the party, and its executives - including two Shinawatra family members - were also banned from politics for a decade.

“The monarchy is above politics and to maintain political neutrality, the king, the queen and princesses can never exercise political rights by casting votes,” judge Nakharin Mektrairat said at the end of an extensive ruling.

The princess reacted to the news on Instagram, where she posts regularly.

“I have heard the news. It is sad and depressing,” she said.

Three Indonesian soldiers die in Papua attackAFP JAKARTA

Three Indonesian soldiers were killed in a gun battle with armed separatist rebels in restive Papua province, the military said yesterday.

The soldiers had just arrived in Yigi village in Nduga district yesterday morning to guard the construction of a bridge when they were attacked by the sep-aratists. “They were suddenly attacked by a large group, between 50 to 70 people,” the military spokesman for Papua region Muhammad Aidi said.

The military managed to take control of the situation and forced the rebels to flee. “We believe between seven to 10 people from their side have also been killed but their bodies had been taken away,” Aidi said.

Saudi officials promoted the crackdown as good for business, but the lack of due process was troubling. A former U.S. ambassador warned last year that international investors were “nervous” that their investments might be taken away or their business partners detained without reason.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL THE WASHINGTON POST

08 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019VIEWS

Saudi Arabia scores a big win on dirty money

The fight against money-laun-dering and terrorism financing should be one thing all the EU’s 28 member states

can agree on. Yet the only unity on show has been their total opposition to a dirty-money blacklist proposed by the European Commission, which sparked a diplomatic ruckus by including Saudi Arabia and some US offshore territories. On Thursday, EU members rejected the list in its present shape. The climb-down — after pressure from Riyadh — leaves Europe looking weak and muddled.

The objection was that the process of drawing up the list wasn’t transpar-ent. But it’s hard to really separate the technical issues from the political ones, not least because the process has been in full public view for the last two years. The blacklist may have had its flaws, and the EU clearly needs to get its own house in order after a string of banking scandals linked to the Baltic states, but this is a bad signal to send to the world.

While Brussels used its own meth-odology for the list, its inclu-sion of Saudi Arabia was hardly a shock. Global stand-ard-setters at the Financial Action Task Force (an inter-governmental agency set up by the G-7) said in 2018 that Riyadh was not effectively investigating or prosecut-ing individuals involved in money-laun-dering and faced a high risk of terror financ-i n g . T h e Com m iss ion

took on board many of the task force’s points, including estimates that 70 to 80 percent of Saudi Arabia’s domestic pro-ceeds of crime flow out of the country. The FATF had rated the kingdom’s efforts on money-laundering, asset confisca-tion and weapons proliferation as “low.”

Yet appearing on the same list as Iran, North Korea, and Panama was enough to trigger a huge lobbying effort from the Gulf monarchy in recent weeks, according to Brussels officials. A letter written by King Salman bin Abdulaziz warned that inclusion would affect the kingdom’s reputation and “create diffi-culties” in trade and investment flows between Saudi and Europe, according to Reuters.

His message was heard loud and clear in London and Paris, said to be the ring-leaders of EU opposition to the list. Britain and France are the No. 2 and No. 3 arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia, according to the Stockholm Interna-tional Peace Research Institute.

The EU, meanwhile, is a big user of of Saudi oil and an eager recipient of investment from Riyadh’s $230 billion sovereign fund.

These threats merited a stern response. The Saudis’ reputation is hardly gleaming. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made a show of cracking down on corruption and money-laun-dering, but his methods — locking up hundreds of wealthy royals and tycoons and forcing them to hand over their assets - aren’t really standard practice

for dealing with dirty money.Saudi officials promoted the crack-

down as good for business, but the lack of due process was troubling. A former US ambassador warned last year that international investors were “nervous” that their investments might be taken away or their business partners detained without reason.

It’s worth asking — yet again - whether it’s healthy to have a com-mercial relationship with a state that can be used so easily to water down meas-ures designed to protect EU citizens. Europe’s response to the brutal murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi was depress-ing: Germany halted future arms sales to Saudi Arabia, only for France to criticise the move as irrational “demagoguery.”

Britain, too, has prioritised its historic and lucrative trade ties with Riyadh, even as evidence grows that use of Western arms is causing many civilian deaths in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Brexit will probably make the UK even more beholden to the House of Saud. You could argue that the methodology behind the Commission’s blacklist was imperfect; you could ask why some countries were included and not others. It’s true too that the EU’s own weaknesses in policing banks and other finance firms across the bloc need an urgent fix. But this eleventh-hour failure to stand up to the Saudis shows that some things never change.

The writer is a Bloomberg opinion columnist covering Brussels.

LIONEL LAURENT BLOOMBERG

QUOTE OF THE DAYRespect for women is the fundamental

dynamic of our values, customs and traditions,

history, and social life and it is everyone’s

responsibility to stand on the side of women subjected to violence

and oppression.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkish President

Progressives are starting to define a new realism for our national security strategy

Although presidential campaigns generally home in on kitchen table concerns, 2020

is likely to feature a long-overdue debate on U.S. foreign and national security strategy. The failures of the national security establishment - endless wars without victory, the global financial collapse, neglect of emerging existential threats such as catastrophic climate change - make a reas-sessment inevitable. Now pro-gressives in Congress and on the campaign trail are beginning to define a new realism that contrasts sharply with both the keepers of old orthodoxy and President Donald Trump’s posturing.

Trump’s fulminations against failed military interven-tions, perverse trade policies and growing tensions with Russia surely helped him in the 2016 campaign. But “America First” turned out to be a bumper sticker, not a strategy. Knee-jerk opposi-tion to all things Barack Obama - torpedoing U.S. involvement in the Paris climate accord, the Ira-nian nuclear agreement and the opening to Cuba - isn’t a recipe for making America great again. “Great nations do not fight end-less wars,” Trump noted in his

recent State of the Union address, but thus far he remains engaged in a fight to pull troops out of Afghanistan and Syria, while doubling down in Yemen and inflating Iran to an existential threat. Launching trade conflicts while giving multinational com-paniesnew tax incentives to ship jobs abroad has also generated more noise than change.

The new progressive chal-lenge begins with a call for restraint, starting with termi-nating wars without end. A first foray - led by Rep. Ro Khanna in the House and Sens. Chris-topher Murphy, D-Conn., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the Sen-ate - invokes congressional war powers to end U.S. involvement in the gruesome assault on Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. (This has even received bipartisan support from conservatives such as Sen. Mike Lee, Republican of Utah.) Khanna is also leading a broader debate among progressives sponsoring, along with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a forum this week. (Disclosure: I will be participating.)

On the presidential cam-paign trail, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have both called for ending the war in Afghanistan and removing U.S. troops from Syria. Sand-ers has warned against a foray into regime change in Vene-zuela. The debate in Congress and on the campaign trail has not yet challenged the U.S. effort to police the world - the empire of bases and the recent dispatch of Special Operations forces to an astonishing 133 countries- but

progressives are intent on ful-filling the promise that Trump betrayed, curbing the appetite for military intervention.

Second, progressives will elevate the real security threats that our militarized national security policy has neglected. The most imperative, of course, is the existential threat posed by cat-astrophic climate change. With Trump still locked into denial, progressives are demanding a return to the Paris accord and forcing a debate about a bolder Green New Deal that will put cli-mate at the center of the 2020 debate.

Third is the United States’ failed global economic strat-egy, from trade to investment to industrial policy. Trump makes his trade disruptions central to his appeal to workers. Among Democrats, declared contenders such as Sanders and Warren and potential candidates such as Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have led the progressive challenge to the Davos order. As Trump settles his trade war with China and tries to get his NAFTA 2.0 passed, progressives must call not just for fair trade but for an industrial strategy that will greatly increase investment in research and innovation. Sand-ers and Warren also emphasize taking on the rigged global rules that foster ever greater extremes of inequality, calling for crack-downs on tax havens and shell companies used for trillions of dollars in money laundering and tax avoidance.

The emergence of China and reemergence of Russia as great power rivals of the United States

generate the greatest disagree-ment. The wrongheaded National Security Strategy document of the Trump administration labels Russia and China “revisionist powers” that pose an inflated threat to U.S. security. Much of the foreign policy elite is ramp-ing up to confront both in a new Cold War. Trump is character-istically incoherent, displaying a personal soft spot for Russian President Vladimir Putin while his administration withdraws from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, ramps up an arms race, sends lethal weapons to Ukraine, boots out Russian diplomats and imposes sanctions on Putin’s inner circle. On China, he has demanded that the Chinese abandon their core economic strategy while looking as though he’s willing to settle for promises to buy more soy-beans and other products from the United States.

Among Democrats, the fix-ation on Russia’s intervention in the last election has generated heated rhetoric, while China’s rise has gotten less attention. Sanders and Warren feature tough lan-guage about Russia while saying less about China (though War-ren condemns both countries as “working flat out to remake the global order”). But progres-sives must understand that the overriding threats to U.S. security - from climate change to nuclear proliferation - require cooper-ation with China and Russia. Confrontation with both nuclear powers at once - pushing them into a closer alliance - carries staggering risks and chances for conflict.

This tremendous achievement of Qatar is not an overnight development but the result of the hard-work of its team for decades.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI

osman@pen.com.qa

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

A healthy path to success

Health plays a crucial role in the happiness and well-being of people and also it contributes much for economic progress, as a healthy population lives

longer, is more productive, and save more. As we read the above lines in connection with the tremendous economic growth in Qatar, one can easily understand how well Qatar’s healthcare system functions and its contribution to the overall development of the nation.

Qatar was ranked fifth in the world for the best healthcare by the Legatum Institute, a London-based think-tank; thanks to the wise Qatari administration under the leadership of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Improved life expectancy, better health outcomes and investment in health infrastructure have all led to Qatar being ranked one of the best. Qatar stands high in health infrastructure and preventative care, and physical and mental health of its residents.

This tremendous achievement of Qatar is not an over-night development but the result of the hard work of its team for decades, which is backed by sheer determination

and absolute willpower. The world stood in admiration at the remarkable transfor-mation of Qatar’s healthcare system; as it made enormous progress in both increasing the capacity and advancing the quality of care.

The contributions of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) to make this a reality were praiseworthy. It opened many new hospitals and numerous specialist facilities since 2011, significantly expanding its infrastructure and the range of services

offered to patients. The administration invested wisely in HMC in certain things that matter the most to patients. The dedicated team at HMC provided rapid access to highly specialised services, delivering more than three million episodes of care to patients each year; so it is heartening to know that the quality of care Qatar provides has been formally recognised as among the best in the world.

The rise in the rankings from 13th place last year, has been driven by the fact that Qatar has the highest life expectancy rate in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and globally the nation ranks in the top 25 percent for healthcare access and quality.

The country’s healthcare spending is among the highest in the Middle East, with QR22.7bn invested in healthcare in 2018, a four percent increase from the previous year. It highlights the country’s commitment in health sector. The ranking also recognised that Qatar’s focus on areas such as cancer, diabetes, and smoking cessation are having a positive impact on people’s lives, and ultimately it was recognised that life expectancy in Qatar continues to improve.

A population which is healthy, physically and men-tally, is an asset that backs the nation in any predicament and also pushes it ahead towards heights. Qatar is blessed to have such a healthy population to conquer more heights in the imminent future in all aspects, thanks to its best healthcare sector.

If the Israelis managed to convince Trump to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, would they not be able to stop his administration from nuclearising Saudi Arabia, if they really wanted to? What is stopping Netanyahu from standing in front of the UN with a little bomb chart, warning the world that Riyadh is so close to acquiring a nuclear weapon?

09FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 OPINION

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What is Mark Zuckerberg really saying about Facebook’s future?

The making of a nuclear MBS

SHIRA OVIDE

BLOOMBERG

HAMID DABASHI AL JAZEERA

First, a confession: I’m getting bored with Mark Zuckerberg’s manifestos.

As the public spotlight on Facebook Inc. has illuminated the company’s many ugly corners, Zuck-erberg has put pen to paper multiple times to declare mission statements for his company. On Wednesday, the

CEO declared that the future of Face-book is … well, it’s more like Snapchat. He said Facebook would emphasise communications among smaller groups, temporary posts and technology that keeps outsiders and Facebook itself from peering into what people are sending through its social network and com-pany-owned Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger apps.

Zuckerberg has been talking for some time about what he says are people’s growing preferences for more intimate online interactions rather than the pub-lic, permanent broadcasts that made Facebook one of the most widely used digital tools in history. His 3,200 words on Wednesday were more urgent and thoughtful than what he’s said before, and Facebook made sure that his post sparked conversation about the com-pany’s new, privacy-focused direction.

The trouble is, I’m not sure whether Facebook is truly changing its stripes. I give Zuckerberg credit for recognising

- although maybe two to five years too late - that there are downsides to a medium that’s intended to connect the world, and by nature tends to spread the most provocative and outlandish voices far and wide. But let’s press pause on reading too much into Zuckerberg’s mission statement until we see how Face-book changes, if at all. A call to arms from the CEO can spark real change, or it might just be words.

It’s not clear how Zuckerberg’s statement will change how the com-pany functions, or whether the company will end up collecting more or less personal data that fuels its advertis-ing system. There are also potential downsides to making Facebook less public, including limiting the compa-ny’s responsibility to police its digital hangouts for hate speech, attempted social manipulation or other abuses. The context is key here. Facebook right now is working on a complex project that aims to combine the technology founda-tions of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. One goal of this project, as Zuckerberg wrote in his post, is to permit someone using Instagram, for example, to send a digital message to someone using WhatsApp.

If I strain my mind, I can imagine some circumstances where this would be useful. What Zuckerberg didn’t mention is what this long-term ‘interoperability’ project will do for what I think is the orig-inal sin behind every Facebook scandal: its hoarding of data on just about every internet user. If the company shifts to a common foundation for its apps, in the-ory that could give Facebook an even larger and cleaner database of people’s online and real-world behavior with which to target advertising.

It’s also possible that Facebook’s move to combine its internet hangouts,

and make them encrypted so the infor-mation moving among them is scrambled, may limit the data Facebook collects. Zuckerberg doesn’t really address either possibility.

I can’t help thinking that Zucker-berg’s high-minded talk about more private and scrambled communications through Facebook and its other apps is simply putting a shiny gloss on what is otherwise a power play by Facebook to consolidate power and data about internet users by merging its multiple services.

Scrambling communications, or encryption, also means it will be diffi-cult or impossible for Facebook to comply with the growing, admittedly thorny, demands on the company to screen and remove posts advocating violence, ille-gal activity, hoaxes and other scum that collects in its pipelines.

Facebook can throw up his hands and say that encryption prevents it from tracking those Russian-backed net-works trying to manipulate an election. It also means people can use Facebook to organize against a coercive govern-ment with less fear of being discovered. Removing Facebook or outside prying eyes from peering into the digital traf-fic is a trade-off, and Zuckerberg does acknowledge this. Zuckerberg’s post talks about making Facebook and its inter-net hangouts more of an intimate digital “living room” rather than a raucous pub-lic town square. It’s a lovely metaphor.

But I’m less curious about whether and how Facebook will shift the behav-ior of people online, and more about the remodeling the company does to itself to limit its privileged position in 2 bil-lion virtual homes worldwide.

The writer is a Bloomberg opinion columnist covering technology.

Like chronic indigestion that refuses to go away, presi-dential son-in-law Jared Kushner is back causing much

discomfort to the general public. “Kushner meets Saudi’s MBS for the

first time since Khashoggi murder,” Al Jazeera recently reported, “The meet-ing focused on ‘increasing cooperation’ between Washington and Riyadh, as well as the Middle East peace process.”

But there might be more on their plate than just another bogus “peace process”.

Kushner has two paramount con-cerns while sitting comfortably in the big pocket of Saudi Crown Prince Moham-med bin Salman (MBS): pursuing his own personal financial gains and helping Israel steal what is left of Palestine. MBS also has two objectives while playing with Kushner, like a shiny marble in his pocket: To confront Iran and to estab-lish himself as a ruling tyrant not just in Saudi Arabia but throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

The slaughter of innocent men, women and children in Yemen and the butchery of Jamal Khashoggi are the first flowers of his dream of a Saudi Spring. But in his pursuit of power and glory through murder and destruction, MBS does not seem to be satisfied with using only conventional means.

It appears that he is now harbour-ing a great desire to go nuclear and the Trump administration is more than will-ing to oblige.

As the New York Times recently revealed, the Trump administration has been pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia to develop its nuclear energy sector. “By ramming through the sale of as much as $80 billion in nuclear power plants, the Trump administration would pro-vide sensitive know-how and materials to a government whose de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,

has suggested that he may eventually want a nuclear weapon as a hedge against Iran and has shown little concern for what the rest of the world thinks,” the newspaper claimed.

At the forefront of these efforts, of course, are Kushner and his business interests. It turns out a company that bailed out his family after an ill-con-ceived real estate deal in New York brought them close to bankruptcy now intends to sell nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia.

That, along with other shenanigans, has gotten the US security establish-ment worried. Their attempts to cancel his security clearance, however, have been repeatedly overridden by his father-in-law.

Hence, Kushner remains undeterred in his pursuit to nuclearise Saudi Arabia.

In exposing this worrying reality, the US media, however, has made two very wrong assumptions: one, that a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia some-how contradicts the interests of the Israeli leadership; two, that it is the result of some kind of a Gulf-money entrapment.

In a column for the New York Times, American journalist Nicholas Kristof makes a valid observation that there are “too many unanswered questions about the White Houses’ role in advancing Saudi ambitions”. But he also makes the incorrect claim that the Israeli govern-ment is “objecting” to the nuclearisation of Saudi Arabia.

Given that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law has been the principal driving force behind a “peace plan” that aims to strip Palestinians of all their legitimate rights and legalise the Israeli occupa-tion, it is hard to believe that he is now pursuing a policy that contradicts Israeli interests.

The Kushner family is known not only for their extensive business interests in

Tel Aviv and support for illegal Israeli set-tlements in the West Bank, but also for their close personal relations with Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu.

And if the Israelis managed to convince Trump to disman-tle the Iran nuclear deal, would they not be able to stop his administration from nuclearising Saudi Arabia, if they really wanted to? What is stopping Netanyahu from standing in front of the UN with a little bomb chart, warning

the world that Riyadh is so close to acquir-ing a nuclear weapon?

Indeed, Israel’s defence policy for a long time has focused on making sure no Middle Eastern country ever acquires a nuclear weapon that could threaten its security - hence, its sab-otage attacks on Iranian and Iraqi nuclear facilities.

That its leadership is not too worried about a nuclear Saudi Arabia is quite telling. It means that normalisation of Saudi-Israeli relations has advanced so far that Tel Aviv feels confident enough that a Saudi nuclear programme would not constitute a threat.

It also means that it intends to be involved in the process in order to control it and make sure Saudi Arabia does not achieve military equity with its defence capabilities.

The reason why a Saudi nuclear pro-gramme is in the interest of the Israeli settler colony is very simple: It would fuel Saudi-Iranian rivalry, keeping them in a permanent state of war in the shadow of nuclear proliferation, which is good for Zionism, and of course, for the Israeli arms industry. It would keep the popu-lations of both countries preoccupied with the imagined Sunni-Shia conflict and make them increasingly oblivious to the plight of the Palestinian people and the desecration of the holy sites in Jerusalem.

The prospects of these two regional adversaries being embroiled in per-petual conflict, while chasing after a nuclear programme, frees up Israel to steal the rest of Palestine. It also rein-forces the myth Israel has put much effort into maintaining: that it is “an island of democracy in a sea of instability” in the Middle East. It is a myth often used to justify why the US should continue to extend unconditional support for the Israeli state.

In his column for the Financial Times, British journalist Edward Luce offers a crucial warning about the dangerous corruption of Kushner’s deals with MBS: “In the cold war, US nuclear diplomacy was called ‘atoms for peace’. In this case, it looks more like ‘atoms for bailout’.”

But while criticising the Trump administration, Luce succumbs to delusional old-fashioned Orientalism, claiming that: “US administrations used to spread best practice to the Middle East and beyond — or at least to pay lip service. Under Mr Trump, the flow has reversed. Washington is importing the Gulf’s culture of patronage clientelism.”

When precisely was it, pray do tell, that US “spread best practice to the Middle East and beyond?” When in col-laboration with British intelligence, it staged a military coup in Iran, remov-ing a widely popular and democratically elected prime minister? Or when lying

Facebook right now is working on a complex project that aims to combine the technology foundations of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

to the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and defying the United Nations, it invaded Iraq, precipitating the mur-der of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the incitement of sectarian hatred and the complete annihilation of the country’s infrastructure?

And how is it that the home-grown maleficence of a real estate mogul, accused of a litany of fraud and tax evasion crimes, and the greed of his equally suspect son-in-law are some-how rooted in “the Gulf’s culture of patronage and clientelism”?

It turns my stomach to see how opinion makers in the US and the UK are so pathologically oblivious to the terror of their Orientalism that right in the middle of assessing the hor-rors their countries are perpetrating around the globe, they still manage to blame us for what they do to us.

Donald Trump is as corrupt as Tony Blair or even worse — one a blue-blooded American from New York and the other a blue-blooded Brit from Edinburgh, Scotland. They are yours, the product of your soci-eties, so own them up.

That both of them have sowed chaos and endangered regional and global peace in the pursuit of self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement has much to do with the colonial cul-tures from which they hail.

And it is the imperial power they have projected and exploited that has contributed greatly to the entrenchment of “the culture of patronage clientelism”, corruption and authoritarianism in the Middle East and beyond.

The author is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Colum-bia University.

Horse ride

10 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019EUROPE

New Russian bill introduces punishment for insulting stateAP MOSCOW

Russian lawmakers passed legis-lation yesterday that imposes restrictions on online media and criminalizes anyone who insults the state.

The bill introduces fines for publishing materials showing disrespect to the state, its symbols and government organs. Repeat offenders could face a 15-day jail sentence.

The Kremlin-controlled lower house, the State Duma, approved the bill in the final, third reading. It also endorsed a separate bill that will block anyone publishing “fake news” online, that is perceived to threaten public health and security.

The bills are expected to quickly pass in the upper house before President Vladimir Putin signs them into laws.

Critics see the legislation as part of Kremlin efforts to stifle criticism and tighten control.

During Thursday’s debates, Communist lawmaker Alexei Kurinnyi warned that the authorities could use the “fake news” bill to punish critics.

Valery Gartung of the Just Russia faction also criticized the legislation, saying its vagueness will open the way for selective interpretation.

The ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky spoke about the need to “fight lies that lead to revolutions and wars,” but added that his faction wouldn’t support what he described as insufficiently pre-pared legislation.

Communists, the Just Russia and Zhirinovsky’s faction vote along with the Kremlin wishes on key policy issues, so their crit-icism of the legislation highlights a degree of division.

The bill bans the spread of “unreliable socially-important information” that could “endanger lives and public health, raise the threat of massive violation of public security and order or impede functioning of transport and social infrastructure, energy and communication facilities and banks.”

The bill gives those who publish such information a day

to correct or remove it. If they fail to do so, prosecutors will move to block them.

Members of the main Kremlin faction, the United Russia, who drafted the new leg-islation, argued that they were needed to protect the state.

“There is no talk about cen-sorship,” said Sergei Boyarsky, a deputy head of the Duma’s committee for information pol-icies. “It doesn’t ban criticism of officials or expression of views and opinions that differ from the official line.”

Boyarsky also charged that the bill that criminalizes insulting the state is aimed to protect “society as a whole,” not indi-vidual officials or government agencies.

He argued that the bill is needed to block information that could threaten public safety, cause panic and provoke bank runs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin rides a horse along with female police officers as he visits a mounted police regiment ahead of International Women’s Day, in Moscow, yesterday.

Russian fighter escorts US intelligence plane over BalticAP MOSCOW

The Russian military says it scrambled a fighter jet to escort a US intelligence plane over the Baltic Sea.

The Defence Ministry did not say when the incident hap-pened as it released a video

shot from the Su-27 fighter’s cockpit as it was approaching the US RC-135 aircraft. It added yesterday that the fighter returned to its base after the US plane flew away.

Russia has repeatedly said that the US and its Nato allies have increased the number of intelligence missions alongside

Russia’s borders in recent years, describing them as part of the alliance’s buildup that threatens Russia’s security.

The US and Nato have fre-quently complained that Russian fighters escorting their war-planes perform dangerous maneuvers, the claims Moscow has rejected.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II leaves after a visit to the Science Museum in London, yesterday.

German man gets life for poisoning co-workers’ sandwichesAP/BERLIN

A judge in Germany has found a man guilty of poisoning his co-workers’ sandwiches with mercury and other substances over several years and sentenced him to life in prison.

German news agency DPA reported a regional court judge gave 57-year-old Klaus O the sentence yesterday after con-victing him of attempted murder.

O. laced colleagues’ lunches with chemicals such as mercury and lead acetate between 2015 and 2018. One is in a coma with irreparable brain damage. Two more have serious kidney damage. He was arrested in May after surveillance video showed him putting a suspi-cious powder on a colleague’s sandwich at a business in western Germany.

Life sentences in Germany usually can be reduced after 15 years. But the judge in Bielefeld ordered O. ineligible for such a reduction, saying he was inclined to commit more crimes.

Queen Elizabeth makes first Instagram postAP/LONDON

Queen Elizabeth II has posted her first Instagram image.

The media-savvy queen posted from the Science Museum yesterday to help promote the museum’s summer exhibition.

Using an iPad, she shared an image on the official royal family Instagram account of a letter from 19th century inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The queen’s post said: “In the letter, Babbage told Queen

Victoria and Prince Albert about his invention, the Analytical Engine, upon which the first computer programs were created by Ada Lovelace, a daughter of Lord Byron. “

The royal Instagram account was launched in 2013 and has 4.6 million followers.

EU awaits reworked UK Brexit proposalsREUTERS BRUSSELS

The European Union told Britain to rework its Irish backstop proposal by today but feared it would struggle to secure a deal that satisfied pro-Brexit lawmakers before a key vote in the UK parliament on Wednesday.

Just 22 days before Britain is due to leave the EU the two sides are locked in a game of brink-manship and attempts to reach a mutually acceptable deal could go down to the wire.

EU diplomats briefed on the negotiations said the UK’s top lawyer Geoffrey Cox had pro-posed a disputes arbitration panel that would not be obliged to refer cases to the EU’s top court, the ECJ, whose jurisdiction Britain wants to leave.

“We are now in a state when we are discussing proposals we have rejected months ago,” an

EU diplomat said. “They’ve sent in a criminal lawyer who doesn’t know EU law or customs rules. We are explaining from scratch why his ideas won’t fly.”

May tasked attorney general Cox with securing concessions from the EU on a key demand of pro-Brexit lawmakers, namely that divorce provisions to ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland would not trap the UK in the bloc’s trade rules.

EU negotiators object that the Cox proposal would unpick the Withdrawal Agreement reached by the EU and UK last year after months of tortuous negotiations.

Britain’s parliament rejected that pact, largely over concerns over the backstop. The bloc has offered addendums and extra assurances on the text to make it more palatable but refuses to change its substance.

While the EU still hopes for a breakthrough at the weekend,

Brussels fears British Prime Min-ister Theresa May could try to negotiate directly with the other 27 EU leaders at a Brussels summit on March 21-22, just a week before Brexit day.

According to EU diplomats, Cox’s backstop solution involved an arbitration panel that would decide if enough “good faith” and “best endeavours” were being shown negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal.

The panel could rule pos-itive even in the absence of a final trade agreement or alter-native solutions to maintain the open border between EU member Ireland and the British-ruled province of Northern Ireland. It will be the only land border between the UK and the bloc after Brexit.

In such a scenario, the EU and the UK would fall back to a “mini-backstop” which would include fewer checks than envisaged in the Withdrawal

Agreement, the sources said. A second EU diplomat said

that would only cover checks for animal health, food safety and prohibited items. It would not cover production standards or where the goods originate which are essential to protecting the EU single market.

Other diplomats said Cox’s proposal lacked detail and that the EU would not agree to replace the backstop with arrangements that failed to specify exactly how the Irish border would be kept open.

In the event of a break-through, May would be expected in Brussels on Monday to seal the deal with Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the bloc’s executive.

However, many EU dip-lomats are sceptical an agreement can be reached in time for a March 12 vote in the House of Commons on May’s plan to leave the bloc.

Lithuania asks Belarus to convert nuclear plant to gasAFP/VILNIUS

Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis suggested that Belarus convert its nearly-completed nuclear power plant to gas, saying the move could lead to closer ties between Minsk and the EU.

Lithuania, a eurozone Baltic state, has repeatedly said con-struction of the plant 20km from its border does not meet safety standards, a claim rejected by Minsk. Skvernelis said Lithuania was ready to ensure gas supplies to Belarus for a proposed gas power plant through its Baltic LNG terminal and a planned gas link between Lithuania and Poland.

“The suggested alternative would benefit the Belarussian economy and would open a new page not only in our bilateral relations but also in Belarus-EU relations,” Skvernelis said in a statement. His advisor Deividas Matulionis said that Skvernelis signed the letter on Thursday, which the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk will deliver to the Belarussian government in the coming days.

The Lithuanian opposition dismissed the offer as a publicity stunt in the service of Skvernelis’s candidacy in the May presidential election. “This is a pre-election game which may lead to a pretext for revoking sanctions rather than stopping the nuclear plant,” con-servative opposition leader Gabrielius Landsbergis said.

Spain police uncover ‘house of horrors’, rescue elderly man, womanAFP/MADRID

Spanish police said yesterday they rescued an elderly man and woman locked up in a house, allegedly drugged and fed via a tube by a couple whose other “wards” died mysteriously.

The Civil Guard police force in the southwestern city of Cadiz said a German-Cuban couple are suspected of having befriended elderly people to rob them of their assets, accumulating more than ¤1.8m ($2m) over four years. In what police described as a “house of horrors,” they found an elderly German man and Dutch woman in a “terrible state”, locked up in separate rooms, drugged and fed via a nasogastric tube, without needing it. It is unclear exactly how old they are. They were taken to a care home where their health “improved significantly.”

The discovery came during an investigation launched when police were notified by their German counterparts that a wealthy 101-year-old woman called Maria Babes was missing. Police found her in a care home where she had arrived in a bad state. Ques-tioned, Babes told police the couple had approached her in Ten-erife where she lived, befriended her, offered to look after her and transferred her to Cadiz.

German citizen Maria Babes (101), at a care home in Cadiz, southern Spain, who was kept locked up for several months in a house, handcuffed, by a couple suspected of having befriended elderly people to rob them of their assets.

The Kremlin-controlled lower house, the State Duma, approved the bill in the final, third reading. It also endorsed a separate bill that will block anyone publishing “fake news” online, that is perceived to threaten public health and security. The bills are expected to quickly pass in the upper house before President Vladimir Putin signs them into laws.

11FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 AMERICAS

Police officers patrol a street after a blockade set by members of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel to repel security forces during an anti-fuel theft operation in Santa Rosa de Lima, Mexico.

In Mexican heartland, ‘bad guys’ still hold sway at many placesREUTERS SANTA ROSA DE LIMA

Burned-out autos littered empty streets this week in the town where Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador faces a first major test of his ability to take control of territory absorbed by organised crime during years of mounting violence.

Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday he was winning the battle for hearts and minds against a gang of fuel thieves in the central town of Santa Rosa de Lima, a few miles east of Salamanca, home to one of Mexico’s main oil refineries, and close to a centre of the nation’s export-driven auto industry.

But in the grimy settlement of some 2,800 people where author-ities say the eponymous Santa Rosa de Lima gang paid residents to obstruct marines and federal police with blockades and burning vehicles and by informing on their movements, some were less certain the government had the

upper hand.“It’s very hard for people to

change,” said Pedro Mendez, 52, who sells household goods in the

town. “The bad guys know how to get to them and that there are people who’ll take money to do their bidding.” Others accused

security forces of damaging private property and breaking car windows in the raids, while denying they were in cahoots with

the gangs. Santa Rosa is a microcosm of the lawlessness that permeates large swathes of Mexico where cartels have for years replaced the state as benefactors, providing jobs and handouts in return for residents’ loyalty.

It lies in Guanajuato state, part of the country’s industrial heartland that was long peaceful and is a major magnet for car-makers such as Volkswagen, General Motors and Toyota, but that suffered a doubling of murders last year, official data shows. The effort to capture gang leader Jose Antonio Yepez, known as “El Marro,” or “The Mallet,” and blamed for stealing vast quantities of fuel from the Salamanca refinery, is also a test of the gov-ernment’s ability to end organised crime’s growing threat to legit-imate businesses and ordinary cit-izens. Fuel theft costing billions of dollars a year, along with dwin-dling output, has weighed heavily on state oil firm Pemex, threat-ening to damage the government’s

creditworthiness.This week, ratings agency

Moody’s warned that “increasing insecurity, robbery and travel warnings hurt Mexican com-panies’ top lines.”

Obrador’s determination to reassert the government as the main provider of services in anarchic regions is an early hallmark of his presidency, which began on December 1.

He set his sights on fuel theft soon after taking office, turning off oil pipelines and risking a public backlash as lines began to form outside gas stations.

Days after the country’s most famous gangster, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was convicted in a US court, Lopez Obrador became the first president in decades to visit his home town, cutting the ribbon on a road project.

This week he addressed the violence in Santa Rosa by again urging Mexicans to reject criminal handouts.

Cohen sought Trump pardon, says attorneyBLOOMBERG NEW YORK

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, had expressed interest in a pardon from the president in the months after federal investigators raided Cohen’s home and office last April, Cohen’s lawyer said yesterday.

Before July, Lanny Davis said in a statement, “Michael was open to the ongoing ‘dan-gling’ of a possible pardon by Trump representatives privately and in the media. During that time period, he directed his attorney to explore possibilities of a pardon at one point with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as other lawyers advising President Trump.’

That was at odds with Cohen’s testimony last week, when he told the House Over-sight and Reform Committee, “I have never asked for it, nor would I accept a pardon from President Trump.”

Republicans supporting Trump have pounced on Davis’s statement, saying that he had perjured himself before Con-gress yet again. “Another perjury and more prison,” Giuliani said on Twitter yesterday.

Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer, has pleaded guilty to nine felonies — including lying to Congress in previous testimony — and is due to report to prison in May. Before he goes, he has been spending hours supplying information to Congress and federal prosecutors in New York and Washington about alleged crimes committed by Trump, his family business and his inner circle.

R Kelly says ex-wife destroyed his name, others stole moneyAP CHICAGO

Embattled R&B star R Kelly angrily blamed his ex-wife for “destroying” his name and claimed other people stole from his bank accounts in an interview that aired yesterday, a day after he was sent to jail for not paying child support.

Kelly, who is also facing felony charges that allege he abused three girls and a woman in Chicago, shouted and cried as he spoke with Gayle King of “CBS This Morning.”

He said his ex-wife was lying when she alleged he’d abused her, and his voice broke as he asked: “How can I pay child support if my ex-wife is destroying my name and I can’t work?” The 52-year old singer was jailed on Wednesday after he said he couldn’t afford to pay

$161,000 in back child support. He said he had “zero” rela-

tionship with his three children but knew they love him. Kelly The interview, recorded earlier this week, marked the first time Kelly has spoken publicly since his arrest last month in the abuse case.

R Kelly, is pictured in Chicago, in this handout booking photo.

US First Lady Melania Trump speaks during the 2019 International Women of Courage awards ceremony at the US State Department in Washington, DC, yesterday.

International Women of Courage awards

US made reporters’ database covering migrant caravanAFP WASHINGTON

US authorities created a secret database of journalists and activists linked to a caravan of Central Americans who tried to enter the US last year from Mexico, NBC reported.

In some cases authorities flagged their passports for alerts, the San Diego, California affiliate of NBC reported. It cited docu-ments leaked to it by a source in the Department of Homeland Security who requested not to be named. It said these documents list people who officials thought must be screened at the US-Mexico border.

They included 10 journalists, seven of them US citizens, an American lawyer and 47 people from the US and other countries

who were labelled as organisers, instigators or with “unknown” roles. The target list includes advocates from organisations such as Border Angels and Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said the affiliate, NBC 7. In addition to flagging the individuals for extra screenings, the Homeland Security said agents also created dossiers on each person listed. “We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the source said, according to NBC 7.

“We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dos-siers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.” NBC 7 said a Customs and Border Pro-tection spokesperson.

The spokesperson said in an email that after incidents like breaches of the border wall in San Diego or violence against border agents it is routine to collect evi-dence for possible future legal action and to determine if such acts were pre-meditated.

“CBP and our law enforcement partners evaluate these incidents, follow all leads garnered from information col-lected, conduct interviews and investigations, in preparation for, and often to prevent future inci-dents that could cause further harm to the public, our agents, and our economy,” the statement said.

Wilbur Ross warned by democrats not to delay census testimonyBLOOMBERG WASHINGTON

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was warned that he must not try to put off a scheduled public hearing before a US House committee next week, where a main topic will be his role in seeking to add a citi-zenship question to the 2020 Census.

The warning came in a letter to Ross from House Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings, after Ross requested more time to prepare for the hearing that’s been scheduled for March 14, according to an official familiar with the matter.

“We have had many very serious questions for Secretary Ross since we invited him to testify several months ago, and we will finally have a chance to

ask him these questions — under oath — at our hearing next Thursday,” Cummings said in a statement yesterday.

Ross’s reason for asking for a delay was that the scope of topics had been broadened from the original request for him to appear in January. But Cum-mings, in his letter, said that while he would narrow some of the issues to be discussed, he also insisted that Ross appear as scheduled, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the proceedings.

A main topic of the hearing is to be allegations by committee Democrats that Ross has given misleading testimony on mul-tiple occasions to Congress about the citizenship question.

Democrats have said Ross may have committed a criminal offense if he wasn’t truthful

about how that decision came about.

In a letter to Cummings, Michael Platt Jr., Ross’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs, said the Commerce Department needed more time because the committee now is indicating it wants documents about topics including the secretary’s “per-sonal finances and ethics obli-gations” and reports of a “tech-nology transfer to Saudi Arabia.”

“To be clear, the secretary has every intention to appear before the committee and con-tinue assisting in your oversight capacity — the department simply needs more time to produce responsive documents and prepare to testify on the broad range of important topics raised in your letters,” he wrote.

Yet the focus on the census issue is especially timely.

In addition to flagging the individuals for extra screenings, the Homeland Security said agents also created dossiers on each person listed.

Guidelines ask agents to target Spanish speakers at borderSAN DIEGO AP

Border agents have been told to explicitly target Spanish speakers and migrants from Latin America in carrying out a Trump adminis-tration programme requiring asylum seekers wait in Mexico, according to memos that reveal some inner workings of a top government priority to address the burgeoning number of Central Americans arriving in the country.

The Trump administration launched the programme in late January in what marks a poten-tially seismic shift on how the US handles the cases of immigrants

seeking asylum and fleeing per-secution in their homeland.

The programme initially applied only to those who turned themselves in at official border crossings. But a memo from a division chief of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector says it expanded to include people who cross the border illegally.

The guidance includes instruction about various groups of immigrants who are not to be sent back to Mexico and instead go through the traditional asylum process in the US immigration court system. They include pregnant women, other migrants and people suffering medical

issues. Authorities said previously that Mexican asylum seekers are excluded, as are children travelling alone.

US officials must check if the asylum seeker has any felony con-victions and notify Mexico at least 12 hours before they are returned. Those who cross illegally must have come as single adults, though the administration is in talks with the Mexican government to include families.

The programme is being implemented as border arrests soared in February to a 12-year-high and more than half of those stopped arrived as families, many of them asylum seekers who

generally turn themselves in instead of trying to elude capture. Guatemala and Honduras have replaced Mexico as the top coun-tries, a remarkable shift from only a few years ago.

The instructions say Mexican officials insist that no more than 20 asylum seekers are returned each day from San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico, on Monday through Saturday, underscoring challenges that the US faces in trying to quickly ramp up one of its top border enforcement prior-ities and most significant changes to the US immigration system of Donald Trump’s presidency. Authorities said that more than

76,000 were stopped or appre-hended at the Mexican border in February, more than double the same period last year.

A memo on Tuesday to top Border Patrol officials in San Diego said the agency is under “pres-sures to utilise this programme as much as we can.” Asylum-seeking families are typically released from US custody immediately and allowed to settle with family or friends while their cases wind through immigration courts, which often takes years. Critics say that amounts to “catch-and-release,” which administration officials want to limit with the new Mexico programme.

12 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019AMERICAS / CLASSIFIEDS

EU hopes Venezuela reconsiders

expulsion of German envoyAFP BRUSSELS

The European Union said yesterday it hopes Venezuela will reconsider its expulsion of the German ambassador as the EU seeks to maintain communication lines with the feuding sides.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government on Wednesday ordered Germany’s ambassador Daniel Kriener to leave the country for “interference” in its internal affairs. He had greeted returning opposition leader Juan Guaido at Caracas airport.

“We regret the fact that the German ambassador to Venezuela is pressed to leave the country in spite of a tense and complex political context,” said Maja Koc-ijancic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

“The European Union has been keen to maintain lines of communication with all key parties in Venezuela including the government of Mr. Maduro,” she told a press conference in Brussels. “And from that perspective the European Union hopes that this decision can be reconsidered,” Kocijancic said.

“We remain strongly com-mitted to a peaceful and demo-cratic solution to the current crisis in Venezuela.” She recalled the

EU’s leading role in setting up the international contact group, where she said Germany plays an “active” role.

Guaido — recognised as interim president by more than 50 countries — said Kriener’s expulsion will be seen “as a threat to the free world.” Kriener was among more than a dozen foreign representatives who welcomed the National Assembly leader, but so far the only one deemed “persona non grata”.

Kriener had tried to help bring humanitarian aid to the country, Guaido said in a speech to oppo-sition lawmakers, adding: “It seems that the Maduro regime does not forgive anyone who wants to help Venezuela.” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that kicking Kriener out only “aggravates the situation”.

The European Union last month condemned Caracas for its use of armed supporters and vio-lence to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid into Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Guaido called on Europe to intensify financial sanc-tions against the regime of Maduro.

European countries “should strengthen financial sanctions against the regime. The interna-tional community must prevent Venezuelan money from being

misused to kill opponents of the regime and indigenous peoples,” Guaido said in an interview with the German news weekly Der Spiegel.

“Venezuela lives under a dic-tatorship, and this way of pro-ceeding is a threat to Germany,” Guaido said.

“Maduro holds the presidency illegally. It is not legitimate to declare an ambassador unde-sirable,” he added, thanking Germany for humanitarian aid it has provided. The foreign ministry gave German envoy Daniel Kriener 48 hours to leave for “interference” in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that kicking Kriener out only “aggravates the situation.”

The National Assembly leader remains free despite the threat of arrest by the government.

Washington has continued to tighten the screws on its campaign of sanctions to force Maduro from power, revoking the visas of 77 people linked to the regime, including officials and their fam-ilies. However, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said that sanctions have worsened Vene-zuela’s crippling economic and political crisis, which has forced 2.7 million people to flee since 2015.

An aerial view taken of the deforestation surrounding a dismantled gold digging system, near the illegal gold miners’ camp “Mega 12”, in the Amazon jungle in the Madre de Dios region, southeastern Peru, during a police operation to destroy illegal machinery and equipment.

Peru opens military base to protect Amazon from deforestationAFP TAMBOPATA

Peru opened a military base in the Amazon in a bid to tackle illegal mining, the main culprit for deforestation in the world’s largest rainforest.

“The government has taken the political decision to be present in this region to erad-icate illegal mining,” said Defence Minister Jose Huerta at the inauguration of the base in the Tambopata nature reserve.

The reserve lies in the Madre de Dios region known as the capital of illegal mining in Peru.

The military base has been installed in an old camp of log cabins abandoned by illegal miners two weeks ago when Peru began its “Mercury” oper-ation against the practice.

“We’ve come and we’ll stay as long as is necessary,” said Huerta. More military bases are planned. “We’ve had a first two week phase and now we go to the second stage,” expected to last six months, he added.

Environment Minister Fabiola Munoz, who also attended the base opening, said Madre de Dios is an area of high biodiversity and great tourism potential “that has only been exploited a little bit.” Munoz said tourists to Tambopata, 1,000km east of the capital Lima, spend more money than at Machu

Picchu, the country’s top tourist attraction and former capital of the Inca empire.

When four police and mil-itary helicopters landed at the site on February 19, they found a ghost town whose 350 inhab-itants had escaped hours earlier.

They had left a huge desert of sand in the middle of the lush jungle through mercury contamination.

Each base will be marshalled by 100 soldiers, 50 police officers and a prosecutor for an initial period of six months, but the operation could last years.

Huerta said the aim was to remain until the area had been “completely reforested.” Patrols will use drones, a Peruvian sat-ellite and a military aircraft, he added.

During a visit to Peru 13 months ago, Pope Francis called for the protection of Amazonian communities and the rainforest’s natural resources. Illegal mining, mainly for gold in the jungle and rivers, caused the loss of 9,000 hectares (22,000 acres) of rain-forest last year but also gen-erated other illegal activities such as people trafficking, mercury trafficking, hired killers and prostitution, authorities say.

The security services will be mostly concentrated in an area where 6,000 illegal miners are at work, with a lawless village of 25,000 having built up around their activities.

Recent satellite images from the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) have showed an acceleration in defor-estation in the Peruvian part of the rainforest.

In the last two years, 18,440 hectares of rainforest have been lost in the Peruvian Amazon — the equivalent of 25,000 football fields, according to MAAP.

The Amazon, which measures over 7-million square km, spans nine countries and is one of the areas with the greatest biodiversity on the planet.

The security services will be mostly concentrated in an area where 6,000 illegal miners are at work, with a lawless village of 25,000 having built up around their activities. In the last two years, 18,440 hectares of rainforest have been lost in the Peruvian Amazon — the equivalent of 25,000 football fields.

13FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 CLASSIFIEDS

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THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Minister of Commerce and Industry H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari met yesterday with Fletcher Tabuteau, New Zea-land’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs who is currently visiting Doha.

Discussions touched on the promotion of bilateral relations and the development of joint cooperation, particularly in the fields of trade, investment and industry in light of the friendly ties between Qatar and New Zealand.

The meeting focused on the latest developments that the Qatari economy witnessed over the past years, investment opportunities across various sectors and the legislations that Qatar has adopted and the ini-tiatives being undertaken to support the private sector, attract foreign direct investment and encourage New Zealand companies to invest in Qatar.

Discussions also touched on the development of mech-anisms aimed at supporting joint investments and encour-aging the private sector to e s t a b l i s h i n n o v a t i v e investment projects in key sectors that would serve the economic aspirations of both countries.

In 2018, Qatar and New Zealand exchanged goods valued at around QR300m.

BUSINESSFriday 8 March 2019

PAGE | 15 PAGE | 15ECB acts early

to curb eurozone

slowdown

Huawei ban in UK would cost millions to Vodafone

Brent crude futures were at $66.83 per barrel at 1143 GMT, up 84 cents or 1.2 percent from their last close.

Discussions touched on the promotion of bilateral relations and the development of joint cooperation, particularly in the fields of trade, investment and industry in light of the friendly ties between the two countries.

Qatar-New Zealand working to boost economic relations

S’hail AGM approves 16.5% dividend sharesTHE PENINSULA DOHA

S’hail Shipping and Maritime Services held its Annual General Meeting recently and approved all the items on the agenda of the meeting, including the Board’s proposal to declare 16.5 percent div-idend shares to all its shareholders.

S’hail is a private joint stock company incorporated on December 11, 2016. Within a short span of time, the company has acquired 5 ships ranging from 52k dwt to 75k dwt dry bulk carriers.

At the meeting, the Chairman and Managing Director of the company, Mohamed Khalifa Al Sada, said: “The company has made remarkable progress in the field of maritime transport and the ships are engaged in trans-portation of dry bulk materials globally even after all doors of navigation within major gulf ports were closed for Qatari owned and/or flagged ships”.

S’hail is now an interna-tionally known brand for transporting various dry bulk materials like Corn, Soybean, Grain, Coal, Cement, Fertilizer, Mineral etc. In the financial

year 2018, S’hail’s ships inter-nationally carried more than 2 million metric tons of dry bulk cargo between ports in USA, Brazil, Argentina, China, India and amongst others South East Asia too. Al-Sada thanked the Shareholders for their overwhelming response in December 2018 for sub-scribing to 30 percent increase in share capital. This capital will be used for expansion of S’hail’s fleet. Considering the financial performance of the company in the year 2018, the AGM adopted the Board’s pro-posal to declare 16.5 percent dividend shares to all its

shareholders.Immediately after con-

clusion of the AGM, the share-holders called for an Extra Ordinary General Meeting during which it was decided that the company should issue further shares of 40 percent for subscription by the existing Shareholders as on December 31, 2018. This increase of share capital was adopted at the EGM. This capital too will be used for expansion of S’hail,

In Qatar, S’hail is definitely emerging as one of the most prominent international player in shipping & maritime sector particularly in dry bulk sector.

Maduro boost basic businessesVenezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (centre) during a visit to an industry in an event to boost the basic businesses in Guayana, Venezuela. Sanctions have worsened Venezuela’s crippling economic and political crisis, the UN human rights chief said Wednesday, as Washington warned it may expand measures targeting President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.

QSE index closes at 9,781.18 pointsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Stock Exchange’s (QSE) index lost 330.44 points, or 3.27 percent, last week when the bourse closed yesterday at 9,781.18 points.

Trading value during last week decreased by 39.07 percent to reach QR961.79m compared to QR1.57bn.

Trading volume decreased by 32.43 percent to reach 33.05 million shares, as against 48.92 million shares, while the number of transactions fell by 22.73 percent, to reach 23,348 transactions as compared to 30,217 transactions.

Market cap fell by 3.80 percent to reach QR556.06bn as compared to QR578.05bn at the end of previous week, reports QNA. Industries

sector led traded value last week with 35.6 percent of the total traded value. Banking and Financial Services sector accounted for 31.46 percent. Real Estate sector accounted for 10.66 percent and Consumer Goods and Services sector accounted 8.59 percent.

Industries sector led traded volume last week with 44.59 percent of the total traded volume. Banking and Financial Services sector accounted for 18.81 percent. Real Estate sector accounted for 18.00 percent and Tel-ecoms sector accounted 7.94 percent.

Industries sector led traded number of transac-tions last week with 37.87 percent of the total number of transactions. Banking and Financial Services sector accounted for 22.06 percent.

Real Estate sector accounted for 16.49 percent and Tel-ecoms sector accounted for 8.76 percent.

From the 46 listed com-panies 13 ended last week higher, while 31 fell and two remained unchanged.

QNB led trading value during last week accounted for 13.28 percent of the total traded value. Mesaieed Pet-rochemical Holding Company accounted for 13.16 percent and Industries Qatar accounted 10.33 percent.

When compared on daily basis the QSE index dropped 103.03 points, or 1.04 percent, yesterday compared to Wednesday’s closing. The volume of shares traded decreased to 7,423,070 from 7,575,618 on Wednesday and the value of shares decreased to QR222.24m from QR241.76m on Wednesday.

Blackstone nears $20bn for flagship buyout fundBLOOMBERG BOSTON

Blackstone Group LP expects to reach about $20bn when it completes the first phase of capital raising for its flagship fund, signaling the appetite for private equity has yet to wane.

The New York-based firm notified investors that the first close for its eighth buyout fund may be in March or early April, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Blackstone hasn’t yet set a limit for the fund’s size as it approaches a record for its buyout pools. Blackstone’s haul is an early

indication that fundraising in the private equity industry is maintaining its momentum this year. Firms set a record in 2017, bringing in $453bn, and neared that figure last year. Investors have been seeking the mid-teens returns delivered by buyout firms as other options, like many hedge funds, struggle to outperform.

The company, which started its private equity business in 1987, raised its largest buyout pool with $21.7bn at the height of the market in 2007. After the financial crisis, it took Blackstone almost four years to gather $16bn for its next fund. Yesterday private

equity companies came back to market to take advantage of the wave of client interest in their long-term strategies. Blackstone held a final close of $18bn on its last main buyout fund at the end of 2015. That fund was about 56 percent invested at the end of last year, according to a regulatory filing.Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager with $472bn, started talking to potential investors last year about its eighth fund. It was expected to seek more than $20bn. While the money is pouring in, good deals are hard to find. Private equity firms sat on more than $2 trillion of capital.

Oil edges up on Venezuela, Iran sanctions, and Opec supply cutsREUTERS LONDON

Oil prices rose yesterday on the back of ongoing Opec-led supply cuts and US sanctions against exporters Venezuela and Iran, but gains were capped by record US crude output, rising inventories and falling estimates of global demand growth.

Brent crude futures were at $66.83 per barrel at 1143 GMT, up 84 cents or 1.2 percent from their last close.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at

$56.82 per barrel, up 60 cents. Prices were supported by

efforts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ( Opec) and allies such as Russia to

cut output and tighten oil markets.

“In our view, Opec’s strategy is to rebalance the market as quickly as possible and exit the cuts by the end of June in order to grow production alongside shale producers in the second half of this year,” US investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a note on Wednesday.

US sanctions against the oil industries of Opec members Iran and Venezuela have also had an impact, traders said.

Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA this week declared a

maritime emergency, citing trouble accessing tankers and personnel to export its oil due to sanctions.

Within the US sanctions against Iran, Washington granted its biggest buyers - mostly in Asia - waivers when the measures were re-introduced in November 2018 that would allow them to buy limited amounts of crude for another 180 days.

Washington has put pressure on these governments to grad-ually cut their oil imports from Iran to zero, but importers remain in talks over potential extensions,

with India asking to be allowed to buy same volumes.

Despite these factors, oil remains in plentiful supply thanks to surging US production.

US crude oil stockpiles rose much more than expected last week, with inventories up by 7.1 million barrels to 452.93 million barrels, according to a weekly report by the US Energy Infor-mation Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.

US crude oil production was at a record 12.1 million bpd, an increase of more than 2 million bpd since early 2018.

That, along with the easing of a transportation bottleneck for low-cost US Permian Basin shale oil, could lead to higher output, Goldman Sachs said.

“Unfortunately for the bull camp, the forward supply of crude oil is showing signs of increasing,” Marex Spectron said in a note. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation & Devel-opment (OECD) said on Wednesday the world economy would grow 3.3 percent in 2019, down 0.2 percentage points from its last set of forecasts in November.

15FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 BUSINESS

Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

CROSSWORD

Four wannabe goons desperately looking for contract gigs end up being challenged by a lady gangster.

MR & MS ROWDY

Captain Marvel (2D/Action) 2:30, 4:45, 7:00, 9:15 & 11:30pm; Badla (2D/Hindi) 7:00 & 9:15;Thirumanam (2D/Tamil) 2:15pm; Mr & Ms Rowdy (2D/Malayalam) 2:00 & 11:30pm Sathru (2D/Tamil) 4:45pm;Bell Bottom (2D/Kannada) 5:00pm;Luka Chuppi (2D/Hindi) 7:00pm; Arctic (2D/Thriller) 7:15pm;Boomerang (2D/Tamil) 7:15pm;Gully Boy (2D/Hindi) 11:30pm

Mr & Ms Rowdy(2D/Malayalam) 2:00 & 11:30pm;

Luka Chuppi (2D/Hindi) 4:15pm; Captain Marvel (2D/Action) 2:15, 4:45, 7:00, 9:15 & 11:30pm;

Badla (2D/Hindi) 2:00, 6:30 & 9:15pm;

Sathru (2D/Tamil) 4:15pm;

Bell Bottom (2D/Kannada) 4:30pm;

Boomerang (2D/Tamil) 6:45pm;

Thirumanam (2D/Tamil) 8:45pm;

Total Dhamaal (2D/Hindi) 11:30pm

Arctic (2D/Thriller) 3:00, 6:00 & 11:00pm

Captain Marvel (2D/Action) 10:30am, 11:00,

1:00, 1:30, 3:30, 4:00, 6:00, 6:30, 7:40, 8:45,

9:00, 10:30, 11:30 & 11:45pm

Luka Chuppi (2D/Hindi) 10:30, 1:10, 8;10pm

Mr & Ms Rowdy (2D/Malayalam) 10:30am, 1:30,

4:30, 7:30 & 10:30pm

Toys 1:10, 3:20 & 11:00pm

Captain Marvel (2D/Action) 11:00am, 1;30, 4:00, 6:30, 9:00 & 11:30pm; Boomerang (2D/Tamil) 10:45pm, 4:00 & 9:15pm; Mr & Ms Rowdy (2D/Malayalam) 12:45, 6:15 & 11:45pm; Badla (2D/Hindi) 1:30, 6:45pm & 12:00 midnight.Sathru (2D/Tamil) 3:45 & 9;15pm

MALL

LANDMARK

ROXY

AL KHOR

Boomerang (2D/Tamil) 2:15 & 11:30pm; Captain Marvel (2D/Action) 2:15, 6:45 & 9:00pm; 3D 4:30 & 11:15pm; Sathru (2D/Tamil) 4:45pm; Thirumanam (2D/Tamil) 5:00pm; Badla (2D/Hindi) 7:00 & 9:15; Arctic (2D/Thriller) 7:45pm; Look Away (2D/Thriller) 9:30pm.

Badla (2D/Hindi) 12:30, 5:45, 8:00, 10:30pm & 1:00amJune(2D/Malayalam) 3:00pm; Mr & Ms Rowdy (2D/Malayalam) 12:00, 5:30, 8:30, 11:00pm & 1:45amKodathisamaksham Balan Vakkeel (2D/Malayalam) 2:45 & 8;15pm; Sathru (2D/Tamil) 1:00 & 6:00pm; Boomerang (2D/Tamil) 3:30 & 1:30pm; Thirumanam (2D/Tamil) 12:45pmThadam (2D/Tamil) 11:00pm; Kumbalangi Nights (2D/Malayalam) 6:00pm; Bell Bottom (2D/Kannada) 3:15 & 8:30pm

ROYAL PLAZA

FLIK Mirqab Mall

ASIAN TOWN

Alita: The Battle Angel (2D/Action) 10:50, 1:20, 3:25 & 10:25pmAlone/Together (2D/Tagalog) 2:15, 5:55 & 8:10pmArctic (2D/Thriller) 3:10pm & 0:55amCaptain Marvel (2D/Action) 10:00am, 11:10am, 12:30, 1;40, 3:00, 3:50, 4:10, 4:30, 5:00, 6:20, 6:40, 7:00, 8:00, 8:50, 9:10, 10:30, 9:30, 11:20, 11:40pm & 12:00midnightCaptain Marvel (3D/Action) 10:30, 11:50, 1:00, 2:20, 3:30, 4:50, 6:00, 7;20, 8:30, 9:50, 11:00pm, 12:20am & 2:00amEscape Room 10:45 Logo Movie 2: The Second Part 10:55am, 12:55 & 1:10pm

ECB acts early to curb eurozone slowdownAFP FRANKFURT

The European Central Bank (ECB)yesterday announced fresh measures to juice the slowing eurozone economy, saying interest rates would remain at his-toric lows at least until the end of 2019 and offering new rounds of cheap loans to banks to keep credit flowing.

Markets have long priced in “lower for longer” interest rates as there has been little sign of inflation perking up in the eurozone.

But the ECB’s launch of new quarterly “targeted long-term refinancing operations” (TLTROs) for banks from September is an unexpectedly early move to coun-teract a euro area slowdown.

ECB staff were expected to offer a slashed growth and

inflation forecast for 2019 after the March meeting, matching a gaggle of international organisations like the European Commission, Inter-national Monetary Fund and OECD.

Geopolitical uncertainty, stut-tering output in emerging markets and trade conflicts helped put the brakes on expansion in late 2018, alongside painful one-off effects like new emissions tests that have slowed the car industry.

The weak patch meant that just three months after ending a$2.9 trillion “quantitative easing” (QE) stimulus for the 19-nation eurozone in December, the ECB was under pressure to show it still had options to buttress growth.

“The measures, as such, are not a major surprise but the moment of the announcement is,” economist Carsten Brzeski of ING Diba bank said.

“It is clearly an attempt to stay ahead of the curve” by preventing the work the ECB has done to loosen financial conditions in recent years from being undone, he added.

President Mario Draghi (pic-tured) will unveil the central bank’s updated growth forecasts and explain the thinking behind its decision to intervene quickly at a 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) press conference.

The ECB’s renewal of its TLTRO scheme will allow banks to borrow from the ECB for periods of up to two years once per quarter between September 2019 and March 2021.

“These new operations will help to preserve favourable bank lending conditions and the smooth transmission of monetary policy,” the ECB said.

Like previous rounds of

TLTROs, the programme “will feature built-in incentives for credit conditions to remain favourable”.

In the past, those incentives have included negative interest rates for banks showing they were lending more to firms and house-holds -- effectively meaning the ECB would pay them to borrow its cash. The ECB has loaned banks more than $790bn in pre-vious TLTRO rounds.

The ECB’s intervention comes at a moment when many had felt it was blocked from responding to the soft patch in growth after years of crisis firefighting.

Huawei ban in UK would cost millions to VodafoneREUTERS LONDON

Vodafone said any move by Britain to bar equipment made by China’s Huawei from all parts of new 5G networks would cost it hundreds of millions of pounds and “very significantly” slow down the deployment of the new technology.

The United States has asked allies not to use Huawei’s tech-nology because it could be a vehicle for Chinese spy opera-tions, an accusation denied by the company.

Vodafone said last month it had paused the use of Huawei components in its core networks in Europe until governments had assessed the risks.

The group’s UK chief

technology officer Scott Petty (pictured) said yesterday that Huawei radio equipment was used in nearly a third of the com-pany’s 18,000 UK base stations - a part of the network it gauged

to be very low risk. It would also be part of the foundation for 5G technology. Vodafone said it would launch 5G in 19 towns and cities across Britain this year, adding 12 more locations to the seven cities that are already live or are soon to be live under its UK-wide trial.

“If we were forced to remove Huawei from the network, we would need to go to the 32 percent of base stations that are currently using Huawei for radio and replace all of those with somebody else’s technology and then deploy 5G on top of that,” Petty told reporters.

“The cost of doing that runs into the hundreds of millions and would dramatically affect our 5G business case; we would have to slow down the deployment of 5G

very significantly.” He said oper-ators should be able to use Hua-wei’s radio technology on its masts even if they could not use the company’s kit in the more critical transport network and core network.

Vodafone UK decided against using Chinese technology in the higher risk parts of its network more than five years ago, he added. The British government is reviewing the telecoms supply chain and is due to report in the coming months.

The head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said last month that the country was able to manage the security risks of using Huawei’s equipment and it had not seen any evidence of malicious activity by the company.

SPORTFriday 8 March 2019

PAGE | 17 PAGE | 19Nasser

favourite but faces tough test

in Qatar

Al Attiyah re-elected as Asian Equestrian Federation President

MotoGP riders, FIM and QMMF officials pose for a photograph with young Qatar Motor Academy riders at Losail International Circuit, yesterday.

MotoGP: Dorna extends Qatar deal until 2031RIZWAN REHMAT THE PENINSULA

There’s great news for bike fans - Qatar will continue to open the MotoGP season until 2031 at Losail International Circuit (LIC).

This was announced by Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta and Khalid Al Remaihi, Vice President and General Manager of Losail Circuit Sports Club (LCSC), at a press con-ference yesterday.

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali and FIM President Jorge Viegas were also present at the media conference.

Dorna - the sports management, marketing and media company - took over the running of the MotoGP World Championship in 1991.

Al Remaihi yesterday also said LIC - the venue for this week’s Vis-itQatar Grand Prix - will undergo major upgrade this year with signif-icant enhancements made to the track, drainage systems and lighting quality around the 5.37km circuit.

“We are happy to announce that we have extended our contract until 2031. This is the longest contract we have made in our history. Normally we don’t do normally but the way Qatar stage this event has given us the confidence that this contract extension is worth it,” Ezpeleta said yesterday.

“I am told that in the near future, there will be immense improvements further. They are ready to lay a new tarmac and put effort into a new drainage system. All this big improvements are possible and will make Losail International Circuit better,” he added.

“Yes, we will continue to stage the season’s first race in Qatar,” he said.

Al Remaihi said the new deal is a reflection of Qatar’s love of bike racing.

“For Qatar, MotoGP is not just a business deal. For Qatar, it is a passion that we live,” Al Remaihi said yesterday.

“It’s been like that since the first day when we hosted the MotoGP race in 2004. It is the first day of the new season and we are here to make this announcement. There is a time-tested and strategic partnership with Dorna.

“We appreciate the support extended to us over the years and now. We couldn’t have done what we do every year without their support. The idea is here that we are going to invest heavily into redevel-opment and upgrade at the circuit,” he added.

“There will be major enhance-ments in every aspect of this won-derful circuit. The drainage system, the lighting etc, you name it. Whether it is the enhancement of the offices or the development of the track, we will do it. We wanted to have the assurance that these enhancements

at the circuit will be well placed with the support of our friends and partners at Dorna.

“We know this investment will be useful. We don’t have a plan to stop this development. We have exclusive rights to host MotoGP in this region and we would like to con-tinue like that. This extension until 2031 is an opportunity for us take the sport forward. I would like to thank Dorna for this contract extension,” Al Remaihi said.

“Qatar, as you know, is speeding ahead with its preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Three new stadiums will be completed this year and I believe the subway (metro) will be running in 2019. I believe Qatar is ahead of schedule with regards to preparing for the World Cup. Our government is working very hard and doing it very professionally. All sport-related

projects are being completed with Qatar’s future in mind,” Al Remaihi said.

Ezpeleta said yesterday: “When we came here for the first time in Middle East in 2004, there were many questions raised as to if we made the right decision to come to the desert. People asked if it would be possible to hold a race here. But Qatar has done its work very well.”

He added: “From the beginning they did well and then picked up pace by hosting the first night race. Initially they got marshals and vol-unteers from outside but now they manage all these things by them-selves. Then we got the night race, the only night race on the calendar so far. For us the biggest thing is the safety of the riders and we know this circuit is one of the safest tracks any-where in the world.”

MotoGP stars meet young QMA ridersTHE PENINSULA DOHA

MotoGP stars and officials yesterday met with young Qatar Motor Academy (QMA) riders at Losail International Circuit (LIC).

FIM President Jorge Viegas yesterday joined Vice President and General Manager of Losail Circuit Sports Club (LCSC), Khalid Al Remaihi, QMMF President Abdulrahman Al Mannai and the MotoGP team riders to meet with QMA riders.

The officials and riders including Val-entino Rossi Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo posed with the QMA riders and later

gave autographs to the budding stars of the future.

The riders are in Qatar for the opening Grand Prix of the new season.

Around fifty boys and girls joined the photoshoot for what is billed as Visit Qatar Grand Prix.

The LCSC, Dorna Sports SL and Aspire Academy launched the QMA last year in November 6.

The QMA gives young riders between the ages of 8 and 16 years, the opportunity to learn from the experts, improve their skills and abilities, and work their way to possibly becoming a world champion.

The MotoGP Championship

is one of the most

important events in the

world of sport. Losail

International Circuit is

the venue for the season-

opener this week. Over

300 million people will

watch this race around the

world. The MotoGP race

weekend in Qatar will be

excellent from all aspects.

The company owning the

rights of MotoGP was keen

to continue to host the

season-opener in Qatar.

The championship will

be best from the point of

view of safety as Losail

International Circuit is one

of safest venues around the

world. This venue is also

one of the most beautiful

race tracks in the world.

Mr Carmello Ezpeleta was

here to witness the signing

of the new contract. Qatar

has advantage of exclusive

rights to host the MotoGP

races in the Middle East.

The new deal is until 2031.

We will have many new

upgrades at the Losail

International Circuit in the

coming years.

Minister of Culture and

Sports H E Salah bin

Ghanem Al Ali

FROM LEFT: Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation President Abdulrahman Al Mannai, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, FIM President Jorge Viegas, Minister of Culture and Sports, H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali and Vice President and General Manager of Losail Circuit Sports Club (LCSC), Khalid Al Remaihi pose for a photograph during a press conference held in Lusail, yesterday.

Repsol Honda’s Spanish MotoGP riders Marc Marquez (left) and Jorge Lorenzo react during a photoshoot at Losail International Circuit yesterday, ahead of the VisitQatar Grand Prix.

Yamaha MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi looks at his bike.

17FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 SPORT

THE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah (pictured) heads a superb 29-car entry for the Manateq Qatar International Rally, round one of the FIA Middle East Rally Cham-pionship to be held from March 14 to 16.

The regional rally series has struggled in recent seasons to attract new teams, but sterling effort and hard work by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) has seen a resurgence in interest in rallying in the region and the Qatar event has been rewarded with the largest entry seen for several years.

While Al Attiyah and his French navigator Matthieu Baumel start as clear favourites to give their Autotek Motorsport Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 a winning debut - just two weeks after winning the Manateq Qatar Cross-Country round of the FIA World Cup - there is strength in depth throughout the entry list

that has been sent to the FIA for official approval.

Several other drivers will be eager to challenge Al Attiyah in their R5 cars. Nasser Khalifa Al Attiyah, runner-up in the regional series in 1993 and a podium finisher in Kuwait last season, returns to rallying action in Qatar at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta R5.

Adel Abdulla was second overall at the event last November and also runs a similar Ford for the second time, while former rally winner Abdulaziz Al Kuwari returns to action with a Skoda Fabia and regular Irish co-driver Killian Duffy.

There are also R5 Ford Fiesta entries for the 1993 regional champion Sheikh Hamed bin Eid Al Thani and a returning Khalifa Al Attiyah.

Competition is likely to be intense in the MERC 2 category for Group N or NR4 cars.

Kuwait’s Meshari Al Thefiri returns to defend his regional

title, but will come under intense pressure from the likes of Khalid Al-Suwaidi, Abdulla Al-Kuwari (third overall and MERC 2 winner in 2018), Abdullah Al-Rabban, Mohammed Al-Meer (fourth overall in 2018) and a strong Omani con-tingent, headed by Abdullah Al Ruwahi, Saif Al Harthy and Zakariah Al Shanfari.

The Sultanate of Oman has no less than eight cars on the entry list and the international flavour in boosted by a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX entry for I t a l y ’ s

Stefano Marrini, an RC3 Renault for Jordanian Asem Aref and three Lebanese entries for

defending MERC 3 champion Henry

Kahy (Skoda), Elie C h a c h a t i (Subaru) and Ahmad Khaled

(Mitsubishi).“We are

delighted to be back in our

customary slot at the start of the

s e a s o n a n d h o s t i n g t h e

opening round of the FIA Middle East

R a l l y

Championship,” enthused QMMF President Abdulrahman Al-Mannai.

“Our goal is to continue the resurgence of the regional rally championship and to see it develop and flourish in the future. The series has struggled for entries in recent seasons, but we have worked hard to attract teams and to make it possible for them to come to Qatar. I am delighted with the strength in depth of the entry we have received.”

Any cars that fail to comply with FIA regulations will run in a national event behind the main international rally.

This year’s rally will be based at the Lusail Sports Arena for a second year, but the ceremonial start and opening super special stage will take place at Souq Al-Wakra on March 14.

After a further 10 special stages in the north of the country on March 15 and 16. The prize giving ceremony and post-event press conference will take place

at Souq Waqif in downtown Doha for a second year on March 16.

Al Attiyah favourite but faces tough testTop drivers gear up for Manateq Qatar International Rally

pressure from the likes of Khalid Al-Suwaidi, Abdulla Al-Kuwari(third overall and MERC 2 winner in 2018), Abdullah Al-Rabban,Mohammed Al-Meer (fourth overall in 2018) and a strong Omani con-tingent, headed by Abdullah Al Ruwahi, Saif Al Harthy and Zakariah Al Shanfari.

The Sultanate of Oman has no less than eight cars on the entry list and the international flavour in boosted by a Mitsubishi Lancer EvoIX entry for I t a l y ’ s

for Jordanian Asem Aref and three Lebanese entries for

defending MERC 3 champion Henry

Kahy (Skoda), Elie C h a c h a t i (Subaru) and Ahmad Khaled

(Mitsubishi).“We are

delighted to be back in our

customary slot at the start of the

s e a s o n a n dh o s t i n g t h e

opening round of the FIA Middle East

R a l l y

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Several other drivers will be eager to challenge Al Attiyah in their R5 cars. Nasser Khalifa Al Attiyah, runner-up in the regional series in 1993 and a podium finisher in Kuwait last season, returns to rallying action in Qatar at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta R5.

Adel Abdulla was second overall at the event last November and also runs a similar Ford for the second time, while former rally winner Abdulaziz Al Kuwari returns to action with a Skoda Fabia and regular Irish co-driver Killian Duffy.

India boycott threat looms over cricket’s global showpieceAFP NEW DELHI

Border tensions between India and Pakistan are casting a cloud over this year’s cricket World Cup with the threat of a boycott hanging over their highly-anticipated clash in England.

There have been calls for India to forfeit their June 16 match against Pakistan after a suicide bomb attack in Indian-admin-istered Kashmir claimed by a militant group based in Pakistan in which 40 Indian troops died. Pakistan vehemently denies any involvment.

Tit-for-tat air strikes and an aerial dogfight followed, igniting fears of an all-out conflict, but the crisis appeared to ease when Pakistan returned an Indian pilot who was shot down and captured.

But doubts remain over the fate of the group stage match in Manchester.

The ball rests firmly with India’s politicians, who are not likely to make any decision until nearer the match, after crick-eters and sports officials said they will abide by any government call for a boycott.

Vinod Rai, a senior official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), told reporters after the Kashmir attack that they had written to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to demand tough security at the World Cup, which begins in England and Wales on May 30.

Rai confirmed a boycott decision would only be made at a later date -- and after consulting the government.

India captain Virat Kohli said the players would respect any instruction from the government or board.

“Our stand is simple: we stick by what the nation wants to do and what the BCCI decides to do,” Kohli told reporters.

“That is basically our opinion. Whatever the government and the board decide, we will go by that and we will respect that.”

In the letter to the ICC, the BCCI urged “the cricketing com-munity to sever ties with countries from which terrorism emanates”.

ESPNcricinfo.com senior editor Sharda Ugra believes the ICC are unlikely to get involved and the next move rests with the Indian government.

“I think they won’t be able to get the ICC to take on any stand on it and I don’t think the BCCI will say that we are not playing there,” she said.

“It will have to be a government pressure on them to not play. June 16 is still many days off and politics can play any nar-rative it wants to suit itself.”

Opinions have differed among prominent figures in Indian cricket. Former paceman Chetan Sharma said that country comes first for him and he would prefer India giving up two points if need be.

“It totally depends on what the government decides. As a sportsperson I must tell you that we are Indians first and then comes cricket,” said Sharma.

Asked what should happen if India drew Pakistan in the semi-finals or the final, Sharma said: “I would still say that it’s the country and not the World Cup that is important.”

India’s greatest batsman Sachin Tendulkar tweeted he would “hate” to hand Pakistan two points by forfeiting the game, but added, “India always comes first, so whatever my country decides, I will back with all my heart.”

Former India spin bowler Harbhajan Singh was vociferous in calling for a boycott.

“I don’t care about losing points as the Indian team is pow-erful enough to win the World Cup without playing Pakistan,” said Singh, who took 417 Test wickets.

A boycott would be costly for organisers. The match is one of the hottest tickets at the World Cup, which begins on May 30, with demand so far outstripping that for the final, according to ICC.

Swiss great Federer shies away from Superman tagAFP INDIAN WELLS, UNITED STATES

Roger Federer (pictured) is still savoring his latest remarkable milestone, but the Swiss great says his 100th career title isn’t a sign he’s super-human.

“The problem is, people always elevate the superstar athlete to like Superman status like we’re super-human and all that stuff,” Federer said Wednesday as he prepared for his next challenge at the Indian Wells Masters.

“I don’t see myself like that. Being perfect doesn’t exist,” Federer said. “Everybody has their flaws. So do I.”

Federer, owner of a men’s record 20 Grand Slam titles, reached the 100-title milestone with a ruthless 6-4, 6-4 disman-tling of

Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Dubai Championship final last Sunday.

Seeded fourth at Indian Wells, he’ll launch his bid for a sixth title in the California Desert exactly one week later when he takes on either Peter Gojowczyk or Andreas Seppi in the second round.

He could find himself taking on Swiss compatriot

Stan Wawrinka, a three-time Grand Slam champion, in the third round in a quarter that also includes sixth-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan.

“It is something incredible to see, how (often Federer) plays at a high level and does not have many injuries,” said Nishikori.

“For sure, he works so much harder than everybody,” said the star.

Federer, 37, said he never envisioned winning 100 titles -- becoming just the second player along with 109-time winner Jimmy Connors to hit triple digits.

“It’s an achievement that I never thought I was going to make and one I only started thinking about maybe in the last nine months or year or so, ever since maybe I got to 96 or 97,” he said.

Federer’s 99th trophy had come last October at his home event in Basel.

He missed out on the century at the Paris Masters, the ATP Finals in London and then at Melbourne -- failing to make the final at any of those events, but when he got there in Dubai there was no room for doubt.

“First attempt in a finals it’s

nice to pass the hurdle and get to 100 rather than going to every single event from now on and going ‘Is this going to be the week where you’re going to reach 100?’ and going ‘Yeah, I hope so,’” he said.

“I think all the players would have gotten fed up with that too so I’m happy I got it out of the way.

“What I like about it is that it’s maybe also a little time to reflect on all these great moments and great titles that I’ve had,” he said.

“For me, they’re all very important. Some were more important than others, some were nicer than others but at the end every one has a special meaning for me,” said the Swiss superstar.

we e supe u a a d astuff,” Federer said

nesday as he prepared for ext challenge at the Indian

Masters.don’t see myself like that.

g perfect doesn’t exist,”rer said. “Everybody has flaws. So do I.”ederer, owner of a men’s d 20 Grand Slam titles, ed the 100-titletone withthless 6-4

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I don’t see myself like that. Being perfect doesn’t exist. Everybody has their flaws. So do I: Roger Federer

Azarenka books Serena showdownAFP INDIAN WELLS, UNITED STATES

Two-time Indian Wells champion Victoria Azarenka shook off a slow start to beat Vera Lapko 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday and set up a second-round meeting with long-time rival Serena Williams.

Azarenka, a former world number one now ranked 48th in the world, said she started a little too passive in dropping the first two games against her fellow Belarussian, but roared back to seal the win with ease.

She was looking forward to taking on 10th-seeded Williams, who like all the seeds in the com-bined WTA and ATP Masters event has a first-round bye.

The American has won 17 of their 21 prior encounters, but Aza-renka won their most recent clash -- in the 2016 Indian Wells final.

“Of course it’s going to be a very special match for us,” she said of their first clash since both became mothers.

“We have such a big history, it’s going to be really special. She motivates me, she inspires me, she pushes me to be better,” Aza-renka said of Williams.

The opening day of women’s main draw play saw highly touted teenagers Bianca Andreescu and Amanda Ansimova reached the second round. Canada’s Andreescu, 18, rallied from a set down to beat Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu 6-7 (3/7), 6-3, 6-3.

“For me, the ending is the most important, so I’m really glad I pulled through,” said Andreescu, who has won 22 matches this season including qualifying and main draw.

She has climbed steadily in the rankings, rising from 107th to start the year to 60th.

American Ansimova, 17, lined up a meeting with 16th-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium with a 6-0, 6-4 victory over Serbian Aleksandra Krunic. Third-seeded Petra Kvitova, who will face either Venus Williams or Andrea

Petkovic in the second round, said she wasn’t surprised to see teenagers making such a strong showing.

Elsewhere, American Sofia

Kenin didn’t have to wait long to avenge her loss to Wang Yafan in last Saturday’s Acapulco women’s final -- ousting China’s Wang 1-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus plays a forehand shot against compatriot Vera Lapko during their ladies singles first round match of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California.

COMMERCIAL BANK QATAR MASTERS

FIRST ROUND SCORES

67 A Arnaus (Esp), J Walters (RSA),

68 B Dredge (Wal), H Leon (Chi), J Harding (RSA), N Colsaerts (Bel), G

Coetzee (RSA), R Ramsay (Sco), M Lorenzo-Vera (Fra),

69 L Slattery (Eng), E Van Rooyen (RSA), I Cantero Gutierrez (Esp), P Waring

(Eng), R Karlsson (Swe), S Fernandez (Esp), G Forrest (Sco), E Molinari (Ita), M

Kawamura (Jpn), N Cullen (Aus), K Kitayama (USA), M Kieffer (Ger), Y Miyazato

(Jpn), R Fisher (Eng), G Bhullar (Ind), R Macintyre (Sco), O Wilson (Eng),

70 D Lawson (Aus), A Chesters (Eng), T Pieters (Bel), S Kjeldsen (Den), A

Sullivan (Eng), B Evans (Eng), J Winther (Den), T Detry (Bel), N Johansson (Swe),

71 A Otaegui (Esp), B Stone (RSA), T Jaidee (Tha), J Smith (Eng), J Kruyswijk

(RSA), N Elvira (Esp), G Green (Mas), D Horsey (Eng), K Samooja (Fin), G Moynihan

(Irl), K Broberg (Swe), R Gouveia (Por), A Cañizares (Esp), H Tanihara (Jpn), T

Aiken (RSA),

72 M Warren (Sco), D Drysdale (Sco), M Schwab (Aut), J Choi (Kor), J Dantorp

(Swe), A Karlsson (Swe), T Pulkkanen (Fin), D Howell (Eng), D Lipsky (USA), M

Southgate (Eng), T Bjørn (Den), B Wiesberger (Aut), M Kinhult (Swe), R Rock

(Eng), J Campillo (Esp), R Jacquelin (Fra), F Zanotti (Par), S Soderberg (Swe), J

McLeod (Aus), L Johnston (Sco), A Saddier (Fra), S Brazel (Aus), C Sordet (Fra),

A Meronk (Pol), D Gavins (Eng), Z Lombard (RSA), C Bezuidenhout (RSA), M

Korhonen (Fin), S Gregory (Eng),

73 J Singh Brar (Eng), S Chawrasia (Ind), B Ritthammer (Ger), D Law (Sco),

L Gagli (Ita), S Jamieson (Sco), J Hansen (Den), A Björk (Swe), K Koivu (Fin), M

Schmitt (Ger), O Fisher (Eng), G Fdez-Castaño (Esp), P Figueiredo (Por), J Van

Zyl (RSA), C Saxon (USA), H Park (Kor), H Porteous (RSA), S Brown (Eng), V

Dubuisson (Fra),

74 J Lagergren (Swe), C Paisley (Eng), F Bergamaschi (Ita), S Locke (Sco), P

Langfors (Swe), B Hebert (Fra), R Wattel (Fra), A Rai (Eng), P Larrazábal (Esp),

M Waite (Eng),

78 V Perez (Fra), G Migliozzi (Ita), S Al Kaabi (am) (Qat),

86 J Alkuwari (am) (Qat),

ARMSTRONG VAS THE PENINSULA

Spain’s Adri Arnaus and Justin Walters of South Africa shared the lead at the end of the opening day of the European tour sanc-tioned Commercial Bank Qatar Masters here yesterday.

On a windy and dusty day, the duo overcame the tough con-ditions to fire an opening round of 67 to sit atop a congested lea-derboard at Doha Golf Club.

Spaniard Arnaus carded the best opening round of his rookie season to date to set the target at five under before South African Walters went bogey free in the afternoon to join him.

South African pair George Coetzee and Justin Harding, Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, Welshman Bradley Dredge, Chile’s Hugo Leon, Frenchman Mike Lorenzo-Vera and Scot-land’s Richie Ramsay were then at four under, with three shots separating the top 37 players.

Arnaus only turned profes-sional in 2017 but finished second on the European Chal-lenge Tour Rankings last season and has made five of seven cuts so far this campaign.

“It was a lot of fun, honestly,” he said.

“The wind picked up early but we kept the ball in play most of the time and gave myself good looks. I was able to take advantage of those, so I’m pretty pleased.

“It was so good being in con-tention last year, and then at the end being able to close it off at

the Challenge Tour Grand Final gave me the belief that I could go on and do it on a bigger stage.”

Walters is looking for his first European Tour win in his 192nd appearance after graduating from the Challenge Tour in 2012 and twice coming through the Qualifying School since.

Arnaus eagled the par five 18th to go with birdies on the tenth and 16th and, when he then birdied the second, he held the solo lead at five under.

Playing partner Leon also birdied the second to sit a shot off the lead after making gains on the 12th, 14th, 16th and 18th to go with a dropped shot on the 13th.

Harding made a birdie-birdie start but dropped a shot on the 12th before picking it back up on the next. A run of five pars would follow as he turned in 34 but he birdied the first and ninth - from eight feet - to set the target with a 68.

Coetzee started birdie-bogey but made three birdies in a row from the fifth and when he broke a run of ten pars thanks to a beautiful pitch on the last, there was a five way tie for the lead.

Arnaus dropped a shot on the fifth and missed a golden chance to retrieve it from eight feet on the eighth but he made no mistake on his last hole to edge back ahead on his own.

Leon dropped a shot on the seventh but also birdied the ninth to get back to four under.

In the afternoon, Walters birdied the tenth, 18th, second and third to get into contention

and a long putt on the sixth put him into a share of the lead.

Playing partner Ramsay had shared the lead after he started eagle-birdie and recovered from a bogey on the 12th with gains on the 16th, 18th and first. Back to back bogeys from the seventh slipped him back but he recovered with a gain on the ninth. Dredge had also shared the lead as he sandwiched a bogey on the 12th with birdies on the tenth, 11th and 16th before making three in a row from the 18th. He then dropped shots on the third and sixth before hitting back on the ninth.

Colsaerts turned in 36 with a bogey on the second and a birdie on the ninth but came home brilliantly, birdieing the 11th and 12th before holing a long putt on the 15th and driving up to the fringe on the par four next.

Lorenzo-Vera dropped a single shot on the eighth to go with birdies on the third, ninth, 12th, 16th and last.

India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar had been at five under, while Scot Robert MacIntyre and England’s Lee Slattery had both shared the

lead before falling back to three under.

“It was a good opening day. I started off well from the 10th and I was minus five in the first 10 holes. Then I was a bit unlucky and had a double bogey, losing an odd ball. That was the only blemish I had today and off the remaining holes I parred to finish with three under,” Bhullar said.

“The conditions were tough…Right from the morning. It is a decent score, I would say. I feel it is a good start to the tour-nament. The course played in good shape – fairways, greens and bunkers. The greens are firm but a little bit dry and you have to hit the ball a little high to stop it,” he added.

Ryder Cup star from 2010 Ross Fisher, 2008 European Number One Robert Karlsson and last week’s winner Kurt Kitayama were also in the group of 18 players in the club-house two shots off the lead.

Australia’s Lucas Herbert was also in that group but darkness brought an end to play as his group were playing their final hole and the trio will return to finish early on day two.

18 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019SPORT

Warming up today in the wind I was

thinking anything under par would

be a great score, so to go five under I’m

ecstatic. I putted really well: Walters

I’m pretty satisfied, the conditions were pretty difficult. I thought my front nine was pretty difficult to deal with. I had a couple of decent up and downs and then had some roll on the back nine: Nicolas Colsaerts

I’m very pleased because there was a lot of trouble out there. You need to have really good control of the ball off the tee, so that was very interesting. We had it from the first hole to the last hole, really strong: Mike Lorenzo-Vera

It was a lot of fun, honestly. The wind picked up early, but we kept the ball in play most of the time. I was able to take advantage of those, so I’m pretty pleased: Adri Arnaus

Arnaus, Walters share Qatar Masters leadAdri Arnaus of Spain in action during the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at the Doha Golf Club yesterday,

Justin Walters of South Africa in action yesterday.

VisitQatar Grand Prix 2019: Marquez leads star cast

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MotoGP riders pose for a group

photo at the Losail

International Circuit

ahead of VisitQatar

Grand Prix 2019.

Spanish star Marc Marquez

(third left, front) is in Qatar to start his title

defence.

Who’s saying what ahead of season opener Since 2017 I’m looking at everybody. I’m looking at all my opponents in the same way because for example in 2017, we were here and not a lot of people spoke about Dovizioso and he was the man to beat: Reigning World Champion Marc Marquez In the last years here I did good results. Apart from one victory I was on the podium a lot of times, so we have to

try. But if I have to think now, maybe we have seven or eight riders ready for the podium. I don’t know if we are stronger here than last year because anyway it was a good race. But we’ll see, we have to try: Valentino Rossi

For sure our competitors are strong right now but we are closing the gap little by little: Maverick Vinales

This preseason I was trying to be strong. I was trying to improve our Suzuki bike a little bit because the setup from last year was very nice. But we improve a little bit on the braking area, a little bit on the top speed area so this means Suzuki have worked very hard during the winter: Andrea Dovizioso

19FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019 SPORT

Epaillard continues Doha love affair as CHI Al Shaqab 2019 commencesRIZWAN REHMAT THE PENINSULA

French rider Julien Epaillard yesterday continued where he had left off last week as he guided Virtuose Champeix to victory in the feature event on the opening day of CHI Al Shaqab.

The 41-year-old rider last week won the prestigious LGCT Grand Prix with Usual Suspect d’Auge.

Epaillard, stride Virtuose Champeix, yesterday clocked 58.86 seconds in the 150m class at Al Shaqab Arena to win the top prize of €23,375.

Brazili’s Yuri Mansur, who was in the saddle with Carlson, clocked 61.19 seconds to get richer by €18,700 while running against the clock.

Epaillard said yesterday: “I am very happy. I saw Yuri Mansur in the lead and so tried to be faster. It worked and it is a fan-tastic day for me. I took a risk and it worked. Al Shaqab has one of the best facilities for horses and riders and I enjoy competing here.”

Frenchman Kevin Staut also made it to the podium as he guided Viking d’La Rousserie to the third fastest time. Viking d’La Rousserie clocked 61.43 seconds to claim the prize of €14,025.

Belgium’s Karel Cox (Evert; 61.64 seconds, €9,350) finished fourth while Ireland’s Shane Breen, astride Golden Hawk, com-pleted the top five in a time of 61.68 seconds. Breen won €6.545.

Earlier in the 1.45m class, Bel-gium’s Jos Verlooy yesterday emerged winner with Caracas who clocked 33.77 seconds. Verlooy won €6,250.

Verlooy, 23, said: “It was great to win. My horse jumped super. He decided to go faster the first day – that was my plan, so that was good. Al Shaqab has an unbe-lievable stadium, the facilities are super for the riders and horses. It’s my fourth time here and I really like to come here (to par-ticipate). I’m looking forward to the Grand Prix on Saturday.”

Compatriot Geir Gulliksen, astride VDL Groep Quatro, grabbed the second spot in a time of 34.93 seconds. Gulliksen won €5,000.

French rider and a frequent visitor to Qatar, Simon Delestre guided Filou Carlo Zimenquest to the third fastest time of 35.10 seconds. Delestre won €3,750 Great Britain’s Scott Brash fin-ished fourth with Hello Senator (36.08 second, €2,500). Dutch rider Bart Bles (Israel V/D Den-nehoeve, 36.16 seconds €1,750) completed the top five out of 12 rides running against the clock.

Qatar’s Sheikh Ali bin Khalid Al Thani (Sirocco), Bassem Hassan Mohammed (Argelith Squid), Salmen Sultan Al Suwaidi (Cantaro 32) and Faleh Suwead Al Ajami (Carport) were also seen in action yesterday.

The three-day competition continues today at Al Shaqab Arena. The latest edition of CHI Al Shaqab is witnessing 91 riders and 139 horses from 23 nations featuring in the event, which Al Shaqab is organising for the sixth time.

The riders - whether indi-vidual or team - are competing in the Olympic equestrian disci-plines of show jumping, dressage, and para dressage during CHI Al Shaqab - the only equestrian competition of its kind in the Middle East and Asia region.

“I would like to extend my appreciation to Al Shaqab for hosting outstanding riders in this

great facility and for working in cooperation with the Qatar Equestrian Federation. The results are already bearing fruit – besides encouraging them to aspire towards higher goals, there has been a marked increase in the quality of our riders,” Hamad bin Abdulrahman Al Attiyah, Pres-ident of the Qatar Equestrian Fed-eration (QEF) and Asian Eques-trian Federation (QEF), said before the start of the tournament.

Mohammed Sultan Al Suwaidi, Manager, Equine Edu-cation Department at Al Shaqab, yesterday said: “Al Shaqab is ded-icated to providing the highest

level of equestrian education pro-grams and services. The focus of this camp is not merely on improving the height a rider can clear. Besides regular lessons and training sessions, we have lined up several unique activities to help them acquire important leadership and communication skills. Some of the top riders from CHI Al Shaqab 2019 including Scott Brash, Nicola Philippaert, Marlon Zanotelli and Bassem Mohammed will provide a clinic for the participants.” Tickets for the second and final days of CHI Al Shaqab 2019 are available from www.alshaqab.com and from the venue ticket office.

Al Attiyah re-electedas AEF PresidentQNA DOHA

Hamad bin Abdulrahman Al Attiyah was re-elected by acclamation yesterday as President of the Asian Equestrian Federation (AEF) for a second term, until 2023, at the General Assembly Meeting of the Federation in Doha.

After his win, Al Attiyah expressed pleasure at the confidence of the members of the General Assembly in re-electing him for a second term, promising to do everything that will contribute to the equestrian development in the continent and to continue the work that he started with the AEF members at the previous session.

Al Attiyah has been AEF’s president since July 2017 and has completed the current session and is looking forward to complete the journey he started about 17 months ago to develop and promote equestrian sport in Asia.

The voting process continues in the Assembly for the election of Vice-Presidents and the rest of the members of the Executive Office of the Continental Federation.

Presidentwas re-elected by acclamation yesterdayFederation (AEF) for a second term, Meeting of the Federation in Doha.d pleasure at the confidence of the re-electing him for a second term, contribute to the equestriancontinue the work that he

e previous session.nt since July 2017 ession and isourney he lop and

Belgium’s Jos Verlooy astride Caracas receives his trophy, yesterday.

French rider Julien Epaillard receiving the shield after winning the 150m class at Al Shaqab Arena, yesterday.

French rider Julien Epaillard astride Usual Suspect d’Auge in action, yesterday.

The action yesterday began with the para dressage competition at Al Shaqab Arena. Allowing for fair competition and to create the opportunity for riders of all skills to achieve their goals in equestrian sport, the competition was conducted in grades depending on the disability, according to International Equestrian Federation standards. Participants of the Al Shaqab Inter-nations Camp conducted by the center’s Equine Education Department, had an intense day as the second and final round of qualifications were conducted.

In the lead was Team Barzan - led by Qatari rider Ghanim Nasser Al Qadi with Oliver George Tuff from Great Britain and Abdulaziz Ghanim Al Nuaimi from Qatar also part of the team.

In a fairly close second place was Zekreet, a team comprising Ali Mohammed Al Qadi of Qatar, Gautier Lenoir from France and Henning Josef Athens of Germany.

The best individual timing was achieved by Fraser Hayden Reed, of Great Britain, who completed his course in 66.17 seconds with no faults.

COMPETITION S02 - CSI5* TABLE A (238.2.1) 1.50M

Rank/Rider/Horse Time (Secs) Prize Money

1: Julien Epaillard (FRA)/Virtuose Champeix 58.86 €23375

2: Yuri Mansur (BRA)/Carlson 61.19 €18700

3: Kevin Staut (FRA)/Viking d’La Rousserie 61.43 €14025

4: Karel Cox (BEL)/Evert 61.64 €9350

5: Shane Breen (IRL)/Golden Hawk 61.68 €6545

COMPETITION S01 - CSI5* TWO PHASES (274.1.5.3) 1.45M

Rank/Rider/Horse Time (Secs) Prize Money

1: Jos Verlooy (BEL)/Caracas 33.77 €6,250

2: Geir Gulliksen (NOR)/VDL Groep Quatro 34.93 €5,000

3: Simon Delestre (FRA)/Filou Carlo Zimequest 35.10 €3,750

4: Scott Brash (GBR)/Hello Senator 36.08 €2,500

5: Bart Bles (NED)/Israel V/D Dennehoeve 36.16 €1,750

COMPETITION H1 - AL SHAQAB INTER-NATIONS CAMP

Rank/Rider/Horse Time (secs)

1: Fraser Hayden Reed/Al Maida – Higgs 66.17

2: Khalifa Abdulla Al Khaldi/Al Zubara – Charming Boy 69.73

3: Ali Mohammed Al Qadi/Zekreet – Jalieny Diamant Z 70.52

4: Ghanim Nasser Al Qadi/Barzan – Sidney 71.90

5: Gautier Lenoir/Zekreet – Harvard 64.14

COMPETITION H2: HATHAB EQUESTRIAN TOUR: DRESSAGE LEVEL 1

Rank/Rider/Horse Score

1: Jessica Waldon (GBR)/Lusso Del Castegno 68.621

2: Ali Mohammed Al Marri (QAT)/Fernhill Friendly Touch 66.724

3: Mohammed J M Al Tamemi (QAT)/Silvan 63.793

COMPETITION H2B: HATHAB EQUESTRIAN TOUR: DRESSAGE LEVEL 2

1: Mohammed Salem Al Marri/Gin Tonic Van De Kranenburg 68.214

2: Saoud Mohammed Y A Al Kuwari/Special Edition 19 67.857

3: Ghamim Nasser Al Qadi/Joie De Vivre 67.143

Feeding time

20 FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2019MORNING BREAK

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 35 AM

05. 51 AM

11. 45 AM

03. 08 PM

05. 41 PM

07. 11 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 05:35 – 17:22 LOW TIDE 00:02 –13:14

Moderate temperature daytime, relatively

cold by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum16oC 26oC Stylist Carlyle Nuera (right), with Barbie doll prototype painter Alexandra Stoyan Lopez inspects prototypes at a workshop

in the Mattel design center as the iconic doll turns 60, in El Segundo, United States, yesterday.

Barbie will soon be 60, and is still going strongAFP EL SEGUNDO, UNITED STATES

She is turning 60 this year and still doesn’t have a single wrinkle. Blonde or brunette, slender or curvy, black or white, princess or president, Barbie is a forever favorite for young girls, even if she has caused controversy over the years.

The iconic doll has evolved to keep up with the times — check out her Twitter feed. And despite fierce com-petition in the toy industry, 58 million Barbies are sold each year in more than 150 countries.

“In an industry where success today is three to five years, 60 years is a huge deal!” said Nathan Baynard, director of global brand marketing for Barbie. Around the world, Barbie is as universally known as Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, Baynard said during a recent visit to Mattel’s design studio in El Segundo, a suburb of Los Angeles.

In all, more than one billion Barbie dolls have been sold since she made her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959.

She was invented by Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, who was inspired by her own children to create the doll. “Her daughter Barbara was limited in the choices of her toys -- the only ones were baby dolls,” Baynard recounted. “The only role she could imagine through that play was caregiver, mother,” whereas Handler’s son “could imagine being an astronaut, cowboy, pilot, surgeon.”

Barbie is, of course, a shortened version of Barbara.

The doll was supposed to teach girls “that they had choices, that they could be anything. In 1959, it was a radical idea!” Baynard said.

Barbie was an instant success. In the first year, 300,000 dolls were sold, he added. From the start,

Barbie’s pinup measurements didn’t immediately seem all that feminist, and would spark criticism for decades to come.

“In 1959, her body structure was exaggerated to match the aesthetics of the time and the fabric available,” said Barbie designer Carlyle Nuera. Since the blonde beauty first hit stores, and after a torrent of complaints over what was seen as unre-alistic proportions, Mattel has made many changes -- intro-ducing multiple body types and dozens of skin tones.

MG Lord, author of “Forever Barbie,” also argued that the original criticisms were unwarranted.

“She is what the child wants her to be. How a child sees the Barbie doll is often framed by how the mother of

that child feels about the idea of femininity,” Lord told AFP.

“The problem here is not an 11.5-inch plastic object. The problem is the larger culture and the idea of femininity.”

In 1965, four years before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, Barbie became an astronaut. In 1968, the first black Barbie doll, a friend named Christie, hit store shelves. Lisa McKnight, senior vice president and global general manager for the Barbie brand, said that today, 55 percent of the dolls sold around the world have neither blonde hair nor blue eyes.

Mattel has more than 100 people working in the El Segundo design studio, a m a s s i v e h a n g a r - l i k e building wedged between Los Angeles International

Airport and a freeway.Designers begin with a

simple sketch. From there on, every bit of a prototype is made by an army of experts — from sculpting the doll using state-of-the-art software and 3D printing to painting the face, styling the hair, choosing fabrics and crafting the clothing pat-terns. The entire design process for a new Barbie can last 12 to 18 months. Then, the prototype is sent from the Cal-ifornia workshop to factories in China and Indonesia for mass production.

“Sometimes, you see her on a shelf and then it gets back to you: oh yes, I designed this one!” Nuera said with a smile.

Barbie is not only a toy store success -- she has a massive social media presence, and is something

of an “influencer,” with mil-lions of followers. She has an actual identity: Barbie Mil-licent Roberts, who hails from the made-up town of Willows in the Midwest. And now, she speaks directly to girls about her life, and important current topics. In 2018, the brand launched a sweeping campaign to help young girls close the so-called “Dream Gap” -- using Barbie to teach them to believe in them-selves, and not to buy into sexist gender stereotypes. Barbie has a hair stylist, makeup artist and photog-rapher who travel with her “for real” in the United States and abroad for Instagram photo sessions (check out @barbiestyle). The account has near ly two mil l ion followers.

Chimps’ cultural diversity threatened by humans: StudyAFP WASHINGTON

Like humans, chimpanzees are culturally diverse but those differ-ences are being eroded by human incursion, international researchers say in a groundbreaking study published yesterday.

The striking results, published in the American journal Science, show that the behavioural diversity of chimpanzees was reduced by an average 88 percent in areas with the highest human impact, compared to remote pristine forests.

In the tropical rainforests and savanna woodlands that are the chimpanzees’ natural habitat, the researchers observed 31 behav-iours that were not universal or innate among chimpanzees and varied from one group to another, in a total of 144 chimpanzee com-munities studied in 17 Equatorial African countries where the animals live. Reflecting the diversity, not all communities of chimpanzees use the same tools to hunt or dig.

Neither do they extract termites and ants in the same way. Ditto for honey and nuts. Their use of stones, ponds and caves also varies.

Researchers assume this diversity is passed between individuals within the group. They based their findings on existing studies sup-plemented with their own field observations of 46 communities over the past nine years. Such data had never before been com-piled on chimpanzee behavior, the researchers said. Until now, sci-entists have focused on the loss of genetic diversity, or human-caused population decline.

Scientists begin exploring Indian Ocean depths in SeychellesAP ALPHONSE ATOLL, SEYCHELLES

An unprecedented mission to explore the Indian Ocean and document changes taking place beneath the waves began its research yesterday, in Seychelles waters.

The British-led Nekton Mission arrived off the tiny atoll of Alphonse in the early morning hours, after looming bad weather forced a change of plan and of route.

The ambitious expedition will delve into one of the last major unex-plored frontiers on the planet, a vast body of water that’s already feeling the effects of global warming. Under-standing the Indian Ocean’s ecosystem is important not just for the species that

live in it, but also for an estimated 2.5 billion people at home in the region - from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula, the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia.

Though the mission will use hi-tech submersibles in its work, research began on Thursday with more modest equipment: a device to measure the water’s chemistry and a Neuston net used to retrieve zoo-plankton. “When you actually finally begin doing the science, it’s a bit of a relief and a lot of fun,” said Louise Allcock, a professor of zoology at the University of Ireland, in Galway.

Alphonse is a tiny atoll, the tip of a submerged mountain, 232 nautical miles southwest of Seychelles’ capital Victoria. Within two miles of its shores,

the ocean is as deep as 5,000 meters (3 miles).

Little is known about the biodi-versity of Alphonse Atoll, as it remains unexplored beyond scuba depth.

Mission member Stephanie Marie is a marine researcher from the Sey-chelles. She recently spent a week on Alphonse working on a study of a fish species called the Giant Trevally, or GT. She says she is excited to find out what’s down there.

“When you have amazing weather, you have a lot of things to see, like the sharks, the GT, the corals also, so it’s like a different place, a different scenery every time,” she said. Marie’s role is to collect zooplankton to conduct taxonomy identification.

“I’m really excited. It’s going to

be eye opening, because I’ve never seen so deep,” she said. “It’s really important. Fish feed on zooplankton, so we need to see its quality, because if the ecosystems changes it may have an impact on the fish we feed on.” The mission expects to discover new species, as well as document evidence of climate change and of human-driven pollution.

The data will be used to help the Seychelles consolidate and expand its policy of protecting almost a third of its national waters by the year 2020. The sea area to be protected is larger than Germany. The initiative is a key component of Seychelles “blue economy,” which attempts to balance development needs with those of the ocean environment.

A caretaker feeds penguins at Bursa Metropolitan Municipality Zoo in Bursa, Turkey, yesterday.

Zuckerberg promises a privacy-friendly FacebookAP/SAN FRANCISCO

Facebook, which grew into a colossus by vacuuming up your information in every possible way and using it to target ads back at you, now says its future lies in privacy-oriented messaging that Facebook itself can’t read.

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO, announced the shift in a blog post apparently intended to blunt both criticism of the company’s data handling and potential antitrust action. Going forward, he said, Facebook will emphasise giving people ways to communicate in truly private fashion, with their intimate thoughts and pictures shielded by encryption in ways that Facebook itself can’t read.

But Zuckerberg didn’t suggest any changes to Facebook’s core newsfeed-and-groups-based service, or to Insta-gram’s social network, currently the fastest growing part of the company. Facebook pulls in gargantuan profits by selling ads targeted using the information it amasses on its users and others they know.

“All indications are that Facebook and Instagram will continue growing and be increasingly important,” Zuckerberg said in an interview. Critics aren’t convinced Zuckerberg is committed to meaningful change.

“This does nothing to address the ad targeting and information collection about individuals,” said Jen King, director of con-sumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “It’s great for your relationship with other people. It doesn’t do anything for your relationship with Facebook itself.”