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QATAR | Page 2
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QATAR
2 – 10, 30 – 32
11
REGION
ARAB WORLD
12, 13
INTERNATIONAL 14 – 27
COMMENT
BUSINESS
28, 29
1 – 5, 14 – 16
CLASSIFIED
6 – 13
SPORTS
1 – 12
SPORT | Page 11
Bahrain strips 72
of citizenship
Bahrain said yesterday it had
revoked the citizenship of 72
people convicted of “harming the
interests of the kingdom”. The
official BNA news agency said their
nationality had been rescinded in
a decree as part of measures to
“preserve security and stability
and fight the danger of terrorist
threats”. BNA published a list of
names of the 72 people affected
by the measure adopted by the
interior ministry and approved by
the cabinet. Information Minister
Isa Abdulrahman al-Hammadi
said that “most” of those deprived
of their citizenship “are abroad
and can challenge the decision
legally”. Among the reasons
for the decision, Hammadi cited
“membership of terrorist cells and
groups”, “financing terrorist acts”,
“incitement to regime change
through force” and “spreading
deviant ideologies”. This is the
largest number of Bahrainis to
be stripped of their nationality
since a law passed in 2013 on the
punishment of those convicted of
“terrorist” acts.
ARAB WORLD | Occupation
Israeli soldiers
kill Palestinian
Israeli soldiers yesterday shot
dead a Palestinian in the occupied
West Bank. An Israeli military
spokeswoman claimed soldiers
saw two men throwing a fire bomb
towards a road near the Palestinian
city of Nablus and “identifying
an immediate threat shot toward
the suspects’ lower extremities”.
A Palestinian security source said
one of the Palestinians shot by the
soldiers was killed, but gave no
further details. Violence in Israel and
the Palestinian territories surged in
the weeks before a 50-day Gaza war
in July and August, in which more
than 2,100 Palestinians in Gaza and
73 people on the Israeli side, most of
them soldiers, were killed. Page
JAPAN | Violence
IS claims
beheading
The Islamic State group yesterday
released a video purportedly
showing the beheading of
Japanese hostage Kenji Goto. In it,
Goto is seen kneeling, dressed in
an orange outfit, as a masked man
standing beside him with a knife
blames the Japanese government
for his “slaughter”. It ends with a
still photo of the body with the
head resting on the back. The
executioner appears to be the man
known as “Jihadi John”, speaking
with a southern English accent
and addressing the Japanese
government. The video made no
mention of a Jordanian pilot also
held hostage and threatened with
execution.
The Najma Street near Al-Thumama Electricity Signal. New roads being built as part of the Doha Expressway project are
expected to facilitate hassle-free traffic movement to the southern side, especially Barwa Village.
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SUNDAY
Vol. XXXV No. 9620
February 1, 2015
Rabia II 12, 1436 AH
www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals
Faster
schedule
for breast
screening
As part of the National Cancer
Programme’s ongoing activities, a
“Be Breast Aware” Wall Clock has
been inaugurated at the waiting
area of the Women’s Hospital
New roads bring cheers
to Barwa Village tenants A
By Joseph Varghese
Staff Reporter
By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter
N
ew roads being built through
Al Thumama, Al Rawda and
Mesaimeer areas as part of the
ongoing Doha Expressway project are
expected to give a boost to the business activities at Barwa Village.
Commercial tenants at the complex
have been complaining of poor customer patronage ever since its opening more than three years ago.
The complex has close to 900 shop
rooms and more than 450 residential
tenants.
The signing that took place last
week for the second phase of the expansion of the Barwa Village project,
spreading over a space of more than
32,000 square metres, has raised
hopes among the tenants. Many of
them are now looking forward to expanding their business activities at
the place.
“The signing for the Village’s further development shows that the
property’s developers are committed
to not only its expansion but are also
taking care of the growing requirements of tenants,” said a shop owner
who moved to the complex from the
Bin Mahmoud Area .
The second phase of the project will
have more than 150 shop rooms and
almost an equal number of family accommodations.
Barwa Village is receiving more
customers these days.
The Mesaieed-Doha bypass being
built through the western side of the
complex and other roads forming part
of the Expressway Project are expected to make Barwa Village one of the
most sought-after business destinations of Doha, with easy access from
all four sides of the country, it is felt.
The further extension of the Najma
Street from Al-Thumama signal and
the new interchange being built near
Kahramaa’s upcoming museum are
expected to ease the traffic congestion
on the E-Ring Road. Once the road
towards the Wakrah bypass, starting
from the intersection turning towards
Hamad International Airport (HIA) in
Al Thumama, is completed and trafﬁc towards the southern side starts,
shops at the Village will get more patronage, it is hoped.
The new roads are being built near
the vicinity of the mixed development, with provision for inter-changes .
Some of the businessmen who had
Warning over credit card scam
A
senior Interior Ministry official has cautioned Qatar
residents against dealing with
people from outside the state who
offer services like payment of traffic fines and booking of air tickets at
very “attractive” rates.
Fraudulent persons operating
from foreign countries use stolen or
forged credit cards to pay the traffic
fines and in the process gain access
to their bank accounts , Brigadier
Mohamed Saad al-Kharji, director of
the Traffic and Patrols Department,
said. The victims of these fraudsters
not only lose their money but are
also liable for prosecution for being
partners in a criminal act, the official was quoted as saying by local
Arabic daily Al Watan.
Urging the public to stay away
from such fraudsters, Brig al-Kharji
said people must also be very careful while using their credit cards at
supermarkets or purchasing things
through the Internet. “Care has to
be taken so that the secret number of
the credit card is not disclosed”.
Explaining the modus operandi
of the criminals, he said that people were contacted through the so-
cial media platforms and offered
payment of fines or purchase of air
tickets at a 60% discount. “Once
they win the trust of the victim, they
manage to gain access to their bank
accounts which are then manipulated for their gains.”
The official said sooner or later
the Traffic Department would find
out that the payment was made using a stolen or forged credit card and
the transaction would be cancelled.
“Thus the fine will stand as unpaid.”
He said the Traffic Department
had referred all the parties involved
in such dealings to the Criminal Investigation Department for legal action.
First Lieutenant Midawi Saeeid
al-Gahtani, an officer in the Criminal Investigation Department, told
Al Watan that his department had
come to know about cases where
some residents have bought air tickets by availing of the services offered
by the fraudsters.
“When they reach the airport they
are told their tickets have been purchased using forged or stolen credit
cards and hence they cannot travel,”
he added.
left the place complaining lack of
business are now regretting the decision, it is learnt.
Though virtually no shop is currently available at Barwa Village,
boards outside some of the retail
shops in Doha city suggest that businessmen are still moving to the market complex, off Wakrah road.
Some of the shop owners feel commercial rents at Barwa Village continue to be low when compared with
rooms of similar size in different locations of the city and some other areas
in its immediate neighbourhood. A
single-shutter showroom at the Village costs QR10,700 while a commercial space of similar size costs at least
50% more in the city areas.
Sources said the “key money”
is also on the rise these days at the
Village as there are renewed hopes
among the businessmen about better
fortunes at the Village in the coming
days.
While businesses at most eateries
at the Village have reportedly picked
up in recent months, not all entrepreneurs are seemingly happy as they
have lost huge sums all these years because of less public patronage.
Owing to better parking facilities a
large number of auto accessory shops
which used to be located in the city
have shifted their operations to the
Village in the last one year and a whole
section there is now dedicated for this
type of business.
ppointments for breast screening the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) will be granted
without any delay and in most cases
women will be able to avail of it within
two days to two weeks, a senior official
has promised.
Speaking to Gulf Times on the occasion of the inauguration of the “Be
Breast Aware” Wall Clock at the Women’s Hospital, Ambika Anand, senior
consultant breast surgeon at the HMC,
said people could contact the call centre for an appointment.
“Those who would like to undergo
screening, can contact the call centre.
We will arrange a screening session at
the earliest possible and sometimes it
can even be on the same day. However,
normally it is done in two days to two
weeks’ time,” he said.
“The screening does not take a long
time. People have several misconceptions about screening and many believe that it is a long procedure. The
truth is that the whole process can be
completed in 10-15 minutes. However,
the screening will be done at HMC only
until May this year as it will be brought
under the Supreme Council of Health
(SCH) from May.” People can contact
the breast cancer screening unit on
66004051 or 44398994.
As part of the National Cancer Programme’s ongoing activities, a “Be
Breast Aware” Wall Clock was inaugurated at the waiting area of the Women’s Hospital last week by Dr Shaikha
Sami Abushaikha, manager, Special
Programme Division at Primary Health
Care Corporation (PHCC), Ghislaine
van den Born, assistant executive di-
“Be Breast Aware” Wall Clock installed
at the Women’s Hospital.
rector of Hospitality at HMC, and Fiona Bonas, director of National Cancer
Programme, SCH.
The massive wall clock, hung at the
Section 3 waiting area, bear the campaign’s message “Be Breast Aware” written in Arabic calligraphy at the centre
of the artefact. Surrounding this message are words of encouragement and
empowerment, promoting early detection through being breast aware and
acknowledging a woman’s ability and
strength to protect herself from breast
cancer and face the disease head on.
Dr. Salha Bujassoum, medical oncologist and director of Breast Cancer
Screening at the HMC, commented:
“We are committed to supporting the
National Cancer Programme and its
ambition which encourages women to
be more breast aware.”
Fiona Bonas, director of National
Cancer Programme, said: “We would
like to thank the Hamad Medical Corporation that includes National Centre
for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR)
and the Women’s Hospital, for their
support of this great cause and providing an ideal home for the ‘Be Breast
Aware’ Wall Clock.”
In an effort to raise awareness about
breast cancer and the importance of
early detection, NCP has launched
various activities around Qatar under
the umbrella of its latest campaign ‘Be
Breast Aware.’
2
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
QATAR
FM opens meeting of GCC
Consultative Authority
HE the Foreign Minister Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah receiving
the delegates to the GCC Consultative Authority meeting,
QNA
Doha
H
Official
Qatar greets Italian president-elect
HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, HH the Deputy Emir
Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Prime Minister and
Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani have
sent congratulatory cables to Sergio Mattarella on his election as the
president of Italy.
NHRC delegation to visit Norway
A delegation from the National Human Rights Council (NHRC), chaired
by Mariam bint Abdullah al- Attiyah will leave today to Norway on a
four-day visit. The delegation will meet a number of organisations
working in the human rights field, in addition to several workers’
syndicates in the country. In a statement to the press, Mariam bint
Abdullah al-Attiyah said that the visit was the first of its kind as the
council looks to enhance its experiences. She added that such visits
can help the council apply more initiatives in the field of human rights,
particularly as Norway is one of the leaders in that field.
E the Foreign Minister
Dr Khalid bin Mohamed
al-Attiyah has called for
effective co-operation and integration among Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states to help
them face challenges.
Addressing the opening session of the GCC Consultative
Authority meeting, at the Sheraton Doha Hotel yesterday, Dr
al-Attiyah said the Arab region
is going through exceptional
circumstances, internal challenges and external crises which
are casting their shadows on the
world.
He said that facing such challenges and reducing the impact
of crises require effective co-operation and integration among
GCC states.
Dr al-Attiyah stressed that
such co-operation and integration will fortify the Gulf states
and strengthen their economic,
social, political and security fabric, protect their gains and fulﬁl
the aspirations of their citizens.
He expressed conﬁdence that
GCC Consultative Authority
members will take decisions that
will contribute to the development and progress in the States
of the region, attain the GCC
peoples’ progress and prosperity
and enhance the presence of the
GCC on the global map.
“We in the ministerial council are conﬁdent that your esteemed authority represents
one of the most important aspects of the common action in
the GGC organisation and there
is no doubt that your assignment by leaders of the GCC Su-
HE the Foreign Minister Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah addressing the opening session of the GCC Consultative Authority meeting at the
Sheraton Doha Hotel yesterday.
preme Council to study topics
such as the ones that have been
approved, conﬁrms that the
Supreme Council is supporting your authority’s views,”
the Foreign Minister said, adding: “We are waiting for views
on the issues assigned to your
authority at the last GCC Summit which was held in Doha in
December last year, namely
strengthening the partnership
between the public and private
sectors in the GCC countries,
growth of GCC nationals’ in-
come and their well-being, the
future of oil and gas as a source
of wealth and energy in GCC
states and the importance of
maintaining them as a strategic, security and developmental choice.”
Earlier, HE al-Attiyah welcomed the GCC delegation on
behalf of the leadership, government and people of Qatar.
Meanwhile, GCC SecretaryGeneral Dr Abdul Latif bin Rahsid al-Zayani, in his address,
expressed condolences on the
death of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. He praised the
efforts made by King Abdullah to
enhance the nation’s unity and
his support for its just causes
and the humanity as a whole, in
addition to his keenness to promote GCC solidarity.
Dr al-Zayani praised Qatar’s
support for the GCC joint action under the leadership of
HH the Emir and Chairman of
the 35th session of the GCC Supreme Council Sheikh Tamim
bin Hamad al-Thani.
He also hailed the positive role
played by the GCC Consultative
Authority.
The GCC Secretary-General
congratulated Mubarak bin Ali
al-Khater, who has been chosen
as the chairman of the current
session, and also HE Sheikh Hamad bin Saud al-Sayari who has
been chosen as deputy chairman, and expressed his appreciation to Abdullah Yaqoub
Bishara, who chaired the Consultative Authority’s 17th session.
4
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
QATAR
HMC’s trauma system
gets top accreditation
T
he trauma system
of Hamad Medical
Corporation (HMC)
has received the Trauma
Distinction award from Accreditation Canada International (ACI), one of the
world’s leading accreditation companies.
The accreditation was
received by HMC’s Managing Director Hanan al-Kuwari and Chair of Trauma,
Dr Hassan al-Thani.
Given to trauma services
that fulﬁl a range of stringent measures and achieving distinction, the accreditation indicated that HMC
has demonstrated national
leadership in the provision
of high quality trauma care,
a statement issued by the
corporation said.
QDA officials announcing the plans for International Al Bawasil camp 2015.
Dr Hanan al-Kuwari, who
received the ACI award, explained that achieving the
accreditation was truly a
team effort.
“We are honoured as an
organisation to be recognised by the prestigious Accreditation Canada International. Trauma care takes
a team, and each member
plays a crucial role in delivering the safest, most
effective and most compassionate care to our patients.
I am very proud of what our
trauma team and all those
who work with them have
achieved in this accreditation.”
Dr Hassan al-Thani,
Chair of Trauma Services,
explained: “This accreditation represents years
Al Bawasil camp for diabetic
children opens in Qatar today
By Joey Aguilar
Staff Reporter
M
ore than 50 diabetic children from
15 countries are
taking part in the annual International Al Bawasil camp
which opens in Qatar today.
Being held under the
patronage of HE Sheikh
Mohamed bin Hamad bin
Khalifa al-Thani, honorary
president of Qatar Diabetes
Association (QDA) - Qatar
Foundation, the event will
teach participants the latest medical ways to manage
diabetes.
At a press conference held
on Thursday, QDA execu-
tive director Dr Abdulla alHamaq told reporters that
they have prepared several
activities that will help the
children cope with their
condition.
“I hope that this year will
be a very fruitful year for the
kids to learn something, to
learn some skills that will
help them to cope with diabetes,” he said.
QDA will also engage the
participants to a number of
physical and recreational
activities besides educational sessions.
To formulate effective
programmes,
al-Hamaq
noted that they regularly
distributed questionnaires
to the delegates asking them
which of the activities they
“like and dislike.”
“And according to this
survey, we prepare and formulate our programmes for
the year,” he said.
Medical students will also
help in facilitating some of
the activities and games at
the camp.
“There are many activities outside; we don’t want
the kids to feel bored since
they stay at the camp for
seven days,” he said. “We
create some entertainment
programmes for them.”
Some institutions such
as Aspire Zone and Qatar Olympic Committee
have offered its facilities
as venues of a number of
programmes, according to
al-Hamaq.
He said the El Jaish Sports
Club is supporting QDA
by providing membership
cards for the children.
“I hope that this year
will be a very fruitful
year for the kids, to
learn some skills that
will help them to cope
with diabetes”
The cards will give them
the privilege to attend all
the competitions of the
teams and to have an autograph from their favourite
players.
To reach and help more
children living with diabe-
tes, QDA had asked associations from different countries and in Qatar to send
new faces to the camp.
Al-Hamaq said many of
the children who previously
joined the camp are now conﬁdent and knowledgeable in
managing their condition.
He earlier noted that
there are about 1,000 children living with Type 1 diabetes in Qatar based on Hamad Medical Corporation’s
records.
The 15th International
Al Bawasil Children With
Diabetes Camp is sponsored
by Ooredoo, Action on Diabetes, El Jaish Sports Club,
Art Friends Production and
Aspire Zone.
QNB offer to
new customers
QNB has launched its latest
promo that awards up
to 40,000 welcome Life
Rewards points to new
customers who transfer their
salaries to the bank by April
30, 2015.
The points are divided into
10,000 welcome points
on the crediting of the first
salary and 8,000 points upon
the first purchase using the
QNB Life Rewards credit card,
in addition to 22,000 Life
Rewards bonus points.
QNB said the campaign
will provide a range of
guaranteed benefits,
including an instant cash
bonus of up to QR10,000 on
personal loan, QR3,000 on
vehicle loan, and QR40,000
on mortgage.
Also, the promo gives low
interest rates starting from
4.25% annual percentage rate
(APR) (equivalent to 2.23%
flat) on personal loan, 3.45%
APR (equivalent to 1.8% flat)
on vehicle loan and lease, and
4% APR (equivalent to 2.09%
flat) for mortgage loan.
The offer also provides many
benefits such as free property
evaluation and home
insurance for mortgage loan.
HMC trauma care team with the award.
of hard work from an entire team to build a Level 1
Trauma Center and Trauma System for the State of
Qatar, based on the highly
regarded evidence-based
North American models of
care. Since we set out on
this journey, we have seen
dramatic improvement in
trauma patient care. Injury
is one of the leading causes
of death in Qatar and has
a devastating effect on individuals, families and
healthcare.
This is why it is so important to have a worldleading trauma system for
the country. We will continue to strive to improve
and innovate to ensure the
best possible care for our
patients.”
8
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
QATAR
The Qatari delegation led by HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani holding talks with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in
Washington.
HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani with other members of the delegation.
Qatari delegation holds key meetings in US
QNA
Washington
T
he Qatari delegation,
headed by HE Sheikh
Mohamed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani,
has held several important
meetings as part of its visit
to the United States.
In Washington DC it met
the the Chairman of the US
Trade Commission Daniel
Mullaney.
Besides
HE Sheikh
Mohamed bin Hamad
bin Khalifa al-Thani, the
meeting was attended by
HE the Minister of Finance, Ali Sherif al-Emadi, the Governor of Qatar
Central Bank (QCB), HE
Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud
al-Thani and HE Sheikh
Abdullah bin Mohamed
bin Saud al-Thani, Chief
Executive Officer of Qatar
Investment Authority.
Talks during the meeting dealt with a number of
issues of mutual concern,
including ways to promote
trade and investment between Qatar and the US.
HE Sheikh Mohamed bin
Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani
also held a meeting with
World Bank President Jim
Yong Kim, during which
they reviewed bilateral relations and ways of enhancing
the relations between Qatar
and the World Bank.
Within the activities of
the US-Qatar Forum for
Investment, an expanded
meeting was held at the
American Chamber of
Commerce, which was attended by more than 200
senior executives, investors, and a number of officials in the US administration, including Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury
for Tax Affairs and Suzanne
Ziadeh, Deputy Assistant
for Near Eastern Affairs and
former US ambassador to
Qatar.
HE the Minister of Finance Ali Sherif al-Emadi
briefed the participants on
the economic developments
witnessed by Qatar over the
last two decades, as well
as the future development
plans.
The Minister of Finance,
HE the Minister of Finance
Ali Sherif al-Emadi
addressing the American
Chamber of Commerce.
the governor of the Central Bank of Qatar and the
chief executive officer of
Qatar Investment Authority participated in the dialogue sessions where they
answered the questions on
the investment climate in
Qatar.
They invited representatives of the US companies to
exploit the available oppor-
tunities in Qatar.
The country plans to invest more than $ 200bn
over the next ten years to
modernise and develop infrastructure, health, educa-
tion and sports sectors.
The Qatari delegation is
scheduled to head to New
York City to hold a number
of meetings with senior ofﬁcials of the US companies.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
9
QATAR
RasGas helps set up ‘toy library’ in South Korea
R
Officials and guests at the opening ceremony of the toy library.
Mini promo targets
bank loan applicants
C
ommercial Bank has announced that its new promo,
which coincides with the staging of the Qatar Motor Show 2015, gives customers the chance to win a
brand-new Mini Cooper.
The promo, which runs from today to March 15, 2015, offers clients the chance to win a Mini Cooper for all new and
existing Commercial Bank customers applying for a vehicle or personal loan or who transfer their salary during the
campaign period.
Additionally, during the staging of the Qatar Motor Show
on February 6-10 at the Qatar National Convention Centre,
each customer will receive two entries to the prize draw,
doubling their opportunity to win.
Commercial Bank EGM and head of Retail and Enterprise Dean Proctor said: “Commercial Bank continues to
lead the vehicle ﬁnancing business in Qatar with a highlyexperienced and dedicated team supported by market leading solutions to best serve customers in Qatar to ﬁnance the
vehicle of their choice.
“Being the official sponsor of the Qatar Motor Show is a
sign of our commitment to this market and we are celebrating this with exciting new deals and prizes for our customers.”
For a limited time only, Commercial Bank is offering vehicle loans with a special rate of 2.39% ﬂat, (4.43% reducing), up to three months payment holiday and a discount of
0.65% on motor insurance. The bank is also offering Qatari
and expatriate customers special personal loan rates starting from 4.75% reducing and (2.56% ﬂat) up to six months
payment holiday.
Proctor said sponsorship of the event demonstrates
Commercial Bank’s commitment to the local vehicle market. Commercial Bank has been participating annually in
the Qatar Motor Show since 2011 and the exclusive partner
since 2014.
asGas and Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) have
jointly established a children’s ‘toy library’ in Anshim Social Welfare Community Center
in Daegu Metropolitan City,
South Korea.
Beneﬁting the Daegu Metropolitan City, Kyungbok National University Hospital and Community
Chest of Korea (Daegu branch),
the toy library is an extension of
RasGas corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes in co-
operation with KOGAS supporting students’ education globally.
A fun and creative way to engage children, a toy library, similar to a book library, provides a
toy loan service. Children can
borrow from a range of toys, de-
signed to support a child’s skill
development and imagination.
The toy library is part of a CSR
initiative between RasGas and
KOGAS that was agreed in 2014
to contribute to the welfare of the
community in Daegu.
10
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
QATAR
QC distributes aid
to 20,000 Syrians
Q
atar Charity (QC)
ﬁeld teams have
been continuously
distributing emergency aid
to Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries following the waves of snow-
storms that hit the region.
The calamity is the worst
snowstorms that parts of the
Levant have seen in 80 years.
Millions of Syrians have been
affected by the conﬂict and the
snowstorms have made life
more challenging and difficult
for them.
Many live in the open or in
tents that offer little protection
from the low temperatures and
high winds.
The latest distribution
Children at a camp where Qatar Charity distributed winter clothing and food items.
took place at various points
along the Jordanian border
with Syria, in the provinces
of Zaatari and Mafraq, with
a special focus on the areas
of Um Alqotain and Al-Daﬁaneh, Qatar Charity said in a
statement.
Winter clothing for adults and
children, shoes and hats, blankets, meat and other food items
were distributed to 20,000 Syrian refugees.
Qatar Charity also recently
sent three trucks carrying 45
tonnes of aid to the SyrianTurkish border.
In-kind aids have been collected through Qatar Charity’s
Spectrum (TAYF) project. Some
of the items which were distributed include blankets and
clothing (mostly for children),
heaters, shoes and games for
children.
It also beneﬁted more than
10,000 displaced Syrians inside
Syria and those living as refugees
in Turkey.
Qatar Charity said its upcoming relief convoy to Syria is now
being ﬁnalised.
Each truck with a cargo value
of QR200,000 ($55,000) will
travel to northern Syria carrying
enough aid to support 450 families for a month.
The convoy will also contain a minimum of 12 tonnes of
ﬂour to be provided to the Qatar
Charity bakery that continues to
distribute free bread to targeted
households inside Syria.
Stephan Weil delivering a speech at the reception.
Msheireb Properties
hosts German leader
and ambassador
M
sheireb
Properties
has hosted a reception at the Msheireb
Enrichment Centre (MEC)
for German ambassador Angelika Renate Storz-Chakarji
and the Prime Minister of the
Federal State of Lower Saxony,
Stephan Weil.
Abdulla Hassan al-Mehshadi, CEO, Msheireb Properties,
said: “We are delighted that the
ambassador’s memorable ﬁrst
visit to the MEC led to her eagerness to share it with her fellow countrymen and business
associates.
“The MEC tells a wonderful
story of Doha’s past and its soaring ambitions for the future. It is
our duty to share this knowledge
with as many people as possible
and we look forward to hosting
many more similar events.”
Around 100 guests attended the reception at the MEC,
a landmark destination created by Msheireb Properties to
serve as an educational portal
for both Doha’s history and its
development plans.
Guests were given a guided
tour of the MEC, including an
overview of the detailed Msheireb Downtown Doha project
model, outlining how the project
will revive the old commercial
heart of the city through a new
architectural language.
Expert makes presentation
on lupus research at seminar
A
symposium organised by Weill Cornell
Medical College in
Qatar (WCMC-Q) has discussed lupus and its impact
on women.
One of the world’s foremost experts in the ﬁeld
presented advances in research into pregnancy complications caused by lupus
as well as anti-phospholipid syndrome at the university’s latest edition of Grand
Rounds.
Visiting
speaker
Dr
Jane Salmon, professor of
medicine at Weill Cornell
Medical College in New
York (WCMC-NY), discussed the discoveries made
through her research team’s
experiments on mice, which
have revealed the underlying mechanisms of poor
pregnancy outcomes in
women with the chronic
autoimmune disorders lupus and anti-phospholipid
syndrome.
Lupus, which primarily
affects women, is a disorder
in which the immune system damages healthy tissues throughout the body,
such as the skin and joints,
and sometimes the internal
organs. The precise cause
of this often painful and
distressing condition is unknown and there is no cure,
although there are some
medicines that can control
the symptoms.
Anti-phospholipid syndrome is an immune disorder that causes blood clots
and is associated with complications in pregnancy. It
can occur on its own or in
Dr Jane Salmon, professor
of medicine at WCMC-NY
association with other diseases, including lupus. Both
conditions can cause serious complications in pregnancy, both to the mother
and the unborn child.
Dr Salmon said: “Until recently, the advice for
women with lupus was
simply not to get pregnant
because of the concern the
disease could ﬂare and lead
to serious problems for the
mother and the baby, including pregnancy complications such as placental
insufficiency, foetal growth
restriction and even complete loss of pregnancy.
The guidance was to avoid
pregnancy but this recommendation was not based
on strong data.”
Dr Salmon also said that
pregnant women with lupus
had a higher risk of suffering preeclampsia, a condition characterised by high
blood pressure that can lead
to serious complications.
Dr Salmon led a study
that followed 700 patients
through pregnancies to
identify factors that predicted their outcomes.
She added that better un-
derstanding of the disease
has led to new advice, which
recommends that many
patients with lupus can
safely carry babies to full
term. Pregnancy should be
planned carefully when lupus disease is quiescent and
in close consultation with
an obstetrician and a rheumatologist who specialises
in pregnancy care.
In a series of experiments
in pregnant mice, Dr. Salmon’s laboratory was able to
prove that inﬂammation,
not thrombosis, prevents
the normal formation of
blood vessels to the placenta,
which are required to nourish
the developing foetus. The
compromised placental development leads to restricted
foetal growth, preeclampsia
and miscarriage.
Egypt has highest infection level of hepatitis C: study
U
p to 5,000 new
hepatitis C virus
(HCV)
infections
occur in Egypt annually as
a result of mother-to-child
transmission, according to
a new study by researchers
from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and London School
of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine in the UK.
Egypt has the highest infection level of the disease in
the world. About 15% of the
population carry HCV, with
at least 100,000 new cases
every year, but the proportion of these new infections
that occur through different
transmission routes is not
well understood. This study
is the ﬁrst, for any country, to estimate the number
Lenka Benova, lead author
of new cases of HCV as a
consequence of mother-tochild (vertical) transmission.
The authors estimated that in 2008, between
3,000 and 5,000 new cases
of the infection were caused
by this transmission route,
which can occur during
pregnancy, childbirth and
the postpartum period from
an infected mother to her
child.
In addition, the ﬁndings
show that mother-to-child
transmission is an important transmission route
among children under ﬁve
years of age, contributing
between a third and a half of
new cases in that age group
in Egypt.
Lenka Benova, lead author of the study and re-
search fellow at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, and
WCMC-Q, said: “This is
the ﬁrst time we have been
able to show how many babies are being infected with
HCV every year in Egypt,
and action needs to be taken to reduce the number of
children becoming part of
this devastating epidemic.
We need to see faster evaluation of drugs that women
can use during pregnancy
to treat hepatitis C, as well
as interventions to provide
treatment to women before
they become pregnant.”
Dr Laith Abu-Raddad,
principal investigator of
the study and associate
professor of public health
in the Infectious Disease
Abu Raddad, principal investigator
Epidemiology Group at
WCMC-Q, said: “These results highlight a signiﬁcant
and previously poorly understood dimension of the
large HCV epidemic in this
country. This high number
of transmissions to small
children, with lifelong clinical and social consequences,
demonstrates the need for
appropriate public health
interventions to tackle this
aspect of the epidemic.”
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
11
REGION
Rouhani says
hardliners
‘sabotaging’
Iran interests
Reuters
Dubai
I
ranian President Hassan
Rouhani, growing frustrated with hardline resistance to a nuclear deal with the
West, accused opponents yesterday of effectively “cheering
on” the other side in Tehran’s
gruelling negotiations with
world powers.
Soon after his 2013 election
victory over conservative hardliners, the pragmatist Rouhani
set out to end a 12-year nuclear
standoff with the West and
thereby secure the lifting of
tough sanctions that have crippled Iran’s oil-based economy.
Iran’s ongoing talks with the
United States, China, Russia,
France, Germany and Britain
have gone on for about 14 months
and missed a self-imposed November 2014 deadline for a ﬁnal
comprehensive agreement that
would limit Iran’s nuclear energy
capacity in exchange for a phased
lifting of sanctions.
Western powers suspect
Iran is enriching uranium to
develop a nuclear weapons capability and want strict curbs
and intrusive UN inspections
to prevent any such outcome.
Iran says it seeks only peaceful
energy from enrichment.
Rouhani, faced with rising popular concern over his
unfulﬁlled election pledges to
ﬁx the economy, blamed hardline interference in part for the
talks’ halting progress.
“The other side applauds
their own, but here in our
country, it is not clear what
(the critics) are doing. It is as if
they are cheering on the rival
team,” Rouhani he told a public gathering, quoted by the
official Irna news agency.
“And when we ask them what
they are going, they answer:
‘We are criticising and criticism is a good thing ... This is
not criticism, it is sabotage of
national interests and favour for
partisan politics,” he said.
“Criticism is not about booing, it is not about slander and
character assassination. Criticism is about showing a better and clearer way so that (we
can) reach our goals faster.”
Hardline sentiment is centred in the security establishment led by the elite Revolutionary Guards and in the
powerful Shia Muslim clergy.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate
political authority, has so far
backed the nuclear talks but has
also continued to denounce foreign “enemies” and “the Great
Satan” to reassure hardliners for
whom anti-US sentiment has
always been integral to Iran’s
Islamic Revolution.
On the Western side, the
most signiﬁcant opponents of
nuclear deal-making with Iran
are hawks in the US Congress
who want to harden sanctions
legislation.
Under an interim 2013 accord,
Iran halted some sensitive nuclear activity and won limited sanctions relief. The new deadline for
a ﬁnal settlement is June 30.
Supporters of the Houthi movement shout slogans during a rally in Sanaa yesterday. The signs in Arabic read “No to segregation of Yemen into sectors.”
Drone strike kills four
Yemen Qaeda suspects
AFP
Sanaa
A
drone strike killed four
suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen yesterday,
tribal sources said, the second
attack in a week since Washington vowed to pursue its campaign against the jihadists.
Tribal sources said the unmanned aircraft, which only the
United States operates in the region, targeted a car carrying four
militants in the southern province of Shabwa, a stronghold of
the militant network.
A similar strike on a car on
Monday in a desert area between
Shabwa and the neighbouring
province of Marib killed three
suspected members of Al Qaeda.
That vehicle was hit by four
missiles.
The previous day US President
Barack Obama had vowed no letup in Washington’s campaign
against militants in Yemen.
He dismissed suggestions
that deepening chaos in Yemen
since the resignation of Western-backed President AbdRabbu Mansour Hadi last week
had forced a change in Washington’s campaign against Al
Qaeda.
Obama ruled out US troop
deployment in Yemen but said
Washington would continue “to
go after high value targets inside
Yemen”, admitting however that
this was “a long, arduous process”.
According to the New America
Foundation, the United States
has carried out more than 110
strikes on targets in Yemen since
2009, mostly using drones.
One such attack in September 2011 killed US-Yemeni cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
accused of instigating a string
of attacks against the United
States.
AQAP, which Washington
considers the most dangerous
branch of the global terror network, also claimed responsibility for the deadly January 7 attack on French satirical weekly
Charlie Hebdo.
On the political front, the
Houthi militia and ex-president
Ali Abdullah Saleh’s party held
a meeting boycotted by others
parties on Friday to discuss ending the country’s crisis, as protests hit several cities, including
the capital.
The militia, which overran
Sanaa in September, seized
the presidential palace and
key government buildings last
week, plunging the country
deeper into crisis and prompting Hadi and his prime minister
to resign.
Militia chief Abdulmalik alHouthi had called for a “historic” meeting, urging all political
forces to join.
But only Saleh’s General People’s Congress party joined what
is to be a three-day conference,
heavily secured by the militia,
which the former strongman is
accused of backing.
Meanwhile, opponents protested against the Houthis in
several cities under the slogan:
“Revolt until the overthrow of
the coup” forces, in reference to
the militia.
They also demanded the release of scores of activists and
journalists who have been
rounded up by the Houthis since
their takeover of Sanaa.
Witnesses said the militia kidnapped the head of a student union in the universities of Sanaa
and Amran, Radwan Masoud,
after Friday prayers.
Sanaa University has been the
focal point of anti-Houthi protests, frequently dispersed by
the militia ﬁring in the air and
detaining activists.
12
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
ARAB WORLD
CIA, Israel ‘plotted top Hezbollah man’s killing’
AFP
Washington
T
he CIA and Israel’s spy
agency Mossad were behind an elaborate plot to
kill Hezbollah commander Imad
Mughniyeh in a 2008 car bomb
attack in Syria, the Washington
Post reported yesterday.
Citing former intelligence ofﬁcials, the newspaper reported
that US and Israeli spy agencies worked together to target
Mughniyeh on February 12,
2008 as he left a restaurant in
Damascus.
He was killed instantly by
a car bomb planted in a spare
tyre on the back of a parked car,
which exploded shrapnel in a
tight radius, the Post said.
The bomb, built by the United
States and tested in the state of
North Carolina, was triggered
remotely by Mossad agents in
Tel Aviv who were in communication with Central Intelligence Agency operatives on the
ground in Damascus.
“The way it was set up, the US
could object and call it off, but
it could not execute,” a former
US intelligence official told the
newspaper.
A senior Hezbollah commander, Mughniyeh was sus-
pected of masterminding the
abduction of Western hostages
in Lebanon in the 1980s and of
the 1992 bombing of the Israeli
embassy in Argentina that killed
29 people.
He was also linked to the
bombing of the US marine barracks at Beirut airport in 1983, in
which 241 American servicemen
died, and the hijacking of TWA
Flight 847 in 1985, in which a US
navy diver was killed.
The CIA declined to comment
to the Post about the report.
According to the newspaper,
the authority to kill required a
presidential ﬁnding by George
W Bush. Several senior officials,
including the attorney general,
the director of national intelligence and the national security
adviser, would have had to sign
off on the order, it added.
The former officials who
spoke to the newspaper said
Mughniyeh was directly involved in arming and training
Shia militias in Iraq that were
targeting US forces, and though
it occurred in a country where
the United States was not at
war, his assassination could be
seen as an act of self-defence.
“They were carrying out
suicide bombings and IED attacks,” one former official told
the Post, referring to alleged
Hezbollah operations in Iraq.
They added that getting approval from the most senior
echelons of the US government
to carry out the attack against
Mughniyeh was a “rigorous and
tedious” process, and it had
to be proven that he was a true
menace.
“What we had to show was
he was a continuing threat to
Americans,” the official told the
Post.
“The decision was we had to
have absolute conﬁrmation that
it was self-defence.”
The newspaper said that during the Iraq war, the Bush administration had approved a list
of operations aimed at Hezbollah, and according to one ofﬁcial, this included approval to
target Mughniyeh.
“There was an open licence
to ﬁnd, ﬁx and ﬁnish Mughniyeh and anybody affiliated with
him,” a former US official who
served in Baghdad told the Post.
According to the newspaper, American intelligence ofﬁcials had been discussing
possible ways to target the notorious Hezbollah commander
for years, and senior US Joint
Special Operations Command
agents held a secret meeting
with the head of Israel’s military
intelligence service in 2002.
“When we said we would be
willing to explore opportunities
to target him, they practically
fell out of their chairs,” a former
US official told the Post.
Though it is not clear when
the agencies realised Mughniyeh was living in Damascus, a
former official told the newspaper that Israel had approached
the CIA about a joint operation
to kill him in Syria’s capital.
The agencies collected “pattern of life” information about
him and used facial recognition technology to establish his
identity after he walked out of
a restaurant the night he was
killed.
Kurds retake
oil facility in
northern Iraq
Reuters
Kirkuk, Iraq
K
urdish peshmerga forces
retook a small crude oil
station near the northern
Iraqi city of Kirkuk which Islamic
State insurgents seized earlier
yesterday, but the fate of 15 employees remained unclear.
Two officials from the staterun North Oil Co said the militants had seized a crude oil separation unit in Khabbaz yesterday
morning and said 15 oil workers
were missing after the company
lost contact with them.
One of the officials and a Kurdish military source said the peshmerga forces had regained control
of the facility yesterday evening
and were combing it for explosives.
They were unable to conﬁrm
the fate of the 15 workers or provide details about the losses incurred by either side.
“We received a call from one
of the workers saying dozens of
Daesh ﬁghters were surrounding
the facility and asking workers to
leave the premises. We lost contact and now the workers might
be taken hostage,” an engineer
from the North Oil Co said, using
a derogatory acronym for Islamic
State.
Kurdish military sources said
Major General Hussein Mansour,
who had mobilised a unit from
Khanaqin to reinforce the Kurdish
forces outside Kirkuk, was killed
by a sniper in the ﬁghting. The
mayor of Khanaqin conﬁrmed the
report.
IS seized at least four small oilﬁelds when it overran large areas
of northern Iraq last summer, and
began selling crude oil and gasoline to ﬁnance their operations.
Khabbaz is a small oilﬁeld
20km southwest of Kirkuk with a
maximum production capacity of
15,000 barrels per day. It was producing around 10,000 bpd before
the attack.
Islamic State insurgents attacked regional Kurdish forces
southwest of Kirkuk on Friday,
seizing some areas including parts
of the Khabbaz oilﬁelds.
Further south near Baghdad,
two bombs in a central neighbourhood and a farming district
south of the capital killed at least
seven civilians yesterday, medics
and police said.
Two soldiers were also killed
when a bomb exploded close to an
army patrol near Taji, a predominantly Sunni Muslim rural district
north of Baghdad.
At least 24 others were wounded in the explosions.
In Fallujah in the western province of Anbar, hospital sources
said ﬁve people, including two
children, were killed during Iraqi
army shelling of IS positions.
They said at least 44 others were
wounded, including 25 IS ﬁghters.
It is difficult to conﬁrm reports
from hospitals in the area, which
is mostly controlled by IS.
The radical group has declared
a medieval-style caliphate in parts
of Iraq and Syria and poses the
biggest challenge to the stability
of Opec member Iraq since the fall
of Saddam Hussain in 2003.
Outgoing US Defence Secretary
Chuck Hagel said in an interview
on Friday the United States might
eventually need to send noncombat ground troops to Iraq to
help turn back IS forces.
Hagel, who announced his
resignation under pressure in
November, told CNN all options
must be considered in Iraq, including sending troops for noncombat roles such as gathering intelligence and locating IS targets.
“I think it may require a forward
deployment of some of our troops
...,” he said. “I would say we’re not
there yet. Whether we get there or
not, I don’t know.”
Hagel’s comments echoed testimony by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, to Congress last fall when
he said US troops might have to
take a larger role on the ground in
Iraq.
Such a deployment would be in
addition to the 4,500 US troops
already committed to training and
advising roles in Iraq.
Air strike kills IS chemical weapons expert: US
A US-led coalition air strike killed
a chemical weapons specialist
with the Islamic State group
in Iraq who once worked for
Saddam Hussain, US military
officers said yesterday.
The air raid carried out last
Saturday near Mosul took out
Abu Malik, whose training
“provided the terrorist group with
expertise to pursue a chemical
weapons capability”, the military
said in a statement.
Malik had worked at a chemical
weapons production plant under
Saddam’s regime and later forged
an affiliation with Al Qaeda in
Iraq in 2005, before joining the
extremist IS group, according to
Central Command.
“His death is expected to
temporarily degrade and
disrupt the terrorist network
and diminish ISIL’s ability to
potentially produce and use
chemical weapons against
innocent people,” it said.
US officials had not publicly
referred to Malik previously as a
key figure.
There has been no sign that
the IS group possesses a major
chemical weapons arsenal. But
there have been allegations the
militants have employed chlorine
gas, which is classified as a
“choking agent”, though not as
lethal as nerve agents.
Abu Malik, also known as Salih
Jasim Mohamed Falah al-Sabawi,
had been “involved in operations
to produce chemical weapons
in 2005, and planned attacks
in Mosul with AQI (Al Qaeda in
Iraq),” said a defence official.
“Based on his training and
experience, he was judged to be
capable of creating harmful and
deadly chemical agents,” said the
official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
Plainclothes police officers check passengers’ passports at the international airport in Istanbul.
Turkey airport police hunt
militants heading to Syria
AFP
Istanbul
E
verything seems normal
as the passengers stream
out of a routine ﬂight
from a Middle Eastern country
after landing at a major Turkish
international airport.
But as they cross the air
bridge from the plane into the
airport, two plainclothes Turkish police—on the lookout for
militants on their way to Syria—
scrutinise their appearance and
behaviour.
They check the passengers’
passports and detain two men
who arouse suspicions after
saying they are travelling on to
the city of Adana, in southern
Turkey.
The country has long been
under pressure to do more to
thwart the transit of militants
across its territory to war-torn
Syria. Thousands are believed
to have taken commercial
ﬂights to Turkish airports before heading overland to Syria
to ﬁght alongside Islamic State
(IS) militants.
But Ankara insists it is now
doing all it can to tighten border security and said Western
states should do more to prevent the militants from leaving
for Turkey in the ﬁrst place.
Turkey has clearly been
stung by the criticism, and last
year it established “risk analysis centres” at international
airports and bus terminals
across the country in order to
spot extremists and deport
them.
Eager to show the extent
of the measures now in place
round the clock at Turkish
transport hubs, the Turkish authorities gave AFP unusual access to its security teams at the
airport.
The teams have detected some 1,500 suspects and
around one third of them were
sent back to their countries of
origin, a Turkish security official said in an interview.
“The suspect is spotted at
the air bridge and then taken to
the passenger documents check
desk and later to the risk analysis centre for a further interview with the police,” the official said, speaking on condition
of anonymity.
During the process the authorities can communicate
with the countries of origin if
necessary.
Eyes turned to Turkey when
Hayat Boumeddiene, the partner of an Islamist militant who
took part in the January 7 Paris
attacks, ﬂew to Istanbul, passed
through
immigration—and
then the entire country—without being stopped.
Ankara says it cannot assure 100% border security unless Western states provide real
time intelligence and full lists
of suspects—which was not the
case with Boumeddiene.
“In the past intelligence
sharing was weak,” said the ofﬁcial, adding that it was enhanced after the Paris attacks
but “it is not considered sufﬁcient.”
He said: “Thirty-ﬁve percent
of (IS) members come from European countries and hold European passports.”
Up to 600 Turkish nationals
have joined Islamist militants
but this does “not place Turkey
in the top 10 source countries”,
according to the official.
A 33-year-old terror suspect,
identiﬁed only by his initials
S L, was held at Istanbul’s international airport by Turkish
police in June last year after
arriving on a ﬂight from Paris
exhibiting “suspicious behaviour”.
During the interview it
emerged that he had converted to Islam very recently and
planned to join IS, authorities
said.
In another incident, police
conﬁscated military equipment, binoculars and ﬁrst aid
material from a Norwegian suspect last year.
“How can an individual with
military equipment in his bag
(on his way) to join Daesh be
completely unnoticed in the
country of departure?” the ofﬁcial said, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.
Meanwhile, militants are
now going out of their way to
appear normal when entering
Turkey, down to shaving off
their long beards.
“Shaving the beard or changing appearance does not mean
that suspects will not be spotted,” the official said.
Psychological testing in interview rooms helps determine
whether suspects are to be sent
back.
For those deemed suspicious,
authorities draw up a conﬁdential document outlining their
justiﬁcation for deportation,
place it in an envelope and give
it to the airline to be delivered to
the country of origin.
“Airline companies are responsible for the passengers
they carry,” the official said.
The two suspects who said
they were headed for Adana
were taken to the risk analysis
centre in a small room nearby
for further questioning.
Officials declined to give any
hint about their ultimate fate.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
13
ARAB WORLD
Egypt court
bans Hamas
armed wing
The ruling comes days after
Egypt was hit with some of
the bloodiest Islamist militant
attacks on security forces in
years
Agencies
Cairo
A
n Egyptian court yesterday
banned the armed wing of
Palestinian group Hamas
and listed it as a terrorist organisation, a ruling in keeping with a systematic crackdown on Islamists by
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt’s
Muslim Brotherhood, which the
authorities have also declared
a terrorist group and repressed
thoroughly since the army ousted
one of its leaders, Mohamed Mursi, from the presidency in 2013.
“We reject the Egyptian court’s
decision against Qassam Brigades. It is a political, dangerous decision that serves only
the Zionist occupation,” Hamas
spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, referring to Israel’s control over
Palestinian territories.
The ruling came days after
Egypt was hit with some of the
bloodiest Islamist militant attacks on security forces in years.
“The court ruled to ban the
(Hamas) Qassam Brigades and to
list it as a terrorist group,” said
Judge Mohamed al-Sayid of the
special Cairo court which deals
with urgent cases.
The case was based on allega-
tions that the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades staged terrorist attacks to support the Brotherhood,
and carried out a bombing and
shooting operation which killed
33 security personnel in the Sinai
Peninsula in October of 2014.
A source close to Hamas’ armed
wing signalled the group would
no longer accept Egypt as a broker between it and Israel. “After
the court’s decision Egypt is no
longer a mediator in PalestinianIsraeli matters,” the source said.
Yesterday’s court verdict followed a complaint from a lawyer
accusing the Hamas armed wing
of direct involvement in “terrorist operations” in the Sinai, which
borders Gaza, a court official said.
The lawyer also accused the
movement of using tunnels under
the frontier between Egypt and
Gaza to smuggle arms used in attacks against the police and army,
the official said.
Egypt’s military says it has destroyed more than 1,600 tunnels
since Mursi’s ouster.
In the ruling, the judge said that
“the documents submitted by the
plaintiff to the court showed that
the organisation has conducted
attacks... that targeted the military and the Egyptian police and
facilities.”
Egyptian officials say that
weapons are smuggled from Gaza
into Egypt where they end up
with militant groups ﬁghting to
topple the Western-backed Cairo
government.
Islamist militants based in the
Sinai region have killed hundreds
of police and soldiers since Mursi’s political demise. The insurgency has spread to other parts of
Egypt.
On Thursday night there were
four separate attacks on security
forces in North Sinai and Islamic
State’s Egyptian wing, Sinai Province, claimed the killing of at least
30 soldiers and police officers.
Egyptian officials say the
Brotherhood, Islamic State, Al
Qaeda and Sinai Province, previously called Ansar Beit alMaqdis, share the same ideology.
The Brotherhood says it is committed to peaceful activism and
denies any tie to violence.
Sisi, who was the army chief
when Mursi was toppled, restored
some stability to Egypt and the
economy had begun to recover
from frequent political violence
since the 2011 popular uprising
that overthrew veteran autocrat
Hosni Mubarak.
Then signs of discontent
emerged in the past week. More
than 25 people were killed last
weekend when security forces
ﬁred at protesters angered by
what many perceive as a police
state re-established by Sisi since
Mursi’s fall.
Yesterday, a sniper wounded a
soldier in a village in central Sinai,
security sources said. In northern
Sinai, Islamist militant gunmen
killed a Christian man suspected
of co-operating with Egyptian
authorities.
Mourners attend the funeral of one of the officers killed in Thursday’s attacks in Sinai, in Mihala on Friday.
Battle against militants will
be long and tough, says Sisi
Agencies
Cairo
P
resident Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said yesterday that Egypt
faces a long, hard battle
against militancy, days after one
of the bloodiest attacks on security forces in years.
“This battle will be difficult, strong, evil and will take a
long time,” he said in comments
broadcast on state television after
meeting Egypt’s top military ofﬁcers.
On Thursday night, four separate attacks on security forces in
North Sinai were among the worst
in the country in years. Islamic
Musa, a 25-year-old Kurdish marksman, sits in the rubble of Kobane on Friday.
In war-battered Kobane,
a continuing ﬁght for life
DPA
Kobane, Syria
F
our men run down the 13 steps
into the emergency ﬁeld hospital
housed in a Kobane cellar, calling
out to the doctors.
On their stretcher is a woman in
military uniform, her face smeared with
blood. She moans softly, semi-conscious.
The second wounded person is in an
even worse state, as the medics heave
him on to a hospital bed. The two had
been ﬁghting Islamic State forces at the
front just outside the northern Syrian
city near the Turkish border.
Now it is the doctors who have to
ﬁght to save their lives.
Hikmat Ahmed is one of them, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves as he
hurries to the bedside.
The 45-year-old doctor has been living under war-like conditions since IS
militants launched their attack on the
city four months ago.
Kurdish forces have now ﬁnally
cleared the city, but the ﬁghting still
rages in its surrounds. Ahmed and his
colleagues have scarcely a minute to
themselves.
The doctor has seen it all - shrapnel in faces, bullets embedded in ﬂesh,
ﬁghters dying on the operating table as
he worked in vain to save them.
Ahmed’s ﬁeld hospital has been
forced to move four times. In the current accommodation, bright neon
lights shine down from the cellar ceiling. The smell of oil emanates from a
heater keeping out the damp and cold
of winter.
“The work here is hard,” Ahmed says.
The ﬁeld hospital is relatively well
equipped to provide initial care to the
patients. Medication is carefully stored
in cabinets.
A small room has been kitted out as
an operating theatre, and at the end
of the passage there are two wards for
the wounded to recover. The beds are
packed closely together.
If the wounds are serious, the doctors
are unable to help given their limited resources.
Ahmed says he urgently needs an
X-ray machine and a computer tomograph. A laboratory would also be a big
help.
There is no thought of abandoning
the ﬁght. “Whenever I heard the gunﬁre
and the shells, I hoped that we would
win this war,” he says.
Kurdish forces may have reclaimed
the city, but the price has been high.
Heavy artillery, street battles and air
strikes by the international coalition
have reduced much of the city to rubble.
Entire quarters have been razed to
the ground. The war has also left deep
psychological scars among the thousands of civilians who stuck it out in the
city throughout the ﬁghting, including
families with children and even babies.
“We have all suffered from the ﬁghting. The war has traumatised many of
the children,” Ahmed says.
Electricity and water supplies have
collapsed, and infrastructure has been
destroyed. Shops, markets and cafes
have yet to reopen for business.
The Kurds are calling for a “humanitarian corridor” to provide the city with
essentials - a demand directed primarily at Turkey, as Kobane is surrounded
on every other side by IS ﬁghters.
Idriss Nassan, a spokesman for the
Kurds, has warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” if help does not come
soon.
Without outside help, rebuilding the
shattered city will be virtually impossible. Thousands of residents have lost
everything they built over the course of
their lives.
One of them is Amar Bakar, 37, a ﬁre
service driver. He has turned up this
afternoon to see the house that he built
here.
It cost $20,000, he says - a large sum
in Kobane - but IS ﬁghters attacked before he and his family were able to move
in. The walls have had holes blasted
through them, and sandbags are lying in
the gaps. The house must have been the
scene of severe ﬁghting.
But the ﬁreman has no intention of
giving up. “We may have lost everything, but we’ve got our city back,” he
says.
State’s Egyptian wing, Sinai Province, claimed the killing of at least
30 soldiers and police officers.
Sisi said Egypt was confronting
the “strongest secret organisation
in the world”, a reference to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
Then army chief, Sisi removed
Brotherhood leader Mohamed
Mursi from the presidency in July
of 2013 after mass protests against
Mursi’s rule. The military takeover was followed by a ﬁerce crackdown on the movement, which
says it is committed to peaceful
activism.
The Brotherhood, which accuses Sisi of staging a coup and
robbing Mursi of power, said in a
statement from its office in Britain
that it was appalled by the killings
in Sinai.
It accused the army of displacing people in Sinai and burning
and destroying cities. “There is no
solution to this situation, except
by returning the army to its barracks,” it said.
A court meanwhile set May 16
for a verdict in the espionage trial
of Mursi, who could be sentenced
to death if convicted, an official
said yesterday.
Mursi faces several trials along
with top leaders of the Brotherhood.
In this case, he and 35 others are
charged with being part of a vast
conspiracy to destabilise Egypt
involving foreign powers, the Pal-
estinian group Hamas, Lebanon’s
Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Separately, another court is to
deliver a verdict on April 21 in the
trial of Mursi and 14 others for inciting the killing of protesters in
clashes outside the presidential
palace in December 2012.
That will be the ﬁrst in any of
the cases against Mursi, who also
faces a third trial for breaking out
of jail during the 2011 uprising that
toppled president Hosni Mubarak.
Thousands of Mursi supporters have been imprisoned, and
dozens sentenced to death after
speedy trials the United Nations
has called “unprecedented in recent history”.
14
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
AFRICA
Ban backs AU force
to ﬁght Boko Haram
AFP
Addis Ababa
U
N Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon has given his
backing to an African Union (AU) proposal to set up a regional ﬁve-nation force of 7,500
troops to ﬁght Nigeria’s Boko
Haram Islamist militants.
Support for the initiative, announced at an African Union
summit being held in Ethiopia’s
capital Addis Ababa, came hours
after the Chadian military said
three soldiers and 123 militants
were killed (see accompanying
report).
The casualties occurred in two
days of ﬁghting with a Chadian army contingent in northern
Cameroon.
“I welcome the decision of the
AU and regional countries to establish an MJTF (Multinational
Joint Task Force) against Boko
Haram,” Ban told reporters on the
sidelines of the summit.
“They have committed unspeakable brutality. Those terrorists should be addressed with
a regional and international cooperation. Not a single country,
even the regional countries, can
handle this alone,” he said.
“The United Nations is ready
to fully co-operate with the Af-
rican Union,” the UN chief said.
Ban nevertheless said that
“military means may not be the
only solution”.
“There should be very careful
analysis of the root causes why
this kind of terrorism, and extremism, violent extremism, are
spreading,” he told reporters.
At least 13,000 people have
been killed and more than a million forced from their homes by
the Boko Haram conﬂict since
2009. The group also carried out
the mass abduction of 276 girls
from the town of Chibok in April
last year.
The uprising has become a
regional crisis, with the four di-
rectly affected countries – Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria
– agreeing along with Benin late
last year to form a joint force of
3,000 troops, although the force
remains non-operational due to
disagreements between Abuja
and its neighbours.
Officials at the AU summit
said military experts will discuss the force on February 5-7
in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.
The pan-African bloc would then
seek UN Security Council approval in the form of a Chapter 7
resolution authorising the use of
force, plus a “Trust Fund” to pay
for it.
Diplomats said that while “lo-
Ban: (The Boko Haram issue) should be addressed with a regional and
international co-operation.
gistical support” would be forthcoming, ﬁnancing remained the
key obstacle to collective action.
“One challenge of course is to
ﬁnance this force. The best for us
will be within the contributions
of the UN, but we haven’t explored all the possibilities,” said
Ismael Chergui, commissioner
at the AU’s Peace and Security
Council.
The AU summit also saw African leaders name Zimbabwe’s
President Robert Mugabe to the
54-member bloc’s one-year rotating chair, replacing Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould
Abdel Aziz.
Mugabe, a former liberation
war hero who at age 90 is Africa’s
oldest president and its thirdlongest serving leader, is viewed
with deep respect by many on the
continent.
But he is also subject to travel
bans from both the United States
and European Union in protest at
political violence and intimidation of opponents in his country.
Questioned by reporters on the
potential for diplomatic fallout
over Mugabe, Ban said that the
AU “have their own procedures
and practices for electing their
leadership”.
“I respect the will and decision of the African Union. I am
ready to co-operate closely with
the African Union leadership,” he
added.
On Friday, however, Ban told
African leaders that they cannot afford to ignore the wishes
of their citizens and condemned
“leaders who refuse to leave ofﬁce when their terms end” – saying that “undemocratic constitutional changes and legal
loopholes should never be used
to cling to power”.
Countries including Benin,
Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and
Rwanda are all said to be considering changes to allow their leaders a third term.
Three Chad soldiers,
123 militants killed
AFP
N’Djamena
T
A picture taken on January 27 shows Nigerians from the northeast town of Baga sitting in a United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) camp in
N’Gouboua, in Chad’s Lake Chad region. Since the beginning of January more than 14,000 people have fled over the Nigerian border into Chad
to escape the bloody attacks by Islamist group Boko Haram around Baga, according to Mamadou Dian Balde of the UN’s refugee agency.
hree soldiers and 123 Boko
Haram militants were
killed when the Islamist
group attacked a Chadian army
contingent in northern Cameroon, the Chadian military said
on Friday.
Twelve soldiers were wounded
in the attacks staged by the Islamists on Thursday and Friday
near the border town of Fotokol,
according to a military statement
read out on national television.
Chad sent a convoy of troops
and military vehicles into neighbouring Cameroon on January 17
to deal with the growing threat
Boko Haram poses in the region.
“The enemy was repelled by
our defensive forces,” the general
staff ’s statement said, adding
that the troops had “routed” the
Islamists in the second attack.
The soldiers were killed by improvised explosive devices, the
statement said.
A senior Cameroonian security source said the Chadian troops
were deployed to the town, which
sits opposite a Nigerian town
under Boko Haram control and
is also close to the border with
Chad, on Wednesday.
Boko Haram frequently stages
attacks on Fotokol from their
base in the Nigerian town of
Gamboru, just 500m away.
Chad has called on countries
in the region to form a broad
coalition in the ﬁght against the
Islamist group. The country has
already deployed its army along
its borders as well as sending the
additional contingent to Cameroon.
Chad’s President Idriss Deby
has also expressed intentions
of taking back the strategic Nigerian town of Baga from Boko
Haram, situated on Lake Chad.
Boko Haram’s uprising has become a regional crisis, with the
four directly affected countries –
Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria – agreeing along with Benin
to boost co-operation to contain
the threat and to form a Multinational Joint Task Force.
More than 13,000 people have
been killed and more than one
million made homeless by Boko
Haram violence since 2009.
Central African nations reject militia peace deal
Central African nations have rejected a
ceasefire deal struck by militia forces from
war-torn Central African Republic, Chad’s
President Idriss Deby said yesterday.
The deal was signed last week in Kenya
between senior representatives of the antibalaka rebels and the ex-Seleka movement
of ex-president Michel Djotodia, but without
government involvement.
Deby, however, said that members of the
Economic Community of Central African
States – which groups 10 nations – believed
the accord “will not help the Central African
Republic achieve stability and peace”.
Speaking to Radio France International on
the sidelines of an African Union summit
in Addis Ababa, he said the region would
instead focus on official peace efforts that
involve the CAR’s transitional government.
The CAR is struggling to recover from the
coup that ousted president Francois Bozize
and pushed the poor and unstable country
into violence pitting the country’s Christians
and Muslims against one another.
Many critics have viewed the Nairobi talks
with scepticism and questioned the ability
of the groups to enforce any deal on the
ground.
Congo minister says offensive
against Hutu rebels underway
AFP
Addis Ababa
C
ongolese government troops
have started their longawaited offensive against
Rwandan Hutu rebels in the east of
the country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s foreign minister
said yesterday.
The Kinshasa government and the
international community had given
the FDLR – the Democratic Forces
for the Liberation of Rwanda – an
ultimatum to lay down their arms
and surrender by January 2 or face
attacks and forcible disarmament.
Older members of the FDLR are
held responsible for taking part in
the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, when at least 800,000
people, mainly from the Tutsi minority, were massacred, and the
rebel group has continued to ﬁght in
the mineral-rich eastern provinces
of DR Congo.
“The action has started and will
not stop until we have neutralised
these negative forces,” Raymond
Tshibanda said on the sidelines of
an AU summit in Addis Ababa. “The
determination of the government is
such that there will be no let up until
we have ﬁnished this group.”
The African Union’s commissioner for peace and security, Smail
Chergui, welcomed the announcement, and said the FDLR has continued to recruit ﬁghters despite
their promise to disarm.
UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon, also attending a meeting on
Africa’s Great Lakes region on the
sidelines of the AU summit, said
that the UN’s MONUSCO based
in the country force stood ready to
help DR Congo troops to eliminate
the FDLR “once and for all”.
Several diplomats and observers,
however, have questioned Kinsha-
sa’s resolve to ﬁght the rebels, given
that no action appeared to be taking
place on the ground.
“I have not been informed of the
slightest thing,” a European military
official said in Kinshasa, adding that
DR Congo troops only appeared to
be advancing into areas that have already been abandoned by the FDLR.
Dealing with the FDLR is seen as
a key step to ending decades of conﬂict in the Great Lakes region.
Rwanda has described the FDLR
as a major threat to its national security, and has in turn been accused
of sponsoring rival rebel groups to
ﬁght them.
Burundi church official calls for journalist’s release
AFP
Bujumbura
A
senior member of Burundi’s
inﬂuential Catholic Church
has called for the release of a
radio station boss who has been arrested for complicity in the murder
of three Italian nuns.
Bob Rugurika, director of the
popular independent African Public
Radio (RPA), was arrested in midJanuary after broadcasting the purported confession of a man claiming
he was one of the killers.
The three Roman Catholic nuns,
Lucia Pulici, 75, Bernadetta Boggian,
79 and Olga Raschietti, 83, were
murdered at a convent in Kamenge,
north of the capital Bujumbura in
September last year.
The purported confession contradicted a police account of the crime
and implicated a top official.
Speaking on Catholic station Radio Maria, prominent cleric Pierre
Antoine Madaraga said that he was
“hurt” by the arrest and said the report by RPA – which is close to the
opposition and known for its crime
reporting – should be followed up.
Police arrested a suspect two
days after the crime and said he had
owned up to the murders.
“When RPA started to give us
other information, we thought that
ﬁnally there is another lead to follow,” Madaraga said. “So putting
RPA’s director in prison is like wanting to silence the truth.”
For broadcasting the counterconfession and refusing to give up
the self-proclaimed killer, Rugurika
was charged with complicity in the
murders, “breach of public solidarity” and disclosing conﬁdential information regarding a case.
Court drops politically charged baby-trafficking case
Reuters
Niamey
A
court in Niger threw out
charges on Friday against
members of the political and
social elite accused of trafficking
newborn babies – a case dismissed
by the opposition as a plot to discredit its members.
Police started arresting 20 people,
including the wives of several senior politicians, in June and said they
wanted to question Hama Amadou,
the main challenger to President
Mahamadou Issoufou.
Amadou ﬂed the West African
country, protesting his innocence.
Political tensions have risen in
Niger since 2013 when Hama, once
part of Issoufou’s coalition, fell out
with the president.
According to the prosecution,
around 30 children were born to
women in neighbouring Nigeria for
the sole purpose of being sold to
wealthy couples in Niger.
The accused, including Hama’s
wife, were charged with “supposition of a child” – the act of falsely
claiming parenthood of a child.
But a criminal court ruled on Friday that it did not have the jurisdiction to try the case.
In their decision, the judges accepted the defence position that the
state needed to ﬁrst establish the
parentage of the allegedly trafficked
children in a civil court before criminal charges could be brought.
“The criminal case collapsed like
a house of cards. There are no longer
any criminal proceedings against
anyone and my clients are free,”
Mossi Boubacar, a lawyer for Hama’s
family said. “Hama Amadou can return to the country.”
Assistant state prosecutor Samna
Chaibou told Reuters that his team
had appealed against the ruling “so
the case will immediately go before
the court of appeal”.
It was not immediately clear if an
arrest warrant against Hama, issued
after his ﬂight, had been lifted.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
15
AMERICAS
Aircraft set for minute-by-minute tracking
AFP
Montreal
A
ll commercial ﬂights worldwide could soon send out
an automated signal every
minute in times of distress to help
rescuers ﬁnd downed aircraft more
easily.
The new measures are in re-
sponse to last year’s disappearance
of Malaysia Airlines ﬂight MH370
en route from Kuala Lumpur to
Beijing in what remains one of history’s great aviation mysteries.
The aircraft, with 239 people on
board, has never been found, nearly a year on.
The new tracking rules, prepared by an industry working
group, would be phased in by the
end of this year, said the International Civil Aviation Organisation
(ICAO), a UN agency.
The initiative will now be presented to delegates from all 191
ICAO member states at a meeting in Montreal from Monday to
Thursday, and “a ﬁnal proposal”
will be submitted to the ICAO
Council within six months for ratiﬁcation.
The measure has unanimous
support among ICAO member
states, a source said on Friday,
meaning it is virtually assured to
be brought in.
Currently, radar can track a
plane, however coverage fades
when aircraft are out at sea or the
plane is ﬂying below a certain altitude.
Under the new rules, airlines
Over 100 cases
of measles now
conﬁrmed in US
Reuters
Los Angeles
M
ore than 100 people in the US
have been conﬁrmed as infected with measles including
91 in California, most of them linked to
an outbreak that began at Disneyland
in December, public health officials
said on Friday.
The California Department of Public Health said at least 58 of the cases
of the highly infectious disease in the
state have been epidemiologically
linked to the Disneyland cluster. More
than a dozen other cases have been
conﬁrmed in 13 other US states and in
Mexico.
No deaths have been reported in
connection with the outbreak, which
public health officials suspect began
when an infected person from outside
the US visited Disneyland in Anaheim
between Dec. 15 and Dec. 20.
The White House on Friday urged
parents to heed the advice of public
health officials and scientists in getting
their children vaccinated.
“People should evaluate this for
themselves with a bias toward good
science and toward the advice of our
public health professionals,” President
Barack Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
Asked whether people should be getting vaccinated, Earnest said: “That’s
what the science indicates.”
The measles outbreak has renewed
a debate over the so-called anti-vac-
Second bird flu case confirmed in Canada
The husband of a Canadian who was
diagnosed earlier this week with
bird flu after returning from a trip
to China has also tested positive for
the virus, health officials said on
Friday.
The couple in their 50s began feeling
sick days after returning home
in westernmost British Columbia
province.
Tests confirmed the first human case
of H7N9 bird flu in North America in
the woman on Monday. Her husband’s
diagnosis was confirmed three days
later.
“Since both cases became
symptomatic one day apart, it is likely
they were exposed to a common
source, rather than one having been
infected by the other,” said Canada’s
chief public health officer, Gregory
Taylor.
Neither patient required
hospitalisation and both are
recovering in self-isolation at home
from their illness, said officials.
cination movement in which fears
about potential side effects of vaccines,
fueled by now-debunked research
suggesting a link to autism, have led a
small minority of parents to refuse to
allow their children to be inoculated.
Some parents also opt not to have
their children vaccinated for religious
or other reasons.
Earnest said Obama believes decisions about vaccinating children
should rest with parents but that “the
president believes that everybody
should be listening to our public health
professionals.” Earnest said the White
House will continue to closely monitor
the outbreak.
Earnest’s comments came one day
after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to
get vaccinated for measles.
Measles was officially declared eliminated in the US in 2000 after decades
of intensive childhood vaccine efforts.
But last year the nation had its highest
number of measles cases in two decades.
In addition to California, since December cases of measles have been
conﬁrmed in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington state, as well as Mexico.
Most people recover within a few
weeks, although it can be fatal in some
cases.
1979 NY child
murder trial
gets under way
AFP
New York
Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of the late singer Whitney Houston,
was rushed to the hospital after she was found unresponsive in the
bathtub of her home in Roswell, Georgia.
Houston’s daughter
revived after being
rushed to hospital
Reuters
Atlanta
B
obbi Kristina Brown, the
only daughter of late pop
star Whitney Houston and
singer Bobby Brown, was found
unresponsive in a bathtub at her
Georgia home yesterday, but she
was revived after being rushed to
a hospital, police said.
The incident comes three
years after Houston, a superstar
who battled substance abuse issues, drowned in a bathtub in
Beverly Hills, California, in February 2012. Authorities have said
cocaine use and heart disease
contributed to her death.
Brown, 21, was found at about
10:20am (1520 GMT) in the bathtub at her suburban Atlanta home
by her husband and a friend, said
Lisa Holland, public information
officer for the Roswell Police Department.
Brown’s husband, Nick Gordon, started CPR and police continued life-saving measures until
an ambulance arrived and took
her to the hospital.
“She’s alive at the hospital,”
Holland said. She gave no other
details.
Brown was admitted to North
Fulton Hospital in Roswell, a
suburb north of Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
Hospital officials did not immediately respond to calls requesting comment.
Brown married Nick Gordon
in January 2014. Gordon was also
raised by Houston, one of the
best-selling recording artists of
all time, but she never formally
adopted him.
Houston, whose dozens of hit
songs include “How Will I Know”
and “I Will Always Love You,”
was the daughter of gospel singer
Cissy Houston and a cousin of
pop singer Dionne Warwick.
Bobbi Kristina Brown’s father, Bobby Brown, is a Grammy
Award winner who started his
career as frontman for the R&B
group New Edition.
A
mentally unstable man accused of killing a six-year-old boy in one of America’s most famous missing child cases
went on trial on Friday, 36 years after the crime.
Pedro Hernandez, 53, is accused of luring
Etan Patz into the basement of a New York grocery store, before killing Patz and dumping his
body out with the trash on May 25, 1979.
Prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon painted a
picture of a happy, innocent little boy who met
a sudden, violent death, calling it a crime “that
changed the face of this city forever.”
The case awakened millions of Americans
to the dangers of child abduction, fuelling a
generation of hyper-vigilant child rearing by
parents terriﬁed of letting their offspring out
of sight.
Hernandez was arrested on a tip in 2012, and
confessed to police to killing the boy. He has
since recanted and pleads not guilty.
Illuzzi-Orbon told the 12-person jury that
the blonde-haired Etan was a little man “with
a big heart” and an “infectious smile” who was
murdered before his mother even knew he was
missing.
Etan vanished after leaving his Manhattan
home to walk alone for the ﬁrst time to the bus
stop to go to school.
Rap mogul Knight jailed on
hit-and-run murder charge
Former rap mogul Marion Hugh “Suge” Knight
was jailed facing possible murder charges on
Friday after he allegedly ran over two men with
his truck, killing one.
Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Lieutenant John
Corina told local media investigators believed
Knight, 49, followed the men to a Compton
hamburger stand on Thursday afternoon after
an argument on a nearby film set, then drove
over them twice with his truck before driving
away.
“So far, the people we’ve talked to, it looks like it
was an intentional act,” Corina said.
will be required to track their aircraft using a system that gives their
location at 15-minute intervals.
If an “abnormal event” is detected, including a change in direction or deviation from a ﬂight
path, the signal rate hastens to
every minute.
Airlines would be responsible
for sharing the data with authorities in cases of emergencies.
“It’s the start of tracking (ﬂights)
every minute in emergency situations that is the most effective in
the short term,” the source said.
Following a distress signal,
search and rescue teams would be
able to zero in on an aircraft within
six nautical miles (11km) of its last
known position.
The ICAO will also ask airlines
to equip their aircraft with eject-
able black boxes. These would
ﬂoat and be more easily retrievable
in case of a crash over water.
They will be mandatory on new
aircraft built after 2021, the source
told AFP.
The ejectable black boxes would
be in addition to existing commercial ﬂight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders that continually
record ﬂight information.
Six-alarm blaze at Brooklyn warehouse
Fire Department of New York firefighters work to contain a building fire that went to six alarms at the CitiStorage
warehouse building at 5 North 11th Street near Kent Avenue in the Willamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn
yesterday in New York City. The fire which started around 6:20am took over 200 firefighters to fight and smoke
could be visible for miles.
16
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
ASEAN
Tourists in
nude photo
scandal to
be deported
Mercy campaign
Captain left
seat before
jet lost control
AFP
Bangkok
T
hree French tourists will
be deported from Cambodia after they pleaded
guilty to taking nude pictures of
each other inside the country’s
famed Angkor temple complex, a
prosecutor said yesterday.
The male tourists were arrested on Thursday after they
were discovered taking naked
photos inside the Banteay Kdei
temple at the world heritage
site in northwestern Siem Reap
province.
The three men, who are all in
their early twenties, received a
suspended six-month prison
sentence and will be banned
from re-entering Cambodia for
four years.
“They confessed to making a
mistake and asked for the Cambodian people to forgive them
for their actions,” prosecutor
Koeut Sovannareth said.
The arrests caused deep anger
among Cambodian officials, who
said taking nude photos at such a
sacred site was deeply offensive.
“They will be deported from
Cambodia very soon,” Sovannareth added, saying the three
were convicted on two charges
-- public exposure and making
pornography.
The court also ordered the
three men to pay a ﬁne of $750.
“They said their goal was to
take nude photos to keep as souvenirs, but we believe that their
intention was to use the photos
in publications such as a calendar,” Sovannareth said.
The tourists were caught just
days after a series of photos of
Asian women posing nude at ancient Cambodian temples went
viral online and outraged officials.
The Angkor Archaeological Park, a world heritage site,
contains the remains of the different capitals of the Khmer
Empire, dating from the 9th to
the 15th Centuries, and is Cambodia’s most popular tourist
destination.
Reuters
Singapore/Jakarta/Paris
T
A young supporter of the “Mercy Campaign” holds stickers to be distributed to passing
motorists during a campaign to draw attention to the two Australians, Myuran Sukumaran and
Andrew Chan, who are on death row in Denpasar on the Indonesian island of Bali yesterday in
this photo taken by Antara Foto. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has indicated two
Australians convicted of drug offences will not receive a reprieve from execution, a refusal to
pardon that is likely to strain already fragile ties between the two neighbours.
Singapore hacker
‘The Messiah’ jailed
almost ﬁve years
AFP
Singapore
A
Singaporean man who
called himself The Messiah was sentenced to
nearly ﬁve years in jail Friday
for hacking into several servers, including the website of a
district represented by Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
District court judge Jennifer Marie said the stiff sentence she imposed on James
Raj, 36, was meant to act as a
strong deterrent to would-be
hackers, and warned that cyber attacks posed “considerable danger to the economy
and the country”.
Raj had pleaded guilty to
39 cyber-related charges,
including the October 2013
hacking of the Ang Mo Kio
district website, whose MPs
include Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong, and posting
the image of a Guy Fawkes
mask used by hacker
collective Anonymous
The ruling comes as Singapore this week sought
to strengthen its defences
against hackers, announcing
it will set up a new agency to
improve cyber security amid
high profile hacking incidents
worldwide.
Raj had pleaded guilty to
39 cyber-related charges,
including the October 2013
hacking of the Ang Mo Kio
district website, whose MPs
include Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong, and posting the
image of a Guy Fawkes mask
used by hacker collective
Anonymous.
According to the charge
sheet, Raj identified himself
as The Messiah and carried
out the hack from an apartment in Kuala Lumpur in
neighbouring Malaysia.
He had fled to Malaysia after skipping police bail in 2011
for drug offences, before being extradited back to Singapore in November 2013.
Raj had used the The
Messiah moniker before to
hack a reporter’s blog on the
website of the pro-government newspaper the Straits
Times.
He had also secured unauthorised access into various
other web servers, including those of Fuji Xerox and
Standard Chartered Bank.
He also posted a video —
purportedly from Anonymous — which demanded the
scrapping of a law in Singapore requiring news websites
to obtain annual licences.
The law had sparked anger
among bloggers and activists who say it is designed to
muzzle freedom of expression, especially on social media which has increasingly
become an avenue for citizens
to criticise the government.
“Singapore is a major IT
centre both regionally and
globally. Cyber intrusions
and threats pose considerable
danger to the economy and
the country,” the judge said.
The judge noted that state
prosecutors had described
the offences committed by
Raj as “the largest, most prolific cyber attacks against IT
systems in Singapore.”
In December, a court jailed
another hacker, 28-year-old
Mohamed Azhar bin Tahir,
for two months for defacing
the prime minister’s office
website with mocking messages and pictures.
he captain of the AirAsia
jet that crashed into the
sea in December was out
of his seat conducting an unusual procedure when his co-pilot
apparently lost control, and by
the time he returned it was too
late to save the plane, two people
familiar with the investigation
said.
Details emerging of the ﬁnal
moments of Flight QZ8501 are
likely to focus attention partly
on maintenance, procedures and
training, though Indonesian ofﬁcials have not ruled out any
cause and stress it is too early to
draw ﬁrm conclusions.
The Airbus A320 jet plunged
into the Java Sea while en route
from Surabaya, Indonesia, to
Singapore on Dec 28, killing all
162 people on board.
People familiar with the matter said earlier this week that
investigators were examining
maintenance records of one
of the automated systems, the
Flight Augmentation Computer
(FAC), and the way the pilots reacted to any outage.
One person familiar with
the matter said the captain had
ﬂown on the same plane with the
intermittently faulty device days
earlier. There was no independent conﬁrmation of this.
After trying to reset this
device, pilots pulled a circuit-breaker to cut its power,
Bloomberg News reported on
Friday.
People familiar with the matter said it was the Indonesian
captain Iriyanto who took this
step, rather than his less experienced French co-pilot Remy
Plesel, who was ﬂying the plane.
AirAsia said it would not com-
ment while the matter was under
investigation by the National
Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) of Indonesia. The
NTSC has said it is too early to
say what role either human factors or equipment may have
played in the crash, which is still
being investigated.
Experts say the loss of the FAC
would not directly alter the trajectory of the aircraft but would
remove ﬂight envelope protection, which prevents a pilot from
taking a plane beyond its safety
limits, and require the crew to ﬂy
it manually.
The decision to cut off the FAC
has surprised people following
the investigation because the
usual procedure for resetting it is
to press a button on the overhead
panel. “You can reset the FAC,
but to cut all power to it is very
unusual,” said one A320 pilot,
who declined to be identiﬁed.
“You don’t pull the circuit
breaker unless it was an absolute
emergency. I don’t know if there
was one in this case, but it is very
unusual.”
It is also signiﬁcant because to
pull the circuit breaker the captain had to rise from his seat.
The circuit breakers are on a
wall panel immediately behind
the co-pilot and hard or impossible to reach from the seated
position on the left side, where
the captain sits, according to
two experienced pilots and published diagrams of the cockpit.
Shortly afterwards the plane
went into a sharp climb from
which investigators have said it
stalled or lost lift.
“It appears he (the co-pilot)
was surprised or startled by
this,” said a person familiar with
the investigation, referring to
the decision to cut power to the
affected computer.
The captain eventually re-
sumed the controls, but a person familiar with the matter
said he was not in a position
to intervene immediately to
recover the aircraft from its
upset. “The co-pilot pulled
the plane up, and by the time
the captain regained the controls it was too late,” one of
the people familiar with the
investigation said.
Tatang Kurniadi, chief of
Indonesia’s NTSC, said there
had been no delay in the captain resuming the controls but
declined further comment.
The head of the investigation, Mardjono Siswosuwarno, told reporters this week it
was too early to say whether
the accident involved pilot error or a mechanical fault.
Indonesia has issued some
of the factual circumstances,
but not released its preliminary accident report.
The NTSC said on Thursday
the jet was in sound condition
and all crew members were
properly certified.
Airbus declined to comment.
Lawyers for the family of the
French co-pilot say they have ﬁled
a lawsuit against AirAsia in Paris
for “endangering the lives of others” by ﬂying the route without
official authorisation on that day.
Investigators have said the accident was not related to the permit
issue. AirAsia did not immediately
respond to requests for comment
on the lawsuit.
Air accidents typically give rise
to conﬂicting liability claims, and
the 2009 crash of an Air France jet
is still working its way through the
French judicial system. Although
more is becoming known about
the chain of events, people familiar with the investigation warned
against making assumptions on
the accident’s cause, which needed more analysis.
Suu Kyi’s mansion gates to be auctioned
AFP
Yangon
A
set of gates that became
an enduring symbol of
Myanmar
democracy
champion Aung San Suu Kyi’s
years under house arrest are to
be auctioned, a businessman
who now owns them said yesterday.
The gates — painted in the
yellow and red colours of Suu
Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party — were
once located at the entrance to
the crumbling Yangon mansion
where Myanmar’s most famous
political prisoner was conﬁned
for much of the 1990s and 2000s
because of her outspoken opposition to military rule.
“They are my own property. I bought them while I
was working on landscaping
in Daw Suu’s compound after
her release from house arrest,”
Soe Nyunt, a restaurant owner,
said, using an honorific for Suu
Kyi.
The businessman, an NLD
supporter, said he would sell
the gates to raise money both
for the construction of the party’s new headquarters, and for
upcoming centenary celebrations marking the birth of General Aung San, Suu Kyi’s father
and the founder of modern day
Myanmar.
He will not accept less than
$200,000 for the gates, he
added.
“I think the international
community will be interested.
So I will wait some time before
personally auctioning them,”
Soe Nyunt said.
During brief moments when
restrictions against Suu Kyi
were relaxed she would often
greet well-wishers from the
gates in acts of defiance against
a junta that ruled Myanmar
with an iron fist from 1962 to
2010. When her house arrest
was finally overturned that
year — shortly before military
rule was replaced with a quasicivilian reformist government
— large crowds of jubilant supporters surrounded the gates,
clamouring to catch a glimpse
of Suu Kyi and hand her bouquets of flowers. The gates have
since been replaced.
“If this great door can speak,
it can narrate about the history
of Burmese democracy combat
for 25 years,” Soe Nyunt wrote
on his Facebook page.
A journalist films an old gate of the Chairman of National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence in Yangon yesterday.
“The price will be start from
200mn Kyats ($200,000),”
the restaurant owner said. “Of
course, I will sell to whoever
can give more.” Since her release, Suu Kyi has been elected
an MP and her party is gearing up for crucial countrywide
elections later this year. The
NLD is expected to win if polls
are free and fair.
But the veteran democracy
campaigner cannot stand for
the presidency because a clause
in the constitution bans those
with a foreign spouse or children. Her two sons are British,
as was her late husband.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
17
AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA
State election
bodes ill for
Abbott govt
By Morag MacKinnon,
Reuters
Perth
A
ustralia’s opposition
Labor party yesterday pulled off a huge
electoral turnaround in a
key state, positioning it to
oust the ruling Liberal-National party in a voter backlash that threatens the future of Prime Minister Tony
Abbott.
With 70% of the vote
in, the conservative government that has ruled
Queensland state with a
massive majority was one
seat away from losing office
after one term.
The voters’ swing toward
Labor was credited to the
unpopularity of the ruling
party’s plan to sell off public
assets and cut government
services, as well as the ris-
ing unpopularity of Abbott,
the national conservative
leader.
Late yesterday, Labor
was estimated to have secured 44 seats, just one
shy of the 45 needed to
govern in the 89-seat legislative assembly. The Liberal-National party (LNP)
looked set to hold on to 33
seats, with three seats won
by minor and independent
parties and nine still undetermined.
The early results are a
massive turnaround from
the majority the LNP secured when it won office
in 2012, winning 78 of the
89 seats in the Queensland
parliament - the largest
political majority in Australia’s history.
“It’s still too close to
call, but I am very hopeful
that we’ll be able to form
government,” Labor leader
Annastacia Palszczuk told
supporters.
While state elections
do not determine the national government, the
swing against the LNP in
Queensland follows a string
of losses in local contests
and bodes badly for Abbott, whose popularity has
tanked in recent months.
With just over a year in
office, Abbott has seen his
leadership questioned and
most recently came under
fire for his unpopular decision last week to award
a knighthood to Prince
Philip, husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, a
knighthood.
A Labor government in
Queensland would be a
blow to Australia’s A$130bn
($101bn) plan to privatise
state-owned assets, which
the Labor party campaigned
strongly against.
The LNP had promised a raft of infrastructure
upgrades funded by the
A$35bn sell-off involving
ports, electricity generators, an electricity distribution network and a water
distribution company.
The Queensland result
also threatens Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises’ $7bn Carmichael coal
mine project in the state’s
Galilee Basin.
The LNP put development of the basin at the
heart of its bid for reelection and had promised to take a minority
stake in the railway line
needed to bring the coal
to port.
The Labor party said it
would not subsidise the rail
line and has challenged assertions about the amount
of revenue the mine would
generate.
Base clash!
Subcontract workers hired by the South Korean Navy clash with residents and other opponents of a plan to
construct a naval base in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island. The Navy yesterday began taking action to drive the
protesters out of the construction site to build residences for military officers by December as scheduled.
China to curb phone and computer
purchases in restive Xinjiang
Agencies
Beijing
A
nyone buying a mobile phone or a computer in the restive
far-western Chinese region
of Xinjiang will have to register their personal details
with police, state media reported, in the latest sign of
tightening government restrictions.
The measures were designed to “prevent people
spreading harmful information and carrying out illegal
activities”, the English-language Shanghai Daily reported, citing government
officials.
Xinjiang, which borders
Central Asia, Pakistan and
Afghanistan, has struggled with violence in recent
years between majority Han
Chinese and mostly Muslim
Uighurs.
The Shanghai Daily cited
the regional news portal
www.iyaxin.com, but the
article could not be found
on its website. The measures were also reported on
Tian Shan Net, a govern-
ment-run Xinjiang news
portal, but later a message
said the article had been deleted.
The regulations apply to
both new and second-hand
equipment. Retailers will be
required to upload purchasers’ details to a public security database administered
by police and to install surveillance cameras in their
stores.
Owners and operators of electronics stores
will also be required to
place warning signs in
prominent locations tell-
ing people not to spread
audio and video content
about violence and terrorism, the report said.
The selling of unregistered cards for phones or
WiFi services was banned,
it added.
It did not say when the
measures took effect.
Earlier this month, authorities in Xinjiang announced that people buying
ﬁreworks for Chinese New
Year would have to register using their ID cards, the
China Daily newspaper reported.
High bar!
Young students try to reach a bar during a gymnastics training session at a sports school in China’s Jiaxing.
Kim slams ‘rabid dogs’
after Obama comments
AFP
Seoul
N
orth Korean leader Kim JongUn said Pyongyang would not
sit idly by “with rabid dogs
barking” about toppling its socialist
system, in apparent reaction to comments by US President Barack Obama
that the regime was doomed, state media reported yesterday.
Kim made the remarks while overseeing a joint naval and air force drill
simulating an attack on a US carrier
strike group off South Korea, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
It did not give details of the venue
and date of the war games, which were
believed to have taken place on Friday.
“He solemnly declared that we have
no willingness to sit any longer with
the rabid dogs openly barking that
they will bring down by the method of
bringing about ‘changes’ the socialist
system, the cradle which our people
consider dearer than their own lives”,
KCNA said.
Kim said North Korea was ready to
counter “any war including a war by
conventional armed forces and a nuclear war”.
In an interview on YouTube from the
White House on January 22, Obama
spoke of the eventual collapse of the
North Korean regime, calling it “the
most isolated, the most sanctioned, the
most cut-off nation on Earth”.
“We will keep on ratcheting the
pressure, but part of what’s happening
is ... the Internet over time is going to
be penetrating this country,” Obama
said.
“Over time you will see a regime like
this collapse,” he said, adding the US
was looking for ways to accelerate the
ﬂow of information into the country”.
A North Korean foreign ministry
spokesman lashed out at his remarks,
portraying them as “nothing but a poor
grumble of a loser”, adding that attempts to topple the regime would only
strengthen unity among its people.
The North has often used bombastic
and sometimes racist rhetoric to slam
Obama and other US leaders.
In December, its top military body
chaired by Kim compared Obama to
a “monkey” over his support for the
screening of a Hollywood comedy hated by Pyongyang.
‘The Interview’ – a ﬁlm about a ﬁctional plot to assassinate Kim - was
released online and in theatres despite
devastating cyberattacks on its producer Sony Pictures.
Washington blames Pyongyang for
the attacks, a charge the North has angrily denied.
18
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
BRITAIN/IRELAND
Bike crash victim seeks
woman who aided him
Two wheeler accidents are increasing
deadly
Evening Standard
London
A
motorcyclist is trying to ﬁnd a Good
Samaritan who came to his aid after
he crashed with a car and was left
suffering with life-changing injuries.
George Hutchings, 34, may never be
able to walk again following the accident
in Hanger Lane, Ealing, west London, on
Monday afternoon.
The medical engineer was making his
way home to Brent Cross when he collided
with the car and smashed his leg at around
4.30pm.
Two other motorcyclists rushed to help
him, as well as a girl who he thinks may
have been driving in the car behind him.
Hutchings said the girl held his hand
and sat with him throughout the pain until an ambulance arrived to take him to St
Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.
He is currently recovering in the major
trauma ward after suffering from a compound ankle fracture.
Hutchings is now attempting to trace
the girl and thank her for the support, as
he was in too much agony at the time to be
able to.
He said: “She was with me the whole
time up until they took me away.
“I want to say thank you really, some
people would not have stopped at all they
would have just drove off and said ‘oh no
that’s terrible.’
“It has really put it in perspective. I am
never going to be able to go on a motorbike
again. That one accident and now I can’t
walk at all or put any pressure on it.”
Hutchings said he is hoping to leave
George Hutchings at the major trauma ward of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
hospital next week and it is not guaranteed
he will be able to walk again. He may need
a skin graft and more surgery in the future.
He has posted on Internet site Reddit to
try and ﬁnd the woman but so far nobody
has come forward.
Police are appealing for any witnesses
who may have seen the collision to get in
contact.
A spokesman for the Met said the driver
of the other car involved stopped at the
scene and was not arrested.
zDetectives investigating the death of
a motorcyclist in Lewisham are hoping to
trace three vehicle owners who may have
witnessed the fatal crash.
Police probing the death of Conrad Oscar Lewis-Pratt in Loampit Vale yesterday released CCTV pictures of a dark blue
Volkswagen Passat, a silver Toyota Prius
and a moped that were at the scene of the
accident.
Lewis-Pratt, 22, from Brockley, died
from multiple injuries after veering off the
road and hitting a lamppost close to Jerrard Street on September 12 last year.
His family were left “devastated” by
his death, police said yesterday, as they
re-issued an appeal for witnesses to
speak to them
Detective sergeant Richard Budd, who is
leading the investigation, said: “This was
a tragic incident, where a young man has
lost his life on the road and his family have
been left devastated by it.
“Despite extensive enquiries, we still
don’t know how or why this happened, but
we think that the drivers of the two cars
and the moped rider may have seen something that could help us to piece together
the events of that morning.”
He added: “I must also stress that, at
this stage, we are purely looking to speak
to these drivers as potential witnesses, so
I would urge anyone with information to
contact us.”
A motorcycle rider was thrown to his
death after colliding with a Smart car
yards from a busy railway station.
Witnesses said the biker, said to be in his
40s, was ﬂung over the handlebars after
the smash in Ferry Lane, near Tottenham
Hale station at 7.45pm last night.
The wreckage of his silver moped, with
a courier’s parcel-box on the back, was
strewn across the road which was closed to
traffic for almost ﬁve hours.
The driver of the black Smart car is said
to have rushed from his vehicle to give the
biker ﬁrst aid in the road until paramedics
arrived.
Anastazja Lukaz, 44, said: “The motorbike tried to accelerate in front of the car as
they were turning into Ferry Lane. I heard
a loud thud and then the car spun around
twice and stopped.
“The driver got to the man in the road
ﬁrst and tried to save him.”
Dylan Chiromerides, another eyewitness, said: “The scooter was in the middle of the street completely torn to shreds,
there were pieces of it all around the area.
“A policeman said the driver had gone
over the handlebars and died. It was a really horrible and upsetting sight.
“It is a busy road but because it was quite
late at night there weren’t so many cars.”
The driver of the Smart car was taken
to hospital to be treated for minor injuries
and shock. He has not been arrested.
A Met spokesman said: “Police were
called at around 7.45pm to reports of a
collision between a car and a motorcycle
on Ferry Lane near the junction with Mill
Mead Road.
“Officers and LAS attended but the motorcyclist, thought to be a man in his 40’s,
was pronounced dead at the scene.”
Water protest in Ireland
Army medic
being tested
for Ebola
Evening Standard
London
A
British military healthcare worker has been
brought back to England for Ebola monitoring after
suffering a needle-stick injury
while treating a person in Sierra Leone.
Public Health England
(PHE) said the individual has
been admitted to the Royal
Free Hospital in London for assessment and next of kin have
been informed.
The individual is likely to
have been exposed to the virus but has not been diagnosed
with Ebola and does not have
symptoms.
Professor Paul Cosford,
PHE’s director for health protection and medical director,
said: “Our thoughts are with
this person, who has been
courageous in helping those
affected in West Africa, and in
preventing the wider spread of
Ebola.
“We have strict, well-tested protocols in place for this
eventuality and we are conﬁdent that all appropriate actions have been taken to support the healthcare worker
concerned and to protect the
health of other people.” Needle-stick injuries involve a
piercing of the skin, typically
by a needle point but also by
other sharp instruments or
objects.
They are a serious occupational hazard for doctors,
healthcare workers and those
working in law enforcement.
The injuries are of particular
concern because of the risk of
Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey
blood-borne diseases being
transmitted. The patient is being treated at London’s Royal
Free Hospital (RFH), where
British nurses Pauline Cafferkey and Will Pooley were
treated in a specialist isolation unit. They were each diagnosed with the disease after
helping treat patients in Africa.
A statement from the Royal
Free Hospital said: “We can
conﬁrm that a UK military
healthcare worker has been
admitted to the Royal Free
Hospital today following a
needlestick injury while treating a person with Ebola in Sierra Leone. PHE said the individual had arrived back in the
UK today on an RAF ﬂight after
being exposed to the virus in a
“frontline care setting”.
The patient will be monitored for the remainder of their
21-day incubation period.
Decisions on immediate and
ongoing care will be made by
the clinical team at the Royal
Free Hospital.
To date, more than 21,700
cases of Ebola have been reported in nine countries, including nearly 8,650 deaths,
according to the World Health
Organisation, although it said
this week it believed the disease was declining.
Man jailed for sex
assault on boy
Evening Standard
London
A
Thousands protest in Dublin city centre against the introduction of water charges as part of Ireland’s bailout.
pensioner who sexually
assaulted a six-year-old
boy in a branch of McDonald’s has been jailed.
Brian Lucking, 68,of Caledonian Road was jailed for a
total of four years at Blackfriars Crown Court.
On July 19 last year, he followed the boy into the toilets
in a branch of McDonald’s in
King’s Cross and sexually assaulted him.
The boy ran back to his
mother and police were called.
His mother managed to take
a picture of the man before he
ﬂed.
Police arrested him two
hours later.
He admitted one charge of
sexual assault on a male under
the age of 13.
Detective Inspector Neil
Smithson of the Met’s Sexual
Offences, Exploitation and
Child Abuse Command, said:
“Lucking targeted a young boy
in a relatively public location.
Thankfully, this sort of assault
is rare, but the sentence should
demonstrate the seriousness
with which the police and the
courts view these matters.”
Police are also urging other
victims to come forward.
A murder investigation
has been launched after a
woman was found with stab
injuries.
The woman, believed to
be 42, was found with stab
wounds at an address in Hillingdon, west London yesterday, Scotland Yard said. Police
were called at about 11am but
she died at 12.22pm.
A 35-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder
a short time later. The man,
who was arrested in Hayes, is
in custody at a west London
police station.
Scotland Yard said the
woman’s next of kin have been
informed but a formal identiﬁcation has yet to take place.
A date for a post-mortem
examination has yet to be
scheduled.
Rank and ﬁle police ‘should be given Tasers’
Evening Standard
London
A
ll rank-and-ﬁle police ofﬁcers should be armed
with a Taser because of
the heightened security threat,
the head of the Police Federation
has said.
Steve White, chairman of the
body which represents front-line
officers, said acts of terrorism
could be carried out anywhere
and police needed to be protected.
He cited the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby near Woolwich
Barracks in 2013 as an example
of how lone wolf-style attacks
could be carried out without
guns.
He told the Guardian: “The
terrorist ideal to get attention no
longer relies on an attack being
in a place of note. It could be in
Cheam high street, in any town,
in any part of the UK. We know
there are more dangerous people out there, preparing to attack
police officers and we need to be
able to respond to that threat.
“As (the) Lee Rigby (murder)
demonstrated, you don’t need
to have a gun to create terrorism. It is a defensive tool and a
tactical option. We have a largely
unarmed service and the service
wants that to remain.
“The alternative is to have ofﬁcers out there without anything
at all. We have to do something.
The sector threat (to police) has
gone up by two levels and we
need to make sure everything is
done to protect officers who protect the public.”
The federation is to vote on the
proposal next month, the newspaper said.
Home Office ﬁgures released
last October showed the use of
Tasers by police had increased
every year, while there have been
a number of controversial deaths
related to the stun guns.
The weapons were ﬁred 826
times out of the 5,107 occasions
they were deployed between January and June 2014, with the latter ﬁgure compared with 4,999
times during the same period in
2013 and 1,297 times in 2009
Tasers were also pressed
against a person’s body - like an
electric cattle prod, in what is
known as “angled drive stun” on 123 occasions in England and
Wales in the same period.
Concerns over their use were
heightened after the death of
Andrew Pimlott, who suffered
fatal burns when he was hit by
the stun gun in Plymouth in April
2013, after he had poured petrol
over himself and was holding a lit
match at the time.
Amnesty International UK’s
arms programme director Oliver Sprague said: “We’d ask the
question: where’s the evidence
that a terrorist will be deterred
by the knowledge that police
officers have Tasers at their disposal?
“And who on earth thinks that
if there’s a real instance of terrorist activity that Tasers would ever
actually be sufficient for our lawenforcement officers?
“We’ve always said that tasers
can have a part to play in policing
operations where there’s a clear
risk of death or serious injury
to police officers or members of
the public - but Tasers should be
used sparingly and only by highly-trained officers.
“The real worry is that we’ll
actually end up with triggerhappy, under-trained police
officers using Tasers wholly inappropriately against ordinary
members of the public.
All police should have Tasers, says the head of the Police Federation.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
19
BRITAIN
Plea for earlier liver
disease screenings
Binge drinking has reached crisis
proportions
Evening Standard
London
D
eaths from liver disease have risen
400% in the last 40 years, according to a health charity which is calling for early screening.
The British Liver Trust has called on
the government to launch a nationwide
awareness campaign about the “ticking
time-bomb”, saying early diagnosis could
save the NHS as much as £600mn a year.
Andrew Langford, chief executive of the
charity, said: “If we do nothing, we will
continue to see ever increasing rates of
liver damage and early death. The average
age of death from liver disease is 57, that’s
over 20 years lower than deaths from cancer, stroke and heart disease - liver disease
is now the third most common cause of
premature death.”
At an event at the House of Commons
to mark the launch of the Love You Liver
campaign, Luciana Berger MP, shadow
minister for public health, said: “As an MP
in the North West, one of the areas hardest
hit by liver damage, I have seen the devastating effects liver disease causes.
“This campaign puts pressure on the
Government to do everything it can to stop
the tragedy of deaths from liver disease;
many of which could have been prevented
if they were detected earlier.”
Drinking alcohol, being obese and contracting hepatitis can all be factors causing
the disease, which killed 16,087 people in
the UK in 2008, according to the latest ﬁgures on the charity’s website.
Langford added: “Most people think
that a glass of wine or pint of beer a night
or a couple of takeaways a week won’t do
much harm - when in fact drinking even
just a bit too much alcohol every day and
eating unhealthy food are major contributing factors for liver damage.
“We are all affected differently and
Two women receive treatment on board the London Ambulance ’booze bus.’
the symptoms are almost undetectable
in many cases until it is too late. This is a
serious health situation. More than one
million lives could be saved if we invest in
early diagnosis.”
Club goers face being breathalysed
before being allowed entry into London
venues as part of a crackdown on drinkrelated violence.
Police and clubs are launching a pilot
scheme to enable doormen to breath test
revellers they suspect are intoxicated so
they can bar them from entry.
The limit for testing “positive” will be
set at around twice the level for the drink
driving limit.
Officers hope the scheme will cut down
on binge drinking and “pre-loading”
where young people get drunk on cheap
drinks before going out.
The measure is one of several initiatives
being launched by the Met in an effort to
tackle rising rates of violent crime in London.
Figures show that while most crime in
London is falling, the number of violent
offences is rising rapidly with increases of
up to 39% in some boroughs.
Senior officers believe some of the rise
is explained by more thorough recording
of offences but admit there has been an
increase in drink related violence in town
centres.
The initiative also follows concerns over
safety in some London clubs.
Fabric nightclub was saved from the
threat of closure last year over four drugrelated deaths after bosses were ordered to
bring in tough entry conditions, including
having to hire seven sniffer dogs.
The Met launched Operation Equinox in
an attempt to reduce the number of violent offences by targeting pubs, nightclubs
and fast-food outlets.
One initiative is to use breathalysers to
screen people getting into clubs.
Police have tested the idea in a small
number of clubs in Croydon and now plan
a more organised pilot scheme in six different London boroughs.
Chief inspector Gary Taylor said the
anecdotal evidence from clubs in Croydon
showed it was a success.
He said: “They have told us that it did
help reduce violence and confrontations
involving door staff. The breathalyser
helped to stop people who were persistently trying to get into clubs when they
clearly had to too much to drink.
“The breathalyser helps to reduce the
number of arguments when door staff
refuse entry to someone who is intoxicated. In the past door staff would get involved in long arguments with
people who were refused entry. People
who were arguing with staff were more likely
to accept the results of the breathalyser.”
London nightclub impresario Mark
Fuller, who runs the Embassy in Mayfair,
welcomed the idea in principle but warned
police not to set the limit for the breath
test too low.
He said: “I think it’s an excellent idea. I
think most violence in clubs comes from
people who have had too much to drink
and it will create a level playing ﬁeld. It is
a bit Big Brotherish but it will be one rule
for all. If you get someone with loads of
money who is completely pissed then they
do not get it.
“But the opinion of the authorities on
alcohol levels compared to what the average person consumes in a night are quite
adrift. Club going is meant to be a fun
night out so I hope they don’t try and take
the fun out of it.”
Police say it is too early to say if the device helped to reduce levels of violence.
A similar scheme has been run in Norwich where signs titled “Are you trollied?
#DeepBreath” are displayed in venues explaining that clubbers may be required to
take
Lexy Amour, 20, a model from Camden said: “I think its an awful idea. It’s ridiculous because everyone has a couple of
drinks ﬁrst with friends. The police would
just ruin your night. Are we meant to stay
sober during the night too? It’s a killjoy
idea that will wreck people’s fun.”
Claire Lewis, 31, DJ from Chingford, Essex said: “I think its a good idea because
guys, sometimes girls, who are tanked up
walking into a club can be lairy. But the
success depends on the type of club. If it
doesn’t open until 3am people will obviously be drunk when they arrive. It’s 24
hour licenses that are the problem.”
£120,000
raised for
mugged
pensioner
Evening Standard
London
D
onations for a 4ft 6in
frail and visually impaired pensioner who
was mugged outside his home
have topped £120,000.
More than 8,900 wellwishers have raised the cash in
just over two days after hearing about the cowardly attack
on Alan Barnes, 67, outside his
home in Low Fell, Gateshead,
Tyne and Wear, on Sunday.
Barnes, who has lived with
disabilities from birth after
his mother contracted German measles when she was
pregnant, broke his collarbone
when he was shoved over.
The attacker demanded
money and checked through
his victim’s pockets but ran off
when Barnes called for help.
Beautician Katie Cutler set
up the Help Alan Barnes online donation page on the Go
Fund Me site after seeing reports of the attack which police described as “disgraceful”.
Donations came ﬂooding in to the site - at http://
www.gofundme.com/l0dt9o
- smashing the original £500
fundraising target after wellwishers were told that Barnes
is too afraid to return home.
Cutler wrote: “I was so upset that anyone could target a
disabled pensioner and be so
cruel.
“We can’t take away what
has happened but with a little donation we can make the
future a prettier one and help
towards the cost of his new
home. Thank you all.”
Well-wisher Sara Phillips
wrote on the site: “Wow have
reached over the £100.000
mark...This is amazing well
done Katie cutler for setting
this up and to all the lovely
amazing people for donating.
I keep checking back to see
how much it’s gone up and it
keeps shooting up every time
... hope Alan gets better soon
and overcomes this horrible
ordeal and we’ve showed him
that there are more good than
bad people in this world. Take
care Alan wishing you happiness and all the best for the
future xxx”.
Barnes is a well-known
ﬁgure in Low Fell and is renowned for being able to
quickly calculate how many
days old someone is from their
date of birth.
zA murder investigation
has been launched after a boy
was stabbed to death in north
London.
Police were called at 9.35pm
yesterday to reports of a youth
found slumped on the pavement on Berkeley Gardens,
Enﬁeld. Officers and London
Ambulance Service attended
and found the male suffering
from stab wounds.
He was taken to hospital in
a critical condition but died a
short while later.Next of kin
have been informed.
Police say they know the
identity of the deceased but
formal identiﬁcation awaits.
A post-mortem will take
place in due course.
Four people were later arrested. Two boys, both aged
17, a girl of 17 and a woman,
46. All four were held on suspicion of murder.
They all remain in custody
to at separate north London
police stations.
Spidey’s looking for
a running mate
Evening Standard
London
T
Protesters hold placards and chant slogans during a demonstration dubbed ‘The March for Homes’ calling for solutions to housing problems outside City Hall in London.
Campaigners march to protest
over London housing crisis
AFP
London
H
undreds of people have marched to
City Hall to protest over lack of affordable homes in London.
Groups of protesters gathered at Elephant and Castle and Shoreditch where
rallying speeches were given ahead before
marching to central London.
People unfurled banners reading “People before proﬁt” and “Build council
homes. Take the wealth off the 1%”.
In Shoreditch, campaigners held aloft a
huge banner which read “this is the beginning of the end of the housing crisis”.
Campaigners want London mayor Boris
Johnson to take steps to create a fairer
housing market in the capital.
They say government housing policies
have driven up rents, caused a lack of affordable homes and are contributing towards a rise in homelessness.
They are also claiming a London housing crisis has been made worse by stagnant wages, zero-hours contracts and an
unstable jobs market.
London MPs and assembly members
were among hundreds who took part.
“We need affordable and secure housing
and that should be the starting point – not
This Hampstead mansion has been sold for £34mn.
how many unaffordable rabbit hutches
to build to boost council revenues,” said
Eileen Short, chair of Defend Council
Housing ahead of the march.
zA mansion on “Billionaires’ Row” in
north London has sold for £33.7mn - more
than 70 times the average cost of a property in the capital.
Jersey House is a 20,000sq ft new-build
in The Bishops Avenue, Hampstead, a
street known for its super-rich residents
as well as for empty, decaying “ghost
homes”.
The property has eight bedroom suites,
a leisure complex with a 10.5m mosaiclined indoor swimming pool, a massage
room, two-bedroom staff accommodation and 1.2 acres of land.
It also has a reception hall with a 21fthigh ceiling, an eight-person lift and a
dining room large enough for 10. The master suite is 1,800 sq ft, or larger than a typical three-bedroom house.
Ten types of marble were used in the
construction of Jersey House, with the
ﬂoors decked out in “luxurious deep woven wool carpet”.
It was originally put on the market for
£39mn, but was reduced last year to just
under £35mn.
It has now been sold for £33.7mn, making it the most expensive sale of December recorded by the Land Registry and the
third highest of the year.
The site was bought for £4.2mn in 2001
and the home’s buyer is believed to be from
the Middle East. The sale was logged on December 5, the day after George Osborne’s
stamp duty changes were introduced.
If the deal exchanged before the changes came in, the buyer would have paid
£2.35mn in stamp duty — a saving of
£1.6mn over the £3.95mn that would have
to be paid after midnight on 3 December.
The Land Registry’s latest report says 1,132
homes sold for more than £1 million in October — up from 984 in October 2013.
But buying agent Henry Pryor said:
“The million-pound market was already
slowing in the autumn and while we wait
for official ﬁgures I think this trend continued up to Christmas.”
wo cheeky tenants
spiced up an advert
for their spare room by
dressing up as Spider-Man.
One of the pair posed in the
get-up for the advert seeking
someone to live in the spare
room in a house share in north
London.
The advert for the room in
Green Lanes, Manor House,
has been posted to Spareroom.co.uk and shows the superhero in an array of different
poses.
No reference to the SpiderMan is made in the description of the property, although
a caption on one image says:
“Spider-Man for scale.”
Tenant Brendan Appleton,
28, donned the costume while
his housemate Pete Oldham,
25, took the photographs.
Appleton, who works for
Absolute Radio, said: “Primarily it was because we have got
quite a big house I thought to
give it some scale and to show
how big it was to have Spiderman in them.
“You are not going to be
living with Spiderman - but
obviously that is what Spiderman would say to keep his
Spidey in the spare room advert.
identity secret. I do love a bit
of fancy dress so that is why
I have that lying around. We
are just normal chaps who had
a bit of a silly Sunday afternoon.”
He said since they have had
an overwhelming response
since the advert was posted on
Spareroom and Facebook.
Appleton added: “It seems
to have worked, whether it
was down to Spiderman, or
because it is a nice house.”
The room is on the market
for £575 per month rent, not
including bills and comes with
a double bed, desk and wardrobe.
Matt Hutchinson, director
of Spareroom.co.uk, said: “A
bit of light relief in the form
ads like this, amongst the
constant doom and gloom of
the housing market, is always
welcome.
“There’s an important
point behind it too. If you’re
ﬂatsharing, the people you
live with are much more important than the property you
live in. Getting your personality across in an ad without
overdoing it can be tricky but
a bit of humour goes a long
way.”
It is unknown whether Spider-Man will be available on
request.
20
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
EUROPE
Judge elected
Italy president
AFP/Reuters/DPA
Rome
S
ergio Mattarella, a constitutional court judge from
Sicily who is seen as a symbol of Italy’s battle against organised crime, was elected Italy’s
new president yesterday.
The 73-year-old Sicilian, who
was backed by Prime Minister
Matteo Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD), succeeds the
hugely popular Giorgio Napolitano, who is stepping down because of his advanced age.
Mattarella is little known to
the public but is widely respected
in politics after a 25-year parliamentary career and several stints
as minister in governments of the
left and right.
Renowned for his integrity, he
entered politics after his elder
brother was murdered by the Sicilian Maﬁa.
Mattarella won 665 votes in
the fourth round of voting by a
1,009-member electoral college,
composed of members of the two
houses of parliament – the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies
– and 58 representatives of the
regions.
Ferdinando Imposimato, the
candidate of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of Beppe
Grillo, won 127 votes.
The threshold for victory at
the fourth round was a simple
majority, down from the twothirds majority needed for a win
in the three opening stages.
Three previous ballots, held
on Thursday and Friday, were
inconclusive because the ruling
Democratic Party judged that
there was not enough support to
garner the then-required twothirds majority, so it told its deputies to cast blank ballots.
In the end, Mattarella fell short
of the two-third threshold by just
Mattarella: expected to be sworn in next week for a seven-year term,
taking over officially from Napolitano.
eight votes. As the ruling party’s
candidate Mattarella had support
from most of the 415 PD politicians in the electoral college as
well as several allied lawmakers.
But Italian presidential elections are nothing if not unpredictable, meaning the vote was
not devoid of suspense.
In 2013, Romano Prodi was the
favourite to succeed Napolitano,
but a revolt within the PD scuppered his chances and blocked
a decision, forcing Napolitano
to agree to start a second mandate which he always insisted he
would not ﬁnish.
Now 89, Napolitano announced earlier this month that
he was too tired to carry on in
what is a largely ceremonial role
but can become politically signiﬁcant during times of crisis
over the formation of new governments.
Renzi’s backing for Mattarella
has been interpreted as the end of
a temporary alliance the premier
forged with disgraced former
prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
to help drive labour market and
electoral reforms through parliament.
Mattarella is seen as an “antiBerlusconi” ﬁgure, having severed his ties with the centre right
in Italian politics partly because
of his distaste for the media tycoon, who still heads the opposition Forza Italia party despite a
tax fraud conviction.
Berlusconi was reported on
Friday to be feeling “betrayed” by
Renzi.
Mattarella, speaking at his ofﬁce in the Constitutional Court
after the vote, said: “My ﬁrst
thoughts are of the difficulties
and hopes of our citizens.”
The election shows the
40-year-old Renzi in ﬁrm control of both his famously fractious party and his allies in the
ruling majority as he seeks to
pass reforms aimed at underpinning an economic recovery
in Italy, where unemployment is
soaring after six years of on-off
recession.
As the ballots were counted
out loud in the Chamber of Deputies, the 1,009 parliamentarians
and regional officials eligible to
vote burst into applause when
Mattarella’s name surpassed the
505-vote threshold, making him
Italy’s 12th president since World
War II.
Mattarella is expected to be
sworn in next week for a sevenyear term, taking over officially
from Napolitano.
“Keep up the good work, President Mattarella. Long live Italy!”
Renzi tweeted after the vote.
Even Pope Francis sent a congratulatory telegram.
Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party
appeared in disarray after the
vote.
Berlusconi ordered his party to
cast blank ballots after accusing
Renzi of betraying what he said
was a promise to give him a role
in choosing the candidate.
Instead, more than 30 party
members refused, opening a
wound in the party.
A popular theory is that the
Forza Italia leader was hoping
for a sympathetic ﬁgure to be
installed as president to increase
his chances of winning a pardon over his criminal conviction
which would allow him to return
to parliament.
Renato Brunetta, Forza Italia’s
chief whip in the lower house,
said that the pact that Renzi and
Berlusconi sealed last year to
make institutional reforms was
dead, but not all his party colleagues were so resolute and Berlusconi himself has yet to comment.
“Renzi made a unilateral decision to break the pact,” Brunetta
said. “Nothing will be the same
now.”
Mattarella is the ﬁrst native
of Sicily to become president.
He has a reputation for being a
reserved but straight-talking
former minister, whose career in
politics began after his brother,
Piersanti, was shot dead by the
Italian senators, deputies and representatives of the regions – members of the electoral college – applaud
Sicilian judge Mattarella, the newly elected Italian president, yesterday.
Sicilian Maﬁa in 1980.
Mattarella’s political roots
are in Italy’s defunct Christian
Democrat party that his father
Bernardo, an anti-fascist, helped
to found after the war.
Though Mattarella is not seen
Ukraine, rebels hold fresh talks
Reuters
Minsk/Kiev
A
new round of peace talks
got under way yesterday
involving Ukraine and
separatists, even as ﬁghting between Kiev government forces
and the Russian-backed rebels
raged in Ukraine’s east, claiming
civilian and military lives.
The main members of the socalled contact group – Ukrainian former president Leonid
Kuchma, a Russian diplomat and
an Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe official
– met at a state residence in the
Belarussian capital Minsk, where
they were joined by two separatist officials.
The sides have held only one
inconclusive
meeting
since
agreeing a ceaseﬁre last September as part of a 12-point blueprint
for peace. Much-violated from
the start, that truce collapsed
completely with a new rebel advance last week.
Both sides have accused each
other of deadly artillery and
mortar strikes on civilian targets
in the past two weeks, including on a cultural centre in the
main regional city of Donetsk on
Friday which killed at least ﬁve
people waiting for humanitarian
hand-outs.
The September Minsk peace
plan also called for tighter control of the joint Russia-Ukraine
border, through which Kiev says
Moscow is funnelling ﬁghters
and equipment, and the freeing
of prisoners held by the sides.
Much has changed on the
ground, however, since September.
The separatists have set up
self-proclaimed “people’s republics” while their forces,
which Kiev says are supported
by 9,000 Russian regular troops,
have seized more than 500sq km
of territory beyond that agreed
in the Minsk talks and threaten
to seize control of the east’s two
main regions entirely.
Heavy shelling continued yesterday in Ukraine’s eastern regions as the separatists sought to
tighten a circle around government forces clinging on to control of the strategic rail and road
junction of Debaltseve.
Regional police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin, in a Facebook
post, said that 12 civilians had
been killed yesterday by separatist artillery shelling of the town,
which lies to the northeast of
Donetsk.
Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak said 15 Ukrainian soldiers
had been killed and 30 wounded
in clashes across the east.
“The toughest situation is in
the Vuhlehirsk area where the
terrorists are trying to seize the
T
Media wait yesterday outside the presidential residence in Minsk during talks aimed at ending the fighting
in eastern Ukraine.
town and occupy positions to
move forward and encircle Debaltseve,” military spokesman
Andriy Lysenko said in a separate
brieﬁng.
Debaltseve is on the main
highway linking Donetsk and the
other big rebel-controlled city
of Luhansk and is also a vital rail
link for goods traffic from Russia
which Kiev accuses of arming the
rebels.
The rebels were also continuing to threaten Mariupol, a town
of half a million in the southeast
of the country on the coast of Sea
of Azov, Lysenko said.
More than 5,000 people have
been killed in the Ukraine conﬂict which erupted last April
following Russia’s annexation of
Crimea in response to the ousting
of a Moscow-backed president in
Kiev by street protests.
M
acedonia’s chief opposition leader was
charged by police yesterday with conspiring with a
foreign intelligence service to
topple the government.
Zoran Zaev, leader of the
Social Democrats, denied the
charges, saying that the authorities were trying in vain to
prevent the publication of what
he says is incendiary evidence
of criminal wrongdoing by the
conservative government of
Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.
Gruevski, in power since mid2006, accused Zaev of trying
to blackmail him to call a snap
election during face-to-face
talks in September and November, saying that Zaev claimed
he had gathered intelligence
against the government with the
help of a foreign spy service.
“I watched and listened to
the head of the opposition ...
informing me that he is collaborating with a foreign intelligence
service,” Gruevski said.
Macedonia’s state prosecutor
conﬁrmed that police had submitted criminal charges against
four people, including a former
head of state intelligence and his
wife.
All except Zaev were in custody. Local media reported that
Zaev had turned in his passport.
Zaev’s Social Democrats have
been boycotting parliament
for almost a year since alleging
fraud in the last parliamentary
election.
Zaev’s potential imprison-
ment would further deepen political divisions and may heighten concern in the West over a
perceived authoritarian streak
in Gruevski’s rule.
Macedonia, a landlocked
Balkan country of 2mn people,
wants to join Nato and the European Union but progress has
been stalled by a dispute with
neighbouring Greece over Macedonia’s name.
The country narrowly avoided civil war in 2001 in clashes
between government forces and
ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
Russia denies what the West
and Kiev says is incontrovertible
proof that its troops are ﬁghting
on behalf of the separatists and
providing them with military
equipment.
United States and Western
sanctions against Russia have led
to the biggest crisis in RussiaWest relations since the end of
the Cold War more than 20 years
ago.
decree that favoured Berlusconi’s
media empire, and three years
later he drafted a voting law,
which has since been changed,
that was used when Berlusconi
won his ﬁrst of three national
elections in 1994.
Two cases of child
porn possession
in Vatican in 2014
Reuters
Vatican City
Macedonian opposition hit with coup charge
Reuters
Skopje
as having vast international experience, he did serve as defence
minister in two different centreleft governments, from 1999 to
2001.
In 1990, Mattarella resigned as
education minister to protest a
he Vatican, which is
still struggling with
the effects of a worldwide paedophilia scandal in
the Catholic Church, discovered two cases of possession
of child pornography within
its own walls last year, its chief
prosecutor said yesterday.
Gian Piero Milano, whose
official title is Promoter of
Justice, reported the cases in a
50-page report read to Vatican
officials at a ceremony marking
the start of the city-state’s judicial year.
The Catholic Church has
been hit by scandal involving
the sexual abuse of children
by priests around the world in
the past 15 years. Pope Francis
has vowed zero tolerance for
offenders but victims of abuse
want him to do more and make
bishops who allegedly covered
up the abuse accountable.
In his report, Milano said
Vatican police had investigated
“two delicate cases, of varying
degrees of seriousness, of possession of child pornography
material” by people living or
working inside the city-state,
which is the headquarters of
the 1.2 billion member church.
The prosecutor gave no details but a Vatican spokesman
said one of them involved Jozef
Wesolowski, a former archbishop who was arrested last
September in the Vatican on
charges of having paid for sex
with children while he was a
papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic.
Francis approved the arrest
– the ﬁrst inside the Vatican
related to allegations of sexual abuse – in order to send a
strong signal that even highranking church officials would
be held accountable if they
committed abuse, the Vatican
said at the time.
Italian media reported at
the time of his arrest that child
pornography was found on his
computer. He is currently under arrest in the Vatican awaiting trial.
The Vatican spokesman gave
no details of the other case.
Fired Swiss Guards chief
rebuffs critics in interview
The head of the Swiss Guards, whom Pope Francis
ordered to leave his post, rejected accusations of
harsh leadership and a lavish lifestyle in an interview
published yesterday that coincided with the end of
his command.
Guards understood that firm leadership was needed
because there are only 110 of them to protect the
Pope around the clock, Colonel Daniel Anrig told
the Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger, speaking out for
the first time since his dismissal was announced in
December. “I have not heard any criticism from the
troops that the style of command was too strict.”
Italian media have speculated that the Pope wants
to see a more modern leadership style, and former
guards have accused Anrig of being arrogant.
Anrig defended himself against criticism that he had
built a large flat for himself in contrast to the Pope’s
humble lifestyle.
Pope Francis with Anrig during a private meeting
yesterday.
“The apartment is not luxurious,” the colonel said,
pointing out that the flat had to be big enough for his
family of six. “I had to bring my own furniture.”
Anrig confirmed that he had wanted to serve longer
while accepting that the head of the Catholic Church
wanted to “bring some fresh air into the guards”.
The Swiss officer said that contrary to rumours, he
saw no indication that Francis wanted to abolish the
guards, which have been protecting popes since
1506. “The current pope is very interested in the
guards,” he said.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
21
EUROPE
Tens of thousands
march for Spanish
anti-austerity party
AFP/Reuters
Madrid
T
ens of thousands of people took to the streets in
Madrid yesterday in support of new anti-austerity party
Podemos, a week after Greece
elected its hard-left ally SYRIZA.
With the party topping opinion polls in the run up to elections
later this year, protesters chanted
“Yes we can!” as they made their
way from Madrid city hall to the
central Puerta del Sol square.
Many waved blue and white
Greek ﬂags and red and white
SYRIZA ﬂags or held signs reading “The change is now” and
“Together we can”.
Podemos, which means “We
Can”, was formed just a year ago,
but produced a major shock by
winning ﬁve seats in elections for
the European Parliament in May.
“The wind of change is starting to blow in Europe,” Podemos
leader Pablo Iglesias said in both
Greek and Spanish at the start of
his address to the crowd at the
end of the march. “We dream
but we take our dream seriously.
More has been done in Greece in
six days than many governments
did in years.”
SYRIZA beat mainstream
Greek parties by pledging to end
austerity and corruption, as Podemos aims to do in Spain’s general election due in November.
Iglesias, a 36-year-old ponytailed former university professor, appeared alongside SYRIZA’s
Alexis Tsipras, now Greece’s
prime minister, to publicly support him during his campaign.
Podemos wants to prevent
proﬁtable companies from ﬁring
people, promote a fully statecontrolled healthcare system and
enact a “signiﬁcant” minimumwage hike.
The party has struck a chord
with Spaniards enraged by a
string of corruption scandals, as
well as public spending cuts imposed by the conservative ruling
party and previously by the Socialists after the economic crisis
erupted in 2008.
“There are many people that
agree with the need for change.
Enough already with stealing –
that the corrupt take everything
and we can’t do anything,” said
Dori Sanchez, 23, an unemployed
teacher who came from Monover in southeastern Spain for the
rally.
Podemos said 260 buses
brought supporters to the capital
from across Spain for the “March
for Change”, while hundreds of
locals signed on to host travellers.
“I want real change, that they
stop fooling us,” said Blanca
Salazar, 53, a geriatric aide who
came by car from the northern
city of Bilbao with her husband
and nephews.
“People are fed up with the political class,” said Antonia Fernandez, a 69-year-old pensioner
from Madrid who had come to
the demonstration with her family.
Fernandez, who lives with her
husband on a €700 ($790)-amonth
combined
pension
cheque, said she used to vote for
the Socialist Party but had lost
faith in it because of its handling
of the economic crisis and its
austerity policies.
“If we want to have a future,
we need jobs,” she said.
Spain has now officially exited recession – the country’s
economy grew by 1.4% last year,
according to provisional data
Podemos leader Iglesias delivers a speech on stage at Puerta del Sol
during the ‘March for Change’ planned by his left-wing party that
emerged out of the ‘Indignants’ movement, in Madrid yesterday.
People fill Madrid’s landmark Puerta del Sol as they gather at a rally called by Podemos in this panoramic photo.
released on Friday – but nearly
one in four workers is still unemployed.
Salaries for many people have
dropped and the number of
workers on low-paid short-term
contracts has soared.
Podemos has overtaken the
mainstream opposition Socialist Party in several opinion polls,
and in some has topped the list
ahead of the conservative ruling
People’s Party (PP).
The Socialists and the PP have
ruled Spain alternately since the
country returned to democracy
after the death of the dictator
Francisco Franco in 1975.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has warned Spaniards not to
“play Russian roulette” by supporting Podemos, which he said
“promises the moon and the sun”
but will not deliver.
Speaking in Barcelona as the
rally was taking place, Rajoy said
radicalism was “unfortunately very much in fashion in our
country” without mentioning
Podemos directly.
“I don’t accept the gloomy
Spain which some want to portray because they think that by
doing so they will replace those
who are governing and have had
to face the most difficult crisis in
decades. They will not succeed,”
he added.
Critics of Podemos have accused it of having links to Venezuela’s left-wing leaders and alleged ﬁscal irregularities by some
of its top members.
The party’s leaders have promised to publish their tax returns
to dispel the allegations.
Like SYRIZA, Podemos hopes
to seize power by overturning the
two-party system in place since
Spain embraced democracy in
the 1970s, and by swallowing up
other leftist parties such as the
Socialists and former communists of Izquierda Unida.
Iglesias earlier this month
increased pressure on the two
parties by saying that Spaniards
would be faced with a binary
choice at the next general election: “Podemos or the (ruling
conservative) People’s Party.”
Podemos, in a sign of its ambitions to capture disappointed
socialist voters who had initially been scared by earlier more
radical plans, had already toned
down its economic programme in
November last year.
An official poll carried at the
end of 2014 showed that one in
four people who voted for the Socialists in the 2011 poll would to-
Anti-immigration referendum
challenged in top Swiss court
DPA
Basel
T
A technician sits in front of monitors and screens showing the speech by Lucke, during a party
meeting in Bremen.
Anti-euro German AfD party
aims to end leadership row
Reuters
Bremen, Germany
T
he founder of the eurosceptic
Alternative
for Germany party that
has been siphoning votes from
Angela Merkel’s conservatives
urged an AfD congress yesterday to stop making itself look
foolish and choose a single
leader.
Bernd Lucke told 1,700 delegates in the northern port city
of Bremen that the two-yearold AfD, Germany’s fastest
growing party that has soared
to 7% in national polls, needs
to dispense with its tripartite
leadership in order to succeed.
“We’re not a bowling club or
a rabbit breeding society that
we can run in our spare time,”
Lucke said in a speech. “How
did the party leadership work
these two years? Here’s my
one-word answer: ‘Botched’.
We can’t continue like this.”
The other two leaders, Frauke
Petry and Konrad Adam, voiced
reservations about what they
saw as Lucke’s grab for control
after the AfD scored stunning
wins with an anti-foreigner
tack in three east German regional elections in late 2014.
Delegates voted by an 80% to
20% majority to back Lucke’s
proposal in a preliminary oneissue vote yesterday but all
changes proposed have to be
endorsed in a second ballot
later.
Some 3,500 anti-AFD demonstrators held a boisterous rally outside the congress hall, attacking the party for what they
say is its ﬂirt with the far-right
that breaks post-war taboos in
a country that with deep sensitivities about its Nazi past.
“Live better without Nazis”
read one of the banners.
Scores of AfD supporters
confronted protesters by singing the German national anthem from a balcony but a proposal for all to go out and sing
the anthem, or Deutschlandlied, was not approved.
Under a deal reached by the
party executive, any move to
a single leadership would be
taken in stages, switching from
three leaders to two leaders in
April and then to one in December.
Votes on who will ultimately
lead the party will be taken later
this year.
Chancellor Merkel and her
Christian Democrats (CDU)
hope the AfD, founded by Lucke
and other ex-CDU members
upset over her pushing the party left, will self-destruct over
their internal strife.
wo lawyers are challenging the outcome of a
controversial Swiss referendum that will curb immigration, Switzerland’s supreme
court conﬁrmed on Friday.
The Swiss lawyers argue that
the right-wing People’s Party
(SVP) had illegally manipulated
voters by using a racist slogan
that suggesting that immigrants from Kosovo pose a security risk.
They called on the Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne to declare the referendum invalid.
The popular vote passed with
a narrow majority of 50.3% last
February and tasks the Swiss
government with introducing
Man confesses to
daughter’s murder
A man confessed on Friday
to strangling his 19-year-old
daughter in what German police
suspect was an honour killing.
The parents, who are Pakistani
immigrants, are both currently
being held in custody, with
prosecutors in the western
German city of Darmstadt saying
that the 51-year-old father had
confessed to the murder of the
woman, whose body was found
near a carpark.
“The mother helped with the
crime from the beginning,
including disposing of the
body,” a spokeswoman for the
prosecutors’ office said.
Prosecutors believe the daughter
was killed after a disagreement
over her plans to marry a man
who was not acceptable to the
parents.
Police believe the victim was
strangled to death with bare
hands in the parents’ apartment
late on Tuesday.
quotas for all immigrants.
This has set Switzerland on
a collision course with the European Union, as the planned
immigration curbs run counter
to the Swiss-EU agreement on
freedom of movement.
Swiss President Simonetta
Sommaruga is scheduled to
meet EU Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels tomorrow to discuss the
issue.
The two Zurich lawyers,
David Gibor and Tomas Poledna, took issue with the following advertisement by SVP, the
strongest Swiss party: “This is
the result of uncontrolled mass
immigration: Kosovars are slitting open Swiss citizens!”
The
advertisement
was
placed in 2011, at a time when
the SVP was collecting signa-
tures to launch the referendum.
It came in reaction to a knife
attack by a man from Kosovo
against an SVP politician.
“Those who collect votes
with racial discrimination and
pervert direct democracy are
violating the rule of law in a
fundamental way,” Gibor said.
Besides the appeal at the Federal Court, the advertisement is
at the centre of a separate racial
discrimination trial against two
SVP leaders.
One of the defendants, SVP
party secretary Martin Baltisser, said that he was relaxed
about the trial that is to start in
Bern in April.
“This is really about the
question whether one is still allowed to express factual events
in this country,” he told Swiss
news agency sda.
54 held at Austrian
far-right ball demo
AFP
Vienna
P
olice arrested 54 people after violence broke
out as thousands protested against a ball organised by far-right groups and
politicians in the Austrian
capital of Vienna, local media reports said yesterday.
Six police officers also suffered injuries at the protests
that took place on Friday.
According to estimates,
5,000-9,000 people ﬂooded
into central Vienna on Friday
to denounce the “Akademikerball” (“Academics’ Ball”)
at the former imperial winter
palace, the Hofburg.
Most of the protesters
marched calmly to the slogan
“Together against the right”
amid heavy police presence.
The ball – part of Vienna’s
traditional ball season which
is currently in full swing – is
organised by the far-right,
eurosceptic and anti-immigration Freedom Party
(FPOe), the third-largest in
parliament.
In previous years other
European far-right ﬁgures
have attended including
France’s Marine Le Pen.
This year a number of Viennese taxi drivers clubbed
together using Facebook to
boycott the ball and refuse
to take participants to the
event.
day cast their ballot for Podemos.
The rate would be one in two in
the case of Izquierda Unida.
Jose Pablo Ferrandiz, a sociologist who heads the leading
polling ﬁrm Metroscopia, said
Podemos’ strategy was to occupy
the space of social democracy
deserted by the socialists and to
use it to win the elections.
“Spain’s electoral law means
parties will have to secure alliances to govern. So if Podemos
comes ﬁrst on the left, the Socialists will have to decide who
they back: the People’s Party in
a grand coalition or Podemos,”
he said.
Merkel
defends
Islam
comment
DPA
Berlin
G
erman Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended
a comment she made
about Islam “belonging to Germany”, the newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt reported.
“There are 4mn Muslims living in Germany, Islam is taught
in religious education at schools
and there are professorships for
Islamic theologists at universities,” Merkel told the newspaper.
“Therefore, it is a reality that Islam has come to belong to Germany.”
Merkel made the original
comment this month in a clear
repudiation of anti-immigration
protests that were gaining momentum in Dresden and other
cities at the time.
It also came one day after she
walked arm-in-arm with fellow
political leaders to condemn the
terrorist attacks in Paris.
Former German president
Christian Wulff was the ﬁrst
politician to say that Islam belonged to Germany in 2010, triggering a ﬁerce debate.
Stanislav Tillich – prime
minister of the German state of
Saxony, where most of the antiimmigration protests have taken
place – refused to accept that Islam is a part of Germany.
“Muslims are welcome in
Germany and free to practice
their religion here, but this does
not mean that Islam belongs to
Saxony,” he told Die Welt newspaper.
About 98% of the Muslims
living in Germany reside in west
German states.
Less than 1% live in Saxony
state.
22
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
INDIA
ACCIDENT
WEATHER
CRIME
TRAGEDY
CLASHES
10 killed in wall
collapse at tannery
Himachal may get
more snow, rain
Kerala star held
with cocaine
Take money and forget
rape, victim told
Virbhadra Singh’s son
gets anticipatory bail
Ten tannery labourers were killed yesterday when
a wall collapsed in Tamil Nadu, police said. The
overflowing tank of a waste treatment plant burst
and the sludge knocked down an adjacent wall,
burying the labourers who were all sleeping in the
town of Ranipet, a police officer said. Nine of the
victims were migrant workers from West Bengal,
while one was local. The tank burst around 3.30am
yesterday. The plant was operating the common
effluent treatment plant for 86 tanneries. The huge
tank was at a height of around 10ft. Chief Minister
O Panneerselvam expressed grief over the tragedy
and announced a compensation of Rs300,000 to
the families of the dead and Rs25,000 to the injured.
The hills of Himachal Pradesh might get more
snowfall and rain in the coming weeks, a weather
official said yesterday. “There are chances of
widespread rainfall and snowfall at most places in
the state,” an official of the meteorological office
said. He said the western disturbances - storm
systems originating from the Caspian Sea and
moving across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region
- are likely to be active by today. Most of the
prominent tourist towns such as Shimla, Narkanda,
Kufri, Kalpa, Dalhousie and Manali are likely to
have light to moderate spells of snowfall, he said.
Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district was the coldest
place in the state with a low of minus 15.9 degrees.
Police in Kochi, Kerala have
arrested up and coming actor Shine
Tom Chacko and assistant director
Blessy for allegedly possessing
cocaine. They were arrested from
a rented apartment in a midnight
swoop along with a Dubai-based
businesswoman, Sneha Nair, and
Reshma, a university student who
is a part-time model. The apartment belonged
to Moham Nisham who is in police custody for
attempted murder after he allegedly rammed his
Hummer SUV into the security guard of his posh
residential colony last week.
A village council in Bihar has ordered one of its
members accused of raping a woman to pay her
Rs41,000 and asked the victim to not report the
incident, police said yesterday. But the accused,
a local thug, refused to pay the money. When she
protested, the accused set her husband on fire
injuring him seriously, the police said. The victim
approached Katihar Superintendent of Police
Kshatraneel Singh two days ago for justice. “One
of the accused Naresh Ravidas has been arrested
while the main accused Prakash Ravidas is
absconding,” police said. “In her complaint to
police she has alleged she was raped by him and
was warned not to disclose it,” police said.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra
Singh’s son Vikramaditya Singh, who is among
those accused of rioting and trespassing, obtained
anticipatory bail from a court in Shimla yesterday,
police said. At least 12 activists of the Youth
Congress and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha
(BJYM) were injured on Thursday in a clash during
a demonstration against the central government’s
land acquisition ordinance. The Youth Congress
activists, led by Vikramaditya Singh, have been
accused of smashing the windowpanes of BJP’s
party office. “Vikramaditya Singh moved an
application in the court of Judicial Magistrate Amit
Mandyal.” a police official said.
India tests
long-range
missile from
mobile
launcher
PMO to play
greater role
on foreign
policy issues
Agencies
Bhubaneswar/New Delhi
I
ndia yesterday succeeded
for the ﬁrst time in using a
mobile launcher to test-ﬁre
a long-range missile capable of
delivering a nuclear warhead
deep inside China.
Although yesterday’s launch
was the third test of the Agni V
missile, it was the ﬁrst time the
weapon had been ﬁred from a
so-called canister mounted on
a truck rather than from a concrete launchpad used in previous
trials.
The new delivery mechanism
gives the armed forces increased
operational ﬂexibility.
“Successful test-ﬁring of Agni
V from a canister makes the missile a prized asset for our forces,”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
said on Twitter after the test on
an island off the eastern state of
Odisha.
The Agni V - developed by the
Defence Research and Development Organisation - was ﬁrst
tested in April 2012.
Analysts say the Agni V has
the range to strike any target on
the Chinese mainland, including
military installations in the far
northeast.
India sees the rocket, which
has a range of 5,000km, as a key
boost to its regional power aspirations and one that narrows
- albeit slightly - the huge gap
with China’s missile systems.
Agni, meaning “ﬁre” in Sanskrit, is the name given to a series of rockets India developed as
part of a guided missile development project launched in 1983.
India’s nuclear missiles can be
ﬁred only on direct orders from
the prime minister.
New technologies related to
the missile’s navigation, engine
and other equipment were incorporated into the rocket before
the latest test, DRDO spokesman
Ravi Gupta said.
A few more tests will follow,
the last to be carried out by the
armed forces, after which production and then induction into
the armed forces would be carried out, Gupta said.
While the shorter-range Agni
I and II were mainly developed
with Pakistan in mind, analysts
say later versions with a longer
range reﬂect the shift in India’s
focus towards China.
Officials predict new Foreign
Secretary Jaishankar will be
given a strong hand
By Prashant Jha
New Delhi
A
The Agni V blasts off from a canister mounted atop a mobile truck on Wheeler Island, off the eastern
state of Odisha yesterday.
s the controversy about S
Jaishankar’s appointment
as foreign secretary dissipates, the Indian Foreign Service
is looking forward to a realignment of the equation between
the prime minister’s office (PMO)
and the ministry of external affairs (MEA) - with the latter reoccupying its space as the rightful
custodian of foreign affairs.
Multiple officials and diplomats
said the PMO would continue
to have a strong voice on foreign
policy, especially with an assertive prime minister like Narendra
Modi. The fact that Jaishankar is
trusted by the prime minister will
mean greater autonomy for MEA
after years, they said.
A serving ambassador, referring to the previous government,
said: “Even under the UPA, the
PMO - especially National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon - was calling the shots. Many
believed that it was a deliberate
decision to have relatively weaker
foreign secretaries so that this
control would not weaken.”
The outcome was that ambassadors were almost directly reporting to the NSA on key matters, with cables copied to the
foreign secretary, be it Ranjan
Mathai or Nirupama Rao - but
these officials had little policymaking role on key issues.
This pattern continued after
May 2014, when the Congress lost
power and the Bharatiya Janata
Party under Modi assumed power.
The NSA himself did not get too
involved in the management of
the ministry. But foreign secretary
Sujatha Singh did not have the
prime minister’s conﬁdence. And
Jaishankar: outstanding officer
even External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was not able to assert
her authority, playing a secondary
role to the prime minister.
So, the prime minister depended on Joint Secretary in the
PMO from external affair ministry, Jawed Ashraf, who provided
key policy inputs and drafted
most of Modi’s big foreign policy
speeches. For bilateral visits, the
joint secretary in charge of the
desk or the ambassador concerned was consulted directly by
the PMO, with the foreign secretary playing a very limited role.
Another senior official said:
“The PM has shown great conﬁdence in appointing a strong, perhaps the most outstanding officer
of our generation, as FS now.”
He predicted that Jaishankar
will be given a strong hand.
Jaishankar’s views on key
personnel appointments, the
approach towards any emerging crisis, and overall direction
of foreign policy will be critical,
most officials felt. This, another
source said, is good for the morale of foreign service officers as
well as the ministry.
“Singh spoke about institutional strength in her parting
letter to us. Ironically, her exit
has paved the way for the institution to regain its strength.”
Singh was not the ﬁrst official
to be handed the pink slip after
the BJP swept to power.
The government cut short Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) director general Avinash Chander’s
three-year term by 15 months
and told him go a fortnight ago.
In November, Special Protection Group chief K Durga Prasad
was told his services were no longer needed. The order came when
he was in Nepal - protecting Modi.
The government had shunted
out ﬁnance secretary Arvind Mayaram and revenue secretary Rajiv
Takru to make way for Rajasthan
chief secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and
Hasmukh Adhia, the additional
chief secretary in Gujarat.
An official said Modi relies
heavily on bureaucrats to design,
package and execute his ideas - a
space where the highly-experienced Russian and Mandarinspeaking Jaishankar ﬁts easily.
The government was pressed
for time because it had to appoint him before January 31 as
the next foreign secretary, a post
that gives him two more years in
service. Had it been a day late,
Jaishankar - who turned 60 this
month - would have had to retire
from service.
Singh became the second foreign secretary to lose her job after A P Venkateswaran in 1987.
Venkateswaran put in his papers after then prime minister
Rajiv Gandhi snubbed him for
apparently announcing a visit to
Pakistan without his approval a
month in advance. “You will be
talking to a new foreign secretary
soon,” Gandhi had said.
The officer later told his
friends: “Life without honour is
not worth living at all.”
In 2004, the Congress-led
United Progressive Alliance
government sacked cabinet secretary Kamal Pande who was
serving a two-year ﬁxed term.
Pande, however, accepted a
“post-retirement” posting as
chairman of the India Trade Promotion Organisation.- Hindustan Times/MCT
National Games starts with cultural extravaganza
By Ashraf Padanna
Thiruvananthapuram
T
he 35th National Games
got off to a glittering start
in Kerala yesterday with
a march past and a cultural extravaganza.
Sprint queen P T Usha and
Anju Bobby George received
from cricketing legend Sachin
Tendulkar, the goodwill ambassador of the event, the torch that
came from the northern city of
Kasaragod covering all districts
of the state and heralding the
fortnight-long sporting gala.
The competitions are held at
31 venues spread across seven
districts, 14 of them in the state
capital, and they are seen as a
preparatory exercise for next
year’s Olympic Games in Riode-Janeiro.
Federal Minister for Urban
Development Venkaiah Naidu
ﬂagged off the games at the ceremony that saw some 6,000 dancers, percussionists and entertain-
ers performing in a brand new
stadium of international standards, the ﬁrst of its kind in India.
The four-hour-long ceremony also turned out to be the
declaration that the state was
ready to host international soccer and cricket matches with the
country’s ﬁrst multi-purpose
greenﬁeld stadium built according to the speciﬁcations of the
International Cricket Council
and FIFA.
Ahead of the ceremony, federal Sports Minister Sarbananda
Sonowal, impressed by the arrangements and the excellent
sports infrastructure put in place,
said the government would consider Kerala as the venue for the
proposed sports academy.
Chief Minister Oommen
Chandy presided over the impressive function. There are
some 15,000 competitors who
started arriving in the city early
this week.
The ceremony began with the
Indian Air Force showering ﬂowers from their helicopters fol-
lowed by an army band display.
Naidu took the salute at the
march-past, led by the 2011
champions. The teams appeared
in alphabetical order starting
with the Andamans and Nicobar
Islands and concluding with the
host team Kerala, all encircling
the stadium and saluting him.
The placard bearer of each
team in the state’s traditional
costume and the captain of the
respective team holding the state
Olympic association ﬂag led
each contingent as live performances of traditional art forms
continued.
Ammu, the mascot of the 35th
edition of the Games, made her
appearance after the march past
and hoisting of the ﬂag of the Indian Olympic Association with
the theme song, penned by Javed
Akhtar and set to tune by Hariharan, in the background.
Malayalam superstar Mohanlal took over the venue immediately after the solemn ceremony
with his Lalisom music band and
other cultural programmes.
Lalisom included a tribute to
the Indian ﬁlm industry spread
across regions and languages
from Alam Ara (1931). His ‘War
Cry’ saw him donning the role of
Kunjali Marakkar, Kerala’s maritime hero who fought the Portuguese invaders.
The show, a mix of real and
graphically created images, supported by sound effects and live
actions, provided a visual spectacle of simulated war scenes
based on the true life of Kunjali
Marakkar.
The show featured a spectacular lineup of star singers like
Udit Narayan, Hariharan, Ankit Trivedi, Alka Yagnik, Bhoomi
Trivedi, Karthik, M G Sreekumar, Sujatha and K S Chitra.
The state has also built the
“Games Village” with 400 airconditioned dwelling units that
can accommodate 5,000 athletes
and officials.
Kerala, which stood seventh
last time, is ﬁelding the biggest
contingent and is taking part in
the most number of events.
Goodwill ambassador Sachin Tendulkar with Ammu, the mascot of National Games.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
23
INDIA
BJP accuses
AAP leader
of making
sexist remark
IANS
New Delhi
T
he Bharatiya Janata Party
yesterday ﬁled a complaint with the Election
Commission against Aam Aadmi
Party leader Kumar Vishwas for
allegedly making a “derogatory”
remark against its chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi,
prompting her to lodge a police
complaint.
BJP leaders Satish Upadhyay,
Meenakshi Lekhi, Shazia Ilmi
and Shaina NC, among others, went to the election watchdog’s office and ﬁled a complaint
against Vishwas.
“We moved the Election Commission against Vishwas and
sought strict action...,” Upadhyay said.
At a recent rally, Vishwas allegedly said: “Two problems the
BJP has with Arvind Kejriwal.
One is that he wears a muffler...
Has he stolen it from you? One of
them says he (Kejriwal) coughs a
lot..... What is your problem? Do
you have to sleep with him in his
bedroom?”
However, Kumar Vishwas said
his remark at a rally where AAP
chief Kejriwal was also present
was not directed at Bedi, but the
BJP claimed he was targeting her.
Vishwas said whatever remarks he made were targeted at
the BJP and not Bedi.
“I am surprised that channels
are not showing this video. There
were cameras of so many channels. There was an Election Commission camera too... when they
do not have any issue they are
spreading such things,” he said.
He challenged Bedi and the
BJP to prove that these remarks
were targeted at Bedi.
Bedi in a series of tweets expressed her anguish over the remarks.
“Absolutely derogatory, sexist
remarks, illegal photoshopped
images communicating wrong
messaging. It is this unethical,
toxic, perverse and uncivil practices that we need to eliminate
from our system.”
In another tweet, she asked:
“What kind of security and dignity can women expect from
AAP’s leadership that itself
has blatant sexist and perverse
mindsets?”
She said a police complaint has
been lodged over the remark.
“A police complaint has been
lodged against Kumar Vishwas’
sexist comments at a recent rally
in the presence of their leadership,” she tweeted.
Ilmi, a former AAP leader who
recently joined the BJP, said that
apart from the derogatory remark,
the BJP has also raised other issues with the commission. “AAP
has been ﬂouting Election Commission’s norms and we ﬁled a
complaint on other issues also. We
sought strict action,” she said.
BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain
also called AAP “anti-women.”
Meanwhile, the BJP yesterday
posed its third set of ﬁve questions for Kejriwal.
BJP leader Ananth Kumar
asked the AAP chief to answer
why power tariff was raised by
7% in his 49-day rule last year
and why subsidy was given to the
power companies directly.
Noting that 189 value added
tax (VAT) raids were conducted
on traders under AAP’s rule, he
sought to know why Kejriwal was
lying in his poll advertisements
Fourthly, Kumar asked why
the AAP chief did not regularise
contractual labour.
Lastly, the BJP leader asked
why Kejriwal had claimed that he
collected Rs5,666 crore as VAT
when in reality, the ﬁgure was
only Rs2,033 crore.
The BJP plans to put ﬁve questions before Kejriwal everyday
until February 5 in the run-up
to the Delhi assembly elections
on February 7. The results will be
declared on February 10.
Kejriwal said he was ready
to debate with BJP president Amit
Shah if the party names him its
chief ministerial candidate.
“I am ready to debate with
Amit Shah if they (BJP) announce
him as the chief minister candidate replacing Kiran Bedi,” Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal had challenged Bedi
to a public debate. Bedi accepted
the challenge but said she would
debate him “on the ﬂoor of the
assembly” and not during the
campaign.
Both Kejriwal and Bedi were
part of the anti-corruption
movement led by activist Anna
Hazare before the AAP chief decided to form his own political
party.
Bedi will contest from Krishna Nagar seat in East Delhi. A
former police officer and originally part of India Against Corruption movement, Bedi joined
the BJP on January 15.
Kejriwal will contest from the
New Delhi constituency that he
wrested in the last elections from
the Congress’ Sheila Dikshit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to supporters as BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi and federal minister Anant Kumar look on at a public rally in New Delhi yesterday.
PM steps up offensive a
week before Delhi polls
Kejriwal once again
represents the major obstacle
to the BJP’s electoral hopes in
the national capital
Agencies
New Delhi
P
rime Minister Narendra
Modi stepped up an offensive against Delhi opponent and anti-graft campaigner
Arvind Kejriwal yesterday, a
week before the capital holds
state elections.
The state, which has some
13mn eligible voters, heads to the
polls on February 7, with results
due on February 10.
Delhi has been without a government for almost a year after selfstyled “anarchist” Kejriwal quit as
state chief minister last February,
just 49 days after taking power.
He is now again seeking the
capital’s top post, with most
opinion polls showing him in the
lead ahead of the candidate for
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), former high-ranking policewoman Kiran Bedi.
Modi made Kejriwal the main
target of yesterday’s campaign
speech, blasting him as a “backstabber” who “committed the sin
of wasting a year in Delhi.”
“A year ago, Delhi voted with
a hope, a dream. But the people you voted for stabbed you in
the back and shattered all your
dreams,” said Modi, who came to
national power with a landslide
election victory in May.
Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party
made a spectacular debut in state
elections in December 2013, but he
quit Delhi’s top post in a row over
an anti-corruption bill - a decision
he has since said he regretted.
The upstart party ﬂopped in
May’s general election, but Kejriwal once again represents the
major obstacle to the BJP’s electoral hopes in Delhi.
“People can make a mistake
once, but not again and again,”
the prime minister said.
“Delhi won’t vote for betrayers,” he added.
Modi, who shared the stage
with BJP president Amit Shah
and Bedi, asked the people of
Delhi to vote for a BJP government as it can work in tandem
with the central government.
“Elect a government with
whom I can work shoulder to
shoulder towards making a positive difference in your lives.”
The prime minister said the
BJP had emerged as the largest
party in the Delhi assembly last
time. “Give us full majority this
time.”
T
he Aam Aadmi Party yesterday released its manifesto for the Delhi assembly
elections, promising full statehood
for the national capital, increased
focus on women’s safety, making
the city a trade and service hub to
generate more jobs, and slashing
the power tariffs.
The manifesto promised to set
up 20 new colleges, provide clean
drinking water at affordable prices and a free Wi-Fi zone, among
others.
The Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) however dismissed the
manifesto, saying it was wishful
to make new promises when the
AAP had never managed to fulﬁl
those made for the 2013 polls.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who
released the manifesto, said it was
a sacred document for his party.
Laying out a road map for
creating more employment, the
former chief minister said: “We
wish to make Delhi a trade, tourist, education and service hub.
This will help in generating more
employment in the city.”
This and passing an anti-corruption Jan Lokpal and Swaraj
bills would be a priority of the
AAP government, he said. It was
over the failure to introduce the
anti-graft bill in the assembly
that Kejriwal quit as the chief
minister on February 14, 2014.
Kejriwal said his party would
especially focus on the safety of
women in the capital.
“We want every woman to feel
safe and secure. Over 10 lakh
CCTV cameras will be installed
across the capital. A security
guard will be deployed in every
government bus,” Kejriwal said.
He also said that the government
auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, would audit the
books of power companies.”
“Our party has no interest
with the power companies unlike
other parties. We will restart the
auditing of these power companies and the rates will be decided
accordingly,” he said.
Power tariff will be reduced by
50%, he added.
Kejriwal said the manifesto
containing 70-point action plan
would be implemented after coming to power as his party had done
in the earlier rule of 49 days.
He also said VAT (value added
tax) would be reduced.
Taking a dig at the BJP for not
coming out with a manifesto,
Kejriwal said it was shying away
from making any promises as
they had not fulﬁlled any of the
promises they made at the time
of the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
The BJP has announced that
it would abstain from releasing a
manifesto for the Delhi polls and
would instead come up with a
“vision document.”
Kejriwal said the BJP’s claim
that the people of Delhi did not
want full statehood was wrong.
On former police officer Kiran
Bedi being projected as the BJP’s
chief ministerial candidate, Kejriwal said: “She won’t win... and
even if she wins, she will be reduced to a puppet chief minister.”
Referring to the Congress, Kejriwal said in its rule of 15 years,
the party released three manifestos in which it had made tall
claims, but sadly most of the
promises were not realised.
BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman,
however, made light of the “nonsuggestive” AAP manifesto.
“It is worth noticing that AAP
has a new 70-point manifesto
when they could not fulﬁl their
last manifesto.”
“Point 38 in AAP manifesto on
free wiﬁ is nothing new, the NDMC
(New Delhi Municipal Council) is
already working on it,” she said.
“In their 49 days of rule, the people who consumed less than 200
units of electricity were also charged
bill on higher rates,” she said adding “the AAP has spoken of reducing VAT in manifesto, whereas from
April 1, GST (Goods and Service
Tax) will take over... maybe they will
blame the centre later.”
has been in a mess for the last 15
years.
“I have come to take Delhi out
of all the mess. I am not satisﬁed
that you give me space to sit in
the South Block. I want to serve
each and every nook and corner
of Delhi.”
Modi said Bedi was the right
person for the capital’s top job.
“Delhi needs a stable government. Kiran ji knows Delhi well.
She has administrative experience.
She will take Delhi to new heights.”
He highlighted government
initiatives including better
housing for slum-dwellers,
cash subsidies for cooking gas
and creating jobs in manufacturing.
The premier also promised
Delhi voters round-the-clock
electricity when he kicked off his
party’s campaign in the capital
earlier this month.
RSS volunteers join
BJP in ﬁnal push
AAP manifesto promises
full statehood for capital
IANS
New Delhi
Modi said the entire world was
watching the Delhi polls.
“If India needs to be introduced to the world, then Delhi is the best place to showcase. All events in the capital
have an imprint on not only
the country but the entire
world. It represents India,”
he said.
The prime minister said
that with US President Barack
Obama’s visit to India, the country’s image has been enhanced
the world over.
He said he has worked against
corruption, but added: “I don’t
publicise that.”
“I have come to Delhi as you
have called me. If you had not
given me seven MPs, then I would
not have been able to come to
Delhi. Thus I have come at your
bidding.”
The prime minister said Delhi
By Neelam Pandey
New Delhi
A
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal releases the party’s manifesto in
New Delhi yesterday.
s the Bharatiya Janata
Party makes a ﬁnal push
for power in Delhi, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
has decided to send in reinforcements. With a week of campaign
time left, an army of volunteers
from RSS-affiliated bodies is set
to tap voters in their homes, parents in schools, joggers in parks
and bombard them on e-mail
and WhatsApp in the coming
days.
This comes just days after the
BJP pulled out all the stops by
deploying 120 MPs for its campaign for the February 7 polls,
and amid surveys claiming the
party was neck and neck with a
resurgent Aam Aadmi Party.
‘Mission Delhi’, sources said,
was launched after a meeting at
the RSS headquarters on Monday
where it was decided that all allied organisations - including the
students’ wing Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), trade
union wing Bharatiya Majdoor
Sangh, Sewa Bharti and Vidya
Bharti - would mobilise voters
across Delhi.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat “in
his address in Nagpur urged all
swayamsevaks (volunteers) to
ensure 100% polling in favour
of the political party with a nationalistic vision. In the Delhi
elections, the RSS and its allied organisations are mobilising 100,000 volunteers to do
this. This is in addition to the
BJP workers and volunteers,”
said Rajiv Tully, an RSS leader in
Delhi.
An RSS functionary said the
BJP had received similar help
from its ideological parent during last year’s Lok Sabha elections too.
Vidya Bharti, which runs 40
schools in the city, has asked its
management to woo parents, the
sources said.
“There are approximately
2,000 children in each of these
schools and teachers will hold
meetings with parents and mobilise them to support a nationalist party like the BJP,” said an
RSS functionary.
The Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh
has 80 affiliated unions - including auto and taxi unions, industrial worker unions - and more
than 300,000 members who will
hold corner meetings to mobilise
voters.
Auto-rickshaw drivers had
played a crucial role in AAP’s
spectacular showing in the 2013
polls, and the RSS hasn’t forgotten this.
Meanwhile, Sewa Bharti will
target the city’s poor - largely
seen as pro-AAP - through its
welfare work in all the city’s
slums.- Hindustan Times/
MCT
24
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
LATIN AMERICA
DRIVE-BY SHOOTING
INTERPOL WARRANT
SUSPECT FLIGHT
EMPLOYMENT
‘INDEFINATELY’
Gunmen kill four men on
street corner in Honduras
Fugitive ex-spy chief
surrenders to Colombia
Venezuela shoots down
plane near military base
No future military role for
FARC rebels: Colombia
Mexico high-speed train
project is suspended
Four men were shot dead by gunmen on the
streets of Tegucigalpa on Friday, officials and
witnesses said, just days after the president said
homicide rates were decreasing in violencewracked Honduras Neighbours in the Honduran
capital said the four men were talking on a street
corner in a slum neighbourhood when a car pulled
up and at least six people emerged. Some of the
men were shot at close range, witnesses told AFP.
The Honduran civil defence agency confirmed
the killing, though a motive for the deaths was not
known. Honduras is one of the most dangerous
countries in the world, with one of the highest
homicide rates, according to the UN.
Colombia’s former spy chief Maria del Pilar
Hurtado was taken into custody yesterday after
her forced return from Panama to face charges
for illegal wiretapping and other crimes.
Hurtado was the top official at the now-defunct
Administrative Department of Security (DAS)
the national intelligence agency from 20022010, when Alvaro Uribe was president. She
is accused of having ordered illegal wiretaps
on politicians, journalists and other perceived
political enemies of Uribe’s. She fled the country
in 2010 and was granted asylum in Panama,
but surrendered to Colombian authorities after
Interpol issued an order for her arrest.
Venezuela said on Friday it shot down a civilian
plane after it ignored communications off its
Caribbean coast near the island of Aruba, but
denied any violation of international airspace.
Authorities on Aruba had said on Thursday the
aircraft being pursued by Venezuelan military jets
went down off its coast, with human remains and
packages of drugs visible in the water. Defense
Minister Vladimir Padrino told reporters the plane,
which first landed in Apure state, was shot down
after ignoring communications on takeoff. “It didn’t
obey orders and it was annulled 25 nautical miles
northeast of the Josefa Camejo (military) base, that
is to say, in our territorial waters,” the minister said.
Marxist FARC rebels will have no role to play
in Colombia’s military or security forces if a
peace deal is reached with the government,
the country’s defence chief said Friday.
Asked at a press conference if rebels from
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) could bear arms for the nation once the
half-century conflict is declared over, Defence
Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon answered with
a resounding “no!” “We need the military to
ensure stability in the nation, and to maintain
the peace accord,” he said. Bogota and FARC
have been negotiating in Havana to bring an
end to the 50-year insurgency.
Mexico has “indefinitely” suspended construction
on Latin America’s first high-speed train line, three
months after scrapping a controversial contract
with the Chinese-led consortium chosen to
build it. In November, the Mexican government
pulled the plug on a $3.75bn deal with the China
Railway Construction and Mexican partners
to build a line between Mexico City and the
central manufacturing hub of Queretaro. The
deal was scuttled amid criticism that consortium
leaders were close with President Enrique Pena
Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party. Mexico
announced the 210km line’s suspension Friday, just
more than two weeks after reopening bidding.
Balloonists
splashdown
off Mexico
with record
AFP
Mexico City
T
wo balloonists completed
a world record-breaking
trans-Paciﬁc ﬂight yesterday after splashing down safely
off the coast of Mexico, organisers of the epic voyage said.
Troy Bradley and Leonid
Tiukhtyaev made a controlled descent four miles off the coast of Baja
California near La Poza Grande after a change in winds made a landing at sea a “more prudent” option
than landing onshore.
“Mexican authorities are cooperating fully and the Coast
Guard is enroute to the balloon.
We anticipate they will tow the
capsule to shore,” a statement
from the Two Eagles team said.
The statement emphasized
that the watery landing would
not impact the validity of the
balloonists record-breaking feat.
“A water landing is acceptable
under the international rules
governing the establishment of
world records,” the statement
said, noting that two recognized
around-the-world records also
ended at sea.
The voyage, which began in
Japan, had already surpassed the
previous records for the longest
distance covered in a gas-ﬁlled
balloon, 8,467km and the previous duration record of 137 hours,
ﬁve minutes and 50 seconds.
Bradley and Tiukhtyaev’s odyssey was eventually timed at
160 hours and 37 minutes at a
distance of 10,696km, according
to the Two Eagles team.
Filled with 10,000cu m of helium, and capable of staying aloft
for 10 days, Two Eagles departed
Saturday from Saga, southern
Japan, and sailed over Tokyo at
night before heading out across
the wide Paciﬁc.
Bradley, 50, an American, and
Tiukhtyaev, 58, from Russia, had
planned to land in the vicinity of
the Canada-US border, but set
course for Baja California instead
to avoid a ridge of high pressure
off the US west coast.
The duo were the ﬁrst to attempt a trans-Paciﬁc balloon
crossing since 1981.
The previous record for the
longest distance ever travelled in
a balloon was set in 1981 by Double Eagle V, the ﬁrst gas-ﬁlled
balloon to cross the Paciﬁc Ocean
from Nagashima, Japan to northwestern California.
The duration record was established three years earlier
when Double Eagle II became the
ﬁrst balloon to traverse the Atlantic, from the northeastern US
state of Maine to a farmer’s ﬁeld
outside Paris.
Two Eagles was named in honour of those two craft.
The unpressurized, 100kg
Kevlar and carbon-ﬁber capsule which carried Bradley and
Tiukhtyaev is described by the
expedition as smaller than a
king-sized bed, with freezedried food sharing space with
state-of-the-art electronics.
Fare hiked, again!
Police officers prevent demonstrators from entering the Central do Brasil train station to protest against the country’s latest round of
transport fare hikes in Rio de Janeiro.
Mexico tests DNA of blast
babies to ﬁnd parents
Reuters
Mexico City
P
lunged into chaos just
hours after entering this
world, nine babies found
alive after a gas blast in a Mexican
maternity hospital underwent
DNA tests on Friday in a bid to
reunite them with their parents.
Thursday’s blast devastated
the hospital on the western
edge of Mexico City, sending a
ﬁreball into the air and killing a
nurse and two infants. But dozens of people, including mothers and newborns, who were
inside at the time survived,
many cut by broken glass.
“We have nine DNA tests
pending,” Mexico City Mayor
Miguel Angel Mancera said.
“There are parents who have
identiﬁed their children, but as
the babies did not have bracelets on, we have to follow a protocol to identify them.”
Mancera said several babies
survived because their mothers
sheltered them with their own
bodies during the blast.
A leak in a hose from a gas
truck, which was fueling the
hospital’s tanks, was believed
to have triggered the explosion,
officials said.
Many areas of Mexico City
have no mains gas supply and
rely on deliveries from gas
trucks. Mancera said the gas
truck company involved had
been working in Mexico City
since 2007.
Fernandez dents credibility by playing victim
Reuters
Buenos Aires
P
Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner speaks during an event at the Casa Rosada
Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires.
resident Cristina Fernandez hunkered down in her
presidential residence for
a week before speaking about
the mysterious death of a state
prosecutor who claimed she
sought to whitewash Iran’s alleged involvement in a 1994
bomb attack on Argentine soil.
When she did, Argentines
were left in little doubt who she
viewed as the victim in the scandal.
It was not Alberto Nisman,
whose body was found in a pool
of blood with a single bullet to
the head a day before he was to
detail his investigations, and to
whose family Fernandez offered
no condolences.
It was herself, the target of a
murky plot to smear her name
orchestrated by rogue agents
kicked out of a spy agency that
she said had failed to act in the
interests of the country.
“Twenty one years after the
attack and today somebody
comes up with a baseless claim
that we wanted to derail the investigation,” Fernandez said in
her hour-long televised address,
dressed all in white and seated in
a wheelchair.
“Let them say what they
want, let them make any allegations they want, let judges summon me, I’m not bothered.”
Nisman’s death has triggered
one of the biggest political crises
of Fernandez’s seven-year rule
and may bolster the opposition’s
chances of a win in October’s
presidential election.
Fernandez herself is barred
from running, but some officials
close to the president worry her
handling of the scandal is dent-
ing the government’s credibility.
“This is going to hurt us,” said
one government source close to
the presidency. “How badly, we
don’t know. Only she decides
what she is going to do.”
Fernandez, who has been recovering from a fractured ankle
in her residence, speculated in a
rambling post on Facebook that
Nisman’s death might be suicide.
Days later she wrote that he
had been murdered.
Her inconsistencies have
helped fan conspiracy theories,
some pointing directly to her.
A poll by the local political
consultancy Management & Fit
showed 63% of respondents believed Fernandez’s image would
be signiﬁcantly weakened.
The day after Nisman’s death,
protesters marched on Fernandez’s official residence. Some
banged on the gate shouting
“murderer”.
“She’s not in the habit of recognizing her errors, be it Nisman
or inﬂation. And so she stays inside,” said Roberto Lavagna, a
former economy minister under
Fernandez’s late husband predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, now
working with opposition presidential hopeful Sergio Massa.
The week before his death on
January 18, Nisman had accused
Fernandez of opening a secret
back channel to Tehran to clear
a number of Iranian suspects
and whitewash the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre as part of a
grains-for-oil deal.
The government calls the
claim “absurd”. It says Nisman
was duped into making his allegations and then killed when he
was no longer useful to the spies
who led the conspiracy against
the president.
The mysterious circumstanc-
No other DNA on gun
that killed prosecutor
Only the DNA of an Argentine
prosecutor who died of a bullet
to the head was on the gun that
killed him, an investigator said
on Friday, reinforcing initial findings that it was likely suicide.
Alberto Nisman, 51, was
found dead in the early hours of
January 19 in his Buenos Aires
apartment.
The DNA on different parts
of the pistol is “the same genetic profile” that matches the
prosecutor, said government
investigator Viviana Fein, citing
laboratory results.
es have re-ignited debate on the
murky relationship between the
government, intelligence services and the judiciary and stoked
a long-held mistrust of political leaders in the run-up to this
year’s election.
It has also piled pressure on
the leftist government as it
grapples with a debt default and
a stagnant economy.
“This affair should strengthen
society’s preference for change
in this year’s election,” said political analyst Ignacio Labaqui
at Medley Global Advisors. “It
negatively affects the chances of
any of the government’s presidential aspirants attracting independent voters.”
In her TV address, Fernandez unveiled surprise plans to
dismantle the powerful SI intelligence agency, which she
portrayed as sinister and accountable to no one.
In the “dirty war” directed by
Argentina’s military dictatorship of 1976-1983, the agency
spied on Marxist rebels, labour
unions and other leftists. Since
democracy was restored, successive governments are widely
believed to have continued using the agency to snoop on opponents.
Fernandez said a new, more
transparent agency would be
created. Oversight of wiretapping would be handed to the
prosecutor general.
But her opponents are sceptical, with some suspecting Fernandez wants to hand control of a
new intelligence agency to loyalists. They argue the step is more
about protecting herself than
democratic reforms.
“Everything she does is about
her,” said Federico Pinedo, head
of presidential aspirant Mauricio Macri’s opposition PRO bloc
in the lower house. “She has
control of Congress and can do
whatever she wants.”
It is not the ﬁrst time Congress, dominated by allies of
Fernandez, is being asked to
hurriedly push through legislation.
In September, lawmakers
passed a bill revising how Argentina would pay some foreign
debt in a bid to skirt US court
rulings over its defaulted bonds.
Argentina is, the president has
said, the victim of “economic
terrorists” in its lengthy legal
battle with US investors.
The new law failed to ﬁx the
default and instead reinforced
their belief that Fernandez had
no intention of negotiating with
the US creditors she has branded
“vultures”.
“Fernandez has her own
way of functioning which very
much relies on her own intuition and certainties, as opposed to evidence and realities
that she prefers to ignore,” said
Argentine historian Federico
Finchelstein.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
25
PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN
Attack at mosque discloses dark reality of Sindh
Internews
Islamabad
F
riday’s massacre in a
Shikarpur Imambargah in
Pakistan’s southern Sindh
province has proved fears long
held by many observers that
behind the traditional image of
Sindh as a placid land of Suﬁs, a
much darker reality is developing.
While Karachi, the provincial
capital, has witnessed incredibly bloody violence carried out
by militants of various stripes, it
is the ﬁrst time an attack of such
devastating proportions has occurred outside the metropolis, in
the hinterland of Sindh.
Shikarpur and its surrounding
districts are far from islands of
peace and tranquility.
They have witnessed a high
level of lawlessness as well as religiously-inspired violence, but
nothing of this level.
For example in February 2013
the custodian of a dargah was attacked in neighbouring Jacobabad district.
Yet while the area is said to
have a soft corner for religious
groups, there is no major history
of sectarian discord.
Senior journalist Sohail Sangi
says there have been a number of
sporadic incidents of religiously-inspired violence in Shikarpur and its environs.
“Nato supply trucks were at-
tacked in this region. It is quite
a lawless area. Religious groups
and parties have considerable
presence here. Before the Sept 11
attacks some locals even went to
ﬁght for the Afghan Taliban. But
there are not that many sectarian issues. Sectarian problems
mostly exist in Khairpur and Sukkur.”
Indeed Khairpur, which borders Shikarpur, has developed a
reputation for communal tension and is seen as one of the
centres in Sindh of the Sipahi-Sahaba Pakistan/Ahle Sunnat
Wal Jamaat. In fact the late head
of the SSP, Ali Sher Hyderi, who
was killed in 2009 in the city,
hailed from Khairpur.
Elsewhere in the province,
extremist outﬁts are said to be
active in the Thar region, while
along most of the provincial
highways sectarian and religious
graffiti is hard to miss.
“You need a clear definition
of [who] the terrorist and
sectarian groups are and
what the government is
doing against them”
Security analyst Amir Rana
feels Sindh is going through
the same motions as Punjab
did in the 1990s where the development and proliferation of
extremist tendencies are concerned.
“Different [extremist] groups
have been making inroads in
Sindh. After Ali Sher Hyderi’s
assassination there were fears
there would be a reaction. However, it didn’t happen then.
Deobandi madrassas are spreading, similar to what happened in
the Punjab in the 1980s. With
the expansion of madrassas,
sectarian tendencies also tend
to grow. The sectarian divide is
deﬁnitely growing in Sindh,” he
observes.
Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan chairperson Zohra Yusuf feels the atrocity in
Shikarpur puts a question mark
over the state’s methods of
countering militancy in the aftermath of the Peshawar school
attack.
The bombing “goes against
Pakistanis mourn victims
of mosque bombing
R
AFP
Islamabad
T
Workers from Pakistani political parties march in a protest following the deadly bomb attack at a Shia mosque in Shikarpur district, in
Peshawar yesterday.
capital, also shut down for the
day, with hundreds of Shias
staging protest rallies.
Police said unidentiﬁed “miscreants” had set ﬁre to a passenger bus and a truck in the city
early in the day, but no one was
hurt.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
said the whole nation was in
mourning after the bombing, but
vowed that it would strengthen
the government’s resolve to stop
terrorism.
Pakistan “will win the war
against terrorism at any cost,”
he told a crowd of almost 1,000
counter-terrorism officers in
eastern Lahore city yesterday.
Pakistan has suffered a rising
tide of sectarian violence in recent years.
Friday’s bombing was the
bloodiest single sectarian attack
in Pakistan since March 2013,
when a car bomb in a Shia neighbourhood of Karachi killed 45.
A spokesman for the shadowy Jandullah militant group, a
splinter faction of the Pakistani
Pakistan ﬁghting terror without
law to check cybercrime
Internews
Karachi
P
akistan is ﬁghting terrorism without having
a comprehensive law to
check cybercrime and spread of
extremism, and cannot effectively prosecute those involved
in cybercrimes.
“The Prevention of Electronic Crime Ordinance (PECO)
was promulgated in 2007, but it
lapsed in 2009. Since then the
hands of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have been tied,
and it cannot register FIRs (formal police complaints) against
cyber criminals or extremists
who indulge in hate speech on
the Internet,” said Mohamed
Sarfaraz, the deputy director of
FIA’s Cyber Crime Cell.
“We get around 500 complaints
a month from all over the country,
out of which 300 are genuine, but
we cannot do much about them
because there are no laws under
which we can formally prosecute
the culprits,” he said.
Though
several
separate
pieces of legislation, related to
cybercrimes, existed such as
the Electronic Trade Ordinance
2002 (ETO 2002) and several
sections of the Pakistan Penal Code and Anti-Terrorism
Act 1997, their application was
pretty confusing because they
weren’t aggregated and regulated by a single body.
In the absence of cyber-speciﬁc legislation, the FIA relied
on the ETO 2002, said Barrister
Zahid Jamil. However, it doesn’t
help much because the evidence
is not admissible in local courts
in front of the judicial magistrate.
“The Pakistan Penal Code’s
Section 153A (Promoting enmity
between different groups), the
Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 and
the Pakistan Electronic Media
Regulatory Authority Ordinance
2002 have provisions under
which acts or words inciting violence or hatred can be punished.
“But the confusion remains
on whether a crime is committed in the cyber space or a crime
is committed because of something on the cyber space,” said
Barrister Jamil.
Another lawyer Jibran Nasir,
who currently heads the civil
society’s campaign against the
Lal Masjid in Islamabad, believes
that Sections 6, 8 and 11 of the
Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 also
dealt with inciting hatred online
and could be used to prosecute
the culprits.
But Barrister Jamil countered
that all those provisions could
not be used separately and had
to be applied in conjunction with
each other.
He said Section 11E of the
Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, which
called for sealing the assets and
offices of an organisation along
with its literature, could be applied for organised hate speech
mongers.
Minister of information and
technology, Anusha Rehman,
told News Lens Pakistan that
absence of relevant laws had
made cybercrimes more dangerous because there was no check
on them.
Taliban, said they were behind
the latest blast.
Anti-Shia attacks have been
increasing in recent years in Karachi and also in the southwestern city of Quetta, the northwestern area of Parachinar and
the far northeastern town of
Gilgit.
Around 1,000 Shias have been
killed in the past two years in Pakistan, with many of the attacks
claimed by the hardline Sunni
group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
Pakistan has stepped up its
ﬁght against militants in the past
month, following a Taliban massacre at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Heavily armed gunmen went
from room to room at the armyrun school gunning down 150
people, most of them children,
in an attack that horriﬁed the
world.
Since then, the government
has ended a six-year moratorium
on executions in terror-related
cases and pledged to crack down
on all militant groups.
“The administration takes a
ﬁre ﬁghting approach. It doesn’t
take any actions [which it thinks]
may lead to a law and order situation. Things are handled on a
case-by-case basis at the district level. There is no broader
perspective.”
Sindh clearly has a problem
with extremism, and if it is not
examined in a forthright manner, the cancer of sectarian and
religious hatred will only grow.
Considering the province’s
historically pluralist ethos, there
may still be time to turn the tide
and root out the merchants of
death and divisiveness. If this is
not done, Shikarpur may well be
the harbinger of worse tragedies
to come.
Terrorists, HR
activists oppose
death penalty
Internews
Lahore
Relatives held funerals
yesterday for the victims
of Friday’s explosion at a
Shia mosque in Shikarpur in
Pakistan’s Sindh province
housands of Pakistanis
rallied yesterday to protest against the killing of
61 people in a suicide bombing at
a mosque, as southern Pakistan
shut down to mourn the nation’s
worst sectarian attack in nearly
two years.
The blast hit the mosque in the
Shikarpur district of southern
Sindh province, around 470km
north of Pakistan’s biggest city
Karachi, as hundreds of worshippers attended Friday prayers.
Police yesterday said the devastating explosion was a suicide
attack and the bomber detonated the explosives strapped to
his body “in the middle of the
mosque”.
“The bomber selected a place
in the mosque that would cause
huge destruction,” Raja Umar
Khitab, a police official in Sindh’s
counter-terror department, said
yesterday.
Khitab said the bomb was
loaded with steel pellets, ball
bearings and other shrapnel to
cause maximum damage.
The provincial government
announced a day of mourning yesterday, closing schools,
shops and offices, with no public
transport available on the roads.
In Shikarpur, thousands gathered to attend funeral prayers for
the dead.
Local television broadcast
footage of huge crowds of mostly
Shias, carrying black ﬂags and
beating their chests as they offered their prayers, one after another.
Karachi, Pakistan’s economic
heart and Sindh’s provincial
the government’s rationale that
military courts and the death
penalty would be deterrents.
There needs to be zero tolerance for sectarian outﬁts. The
government is not clear. The list
of banned outﬁts has not been
clearly released.
“You need a clear deﬁnition of
[who] the terrorist and sectarian
groups are and what the government is doing against them. The
government is in two minds,
whether to take action against
them or not.”
Asked how the state was dealing with the threat of extremism
in Sindh, Rana feels that efforts
are piecemeal and that the state
is not looking at the bigger militant picture.
emoval of moratorium
on death penalty by
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the
Peshawar incident has started
debate in Pakistan, bringing
terrorist outﬁts and human
rights activists on the same
page against it.
After the carnage in Peshawar that killed 150 people including 134 children in Army
Public School, Pakistan removed the ban on death penalty to track down militants
and criminals.
Capital
punishment
stopped in 2008 when the
government of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) signed a de
facto moratorium. Removal of
the ban has ignited a debate in
the society. According to Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, there are over 8,000
prisoners on death row in Pakistan at present.
Human rights activist and
former president of Supreme
Court Bar Association Asma
Jahangir opposed the decision.
She said, “The decision of executing prisoners on death
row is taken by an emotionally-charged government in revenge after Peshawar attack.”
She was of the view that the
government should devise a
comprehensive policy against
terrorists and revitalise criminal justice system.
She said, “The past practice in Pakistan shows that
the government framed laws
against terrorism in haste
which let off the powerful
while the poor fell victim to
such decisions.”
Jahangir also opined that
there is no other solution to
terrorism but wise decisions
and equality before law.
Jamal Khan, 24, a clerk in
Systems Software Company,
is waiting for exemplary punishment for all criminals. “All
Taliban militants, who killed
our children, should be hanged
without any delay,” he said.
Director Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan I A
Rehman, “I appreciated execution of terrorists as the circumstances demand prompt
action against them after Peshawar massacre. The whole
nation wanted exemplary
punishment for them.” But,
permanent solution does not
lie in executions and military
courts, he added.
A supporter of Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP), seeking anonymity, said “It will be
unfair to hang people belonging to TTP or its allied groups
only, the rule should be applied to all equally.”
Fresh polio cases reported in Pakistan
Pakistan’s National Institute
of Health (NIH) detected
three new polio cases, taking
the number detected in 2015
to six, a media report said
yesterday.
The first cases of the new
year were reported from
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and
the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA), Dawn
online reported.
A health ministry official
said that the new cases
were reported from
Nowshera, South Waziristan
and Sindh.
“In all three cases, the
patients were infected with
the P1 virus, which can be
transmitted directly from
child to child,” he said.
Two die as Afghan protesters
clash with police in Kabul
Reuters
Kabul
T
wo people were killed
when violence broke out
at an anti-Charlie Hebdo
protest in the Afghan capital
yesterday, according to witnesses, but Kabul’s police chief
said there were no deaths and
only two injuries.
Around
500
protesters
streamed into an eastern part
of the city, chanting “Death to
France” and “Death to Inﬁdels”,
putting residents of nearby international compounds on a
state of alert.
Police sources said the protest turned violent when protesters attacked policemen with
burning tyres, stones and then
gunﬁre.
A man who gave his name
only as Moshtaq, pointing at a
pool of blood in the road, said
one protester “was shot in the
head and his dead body was
Afghan policemen help a wounded comrade after clashes with
protesters in Kabul, yesterday.
there. And I saw one more dead
body in a car.”
Kabul police chief Abdul
Rahman Rahimi told reporters
“there were some irresponsible
armed men among them who
opened ﬁre on police. Primary
reports show that two protest-
ers were wounded.”
Protests against the French
newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have erupted around the
world and taken place weekly in
the Afghan capital.
Local residents and shop-
keepers complained the protesters had used the outbreak of
violence as an excuse to loot.
“They were opportunists,
not real lovers of the Prophet
and Islam,” Mohamed Qasim, a
shopkeeper caught in the middle of the protest.
“A protest doesn’t require
destroying cars, shops or
streets, but they did. They were
looking for a chance to rob all
these shops and people,” he
said.
Episodes of violence have
previously erupted in reaction
to perceived insults towards Islam in deeply conservative Afghanistan.
In 2011, seven United Nations
staff were killed in protests after
an American pastor in Florida
broadcast a video of himself on
YouTube burning a copy of the
Holy Qur’an. The following
year, around two dozen were
killed in protests over the burning of Qur’an at a US military
base near the capital.
26
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
PHILIPPINES
Both sides told a press
briefing in Kuala Lumpur
that two days of talks in
Malaysia on disarming the
rebels had made progress
Civilians
killed in
anti-terror
raid: mayor
AFP
Kuala Lumpur
AFP
Cotabato
P
n eight-year-old girl and
three men — one with
his hands bound —were
among those killed in a botched
anti-terror police operation in
the Philippines last weekend, a
local official said yesterday.
Mamasapano town mayor
Benzar Ampatuan said residents had told him police tied
up the man to stop him tipping off their targets ahead of
the pre-dawn raid, in which 44
commandos died in one of the
force’s bloodiest days in recent
years.
A local farmer’s daughter and
two other men were also found
dead in their homes after the
fighting, Ampatuan said, the
first report of civilian casualties in the bloodbath.
Govt, rebel negotiators
call to abide by peace pact
hilippine government and
rebel negotiators issued
a joint plea yesterday for
the country to stick to a historic
peace accord that is now in peril
after a deadly clash spurred
calls for retribution against the
guerrillas.
Both sides told a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur that two
days of talks in Malaysia on
disarming the rebels had made
progress, and they vowed not to
waver in implementing an accord on the voluntary surrender
of weapons.
The Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) has waged a decades-long bloody insurgency in
the southern Philippines, but
an accord signed last year has
raised hopes of a lasting peace.
Chief government negotiator
Miriam Coronel-Ferrer warned
of dire consequences if the
process were allowed to crumble. “The other alternative is
simply unthinkable,” she said.
“It will bring chaos and bring
about the rise of other groups
(and) even more extremists
with very radical ideologies.”
The talks in Malaysia marked
the ﬁrst formal sit-down between the two sides since a
botched Philippine police raid
on the southern island of Mindanao last Sunday.
The operation targeted a
wanted terrorism suspect but
resulted in 44 police commandos being killed in clashes with
A
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal (left) and Philippines political science professor Miriam Coronel Ferrer
(right), chairperson of the government negotiating panel for peace talks attend a press conference at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
the MILF and a smaller rebel
faction.
The rebels’ chief negotiator
Mohagher Iqbal also said the
MILF was fully committed to
the peace process.
The MILF signed a protocol agreement on Thursday for
disarmament, and both parties said they would go ahead
with the symbolic handover
next month of 75 high-powered
guerrilla ﬁrearms. They also
vowed to strengthen existing
ceaseﬁre mechanisms to avoid
future clashes.
But President Benigno Aquino, who must convince Congress to approve the deal, is under mounting pressure to strike
back at the rebels.
“In the next few days we
know there will be challenges
before us,” Coronel-Ferrer said.
She said the government
would engage with Philippine
lawmakers to keep the process
on track.
“That is our message. Please
stay the course with us,” she
said.
The MILF and various other
rebels have battled since the
1970s for independence or autonomy. The peace agreement
signed last year would create a
southern autonomous region
for the Philippines’ Muslim minority with locally elected leaders by mid-2016.
The conﬂict has condemned
millions of people across Mindanao to brutal poverty and
created fertile conditions for
extremism, with the Al Qaedalinked Abu Sayyaf group and
other hardline militants making
remote areas their strongholds.
“Their wives said they were
hit in the crossfire,” he said,
adding that five other residents
of the corn-farming region
were also wounded.
The Philippines on Friday
held a national day of mourning for the dead police officers,
who were killed as they hunted
the man blamed for the 2002
Bali bombings in Indonesia, in
which 202 people died.
Nearly 400 members of the
elite police unit were sent to a
village near the town of Mamasapano on January 25 to arrest
Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.
The Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) said 11 of its fighters were killed and 15 wounded
in the gunfight that ensued. A
second rebel force, the MILF
splinter group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, has
not disclosed whether it suffered any casualties.
Two pilots dead in jet crash
DPA
Manila
A
trainer jet of the Philippines’ air force crashed
yesterday during an air exhibition show, killing two pilots on
board, a military spokesman said.
The SF-260FH jet plunged into
waters off Nasugbu town in Batangas province, 70 kilometres
south of Manila, during the air
show, Lieutenant Colonel Enrico
Canaya said.
The Air Force immediately
grounded 17 other SF-260FH
planes and ordered an investigation into the crash, he said.
The jets, designed and manufactured by Italian aerospace
company Alenia Aermacchi, were
assembled in the Philippines
through a local partner.
Education
dept in US
deal to reach
conﬂict-hit
By Neil A Alcober
Manila Times
T
he Department of Education (DepEd) and the
US Agency for International Development (USAID)
signed a bilateral agreement
for basic education programmes that aim to increase
access to quality education for
vulnerable populations such
as out-of-school youth and
students in conﬂict-affected
areas.
The ﬁve-year agreement
pledges P580mn ($12.9mn)
in US assistance through USAID for basic education programmes
throughout
the
Philippines.“This bilateral education agreement will sustain
and reinvigorate our combined
efforts to ensure that the Philippines continues its rise as a
regional and global leader in
this new century,” Brian Goldbeck, US deputy chief of mission, said.
“It also symbolises the continued partnership between our
two nations that began over a
century ago with the arrival of
about 500 American Thomasite
teachers,” Goldbeck, who is also
a former teacher, added.
Education Secretary Armin
Luistro said that through this
partnership, the department
will be able to open educational
opportunities not only for students who reside in conﬂicttorn areas but to all Filipino
children.
Under the agreement, DepEd and USAID will provide
skills training to youth, promote community engagement
and peace education, increase
the capacity of teachers and
youth leaders to meet the education needs of youth and vulnerable population through
alternative learning in areas
affected by crisis and conﬂict.
The partnership intends to
strengthen education governance at national and local
levels. It also aims to empower
the local government units,
communities and stakeholders to deliver education for
out-of-school youth.
A
t least two persons were
killed after a ﬁre of still
unknown origin gutted
the hall of justice in Cagayan
de Oro City Friday night.
In a report reaching the PNP
national operation centre in
Camp Crame, a ﬁre alarm was
raised at around 7pm Friday
Aquino will not pressure Purisima
to talk on anti-terror mission
By Llanesca T Panti
Manila Times
P
Two killed after hall blaze
By Anthony Vargas
Manila Times
Members of the elite Police Special Action Force (SAF) carry one of the coffins of their dead colleague during the departure ceremony for the 44 killed SAF members at Camp Bagong
Diwa in Taguig, south of Manila yesterday.
by a security guard. The ﬁre
was said to have started at
the second ﬂoor and spread
quickly through the offices.
Aside from the courts, the
ﬁre, which reached a general
alarm, also gutted the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
Members of the Bureau of
Fire Protection (BFP) declared
a ﬁre out by 2am of yesterday.
At least P29mn of properties
were reportedly destroyed.
resident Benigno Aquino
will not compel suspended
Philippine National Police
(PNP) chief Alan Purisima to
speak up on his involvement in
the operation in Mamasapano,
Maguindanao that led to the
massacre of 44 members of the
Special Action Force (SAF).
Secretary Herminio Coloma
of the Presidential Communications Operations Office said
the government will follow the
established process in eliciting information from people
who had any participation in
the planning and implementation of the mission to capture
two terrorists — Filipino bomb
maker Abdulbasit Usman and
Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin
Hir alias Marwan. The president has earlier admitted that
Purisima knew of the operation and was giving him briefings about the top-secret mission until his suspension in
December last year. The Office
of the Ombudsman suspended
the PNP chief for six months
for his alleged involvement in
an anomalous contract with a
courier service in 2011.
On Friday, Vice President
Jejomar Binay and Valenzuela
City representative. Sherwin
Gatchalian dared Purisima to
break his silence and reveal the
extent of his involvement in the
mission that killed 44 elite police commandos.
But there was no similar call
from the Palace for Purisima to
come out.
“We understand. Everyone
wants to know the truth. We
respect the opinion of some of
the country’s leaders. But we
have a process in bringing out
the truth. He who should give
a statement should participate
in the quest for truth,” Coloma
said in an interview aired over
Radyo ng Bayan yesterday.
“As the president said, the
truth will set us free,” he added.
Reports that Purisima was
still involved in the execution of the operation despite
his suspension had enraged
the public, especially after the
president admitted that the
suspended PNP chief planned
the mission.
Aquino met the families
of the 44 slain SAF troops in
Camp Bagong Diwa on Friday.
Lawmakers Sherwin Gatchalian of Valenzuela City, Carol
Jayne Lopez of You Against
Corruption party-list and
Rodel Batocabe of Ako Bicol
party-list said Purisima should
be investigated for his role in
the botched operation.
“Purisima cannot escape responsibility from the massacre
of 44 SAF commandos since he
was identified by relieved SAF
commander Director Getulio
Napenas as the one calling the
shots and that the SAF director
was directly reporting to him.
Even President Aquino admitted that General Purisima was
giving him briefings on the top
secret SAF operation to neutralise Marwan,” Gatchalian
said.
The senate committee on
public order and dangerous
drugs may also invite the suspended PNP chief once the
panel starts its inquiry into the
bloody incident on Wednesday.
Sen. Grace Poe, the chairper-
son of the committee, admitted
that they have not yet included
Purisima in the list of resource
persons to be invited.
Four separate senate resolutions have been filed calling for an investigation of the
SAF operation in Mamasapano,
Maguindanao.
Poe said the primary objective of the investigation is to
know what really happened,
who called the shots and how
the operation was carried out.
The senator said she is also
not convinced that the responsibility rests on a single individual, Police Director Getulio
Napenas, the SAF commander
who was sacked because of the
incident. “The committee wants
to look deeper on the chain of
command to ﬁnd out who is in
charge and how he managed the
operation,” Poe explained.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
27
SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL
13 dead in
factory ﬁre
AFP
Dhaka
A
t least 13 people were
killed and more than a
dozen injured yesterday
when a ﬁre broke out in a plastic
factory in Bangladesh’s capital,
emergency service officials said.
Police and ﬁre officers believe
the blaze started when gas cylinders exploded in the factory’s
boiler room, then raced through
the four-storey Nasim Plastic
factory in minutes.
“We’ve recovered 13 bodies,”
local police chief Mohammad
Jashimuddin said, adding the
ﬁre was brought under control in around two hours and
that the factory ﬂoors had been
thoroughly searched.
“Three people were critically
burnt and they were shifted to a
hospital,” he added.
A ﬁre official said those who
died were plastic factory workers who were burnt or suffocated after they were trapped on
the upper ﬂoors.
“It was a big ﬁre, which was
originated in the boiler room af-
ter loud explosions. Walls of the
buildings collapsed due to the
impact of the explosions,” he
said on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to
speak to the press.
More than a dozen people
suffered minor burn injuries, he
added.
Factory worker Mohammad
Khokon said 150-200 people
usually work in the building, but
the number on site was less than
that because it was a weekend.
Dozens of friends and relatives of the missing workers
crowded the factory site in Dhaka’s northern Mirpur suburb as
ﬁre ﬁghters sifted through the
charred remains of the building.
“I called my friend Belal after I saw the ﬁre. His phone
rang but he did not respond,”
Mohammad Masud said.
Fires are common in impoverished Bangladesh’s factories, which
often have poor safety standards
and lack ﬁre-ﬁghting tools.
In November 2012, at least
111 garment workers were killed
when a blaze devastated a ninestorey garment factory outside
Dhaka.
Nepal PM
asks Maoist
chief to forge
consensus
for charter
IANS
Colombo
N
Firefighters recover a body following a fire in a plastic factory in Dhaka yesterday.
Bangladesh cuts power to
opposition leader’s office
AFP
Dhaka
B
angladesh
authorities
yesterday cut the power
to opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s office in an apparent bid to force her to call off
a crippling anti-government
transport blockade.
Local television showed footage of a technician from a staterun power utility climbing a
ladder and cutting the line outside Zia’s office, where she has
been holed up since the protests
began early in January.
“We got permission from police to cut the power line,” the
technician told reporters as he
cut the line.
Private Channel 24 television said that Internet and satellite television connections to
her office were also severed.
There was no official comment from police or the power
company.
Shamsuddin Dider, a spokesman for Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said that
the 69-year-old leader was
“shocked and surprised” by the
move.
He said the mobile phone
network around the office had
also been jammed.
The power line was cut just
hours after a government minister reportedly threatened to
sever the office’s electrical supply and force Zia her to starve to
death if she did not call off the
nationwide transport blockade.
“Even the food provided to
you by your party officials will
not reach your room. You’ll
have to die there without food,”
shipping minister Shahjahan
Tamils turn
down domestic
investigation
IANS
Colombo
S
ri Lanka’s main Tamil
party has said it would
oppose any domestic inquiry into the alleged human
rights violations during the ﬁnal stages of the country’s civil
war and reiterated its call for
an international probe.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA)
spokesperson Suresh Premachandran told reporters that the
Tamil minorities in the island
nation had no faith or trust in
a domestic inquiry, noting that
numerous domestic commissions were futile in the past.
“We
categorically
oppose any domestic inquiry.
Tamils have no faith or trust
in a domestic investigation and we reiterate our call
for a UN-backed international probe,” Xinhua quoted
Premachandran as saying.
He also urged the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights
to table a report on Sri Lanka
as scheduled at the UN Human
Rights Council session in March.
The report on Sri Lanka
will be presented by UN High
Commissioner for Human
Rights Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid
Al-Hussein with a comprehensive investigation on
Sri Lanka’s civil war.
Sri Lanka’s senior advisor on
foreign affairs Jayantha Dhanapala was in Geneva to discuss
the UN Human Rights Council’s investigation into alleged
violations of human rights by
both parties in Sri Lanka with
the high commissioner.
He is also expected to brief
the high commissioner of the
government’s efforts to conduct its own inquiry into the
war allegations.
Sri Lanka’s newly elected
government led by Maithripala
Sirisena said earlier this month
it would conduct its own probe
and appoint a domestic independent commission, consisting of professionals, to investigate the ﬁnal stages of the war
against rebels of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
which ended in 2009.
Sri Lanka has been under
continuous pressure from the
UN and human rights watchdogs to have an international
probe but the request had been
turned down by former president Mahinda Rajapakse’s
government.
Khan told a rally late Friday, according to the local Daily Star
newspaper.
Zia has been conﬁned in her
office in Dhaka’s upmarket
Gulshan district for weeks after threatening to rally her supporters against the government
of bitter rival Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina on January 5, the
ﬁrst anniversary of a disputed
general election.
Her conﬁnement coincided
with the death of her son, who
died in Malaysia earlier this
month. His death prompted
tens of thousands of mourners to turn out on Tuesday in a
massive show of support for the
embattled former premier.
While holed up, Zia has called
a nationwide blockade of roads,
railways and waterways, triggering deadly unrest that has
left at least 40 people dead and
nearly 800 vehicles ﬁrebombed
or damaged.
She also called a 72-hour
strike from today, despite nationwide high-school examinations in which about 1.5mn
students are taking part.
Zia wants Hasina, her rival
of nearly three decades, to call
fresh polls after last year’s controversial polls, which opposition parties boycotted on the
grounds they would be rigged.
The boycott meant most
members of the 300-seat parliament were returned unopposed, handing Hasina another
ﬁve years in power.
Zia denies the BNP and its
Islamist allies were responsible for ﬁrebombings and has
demanded the release of opposition officials and leaders
detained over the violence.
Hasina has accused Zia of
Khaleda Zia ... confined in her office
trying to trigger “anarchy” and
ordered the security agencies to
hunt down the protesters.
Yesterday an elite security
force arrested Rizvi Ahmed, a
top BNP leader, in Dhaka after he was accused of ordering
Sirisena visits dam project
ﬁrebombing of vehicles from a
hideout.
The EU, the nation’s biggest export destination, has
urged Hasina’s government and
the opposition to hold talks to
resolve the crisis.
EU mulls
lifting ﬁsh
export ban
on Lanka
IANS
Colombo
T
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena, left, visits a $253mn Chinese funded mega dam
project in Dambulia, 148 km northeast of Colombo. Sri Lanka’s new government has said it
might renegotiate a $1.5bn port city deal with China Communications Construction Coompany,
softening its pre-election threat to scrap the project.
epal Prime Minister
Sushil Koirala has appealed to UCPN-Maoist
chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal
to co-operate in forging consensus among the warring political parties over the drafting
of a new constitution, a media
report said.
Koirala, who met Dahal at his
residence, said he told the Maoist leader “to co-operate with the
government in promulgating a
democratic constitution.”
He called on Dahal to forge
consensus “so as to institutionalise the achievements of the
past democratic movements as
people want lasting peace and
stability in the country.”
The government is ready to hold
talks with the opposition to reach
a consensus among all parties,
Koirala said while inaugurating
a hospital in Kathmandu.
“If we can manage the arms
through dialogue and negotiations (to end the civil war),
why cannot we promulgate the
new constitution in the same
manner,” Koirala asked.
He stressed that a new constitution will not only fulﬁl the
60-year-old dream of the people but it will also pave the way
for economic prosperity and development of Nepal by utilising
the vast natural resources at our
disposal.
The ruling and opposition alliances are sharply divided on key
issues to be included in the new
constitution including federal
structure and forms of governance. Opposition parties also
demand ethnic identity-based
federal structure.
CPN-UML chairman KP
Sharma Oli, who was present
at the event alongside Koirala,
said people want a constitution which helps maintain territorial integrity and communal
harmony.
“We will try to forge consensus with the opposition to draft a
constitution but if it is not possible to forge consensus then we
will promulgate the constitution through two-third majority votes as per the provision of
interim constitution,” said Oli.
The ruling alliance has the
two-third majority in the
601-member parliament they
that need to approve a constitution without the opposition’s
support.
he European Commission has offered Sri
Lanka assistance to
meet regulatory requirements
for an early lifting of the ban
on ﬁsh exports to the EU, the
Sri Lankan foreign ministry
has said.
“During the fruitful meetings, the European Commission offered Sri Lanka assistance in meeting the regulatory
requirements that would enable an early lifting of the
ban on ﬁsh exports to the EU
and displayed strong interest in expanding socio-economic ties and development
programmes,” the foreign
ministry said.
Sri Lanka’s Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera, was in Brussels
this week in an attempt to
have the ban on Sri Lankan
ﬁsh exports to EU lifted,
Xinhua reported.
He met Belgian Foreign
Minister Didier Reynders and
members of the European
Parliament and also held talks
with the European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and
the European Commissioner
for International Cooperation
and Development.
The discussions focused on
strengthening Sri Lanka’s relations with the EU and Belgium, the steps Sri Lanka has
taken and would take to comply with international ﬁshing regulations and the process of re-qualifying for tariff
concessions, the Sri Lankan
foreign ministry said.
The EU had imposed the
ban after Sri Lanka continued
to violate international regulations on deep-sea ﬁshing.
Sri Lanka, under the previous government, was given
time to remedy the situation
before the ban took effect
this month, but the government had failed to meet the
requirements.
28
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
COMMENT
Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah
Editor-in-Chief : Darwish S Ahmed
Production Editor: C P Ravindran
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Doha, Qatar
[email protected]
Telephone 44350478 (news),
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GULF TIMES
A strong dollar
may rattle
global economy
A strong dollar might provide some cushion to
oil exporters, particularly GCC producers whose
currencies are pegged to the greenback, but experts
fear it may hurt the world ﬁnancial system in the long
term.
They also caution that a strong dollar may lead to
an economic slowdown in the GCC region, if the low
oil price persists in the medium term and the US Fed
Reserve starts to raise interest rates.
The Brent oil price has tumbled nearly $70 since
June 2014 to nearly six-year lows below $50 a barrel,
clouding the outlook for the GCC states, where
government income from hydrocarbon sales powers
economic growth.
GCC economies have performed well during much
of the global ﬁnancial crisis as the US economy
slumped. Now, the US economy is expanding strongly,
even as the GCC economies face slow growth because
of the persistent decline in oil prices.
There are fears that rising dollar could lead to a
wave of bankruptcies in Russia, Brazil and some
other emerging economies, and seriously impacting
Germany and other
European countries
that rely on exports.
A recent report
showed that countries,
corporate entities and
private households
have, globally, become
indebted to the tune of
$10tn. A growing share
of the debt has been
incurred within emerging markets.
This debt could also become an existential risk. Most
of these liabilities are not in native currencies like the
Brazilian real or Russian ruble, but in dollars.
The Basel-based Bank for International Settlements
(BIS), a kind of central bank to the central banks,
warned in its December 2014 Quarterly Review, that
the appreciation of the dollar against the backdrop of
divergent monetary policies could “have a profound
impact on the global economy”.
Hans Redeker, chief currency strategist at Morgan
Stanley, notes that money borrowed by emerging
economies is often used for domestic investments,
so the balance sheets of many companies could be
negatively impacted.
Redeker fears that the crisis symptoms could play off
each other, posing the danger of a chain reaction: “The
BIS warnings conﬁrm what we’ve been saying for a
long time: Hell could soon break loose in the emerging
markets”.
Already now, the appreciation of the dollar is one of
the strongest in the past decades. The Dollar Index,
which measures the greenback against the world’s
major currencies, has been at its highest since 2006.
In this context, a research paper prepared by a
Qatari economist is worth studying. Qatar Central
Bank’s director, Research and Monetary Policy Khalid
al-Khater said, “If the low oil price persists in the
medium term and the Fed starts to raise interest rates
that might contribute to economic slowdown in the
GCC. But it depends on the pace of the tightening
process, how fast and how persistent they will be.”
Clearly, the dominant dollar has the potential to
rattle global economy if it continues to gain strength.
The decline of US
military innovation
Budget limitations pose
some of the greatest
challenges to the US
military’s efforts to
maintain its technological
edge
By Dan Steinbock
New York
T
he US is at risk of losing its
military edge. America’s
armed forces may still be the
most advanced in the world;
after all, the US spends more than
twice as much on military research
and development as major powers
like France and Russia and nine times
more than China and Germany. But
America’s continued technological
leadership is far from assured.
Since 2005, the US Department
of Defence has cut R&D spending by
22%. In 2013, as part of a deal to avert
a showdown over the debt ceiling, the
US Congress mandated some $1.2tn in
automatic spending cuts.
The move, which requires
reduced spending in numerous
programmes, including many
defence research initiatives, was
described by US President Barack
Obama’s administration as “deeply
destructive to national security”. If
US defence innovation continues
to erode, not only will America’s
defence capabilities suffer; the
country will also risk slipping in
terms of commercial innovation and
competitiveness.
Budget limitations pose some of
the greatest challenges to the US
military’s efforts to maintain its
technological edge. The Army and
the Missile Defense Agency have
been particularly hard hit, with R&D
spending nearly halved since 2005.
The Navy’s research budget has been
cut by some 20%, and the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) – the organisation tasked
with keeping the US military ahead of
the technological curve – has had to
slash R&D spending by 18%. Even the
Air Force, where research spending
has traditionally been a congressional
priority, has been forced to cut its
budget by roughly 4%.
The US military’s
innovation efforts
face several structural
problems
When money does get allocated,
cost pressures too often encourage
investment in projects that promise
quick results – a bias that comes at the
expense of long-term innovation that
could provide a strategic advantage.
Even DARPA has fallen prey
to pressure for research that can
demonstrate immediate progress.
To make matters worse, the US
military’s innovation efforts face
several structural problems. Six
decades of attempts to reform the
defence acquisition process have yet
to yield fruit. Most of the design,
development, and production of
military systems is carried out by
civilian industry, but decision-making
remains ﬁrmly in the hands of military
officials, who may not be able to strike
the right balance between costcutting and innovation.
Rivalries within and among the
military services once mimicked the
role of competition in the private
sector: they drove innovation.
But with the end of the Cold War,
the pressure to remain a step ahead
has waned, depriving the defence
sector of a crucial engine of progress.
Moreover, top defence contractors’
R&D spending as a proportion of sales
plummeted by nearly a third from
1999 to 2012.
By contrast, America’s technology
giants invest 4-6 times as much in
R&D.
Meanwhile, the US is suffering
from the hollowing out of its
defence industrial base. Increased
competition from China and other
large emerging economies has eroded
US manufacturing capabilities,
jeopardising America’s ability to
develop the most technologically
sophisticated defence platforms. The
defence industry once created the new
technologies – lasers, GPS, and the
Internet, for example – that helped
drive the American economy. Today,
in most ﬁelds, civilian technology is
likely to be leading the way.
The result can be seen in the
rise of foreign competition in
the international arms market.
American manufacturers are ﬁnding
themselves increasingly vulnerable
in areas that they once dominated
– including unmanned aerial
platforms, intelligence surveillance
and reconnaissance, missiles, and
satellites – as low-cost competitors
gain market share.
In 2013, Russia’s weapons exports
surpassed America’s by more than $2bn.
In November, US Defence Secretary
Chuck Hagel announced a new
initiative to “sustain and advance
America’s military dominance for
the twenty-ﬁrst century” .In a time
of shrinking budgets and shifting
strategic challenges, he focused on
innovation. “Continued ﬁscal pressure
will likely limit our military’s ability
to respond to long-term challenges
by increasing the size of our force
or simply outspending potential
adversaries on current systems,” he
said. “So to overcome challenges to
our military superiority, we must
change the way we innovate, operate,
and do business.”
Nine days later, Hagel handed in
his resignation, which will take effect
as soon as the US Senate conﬁrms
his replacement. A policy aimed
at restoring defence innovation
and production in America would
ensure that the US upholds its
global technological leadership and
commercial competitiveness.
Unfortunately, Hagel’s successor is
likely to ﬁnd that, in an era of limited
budgets and automatic spending cuts,
the type of comprehensive innovation
strategy that Hagel envisioned may
simply not be viable.- Project Syndicate
zDan Steinbock, a partner at
Difference Group, was research director
of international business at the India,
China and America Institute and a
visiting fellow at Shanghai Institutes
for International Studies in China and
the EU Center in Singapore.
Already now, the
appreciation of
the dollar is one
of the strongest
in the past
decades
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2014 Gulf Times. All rights reserved
With the end of the Cold War, the pressure on the US to remain a step ahead has waned, depriving its defence sector of a crucial engine of progress.
Diseases without borders in a world of risks
By Jim Yong Kim
Davos
T
oday’s world seems more
risk-laden than ever. The
increasingly visible effects
of climate change, rising
geopolitical tensions, state crisis
and collapse, inadequate or unequal
economic opportunities and the
spread of infectious diseases – to
name just some of the highest-proﬁle
threats – have created an environment
of great uncertainty.
Will 2015 be the year when these
risks come to a head, or the moment
when world leaders come together to
develop real strategies for mitigating
them?
Last month, I joined leaders from
the worlds of business, government,
politics, the arts and academia at
the World Economic Forum (WEF)
in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the
risks that the world faced. Of course,
determining which challenges merited
the most attention was not easy.
That is where the WEF’s annual
Global Risks reports can help. Drawing
on the perspectives of roughly 900
experts and decision-makers from
around the world who participate in
the WEF’s global risks-perception
survey, this year’s report found that,
for the ﬁrst time in its 10-year history,
economic risks are taking a backseat
to environmental and geopolitical
concerns.
Speciﬁcally, participants rated
interstate conﬂict with regional
consequences as the top risk, in terms
of likelihood, facing the world in 2015,
with extreme weather events coming
in second. The top risks in terms of
impact were water crises and the
spread of infectious diseases.
The WEF’s Global
Risks report
emphasises the need
for robust plans to
face the threat of
pandemics
The point, of course, is not simply
to highlight how much danger the
world currently faces. By illuminating
experts’ top-rated risks, the report
highlights important opportunities
for action. According to WEF founder
Klaus Schwab, 2015 can be a “year
of destiny for humankind”. Indeed,
if global leaders – from multilateral
organisations, governments, the
private sector, and civil-society
groups – seize opportunities for closer
cooperation, long-simmering risks
can be cooled before they boil over.
One area where concerted,
collaborative action can make a major
difference is the spread of infectious
diseases. During the meeting in Davos,
officials will discuss the creation of
a new global pandemic emergency
facility that would enable countries to
respond quickly to crises within their
borders by providing them with the
needed funds.
To understand how badly the world
needs this capacity, one need look
no further than the ongoing Ebola
pandemic, which has ravaged West
African societies, claiming thousands
of lives and upending many more. A
rapid and determined response could
have done much to contain the virus.
But the international response was
delayed and inadequate.
Indeed, six months into the crisis,
just 30 medical-response teams were
treating and caring for patients on
the ground in Guinea, Liberia, and
Sierra Leone. The shortage of health
workers, facilities, and supplies
prevented many people from receiving
treatment, allowing the virus to spread
further.
Fear of the disease’s seemingly
inexorable spread hampered trade,
business activity, and travel in the
affected countries. In December, the
World Bank downgraded its growth
estimates for the formerly fastgrowing economies of Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone, which are now
expected to lose $1.6bn in income in
2015.
In order to become better prepared
to tackle future pandemics, the world
must invest now in strengthening
public-health systems, bolstering
developing countries’ diseaseprevention capacity, and establishing
new and ﬂexible ﬁnancing
instruments. A global pandemic
emergency facility could mobilize
public and private resources and
frontload ﬁnancing, so that when
a global health emergency arises,
funding is in place to support an
immediate response at scale. As the
Ebola crisis has demonstrated, passing
the hat once a pandemic has taken
hold is far too time-consuming and
carries huge economic and, more
important, human costs.
Such a global resource could
underpin the development of a
comprehensive strategy to address
the next outbreak, including a plan for
putting health workers and supplies
on the ground quickly. It could even
provide a market signal for producers
of vaccines and drugs.
The WEF’s Global Risks report
emphasises the need for robust plans
to face the threat of pandemics. This
is especially urgent in light of the
rapid growth of cities and informal
settlements – where infectious
diseases can spread more easily – in
developing countries. We need to start
creating those plans now. After all, we
do not know when the next pandemic
will strike.
We cannot eliminate global risk. We
can, however, make our economies
and societies more resilient and thus
better equipped to minimiae the
impact of the threats we face. In this
sense, forward-thinking initiatives
like the global pandemic emergency
facility are crucial to making the world
a safer place for all of us.- Project
Syndicate
zJim Yong Kim is president of the
World Bank Group.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
29
COMMENT
Harnessing disruption for sustainability
What the world needs now
are leaders who are willing
to bridge the gap between
daunting short-term
demands and desirable
long-term outcomes
By Simon Zadek
Geneva
A
fter decades of reluctance
on the part of world leaders,
a rapid, smooth and
purposeful transition toward
sustainable development seems
unlikely.
Indeed, throughout human history,
such major changes have more
often been forced upon the world by
circumstances, with leaders focusing
on shorter-term concerns like political
turmoil or economic stagnation until
serious disruptions to their economies
and societies arise.
But this need not be the case.
Policymakers can develop solutions
that leverage immediate challenges
to guide the shift toward a more
sustainable, inclusive future.
This year, which has been dubbed
“the year of sustainable development”,
provides an ideal opportunity in this
regard.
At high-level meetings in Sendai,
Japan, in March and in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, in July, world leaders
will pursue closer collaboration
on disaster-risk reduction and on
mobilising ﬁnance for development,
respectively.
In September, the UN will launch
its Sustainable Development Goals,
to serve as the framework for global
development efforts until 2030.
Moreover, global climate
negotiations will reach a critical point
in December, when world leaders
meet for the UN Climate Change
Conference in Paris. And the agendas
of the forthcoming G-7 and G-20
summits will both feature measures to
combat climate change.
Such multilateral frameworks
catalyse progress.
Indeed, agreements like last year’s
deal between China and the US to
reduce carbon-dioxide emissions –
not to mention initiatives to mobilise
business, such as We Mean Business
– are unlikely to happen without
them. Nonetheless, as Mancur Olson
famously observed, it is the individual
interests of the parties that drive
collective success.
For example, China’s recent
embrace of sustainable development,
which will serve the planet’s longterm interests, is driven by the
domestic challenges posed by air,
water, and land pollution.
Rather than agonise over growing
disruptions, China’s government
has decided to hasten the shift
toward a dynamic green economy,
even if it means stranding assets and
allowing businesses that do not suit
China’s shifting needs to fail – an
approach that will deliver a long-term
competitive advantage.
The rest of the world should recognise
the beneﬁts of allowing short-term
disruptions to drive, not distract from,
the sustainability agenda.
One area where such an opportunity
is already apparent is ﬁnancial reform.
Today’s historically low interest
rates should encourage long-term
investment, as they lower the current
cost of capital.
But new ﬁnancial regulatory
frameworks – such as Basel III, which
aims to reduce risk in the banking
sector, and Solvency II, the European
Union’s equivalent for insurance
companies – are inadvertently
discouraging such investment. This
undermines both short-term efforts to
boost employment and the long-term
objective of sustainable growth.
It does not have to be this way. As
the UN Environment Programme
carbon-equivalent tax – an approach
advocated by many economists and
development specialists, including
Jeffrey Sachs, Lawrence Summers and
Kemal Dervis.
Such a tax would not only sustain
the price signals needed to steer
societies onto a more sustainable
energy path; it would also provide
revenues that could be channeled
toward employment creation and
long-term green investments, thereby
leveraging private capital.
Likewise, central banks’ macroprudential activities, which evolved
largely in response to the global
ﬁnancial crisis, could focus on longerterm risks to the ﬁnancial sector,
including the cumulative impact
of climate change, environmental
policies, and disruptive clean
technologies.
Bank of England Governor Mark
Carney has taken the lead in initiating
a prudential review of the impact
of climate change on the United
Kingdom’s insurance sector.
Other institutions – including
multilateral bodies like the Bank
of International Settlements, the
Financial Stability Board, and the
G-20 – should follow suit.
What the world needs now are
leaders who are willing to bridge the
gap between daunting short-term
demands and desirable long-term
outcomes.
Instead of remaining preoccupied
with the present, world leaders should
view 2015 as an opportunity to ensure
that today’s disruptive crises provide the
foundation for tomorrow’s sustainable
prosperity. - Project Syndicate
emphasised in a brieﬁng at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, saving
the ﬁnancial sector from itself can
accelerate the transition to sustainable
development.
For example, effective risk
management and longer-term
policy objectives would be better
aligned if regulators reduced capital
requirements for banks that extend
loans for climate-resilient and
environmentally friendly investments.
Similarly, central banks’ inﬂated
balance sheets – the result of shortterm crisis-response measures
– could, through reﬁnancing
arrangements, be used to boost green
investment. Further quantitative
easing, such as by the European
Central Bank, could be directed toward
greener asset-backed securities.
Even perverse signals can be
mitigated and leveraged. Instead of
allowing low oil prices to encourage
consumption, governments could
take the opportunity to impose a
small, politically acceptable energy or
zSimon Zadek is co-director of the
UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a
Sustainable Financial System, a
visiting scholar at Tsinghua School
of Economics and Management, and
a senior fellow at the Global Green
Growth Institute and the International
Institute for Sustainable Development.
Weather report
Letters
Three-day forecast
Alarming rise
in heart diseases
Dear Sir,
The report about increase in heart
diseases (“Qatar study reveals high
risk of heart diseases”, Gulf Times,
January 29), is shocking but not
surprising.
The lifestyle of Qatar’s residents,
during the last decade or so, has
changed from a qualitative one to
quantitative one.
The latest gadgets, availability of
most of the public services at the
click of a button, more restaurants
and their upsize meals (!), are all
available in abundance in Qatar now.
Social gatherings or family outings
are centred around food or ﬁlms or
cultural programmes. As mentioned
in the report, most of the people don’t
have any real physical activity at all.
The situation is alarming indeed.
Physical exertion is often frowned
upon in society.
There are many stadiums and sports
clubs in the country. I wonder why
residents don’t make use of these
facilities provided by the generous
state.
Every day in the Gulf Times
Community pages we see pictures of
cultural events, but hardly any sports
activities. I surely haven’t forgotten
the international sports events being
held in Qatar periodically. But they are
to be watched upon and not for taking
part.
For residents to participate in
sports-related physical activities,
I urge various sports clubs in the
country to be more proactive. These
sports clubs must open up to the
public and encourage them to come
and make use of their facilities.
In this regard, Aspire Zone is setting
an example, for sure.
Aspire Zone not only maintains very
good facilities but also encourages the
public to make use of them.
As a person who uses the worldclass tennis courts at Aspire Zone and
have overcome health issues, I request
residents to make their move to sports
now. Better late than never.
Shabeer Ahamed
PO Box 37177
Doha
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Around the region
Abu Dhabi
Baghdad
Time to listen to your inner self
By Barton Goldsmith
Tribune News Service
S
ometimes when we are trying
our best to move past our
troubles, something comes
along to block us. What is it
trying to tell you about where you are
and what you are attempting to do?
Perhaps there is a missing piece that
will help you solve the puzzle.
We all get stuck in our thoughts
and actions from time to time. The
key is not to let it continue any
longer than necessary. The sooner
you can free your thoughts, the
better you will feel.
One of the best ways to understand
what may be blocking you is to learn
to listen to your heart. I know it may
sound a little corny, but most of the
time, we are so caught up in what’s
going on in our heads that we forget
about our emotional selves. And that
can cause us to be stopped in our
tracks without even knowing it. If your
heart isn’t in it, not much is going to
happen.
If this is something that you are
new at, a great way to start is by
simply placing your hand on your
heart. No, it is not sending you a
message in Morse code. But placing
your hand on your heart allows
you to be more in touch with that
wonderful organ that helps you feel
your best and is strong enough to
overcome even the worst situations
you have ever found yourself in.
By feeling your heart, you sync
your brain with the rhythm of its
beat, and you will be able to better
understand the messages that the
core of your being is sending to your
brain.
Sometimes it takes a little while
to really get what is going on for you,
because often your brain is sending
information to your heart based on
your proclivities. The habit of your
behaviours may be so ingrained in
you that it is hard to tell yourself that
you are not feeling what you think
you are feeling. Correctly hearing the
truth from your heart can help you
vanquish your issues and allow you to
enjoy life in ways you never could have
imagined.
This is one of those times where
writing down your thoughts and
feelings can help. Do they match? If
not, which do you wish to follow? By
choosing to follow your heart, you are
gaining the strength that comes from
all the love you’ve ever had. Once you
feel it, that love can overcome your
problems.
Understand that if you approach
someone with an open heart, he or she
will feel it and will most likely return
a similar energy to you. That’s how
relationships are born, one open heart
reaching out and touching another. It’s
what we all want, and it is available to
you by just being willing to listen to
your heart.
zDr Barton Goldsmith, a
psychotherapist in Westlake Village,
California, is the author of The Happy
Couple: How to Make Happiness a Habit
One Little Loving Thing at a Time.
Follow his daily insights on Twitter at
@BartonGoldsmith, or e-mail him at
[email protected]
Dubai
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30
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
QATAR
QF – unlocking human potential
S
ince its establishment in 1995,
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community
Development (QF) has been
dedicated to encouraging a culture of innovation and creativity in order to fulﬁl
its overarching mission of unlocking
human potential.
Over the last 20 years, the organisation has established centres and joint
ventures across its core areas of education, science and research, and community development.
Today, there are more than 50 QF
entities working together to support the
Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV2030)
of transforming the nation from a
hydrocarbon- to a knowledge-based
economy.
Diverse and dedicated to serving the
nation’s future, Qatar Foundation is
proud for its brand to be represented by
the Sidra tree. The branches of the tree
epitomise the many centres and joint
ventures at QF. The leaves, ﬂowers and
fruits signify the individual lives that QF
is dedicated to fostering, and the seeds
represent sustainability. Furthermore,
the Sidra tree is deeply rooted in local
tradition and stands for the gathering
and exchanging of knowledge and opinions at the cornerstone of QF’s vision
and mission.
It is through the Foundation’s education and research initiatives that QF
is leading the human, social, and economic development of Qatar. Indeed, to
date, over 2,500 students have graduated from QF’s partner universities, and
are working across a variety of public
and private sector ﬁelds, including oil
and gas, engineering, technology, communications, construction and ﬁnance
as well as education and science.
Qatar Foundation has successfully
created a unique academic environment
that engages students at every stage of
their academic lives. From as early as
six months, Qatar Foundation provides
primary and secondary schooling,
and higher education opportunities at
undergraduate, graduate and doctoral
candidate level. Currently, there are over
6,000 students enrolled across the different institutions.
Qatar Foundation houses eight preschool, primary and secondary schools.
HBKU and the branch campuses offer specific higher education degrees that were hand-picked to promote the objectives
underpinning the QNV2030.
Since the launch of Qatar Academy
Doha in 1996, there have been 844
graduates. Last year there were 2,977
students enrolled across the ﬁve Qatar
Academy schools, 70% of which were
Qatari.
Furthermore, of the 158 students at
the Qatar Leadership Academy, 70%
were Qatari, and of the 338 students
enrolled at Awsaj Academy, over ninein-ten were Qatari.
QF’s unique Academic Bridge Program, serves as an intermediary level
between high school and university to
help students overcome any language,
academic or cultural challenges. It has
witnessed the graduation of over 2,500
students since 2011. Nine out of ten
of them went on to complete further
studies in Qatar or abroad. In the most
recent academic year, there were 198
students enrolled in the programme,
with Qatari nationals making up four
out of ﬁve pupils.
QF also encompasses a number of
world-class universities. Home-grown,
graduate-level Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) was created to continue
fulﬁlling QF’s objective of unlocking
human potential, and is joined by eight
more international partner universities
based at Education City.
HBKU and the branch campuses
offer speciﬁc higher education degrees
that were hand-picked to promote the
objectives underpinning the QNV2030
and include courses in art and design,
medicine, engineering, computer
science and business, international affairs, journalism and communications,
executive education, museum studies,
conservation, and archaeology.
With over 2,500 students enrolled
across the institutions, Qataris are the
largest group making up one-third of
the student body. They are joined by
nearly 90 nationalities that collectively
provide a truly international learning
and knowledge-sharing experience.
Qatar Foundation places an emphasis
on science and research for students
from an early age which prepares young
men and women to become researchers in the ﬁelds of priority for Qatar
and nurtures the next generation of
scientists.
In 2008, the launch of the Qatar
National Vision 2030 as the roadmap to
transforming Qatar into a knowledgebased economy reinforced the importance of Qatar Foundation’s mission.
Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D) leads the science
and research mission across the four
research priority areas determined by
the Qatar National Research Strategy
launched in 2012. The aim of the Strategy is to transform Qatar into a leading
centre for research and development
excellence and innovation, and the four
tracks include Energy and Environment;
Computing and Information Technology; Health; and Social Sciences, Arts
and Humanities.
Through its pillars, QF’s efforts are
fully-aligned with the National Development Strategy for Qatar 2016 that
serves as a framework towards achieving
the goals of the QNV2030 and is a demonstration of commitment to increasing
the well-being of citizens.
QF’s approach to research and
development is unique. A comprehensive cycle of education, research
and commercialisation helps to deliver
economic diversiﬁcation and innovative home-grown technology that will
not only beneﬁt Qatar but the rest of the
world too.
The process begins with the development of students and researchers’ ideas.
These are encouraged through the
Foundation’s home-grown Research
Institutes and other partners, and QF
offers practical support by investing
in people and their ideas, providing
infrastructure, ﬁnancial assistance and
expert guidance.
Qatar National Research Fund
(QNRF), a member of QF R&D, is a
centre tasked with fostering original,
competitively selected research and has
funded over 35 local entities undertaking research and more than 500 research
entities from 50 different countries. It
completed some 236 research projects
in 2014. As part of its work, QNRF has
launched three new programmes to
support young researchers, including
the Qatar Innovation Promotion Award,
which aims to encourage creative ideas
and technologies by innovators who
wish to develop prototypes. In total,
QNRF funds 10 programmes which
cater to researchers.
The ﬁnal stage of the process is
commercialisation which is facilitated
by Qatar Science and Technology Park
(QSTP). As a free-zone, it serves as an
incubator for start-up businesses and
entrepreneurs that encourage companies and institutes from around the
world to develop and commercialise
their solutions in Qatar. Last year, one
corporate research project was commercialised, and three-start-up companies
were established.
QSTP provides exclusive services
through the free zone to companies
undertaking research and development,
with nearly 40 companies of varying
size working inside QSTP.
An example of an SME (small and
medium-sized enterprise) supported by
QSTP is iHorizons which has received
backing in order to enhance Arabic
content on social media sites such as
Twitter. This is an exciting innovation
taking into consideration the lack of
technologies that presently have the
capacity to monitor and analyse Arabic
social media output. While a report by
the Economist Magazine found that
Arabic content at the internet currently
amounts to less than 1% of total material, experts consider that the demand
for Arabic-language digital content
tools is increasing rapidly, especially in
the local IT market.
Another ﬁrm supported by QSTP is
Aman Information Security and Qatar
Navigator, which has developed a highly
sophisticated system to enhance information security in Qatar. This project
provides a comprehensive system which
identiﬁes procedures that companies
need to comply with in order to satisfy
the requirements of the national information security policy.
Elsewhere, in order to support practical research, QSTP has supported the
Green Gulf company which has been
working inside the science park to
develop an experimental institution to
examine solar energy technologies and
identify those most suitable to Qatar
and the Arabian Gulf region.
An important tool in the QF R&D
cycle is the Qatar Science and Leadership Programme. Demonstrating the
importance of education in science
and research, the career-development
programme was launched in 2008 by QF
to support the development of nationals
in the ﬁeld of science and management.
It is also an example of QF’s on-going
commitment to unlocking human
potential.
Alongside Qatar Foundation’s pioneering education and science and research programmes, the organisation is
also committed to building strong, sustainable communities. With initiatives
in art, heritage, literary learning, health,
family development, policy research
and sustainability, the Foundation is
fostering a progressive society, while
enhancing cultural life and protecting
Qatar’s heritage.
An example of this commitment is
Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar’s ‘Sahtak Awalan; Your Health First’.
The ﬁve-year campaign, launched in
2012 in association with the Supreme
Council of Health, aims to educate
members of the community on the
importance of healthy lifestyles, and
lower the risk of obesity, diabetes and
heart disease.
Also within the medical track is Sidra
Medical and Research Centre. Aiming
to set new standards in patient care for
women and children in Qatar, the Gulf
region and internationally, Sidra recently announced its ﬁrst patent application
to the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The application, which is for the ﬁrst
non-invasive technique for monitoring
cancer progression, could potentially
improve treatment methodologies for
patients.
Also demonstrating QF’s commitment to the creation of a healthy and
contented society is Qatar Biobank for
Medical Research. The centre is working alongside the Supreme Council of
Health, Hamad Medical Corporation
and scientists from Imperial College
London to enable vital medical research
on prevalent health issues in Qatar by
collecting samples and information
about the health and lifestyles of large
numbers of Qatar’s population. The results from its two-year pilot stage were
recently released.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
31
QATAR
Land allotted for butchery in Wakrah
Registration opens for
translation conference
T
he Translation and
Interpreting Institute
of Hamad bin Khalifa University, a member
of Qatar Foundation (QF),
has announced that registration is now open for its
sixth annual International
Translation Conference.
The event, scheduled
for March 23 and 24 at the
Qatar National Convention Center, aims to explore
translation as a key vehicle
in the creation of knowledge
and the bridging of gaps
within and across cultures,
in and beyond the Gulf.
Details have been released outlining the workshops, panels, seminars,
and keynote addresses for
the conference. Examining the role of translation in
the Arab ‘Renaissance’ (AlNahda), Dr Daniel Newman,
head of the Arabic Department and course director
of the MA degree in ArabicEnglish Translation and Interpreting at the University
of Durham (UK), will offer a
keynote address.
Conference
attendees
will beneﬁt from a variety
of seminar choices, includ-
ing “Audio Description:
The Visual Made Verbal”,
in which Dr Joel Snyder,
director of the American
Council of the Blind’s Audio Description ProjectADP, will discuss making
theatre events, museum
exhibitions, media, and art
accessible to the visuallyimpaired.
Additionally, four workshops will focus on the
challenges facing translators in the ﬁelds of politics,
sport, literature, and the
media.
From the 58 abstracts the
institute received, 22 panelists were selected and will
be attending from Egypt,
Qatar, Spain, the United
Kingdom, the United Arab
Emirates, Serbia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Sweden, Algeria, Palestine, and
the United States.
Dr Amal al-Malki, executive director of TII,
said: “TII’s Annual International Translation Conference has become a hub
for scholarly exchange and
professional development
and networking. We have
created an international
forum in Doha on translation and interpreting that
cuts along difference disciplines, generating timely
and important discussions
on such issues as intercultural communication,
media, gender.
In order to make the conference accessible to all interested parties, there is no
fee to participate and any
keynote addresses, panels,
workshops, and seminars
are open to the public. Interested individuals can
register at http://tii.qa/
register_now
HEC Paris presents case studies
H
EC Paris School of Management presented two new
case studies on Al Shaqab,
a luxurious equine breeding and
showing facility, and Coastal, a Doha-based company engaged in construction, trading, steel fabrication
and support services.
The business cases were presented in workshops organised by
HEC Paris, bringing to the fore local examples from the business
community.
The presentation on Al Shaqab
was an interactive session with Dr
Anne Michaut, marketing professor at HEC Paris and an expert in
luxury strategies, who wrote the
case with Veronique Nguyen, strategy professor at HEC Paris. The
presentation was conducted by
Prof Michaut in the presence of Fahad al-Qahtani, executive director,
Al Shaqab.
An interactive session at the workshop organised by HEC Paris.
The second presentation also involved an interactive session conducted by HEC Paris Prof Dr Joseph
Nehme, and Dr Laoucine Kerbache,
dean and CEO of HEC Paris in Qatar. The case study, which is about
Coastal’s unique project and total
quality management strategies, was
tested on graduates from the Executive MBA and Strategic Business
Unit Management programmes of
HEC Paris.
Nehme’s presentation highlighted Coastal’s unique project management approach, efficient supply
chain and total quality management
strategies. The presentation was
then followed by group discussions
during which Nehme guided the audience through total quality man-
agement and project management
principles based on best practices.
“These locally developed case
studies enable us to provide up-todate academic content about the
fast-paced developments happening across various business sectors,”
Prof Kerbache said, adding: “It
also allows us to analyse scenarios
and strategies as applied and implemented by actual companies in
Qatar.”
During the discussion on Al
Shaqab, Michaut focused on Al
Shaqab’s unique approach. According to him, Al Shaqab had to move
from the initial development stage
to becoming a fully-ﬂedged business in the equine industry and
beyond. The case study workshop
also aimed at assessing the unique
assets developed at Al Shaqab and
proposed to creatively think about
potential revenue streams.
The Ministry of
Municipality and Urban
Planning (MMUP) has
allotted a 10,000sqm land
in Al Wakrah for setting
up a traditional butchery,
local daily Arrayah has
reported.
It is likely to open before
Ramadan, the daily quoted
Abdul Rahman Hamad
al-Kaabi, CEO, Widam Food
Co, as saying.
He said that owing to
a steep rise in the local
population in Al Wakrah,
a traditional butchery has
become necessary in the
municipal town.
The town and its
surroundings have started
attracting more residents
for quite some time owing
to such developments as
the Hamad International
Airport (HIA) and
upcoming New Doha
Port on the southern side
of Wakrah. “Besides the
residents of Mesaieed also
stand to be benefited if a
butchery comes up in the
area,” he said.
Al-Kaabi said Widam
has formed a technical
committee to work on the
proposal.
“We will ensure that
modern and innovative
equipment are put in
place in the proposed
butchery,” he said,
adding: “The butchery
will also have a veterinary
doctor, accounts office,
and a waiting hall to
accommodate nearly
100 people besides such
mandatory facilities as
stockyards, fodder stores
and car parking areas.”
32
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
QATAR
Coming face-to-face with dugongs
A large group of dugongs
sighted off Qatar coast during
survey field mission
E
xxonMobil Research Qatar
(EMRQ) and the General
Directorate of Natural Reserves Private Engineering Office
have completed a one-day ﬁeld
mission to locate live dugongs off
the west coast of Qatar, as part of
ongoing data collection efforts to
better understand the distribution, abundance and behaviour
of the Qatar dugong population.
These efforts fall under a triparty agreement signed in 2014
by ExxonMobil Research Qatar,
Qatar University and Texas A&M
University Galveston, with inkind support from the General
Directorate of Natural Reserves
- Private Engineering Office and
the Ministry of Environment.
The ﬁeld mission earlier last
month, resulted in video and
photographic
documentation
of the dugongs as they travelled
and fed in the area, and is the ﬁrst
time that live animals have been
documented as part of current
research efforts.
Dr Jennifer Dupont, Research
Director at EMRQ, spoke about
the mission, saying “It is very
exciting for us as scientists and
marine biologists to come faceto-face with these fascinating
creatures, and to study their behaviour so closely. We are extremely pleased with the data
we have collected from our research on dugongs so far, and will
continue to make every effort to
ensure that this rare species is
protected in its natural habitat,
in collaboration with Qatar University and Texas A&M University Galveston, and with the support of the General Directorate of
Natural Reserves - Private Engineering Office and the Ministry
of Environment.”
The large group of dugongs
sighted off the coast included
approximately 300-500 individuals, many of them mothers
and calves. Behavioural studies from the Australian dugong
population indicate that mothers are highly interactive with
their calves, remaining in close
contact with them as they move
through the water. A calf is
weaned from its mother after 18
months, and will usually remain
by her side until the next calf is
born. These behaviours, along
with dugong’s affinity for grouping together, indicate that dugongs are very social animals, and
they have often been observed to
communicate with one another
by way of whistles, barks and
chirps.
Dugongs are long-lived, herbivorous marine mammals that
can grow to almost 3m in length
and reach over 70 years old. Approximately 6,000 individual
dugongs are estimated in the
Arabian Gulf, making it the second largest population in the
world, apart from Australia. Qatar is home to two out of at least
three important habitats for
dugongs in the Arabian Gulf, and
is therefore strategically positioned within this iconic species’
range and critical to its survival.
Modern-day threats to the
species, which is listed as Vulnerable to Extinction under
the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature, include
natural events such as cold stress
and harmful algal blooms, along
with human threats such as ﬁshing and bycatch, vessel strikes,
and coastal development leading
to habitat destruction.
To date, more than 14 stranded
(dead) animals have been reported under the project, indicating
that the population is experiencing real threats in Qatari waters.
Subsequently, future work will
focus on collecting data to inform management efforts centred on the protection of this
iconic marine mammal species.
EMRQ opened its facility at Qatar Science & Technology Park in
2009 to conduct research in areas
of common interest to the State of
Qatar and ExxonMobil. Scientists
and researchers at EMRQ continue to advance projects in the areas
of environmental management,
water re-use, LNG safety and
coastal geology.
Through the work conducted
at EMRQ, ExxonMobil develops
technology to bring energy to life
in Qatar and around the world.
EMRQ exempliﬁes how ExxonMobil is contributing to the Qatar National Vision 2030 by supporting research, safety, health
and the environment.
Dugongs sighted during the field mission.
Registration for livestock
festival Halal Qatar starts
R
egistration for the fourth
edition of Qatar’s traditional livestock festival, Halal
Qatar, starts today at Katara, the
Cultural Village Foundation.
The registration process will
be open for participants until
February 15 at Katara Building
15. Registration for the festival
could be made through various means including: Phone 44080770, Fax - 44080771, SMS
to 33595928, or e-mail: [email protected]
Applicants should state their
full name, Qatar ID number, and
the targeted category of the festival. Alternatively, registration
could be made directly at Katara
from 8am-12noon and 3-8pm on
weekdays (except Fridays).
The festival will be held at Katara from February 28-March 9.
It will be featured at the southeastern part of Katara on an area
of 20,000sq m. The festival includes four main competitions:
sheep and goat barns, most
beautiful sheep or goat, auction
on a select number of sheep and
goats of excellent breed, which
will be held daily in the afternoon throughout the duration
of the festival, and the forum of
livestock owners and breeders,
where they will exchange their
experience on related issues.
Besides, the festival will feature a number of activities aimed
at entertaining visitors and in-
troduce them to the traditional
Qatari and GCC way of life in the
past, in particular before the exploration of oil.
Visitors will be able to witness traditional handicrafts, folk
games, folk songs and music, taste
original Qatari dishes and watch
closely miniature barns. Shepherds will be at hand to answer
visitor’s questions on related issues and a veterinarian will explain
issues related to raising livestock.
Children, in particular, will be
able to enjoy a myriad of activities designed to get them involved
in the festival. Such activities
include camel and horse riding,
family-oriented entertainment
and educational activities.
TFQ gets over 170
applications for
fellowship so far
By Joseph Varghese
Staff Reporter
T
each For Qatar (TFQ) has received more than 170 applications for the second cohort of its
fellowship within two months of the
opening of applications, a signiﬁcant
increase compared to last year.
Founded by HE Sheikha Hind bint
Hamad al-Thani, TFQ is a local nongovernmental organisation working to
be part of the solution to the challenges
faced by students in Qatar.
With applications for the 2015-2017
Fellowship closing by early April, TFQ
aims to promote its two-year leadership
development and teaching programme
through ongoing university roadshows.
Mohamed Fakhroo, CEO of TFQ, said
that there will be more openings for
fellowship this year. “Last year we recruited 12 fellows and they are engaged
in nine independent schools. We have
already signed agreement with 11 independent schools. We hope to recruit
about 30- 35 more fellows this year and
we will also sign agreement with more
independent schools as there is a great
feedback from the schools about the
quality of teaching by the fellows.
“The ﬁrst two months of recruitment for the second cohort have been
a wonderful success,” said al-Anoud
Darwish, chief development officer of
TFQ. “We have witnessed increasing
interest in our fellowship by graduates
and young professionals seeking to give
back to Qatar, and we hope to see this
momentum build until the closing of
applications at the beginning of April.”
TFQ recently hosted its ﬁrst ‘Assessment Day’ of the year at Qatargas,
where shortlisted applicants participated in a day comprising several activities, exercises and quizzes that evaluate their abilities, skills and knowledge.
Nearly 40% of the applicants who have
made it through to the ﬁnal selection
stage are Qataris and make up the largest demographic attending TFQ ‘Assessment Day’.
More than 11 ‘Assessment Days’ are
scheduled for the next two months
to meet the high demand for the programme this year. ‘Assessment day’ is
a unique experience that gives candidates the opportunity to network with
their peers and TFQ staff in an interactive atmosphere.
Successful ‘Assessment Day’ participants will go on to receive intensive
training at the Summer Institute, which
begins in June, before embarking on
their fellowship journey at one of Doha’s independent schools in September.
“Upon placement in one of our partner independent schools, TFQ fellows
will receive continues training and support from their individual programme
managers, as well as the TFQ team,”
said Noor al-Khater, head of Training
and Support at TFQ.
TFQ’s CEO Mohamed Fakhroo
TFQ Recruitment Poster
The TFQ fellowship is designed to positively impact students in Qatar, and by working
with its partner schools it has
identiﬁed English, mathematics and science as high priority
subjects. The second cohort of
fellows, like the ﬁrst, will teach
these subjects to 7th and 8th
grade students.
The TFQ model is guided by
the successes of Teach For All, an
international network supporting organisations in 35 countries.
PRICE BURDEN | Page 5
QE OBJECTIVE | Page 16
Panasonic
stops making
TVs in China
Consumer price
fall in eurozone
risks deflation
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Rabia II 12, 1436 AH
SUSTAINABLE BRILLIANCE: Page 2
GULF TIMES
BUSINESS
Oryx GTL first in
Middle East to win
‘EFQM Committed
to Excellence’
distinction
Qatar extends UK buying spree
with Canary Wharf, IAG deals
Bloomberg
London
A
fter a pause in dealmaking, Qatar is back, and the world’s richest country per capita has once
again picked the UK as the top destination to deploy its billions.
A Qatari-led group succeeded in
buying London’s Canary Wharf on
Friday, ending a battle for control of
the ﬁnancial district that began in November. Qatar Airways, meanwhile,
announced that it bought 9.99% of
British Airways parent IAG for £1.15bn
($1.7bn).
One twist this time around: While
most of Qatar’s stakes have been
purely ﬁnancial investments, the IAG
purchase is driven by corporate operational strategy.
“Qatar has a diversiﬁed portfolio
that is focused on generating economic
returns and the UK has been a key part
of that strategy,” Rachel Ziemba, a director at Roubini Global Economics in
London, said in an interview on Friday.
Qatari entities have announced
$35.1bn of investments globally in the
past three years, with almost a third of
that money directed at UK assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The country’s strong regulatory
regime makes it a favoured destination
for the wealth of Qatar and fellow Gulf
countries Kuwait and the UAE.
After acquiring stakes in British companies such as Barclays and
J Sainsbury from 2008-2012, investors from Qatar did only one major
deal in the UK in 2013. A year ago, the
then-head of the country’s sovereign
wealth fund, which controls more than
$100bn of assets, signalled the pace of
deals would pick up again.
Qatar began following through on
that pledge last year, buying HSBC
Holdings’ headquarters and a 50%
stake in London’s Savoy Hotel.
The country also is diversifying outside of real estate and ﬁnance. Qatari
ﬁrm Al Mirqab Capital agreed to buy
Heritage Oil for about £1bn.
In 2012, the country’s sovereign
fund bought a 20% stake in BA’s London Heathrow hub and the recent IAG
stake purchase will give the country’s
airlines better access to the Americas
and traffic ﬂows through its expanded
airport in Doha.
“The UK is a sizeable part of their
portfolio and it’s natural that in any
portfolio, large, long-term investors,
would look at opportunities to diversify,” Ziemba said.
File photo dated 22
December 2014 shows an
Airbus A350 XWB taking
off during a delivery
ceremony to Qatar
Airways in Colomiers,
Southern France. Qatar’s
sovereign fund bought
a 20% stake in BA’s
London Heathrow hub
and the recent IAG stake
purchase will give Qatar
Airways better access to
the Americas and traffic
flows through its
expanded airport in
Doha.
2
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
BUSINESS
Oryx GTL is ﬁrst in
Mideast to get ‘EFQM
Excellence’ honour
O
ryx GTL, the pioneering Qatari gas-to-liquids company,
has become the ﬁrst energy
enterprise in the Middle East to receive the “Committed to Excellence”
distinction from the European Foundation for Quality Management
(EFQM), a Brussels-based non-proﬁt
organisation helping leading companies achieve sustainable excellence.
Various departments at the Oryx
GTL collaborated closely with the
company’s Quality Department to
achieve the deliverables for the award,
which represents the initial stage of
the recognition of organisational excellence in the world’s best performing companies, the company said in
statement.
Among the activities undertaken
at Oryx GTL were the completion of
a range of challenging projects, approved assessments and interviews,
the establishment and maintenance
of proper business processes and the
running of process management improvement strategies.
On being honoured Oryx GTL
CEO Abdulrahman al-Suwaidi said,
“Achieving operational excellence
is vital not only for the company’s
ﬁnancial health but also as part of
long-term business strategy, which
is aligned with the Qatar National Vision 2030. It is therefore our obligation to put in place policies and procedures to continually improve the
way our company operates, and we
are delighted that our efforts in this
regard have been recognised by EFQM
and that once again Oryx GTL is taking the lead among regional energy
companies.”
Al-Jaidah receiving the ISO 9001:2008 certification from Rashid.
Qatar Cool wins
ISO certification
Various departments at the Oryx GTL collaborated closely with its Quality Department to achieve the deliverables for
“Committed to Excellence” distinction from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).
Mohamed al-Enazi, quality manager at Oryx GTL said “we are delighted to receive this accreditation,
which recognises our efforts to maintaining excellence across the company. Excellence is a journey for the
entire organisation and Oryx GTL is
striving to drive that journey.”
The EFQM Excellence scheme, culminating in the latest excellence ac-
creditation won by Oryx GTL, is considered one of the highest forms of
organisational recognition, because
it is judged by a validation committee. During the assessment Oryx GTL
was evaluated for its internal process
management systems, its corporate
social responsibility and roles and accountabilities segregation projects.
The EFQM Excellence approach
is applied at more than 500 top performing international organisations
such as BMW, BOSCH and Siemens,
and represents the framework for
many international quality awards.
EFQM accreditation is valid for two
years, and Oryx GTL is planning to
pursue a “Recognised for Excellence”
accreditation as part of its sustainable
excellence strategy.
Qatar District Cooling Company
(Qatar Cool) was recently
certified by the International
Standards Organisation (ISO) for
the quality management system
(ISO 9001:2008) from the British
Standards Institution (BSI) in Qatar.
The standard is based on a number
of quality management principles,
including a “strong customer focus,
motivation and implication of top
management, process approach, and
continual improvement.”
Qatar Cool CEO Yasser Salah alJaidah said, “Using ISO 9001:2008
has helped Qatar Cool ensure that
customers get “consistent, good
quality services.
“Receiving the ISO 9001:2008
certification is a great milestone.
We invested a great deal of effort in
perfecting our internal processes
to be able to offer the best value
in all our dealings with different
stakeholders. The certification is yet
another testament to our commitment
to quality in everything we do.” The
ISO 9001 certification is a continuous
process that requires commitment
from certified entities in order to
maintain certification status. Strict
measurement and auditing criteria
are put in place by ISO to ensure that
all certified companies adhere to the
quality standards set forth by the
organisation. As such, each certified
entity is required to renew its status
through a yearly ISO audit.
BSI general manager Omar Rashid
added, “I applaud Qatar Cool
for leading by example. Their
commitment to achieve compliance
with this international standard is
a great milestone for the company.
Standards drive learning, which, in
turn, fuel creativity and allow for
benchmarking and comparison.
Being part of the ISO society is
an assurance to all stakeholders
of Qatar Cool’s commitment to
pursuing operational excellence at
all levels.”
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
3
BUSINESS
Barwa Bank wins 3
honours from Banker
Middle East Awards
B
arwa Bank has won the “Best Web/
Mobile Site,” “Best Premium Islamic Card,” and “Best Credit Card”
awards during the recently held Banker
Middle East Product Awards 2014.
Barwa Bank acting CEO Khalid alSubaei received the awards from CPI Financial on January 18 at the bank’s headquarters.
“We are delighted to be recognised by
Banker Product Awards for the Middle
East 2014, which has a long-established
reputation for quality and excellence.
Barwa Bank has also been able to merge
Shariah-compliant services with the
requirements of modernity and this has
positioned it as a leading brand in the
Islamic banking sector in Qatar and the
region. These awards pay tribute to the
hard work of the entire team,” Barwa
Bank said in a statement.
This is the seventh awards ceremony
held by CPI Financial, publishers of
Banker Middle East, to recognise banking products and services that are either
“exceptionally innovative” or have generated “excellent ﬁnancial results and
growth” in market share. The awards
were based on a peer-vote process.
“We are always working tirelessly to
provide well-tailored services and give
our customers a new Shariah-compliant
experience, one that provides innovative
products and ﬁrst-class services, while
at the same time being aligned with our
customers’ ethical beliefs. We are the
only bank in Qatar offering an Islamic
Premium credit card, a good example of
how we are delivering on our vision. We
have also recently intensiﬁed efforts in
digital banking, updating our web services and mobile application to best suit
customers’ needs,” the statement added.
RBS exiting
debt, DCM
business in
Middle East
and Africa
Bloomberg
Dubai
R
Barwa Bank officials with the latest Banker Middle East Product Awards 2014.
Barwa Bank’s Platinum Visa is Qatar’s
ﬁrst Shariah-compliant credit card that
offers Barwa Bank Loyalty Points that
can be converted to Ooredoo’s Nojoom
points, Qatar Airways’ Qmiles, discounts
from select retailers, and other beneﬁts. The fee-based credit card has been
carefully-developed with Islamic ﬁnan-
cial expertise to ensure that the product
complies with the guidelines of Shariah
ﬁnance.
Meanwhile, Barwa Bank has also recently announced the launch of its new
state-of-art mobile banking application,
as part of its continuous efforts to improve customer experience and service.
The application is designed to provide
customers with seamless connectivity anytime, anywhere, and gives them
access to their accounts to check balances, view transactions, make credit
card phone and utility bill payments, and
transfer funds instantly at their convenience.
oyal Bank of Scotland
Group, the UK’s largest
taxpayer-owned lender,
is exiting its corporate loans
and debt capital markets (DCM)
business in the Middle East and
Africa.
The move is part of chief executive officer Ross McEwan’s decision last February to make RBS
a smaller, more focused bank,
an RBS spokeswoman said in an
e-mailed response to questions
from Bloomberg News, without
giving more information.
McEwan, 57, has been cutting back investment-banking
operations and focusing on domestic customers to reverse six
straight years of losses. Jacco
Keijzer, RBS’s head of debt capital markets for the Middle East
and Africa based in Dubai, left
the lender earlier this month,
the spokeswoman said.
The lender’s loan book, which
runs into several billions of dollars, has been broken up and
is being offered in parts after a
sale as a whole elicited no response, according to two people with knowledge of the offer,
who asked not to be identiﬁed
because the information is private. The bank said in August
Royal Bank of Scotland’s move
to exit its corporate loans and
debt capital markets (DCM)
business in the Middle East and
Africa is part of chief executive
officer Ross McEwan’s decision
last February to make RBS a
smaller, more focused bank.
that it was considering selling the international arm of its
Coutts private bank to focus on
wealthy UK clients. Other UKbased banks have also pulled out
of the region. Barclays agreed to
sell its retail banking business in
the UAE in April to Abu Dhabi
Islamic Bank for 650mn dirhams
($177mn). Lloyds Banking Group
sold its consumer and commercial-banking business in the UAE
to HSBC Holdings for $769mn
in 2012, while RBS itself sold its
retail banking business to Abu
Dhabi Commercial Bank in 2010.
RBS is one of the biggest lenders to state-owned Dubai World,
which roiled global markets in
2009 by announcing plans to
freeze payments on about $26bn
of debt.
4
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
BUSINESS
Lavish payout to lift Saudi economy, markets
Reuters
Dubai
A
lavish payout to public employees ordered by Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman will
help to sustain the kingdom’s consumer boom and reassure ﬁnancial
markets that the government is not
slashing expenditure in the face of low
oil prices.
On Thursday, Salman ordered the
immediate payment of two months
of bonus salary to all state employees
and pension to retired government
workers, in a string of decrees which
also reorganised the economic policymaking apparatus.
The announcement did not give a
monetary ﬁgure, but Saudi Arabia’s
860bn riyal ($229bn) state budget
plan for 2015 said salaries, wages and
allowances would comprise 50% of
total spending.
That implies the new payout, announced a week after Salman succeeded his brother Abdullah as king,
will be worth up to around 70bn riy-
als—about 8% of the original budget,
or 2.5% of last year’s gross domestic
product.
Other beneﬁts announced by Salman will increase spending further.
He ordered payments to students,
grants to professional associations
and sports and literary clubs around
the country, and 20bn riyals in spending to improve electricity and water
services, though it was not clear if the
utility spending was part of a previously announced plan.
A Reuters poll of economists earlier in January found them predicting
GDP growth of 3.2% this year, down
from 3.6% in 2014, on the grounds
that the plunge in oil prices would
cause the kingdom to slow some energy and petrochemical investments
and make the government more cautious about spending in general.
Salman’s announcement on Thursday suggested the government remained willing to spend heavily despite the hit to its oil revenues from
low prices, and that GDP growth this
year might therefore be higher than
originally expected.
“I believe it will be growth-supportive—especially on the consumption side,” said Monica Malik, chief
economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial
Bank.
Saudi retail industry shares such
as Jarir Marketing, United Electronics and Fawaz Alhokair play on the
kingdom’s fast-growing private consumption, may beneﬁt.
Salman’s announcement appeared
to take a step back from a pledge in the
2015 budget, which was announced in
December when he was already overseeing economic policy, to “rationalise” spending on public salaries.
The 2015 budget plan projected a
deﬁcit of 145bn riyals; the actual deﬁcit now looks likely to be much larger,
but with government reserves at the
central bank totalling some 900bn
riyals, Riyadh can easily cover such
shortfalls for now.
Salman may intend to recoup some
of the costs of his handout through
economic and bureaucratic reforms.
Thursday’s decrees kept the identity of key economic ministers unchanged, suggesting to many observ-
ers that major, politically sensitive
reforms—such as cutting energy subsidies, or large tax shifts—are not on
the cards for now.
“With the oil, economic and ﬁnance portfolios remaining steady, I
do not expect to see wider change in
policy,” said Malik.
But Salman replaced many other
ministers including telecommunications, agriculture and the civil service, suggesting he may seek changes
in the way those ministries operate.
Economy minister Muhammad alJasser said last week that the next reform drive should focus on efficient
administration.
Salman appeared to be seeking
bureaucratic efficiency on Thursday
when he abolished 12 committees and
councils, creating a new Council of
Economic and Development Affairs to
substitute for some of them.
The new council, chaired by Salman’s son Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, who is only 34, may give the
king a platform to push controversial
economic reforms in the future if he
wishes.
Burger King Turkey franchise said
to pick Moelis & Co for stake sale
The owners of Burger King Worldwide Inc’s biggest franchiser outside the US are working with Moelis & Co as they
consider selling a stake in the company, two people with
knowledge of the matter said.
The two major shareholders, Turkey’s Kurdoglu and Urundul
families, plan to sell a minority stake in Istanbul-based TAB
Gida Sanayi & Ticaret AS to investors this year, said the
people, who asked not to be named because the matter is
confidential.
The company runs around 800 Burger King restaurants
in Turkey as well as franchises of the Arby’s, Popeyes and
Sbarro brands, according to its website.
Representatives for Tab Gida didn’t respond to e-mailed
requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Moelis declined
to comment.
Borsa
Istanbul
is said in
stake sale
talks with
Silver Lake,
Warburg
Bloomberg
New York/London
T
urkey’s stock exchange is in talks to sell a minority
stake to investors including Silver Lake Management
and Warburg Pincus as it prepares for an initial public
offering next year, people familiar with the matter said.
The stake sale may value Borsa Istanbul at about $1bn,
the people said, asking not to be identiﬁed discussing private information. The exchange is looking for investors that
can provide technology and expertise to help it go public by
2016, one of the people said.
Formed in 2013 in a restructuring that brought Turkey’s equity, debt, derivatives and precious metal markets
under one roof, Borsa Istanbul sold a 5% stake to Nasdaq
OMX Group Inc the same year. The exchange, which is in
the process of upgrading its software to facilitate high-frequency trading, decided to sell about one third of its shares
in a private placement before proceeding with an IPO, chief
executive officer Ibrahim Turhan said in an interview last
month.
Companies often sell a minority stake ahead of an IPO to
establish a market value and to lure other investors.
“We want to make sure that our IPO deal is sponsored
strongly by respected names,” Turhan said in the interview.
He declined to identify bidders for the stake.
Spokesmen for the exchange, Silver Lake and Warburg
Pincus declined to comment.
The Turkish national flag,
and the Borsa Istanbul
flag hang inside the stock
exchange in Istanbul.
Formed in 2013 in a
restructuring that
brought Turkey’s equity,
debt, derivatives and
precious metal markets
under one roof, Borsa
Istanbul sold a 5% stake
to Nasdaq OMX Group
Inc the same year.
The Kingdom Tower stands illuminated at night on King Fahad Road in Riyadh (file).
A lavish payout to public employees ordered by Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman
suggests the government remains willing to spend heavily despite the hit to its oil
revenues from low prices, and that GDP growth this year might therefore be higher
than originally expected.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
5
BUSINESS
Panasonic exits China TV
production on price war
Reuters
Tokyo
P
anasonic Corp has stopped
making TVs in China and plans
to liquidate its joint venture in
Shandong, a company source said
yesterday, the latest in a string of
Japanese electronics companies exiting overseas TV markets amid strong
pricing pressure.
The source, who did not want to be
identiﬁed because the move had not
yet been announced to the roughly
300 workers at the Shandong plant,
said Panasonic ended production
there on Friday.
The Nikkei earlier reported that
Panasonic would withdraw from TV
production in China and MexiCo.
The report said the company was
expected to sell the Mexican plant,
which has produced about 500,000
units a year, most of which were
shipped to the US.
Reuters could not conﬁrm the company’s plans to exit MexiCo. It currently has two plants in that country,
part of the company’s nine TV manufacturing plants, excluding Shandong.
A ﬁerce price war has made the global
TV market unproﬁtable for many Japanese electronics makers. Panasonic
said in late October it was transferring
its unproﬁtable Sanyo television unit
in the US, which supplies sets to WalMart Stores, to Funai Electric in return
for royalties.
Toshiba Corp said on Thursday
that it would stop making and sell-
Panasonic yesterday said it has stopped making TVs in China and plans to liquidate its joint venture in Shandong, the latest in a string of Japanese electronics
companies exiting overseas TV markets.
ing TVs in North America and was
considering similar exits from other
countries. Sharp Corp has licensed
its TV brand in Europe to Universal
Media Corp Slovakia as part of an effort to trim costs and pull back from
loss-making operations. Sony Corp
has spun off its struggling TV business into a separate entity, although
Alibaba founder meets regulator
AFP
Beijing
A
libaba founder Jack Ma has
met with the head of a powerful Chinese regulator,
days after authorities accused the
e-commerce giant of allowing “illegal” actions on its multi-billiondollar online shopping platform.
The meeting on Friday between
Ma and State Administration for
Industry and Commerce (SAIC)
director Zhang Mao may signal a
de-escalation of the dispute, which
saw the regulator deliver an unprecedented public dressing-down of
the prominent Chinese ﬁrm.
“We have always been committed to combating fake products and
have devoted our efforts to solving this difficult problem,” Ma said
during the meeting, according to a
statement posted on SAIC’s website
late Friday.
Ma pledged that Alibaba would
“actively cooperate with the government” to address the issue, according to the statement, which
added that both sides agreed to
work together to “promote the
healthy and orderly development”
of e-commerce in China.
The meeting came after the
SAIC, which is charged with maintaining market order in China, said
in an official report on Wednesday
that Alibaba’s platforms had hosted “long-standing” violations of
Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma looks back at a giant electronic screen showing real-time sales figures of
the company’s Taobao.com and Tmall.com at the company headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Ma
yesterday met the head of a powerful Chinese regulator days after authorities accused the e-commerce giant of
allowing ‘illegal’ actions on its multi-billion-dollar online shopping platform.
online business laws and regulations.
It took aim at Taobao, Alibaba’s
consumer-to-consumer platform
which is estimated to hold more
than 90% of the Chinese market, and Tmall.com, believed to
command over half the market in
China for business-to-consumer
transactions.
A SAIC survey published last
week on Taobao that found only
about a third of products sampled to
be genuine.
“Alibaba has not paid enough attention to illegal operations on its
online trading platforms or taken
effective measures to tackle them...
placing itself in the biggest credibility crisis since its establish-
ment,” the SAIC said. The SAIC has
become known for its crackdowns
on foreign companies accused of
violating China’s anti-monopoly
law, but it is rare for the regulator
to deliver harsh public criticism of a
domestic ﬁrm.
Alibaba hit back on Thursday,
with vice chairman Joe Tsai dismissing the allegations as “unfair”.
India’s fiscal
deficit exceeds
budget estimate
The Indian government’s
fiscal deficit has exceeded
the budget estimate within
the first nine months of the
current fiscal, data showed
at a time it has recovered
ground by earning over
Rs220,000mn from
disinvestment in Coal
India.
Latest data by the
Controller General of
Accounts shows that
deficit during AprilDecember period was
over Rs5,320,000mn
as against the annual
budget estimate of
Rs5,310,000mn. Crossing
100% of the estimate
in the first nine months
compares with the
figure of 95.2% during
corresponding period of
the previous fiscal.
On the revenue side,
data showed that net
tax revenue was 55.8%
of the budget estimate
as against 58.6% during
corresponding period of
2013-14.
CEO Kazuo Hirai has said the company does not plan to sell or shut down
the unit.
Minsheng
Bank head
steps down
Reuters
Beijing
China Minsheng Banking Corp said
yesterday that its president Mao
Xiaofeng had resigned for personal
reasons, hours after several Chinese
media outlets reported he was being
investigated by China’s anti-corruption
watchdog.
The reports said Mao had been taken
away earlier this week by the Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection
(CCDI), the ruling Communist Party’s
top anti-corruption body, to “assist with
investigations”.
Minsheng, the country’s biggest private
lender, posted a statement on its website
saying it was aware of the reports
concerning Mao and noted that the issue
highlighted in the reports concerned
Mao’s personal affairs and was not
affecting the bank’s operations.
It later filed notice of Mao’s resignation
with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Reuters was unable to contact Mao.
Minsheng’s earlier statement did not
confirm that Mao had been taken
into custody by CCDI nor whether
he was facing an investigation from
the corruption watchdog, and when
asked for further comment a bank
spokesman referred only to the
statement.
According to the state-run People’s
Daily, Minsheng on Friday sent an
internal notice to its branch employees
and others, telling them to be ready to
“respond to possible emergency” over
the weekend. According to a person
close to Minsheng, the bank’s board
of directors was supposed to meet
on Saturday for what the individual
described as an “important matter”.
14
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
BUSINESS
Rosneft risks losing spot as most valuable Russian oil company
Bloomberg
Moscow
OAO Rosneft, the state-controlled giant
built by Vladimir Putin’s long-time
associate, Igor Sechin, can’t be sure of
being the country’s most valuable oil
company anymore.
OAO Lukoil, run by billionaire
Spark shares
surge in IPO
Bloomberg
New York
S
park Therapeutics hit a
$1.2bn valuation on the biotechnology ﬁrm’s ﬁrst day
on the market, reﬂecting growing
investor enthusiasm for the oncebeleaguered ﬁeld of gene therapy,
a ﬁeld that has produced the ﬁrst
$1mn drug.
Shares of Spark jumped to
close at $50 in New York on Friday after pricing at $23, becoming the latest stock to beneﬁt
from the industry’s growing momentum. Shares of Bluebird Bio
have risen ﬁvefold since a June
2013 IPO, while Avalanche Biotechnologies Inc shares climbed
from $17 at its stock-market
debut in July to $60 in January,
when the company announced a
secondary offering.
The seven-ﬁgure price tag for
a treatment by UniQure BV for
an ultra-rare genetic disease is
fueling optimism in a ﬁeld that
has endured a two-decade roller-coaster ride of promise and
frustration. Such high prices
may be able to take hold for gene
therapies with little competition
among the ﬁrst drugmakers to
get approval for the treatments.
Insurers may have a difficult
time resisting the cost of medicines that cure patients with
chronic diseases. That makes
the therapies different from
drugs for diseases like hepatitis
C, where competition is ﬁerce.
“The therapies that experience
pricing pressure will be those that
are not signiﬁcantly differentiated from competing therapies or
offer only marginal clinical beneﬁt,” said Michael Gregory, MD at
Highland Capital Management.
executives Vagit Alekperov and Leonid
Fedun, had a bigger market value this
week for the first time since 2006.
Although Rosneft has now edged back
ahead - $34.5bn versus $33.7bn – the
near parity is striking given Rosneft
produces more than twice as much oil
and gas.
Sechin, who served Putin as a deputy
prime minister, borrowed to finance
the $55bn takeover of competitor TNKBP in 2013. While the company now
pumps about 5% of the world’s crude,
more than 4mn barrels a day, the
crash in prices mixed with sanctions
that limit its ability to refinance, has
investors worried.
“Unlike Lukoil, Rosneft has overindulged in borrowing, growing mostly
by swallowing competitors,” Oleg
Popov, a money manager at April
Capital Asset Management in Moscow,
said by phone. “Given the sanctions,
Rosneft’s debt is an anchor dragging
the company down.” Lukoil had about
$10bn of net debt as of September
30, while Rosneft had $45bn, making
it more indebted relative to earnings
than any large oil producer apart from
Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA.
While Rosneft rose 1.2% to 229.35
rubles in Moscow on Friday, its shares
have dropped 6.8% over the last year.
Lukoil has gained 25% in the same
period. “The market is not an indicator
since long ago,” Rosneft spokesman
Mikhail Leontyev said by phone. “The
company is under the toughest
political pressure, and in fact it isn’t
clear for what, and speculators are
exploiting this factor.” Rosneft’s fair
value is at least $150bn if its assets
are valued based on deals recently
signed with strategic partners,
Leontyev said.
In November, Rosneft agreed to sell
10% of Russia’s second-largest oil
project in East Siberia to China National
Petroleum Corp Lukoil declined to
comment.
Shake Shack nears Facebook
price-to-sales ratio after IPO
Bloomberg
New York
A
fter more than doubling in its
trading debut, Shake Shack is being valued almost as highly as Facebook by at least one measure.
Shake Shack shares have a price-tosales ratio of about 15.6, just shy of Facebook’s 16.1 and topping all but ﬁve
companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500
Index. Vertex Pharmaceuticals leads the
index with a ratio of about 45.9.
The strong IPO is an indication of
shifting attitudes toward fast food, particularly among younger diners, chief
executive officer Randy Garutti said.
Shake Shack’s debut comes two days
after a CEO change at McDonald’s Corp,
which is mired in its worst US sales
slump in more than a decade.
“My kids will grow up in a generation
of people who isn’t going to see fast food
the way it’s been seen over the last few
decades, and those people generally want
to go to a place like Shake Shack,” Garutti
said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu. “We’ve helped deﬁne
that, and we’re going to be out in front of
that as we go.”
Shake Shack, founded by restaurateur Danny Meyer, had revenue of
about $83.8mn this year in the 39 weeks
through September 24. Another quarter of sales at that pace would give the
company $111.7mn in revenue for the full
year. The restaurant chain had a market
value of about $1.74bn as of 2:54 p.m. in
New York after the shares surged on the
ﬁrst day of trading. The company also
has an enterprise-to-sales ratio of about
15.4, which would be in the top 20 in the
S&P 500, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.
Shake Shack’s road to becoming a
stock-market darling began modestly.
It opened in 2001 as a hot-dog kiosk to
help support the restoration of Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. The ﬁrst ofﬁcial Shake Shack was born three years
later, and it wasn’t until 2008 that the
company started expanding. It now has
63 stores from Chicago to Dubai that sell
burgers, fries and frozen custard.
Shares of the burger chain more than
doubled to $48.91 in New York. Shake
Shack, trading under the ticker SHAK,
sold 5mn shares for $21 apiece as part
of the IPO, according to a statement on
Thursday, after offering them for $17 to
$19 each.
Shake Shack plans to open 10 new
company-operated stores each year in
the US starting in 2015. Part of its proceeds will be used toward expansion and
renovating existing stores. Shake Shack
also plans to use the money to make a
payment to Meyer and early backers
such as Leonard Green & Partners LP, as
well as to repay debt.
Meyer, 56, is credited with founding
some of New York’s most prestigious eateries, including Gramercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park, and Union Square Cafe,
which he opened three decades ago. Born
and raised in St. Louis, he serves as chairman of Shake Shack. His ﬁrm, Union
Square Hospitality Group, also operates
a catering business and hospitality-consulting services. The company is offering a dual-class share structure, with the
Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer celebrates his company’s IPO on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.
Shares of the gourmet hamburger chain soared 150% in their first few minutes of trading on Friday.
Class A stock issued in the IPO representing 44.5% of the economic stake and
14.1% of voting power.
Current stockholders will own,
through Class A stock, 55.5% of economic interest and 17.6% of voting.
The Class B shares held by those investors will account for the remaining 68.3% of voting power. JPMorgan
Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley managed the offering.
Shake Shack is proﬁtable, though its
global expansion has weighed on earnings. It posted $3.55mn in net income
in the 39 weeks to September 24, down
20% from the same period of 2013.
Revenue jumped 41% in that time,
boosted by consumers turning away
from traditional fast food. “We really
think that Shake Shack is at the beginning of a whole new category called ﬁne
casual,” he said in the Bloomberg TV
interview. “We have a team of a people
who can take the systems that fast casual
knows and apply them to the choices and
priorities that we’ve always made in ﬁne
dining.”
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
15
BUSINESS
T
he Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE)
Index gained 200.77 points, or
1.72% during the week, to close at
11,899.63. Market capitalisation rose by
1.73% to reach QR648.8bn compared
to QR637.7bn at the end of the previous week. Of the 43 listed companies,
25 companies ended the week higher,
while 17 fell and 1 remained unchanged.
Qatar Cinema & Film Distribution Co
(QCFS) was the best performing stock
for the week, with a gain of 8.98% on
only 1,426 shares traded; the stock is
down 0.68% year-to-date (YTD). On
the other hand, Doha Insurance (DOHI)
was the worst performing, with a decline of 6.30% on 0.1mn shares traded;
the stock is down 10.34% YTD.
QNB Group (QNBK), Industries Qatar
(IQCD) and Gulf International Services
(GISS) were the biggest contributors to
the weekly index gain. QNBK was the
biggest contributor with 80.2 points
to the index’s weekly appreciation of
200.8. IQCD contributed 40.8 points
and GISS contributed 24.1 points.
On the other hand, Qatar Electricity & Water Company (QEWS), Qatar
International Islamic Bank (QIIK) and
Barwa Real Estate Company (BRES)
negatively contributed toward the
QSE index. QEWS shaved off 12.1
points followed by QIIK and BRES (3.9
points each).
Trading value during the week decreased by 27.1% to reach QR2.0bn vs.
QR2.8bn in the prior week. The banks
and financial services sector led the
trading value during the week, accounting for 43.8% of the total equity
trading value. The industrials sector
was the second biggest contributor, accounting for 22.1% of the total
trading value. Islamic Holding Group
(IHGS) was the top value traded stock
during the week with total traded value of QR262.1mn.
Trading volume decreased by 25.2%
to reach 43.7mn shares vs. 58.4mn
shares in the prior week. The number
of transactions fell by 15.2% to reach
27,118 versus 31,964 in the prior week.
The real estate sector led the trading volume, accounting for 33.6%, followed by the banks and financial services sector, which accounted for 28.7%
of the overall trading volume. Ezdan
Holding Group (ERES) was the top volume traded stock during the week with
total of 7.1mn shares.
Foreign institutions turned bullish
during the week with net buying of
QR85.1mn vs. net selling of QR11.7mn
in the prior week. Qatari institutions
remained bearish with net selling of
QR97.6mn vs. net selling of QR131.8mn
in the week before. Foreign retail investors turned bearish for the week with
net selling of QR9.3mn vs. net buying
of QR21.1mn in the prior week. Qatari
retail investors remained bullish with
net buying of QR22.1mn vs. net buying
of QR122.6mn the week before.
In 2015 YTD, foreign institutions sold
(on a net basis) $75mn worth of Qatari
equities.
QSE Index and Volume
Weekly Market Report
Source: Qatar Exchange (QE)
Weekly Index Performance
Source: Qatar Exchange (QE)
Source: Bloomberg
Source: Qatar Exchange (QE)
DISCLAIMER
This report expresses the views and opinions of Qatar National Bank Financial Services SPC (“QNBFS”)
at a given time only. It is not an offer, promotion or recommendation to buy or sell securities or other
investments, nor is it intended to constitute legal, tax, accounting, or financial advice. We therefore strongly
advise potential investors to seek independent professional advice before making any investment decision.
Although the information in this report has been obtained from sources that QNBFS believes to be reliable,
we have not independently verified such information and it may not be accurate or complete. Gulf Times and
QNBFS hereby disclaim any responsibility or any direct or indirect claim resulting from using this report.
Qatar Stock Exchange
Top Five Gainers
Top Five Decliners
Most Active Shares by Value (QR Million)
Most Active Shares by Volume (Million)
Investor Trading Percentage to Total Value Traded
Net Traded Value by Nationality (QR Million)
Source: Bloomberg
Technical analysis of the QSE index
T
he QSE Index ended the week 1.72%
higher than the week before, standing at the 11,889.63 level. Volatility was
at its minimum. Uncertainty remains to be
a factor as the influence of oil prices on the
market persists. Technical Indicators are
showing some positive signs. The MACD,
although below the zero line, is losing its
bearish momentum and becoming flat
which could be a start for a positive move.
The RSI is trending down but starting to
point north. The immediate support is positioned at 11,600 followed by 11,400. On the
flipside, if the Index manages to close above
the 12,000 level then it could face resistance
at the 12,350 level.
Definitions of key terms used in technical analysis
C
andlestick chart – A candlestick
chart is a price chart that displays
the high, low, open, and close for a
security. The ‘body’ of the chart is portion
between the open and close price, while
the high and low intraday movements
form the ‘shadow’. The candlestick may
represent any time frame. We use a oneday candlestick chart (every candlestick
represents one trading day) in our analysis.
Doji candlestick pattern – A Doji candlestick is formed when a security’s open and
close are practically equal. The pattern
indicates indecisiveness, and based on
preceding price actions and future confirmation, may indicate a bullish or bearish
trend reversal.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
BUSINESS
GULF TIMES
How the ECB learned to love quantitative easing
The European Central Bank (ECB)
announced an expanded quantitative
easing (QE) programme on January 22.
Starting in March 2015, the ECB will buy,
on a monthly basis, €60bn worth of Euro
Area sovereign bonds and private sector
securities.
The purchases will continue until
September 2016, although the
programme could also become open
ended until a “sustained adjustment in
the path of inflation” is observed.
In making large-scale purchases of
sovereign bonds, the ECB has (belatedly)
joined the three other major central
banks (the Japanese, UK, and US central
banks), which had resorted to QE after
they ran out of room to reduce interest
rates any further.
If monetary policy were to be reduced
to one job, it would be to ensure that
temporary shocks to inflation do not
become permanent. A central bank can
do nothing to stop US oil producers from
flooding the market and driving down
international oil prices, a QNB report said..
However, it can prevent lower oil prices
from turning into a deflationary spiral.
The key to doing so is to ensure the
stability of inflation expectations. If
people expect inflation will soon revert
to a certain rate (say “below, but close to
2%”), they will ignore the fall in oil prices
when they set prices for other goods
and wages.
US reaps
$41bn in
wireless
spectrum
auction
This will ensure that the oil price shock
will soon fade away. If, on the other
hand, they believe the central bank is
unwilling or unable to bring inflation
back under control, then the oil price
shock can feed into lower prices for
other goods and wages, and the shock
could ultimately turn into a permanent
deflation.
There has been evidence that the recent
sharp fall in oil prices has unhinged
inflation expectations in the Euro Area.
Market-based measures of inflation
expectations have fallen sharply since the
second half of 2014.
This indicates that market participants
believed that the effect of lower oil prices
would become permanent as the ECB was
either unwilling or powerless to react. The
latest move by the ECB seems to have
partially reversed this trend for now.
How can the latest move by the ECB
prevent a prolonged period of deflation?
Three channels are important in
addressing this question.
First, QE provides a signal that the ECB
is taking its inflation target seriously and
is willing to do whatever it takes to meet
it. The recovery in inflation expectations
following the QE announcement
suggests that the ECB may have had
some success in restoring market
confidence, the report said.
Second, by lowering the yields on
government bonds, the ECB may induce
large cross-border spillover effects.
These effects had already started ahead
of the ECB’s decision with the Swiss
National Bank abandoning its exchange
rate floor and the Danish central bank
pushing interest rates further into
negative territory in order to maintain
its currency peg to the euro.
Emerging markets (EMs) may see some
additional capital inflows from the
Euro Area searching for higher yields.
However, what is different this time
around is the market expectations
of a possible increase in US interest
rates later this year. Most likely, the
largest Euro Area capital flows will
therefore be to the US, with a continued
strengthening of the US dollar against all
other major currencies.
In the end, monetary policy can be
powerful in the short-term but is unlikely
to change the long-term predicament
of the Euro Area. The ECB may succeed
in preventing prolonged deflation from
taking hold, but this is a not a sufficient
condition for sustainable growth.
As ECB president Mario Draghi has
emphasised on multiple occasions,
structural reforms in the labour and
product markets in the Euro Area are
essential for a sustained recovery in the
currency area. The ECB might love QE
for now, but it is up to the governments
to implement the required structural
reforms.
EU consumer prices fall
raises deﬂation fears
AFP
Washington
Dow Jones
Paris
T
C
he US government is getting more than $41bn
from an auction of wireless spectrum, highlighting
surging demand for new devices
that connect to the Internet, ofﬁcials said on Friday.
The Federal Communications
Commission, which revised
down its estimate from $45bn,
said the auction that ended on
Thursday raised the highest
amount ever for this type of sale
and would improve wireless access countrywide.
The auction comes amid
huge demand for spectrum to
meet the needs of people using
smartphones, tablets and - increasingly - other devices that
connect to the Internet such as
cars, refrigerators and wearable
gadgets.
The move adds 65 megahertz
of spectrum to “improve wireless connectivity across the
country and accelerate the mobile revolution that is driving
economic growth and improving the lives of the American
people,” FCC Chairman Tom
Wheeler said.
“The results of this auction
conﬁrm the strong market demand for more spectrum.”
In a document listing the
winning bidders, the FCC said
AT&T won bids totaling $18.2bn
and Verizon $10.4bn. T-Mobile
bid successfully for $1.8bn.
AT&T said the new spectrum
will allow its wireless service to
cover 96% of the US population
with “high-value contiguous”
spectrum.
“Growth in our customers’
mobile data usage continues to
explode, driven by mobile video
traffic,” said John Stankey, chief
strategy officer at AT&T.
“This spectrum investment
will be critical to AT&T staying
ahead of customer demand and
facilitate the next generation of
mobile video entertainment.”
Satellite broadcaster Dish
Network, which placed bids
through affiliates, won nearly
$10bn in bids.
The FCC said $20bn from the
auction would go towards reducing the federal deﬁcit.
The auction “is only the ﬁrst
step to unlock more mobile investment and beneﬁts,” CTIA
Wireless Association president
Meredith Attwell Baker said.
She noted that wireless companies would begin investing in
ﬁfth-generation networks for
improved communications for
mobile devices.
Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro
said that with demand surging
for mobile broadband, the FCC
should “help expand access to
even more licensed and unlicensed spectrum.”
banks to lend more to corporations and
households, thus boosting aggregate
demand and inflation.
Finally, by weakening the euro against
other currencies, the ECB’s monetary
expansion would increase the price of
imported goods and services. Of all
these channels, the last one is likely to
have the biggest impact on inflation.
Since the ECB announcement, the euro
has depreciated 3.0% against the US
dollar.
However, there are risks to the ECB
strategy. First, bond yields in the Euro
Area are already very low. Any QE boost
is therefore likely to be limited as it would
result in only a few basis points movement
in bond yields, the QNB report said.
Second, European banks are less likely
to respond to QE than US banks did
as European corporates are highlyleveraged and therefore unlikely to gain
from lower interest rates.
Third, by mutualising the risk of
default across the Euro Area, the ECB is
venturing into the realm of fiscal policy,
which could result in cross-border
transfers from northern Europe to the
troubled periphery countries. This may
also reduce the incentives of periphery
countries to undertake the necessary
reforms to increase growth and reduce
their debt burden.
Moreover, the recent historical
experience shows that QE can have
onsumer prices in the eurozone fell more sharply and more
broadly in January, heightening
the risk of a slide toward deﬂation that
the European Central Bank hopes to
halt and then reverse through its new
bond-buying programme.
The European Union’s statistics
agency said on Friday that consumer
prices were 0.6% lower than in January
2014, having fallen 0.2% on an annual
basis in December. The decline in prices
was the largest since July 2009.
The plunge in consumer prices is unlikely to have an immediate effect on
the ECB policies. Last week, the ECB
said it would purchase €60bn ($68bn)
in public and private debt securities
each month, mostly government bonds,
starting in March and lasting until September 2016 in a bid to bring inﬂation
closer to the bank’s 2% target.
Still, the longer consumer prices persist in negative territory, the more pressure the ECB will eventually come under to extend the purchase programme.
Officials have said it won’t end until
they are conﬁdent that inﬂation is on
track to reach their objective.
The programme “will end only once
we get a strong sense that inﬂation is
converging toward 2%,” ECB executive
board member Benoit Coeure said in an
Italian newspaper interview this week.
Economists now estimate prices
could continue to fall until the third
quarter, and possibly for longer.
“Headline inﬂation could remain
negative during most of this year,” said
Sonali Punhani, an economist at Credit
Suisse. “Even though cyclical indicators
are turning in the euro area and the ECB
QE program was more positive than expected, the pass through to inﬂation is
likely to come with a lag.”
The latest drop in inﬂation was driven
largely by falling energy prices, but also
by declining prices for manufactured
goods as businesses passed on some
of the savings they have made on their
energy bills. Food prices also fell, while
prices of services rose more slowly than
in recent months.
The core rate of inﬂation excludes
items such as food and energy, whose
prices are largely determined by global
demand and supply, and beyond the inﬂuence of the ECB. It fell to 0.6% from
0.7% in December.
This trend will worry ECB policy
makers, who want to prevent the fall
in oil prices having “second-round
effects” as other businesses cut their
prices to gain market share and workers settle for lower pay rises. The ECB
worries that households and businesses will grow accustomed to falling
prices, and postpone some spending
decisions in anticipation of a better
deal later in the year, in turn leading
to falls in output and further drops in
prices.
European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt Friday said the
eurozone is not in deﬂation, deﬁned as
broad-based, cross-country price declines which are “self-perpetuating.”
Breidthardt, said the January ﬁgure
was “still driven by a year on year de-
The European Union’s statistics agency said that consumer prices in January 2015 were 0.6% lower than in January 2014.
cline in energy prices,” which may increase consumers’ disposable income.
“It’s therefore not what the Commission considers outright deﬂation,” she
said.
Beyond the threat of a deﬂationary
spiral, the decline in prices could, on
the other hand, help boost consumer
spending power in the near term, to the
extent that falling prices are driven by
lower energy costs.
There is mounting evidence that
households are increasing their spending on goods and services other than energy. Figures from France also released
on Friday showed household spending
rose by 1.5% in December, three times
faster than economists had expected.
While retail sales rose less sharply in
Germany – by 0.2% from the previous
month – that increase followed two
months of strong rises. Compared with
December 2013, sales were up 4%.
A bounce in consumer spending aided an acceleration in Spain’s
economy during the fourth quarter,
statistics institute INE said on Friday. The eurozone’s fourth-largest
economy grew 0.7% in the three
months to December, compared with
the previous quarter, INE said. That
is equivalent to an annual pace of
growth of 2%, INE added. In the third
quarter, it had posted 0.5% growth
from the earlier period.
However, consumer spending continues to be restrained by high levels of
unemployment. Eurostat on Friday said
that the jobless rate fell to 11.4% in December from 11.5% in November, with
157,000 people ﬁnding work during the
month. While that was the lowest rate
of unemployment since August 2012,
it remained near the post-crisis peak of
12%, and much higher than in the US,
Japan or the UK.
At the same time, falling prices makes
debt burdens heavier to bear, pushes up
inﬂation-adjusted borrowing costs,
and slows the rebalancing of the eurozone economy, making the legacies of
Europe’s long debt crisis even harder to
escape.
To regain competitiveness and reduce foreign debts, countries such as
Spain need inﬂation rates below Germany’s. But if German inﬂation is negative, then debtor countries need sharply
negative inﬂation. That makes their
private and public debts – whose value
in euros stays the same, even if prices
and incomes fall-harder to pay down.
Europe’s strategy for ending its
debt crisis relies on generating enough
growth through supply-side economic
overhauls, and through a hoped-for but
so-far elusive conﬁdence boost from
austere ﬁscal policies, for debtor nations to pay down high debts to more
moderate levels.
That strategy has already tested by
the lack of growth in recent years and
growing signs of fraying voter support
for the established political parties that
are following the policy. Greece’s new
government under left-wing party Syriza is partly a result of public frustration at the inability of countries to escape from under crushing debts despite
massive belt-tightening.
If inﬂation falls deeper into negative
territory and gets stuck there, it would
raise even more doubts about whether
eurozone debtor countries can recover
without restructuring their debt that
would spread more of the cost of cleaning up Europe’s crisis to creditor nations such as Germany.
TENNIS | Page 4
CRICKET | Page 5
FOOTBALL | Page 12
Dominant
Serena beats
Sharapova
for 19th Slam
Afridi blitz in
vain as Kiwis
coast to 7-wkt
win over Pak
Troisi strikes
in extra-time
as Australia
win Asian Cup
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Rabia II 12, 1436 AH
GULF TIMES
FOCUS
‘We deserve to be in final’
‘We have gone all the way and we are receiving great support from the fans, the federation and the whole country,
so we can be proud of what we have achieved, but we will feel even more proud when we raise the trophy’
By Sports Reporter
Doha
T
he ﬁnal of the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship will be
played at the Lusail Multipurpose
Arena in Doha today, and for the
ﬁrst time in the history of world handball,
a non-European team will be ﬁghting for
the gold—hosts Qatar.
In all outdoor World Championship
held so far, it is only the eighth time that
the hosts are among the ﬁnalists—Germany (1938, 2007), Sweden (1954), France
(2001) and Spain (2013) won the gold
medals on home ground, while German
Democratic Republic (1974) and Croatia
(2009) ﬁnished with silver.
“We know that we have already made
history. It is like a dream for us and we
don’t want to wake up before Monday
morning,” Qatar line player Borja Vidal
said after his team had beaten Poland in
Friday’s semi-ﬁnal.
“We deserve to be in this ﬁnal, even
though many people had not expected us
to come this far,” says left-back Bertrand
Roine, who can make history today if Qatar take the gold medal.
Roine could win his second World
Championship trophy after standing on
top of the winners’ podium with France in
2011—it is that team and his country fellows he will face today at 19:15 hours.
It was the clear goal of the hosts to
reach their best ever position at the World
Championship, which would have meant
proceeding to the eighth ﬁnals.
But their hunger was not stilled by that
and after beating Austria, Germany (in the
quarter-ﬁnal) and now Poland the gate is
open for gold.
“We don’t think about how it would feel
to stand on the podium (on Sunday), we
will just continue working hard and pre-
pare for France,” says Vidal.
And the players know who to thank
most: coach Valero Rivera (pictured).
The Spaniard is receiving praise from all
over the world. “What he has done with
this team is simply incredible. He is a brilliant coach,” commented French top star
Nikola Karabatic.
Rivera can become the ﬁrst coach to
lead two different teams to World Championship titles; he was coach of Spain two
years ago. The only similar achievement
was made by Croatian Vlado Stenzel, who
led Yugoslavia to the Olympic gold medal
in 1972 and West Germany to the World
Championship title in 1978.
“Our biggest advantage is that we can
prepare like a club team, not like a typical
national team,” says Rivera, who is already
the most successful coach in handball
history by winning more than 70 titles
and trophies with FC Barcelona including
ﬁve consecutive Champions League titles.
Rivera’s contract with the Qatar Handball Association lasts until 2016—and he
and his team already have their next target
in sight—participating at the 2016 Olympic Games. If they win the ﬁnal against
France today, Qatar will have already
booked the ticket to Rio. If they lose, they
are the clear favourites for the Asian Olympic Qualiﬁcation Tournament in October, which will be played in Doha.
“We have gone all the way and we are
receiving great support from the fans, the
federation and the whole country, so we
can be proud of what we have achieved,
but we will feel even more proud when
we raise the trophy,” is the motto of Borja
Vidal.
And Rivera will also have an eye on the
bronze ﬁnal. If Spain win this match, it
will be the ﬁrst time that a father (Valero
Rivera senior) and his son (Valero Rivera
junior) will win medals at the same event
with different teams.
2
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
24TH MEN’S HANDBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
SPOTLIGHT
I love those big matches: France’s Omeyer
By Sports Reporter
Doha
T
hierry Omeyer is our life insurance,
when it counts.” That’s how Nikola Karabatic and every French player praised
their goalkeeper after Omeyer’s extraordinary performance in their semi-ﬁnal
victory over Spain at the 24th Men’s Handball
World Championship in Qatar on Friday night.
The 38-year-old goalkeeper saved 58% of all
Spanish shots to secure the team’s spot in the
ﬁnal against tournament hosts Qatar by winning 26-22.
In 1999, Omeyer played his ﬁrst international
match for France; just two years later he became
world champion for the ﬁrst time.
Since then Omeyer has won all silverware a
handball player can collect: in 2003 he took the
EHF Champions League title for the ﬁrst time
with his former club Montpellier MAHB, in
2006 he transferred to German side THW Kiel
and added three more Champions League trophies (2007, 2010 and 2012) and the IHF Super
Globe title in 2011.
But by far his successes with the national
team were more incredible. He was European
champion in 2006, 2010, and 2014, Olympic
champion in 2008 and 2012, and world champion in 2009 and 2011.
If France manage to beat Qatar tonight,
Omeyer and his longtime teammate Jerome
Fernandez would become the ﬁrst male handball players to win their individual fourth World
Championship.
“Thierry is always hungry to win. He never
missed any important appointment, which
means that he shows his best performances in
crucial matches. Then he is simply unbeatable,”
says Francois-Xavier Houlet, former Omeyer
teammate on the national team and today a TV
expert for host broadcaster beINsport.
The often praised goalkeeper fully agrees.
“I hate to lose,” Omeyer says. “The only
one who is allowed to beat me is my daughter
Manon, when we play cards.”
And Omeyer is full of adrenaline prior to the
clash against Qatar, bearing in mind that France
has never lost a ﬁnal when he was between the
goalposts. “I love those big games. I love when
it counts.”
The critical role Omeyer plays for the French
team is also proved by his individual merits.
In 2008 he was awarded IHF World Handball
Player of the Year, and was awarded best goal-
keeper and All Star team member at the 2008
and 2012 Olympic Games, the 2009 and 2011
World Championship and at the 2006 European Championship.
“To win the two Olympic ﬁnals were the
greatest moments of my career,” Omeyer, nicknamed ‘Titi’, says.
But he also knows that victory is not only in
the hands of the goalkeeper.
“We have the best defence in the world, I can
fully rely on them as they can fully rely on me.
It is the cooperation of goalkeeper and defence,
which makes us so strong.”
In 2013 he left THW Kiel to return home,
where it all started, transferring to Montpellier.
But after only one season he joined Qatar-powered French top club Paris St-Germain.
If one thought that all his medals and trophies would be showcased in a cabinet, they’d
be wrong.
“All those trophies are in a pasteboard. I am
not the guy who must see them every day. If you
just focus on those trophies you have won already, you lose the hunger for more.
“But I am still hungry for every new trophy,
regardless how often I had won it. When I have
ended my career I’ll have a lot of time to look at
them.”
PLACINGS MATCHES
INTERVIEW
Denmark end fifth,
Germany remain in
race for Rio Games
‘It was a good game. I am very happy with the result. It is important to finish with a win’
Action from yesterday’s placings
match between Denmark (white)
and Croatia. Denmark won 28-24
We hope to be as
successful as the
older generation,
says Kentin Mahe
By Sports Reporter
Doha
H
andball has always
been in the centre
of the Mahe family’s life: Pascal Mahe
was a successful player, later
coach, so it was obvious that
his son Kentin would ﬁll his
footprints.
The 23-year-old Kentin,
born in Paris, moved to Germany when his father became
coach on the other side of the
border. Coached by his father at
club Dormagen, Kentin became
youth and junior national team
player for France, was awarded
Most Valuable Player at the
U-18 European Championship,
was part of the French team at
the Youth Olympic Games and
had his debut in the senior team
in 2010, at the age of 19.
Since 2013 the centre-back
and left-wing has been under contract at former EHF
Champions League winners
HSV Hamburg.
After having been being reserve player at the 2014 European Championship, when
France took their third gold
medal on continental level,
Kentin Mahe has now become a key player in the team
of coach Claude Onesta at the
24th Men’s Handball World
Championship in Qatar.
Excerpts from an interview:
Compared to the European
Championship one year
ago, what is different for
you?
“I have more responsibility
on the court. In 2014, I was more
or less a spectator—now I am
part of the team. This is a new
experience for me, but I think
I managed to help the French
team so far. It is great fun.”
How huge is the pressure
By Yash Mudgal
Doha
T
wice runners-up Denmark defeated Croatia 28-24 to ﬁnish ﬁfth
at the 24th Men’s Handball World
Championship at the Lusail Multipurpose Hall yesterday.
After an equal enough beginning, the
two teams took their turns at being one
goal up. But the Danish defense and goalkeeper Jannick Green soon got the better of the Croatian attack, and the Danes
could create a four-goal gap (8-4).
Fast and creative Danish attacking play
created problems for Croatians’ defense
and their attempts to speed off the game
also did not have much success either as
Denmark went ahead 14-8.
Replacing Mirko Alilovic in goal with
Filip Ivic helped the Croatians a little,
and so did pushing Igor Vori forward in a
5-1 formation in the defense, but still the
Danes managed to take a 15-11 lead at the
halfway mark.
The Danish defense still stood well, and
behind it Jannick Green went on doing his
job—saving shots in the second half.
At the same time, Mikkel Hansen really
started getting his shots in at the opposite
end of the court, and the Danes stayed in
the lead by three to ﬁve goals.
Croatia, who were playing for revenge
after losing to Danes one year ago in the
semi-ﬁnal of the European Championship, beneﬁted a bit when Domagoj Duvnjak ﬁnally began having success with
his shots, but that was not enough to close
the gap either.
Mikkel Hansen scored eight times for
Denmark, while Domagoaj Duvnjak, Luka
Stepancic and Ivan Sliskovic scored four
times each for Croatia.
Denmark and Croatia already had secured their spot for the Olympic Qualiﬁcation tournaments by reaching the 5/6
placement match.
Germany finish seventh
Earlier in the day, former champions
Germany came seventh after defeating Slovenia 30-27. The win helped them
qualify for the Olympic qualiﬁcation
tournament.
Slovenia will have to wait for the Asian
Olympic Qualiﬁcation event in October
2015 or for the European championship
in January 2016, to know whether their
eighth position will be enough to qualify
for those tournaments.
“It was a good game. I am very happy with
the result. We knew it wouldn’t be a perfect
game of handball yet our team showed a lot
of character. It is very important for us to
ﬁnish the tournament with a win,” German
coach Dagur Sigurdsson said.
Even though Slovenia played with their
substitutes from the outset, they still got
the better start, being two goals up at 2-0,
3-1 and 5-3 and even three up at 7-4, mainly due to a strong right side in the attack
with right-back Jure Natek scoring four
goals and right wing Vid Kavticnik scoring
two of the Slovenians’ ﬁrst seven goals.
After a timeout Germany regrouped
and caught up with the Slovenians’ three
goal lead (7-7).
Germany, who entered the championship with a wild card, took lead for the
ﬁrst time at 10-9 after 18 minutes. They
extended the lead soon to two goals at 11-9
and maintained it till half-time 16-14.
From the beginning of the second half
the Germans increased their lead to three
goals at 20-17 to four at 22-18 and to ﬁve at
24-19. Jure Natek was the only real threat
to the German defense, and he alone could
obviously not keep Slovenia in the game.
A direct red card for left-wing Luka
Zwizej at the 13 minutes into the secondhalf handicapped the Slovenians even further in the efforts to get back into the match.
Germany extended their advantage to
six goals at 27-21, and even though the
Germans lost a little concentration in
the last 10 minutes, they were still able
to maintain their six-goal lead until the
last minutes of the match, when Slovenia
managed to reduce the deﬁcit in half.
German captain Uwe Gensheimer
scored 13 goals, while Natek led Slovenia
with eight. “It was the ninth game for my
team at this tournament. We were pretty
exhausted and many of our players were
injured. Clearly it gave us less chance
against a team like Germany,” Slovenia
coach Boris Denic said.
Slovenia’s right-winger Dragan Gajic
added three more goals to his tally to top
the overall top-scorers’ list with 71 goals.
Qatar’s right-back Zarko Markovic will
have to score at least 12 times in the ﬁnal
against France to overtake Gajic.
“Germans were better. We missed Uros
Zorman, who is the main machine of our
team. Bezjak had to play almost 60 minutes, which was so hard if we know that
this was the ninth match on the tournament. We made all what we need in Doha—
Olympic qualiﬁcations,” Gajic said.
Talking about his performance in the
championship, he said, “My teammates
and coach believed in me during the whole
tournament. I tried to maintain concentration, however, I am very proud on my
performance in Qatar.”
on you and the team, as
everybody predicted that
France are favourites for
winning gold?
“Frankly, I do not feel any
pressure. We all know how it
works to ﬁnish a tournament on
the winners’ podium. We only
focus on our big goal, which is
to become part of the Olympic handball tournament at
Rio 2016, and the shortest way
to Rio is by winning the World
Championship here in Doha.”
What is your role in the
hierarchy of the French
team?
“We have three ‘groups’ in
our team: First of all there are
the experienced players who
became world champions already in 2001 or won all titles
from 2006 on.
The second group consists
of players like Accambray or
Barachet, who have been a part
of the team since 2011, but also
were World, European and Olympic champions already.
And I belong to the group of
youngsters, who play their ﬁrst
major tournament or played it
in Denmark in 2014. We represent the new generation.
And we hope to be as successful as the older generation.
We want to make history like
they did, and we have all the
way ahead.”
Most of your ‘handball life’
you have lived in Germany.
Didn’t you ever consider
playing for the German
national team?
“In 2007 I was contacted
by the German youth national
team coach, and almost at the
same time I received my ﬁrst
invitation to the French youth
team. So I had to make a decision. Finally the French federation was more eager to get
me, and I feel more at home in
the French team.”
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
3
24TH MEN’S HANDBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
PREVIEW
Upbeat Qatar hope to
end France’s unbeaten
run in title clash today
Hosts Qatar have played four-time world champions France only once before — at the Golden League tournament in
France in January last year — where the reigning Olympic and European champions beat the first-time finalists 29-23
Qatar have been in a league of their own in the World Championship, and barring a close loss to Spain in the group stage, have been among the most consistent sides. Their opponents France (below) are yet to lose a match in the event. PICTURES: Jayan Orma
By Yash Mudgal
Doha
Q
atar have rewritten some chapters of
history in the ongoing 24th ﬁnal of the
Men’s Handball World Championship
and may add another one as the hosts
take on mighty France in the ﬁnal today.
At the Lusail Multipurpose Arena, Asian
champions Qatar became the ﬁrst non-European nation to enter the world championship ﬁnal
after a semi-ﬁnal win over Poland and are now
ready to take on four-time champions France,
who are aiming to complete a hat trick of titles
after their Olympics and European championship triumphs.
Whoever triumphs, history will be made.
If France win, they will be the ﬁrst team to
have won the world title ﬁve times. They last
won in 2011 and are the current European and
Olympic champions. It is their sixth appearance
in a handball World Cup ﬁnal.
Qatar, meanwhile, are only playing their ﬁfth
world championships, beginning in 2003 when
they achieved their previous best ﬁnish of 16th.
France have stealthily cruised through the
tournament, winning four of their ﬁve qualifying matches, remaining unbeaten and knocking
out world champions Spain in Friday’s semiﬁnals.
Qatar too have been in a league of their own,
and barring their close loss to Spain in the group
stage, have been among the most consistent
sides in the Championship. They have played
all their games at the Lusail arena, and have had
the vocal support of the local crowd.
While the French team has been built up over
a number of years under the expert hand of
coach Claude Onesta, Rivera has built the Qatari team equally skilfully but quickly.
Both have constructed formidable squads.
The French rely on the guile of central-back
Nikola Karabatic, the athleticism of Daniel
Narcisse and the goals of Michael Guigou.
Qatar look to Rafael Capote, Zarko Markovic
and Kamalaldin Mallash for their success.
The one thing the two sides have in common
is that their star player is the goalkeeper. France
have the impregnable Thierry ‘Titi’ Omeyer
guarding their post and most of the rival sides
will openly admit that he has been a vital cog in
their wheel.
His performance in Friday’s semi-ﬁnal,
where he saved four second-half penalties
alone and a string of other magniﬁcent stops,
was possibly the standout performance of the
tournament.
The 38-year-old Omeyer saved 58 percent of
defending champions Spain’s scoring attempts
in the semiﬁnal. “I love those big games. I love
when it counts,” Omeyer, the winner of 2008
and 2012 Olympic Games’ best goalkeeper
award, said.
Another interesting fact is that France have
never lost a ﬁnal with Omeyer at the post.
On the other hand, his counterpart Danijel
Saric has already won four man-of-the-match
awards in this championship. The two custodians’ performance at the post will surely have a
say in who lifts the glittering trophy today.
“I don’t think about how it would feel to
stand on the podium tomorrow, we just want
to continue working hard,” Qatar line player
Borja Vidal said. “We know that we have already
made history. It is like a dream and we just want
it to continue.”
Qatar, who have lost only one match so far—
against Spain in the preliminary round—will
have the support of 15.000 cheering fans.
France are unbeaten after eight wins and one
draw against Iceland in the group stage. Since
1993, France have not lost the ﬁnal of any major
competition—the Olympics, World Championship and the European Championship.
Both sides have faced each other only once—
at the Golden League test tournament in France
in January 2014, where the Olympic champions
beat Qatar 29-23.
Action Today
Bronze medal match: Poland vs Spain, 4:30pm
Final: Qatar vs France at 07:15pm
Venue: Lusail Multipurpose Hall
Media facilities at Qatar 2015 have been a joy for journalists
By Sports Reporter
Doha
S
tate-of-the-art facilities, combined
with the latest technology and
highly skilled staff, have ensured
that every journalist will make the
most out of his or her presence in Qatar
while facilitating his task in delivering a
message of noble competition.
Almost 1,530 media representatives—900 among them accredited
journalists and 630 TV crew—from 75
countries are working in Doha on a
daily basis. From Algeria to Uruguay and
Norway and from Spain and Germany to
the United States and Guam, one thing
is evident: Handball is a global sport and
the 24th Men’s World Championship is a
unique setting for the teams and athletes
to shine and demonstrate their skills and
sporting achievements.
The success of the 24th Men’s World
Handball Championship is not only
measured by the high level of the
infrastructure provided, such as the Main
Media Centre, the mixed zones, the press
conference halls, the media tribunes. The
workforce, both professionals and volunteers, have been handpicked and trained
in a way that ensures that they are able
to cater to every media representative’s
professional query.
In addition to the human element,
as Ms. Fatma al-Obaidli, Head, Media &
Broadcasting Committee, Qatar 2015 Organising Committee, says: “We are proud
to have introduced an Olympic-level
service, the Info System, that is employed
for the first time ever in the history of the
competition, to cover the needs for fast,
accurate and in depth information for all
accredited media.”
The goal of the News Service is to keep
the accredited media informed about the
Championship. As well as publishing valuable news reports such as flash quotes,
press conference highlights, previews,
reviews and general interest articles, the
News Service team is also distributing
printed reports such as start lists, results,
official communications and cumulative
statistics to pigeon holes at Venue Media
Centres and the Main Media Centre (MMC).
The Info System is updated on a daily
basis and users are allowed to make use of
or reproduce the available uploaded content. Almost 40 stories are uploaded every
day in both English and Arabic—and this is
another premiere for the Info System since
it is the first time it is bilingual. Up till now
24,789 page views have been made, with
an average of 18% of new viewers per day
since the championship started.
Says Sascha Staat of German sports
radio 360 Grad: “The working conditions
are better than at any other previous
event. The info system is full of useful
content and the statistics are a great help
and are deliver in due time.”
Gustau Galvache, press officer, FC
Barcelona, concurs: “The media facilities
in Doha are not comparable with any
place in the world, they are the best in
the world. The quality of the info system
content is highest class in terms of all
statistics, quotes and news articles.”
4
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
TENNIS
SPOTLIGHT
PREVIEW
Dominant Serena
beats Sharapova
for 19th Grand Slam
‘Standing here with 19 championships is something I never thought would happen,
I went on the courts with just a ball and a racquet and hope and that’s all I had’
Murray and
Djokovic
bidding for
firsts in
men’s final
Reuters
Melbourne
F
Serena Williams of the US celebrates after victory
final match against Russia’s Maria Sharapova in
Melbourne yesterday.
AFP
Melbourne
S
erena Williams won her sixth
Australian Open and 19th career Grand Slam with a hardfought win over bitter rival Maria
Sharapova yesterday, consolidating her
place among the game’s legends.
The 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) triumph means the
American world number one overtakes
18-time major champions Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert to go clear
second on the all-time Open-era Grand
Slam winners’ list, three behind Steffi
Graf.
Australia’s Margaret Court, who
played many of her matches before the
Open-era, has 24 titles. Evert, commentating on ESPN, backed Williams to
eventually overtake Graf’s mark “if she
stays healthy, if he stays motivated”.
“Standing here with 19 championships is something I never thought
would happen, I went on the courts with
just a ball and a racquet and hope and
that’s all I had,” said Williams, at 33 the
oldest women to win the Melbourne title.
“I’m just so excited to have this title,”
she added, revealing that she had been
“throwing up” when she went off court
during a rain delay in the ﬁrst set.
The American had been battling a
cold all tournament and was coughing
during the match.
The ﬁrst Australian ﬁnal in a decade to
feature the tournament’s top two seeds
was a one-sided affair in the opening
set, although Sharapova rallied to make
a contest of it in the second, saving two
championship points before falling to a
third.
The win extends Williams’ decadelong run over the Russian to 16 matches,
with the second seed hailing her rival’s
“incredible achievement”.
“I’ve got to congratulate Serena on
creating history and playing some of her
best tennis,” she said.
“I haven’t beaten her for a really long
time but I love every time I step out on
the court with her because she’s been
the best and as a tennis player you want
to play against the best.”
An intensely focused Williams outgunned Sharapova, cannoning down
18 aces, including a 203 kmh (166 mph)
thunderbolt and glaring at her opponent during key moments as Sharapova
struggled to stay in the match.
Sharapova made a disastrous start
when she double faulted to go down a
break in the opening game, succumbing to pressure as Williams aggressively
stood inside the baseline and easily read
the Russian’s intent.
The American pounced on any tentative shots from Sharapova who resorted
to drop shots in a bid to vary her tactics
and avoid getting into a slugfest with the
game’s most powerful hitter.
Heavy rain interrupted play at 3-2,
with Williams taking shelter and towelling down as the roof was closed, while
Sharapova sat courtside then performed
warm-up exercises.
Williams emerged, later saying she
had been sick before the match ﬁnally
resumed after 13 minutes.
She showed no sign of losing momentum though, blasting an ace with
her ﬁrst shot and then capitalising after
Sharapova gave her three break points
with another double fault.
While Sharapova scored a break
against the run of play, Williams immediately broke back to take the set after 47
minutes.
With the final threatening to become a massacre, Sharapova’s fighting
qualities emerged in the second set,
with her serve improving as she held
twice early, jubilantly fist pumping
each time.
She started taking chances attacking
Williams’ serve but the American simply got herself out of trouble with three
aces.
She held off a championship point at
5-4 with a desperate forehand down the
line, going on to force a tie-break.
The 27-year-old fended off another
championship point at 6-5 then Williams thought she had sealed the win
with an ace, giving a wry grin when the
umpire called let.
ITALIANS WIN
or two men who have accomplished so much in
their closely intertwined
careers, the Australian
Open ﬁnal between friends Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray
on today could achieve a number
of ﬁrsts.
Should Djokovic beat Murray
he will become the ﬁrst man in
the Open era to win ﬁve titles in
Melbourne and be one away from
Roy Emerson’s record of six, won
before the game went professional in 1968.
Victory will also allow him to
reclaim his mantle as the king of
Melbourne Park, having reached
the ﬁnal in four of the past ﬁve
years.
“Getting to the ﬁnals is already a great achievement ... but
now this is the match for which
you have worked for now two
months,” Djokovic said after he
beat last year’s champion Stan
Wawrinka in the semi-ﬁnal.
“This is where you want to be.
“This is why you put all these
hours on and off the court, trying to get yourself in a position to
win grand slam trophy, because
that’s what matters the most.”
Djokovic is bidding for his
eighth grand slam title and has a
superior 15-8 career record over
Murray.
He has also won seven of the
last eight matches, while in his
run of three successive Melbourne Park titles, he beat Murray twice, in 2011 and 2013.
“There’s no clear favourite.
But ... the record I have in ﬁnals
against him here in Australia, we
played couple times, can serve
maybe as a slight mental edge,”
Djokovic said.
“But not much.”
While the history is against
Murray, the Scot is used to rewriting it.
It would be his ﬁrst title at
Melbourne Park, from his fourth
ﬁnal appearance, the most required in the Open era to win the
Norman Brookes Challenge Cup.
Italian pair Simone Bolelli and
Fabio Fognini won their first Grand
Slam doubles title yesterday when
they beat the French challenge of
Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas
Mahut in the Australian Open final.
The unseeded Italians, who were
in their ninth Grand Slam as a
team, battled to a 6-4, 6-4 win in
1hr 22mins on Rod Laver Arena to
become the first men from their
country to claim a major doubles
title since 1959.
It would also end another long
barren streak for British men’s
tennis, as he would be the ﬁrst
British man since Fred Perry in
1934 to clinch the Australian title.
Ending long losing streaks
back to the days of Perry is something the 27-year-old Scot is becoming accustomed to.
He became the ﬁrst British
man since Perry to win a grand
slam title in 76 years when he
clinched the U.S. Open in 2012
and the ﬁrst to win Wimbledon
in 77 years in 2013.
Both times he beat Djokovic in
the ﬁnal.
It would also be his ﬁrst under
new coach Amelie Mauresmo,
with the Scot coming out after
his tempestuous semi-ﬁnal victory over Thomas Berdych to defend their working together.
Murray’s form last year was
criticised, with some pundits
putting it down to Mauresmo’s
inﬂuence, but the sixth seed
said the pair had barely worked
together at all before the end of
2014.
“I feel like I’m playing well
again,” Murray said on Saturday.
“I think this tournament’s been
obviously important for me just
because of some of the results I
had at the end of last year.
“It shows as well that last year,
although it was a tough year, it
wasn’t that bad.
“I feel like things have been
going the right direction the last
couple months.”
Serbia’s Novak Djokovic (L) flips his racket as he listens to his coach,
German tennis legend Boris Becker (R), during a training session
in Melbourne yesterday.
BOTTOMLINE
Sharapova still haunted by Williams jinx
AFP
Melbourne
M
Tennis great Martina Navratilova (C) stands with winner Serena Williams (L) of
the US and Maria Sharapova of Russia after winning their women’s singles final
match at the Australian Open yesterday.
aria Sharapova vowed yesterday to keep grinding away
to break her jinx against Serena Williams, after she was
beaten to the Australian Open title by a
player who has won all 16 of their last encounters.
Despite being number two in the world,
the Russian just cannot beat her bitter rival,
with her winless streak going back a decade. Williams’ powerful serve made the
difference yesterday, with the 33-year-old
blasting 18 aces to win her 19th Grand Slam
6-3, 7-6 (7/5) and consolidate her place
among the game’s legends.
Coming into the tournament the Russian also had the chance to topple Wil-
liams as world number one, but the opportunity also slipped from her grasp.
However, Sharapova said she was a
ﬁghter and would work hard to keep
putting herself in the position to beat the
intensely focused American.
“Yes, I haven’t won against her many
times, but if I’m getting to the stage of
competing against someone like Serena,
I’m doing something well,” she said.
“I’m setting up a chance to try to beat
her and it hasn’t happened. I’m not just
going to go home without giving it another chance.
“That’s just not who I am and not who
I was raised to be. I’m a competitor.
“If I’m getting to the ﬁnals of Grand
Slams and setting myself up to play a
match against Serena, I mean, maybe
you’re telling me I’m wrong, but I’m happy to be in that position.
“I love the competition. I love playing
against the best, and at the moment she
is.” The ﬁrst Australian ﬁnal in a decade
to feature the tournament’s top two seeds
was a one-sided affair in the opening set,
although Sharapova rallied to make a
contest of it in the second, displaying her
renowned ﬁghting qualities.
She held off a championship point
at 5-4 in the second and another at 6-5
when it went to a tie-break before Williams won on her third attempt with an
ace. Sharapova admitted Williams’ huge
serve—some of them ﬁred down at 200
kph (166 mph) was key to her victory.
“That’s one of her biggest strengths,
her serve. Maybe it’s something that has
saved her in many matches, situations
where you cannot get the racquet on the
ball,” she said.
“You have to let that go. And if you’re
able to get in the point somehow, make it
a little bit easy for yourself—I didn’t feel
that I had many of those chances to get in
the point.
“When the games on her serve were
30-All, 40-30 or 15-30 a few times, she
came up with really great serves.”
Despite being outgunned, the 27-yearold, known for her steely composure on
court, admitted it was tough to go home
the loser without adding to her ﬁve Grand
Slam titles.
“It’s always tough getting to a ﬁnal stage of an event where it’s down
to two players and you end up become the one that’s going home with
the smaller trophy, there’s no doubt
about it,” she said
“No matter how you played, well or
not, whatever the scoreline is, it’s always
tough. But it will be alright.”
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
5
CRICKET
FOCUS
Returning Clarke denies rift with teammates
AFP
Sydney
A
ustralian captain Michael
Clarke yesterday rejected
speculation about a rift with
teammates as he battles for ﬁtness ahead of the World Cup.
Speaking as he returned to the ﬁeld for
a grade cricket match, Clarke said the sixand-a-half weeks he had spent recuperating from hamstring surgery had not driven
a wedge between him and the squad.
“It certainly hasn’t been for me, it
seems like it might have been for a few
other people and I’m not talking about
my teammates or the Cricket Australia
staff,” said Clarke.
Clarke was forced to bow out after the
ﬁrst Test against India in December with
the serious hamstring injury, with Steve
Smith ﬁlling in as captain for the three
remaining Tests.
Reports have suggested that the team
have taken to Smith’s style, while speculation that Clarke wants to have a strong
say in when he is ready to return to the
team has caused friction with Cricket
Australia.
“I’m not going to get into it,” Clarke
told reporters. “It seems like some
people in particular are going to write
what they want to write. “I’m really happy and comfortable with my relationship
with Cricket Australia ﬁrstly, certainly
with my teammates.
“It’s water off a duck’s back for me, I’ve
copped it my whole career. It’s another
day, another newspaper sold. I don’t really care.”
Cricket Australia has given Clarke until Australia’s second pool match against
Bangladesh on February 21 to prove his
ﬁtness for the World Cup.
He batted for almost three hours for his
Western Suburbs team yesterday, scoring
51 from 128 balls, including two fours and
1ST ODI
SPOTLIGHT
BUNDESLIGA
Afridi blitz in vain
as Kiwis coast to
7-wkt win over Pak
‘In the first 10 overs we were nowhere, we had no momentum. They bowled really well and we
just kept on losing wickets. I think 280-290 could have been a competitive total on this pitch
BOOM BOOM... Shahid Afridi of Pakistan hoists one to the fence during his 29-ball 67 in the first ODI against New Zealand at Westpac Stadium in Wellington yesterday. (AFP)
AFP
Wellington
N
ew Zealand cruised to a sevenwicket win over an underdone
Pakistan in the ﬁrst of their two
one-day internationals in Wellington yesterday.
After removing Pakistan for 210 in the
46th over, New Zealand reached their target in the 40th over with Grant Elliott now
out 64 and Ross Taylor unbeaten on 59.
New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum credited his side’s tight ﬁelding with
setting the platform for victory.
“It was probably the best we’ve seen all
summer and that creates so much intensity and allows the seamers to be able to
really get into the game,” he said.
“Obviously the run chase was very well
planned by Grant and Ross.”
The comfortable victory for New Zealand underscored Pakistan’s lack of preparation two weeks away from the start of
the World Cup.
It was their ﬁrst ODI since they were
beaten 3-2 in a home series against New
Zealand before Christmas, and the lack of
match play was evident from the moment
they lost the toss and were put in to bat.
The batsmen lacked timing and later
the bowlers struggled with direction
a six, and said medical staff considered
his recovery was ahead of schedule.
“But there’s still a long way to go before I can walk out in an international and
represent Australia,” he said.
“It’s nice to be in a position where the
Australian medical staff can allow me to
come back and play for my grade club,
but it’s one day at a time,” the 33-year-old
added. “My goal is to get ﬁt as soon as I can
and then obviously there’s a time frame
set by Cricket Australia and the selectors
that I certainly understand and respect.”
Opener David Warner also put his support behind Clarke, saying suggestions
that some Test players would rather retain Smith as captain once Clarke returned were “bizarre”.
“Smitty (Smith) will be a good leader...
but he’s got a lot to learn and he knows
that,” Warner told Sydney’s The Daily
Telegraph. “I still feel Michael has a lot to
offer as a captain. His leadership over the
last three years put us in a great position.”
against a New Zealand side which had just
completed a 4-2 series win over Sri Lanka.
Pakistan skipper Misbah-ul-Haq believed they were about 70 runs short of a
competitive total.
“It was probably the best we’ve
seen all summer and that
creates so much intensity and
allows the seamers to be able
to really get into the game.
Obviously the run chase was
very well planned by Grant and
Ross”
“In the ﬁrst 10 overs we were nowhere,
we had no momentum,” he said. “They
bowled really well and we just kept on losing wickets. I think 280-290 could have
been a competitive total on this pitch.”
New Zealand launched into their chase at
more than six an over with McCullum, returning to the line-up after sitting out the
last game against Sri Lanka, blasting a rapid
17 before he was gone in the fourth over.
Tom Latham fell for 23 and Martin Guptill, who struggled against the Sri Lankans,
found the less pressured Pakistani bowling
more to his liking as he posted 39.
He was gone just after New Zealand
passed the 100 mark in the 18th over, 11
overs quicker than it took Pakistan to
reach three ﬁgures.
Elliott and Taylor then led New Zealand
home, adding 112 in an unbeaten fourth
wicket stand.
Pakistan’s innings only nudged over
the 200 mark thanks to a 71-run partnership in 38 balls by Misbah and all-rounder
Shahid Afridi.
Kyle Mills bowled Mohammad Hafeez
with the ﬁfth ball of the match which
started a slide that saw Pakistan at 127-6
in the 36th over before Misbah (58) and
Afridi (67) provided a little backbone.
But when Misbah went it started another slide with the last four wickets falling for 12 runs.
The New Zealand bowlers were not
menacing on the two-paced wicket although Mills found plenty of movement
and was also rewarded with the wicket of
Younis Khan for nine.
Trent Boult had Ahmed Shehzad caught
behind for 15 and Haris Sohail (23), Umar
Akmal (13) and Sarfraz Ahmed (ﬁve)
quickly followed before Afridi took hold of
the attack.
He offered one chance on 14, when he
was dropped by McCullum, as he ﬂayed
away for his 67 in 29 deliveries.
Elliott, who took the wicket of Misbah
and mopped up the tail, was the most successful New Zealand bowler with three for
26 while Mills, Trent Boult and Corey Anderson took two apiece.
Pakistan
M Hafeez b Mills................................................ 0
A Shehzad c Ronchi b Boult ........................ 15
Y Khan lbw Mills................................................ 9
Misbah-ul-Haq c Latham b Elliott ............. 58
H Sohail c Guptill b Anderson .................... 23
U Akmal b Elliott ............................................... 13
S Ahmed c Latham b Anderson ................ 5
S Afridi c Guptill b Milne ............................... 67
B Bhatti c Guptill b Boult............................... 0
E Adil c B McCullum b Elliott ...................... 6
M Irfan (not out) ............................................... 1
Extras (lb-3, nb-1, w-9) ................................... 13
Total (all out, 45.3 overs) ............................. 210
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-29, 3-32, 4-81, 5-113,
6-127, 7-198, 8-203, 9-203
Bowling: K Mills 10-2-29-2 (nb-1, w-1); T
Boult 9-0-25-2 (w-2); A Milne 10-0-43-1
(w-3); B McCullum 6-0-37-0; C Anderson
6-0-47-2 (w-2); G Elliott 4.3-0-26-3 (w-1)
New Zealand
M Guptill c Bhatti b Irfan ............................... 39
B McCullum c Shehzad b Bhatti ................ 17
T Latham c S Ahmed b Afridi ..................... 23
R Taylor (not out) ............................................. 59
G Elliott (not out) .............................................. 64
Extras (lb-3, w-8) .............................................. 11
Total (3 wickets, 39.3 overs) ....................... 213
Fall of wickets: 1-31, 2-75, 3-101
Bowling: M Irfan 10-2-60-1 (w-5); B Bhatti
8-0-51-1 (w-1); E Adil 7.3-0-44-0; S Afridi 100-39-1 (w-2); H Sohail 4-0-16-0
Pak cricket chief
denies allegations
that Aamer is being
fast-tracked back
AFP
Islamabad
P
akistan’s cricket chief
yesterday denied that
Mohamed
Aamer
is being fast-tracked
back into international cricket
after a ﬁve-year ban, saying he
will be monitored “on and off
the ﬁeld” before his re-entry.
The 22-year-old was on
Thursday cleared to play in the
domestic cricket by the sport’s
top governing body, bringing
him a step closer to redemption for his part in one of the
most scandalous episodes in
modern cricket.
Aamer was one of three Pakistani players banned from
the game for at least ﬁve years
for arranging no-balls to order
in a Test against England at
Lord’s in 2010.
He was also jailed in Britain in 2011, along with former
capital Salman Butt and Mohamed Asif.
Aamer’s ban was due to expire on September 2, but the
International Cricket Council
used discretionary powers to
allow him to return to domestic cricket early.
Pakistan Cricket Board
chairman Shaharyar Khan denied that Aamer was going to
be rushed back into international cricket, saying that he
will have to “earn his place in
the Pakistan team”.
“Some people believe that
we have fast-tracked his return,” he said.
“In the period before his
ban expires—and even after that—Aamer will be constantly monitored on and off
the ﬁeld... He has to satisfy the
PCB and the ACSU (the ICC’s
Anti-Corruption and Security
Unit) before getting into international cricket.”
Khan said Aamer was being
shown some leniency because
he had shown more remorse
for his part in the scandal than
Butt and Asif. “Aamer pleaded guilty, showed remorse
throughout the last four years,
but the other two players did
not,” said Khan.
The decision to allow leftarmer Aamer—who at the time
of his ban was regarded as one
of the hottest young bowling
prospects in cricket—comes as
Pakistan is seeking to boost its
status in the game.
The country has been a
‘no go’ area for international
teams since terrorist attacks
on the Sri Lankan team bus in
Lahore in 2009.
“We want to build Kenya’s
tour,” said Khan, referring to
the African team’s visit to Pakistan last month, adding that
his board is also talking to national teams from the Netherlands, Nepal and Namibia.
“Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and
Zimbabwe have promised to
send their junior teams, so we
are in the process of bringing
more teams to Pakistan.”
6
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
GOLF
DUBAI DESERT CLASSIC
McIlroy leads by
four in Dubai
‘Just to get that up and down on the last was big for momentum going into tomorrow’
Tiger Woods surveys his options from under a tree in the rough on
the 11th hole during the second round of the Waste Management
Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale on Friday. Woods recorded the
worst round of his professional career, carding an 11-over-par 82.
SPOTLIGHT
Dark day for
Woods raises
prospect of
the ‘yips’
Reuters
Los Angeles
S
tunned golf fans at the
Phoenix Open were
left to ponder how the
mighty have fallen after Tiger Woods plunged to new
depths with the worst score of
his professional career in Friday’s second round.
Looking more like a struggling
amateur than the greatest player
of his generation, and arguably
of all time, Woods was out-ofsorts in every phase of his game
as he laboured to a mind-boggling 11-over-par 82 at the TPC
Scottsdale.
His chipping, in particular,
was poor and many pundits
are now pointing to Woods, a
14-times major champion once
renowned for his magical skills
around the green, as being a sufferer of the ‘yips’ when it comes
to that component.
Dottie Pepper, who won 17
times on the LPGA Tour, including two majors, tweeted on Friday: “Never fun seeing, let alone
reporting on, 2 dreaded topics in
golf: shanks & yips. Sadly, #Tiger has the latter. Nerves not
mechanics.”
Arron Oberholser, a PGA
Tour player who also works as
an analyst and commentator
for Golf Channel, said: “I think
the greatest player that I’ve ever
seen has the yips.
“Whether that’s because of a
release pattern or whether it’s
not enough reps, it’s ﬂat out the
disease. He’s got the yips.”
Woods had also struggled
with his chipping in his previous
tournament, last month’s Hero
World Challenge in Orlando
where he tied for last place, and
at Scottsdale he hit chips fat and
thin while occasionally resorting
to a putter instead.
Before any rush to judgement
is made, however, it is worth
emphasising that Woods was
competing at Scottsdale in only
his second event in ﬁve months,
having endured back problems
for much of last year after undergoing surgery.
He is also still adapting to the
ﬁfth swing change of his career,
this time with new consultant
Chris Como, and history will recall that Woods took a long time
to reach the comfort level he
wanted for each of his previous
four overhauls.
“He’s really revamping his
golf swing and just seems like he
needs some more repetitions,”
American world number nine
Jordan Spieth said after playing
the ﬁrst two rounds at the TPC
Scottsdale with Woods.
“From the looks of it, he looks
very healthy, looks like nothing
was bothering him, so he should
be able to get out there and get a
lot of practice in. I would look for
him to make a strong comeback
this year.”
Others were not so optimistic
on Friday after Woods, for the
ﬁrst time in his career as a professional, missed the cut in consecutive PGA Tour events, his previous one having occurred at the
PGA Championship in August.
“I think he needs to get rid of
Chris Como,” Oberholser said on
Golf Channel. “He needs to get
rid of all of these biomechanic
guys. You don’t go to a biomechanic guy when you’re the
best guy who’s ever played the
game practically.”
Woods, limited to just nine
tournaments worldwide last
year due to his back issues, has
often struggled to take his game
from the practice range to the
golf course, and fellow PGA Tour
player Colt Knost believes this is
once again the case.
“I watched tiger hit balls for
30mins yesterday on the range
and he absolutely striped it!
Something is going on in that
head of his,” Knost tweeted on
Friday.
After missing the cut at the
TPC Scottsdale, Woods conceded that his chipping problems
stemmed partially from a mental
block.
“To an extent, yes it is, but I
need to physically get the club in
a better spot,” said the 39-yearold Woods. “My attack angle was
much steeper with (previous instructor) Sean (Foley).
“Now I’m very shallow, so that
in turn affects the chipping. I’m
not bottoming out in the same
spot.”
Time and again during his remarkable playing career, Woods
has successfully overcome assorted challenges—many of
them injury-related. If yips are
in fact his latest challenge, it
would be foolish for anyone to
write him off any time soon.
Struggling Woods will be fine in the end, says Clarke
DUBAI: People should not read
too much into Tiger Woods’s disastrous performance at the Phoenix
Open, according to his close friend
and fellow former British Open
champion Darren Clarke.
The American 14-times major
winner and former world
number one slumped to a
second-round 82 on Friday,
his worst score since turning
professional in 1996.
Clarke himself has struggled
since winning golf’s oldest Major in 2011 at Royal St. Georges.
The 46-year old Northern Irishman, who is widely tipped to
become Europe’s next Ryder
Cup captain, has not had a top10 in 55 events on the European
Tour since lifting the Claret Jug.
“It would be wrong to read any
more into how Tiger player in
Phoenix other than to say that
any time you make major swing
changes in your game you are
going to have to crawl before
you walk,” Clarke told Reuters
yesterday.
“It may be fine on the practice
range but you only find out
what’s really happening in your
game in competition.
“If Tiger makes changes in his
game then he does so for a
reason,” Clarke added.
AFP
Dubai
R
ory McIlroy gave the
ﬁeld a sliver of hope
as he unexpectedly
struggled on the back
nine of his third round yesterday, but even then he will go
into the ﬁnal day of the Dubai
Desert Classic leading by four
shots.
McIlroy took apart the front
nine of the Majlis course with
ﬁve birdies in his ﬁrst eight
holes, but could add just one
more to the tally in his last 10
holes.
The back nine of the Majlis
course, with its three reachable
par-5s, is considerably easier
than the front.
And yet, what the world
number one did very well was
keep the bogeys out of his card
for a second successive day.
A gutsy par save on the par-5
18th hole, where he had hit his
second shot into the water but
made an up-and-down from
the drop zone, saw him close
the day with a six-under par 66.
His three-day total now
stands at 20-under par 196,
four better than 26-year-old
Dane Morten Orum Madsen,
who shot a similar bogey-free
66 in the third round.
Lee Westwood, who did not
make a single bogey in his ﬁrst
44 holes of the tournament,
doubled the par-4 ninth from
the middle of the fairway and a
third-round 69 was good only
for a third place at 14-under par
202, six shots behind the leader.
Scotland’s world number 34
and the defending champion,
Stephen Gallacher will have his
task cut out if he wants to join
a select club of ﬁve players who
have won the same tournament
three successive times.
A mid-round wobble saw
him make three bogeys over a
stretch of ﬁve holes, and even
though he recovered to shoot a
two-under par 70, he is seven
shots adrift of McIlroy.
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland hits the ball on the 10th hole during the Dubai Desert Classic, yesterday.
Gallacher was tied alongside
the English duo of Andy Sullivan, winner of South African
Open earlier this year, and Race
to Dubai leader Danny Willett,
as well as Austria’s in-form
Bernd Wiesberger.
After a two-feet putt for
birdie lipped out on the par-5
10th hole, McIlroy was clearly
frustrated out there on the golf
course as his efforts to increase
the lead did not fructify.
However, he said the conditions on the back nine had become tougher.
“I didn’t put a foot wrong
on the front nine and when I
missed that little short putt
on ten, it seemed like that momentum I had, just sort of went
away and I had to scramble a little bit for pars coming in,” McIlroy said.
“The greens got ﬁrm and the
wind got up a little bit so it was
hard to get the ball close to the
hole.
“You had to hit really quality
shots to give yourself chances
for birdies, and I didn’t quite do
that on the back nine like I did
on the front.”
Bogey-free again
McIlroy said it was important
for him to make the par on the
18th.
“It meant a lot. To be
USPGA
bogey?free again today was important to me, especially when
you’re going out with the lead,
not to make any mistakes makes
it that much harder for anyone
else.
“Just to get that up and down
on the last was big for momentum going into tomorrow,” he
added.
“I’ve been in this position
many times before, so I know
the pitfalls that are waiting out
there. It’s just a matter of sticking to the same game plan, being aggressive, making committed swings and giving myself
as many chances for birdies as I
can.”
Madsen, who followed up his
nine-under par 63 on Friday
with a 66, was mindful of the
fact that he was going to be up
against the world number one.
“Obviously, he’s going to be
tough to beat. He looks like he’s
playing pretty solidly out there,
as well,” said the Danish world
number 194.
“I’m just going to go out tomorrow and see if I can play
some of the same golf that I
played today. I won’t be too disappointed if I don’t win tomorrow.
“I’ll be happy if I do what I set
out to do and play pretty solidly.”
USLPGA
Laird surges ahead
at Phoenix Open
Teen star Ko seizes
lead in Florida
AFP
Phoenix
M
artin Laird posted
his second straight
six-under 66 to
take the lead at
the Phoenix Open which will
be without both Tiger Woods
and Phil Mickelson after they
missed the cut.
Scotland’s Laird ﬁnished 36
holes at 10-under-par 132 in a
round that included just one bogey which came on his ﬁnal hole
of the day. It was also his ﬁrst
bogey of the event at the rainsoaked TPC Scottsdale course.
“I held off for 17 holes. I am
very pleased with it,” Laird
said. “And obviously a little
disappointed with [bogey] but
I am not complaining. Five under is a hell of a lot better today
than ﬁve under was yesterday.”
Scoring was difficult Friday
as conditions were wet and
cold.
Daniel Berger, who is playing on a sponsor exemption,
posted a two-under 69 and he
stands alone in second place
at eight under. Justin Thomas
carded a three-under 68 to
move into third place at sevenunder-par 135.
Woods struggled to an 11over 82, his highest score in 322
career tournaments. He ended
at 13-over-par 155 at the TPC
Scottsdale, missing the cut in
his second straight start for
the ﬁrst time in his PGA Tour
career.
“We all have days like this,”
Lydia Ko of New Zealand watches her tee shot on the 10th hole at
the Coates Golf Championship at the Golden Ocala Golf &
Equestrian Club on Friday in Ocala, Florida.
AFP
Florida
Martin Laird assesses a putt on the ninth green during the second
round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale
on Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona.
said Woods, who was playing
in the tournament for the ﬁrst
time in 14 years.
Mickelson, a three-time
winner of this event, struggled
to a ﬁve-over 76, which left
him out of the weekend action
at three-over-par 145. Mickelson’s score was his highest in
this event since 2009.
This is just the second time
ever that Woods and Mickelson
have missed the cut at the same
event. The other was at the
2012 Greenbrier Classic.
“It was a difficult round I
thought for everyone,” said
fan-favorite Mickelson. “My
short game was off today.”
Former Masters champions Zach Johnson (70), Bubba
Watson (71) and Angel Cabrera
(69) share fourth place at six
under. They were joined there
by ﬁrst-round leader Ryan
Palmer (72), Ryan Moore (67)
and Robert Streb (70).
Rain fell for most of Friday’s
second round and play was
eventually suspended for the
night due to darkness. The ﬁrst
round had also been halted by
darkness and was completed
earlier Friday.
The second round will
resume Saturday with third
round tee times starting in the
late morning.
T
een star Lydia Ko birdied ﬁve straight holes
on the back nine to
take a one-stroke lead
after the third round of the
season-opening LPGA Tour’s
Coates Golf Championship on
Friday.
The 17-year-old from New
Zealand is a shot ahead of
rookie Jang Ha-Na and could
become the youngest male or
female player ever to reach
number one in the world rankings with a victory on Saturday.
“I have been putting good
the last few days. I just have to
stay in that mood,” Ko said.
Ko, who ﬁnished 54 holes at
14-under 202, has ﬁve career
LPGA Tour wins with three of
those coming last year.
Jang, the second-round
leader, posted a one-under 71
at Golden Ocala Golf course in
Florida and is alone in second
place at 13-under.
Choi Na-Yeon, another
South Korean, carded a sixunder 66 to jump into third
place at 12-under-par 204.
American Stacy Lewis shot
two-under 70 for the second
straight round and the world
number three is alone in fourth
at 10-under 206.
Amy Yang equalled Ko’s
65 and jumped into a share of
ﬁfth at nine-under. Yang was
joined there by Jessica Korda
(69) and Austin Ernst (70).
Ko had a strong front nine
with four birdies. But she began the back nine with backto-back bogeys before catching ﬁre and then surging to
ﬁve straight birdies. She closed
with two pars.
“I was kind of shocked,”
Ko said of the bogeys. “But
it got me ﬁred up. I jammed
my putter in the bag and said,
‘You’ve got to start working
again,’ and I made good birdies
on 12 to 16.”
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
7
SPORT
NFL
Belichick sees ‘relentless’
Seattle as model for others
‘They compete relentlessly as well as any team or any organisation I’ve ever observed’
Reuters
Phoenix, Arizona
Goodell vows ‘thorough’
Deflategate probe
N
ew England head coach
Bill Belichick is not
known for heaping
compliments on his
own team, but when it comes to
today’s Super Bowl opponents
the Seattle Seahawks, the Patriots coach has not been shy in
expressing his admiration.
A joint news conference with
his opposite number Pete Carroll
by its nature encouraged polite
words, but Belichick was unusually fullsome in his praise.
“They compete relentlessly as
well as any team or any organisation I’ve ever observed,” said
Belichick.
“The thing that impresses
me the most and the thing that
I guess I would like to do a better job of is just the way that his
teams play for 60 minutes. They
play from the opening kickoff to
the ﬁnal whistle or the ﬁnal gun.
“They play extremely hard
down after down after down,
week after week, year after year,”
he said.
The Seahawks illustrated that
point perfectly in their remarkable comeback win over the Green
Bay Packers in the NFC championship game, which they won in
overtime after trailing 16-0 at
the half.
“They’re just never going to
let up in any phase of the game:
offence, defence, special teams,
the receivers, the defensive
backs, the linemen, the quarterback,” Belichick said.
“Everybody just competes at
such a high level for every single
second that they’re out there,
and I think that’s a great credit
Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll (left) and New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick during a joint press conference for Super
Bowl XLIX at Phoenix Convention Center on Friday.
and attribute to Pete and his
staff. The players they brought
in there, they’re just relentless in
the way that they play.
Belichick said the Seahawks
have become the standard to follow for other teams in that area.
“I think that any coach wants
his team to play that way and I
think that Seattle and Pete really
are the model for that. They do a
better job than anybody. And I’m
SPOTLIGHT
not saying that there aren’t other
teams that are in that category
or very close to them, but I put
them at the top.”
NFL Commissioner Roger
Goodell Friday refused to speculate on the outcome of the
league’s “Deflategate” probe or
potential penalties New England could face if found to have
broken league rules.
Goodell, addressing the state of
the league as it looks forward
to today’s season-ending
Super Bowl 49, said the NFL is
conducting a “thorough and
objective investigation” into
whether the Patriots purposely
used under-inflated footballs to
gain an advantage in a playoff
win over Indianapolis.
Goodell said the probe, led by
attorney Ted Wells, is focusing on two questions: “Why
were some footballs used in
the game that were not in
compliance with the rules, and
was this result of a deliberate
action?
“I want to emphasise, we have
made no judgement on these
points,” Goodell said. “And
we will not compromise the
investigation by engaging in
speculation.”
The league has confirmed that
some of the footballs used by
the Patriots offense in the contest were found to be inflated
below the level mandated by
the league at halftime, and
properly inflated for the second
half.
The mystery remains as to
how the balls that passed a
pre-game inspection came to
be under-inflated and perhaps
easier to grip and throw in the
cold, rainy weather at Foxborough.
On Monday, Patriots owner
Robert Kraft defiantly defended
his team, and said that if the
investigation exonerates the
Pats, the league owes coach
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady
an apology for calling their
integrity into question.
“I’m disappointed with the way
this entire matter has been handled and reported upon,” said
Kraft, who was apparently irked
by media leaks of information
gathered in the probe.
Goodell said that regardless of
the outcome, the league had no
choice but to investigate.
“This is my job, this is my
responsibility, to protect the
integrity of the game,” he said.
The Patriots routed the Colts
45-7 in the game to book their
Super Bowl berth. Playing with
properly inflated footballs, they
out-scored Indianapolis 28-0 in
the second half.
While some have pounced on
the affair as proof that Belichick
is a scofflaw, others have simply
scoffed at the scandal.
Actors Matt Damon, Ben Affleck
and John Krasinski teamed up
in a video that aired on a Jimmy
Kimmel’s late night chat show,
claiming to be the culprits.
But Goodell insisted it didn’t
matter if any advantage gained
by the Patriots was negligible,
if they are proved to have
violated the rules.
BOTTOM LINE
Goodell high on London, Brady’s legacy
shy on UK franchise
secure regardless of
Super Bowl outcome
N
T
AFP
Phoenix, Arizona
ational
Football
League commissioner
Roger Goodell likes
the “passion” he sees
in London fans, but offered no
word on Friday on a potential
franchise in the United Kingdom.
“London has done not only
everything we expected but
more than we expected,” said
Goodell, whose league held
three regular-season contests
at Wembley Stadium in 2014.
Three are scheduled for the
2015 campaign as well, but as
the league prepared for today’s
title-deciding Super Bowl 49,
Goodell offered no time-frame
for a trans-Atlantic team.
“We are continuing to advance our interests over there
from the standpoint of playing more games,” Goodell said.
“We are working with sponsors,
working with fans directly.”
Goodell said ticket sales are
brisk for the three NFL games
in London next season—the
New York Jets against Miami
on October 4 and an unprecedented back-to-back weekends pairing of Buffalo and
Jacksonville on October 25 and
Detroit against Kansas City on
November 1.
“We want to continue to
respond to that fan interest,”
Goodell said. “If we do, we
don’t know where it will go.”
The 2015 London Series
games have been scheduled for
an afternoon kickoff that will
put them on US television on
Sunday morning.
Goodell thought American fans enjoyed the expanded
viewing hours, while the earlier start made it easier for
some European fans to attend
and make it a day-trip from the
continent.
Reuters
Phoenix, Arizona
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell holds the annual state of the league press conference prior to Super
Bowl XLIX, in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday.
“We found it was a positive
change,” he said of the experiment with an afternoon kickoff
in one London game this year.
“I’m not sure it has anything to
do with the long term future of
whether the franchise is there.”
The NFL has also played a
regular-season game in Mexico
City, in 2005, but Goodell said
various hurdles had prevented
a return even though the league
has a solid fan base south of the
border.
“We have tremendous fans in
Mexico. We had great experience with a regular season game
down there,” he said. “We want
to get back there and play more
games there. It is a combination
of stadium availabilities, making sure that we can do it at the
standards and level that we expect. When we do it we want to
do it well.
“We’ve had success in London but we’re looking at markets, including Mexico. We
certainly hope to be back there
soon.”
There have been 11 NFL regular season games in London, the
ﬁrst of them in 2007 and at least
one a year since then.
Goodell also revealed that
several clubs are interested in a
possible move to Los Angeles,
but the league would prefer its
franchises to stay where they
are.
“We want all of our franchises to stay in their current markets,” Goodell said as he met the
media as part of the build-up to
today’s Super Bowl 49.
“That’s a shared responsibility, that’s something that
we all have to work together
on,” he added, noting that the
league has stadium-funding
programmes and will work with
teams and local authorities to
try to help make communityclub marriages work.
Goodell’s comments come
weeks after St Louis Rams
owner Stan Kroenke joined a
group putting forward a plan
to build an 80,000-seat, NFLsuitable stadium in Los Angeles.
That could put pressure on
St Louis, where the city and the
club have been unable to come
to terms on funding stadium
upgrades.
“We have been working
on the stadium issue with St.
Louis, as you know, for several
years,” Goodell said. “We had a
very formal process as part of
the lease. We went through that
entire process. It did not result
in a solution that works for St.
Louis or for the team.”
om Brady will be remembered as one of
the National Football
League’s greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game
regardless of whether he captures a fourth Super Bowl title
with the New England Patriots
today.
A win over the Seattle Seahawks would put Brady alongside
Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw
and boyhood idol Joe Montana as
the only quarterbacks with four
Super Bowl rings. A loss would
be his third consecutive defeat in
the NFL’s championship game.
But no matter the outcome,
the 37-year-old Brady has already accomplished more than
enough in 15 NFL seasons to ensure he is a sure-ﬁre ﬁrst-ballot
Hall of Fame player when he becomes eligible for induction.
“Even if he doesn’t win (on
Sunday), he’s already one of the
best players at that position,”
Hall of Fame quarterback Dan
Marino told Reuters.
Few could have predicted the
success Brady would go on to
achieve when the Patriots selected him in the sixth round,
199th overall, of the 2000 NFL
Draft. The quarterbacks picked
ahead of him became the subject
of a documentary called “The
Brady 6.”
“Tom didn’t come into the
league as the ﬁrst pick in the
draft or the highest quarterback
that was rated out of college, but
he worked extremely hard and
he’s very smart,” said Patriots
head coach Bill Belichick.
“He has been able to improve
on his strengths, he has a great
New England Patriots’ Tom Brady
understanding of the game of
football and he can accurately
throw the ball. Those are his
strengths.”
Brady is ﬁfth all-time in career
passing touchdowns with 392
and ﬁfth all-time with 53,258
passing yards. The players he
trails in each category—Marino,
Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and
Drew Brees—cannot boast anywhere near the postseason success Brady has enjoyed.
Brady has thrown an NFLbest 49 postseason touchdowns
and 7,017 passing yards, both
records he took ownership of
during the Patriots’ current
playoff drive.
Today, Brady and Belichick
will make their sixth Super Bowl
appearance, the most by any
head coach-quarterback tandem
in NFL history.
“He’s such a great leader and
has demonstrated that so clearly,” said Seahawks head coach
Pete Carroll. “As a sixth-rounder, he has shown that it isn’t
where you start, it’s how you ﬁnish and he’s ﬁnishing in famous
fashion.”
8
Gulf Times
Sunday, Febuary 1, 2015
SPORT
BASEBALL
Braves
deal RHP
David
Hale to
Rockies in
4- player
trade
AFP
New York
T
he Atlanta Braves continued to make player
moves, trading righthanded pitchers David
Hale and Gus Schlosser to the
Colorado Rockies on Friday for
minor-league catchers Jose Briceno and Chris O’Dowd.
Hale pitched in 45 games for
the Braves last season, tallying a
4-5 record and a 3.30 ERA, and
was expected to be in the mix for
a starting spot this season.
The Braves apparently considered Hale expendable after they
came to an agreement on a minor
league contract with left-hander
Eric Stults, who is expected to
be invited to the team’s major
league camp.
Stults, 35, made 65 starts for
the San Diego Padres in 2013 and
2014 and posted an 8-17 record
with a 4.30 ERA. He could compete for the ﬁfth spot in the Atlanta rotation.
The Braves also completed a
reported one-year, $4mn deal
with outﬁelder Jonny Gomes,
who played for the Boston Red
Sox and Oakland A’s last year,
batting .234 with six homers and
37 RBIs in 112 games.
Meanwhile, arbitration will
not be necessary for Steve Pearce
after the ﬁrst baseman-outﬁelder reached agreement with the
Baltimore Orioles on a one-year,
$3.7mn contract.
Pearce and the Orioles bridged
the largest arbitration gap between a player and a team during
the offseason by arriving at the
midpoint. Pearce had requested
$5.4mn and the team countered
with $2mn two weeks ago when
proposals were exchanged.
The 31-year-old Pearce, who is
eligible for free agency after the
2015 season, batted .293 with career bests of 21 home runs and 49
RBIs in 102 games last season for
the Orioles.
The Milwaukee Brewers signed
left-handed reliever Neal Cotts
to a one-year contract worth a
reported $3mn.
Cotts, 34, went 2-9 with a 4.32
ERA and two saves in a careerhigh 73 relief appearances last
season with the Texas Rangers.
NBA
Hawks beat Blazers
for 18th straight win
‘Kent stepped up big, and we have the luxury to have Mike Scott to come off the bench and give us a spark’
Agencies
Los Angeles
T
he Atlanta Hawks were
pushed by the visiting
Portland Trail Blazers
but pulled away late and
ran their franchise-record winning streak to 18.
Paul Millsap scored 21 points
Friday, and Al Horford added 17
as the soaring Hawks withstood
LaMarcus Aldridge’s 37-point,
11-rebound effort for a 105-99
victory.
“It was hard,” Horford said,
“but we’re a resilient group and
kept ﬁghting.”
The league-best Hawks (398) surpassed last season’s (3844) win total and are just the
ﬁfth team in NBA history to win
18 games before the All-Star
break, which is in two weeks.
With starting forward DeMarre Carroll out with an
Achilles strain and Thabo Sefolosha lost early to a right calf
strain, the Hawks received big
contributions from reserves
Kent Bazemore with 12 points
and Mike Scott, who had eight
of his 11 points in the ﬁnal quarter.
“Kent stepped up big, and we
have the luxury to have Mike
Scott to come off the bench and
give us a spark,” Horford said.
Kyle Korver netted 16 points,
and Jeff Teague had 13 for Atlanta, which has not lost since
December 26 at Milwaukee.
“We don’t talk about the
streak,” Teague said. “We want
to win every game.”
The Hawks can close out January with a spotless 17-0 if they
win Saturday against Philadelphia.
The Hawks turned a ﬁvepoint deﬁcit at the start of the
fourth quarter into a 92-91 advantage before pulling away.
German-native
Dennis
Schroeder made a layup, and
Millsap splashed down a threepointer to open up a 97-91 advantage with three minutes, 36
seconds remaining. The Blazers
got no closer than four points
thereafter.
“Our bench came in and did
a great job for us,” Millsap said.
“Mike Scott hit some big shots
in the fourth quarter, and we
had the will to win.”
Toronto Raptors guard Louis Williams drives around Brooklyn Nets center Brook Lopez during the second quarter at Barclays Center on Friday.
Wesley Matthews scored 16
points, and snubbed All-Star
Damian Lillard had 13 with 11
assists for the Blazers (32-15),
who lost for the seventh time in
the past nine games.
“It was a very competitive
game,” Portland coach Terry
Stotts said. “Both teams made
runs, but they made more plays
at the end of the game than we
did.”
Elsewhere, small forward
Gordon Hayward had a huge
game and the Utah Jazz snapped
a six-game losing streak to the
Golden State Warriors with an
upset 110-100 home win.
Hayward compiled 24 points,
15 rebounds, six assists and
three steals, the ﬁrst player in
the NBA to reach those numbers
in a game this season.
Golden State All-Star guard
Stephen Curry scored a gamehigh 32 points and had seven
rebounds and six assists, but
the Warriors (36-8) experienced a rare off night while
losing for the second time in
a row.
Kevin Love had 23 points and
10 rebounds, and the Cleveland
Cavaliers beat the Sacramento
Kings 101-90 for their ninth
consecutive victory, their long-
EUROLEAGUE
est winning streak in nearly ﬁve
years.
Cavs forward LeBron James
started after missing one game
with a sprained wrist. He had 19
points and seven assists.
Forward Amir Johnson had
the go-ahead putback layup
with 41.5 seconds remaining in
overtime and the Toronto Raptors withstood a fourth-quarter
collapse for a wild 127-122 road
victory over the Brooklyn Nets.
Johnson had 24 points and
made 10 of 11 shots from the
ﬁeld as the Raptors survived
despite blowing a 17-point lead
in a game that saw eight lead
changes and seven ties in the ﬁnal 17 minutes.
It was the ﬁfth successive win
for Toronto, and the seventh
straight home loss for the Nets.
The Dallas Mavericks went
on a 23-0 second-half run and
snapped their four-game losing
streak in style with a 93-72 road
win over the Miami Heat.
It was the ﬁrst Dallas triumph over the Heat since the
2011 NBA Finals, a span of seven
straight losses.
Guard Eric Gordon scored
a season-high 28 points and
forward Ryan Anderson, playing for injured Anthony Davis,
added 24 to lift the New Orleans
Pelicans to a 108-103 victory
over the Los Angeles Clippers,
whose defeat snapped a sixgame winning streak.
Results
Philadelphia.103
Atlanta ...............105
Houston ............ 93
Toronto..............127
Cleveland ........101
New Orleans108
Dallas .................... 93
Utah ......................110
Phoenix ..............99
Minnesota..............94
Portland .................. 99
Boston .......................87
Brooklyn ................ 122
Sacramento ........90
LA Clippers ........ 103
Miami .......................... 72
Golden State ... 100
Chicago ....................93
NHL
Barcelona, Panathinaikos Kane, Sharp lead
and Fenerbahce march on Blackhawks’ 4-1
rout of Ducks
H
P
Reuters
Belgrade
eavyweight trio Barcelona, Panathinaikos
and Fenerbahce eased
to victory in the ﬁfth
round of the Euroleague’s second group stage on Friday.
Twice former champions
Barcelona strolled to an 89-72
home win over Lithuanians Zalgiris Kaunas, Panathinaikos beat
Galatasaray 86-77 and Fenerbahce triumphed 68-60 at Unicaja Malaga in the day’s most
exciting contest.
Having lost both their home
games in the Top 16, which features two groups of eight teams,
an expensively-assembled Fenerbahce outﬁt won their third
away contest with American
playmaker Andrew Goudelock
picking up 20 points.
Czech forward Jan Vesely, a former NBA campaigner,
chipped in with 17 points and
Serbian Nemanja Bjelica added
14 to go with 13 rebounds as the
Turkish side boosted their hopes
of reaching the playoffs.
“It was a good defensive performance that won us the game,”
Goudelock told Euroleague television. “We moved the ball well
in offence and made some tough
shots but the key was containing
Agencies
Anaheim,. California
FC Barcelona´s French player Edwin Jackson (centre) tries to escape between Darius Songaila (left) and
Arturas Milaknis, both of Zalgiris Kaunas, during their Top 16 Euroleague basketball match played at Palau
Blaugrana in Barcelona, on Friday.
Unicaja to just 60 points. This is
how we want to play in defence
every time.”
Croatia centre Ante Tomic
amassed 16 points and nine rebounds for Barcelona, Slovenian
Bostjan Nachbar had 15 points
while Mario Hezonja and Justin
Doellman scored 12 apiece.
Panathinaikos, winners of six
Euroleague titles, led by as many
as 21 points against Galatasaray
with six of their players ﬁnishing
in double-scoring digits.
Latvia guard Janis Blums recorded 16 points, including four
three-pointers from seven attempts, while stalwart playmaker Dimitris Diamantidis collected 14 points, ﬁve rebounds
and six assists.
The next round features a
mouth-watering doubleheader
on Thursday with Real Madrid
and Barcelona locking horns in
an all-Spanish clash while 2012
and 2013 winners Olympiakos
Piraeus host CSKA Moscow, the
only unbeaten team in the competition.
atrick Kane had two
goals and an assist, and
Patrick Sharp assisted
on every Chicago goal
in the Blackhawks’ 4-1 victory
over the Anaheim Ducks on
Friday.
Captain Jonathan Toews and
Duncan Keith also scored for
the Blackhawks, who beat the
NHL-leading Ducks for the
third straight time at Honda
Center. Corey Crawford made
21 saves as Chicago controlled
the meeting of Western Conference powers, taking a threegoal lead in the second period.
Rickard Rakell scored with
9:54 to play and Frederik Andersen stopped 29 shots for the
Ducks, who have back-to-back
losses in two days after a sixgame winning streak.
Shortly before Kane scored
his ﬁrst goal, Keith scored on
what appeared to be goaltender
interference by Toews during
a dominant middle period by
Chicago.
After getting blown out in
Chicago Blackhawks right wing Patrick Kane and goalie Corey
Crawford celebrate the 4-1 victory against the Anaheim Ducks
following the third period at Honda Center on Friday.
San Jose on Thursday night, the
Ducks have lost consecutive
games for the second time all
season, and the ﬁrst since Nov.
28-29 - another back-to-back
set against the Blackhawks and
the Sharks.
And when the Ducks lose,
they really lose: Anaheim has
lost in regulation just nine
times since Halloween, but
eight of the nine were by at
least three goals apiece.
Results
Pittsburgh...............2
St. Louis ....................3
Colorado ..................3
Vancouver .............5
Chicago.....................4
New Jersey...............1
Carolina .......................2
Nashville ....................0
Buffalo...........................2
Anaheim......................1
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
9
SPORT
ATHLETICS
Cain aims to show off speed in NY homecoming
AFP
New York
V
ersatile young US runner Mary Cain aims to
show off her speed over
800 metres in a New
York homecoming performance
at the Armory Track Invitational
yesterday.
The 18-year-old Cain, who
has set multiple national junior records outdoors and is the
reigning world junior 3,000
metres champion, is using the
shorter race as preparation for a
world championships campaign
in the 1,500.
“I think it’s very healthy and
important to mix up distances
CYCLING
Aussie
Bobridge
misses
hour
world
record
AFP
Melbourne
A
ustralian cyclist Jack
Bobridge missed out on
an attempt to break the
hour world record in
Melbourne yesterday.
Bobridge covered about 51.3
kilometres in his bid to pass the
record of 51.852km, set on October 30 last year by Austrian Matthias Brundle.
The Australian needed to ride
208 laps of the DISC Velodrome
in Melbourne and ﬁnished the 60
minutes with about 205 laps.
Bobridge made a strong start
and by halfway he was on target
with 104 laps completed.
He lifted noticeably in the
last 10 minutes, but it was not
enough.
Cycling still in 2020
Paralympics
Cycling will be part of the
2020 Tokyo Paralympics, despite
initially being left off the list of
sports due to an administrative oversight, the International
Cycling Union (UCI) conﬁrmed
yesterday.
“Cycling will be part of the
Paralympic programme where it
has been part of the Games for
more than 30 years, dating back
to the 1984 Los Angeles Games,”
the UCI underlined, approving
the International Paralympic
Committee (IPC) decision.
When the initial list of 16 sports
was published last October, cycling did not appear alongside
major disciplines like athletics,
rowing, swimming and tennis.
It was also announced that
badminton and taekwondo will
appear for the ﬁrst time at the
paralympics although seven-aside football and sailing were not
included as one of the 22 sports
announced, with the maximum
set at 23.
“I would like to thank the 24
candidate sports put forward for
the Tokyo Paralympics in 2020
and congratulate the 22 sports
which have been approved by the
committee director of the IPC,”
said IPC president Philip Craven.
you run, which is why I’m running the 800,” said Cain, who left
her suburban New York home to
attend college and train as a professional under coach Alberto
Salazar in Portland, Oregon.
Her Nike Oregon Project team
mate Galen Rupp, the Olympic
10,000 meters silver medalist,
has set his sights on running the
fastest indoor two miles ever in
the Armory meet.
“I am a 1,500 runner right
now,” Cain said about her plans
for the Beijing world championships and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro
Olympics. “Tactically, physically, it all meshes for me at that
distance.”
Cain said going full throttle in
the 800 denies her the pleasure
of summoning a ﬁnishing kick.
“There’s something really fun
about being a kicker,” she said.
“Once you get to 200 to go and
you’re still with those girls, you
smell blood.
“That’s one reason I think the
1,500 is so exciting. You have to
be strong, have to be a distance
runner. But in that last hundred
you are going all out.
“That’s one of the funnest
parts about running, that last
bit. A little bit of fear, a little bit
of just everything, all your emotions just bottled up.”
Cain is looking to build on her
ﬁrst taste of world championships competition when she ﬁnished 10th in Moscow in 2013 at
age 17.
Borzakovskiy set to become Russia head coach
MOSCOW: Former Olympic
800 metres champion Yury
Borzakovskiy is set to become
the new head coach of Russian athletics.
“We recommended to
the heads of the Sports
Ministry and the national
training centre that Yury
Borzakovskiy should become the new head coach,”
Russian Athletics Federation president Valentin
Balakhnichev told the All
Sport agency.
“His candidacy was supported so you can say Borzakovskiy will soon become Rus-
sia’s athletics head coach.”
The former head coach, Valentin Maslakov, resigned on
Jan. 23 because of the recent
doping revelations involving
his country’s sportsmen and
women.
Aside from winning gold at
the 2004 Athens Olympics,
the 33-year-old Borzakovskiy
was the 2001 world champion and a triple European
champion.
“Borzakovskiy has a great
deal of experience, is very authoritative and has the desire
to take up coaching,” added
Balakhnichev.
US runner Mary Cain
RUGBY
SPOTLIGHT
Foreign legion set
for Six Nations role
Burgess
fails to
shine for
England
Saxons
‘My message to people would be to ask them to be open-minded’
Byline
Dateline
AFP
London
am Burgess, England’s
prized capture from
rugby league, appears a
long way from claiming
a World Cup starting spot after
a low-key debut for the second
string Saxons in Cork on Friday.
The
26-year-old,
who
switched codes after leading the
South Sydney Rabbitohs to Australia’s National Rugby League
Grand Final in October despite
breaking his cheekbone, was replaced late in England’s 18-9 win
over the Ireland Wolfhounds after an ineffectual display.
“Sam has had a great week
for us, but unfortunately didn’t
have the ball on the front foot
and probably tried to force a
couple of things,” Saxons coach
and former England fullback Jon
Callard was quoted as saying by
British media.
“He made a lovely little break
and offload, which is what his
strength is, but we just couldn’t
get him into the game at setpiece.
“What he did with the ball in
hand wasn’t there to see, but he
did a lot of good stuff without the
ball.”
England head coach Stuart
Lancaster, whose team kick-off
the Six Nations against Wales
on Feb. 6, watched on from the
stands but it is unlikely he will be
calling on the Bath centre for the
European tournament after this
display.
The Six Nations was regarded
as a key opportunity for Burgess
to show why he should start for
England at their home World
Cup which begins in September.
Instead it was ﬂyhalf Henry
Slade who impressed, scoring a
try and kicking eight points, with
replacement Christian Wade also
going over in the last minute to
clinch the victory before a capacity 8,200 crowd at Irish Independent Park.
The hosts, whose points came
from three Ian Madigan penalties, welcomed back Ireland
ﬂanker Sean O’Brien from shoulder surgery in his ﬁrst match
since September.
S
T
his season’s edition of
Europe’s Six Nations
Championship will see
ﬁfty% of the coaches
come from New Zealand, the
home of the world champions.
And when he tournament
begins in Cardiff on Friday, it’s
possible, if unlikely due to form
and ﬁtness, that both the Wales
ﬂy-half (Gareth Anscombe)
and the England hooker (Dylan
Hartley) could be native Kiwis.
Meanwhile South Africaborn centre Brad Barritt, although injured right now, is in
the England squad while the
Rainbow Nation has also yielded a trio of France recruits in
Rory Kockott, Scott Spedding
and Bernard Le Roux.
For some this represents a
“cheapening” of international
rugby union.
For others it’s the inevitable consequence of increasing numbers of multi-national
families allied to the fact that,
in the professional era, players
have more incentive, especially
in ﬁnancial terms, to venture
abroad should staying at home
reduce their Test chances.
Under World Rugby rules,
players can compete for a
country other than the one
they were born through a family connection stretching back
to a granDPArent hailing from
their adopted land or via a
three-year residency period.
‘Complicated question’
The whole issue was brought
into sharp focus ahead of this
Six Nations when Scotland
coach Vern Cotter, himself a
Kiwi, included Hugh Blake
in his squad even though the
New Zealand-born back-row
forward has yet to play for the
capital club.
“My message to people
would be to ask them to be
open-minded,” Blake, who has
Scottish grandparents, told
Radio Clyde.
Scotland coach Vern Cotter
“I’m new. I didn’t select
the team. I’m just going
to be trying my best over
the next few days to try to
eventually play for Scotland,” added Blake, who
played for the New Zealand
Colts at the Junior World
Cup.
Cotter, previously in charge
of French giants Clermont, accepted the question of ‘overseas’ players in Test sides was a
thorny topic.
“I know foreign-born players who have been picked,
particularly Tony Marsh (a
New Zealand-born centre who
capped 21 times by France from
2001-2004,” Cotter told AFP at
this week’s Six Nations launch
in London.
“He was immensely proud
to have the cockerel over his
heart. Having spent a certain
amount of time in France, he
felt French. “It’s a complicated
question, a political question.
“In the history of French
rugby, there have been foreignborn players and they’ve often
brought something with them
which has been of beneﬁt to
the French game.
“French rugby culture remains very strong and once
you’ve spent some time there it
becomes imprinted upon you,
which is certainly what happened to me.”
In the amateur era, England
often annoyed their opponents
by regarding anyone studying at Oxford or Cambridge
Universities, then hotbeds of
sport, as qualiﬁed to wear the
Red Rose.
This resulted in ‘Tuppy’
Owen-Smith captaining England at rugby while playing
cricket for his native South
Africa, with Martin Donnelly,
one of New Zealand’s greatest
batsmen, earning a cap as an
England centre.
These days Samoa-born
centre Manu Tuilagi, when ﬁt,
is a ﬁrst-choice selection in
current England coach Stuart
Lancaster’s side.
Meanwhile England’s Vunipola brothers, Mako and Billy,
the former born in New Zealand, the latter in Australia,
could also have represented
Tonga, the land of their parents, or Wales as that is where
the family ﬁrst lived after arriving in Britain.
Lancaster has set great store
by developing an ‘English culture’ within his squad, which
he insists is in no way diluted
by a player’s origins.
“The likes of Mako and Billy
Vunipola have been educated
here (in England),” Lancaster told
AFP at the Six Nations launch.
“Certainly, when I look around
my team I see an England team.”
BOXING
Arum optimistic of Mayweather-Pacquiao deal: report
AFP
New York
M
Manny Pacquiao (left) and Floyd Mayweather
anny Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum
reportedly is optimistic a mega-ﬁght
deal between the Filipino icon
and unbeaten US ﬁghter Floyd
Mayweather will be made in the
next couple of days.
The New York Post reported
Friday that Arum is down to
negotiating the ﬁnal details of a
contract for the much-awaited
welterweight showdown tentatively penned in for May 2 in Las
Vegas.
“The issues are being narrowed down to extraordinar-
ily small points,” Arum told the
newspaper. “I’m optimistic it
will all be put together in the
next couple of days.”
Mayweather said he would not
ﬁght Pacquiao as long as Arum
was his promoter after a dispute
many years ago.
Blood test issues help scuttle talks ﬁve years ago but after
the ﬁghters met at an NBA game
in Miami earlier this week, the
bout expected to be the sport’s
biggest-ever moneyspinner appears close to a reality.
“Everybody is doing the right
thing,” Arum told the Post on
Friday. “We’re looking to complete the paperwork. Everything
is moving in the right direction.
Hopefully, the next couple of
days it will get done.”
The report said network issues
are all that remain to be sorted.
Mayweather has a contract
with Showtime while Pacquiao
has a deal with HBO, but both
stand to gain by coming together for Mayweather-Pacquiao bout that could approach
$300mn.
The last time such a deal was
made between the telecast rivals, it produced a Mike TysonLennox Lewis matchup in 2002.
Pacquiao has been calling out
Mayweather for months, his latest comment last week on Twitter being, “I can easily beat Floyd
Mayweather, I believe that.”
After meeting at a Miami Heat
game, Mayweather and Pac-
quiao spent an hour in the Asian
star’s hotel suite talking about
the possibility of meeting in the
ring, Arum said.
“I think it helped a lot because we were all putting papers
together, and there was still a
question as to whether Floyd
really wanted to do the ﬁght or
not,” Arum said. “Based on the
meeting with Pacquiao in the
hotel suite, Manny and (Pacquiao adviser) Michael Koncz
were convinced Floyd absolutely
wants to do the ﬁght.”
Filipino southpaw Pacquiao,
57-5 with two drawn and 38
knockouts, has won three ﬁghts
in a row since being knocked out
by Juan Manuel Marquez in his
fourth bout against the Mexi-
can. “Pac-Man”, who is 36, won
a unanimous decision over Chris
Aligieri in Macao last November
in his most recent ﬁght.
Mayweather, 47-0 with 26
knockouts, turns 38 next month
and has two more ﬁghts in the
rich Showtime deal that has
made him the highest-paid athlete in the world. Should he win
them both, Mayweather would
match the iconic 49-0 record of
1950s legend Rocky Marciano,
who retired as an undefeated
heavyweight champion.
Mayweather is coming off a
unanimous decision over Argentine ﬁghter Marcos Maidana last
September in a rematch of a bout
last May that Mayweathwer won
by majority decision.
10
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
FOOTBALL
AFRICAN NATIONS CUP
BUNDESLIGA
DR Congo come
from behind to
win classic tie
Bayern left licking
wounds after
Wolfsburg mauling
The result sees DR Congo advance to the last four for the first time since 1998
Wolfsburg’s Ricardo Rodriguez (L) and Bayern’s Arjen Robben vie for
the ball during their Bundesliga match in Wolfsburg on Friday.
AFP
Munich
B
Congo’s midfielder Sagesse Babele (L) vies with Democratic Republic of the Congo forward Dieudonne Mbokani during their African Cup of Nations quarter-final match in Bata.
AFP
Bata
D
R Congo ended the fairytale run
of neighbours Congo Brazzaville
yesterday when they came from
behind to win 4-2 and qualify
for the semi-ﬁnals of the 2015 Africa Cup
of Nations.
Congo, who were only reinstated in the
qualifying tournament of this competition
after Rwanda were disqualiﬁed for ﬁelding an ineligible player, led this battle of the
Congos 2-0 before DRC fought back to win
with four goals in the last 25 minutes.
Following a ﬂat ﬁrst 45 minutes in a
largely deserted Estadio de Bata, this der-
by clash came to life after the break, with
Ferebory Dore volleying Congo in front 10
minutes into the second half.
Thievy Bifouma then doubled their lead
just after the hour mark, but the Leopards were back in the game on 65 minutes
when Dieumerci Mbokani found the net.
Loteteka Bokila equalised with 15 minutes remaining before substitute Joel
Kimwaki Mpela put Florent Ibenge’s side
ahead and Mbokani then clinched the
win.
The result sees DR Congo advance to
the last four for the ﬁrst time since 1998,
while the adventure ends here for Claude
Le Roy’s team.
The ﬁrst half never really got going,
with both sides playing with caution and
at a slow pace.
Congo almost went in front just before
the interval, though, when a free-kick
from outside the box by the towering Dore
passed just over the bar.
But, in contrast, the second half was a
remarkable affair.
In the 52nd minute, Mbokani headed
down for Bokila, who crashed a volley
against the underside of the bar, before
Congo opened the scoring at the other
end moments later.
Delvin Ndinga swung a free-kick into
the box and Dore got in behind his marker
to volley past veteran goalkeeper Robert
Kidiaba.
Bifouma then doubled the Red Devils’ lead in the 62nd minute when he
latched on to a loose ball inside the
area after Kidiaba had saved from Dore
to grab his third goal of the tournament.
However, DR Congo pulled a goal back
on 65 minutes when Mbokani was left
with a simple ﬁnish following superb
work by Yannick Bolasie on the left.
The Leopards now had the momentum
on their side and Bokila made up for his
earlier miss when he turned inside the box
and ﬁred home the equaliser.
For a short while extra time loomed,
but then Kimwaki put DR Congo ahead
for the ﬁrst time when he rose unmarked
to head home a free-kick past the stranded Christoffer Mafoumbi in goal.
And Mbokani got his brace to complete
the turnaround in stoppage time as he
ﬁnished after Mafoumbi had stopped his
initial effort.
PREVIEW
Ivorians set for Algeria clash,
Guinea look for more luck
AFP
Mongomo
T
he Ivory Coast and pretournament favourites
Algeria go head to head in
Malabo today in what has
the makings of a classic quarterﬁnal at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Ghana and Guinea meet in the
ﬁrst of a double-header of lasteight ties in Equatorial Guinea’s
capital earlier in the day before
Herve Renard’s Elephants face
the leading side in Africa according to the FIFA rankings.
Neutrals will be hoping for a
repeat of the 2010 quarter-ﬁnal
encounter between the teams in
Angola, when the Ivory Coast led
2-1 going into injury time only
for Algeria to equalise before triumphing 3-2 after extra time.
However, Ivorian coach Herve
Renard will settle for a solid defensive display from his side. For all
the attention given to captain Yaya
Toure and an attack led by Wilfried
Bony, it was their defence which
particularly impressed in Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat of Cameroon
which took the Elephants through.
Algeria players take part in a training session in Malabo ahead of
their Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final against Ivory Coast.
“There are not many teams in
the world who are capable of attacking all the time. At international level Spain have been able
to play that way and today maybe
Germany too. But we are not
Germany, we are Ivory Coast,”
said a pragmatic Renard.
In the opposite dugout will
be Renard’s fellow Frenchman
Christian Gourcuff, an advocate
of passing football.
He frequently complained that
his team were unable to string
passes together in their ﬁrst
two group games in Mongomo
but saw an improvement in the
2-0 defeat of Senegal in Malabo
on Tuesday that took his team
through.
With ﬁve goals, Algeria were
the most proliﬁc team in the
group stage and have enough
depth in attack to cope without striker Islam Slimani, who
has been struggling with a thigh
problem. Winger Yacine Brahimi
should be ﬁne despite coming off
hurt against Senegal.
Renard, meanwhile, has Gervinho and Cheick Tiote available
again after suspension.
Earlier today, Guinea will be
hoping that luck is still on their
side as they take on Ghana in
a game that was moved to the
Estadio de Malabo because of
concerns about the surface in
Mongomo. The Syli Nationale survived in the competition
only after winning a drawing
of lots on Thursday to emerge
from Group D at the expense of
Mali.
Guinea drew 1-1 in all three
group games and are now setting
their sights on going beyond the
quarter-ﬁnals for the ﬁrst time
since the Cup of Nations was expanded to 16 teams in 1996.
“When we found out it was us,
there was a great explosion of joy.
But, of course, I had a thought for
the Malians,” said Guinea coach
Michel Dussuyer of the surreal
manner in which his side went
through.
“It is tough, because they also
deserved to go through. They
missed a penalty against us and
then they go out on a drawing of
lots. Luck was on our side. But
if we have got to the quarter-ﬁnals it is because we deserved to
somewhere.”
The sides met in qualifying,
with the Black Stars having the
edge thanks to a 1-1 draw and
then a 3-1 victory.
And Avram Grant’s Ghana
then ﬁnished top of a tough group
ahead of Algeria, Senegal and
South Africa.
Defender Daniel Amartey has
declared himself ﬁt to feature for
the Black Stars after coming off
early in the 2-1 defeat of South
Africa on Tuesday.
Florentin Pogba has already
left the Guinea squad because of
a groin injury, while captain Kamil Zayatte has not yet featured
at the ﬁnals due to a calf problem. Stand-in skipper Ibrahima
Traore is expected to play despite
coming off against Mali.
undesliga leaders Bayern
Munich were counting
the cost of their 4-1 mauling at second-placed VfL
Wolfsburg with their stars insisting they must bounce back against
Schalke 04 on Tuesday.
This was Bayern’s ﬁrst loss in
the league since April and was
their heaviest Bundesliga defeat
since 2009 — when they were
coincidentally hammered 5-1 at
Wolfsburg.
Dutch striker Bas Dost and
Belgium’s Kevin de Bruyne both
scored two goals each on Friday to
cut Bayern’s lead to eight points as
the season resumed after the winter break.
“It all went belly up,” said Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer who
conceded the same amount of
goals at the Volkswagen Arena as
in the entire ﬁrst half of the season.
“This isn’t a disaster, we still
have things in our own hands, but
we still have a lot to do.”
Neuer says Bayern must now
bounce back against fellow
Champions League side Schalke
at Munich’s Allianz Arena in the
Bundesliga clash to prove the
Wolfsburg result was just a blip.
“There were too many times
when a Wolfsburg player was running at me completely unchallenged,” said Neuer as he prepares
to face his old club.
“A mid-week game is just what
we need right now, we have to turn
it around from here on in.”
Dutch winger Arjen Robben
said Pep Guardiola’s Bayern must
learn the lessons.
“Of course it’s a shock and we
have to learn the lessons from it
quickly,” said Robben.
The manner of Bayern’s heavy
defeat was more signiﬁcant than
the margin.
Guardiola’s side enjoyed their
usual 70 percent possession, but
allowed themselves to be harassed into mistakes as Wolfsburg
counter-attacked and just over a
hundred Bayern passes failed to
ﬁnd their man.
The result gives hope to the rest
of the German league with Bayern
having ﬁnished the ﬁrst half of the
season seemingly unstoppable in
their bid for a third straight league
title.
“It wasn’t our day, but we
weren’t compact enough. Maybe
everyone should have taken a step
less,” offered stand-in Bayern
captain Bastian Schweinsteiger
with Philipp Lahm injured.
The defeat brought back memories of Wolfsburg’s 5-1 pounding on their way to the 2009 title—having also been eight points
behind Bayern at the same stage
of the season—but De Bruyne refused to see the result as an omen.
Meanwhile yesterday, Borussia Moenchengladbach won 1-0
at Stuttgart and Schalke defeated
Hanover by the same scoreline
for both to stay near the top of the
Bundesliga.
Patrick Herrmann hit a secondhalf winner for Moenchengladbach at VfB Stuttgart who drop
back into the relegation zone.
Coach Lucien Favre’s Gladbach side go third, level on 30
points with Schalke, who defeated
Hanover thanks to a ﬁrst-half goal
from Marco Hoeger but had Dutch
striker Klaas Jan Huntelaar sent
off ﬁve minutes from time.
Leverkusen could go back
to third with a win over visiting Borussia Dortmund in the
day’s late kick-off. Dortmund go
into the match in last place, two
points adrift of Stuttgart, Werder
Bremen and Hamburg.
Elsewhere Mainz thrashed Paderborn 5-0, Freiburg came from
behind to beat Eintracht Frankfurt
4-1, and Cologne won 2-0 at SV
Hamburg.
LIGUE 1
Lavezzi makes
sure PSG turn up
heat on Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain’s Argentinian midfielder Ezequiel Lavezzi (L) vies
with Renne’s Senegalese defender Fallou Diagne during their French
L1 match in Paris on Friday.
Reuters
Paris
P
aris St Germain reduced
Olympique
Lyonnais’
Ligue 1 lead to one point
after Ezequiel Lavezzi’s
ﬁrst-half strike earned the champions a 1-0 home win over Stade
Rennes on Friday.
The capital club’s third league
win in a row helped them leapfrog
Olympique de Marseille into second spot, with 47 points from 23
games.
Lyon travel to ﬁfth-placed Mo-
naco today and Marseille host Evian Thonon Gaillard on Saturday.
Sweden striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who has scored only one
league goal since the turn of the
year, produced another disappointing display but Lavezzi shone
at the Parc des Princes.
The former Napoli forward
poked the ball home from fellow
Argentine Javier Pastore’s pass in
the 29th minute, giving PSG the
lead after a sluggish start.
Home keeper Salvatore Sirigu
was then forced into a low save to
his right to deny Abdoulaye Doucoure’s shot from just outside the
box ﬁve minutes later.
Gulf Times
Sunday, February 1, 2015
11
SPORT
EPL
SCOTTISH SCENE
United
defeat
Dons to
book
final
berth
EPL
LA LIGA
Silva goal earns
draw for Man City
STURRIDGE STARS IN LIVERPOOL’S 2-0 WIN OVER WEST HAM
Reuters
Barcelona
AFP
Glasgow
K
arim Benzema scored
twice in the second
half as Real Madrid
beat Real Sociedad 4-1
to go four points clear at the top
of La Liga on Saturday.
Real had to come from behind after being caught out inside the first minute with Aritz
Elustondo heading visitors Sociedad in front.
But the league leaders, missing the suspended Cristiano
Ronaldo, quickly got back on
level terms with James Rodriguez nodding in a Marcelo
cross.
Sociedad have stood out for
their giant-killing this season—
with victories over the top three
at home in La Liga—but have
been poor away as they have
failed to win a league match
outside the Anoeta stadium in
San Sebastian.
Sergio Ramos gave Real the
lead in the 37th minute by
smashing home a rebound after
a Benzema shot had been saved
by keeper Geronimo Rulli.
D
undee United came from
behind to book their
place in the Scottish
League Cup ﬁnal with a
2-1 victory over holders Aberdeen
at Hampden.
United had the better of the
ﬁrst half chances with Stuart
Armstrong hitting the bar, but it
was Aberdeen who took the lead
three minutes after the break
when Donervon Daniels ﬁred in a
header to get his Dons debut off to
a dream start.
Gary Mackay-Steven had an
effort chopped off before Callum
Morris hauled United level on the
hour mark as he powered home
a header from a corner. Adam
Rooney had his effort ruled out
for a foul before Nadir Ciftci nodded home the winner in the 84th
minute. United will meet the
winners of Sunday’s semi-ﬁnal
between Celtic and Rangers, who
are meeting for the ﬁrst time since
April 2012.
“I didn’t think a lot of the things
in the game were pretty but I think
the most important thing is to
make the ﬁnal,” United manager
Jackie McNamara said.
“It’s great for everyone at the
club to get the chance to be in
another ﬁnal so soon after the
disappointment of the Scottish
Cup ﬁnal last summer.” Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes
didn’t think the holders were good
enough.
“I thought the ﬁrst half was
scrappy but United looked more
threatening. We didn’t look after
the ball well enough,” McInnes
said.
“It was a poor day for us and a
missed opportunity. I didn’t think
we were good enough for the majority of it.” At Hampden, United
manager Jackie McNamara raised
a few eyebrows before kick-off
as he handed a debut to former
Hearts full-back Ryan McGowan
while teenager Charlie Telfer was
given the nod in midﬁeld.
However, his gamble nearly
paid off early on when Telfer
caught Aberdeen napping with
his quickly-taken free-kick which
allowed Mackay-Steven, who
recently signed a pre-contract
agreement to join Celtic in the
summer, to nip in behind the defence but he skied his snatched
shot over the bar.
Armstrong, subject of a £1.5m
($2.3m) bid from Celtic in midweek, was next to cause the Dons
problems as his deﬂected shot
from the edge of the box clipped
the top of the bar.
Armstrong was ﬁrst to react
when Daniels’ poor defensive
clearance fell at the edge of the box
but the defender made amends as
he showed bravery to block Armstrong’s ﬁerce strike.
Benzema
double
sends
Real four
points
clear
Chelsea’s Loic Remy (C) shoots and scores past Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart during their English Premier League match at Stamford Bridge in London yesterday.
RESULTS AND STANDINGS
AFP
London
S
panish midfielder David Silva
equalised as Manchester City
prevented Chelsea pulling
eight points clear at the Premier League summit in a hard-fought
1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge yesterday.
Loic Remy put Chelsea in front in
the 41st minute, but Silva touched
in a shot from Sergio Aguero four
minutes later to keep the defending
champions five points behind Jose
Mourinho’s side with 15 matches remaining.
Manuel Pellegrini’s City have won
only one of their last ﬁve league games,
but following successive defeats by
Arsenal and Middlesbrough, they at
least prevented Chelsea from streaking
away into the distance.
Chelsea great Frank Lampard, sent
on by City as a late substitute, was
afforded a warm reception on what
was likely to prove his final appearance at Stamford Bridge, and it was
a broadly positive afternoon for the
hosts.
Earlier Daniel Sturridge put nearly
ﬁve months of injury frustration behind him by coming off the bench to
score in Liverpool’s 2-0 win at home to
West Ham.
The 25-year-old striker had been
sidelined with thigh and calf injuries
since September, with his inital ﬁtness
problems coming while on England
duty.
Chelsea................................1
Crystal Palace ............0
Hull City ...........................0
Liverpool .........................2
Manchester Utd .....3
Stoke City .......................3
Sunderland ..................2
W Brom Albion.........0
Standings
P
Chelsea
23
Manchester City 23
Manchester Utd 23
Southampton 22
Tott. Hotspur
23
Manchester City..............1
Everton .....................................1
Newcastle United .......3
West Ham United .....0
Leicester City ....................1
Qns Park Rangers .......1
Burnley ..................................0
Tottenham Hotspur ..3
W
16
14
12
13
12
D
5
6
7
3
4
L
2
3
4
6
7
F
52
46
39
37
35
A Pts
20 53
23 48
22 43
16 42
30 40
Manuel Pellegrini’s City have won
only one of their last five league
games, but following successive
defeats by Arsenal and
Middlesbrough, they at least
prevented Chelsea from streaking
away into the distance.
Raheem Sterling broke the deadlock
in the 51st minute at Anﬁeld before
Sturridge, a 67th minute replacement
for Lazar Markovic, marked just his
fourth Liverpool appearance of the
season by scoring 10 minutes from
time as the Reds bounced back from
their League Cup semi-ﬁnal loss to
Chelsea.
“It’s a team game and I am happy
the team won,” Sturridge told the BBC.
“It’s just good to be back.”
Manchester United climbed into
Arsenal
22
Liverpool
23
West Ham Utd 23
Stoke City
23
Swansea City
22
Newcastle Utd 23
Everton
23
Crystal Palace 23
Sunderland
23
W Brom Albion 23
Aston Villa
22
Burnley
23
Hull City
23
Qns Park Rangers23
Leicester City 23
11
11
10
9
8
8
6
5
4
5
5
4
4
5
4
6
5
6
5
6
6
8
8
11
7
7
8
7
4
5
5
7
7
9
8
9
9
10
8
11
10
11
12
14
14
39
33
35
26
26
29
31
25
21
20
11
21
20
24
21
25
27
27
28
30
35
34
34
33
32
25
38
33
42
37
39
38
36
32
30
30
26
23
23
22
22
20
19
19
17
third place with a 3-1 win over basement club Leicester at Old Trafford.
The Foxes produced one of the upsets of the season in coming from 3-1
down to beat United 5-3 when the
teams last met in September.
But there was no danger of a similar
revival in the return ﬁxture as Louis
van Gaal’s men went 3-0 up before
half-time through goals from Robin
van Persie, Radamel Falcao and an
own-goal by Wes Morgan.
Marcin Wasilewski pulled a goal back
for Leicester 10 minutes from time.
Tottenham Hotspur completed a
fine week with a 3-0 win away to
West Bromwich Albion where Harry
Kane scored twice to take his tally
for the season to an impressive 20
goals.
Christian Eriksen scored his third
goal in two matches to give Mauricio
Pochettino’s men the lead at the Hawthorns.
Eriksen, who scored twice in the
midweek League Cup semi-ﬁnal draw
at Sheffield United that gave Spurs a
3-2 aggregate victory, has become renowned as a late-goal specialist.
Crystal Palace saw a run of four successive wins in all competitions since
manager Alan Pardew arrived from
Newcastle end with a 1-0 home loss to
Everton.
Second-from-bottom Queens Park
Rangers’ dreadful away record continued as they suffered a 3-1 defeat to
former manager Mark Hughes’s Stoke
City.
Stoke forward Jonathan Walters
scored his ﬁrst top-ﬂight hat-trick as
QPR suffered an 11th straight league
defeat on the road.
QPR’s run of 10 successive away
defeats was already a Premier League
record and they fell behind in the 21st
minute at the Britannia Stadium when
Walters capitalised on some poor defending.
Yesterday’s early kick-off saw John
Carver enjoy his ﬁrst win as Newcastle
boss after a 3-0 success away to Hull
ended a run of four games without a
victory since Pardew’s exit.
Remy Cabella put Newcastle ahead
ﬁve minutes before half-time with his
ﬁrst goal for the Magpies.
Hull claimed an equaliser in ﬁrsthalf stoppage time but Ahmed Elmohamady’s effort was rightly disallowed
after the Egyptian punched a cross into
the net.
Real could have had several more goals in the final
stages, with Bale having a
shot saved when one-onone with Rulli.
The game opened up for Real
after the break and Benzema
combined with Gareth Bale to
slot in his first before curling a
sweet effort into the top corner
15 minutes from the end.
“Since the start of the year
we haven’t been at our best but
it is better to happen now than
at the end of the season,” Ramos
told reporters.
“We need to improve at set
plays and mark up better so that
we don’t cause ourselves problems. We conceded an early goal
but were able to turn it around.
We need to keep improving but I
think we deserved the win.”
Asier Illarramendi was a
given a rare chance in midfield
and Isco returned after injury,
while Bale moved over to the
left to cover for the absence of
Ronaldo.
Sociedad started at a lively
tempo but they were dealt a
major blow with the loss of
their talisman in attack, Carlos
Vela, to injury after just 15 minutes and they were not able to
maintain the same work-rate as
the game went on.
Real could have had several
more goals in the final stages,
with Bale having a shot saved
when one-on-one with Rulli.
Later third-placed Atletico
Madrid, seven points off the
pace on 44 points, face Eibar
away. Barcelona, in second,
host Villarreal on Sunday.
ENDUROCROSS
Meshari and Preston bag a double at Sealine
By Sports Reporter
Doha
T
Meshari Abou Shaibah
he second round of the 2015 Qatar national
Endurocross Championship organised by Qatar Motor and Motorcycle took place yesterday
at Sealine with the participation of 53 riders.
In the E1 category, Kuwaiti Meshari Abou Shaibah
won both the races with ease, while Moaath al-Ansari
also from Kuwait, and UAE’s Saeed al-Shenqiti took
second and third respectively.
In the E2 category, Jake Preston was ﬁrst while the
UAE’s Mohamed al-Balooshi and Kuwait’s Mohamed
Jaffar ﬁnished second and third respectively in both
races.
In the Quad category the winner was Mohamed alShamri from UAE riding a Kawasaki KFX-450. Fahad
al-Mussallam from Kuwait got the second place, followed by Kuwaiti Mohamed al-Khulaiﬁ.
Yannic Le Gourvenec won the Veterans category
while Mubarak al-Ali was second and Anwar al-Nuami third.
Nasser Khalifa al-Attiyah, QMMF President, FIM
Deputy President & FIA Vice President expressed his
happiness at the end of the event.
“I am very happy to see the number of participants
increasing exponentially this season of Qatar national
Endurocross 2015.Thanks to all the riders and teams
for joining us and we will continue to support riders,”
he said.
Jake Preston
Sunday, February 1, 2015
SPORT
GULF TIMES
SPOTLIGHT
FOCUS
Troisi’s extra time
goal helps Aussies
win Asian Cup
Australia realise
decade long dream
South Korea had ridden their mean defence to a first Asian Cup final since 1988 but
despite being the better side for much of the match came up short in the decider
Australia’s James Troisi (C) celebrates his winning goal against South
Korea.
Reuters
Sydney
T
Australia captain Mile Jedinak (holding cup) and teammates celebrate after beating South Korea in the final of the Asian Cup yesterday at Stadium Australia in Sydney.
Reuters
Sydney
S
ubstitute James Troisi scored
halfway through extra time in
a pulsating ﬁnal to give tournament hosts Australia their
maiden Asian Cup title with a 2-1 victory over South Korea yesterday.
South Korea’s Son Heung-min scored
in stoppage time at the end of 90 minutes to send the match into the extra
half an hour, cancelling out Player of
the Tournament Massimo Luongo’s
strike on the stroke of halftime.
It was just before another break with
105 minutes on the clock that striker Troisi put the ball into the net from close
range to make Australia champions of
Asia nine years after they had switched
from the Oceania confederation.
“To concede a goal in the last minute
really tested us as a group and the players stood up once again,” coach Ange
Postecoglou told reporters.
“Full credit to them, I couldn’t be
prouder of them and it’s great for our
country.”
Former World Cup semi-ﬁnalists
South Korea had ridden their mean
defence to a ﬁrst Asian Cup ﬁnal since
1988 but despite being the better side
for much of the match came up short in
their bid for a ﬁrst title in 55 years.
Luongo’s goal was the ﬁrst they had
conceded in the tournament and for
most of the second half it looked the
Socceroo Luongo named MVP
Sydney: Massimo Luongo was named
the Most Valuable Player at the 2015
Asian Cup after scoring the opening
goal for Australia in yesterday’s final
against South Korea at Sydney’s Olympic
Stadium.
The 22-year-old midfielder capped a
brilliant performance throughout the
tournament when he scored in the 45th
minute, blasting the ball into the net with
a shot from 25 metres out.
Australia went on to win the match 2-1
after extra time after Son Heung-min
equalised for South Korea in stoppage
time then James Troisi put the host-nation back in front during extra time.
Luongo, who plays for Swindon Town in
the third tier of English club soccer, made
his international debut last year and was
picked in the Australian squad for the
World Cup but didn’t play a match.
But Luongo has since established himself
as one of Australia’s most promising
goal-shyness which characterised the
start of their campaign had returned to
haunt them.
With regulation time running out,
though, substitute Han Kook Young
dispossessed Trent Sainsbury on the
edge of the box and Lee Jeong-hyeop fed
the ball to Son who angled it into the net
with his left foot under the challenge of
two defenders.
young players and forced his way into
the starting lineup.
He scored a goal and was named man of
the match in Australia’s opening match
at the Asian Cup against Kuwait and was
also named player of the match in the
semi-final win over United Arab Emirates.
“We don’t have the Cup but we the
way we played today we are also champions,” said South Korea’s German
coach Uli Stielike.
“I think the best result from such a
match would have been a draw and we
take the Cup for two years each, but I
know it can’t be like this.
“Korea, you can be proud of your
boys.”
Australia, the tournament’s leading scorers, had come out to attack as
Postecoglou had promised but in frenetic start to the match, the South Koreans showed they had threats up front
too.
The outstanding Son had his sights
set just too high in the second and 37th
minutes and Luongo was on hand to
block his shot after Cha Du-ri’s charge
down the right wing in the 38th.
Seven minutes later and midﬁelder
Luongo was down the other end to take
Sainsbury’s through ball with a deft
touch and lash it into the back of the net
from 25 metres.
The lead was barely deserved but that
did not stop the green-and-gold clad
majority of the sellout crowd of 76,385
at Stadium Australia celebrating in a
frenzy.
South Korea pressed forward in
search of an equaliser but were grateful
to goalkeeper Kim Jin-hyeon for a ﬁne
save from Mathew Leckie on the hour
mark, as they had been in the ﬁrst half
when he stopped a Tim Cahill shot.
After Son’s goal had provided a dramatic conclusion to normal time and
sent the match into the extra half an
hour, Kim was again on hand to intercept Luongo’s cross with Socceroos lining up to put it into the net.
Five minutes later, though, Tomi Juric
nutmegged Kim Jin-su after a wrestle on
the edge of the box and Kim Jin-hyeon
was only able to push the striker’s cross
into the path of Troisi, who smashed the
ball into the open goal.
BOTTOMLINE
Coach: We can ‘take on the world’
AFP
Sydney
A
ustralia boss Ange Postecoglou said the
Socceroos were ready to “take on the world”
after they won a gripping ﬁnal against South
Korea to lift the Asian Cup trophy on Sat-
urday.
Postecoglou said Australia could now go on to bigger
and better things after they won their ﬁrst Asian Cup
at the third attempt after joining the Asian confederation in 2006. James Troisi’s extra-time winner settled
a thrilling clash after Son Heung-Min cancelled out
Massimo Luongo’s opener in the dying seconds of normal time.
“That’s the biggest thing for me, just to look around
this stadium and the whole country will be off their
couches and won’t be able to sleep tonight,” Postecoglou said.
“It’s a great game, I’m biased but I think it’s the greatest game in the world. Hopefully from now on us Aussies can take on the world with it because I have a real
belief in these guys.” Australia’s win could be hugely
important for football in the country as it strives to
challenge the more established sports like rugby and
cricket.
Postecoglou, who said this week that teams from the
region should concentrate on winning the World Cup,
will now set his sights on qualifying for the next edition
in 2018.
“It was a super effort from everyone, the players the
staff, the whole organisation. I couldn’t be happier,”
Postecoglou said, as his jubilant players celebrated
nearby.
“It was a different kind of game tonight. It was tough,
it was a ﬁnal, you got to grind it out and no one knows
better than me that it never goes to script, there were
twists, and the courage the players showed tonight was
enormous.
“My only concern because we conceded so late the
boys they had heartbreak and couldn’t pick themselves
up but I knew we’d ﬁnish stronger.
“We pride ourselves on being very ﬁt and working
hard. It was just a matter of taking our chance and we
did and I’m super proud of them.”
he 120 minutes it took
Australia to beat South
Korea in yesterday’s
Asian Cup ﬁnal were the
culmination of an ambitious 10year plan to gain the respect of
the footballing world.
A decade ago, Australia were
marooned in Oceania, the biggest ﬁsh in world soccer’s smallest pond, but had much grander
aspirations.
The game was struggling for
recognition in Australia, where
success in sport is taken for
granted, partly because the Socceroos hadn’t qualiﬁed for the
World Cup in 32 years.
Being the champions of Oceania didn’t count for much. It
earned Australia a ticket to the
Confederations Cup but not the
World Cup as Oceania does not
have direct entry.
Australia broke their long
World Cup drought when they
qualiﬁed for the 2006 tournament, and made a big impression by reaching the round of 16,
losing to the eventual champions Italy.
One of soccer’s sleeping giants was starting to awaken
but to be taken seriously, the
Australians knew they needed
to ﬁnd regular, tougher opposition, so they ditched Oceania
and joined the Asian Football
Confederation.
The enormous challenge of
conquering the world’s most
populated and diverse region
immediately became apparent.
At the 2007 Asian Cup, Australia’s ﬁrst appearance at the
tournament, they needed a goal
in stoppage time to salvage a
draw with Oman in their opening group match.
They were beaten by the
eventual champions Iraq in their
next match and although they
defeated Thailand to sneak into
the knockout phase on goal difference, they lost to Japan on
penalties in the quarter-ﬁnals.
A year later, Adelaide United
made the ﬁnal of AFC Champions League, Asia’s top club
competition, but were thrashed
5-0 by Japan’s Gamba Osaka.
Australia did claim one of the
four Asian qualifying spots for
the 2010 and 2014 World Cups
but didn’t make it past the ﬁrst
round either time.
In 2011, the Socceroos made
the ﬁnal of the Asian Cup but
once again came unstuck against
Japan, losing in extra time. Australia were making progress and
had found a new sporting rival
but the trophy cabinet was still
bare.
The tide began to turn last
year. The Western Sydney Wanderers won the AFC Champions
League and now the Socceroos
have won the Asian Cup.
Fittingly, it was a struggle to
win. yesterday’s ﬁnal against
South Korea was a battle from
start to ﬁnish.
Australia led 1-0 at halftime
after a superb goal from Massimo Luongo but South Korea,
chasing their ﬁrst Asian Cup title in 55 years, equalised through
Son Heung-min in stoppage
time at the end of the match.
The Socceroos’ long suffering
fans began to fear the worst but
the nation’s nerves were calmed
when substitute striker James
Troisi scored in extra time, triggering a celebration for a goal
that had been a decade in the
making.
Factbox on the winners
Nickname: Socceroos
Coach: Ange Postecoglou
Captain: Mile Jedinak
Asian Cup record:
2007 - Quarter-finals
2011 - Finalists
2015 - Champions
FIFA world ranking: 100
Path to the title:
Group matches
Beat Kuwait 4-1 in Melbourne
(Tim Cahill, Massimo Luongo,
Mile Jedinak (pen), James Troisi)
Beat Oman 4-0 in Sydney (Matt
McKay, Robbie Kruse, Mark Milligan (pen), Tomi Juric)
Lost 1-0 to South Korea in
Brisbane
Quarter-finals
Beat China 2-0 in Brisbane (Tim
Cahill (2))
Semi-finals
Beat United Arab Emirates 2-0
in Newcastle (Trent Sainsbury,
Jason Davidson)
Final
Beat South Korea 2-1 after extra
time (Massimo Luongo, James
Troisi)
--z Australia played their first
international match in 1922.
z Australia qualified for the
World Cup for the first time in
1974, but did not score a single
goal in their group matches.
z In 1980, Australia won the
Oceania Football Confederation
(OFC) Nations Cup for the first
time. Australia successfully defended the title when it was next
held, 16 years later in 1996.
z Australia qualified for the 1997
Confederations Cup, finishing
runner-up to Brazil.
Australia won the OFC Nations
Cup in 2000 and 2004. In
2001 they finished third at the
Confederations Cup.
z Australia ended their 32 year
wait to make it back to the
World Cup, qualifying for the
2006 tournament, where they
made it the round of 16, losing
to eventual champions Italy.
z In 2006, Australia left Oceania
to join the Asian Football Confederation.
z In 2007, Australia made the
quarter-finals of the Asian Cup,
losing to Japan on penalties.
z In 2008, Adelaide United became the first Australian team to
qualify for the AFC Champions
League final, losing to Japan’s
Gamba Osaka.
z Australia qualified for the 2010
World Cup where they beat Serbia, drew with Ghana and losto
Germany and were eliminated
after the group stage on goal
difference.
z In 2011, Australia finished
runner-up at the Asian Cup, losing
the final to Japan in extra time.
z Australia qualified for the
World Cup in 2014 but loss all
three group matches, against
Chile, Netherlands and Spain.
z In 2014, Western Sydney
Wanderers became the first
Australian team to win the AFC
Champions League, beat Saudi
Arabia team Al Hilal in the twolegged final.
z In 2015, Australia won the
Asian Cup for the first time,
beating South Korea in the final
on home soil.
z

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