Volume 23 | Number 7757 | 2 RiyalsMonday 31 December 2018 | 24 Rabia II 1440 www.thepeninsula.qa

20192019

BUSINESS | 01 SPORT | 07

Federer gives Switzerland winning start at Hopman Cup

Qatar Chamber, MADLSA review

strengthening cooperation

Included withtoday’s edition is a

special supplement

Hamad Port sees strong rise in cargo movementSACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

Hamad Port continues to add new chapters to its success story as it has registered a strong rise in cargo movement in November.

The movement of break bulk cargo in the port surged by around 20 percent last month as it handled 90,955 tonnes of break bulk cargo in November compared to 76,228 tonnes of cargo in October.

The port, which is one of the largest ports in the region, received 137 ships in November.

The port also handled 107,631 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) containers last month, Qterminals said in a tweet.

Qterminals was set up by Qatar Navigation (Milaha) and Qatar Ports Management Company (Mwani Qatar) to manage the port.

The port handled 7,432 vehicles in November compared to 6,730 vehicles in October, reflecting a rise of 10 percent. It also witnessed huge rise in cattle movement as it handled 2,178 heads of cattle last month against 1,500 cattle a month before, showing an increase of around 45 percent.

The port is ending the year on positive note as it witnessed huge rise in vessel and cargo movement and achieved several

milestones in 2018. The Ministry of Transport

and Communications on November 13 had celebrated a major milestones by Hamad Port of handling two million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) and five million tonnes of general cargo in a record time of less than two years.

The port accomplished another feat in early this year as it celebrated, in March, handling of its first one million TEUs containers.

QTerminals current opera-tions at Hamad Port include a container terminal with a capacity of two million TEUs and general cargo, RORO and livestock terminals with a capacity of 1.7m tonnes. The port has a capacity to receive 500,000 vehicle per year.

S i n c e c o m m e n c i n g

operations in December 2016, Hamad Port has modernised the way Qatar handles imports and exports and has helped in facil-itating the growth and diversi-fication of the country’s economy. It has acquired 28 percent share in the volume of trade in the Middle East.

Within a short period of time, the port has reached a global port connectivity cov-erage with 40 ports spanning over three continents.

The port has seen tre-mendous growth in a short duration and is further cementing Qatar’s position as a regional maritime hub.

It also plays a major role in securing the needs of local markets and projects imple-mented by Qatar, ensuring access of Qatari products to the global markets.

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received yesterday a verbal message from Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Imran Khan, pertaining to bilateral relations and ways to boost and develop them. Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani received the message during a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, at the Amiri Diwan.

Amir receives message from Pakistan Prime Minister

Boy with facial palsy smiles anew at SidraTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Sidra Medicine has successfully operated on a four-year-old patient, born with congenital facial palsy.

The child, Ozair, could not move the left side of his face because of the underdevel-opment of his facial nerve at birth. This also meant that simple functions like smiling or being able to communicate

clearly were difficult.Ozair underwent two oper-

ations, led by Dr Graeme Glass, Attending Plastic and Cranio-facial Surgeon at Sidra Medicine. The first was to rebalance the muscles of his lower lip, and the second, a more complex surgery, was to take a muscle from his thigh to recreate a smile.

Commenting on the case, Dr Graeme Glass said, “Conveying feelings by way of facial expression is crucial to good

communication and positive, meaningful social interactions. For children with facial palsy, trying to smile can come across as a grimace instead. This can result in the child being misun-derstood and socially isolated. Ozair came to us when he was three and a half years old, and a multidisciplinary team involving a number of specialists have helped devise a man-agement plan to give him his smile back.” �P2

120,000 receive physiotherapy from HMC in 2018THE PENINSULA DOHA

Over 100,000 and 120,000 patients were received at the orthopedic division of Hamad Medical Corpora-tion’s (HMC) Outpatient Physiotherapy Department in 2017 and 2018 respec-tively.

The Physiotherapy Department, which provides treatments to indi-viduals with mobility challenges, impairments, and disabilities, aged from 14 to 70 years, saw more than 12,000 new patients at its Outpatient Physiotherapy Clinics in 2017 and over 15,000 in 2018.

Providing postoperative and post-traumatic physiotherapy man-agement, the department offers spe-cialised care to individuals with orthopedic, neurosurgical, and spine disorders, with many patients who

use the service recovering from surgery or trauma.

“Physiotherapy is a form of physical therapy that uses exercise and equipment and helps allow people to restore or improve their body’s func-tioning abilities. It is a speciality that treats injury, disease, and disorders through physical movement. The spe-cialty uses exercise, manual therapy, and physical manipulation, versus medication and surgery,” said Noora Essa Al Mudehka, Chief Physiotherapist and Head of the Physiotherapy Department.

According to Al Mudehka, physio-therapy and physical therapy are used to treat different parts of the body for a variety of reasons. She said staff provide a comprehensive range of physiotherapy services and notes that physiotherapy has become an essential part of the rehabilitation process for

patients recovering from an accident or illness.

“Physiotherapy can be used to treat injuries, whether they are from sports, day-to-day activities, work-related, or resulting from an automobile accident such as breaks, sprains, and back and neck pain. Physiotherapy is also used in the treatment of more serious medical conditions, such as arthritis, muscular dystrophy, neurological dis-orders, and heart and stroke rehabili-tation,” said Al Mudehka.

HMC’s orthopedic physical therapy specialists are highly trained health professionals who provide high-quality treatment.

“Our aim is to improve a person’s quality of life by using a variety of treat-ments to alleviate pain and restore function or, in the case of permanent injury or disease, to lessen the effects of any dysfunction,” said Al Mudehka.

FROM LEFT: Serbia’s World No.1 Novak Djokovic, Austria’s Dominic Thiem and Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka at the Katara Cultural Village in Doha yesterday, ahead of the ExxonMobil Qatar Open Tennis Tournament which kicks off at the Khalifa Tennis and Squash Complex today.

Mahaseel shopping festival to begin at Katara todayTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The third edition of the Mahaseel shopping festival will open today at the southern seaside of the Cultural Village Foundation – Katara.

The market festival which will continue until January 5 opening its doors from 9am until 9pm, this year is hosting some 22 local farms, flower nurseries and six other national companies for

dairies and meat products.The market features Qatari

farms selling various types of fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants and local companies offering food products related to livestock, in addition to natural honey pro-duced by the Qatari farms and the best varieties of local dates. Twenty-two Qatari farms and six major national companies spe-cialised in producing and selling

sheep meat, poultry, eggs, dairy products and natural juices are participating in the souq.

The festival also offers several entertainment and awareness activities for children and adults to enhance the expe-rience of visitors and educate them on the best practices while shopping. The activities will also include workshops on plan-tation, flower arrangement and essential agricultural knowledge.

Mahaseel serves as a good marketing platform for local farms, which offer reasonable prices for their produce.

The Mahaseel souq had seen remarkable success in previous edition by introducing different varieties of Qatari agricultural crops from fresh vegetables to flowers and ornamental plants, in addition to local farm products such as honey, milk and their derivatives, poultry, meat, and natural juices.

On its second edition, the festival saw an increasing interest among Qatari companies with a rise in the number of local farms who took part, from 14 last year to 22.

Not only did Mahaseel Fes-tival offer products but also useful information on the vast array of local farm produce and their health benefits through seminars, workshops and com-petitions organised on the side.

The Port handled 90,955 tonnes of break

bulk cargo in November compared to

76,228 tonnes of cargo in October.

It handled 7,432 vehicles in November

compared to 6,730 vehicles in October.

Huge rise in cattle movement as the Port

received 2,178 heads of cattle last month

against 1,500 cattle a month before.

The Port received 137 ships in November.

Tennis stars get a taste of Qatar at Cultural Village

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018

Travel & Tourism Qatar cements

position as cruise

tourist destination

PAGE | 8

SPONSORS

Qatar Airways touches

down for the first time

in Da Nang, Vietnam

PAGE | 4-5

nn

RAYNALD C RIVERA

Shop Qatar boosts retail and hospitality sectorsO i d b h N i l

PICS: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

02 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018HOME

Dreama launches importance of fostering orphans campaignTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Orphan Care Center, Dreama, has launched an awareness campaign under the banner of ‘Their Happiness Is Ours’ to raise awareness among the society indi-viduals with regard to the impor-tance of fostering orphans and its impact on their happiness.

Thirty public figures from dif-ferent sectors in the Qatari com-munity will participate in the cam-paign that will continue up to January 25. The campaign will provide awareness massages through social media platforms on fostering orphans and efforts to

bring happiness to them. Through this campaign

Dreama also seeks to reach all community segments to promote their awareness on the importance of fostering orphans, being the natural environment for the orphan child, and stressing the importance of growing the child in a normal upbringing envi-ronment, in which societal justice is achieved based on integrity and interrelations among the people of the society, and based on the teachings of our righteous religion that urge for such values of the Qatari community.

In this framework Mariam bint Ali bin Nasser Al Misnad, Executive

Director of the Orphan Care Center, made clear that the Center is undertaking a key role in pro-viding the foster families and con-tinuous support for the orphan children category.

“Dreama has also launched ‘Their Happiness Is Ours’ cam-paign that reflects Dreama’s belief in the importance of integrating the orphans as a social principle and the positive role that a foster family can play throughout the upbringing of the orphan child and its support for his stability and welfare,” she said.

She added: “Through this campaign and other similar events we are seeking to promote society

integration and empowerment of the children of Dreama, raise awareness on the responsibility of the community towards this important category of the society, develop the society’s vision of the orphan child that he, along with his companions, will form the future, expectations and power, and they are a main component of the society.”

The campaign further encourages Qatari families to foster orphans; such a process entails undertaking the responsi-bility of fostering an orphan child, bringing him up, providing care and maintaining a sustainable and honourable life, noting that

changing the society’s perspectives towards the orphans’ issues has been one the challenges that the Center has tackled successfully.

An example for this is that there are tens of families who are willing to foster children following a number of intensive campaigns that were promoted by means of media, and organising workshops in which religious scholars and preachers took part where they contributed to guiding the society and people on the virtues of fos-tering orphans.

For his part Ahmed Al Ghanim, Head of Preparation & Design Unit at the Community Awareness Office, stressed that it is not just

Dreama Centre’s responsibility towards the orphan children but it is the entire community’s as they are an essential part of the society and they have tremendous potential and capabilities that should be developed and pro-moted to serve their country.

“The campaign will continue for a whole month seeking to raise awareness on the issues of the orphans and the importance of fostering the children of Dreama. For our part we have focused during 2018 on launching a variety of awareness campaigns and we affirm that we will continue to organise such campaigns in 2019,” he said.

MoI signs cooperation deal with Supreme Judiciary CouncilTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Ministry of the Interior, represented by the Information Systems Department, signed a coop-eration agreement with the Supreme Judiciary Council at the headquarters of the Council for establishing an electronic link between them.

The agreement aims to regulate the process of linking the Ministry of Interior and the Supreme Judiciary Council, in order to achieve speed and accuracy in the exchange of information, inte-gration of information and promotion of the concept of the Paperless Ministry.

The agreement includes provision for pro-viding the Supreme Judiciary Council with per-sonal information and vehicle information, pro-viding the Ministry of Interior with the relevant verdicts concerned with the work of the Ministry. The officials at the signing event.

‘Screen For Life’ celebrates another year of achievementsQNA DOHA

The Primary Health Care Corpo-ration (PHCC), the main provider of primary healthcare services across the State of Qatar, through its programme Screen for Life, has continued during 2018 its bandwagon of effective campaigns to raise awareness on breast & bowel cancer.

In the year 2018, a total of 6,917 people came forward for breast cancer screening and 9,185 for bowel screening. These numbers continue to grow through the dedicated efforts and initiatives of the pro-grammes team.

Screen for Life, initiated by the Ministry of Public Health under Qatars National Cancer Program in accordance with the National Health Strategy

2011-2016, PHCC once again declared its commitment towards driving its campaigns in full throttle for the upcoming year 2019.

The Manager of Screening Programs at PHCC, Dr Shaikha Abu Shaikha, said, “Screen for Life over the years, has grown from just a programme to a great movement to change peo-ple’s lives. As part of our key strategic goal, we have been taking measure to ensure that we create awareness among our fellow citizens on the

importance of timely screening of breast & bowel cancer.”

“Various initiatives in the form of hosting guest lectures, events, mobile unit activation for mammogram screening and corporate tie-ups have shown significant results in raising awareness.” she added.

PHCC has endeavoured to make sure the Breast and Bowel Cancer Screening awareness is spread in Qatar and has suc-ceeded to hold many events and initiatives around this pro-gramme. From lectures to private and public sector, malls activations, mobile unit for mammogram screening acti-vation, and more, all these activ-ities led to increased awareness among the public to start breaking the taboo, and to lead people to take action and care about their health.

Qatar and Pakistan discuss bilateral relations

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khallifa Al Thani with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and his accompanying delegation, on the occasion of their visit to the country. During the meeting, they discussed the bilateral relations and ways of developing and strengthening them, in addition to a number of regional and international issues of common concern.

In the year 2018,

a total of 6,917

people came forward

for breast cancer

screening and 9,185

for bowel screening.

Boy with facial palsy smiles anew at SidraFROM PAGE 1

Ozair’s second operation took approximately six and a half hours. It required removing muscle from his inner thigh and transferring the muscle to his face. The blood vessels were re-attached under a microscope. A new nerve supply was borrowed from the muscle used to clench the teeth and was connected to the transferred muscle. Using a portable ultrasound machine to “listen” to the reconnected blood supply, Ozair’s new smile muscle was monitored closely in the first 48 hours. He was discharged after four days. His post-oper-ative recovery took three weeks.

“The surgery was one of the most challenging operations for plastic surgeons. The nerve supply will take at least three months to grow into the nerve of the new muscle to make it move. I am confident that with the help of our therapists, Ozair will learn to smile symmetrically and spontaneously over the next 12-18 months. The presence of a spontaneous smile will be a

huge step towards him rediscov-ering his confidence and being able to express himself more clearly,” said Dr Glass.

Ozair’s parents said, “It is truly beautiful to see our lovely little boy Ozair being able to smile. Dr Glass, Dr Stotland and

the wider team at Sidra Medicine have all played a key role in transforming not only his smile but also his life. We are already starting to see subtle changes to his personality since the oper-ation and appreciate the post-operative follow up and care we

continue to receive. We are very grateful to the Government of Qatar and Qatar Foundation for their commitment to providing highly specialized medical facil-ities for children in the country.”

The Plastic and Craniofacial Surgery program at Sidra Med-icine leverages the expertise of a distinguished team in pro-viding cutting edge care to indi-viduals with congenital and acquired deformities of the skull, face and hand. It provides a comprehensive range of services for children and young people with isolated and syndromic craniofacial conditions – including total cranial vault remodeling, distraction and spring expansion; the full range of cleft lip and cleft palate sur-geries, orthognathic surgery, orbital and eyelid recon-struction, ear reconstruction; facial re-animation surgery; primary and secondary facial trauma reconstruction; as well as the treatment of complex hand anomalies and vascular anomalies.

Qatar Charity receives in-kind donations from ‘Qatar Cool’THE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Charity’s (QC) in-kind donations project ‘Tayf’ has received donation from Qatar District Cooling Company (Qatar Cool), which will be channeled to support charity works bene-fiting low-income families and workers.

The benefactions were delivered at the Qatar Cool’s building in the presence of Nahar Al Mutawa, head of the Opera-tions and Maintenance Sector at the company. Fareed Khaleel Al Siddieqy, Director of Projects and Centers Department at Qatar Charity expressed his pride in this initiative, which instills the values of love of humanitarian and vol-untary work in the company’s employees, contributes to serving the local community, and sup-ports the charity’s humanitarian projects for the low-income workers.

Al Siddieqy underlined the readiness of the charity to coop-erate with all, either institutions or individuals, within the country to serve the noble humanitarian goals. He also thanked Qatar Cool

and its staff who contributed to this great humanitarian work.

“We are keen to participate in activities that benefit the local community and our company organises many other activities,” said Nahar Al Mutawah, head of Operations and Maintenance Sector at Qatar Cool.

“Our contribution came in the form of unused clothes, as we believe that the investment of surplus resources is necessary and positive. Through this con-tribution, we aim to ease the burdens on low-income families and workers, and encourage other institutions and companies to participate in such charitable and humanitarian campaigns”, Mutawah added.

He also applauded QC’s humanitarian efforts to support the low-income people, pointing out that Qatar Cool will partic-ipate in such initiatives organised by Qatar Charity in the future.

Qatar Charity receives in-kind donations, including clothes, shoes, children toys, fur-niture and electronic appliances for its ‘Tayf” projects to benefit workers and families with low-income.

Nahar Al Mutawah, head of Operations and Maintenance Sector at Qatar Cool, and Khaled Al Yazidi, Head of Public Relation Department at Qatar Charity, at the ceremony.

Ozair with his parents.

03MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 HOME

QA, QDF welcome tennis champions to Qatar ExxonMobil OpenTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Airways and Qatar Duty Free (QDF) are sponsoring the Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2019 tournament on its 27th edition this year taking place at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha, from today till January 5, 2019.

The Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2019 tournament, one of two ATP World Tour events held in the Middle East, hosts many of the world’s best tennis players including world number one Serbian tennis player, Novak Djokovic.

Qatar Airways Senior Vice-President Marketing and Cor-porate Communications, Salam Al Shawa, said: “Qatar Airways is thrilled to bring the world’s top tennis players to Qatar to compete at the state-of-the-art Khalifa International Tennis & Squash complex. Being the Official Airline Sponsor of the world renowned Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2019 tournament is a major highlight on Qatar’s sporting calendar and

marks a great beginning to the start of the new year.

“We continue to support the emergence of sports in Qatar and being the bridge to welcome world champions to our country. Our longstanding sponsorship of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open tourna-ments each year shows our com-mitment to the Qatar 2030 vision to become a global sports desti-nation. We look forward to show-casing our world-class hospitality and wish all the players the best of luck.”

Qatar Duty Free Vice-Pres-ident Operations, Thabet Musleh, said: “Qatar Duty Free is once again proud to sponsor the Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2019 tour-nament. Sport brings people together and we are delighted to be able to contribute to bringing this significant global sporting event to people around the world. We have participated in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open for more than 10 years and we are committed to supporting the Qatar 2030 vision. We look forward to hosting vis-itors in our booth at the public village for some entertainment

before and after the matches, and to welcoming players and spec-tators alike through our home and hub Hamad International Airport. We wish them a successful tournament.”

Qatar Airways and Qatar Duty Free will mark their presence at the tournament by hosting special booths, offering visitors a taste of their award-winning services. The Qatar Airways booth will feature an interactive green screen where tennis fans can get their photos printed in virtual backgrounds such as upcoming destinations and on an aircraft. The QDF booth will feature a guessing game accom-panied by a photo opportunity, visitors will have to guess the number of branded balls in an acrylic box and share it on social media for a chance to win prizes offered by Qatar Duty Free.

In May 2017, Qatar Airways announced a groundbreaking sponsorship deal with FIFA, which saw the award-winning airline become the Official Partner and Official Airline of FIFA until 2022. The partnership, one of the biggest sporting sponsorships in the

world, will give Qatar Airways extensive marketing and branding rights at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar. The agreement also sees Qatar Airways become the Official Airline Partner of the 2019 editions of the FIFA Club World Cup, the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the FIFA U-17 World Cup, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, and the FIFA eWorld Cup.

The airline has an existing sponsorship strategy with premier sporting clubs around the world. Qatar Airways recently revealed multi-year sponsorship agree-ments with several sports entities, which includes being official airline sponsor of CONMEBOL professional football competitions across South America for the next 4.5 years including the Copa CON-MEBOL Libertadores, Copa CON-MEBOL Sudamericana and the CONMEBOL Recopa.

In addition to the tennis, Qatar Duty Free has also sponsored the Commercial Bank Golf Masters since 2009 and, this year, extended its sponsorship of this sport to the annual TFWA con-ference in Cannes which

welcomes more than 3,000 duty free and travel retail brands and 500 international exhibitors,

reaching over 2,000 key execu-tives from major landlords and duty free retailers.

Qatar Airways and Qatar Duty Free (QDF) are sponsoring the Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2019 tournament on its 27th edition this year.

Deputy PM & FM meets Pakistan Foreign Minister

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met yesterday with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is visiting the country. During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations and ways to boost and develop them, as well as the latest updates in the region especially in Afghanistan. In addition, they discussed issues of common interest.

QSRSN organises sign language workshopQNA DOHA

Qatar Society for Rehabilitation of Special Needs (QSRSN) is organising a specialised course in sign language for medical terms for employees of Sidra Medicine.

The three-week course includes training in the names of departments, diseases, medicines and medical and administrative procedures in hospitals, as well as formation of sentences and simulation of deaf sign language with intensive practical training on them. The participants in the course are accredited as trans-lators for sign language at Sidra in order to facilitate the inter-action and communication with the hearing impaired persons and enable them to access all the services provided by Sidra.

Chairman of Qatar Society for Rehabilitation of Special Needs, H E Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah

Al Thani, stressed that the training course is part of the great cooperation between Qatar Foundation and other institutions operating in the State and its various disciplines, with the aim of empowering members of the community to better commu-nicate with persons with disabil-ities in general and the hearing impairment in particular. He

praised the excellent cooperation between QSRSN and Sidra to serve persons with disabilities and society in general.

Prof. Naji Zakarneh, hearing impairment advisor to QSRSN and the workshop presenter, noted that the training program is designed to enable participants to be able to communicate well with persons with hearing

impairment.He said that trainees receive

intensive practical training on sign language from gestures and intimations through the body lan-guage and the identification of medical and health terminology with applied training to become qualified at the end of the course on excellent communication with the hearing impaired persons.

The participants attend the event organised by Qatar Society for Rehabilitation of Special Needs for the employees of Sidra Medicine.

Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs trains Imams of mosquesTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs represented by the Religious Calls and Guidance Department has concluded a four month programme for training Imams and Muazins of mosques.

Imam leads prayer and Muazin calls for prayer. “Under the programme the participants received lessons on Islamic juris-prudence, doctrine and Tajweed,” said Malullah Jaber, Director the Religious Calls and Guidance Department.

He said the programme was organised under ‘2019-training plan’ to educate the participating Imams and Muazins specific information about Sharia’h because they played key role in creating values and morality in the community.

“The Department developed a special course and invited experts to deliver the lectures on various subjects related to Islamic law because the trainees played important role in the fields of learning and reciting holy Quran,” said Jaber. He said that Imams and Muazins should have enough knowledge about Sharia’h like Islamic jurispru-dence and Quran science so they could reply properly to the ques-tions of people.

“2019-training plan includes 30 speicilised prgrammes. Five programmes are dedicated to Qatari preachers and orators under which over 500 clerics from all over the country will receive the training about Sharia’h including calling, Islamic science, jurisprudence, doctrine, Tajweed, prophetic traditions,” said Malallah

Imams and Muazins at a ceremony held at the end of the programme organised by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs.

Nomination for Katara’s Award for Prophet’s Poet begins tomorrowTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The nomination for fourth Katara’s Award for the Prophet’s Poet worth QR4.2m will begin from January 1, 2019, Katara, Cultural Village has announced.

The nomination will continue until April 30. The contest, fea-turing original Arabic poems on the life and traditions of Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) is divided into two categories — Classical Poetry (Shaar Al Faseeh) and Colloquial Poetry (Shaar Al

Nabti). The general supervisor of Katara’s Award for the Prophet’s Poet, Khaled Abdul Rahim Al Sayed, said that as per the requirement the candidate should fill a form online at www.katarapoet.com before April 30, 2019. The winner of fist, second

and third prizes will get QR1m, QR700,000 and QR400,000 in both categories.

The award seeks to encourage people to preserve poetry. Poetry helps to instil Islamic values in the minds of many, preserving her-itage across generations.

Qatar takes part in GCC

Wildlife Day celebrationQNA DOHA

The State of Qatar, represented by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, participated yesterday in the celebration of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Wildlife Day 2018, which falls on 30 December each year, under the slogan “nature reserves is a national treasure”.

This celebration comes in the context of the efforts of Qatar in conjunction with the rest of the GCC countries to preserve wildlife and protect species threatened with extinction in the GCC, by highlighting the importance of the conservation, protection and development of biodiversity through the development and implementation of programs and activities that lead to the conser-vation and protection of biodi-versity and environmental

balance in the Gulf region and to intensify awareness-raising efforts on the Gulf Wildlife Day on December 30, each year.

Moreover, the Ministry, rep-resented by Al Shamal Munici-pality and General Cleanness Department, announced the success of its campaign to clean and remove neglected cars, boats and abandoned cabins in Al Shamal’s industrial area, especially as this waste has an impact on hygiene, environmental integrity and the overall landscape of the region. The Ministry revealed that in the first day of the campaign the municipality removed 12 aban-doned cars, one dump wagon, and one cabin, in addition to the boats’ owners moved more than 30 boats and a number of cabins.

The cleaning rate of the area reached about 75 percent during the first day of the campaign. The campaign will continue for the

next two days until completion of all the violations in the region.

Furthermore, the General Cleanness Department announced the implementation of a comprehensive clean-up campaign for the north-west coast of the state (75km) and has so far removed 480 tonnes of miscellaneous waste.

Director of General Clean-liness Department Safar Al Shafi said that this campaign comes within the framework of special programs implemented to clean the beaches in all regions of Qatar, adding that work is implemented in a streamlined manner to not affect the daily work programs. He explained that the campaign began 20 days ago, where the work was distributed in three stages. He said the second phase will start next week from Al Zubara to Um Haish, and the third phase from the area of Um Haish to Zekreet.

04 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018HOME

CONDOLENCES

offers its heartfeltcondolences to

Abraham V AugusthyGraphic Designer

The Peninsula

on the sad demise of his

FatherMay God bless the departed soul and give fortitude to the bereaved family members to

bear this irreparable loss.

Pakistan Navy Task Group to

dock at Hamad Port todayTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Four Pakistan Navy ships will be docking at Hamad Port, from today to January 3, 2019 in display of goodwill and deep bonded friendly relations between both countries.

The Task Group comprising Ships — PNS Khaibar, PNS Madadgar, PNS Rah Naward and PMSS Zhob — are visiting Qatar with an aim to enhance maritime collaboration between two navies. Besides regular participation of Pakistan Navy ships in Dimdex Exhibition, this visit marks the largest number of Pakistani Vessels visiting Qatar at any one given time. The Port Call by Paki-stani Ships is testimony of growing security and defence relationship between State of Qatar and Islamic Republic of Pakistan, said a press release issued by embassy of Pakistan. PNS Khaibar derives its name from a famous battle in 629 AD during which seemingly invin-cible fortress of Khaibar was overcome by Muslims. PNS Khaibar (Ex HMS Arrow) is the fourth of eight Type-21 Amazon Class Frigates and was acquired by Pakistan Navy from UK in early ‘90s. Since its induction in Pakistan Navy Fleet, it has undergone major qualitative modifications in its weaponry and sensors. Due to its unique capabilities, the Ship is capable of undertaking a variety of Naval Operations across entire spectrum of Naval Warfare.

PNS Madadgar, meaning ‘Logistic Support Provider’, is a Small Tanker cum Utility Ship (STUS), with an overall length 47.20 meters, beam of 11 meter and can achieve maximum of 15 knots. The Ship has been indige-nously built at Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works, Pakistan and was commissioned in Pakistan Navy on July 19, 2011.

The 1600 tonnes twin screw utility ship is designed for Multi-Purpose roles and operations at high seas and has been optimised for provision of logistic support to coastal stations, replenishment of surface ships at anchor/adrift/at harbor and towing operations. The Ship is characterised by excellent maneuverability, spacious layout and adequate Bollard Pull capacity. Since commissioning, it has par-ticipated in numerous national and international exercises.

PNS Rah Naward (Ex-Prince William) was commissioned on September 23, 2010 at Hull United Kingdom. Since commissioning, the ship has been entrusted with the responsibility to impart pro-fessional, educational, and physical training to officers and men of Pakistan Navy. The ship, being the first ever Tall Ship of PN, provides a unique opportunity for understanding the essence of teamwork, leadership, and enhanced self esteem.

Sail training provides an unconventional yet an extremely effective way of building many useful skills which can prove highly beneficial ashore and at sea. The ship is making a pow-erful contribution in shaping professional acumen of Naval

Officers and Men.PMSS Zhob, named after a

river in Balochistan province, is a Maritime Patrol Vessel (MPV), indigenously built at Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works, Pakistan. The ship was launched on December 5, 2017 and commis-sioned in Pakistan Maritime Security Agency on August 9, 2018. PMSS Zhob is one of the lead ships of Hingol Class MPVs 6HT (600 tons Maritime Patrol Vessel).

Ship has been optimized for maritime policing, EEZ patrolling and SAR roles, enabling quick response, optimum presence and reduce turnaround times. Ship is fitted with four high speed diesel engines, driving four shafts ena-bling it to ensure sustained high speeds and excellent maneuver-ability. Ship has an overall length 68.5 meters, beam of 11 meters and can achieve maximum speed of 27 knots. The officers and men of the visiting Task Group will hold professional discussions and inter-actions with their counterparts from Qatar Navy on subjects of mutual interest. The visit will strengthen mutual desire of pro-moting peace and security in the region beside enhancing maritime cooperation between the two sea-faring nations.

PNS Khaiber will dock at Hamad Port today.

Amiri Guard Commander meets UK Defence AttacheThe Amiri Guard Commander, Major General Hazza bin Khalil Al Shahwani, met here yesterday with UK Defence Attache to the State of Qatar, Colonel (Pilot) Simon Blake, on the occasion of assuming his duties in Doha. During the meeting, they exchanged views on topics of common interest in military areas.

Farewell ceremony for Moroccan AmbassadorThe Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, H E Dr Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, held yesterday a farewell ceremony in honour of the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to the State of Qatar, Nabil Zniber, on the occasion of ending his tenure in the country. A line-up of Their Excellencies, heads of diplomatic missions and bureaus accredited to the country attended the ceremony, which was held at the Diplomatic Club, along with Foreign Ministry department directors.

QICC to set up a joint committee to improve workplace relationsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar International Cables Company (QICC) is collaborating with the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs (MADLSA) and the Inter-national Labour Organization (ILO) to set up a pilot joint committee in order to ensure good workplace relations.

The move aims at promoting employees’ participation rights through a new communication channel that will be an avenue for management to share information to the employees and at the same time enable them to raise ques-tions, issues or concerns to management.

As part of this joint effort, QICC’s HR and Admin Director, Karima Cherifi invited both organ-isations represented by Marie-José Tayah, ILO’s Technical Officer on Dispute Resolution and Mohammed Saied Salem Al Athba Al Merri and Abdulaziz Mohammed Sharif from ADLSA to tour the facilities in QICC’s cable factory in Mesaieed. On this occasion, they also discussed the details of the formation of the joint committee.

“The Ministry of Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs support all efforts that help facilitate strong workplace relations as these will benefit employers and employees alike. We warmly welcome the steps QICC is taking to pilot this joint committee and look forward to replicating this initiative across Qatar,” said ADLSA official.

“It is an honour to support the realization of Qatar’s 2030 vision and to pilot the creation of a joint committee. QICC is a multicultural company employing workers from 18 nationalities, some 60 percent

of whom are blue-collar employees. The creation of the joint committee will play an important role in breaking down the barriers between management and operators,” said Karima Cherifi, QICC HR and Admin Director.

“We were impressed with QICC’s existing labour-man-agement communication culture. Supervisors discuss key per-formance indicators and safety guidelines on a monthly basis with factory workers. Further, bulletin boards, safety technical flash reports and employee skill score-cards can be found across the factory. This is certainly a good base for taking labour-man-agement relationships in QICC a step further through the formation of joint committees,” said Marie-José Tayah, ILO Technical Officer

on Dispute Resolution.This joint committee will facil-

itate open communication between management and employees helping to solve work-related issues and enhance working conditions. The joint committee will also consider areas such as employment regulations, training, health and safety as well as working conditions.The project is expected to start by mid-January 2019.

Qatar International Cables Company is a Nexans Company established in Qatar in June 2008 as a joint venture company between Nexans and Al Mirqab Capital and is fully managed by Nexans. The head quarter and the plant is in Mesaieed with a Sales and Administrative Office in Doha.

The production range includes Low- and Medium- Voltage power cables, control cables, LSZH cables, fire safety cables with the main market covering GCC, Yemen, Iran and Iraq. The expansion will cover also include low end High-volt-agepower cables with the target to supply to Kahramaa power network expansion projects. The plant is among the most advanced Nexans factories in the MENA (Middle-East North Africa) region.

Nexans brings energy to life through an extensive range of cables and cabling solutions.

Employees of Qatar International Cables Company at a work site.

The move aims at

promoting employees’

participation rights

through a new

communication

channel that will

be an avenue for

management to share

information to the

employees.

05MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 HOME

A leading Media Company in Qatar is looking for:

Business Reporter

Sub-Editor

������������ ��������� � ���� ������� ��media.vacancies2016@gmail.com

� ���������� ���� ������������������ ����������������� ��������!"!���

��!!�����#��������� ������ $����%��&'()����������*���+���

���� ����� ���������,)��+��%'������-���.�����

� '������� ��'���������!!�������� ��#���� &���!�!/�������������������++���

��*���������!���0������ )+��� � �*�� ���!���������������"���#����� 1������ �*��2��3���+��������� '���� 2��*�����.4�5������� )+��� � �*��26���2���������� �������

���������� )+��� � �������� �������*�� ��.��6������ $����%��&�������������*���+���

���� ����

QM hosts Executive Teachers’ Council ahead of new yearTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Under the patronage of its Chair-person, H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Qatar Museums (QM) hosted a meeting with teachers at the Fire Station as part of its efforts to make its cultural resources available to

teachers and students in Qatar. The event was a chance for QM to introduce schools to its projects and initiatives as well as get their perspectives on how to better inte-grate museum collections with the national educational curriculum.

Organised by QM’s Department of Education and hosted in coop-eration with the Ministry

of Education, the event was an interactive session whereby teachers were asked to review lesson plans developed by QM and share their feedback. The session also saw teachers work with a set of artworks and artefacts from QM to develop lesson plans incorpo-rating the objects and finding new ways of brining QM’s vast resources

into the classroom. The highly engaging discussion

stressed the importance of collab-oration between QM and the edu-cational sector, highlighting QM’s commitment to develop a thriving cultural sector by inspiring a new generation of creators and pro-ducers. Commenting on the event, Haya Al Jabor Senior Programs

Educational Specialist said, “Stu-dents in schools are getting their inspiration and being encouraged by their teachers who should have access to the best resources. It is therefore vital that we work closely with teachers and educators to provide learners with access to our museums and collections, thus encouraging them to explore the

world around them and express themselves in creative ways. The session was very productive and we are pleased to head into 2019 with a fresh set of ideas and perspectives.”

The Four-hour long discussion generated several suggestions from teachers on how schools can foster close collaboration with QM.

QatarDebate strengthens ties with US universities

QDA opens 19th edition of Al Bawasil Diabetes CampTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The 19th Al Bawasil Diabetes Camp, organized by Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA), a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), kicked off yesterday.

The event is being held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairman of Al Shaqab – a member of QF.

The five-day camp will run until Thursday, January 3, at Guest Services at Al Majilis al Janoub – Student Housing Complex in Education City. It has brought together 50 children – between the ages of 7 and 11 representing 12 dia-betes associations from various countries across the region, including Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Palestine, Iran, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Dr Abdulla Al Hamaq, Executive Director, QDA, said, “The Al Bawasil camp is an excellent opportunity for children to learn about type 1 diabetes, outside of a hos-pital. As part of the program, the participants are taught how to do a blood glucose test, how to use specific equipment such as a gluco-meter, glucose strips, and insulin, how to eat well, and how to recognise symptoms of hypoglycemia.”

The camp features a series of fun and educational work-shops, some of which have been organized in collabo-ration with QF Recreation Center. ces with one another.

ORYX GTL Qatar, a long-standing supporter of QDA, is a sponsor of this year’s edition.

Jumbo plans expansion with new

stores and online shopping portal THE PENINSULA DOHA

Jumbo Electronics is one of the leading business groups in Qatar offering a diverse range of products and services across its various business verticals in consumer electronics & durables retailing, wholesale, telecom services, B2B, MEP and after sales service. With over 13 retail outlets, over 100 channel partners and many more customers in public and private sector, it has developed a formidable sales network over the last 4 decades. It continues to diversify into new businesses and bring in new brands to enhance its offerings to the people of Qatar.

Jumbo’s plans include expansion of its current retail operations with the addition of new stores and launching of an online shopping portal dedicated to IT, mobiles, electronics and appliances. It has also brought in the world leader in air purification solutions, Blueair to Qatar earlier this year. The year 2019 will also see a significant refresh of Jumbo Electronics brand identity in the market as it continues to grow and expand; the new identity will help it be relevant in an evolving market in the years to come.

Sajed Jassim Mohammed

Sulaiman, Vice Chairman & Man-aging Director, Video Home & Electronic Centre, Jumbo Elec-tronics, said, “The Jumbo in 2019 will be different from the Jumbo of the past, but it will still retain its essence of delivering outstanding quality products and service to the people of Qatar. We will be re-innovating the retail shopping experience for our customers in the months to come with some ini-tiatives in the digital space and some in the traditional brick & mortar shops.”

CV Rappai, Director & CEO, Video Home & Electronic Centre, Jumbo Electronics, said, “The year 2018 has shown us that unless companies evolve and innovate they will not be able to sustain in the coming future. We are also changing the shopping experience for our customers by providing them with additional avenues to shop online for our products using just their mobile phones. With the booming projects in the country our company is geared up to com-plete the supply & installation of products in the B2B & MEP segment”

Some of the key focus areas under its various verticals for 2019 are as follows. LG, its leading brand continues to grow from strength to strength and will maintain its focus on its Signature

range and premium products which include the OLED TV, InstaView Refrigerator, TwinWash Washing Machine, Inverter AC’s, OLED Digital Signage and Hotel Interactive TV’s with an effort to provide more meaningful inno-vations with every product being intuitive, responsive and func-tional. Its very own electronic and appliances brand ‘Oscar’ has expanded its range to include a variety of kitchen appliances and home entertainment products over the past five years. It is cur-rently the number 1 cooking range brand in Qatar. Its products are sourced from factories in the Far East, Turkey, Italy etc. with R&D facilities focusing on innovation and quality. Oscar, a Qatari brand with registered trademarks will diversify its sales and marketing activities across other markets in the Middle East.

Jumbo’s retail business is set to be strengthened in the year to come with the opening of 2 new outlets, one at Palms Mall in Rayyan and the other at Doha Souq in Al Nasser. While these showrooms will replace the older showrooms in the same area, it marks a shift in the company’s direction from standalone stores to showrooms within malls.

Jumbo will soon be launching an online shopping portal

providing a variety of products from leading brands to be shopped online and delivered to the doorstep of the customer. The site will be uniquely tailored for the Qatar market providing multiple payment options with quick hassle free delivery anywhere in Qatar.

Jumbo is also a Premium dealer for Ooredoo and will be building on this relation further by opening a cobranded shop in shop at its Barwa Village retail outlet. At this cobranded counter cus-tomers will be able to avail of all services typically available at any Ooredoo outlet. In addition to this, it will also begin managing the O o r e d o o b r a n c h a t

Medina Centrale in The Pearl as a franchise store bringing the total count to 3 franchise outlets managed by Jumbo.

In the business to business (B2B) segment, Jumbo has been steadily making significant strides in catering to the various needs of government, semi government and different private companies. It is currently on path to supplying a range of built-in and free standing appliances to various real estate complexes comprising of over 400 Villas and over 650 apartments. Its Built-in Kitchen Solutions business that it began in 2018 also has a dedicated expe-rience zone at its Airport road and

City Centre showrooms with plans to open specialised stores shortly. It is currently meeting customer requirements by providing solu-tions from leading brands like Rational, Arosa Mobilia, Allmilmo and Muhendisler.

Jumbo ElectroMech (MEP arm of Jumbo Electronics) has been one of the fastest growing divisions of the company providing ELV (Extra Low Voltage) and commercial air conditioning solutions in the country. In preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Jumbo through its association with Bosch can provide CCTV advanced security camera solutions with Artificial Intelligence capabilities.

Jumbo Electronics’ Sajed Jassim Mohammed Sulaiman, Vice-Chairman & Managing Director, hands over the 2019 Business Strategy Document to C V Rappai, Director & CEO, as Rohit Pandit, COO, looks on.

THE PENINSULA DOHA

A delegation from QatarDebate visited five universities in the US to strengthen ties for future corporation.

They visited the University of Utah, University of Western Kentucky, University of Chicago, Harvard University and New York University. Several meetings were held with universities officials to discuss forms of cooperation with QatarDebate after the growing demand of the Arabic debates among students which was generated by participations in previous international events hosted by QatarDebate.

Abdulrahman Al Subaie Head of Outreach at QatarDebate said,“QatarDebate center plays a leading role in spreading the Arabic language internationally through edu-cating the art of debate.”

Al Subaie explained that some universities expressed their aspiration to organise a debate competition in Arabic

with the support of QatarDebate Center, whereby QatarDebate will support the academic insti-tutions with trainers, educa-tional materials and arbitrators with the aim of becoming on going events in the US.

It was also agreed with multiple universities to sign memorandums of under-standing in the aim to strengthen develop ties with QatarDebate.

A QatarDebate delegation during a visit to the US.

Several meetings

were held with

universities officials

to discuss forms of

cooperation with

QatarDebate after the

growing demand of

the Arabic debates

among students

which was generated

by participations in

previous international

events hosted by

QatarDebate.

06 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Voters queue in order to cast their ballot for the DR Congo’s general elections at the College St Raphael polling station in Kinshasa, yesterday.

Volatile DR Congo votes after two-year delayAFP KINSHASA

Presidential elections that will shape the future of one of Africa’s biggest and most unstable countries were underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday after a two-year delay.

But observers reported wor-rying problems, from long queues to hitches with elec-tronic voting machines whose introduction caused a storm.

The vote gives the DRC the chance of its first peaceful transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Analysts, though, say the threat of upheaval is great, given organisational problems and

suspicion of President Joseph Kabila, who refused to quit in 2016 after his two-term limit expired.

The election’s credibility has been strained by repeated delays, fears of problems on polling day and accusations that voting machines would help to rig the result.

On election eve, talks aimed at averting violence after the vote broke down.

Opposition frontrunners Martin Fayulu and Felix Tsh-isekedi refused to sign a pro-posed code of conduct with Kabila’s preferred successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. They accused officials with the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) of thwarting

changes to the text.The UN, US and Europe have

appealed for the elections to be free, fair and peaceful -- a call echoed by the presidents of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and the neighbouring Republic of Congo.

And in the Vatican, Pope Francis led thousands of wor-shippers in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday in prayers for “normal and peaceful” elections.

Many voters said they were exhilarated to be taking part in the first elections after the nearly 18-year Kabila era.

“I feel liberated, freed,” said Victor Balibwa, a 53-year-old civil servant, casting his ballot in Lubumbashi, the country’s mining capital in the southeast.

Turkey fortifies Syria borderANATOLIA HATAY

Turkey sent military reinforce-ments to its southern Gaziantep province near Syrian border, according to Anatolia Agency correspondent in the area.

A military convoy carrying howitzers first arrived in Hatay province then in Gaziantep as part of Turkey’s recent military

reinforcements ahead of a pos-sible counter-terrorism oper-ation in northern Syria.

Turkey has been reinforcing its military presence on the border with Syria since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled that Ankara will soon launch a cross-border operation against the terrorist YPG/PKK in northern Syria.

Since 2016, Ankara has

successfully carried out two similar military operations in northern Syria.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU — has been respon-sible for the death of some 40,000 people, including women and children. The YPG is its Syrian branch.

Assad authorises Iraqi forces to strike IS in SyriaAP DAMASCUS

Syria’s state news agency says President Bashar Assad has authorised Iraqi forces to attack the Islamic State group inside Syria without waiting for permission from authorities in Damascus.

The announcement high-lights the close relations between the two neighbouring Arab countries. IS once controlled large parts of both countries when it declared a caliphate in 2014.

Iraqi warplanes and artillery have in the past pounded IS posi-tions inside Syria after getting the green light from Syrian authorities.

The extremists have been defeated in Iraq but still hold a small area in Syria.

On Saturday, Assad received a letter from Iraq’s Prime Min-ister Abdul-Mahdi calling for both countries’ coordination in “fighting terrorism.”

US President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that the US will withdraw all of its 2,000 forces in Syria.

Turkish Armed Forces’ armoured military vehicles and personnel carriers, which were installed on train from several military units in Turkey, arrive in Iskenderun train station in Hatay, yesterday.

New Iraq minister quits over videos linking her brother to ISAFP BAGHDAD

Iraq’s newly appointed education minister has said she tendered her resignation over online accusations her brother was a member of the Islamic State group.

S h a i m a A l H a y a l i announced her decision in a tweet, two weeks after par-liament approved her nomi-nation, saying she had handed her resignation to Prime Min-

ister Adel Abdel Mahdi.“I announce that I have

submitted my resignation to the prime minister... and it is up to him to decide whether he will accept it once he has ascer-tained any link between me and terrorists,” she said in the tweet.

Her decision comes days after MPs and local officials from Mosul made accusations online that her brother, Layth Al Hayali, was an IS member.

The accusations were

accompanied by two videos dating back to 2016 showing Layth in IS propaganda videos, at a time when he worked for a local administration in IS-held Nineveh province, where Mosul is located.

In these videos, the man, whose whereabouts are cur-rently unknown,can be heard denouncing US-led air strikes against the group.

“He was forced, under the threat of arms, to work in an administration controlled by

IS,” Shaima Al Hayali said.But she added that her

brother “never touched a weapon and never helped kill a fellow Iraqi citizen”.

According to media reports and two activists, one of Layth Al Hayali’s sons was killed while carrying out a suicide attack and another while fighting against Iraqi forces.

There was no immediate reaction from the prime min-ister’s office concerning Hay-ali’s resignation.

UN calls out

Houthis over

peace gesturesAP SANA’A

The United Nations cast doubt yesterday on claims by Yemen’s Shia rebels to have withdrawn from the Red Sea port of Hodeida, saying such steps can only be credible if all other parties can verify them.

Stephane Dujarric , spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said Houthis also failed to honour an agreement to open a “humani-tarian” corridor between Hodeida and the capital, Sana’a, to deliver assistance. Both cities are under rebel control.

He said retired Dutch Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, who heads a UN team of monitors in Hodeida, has expressed his “dis-appointment at their missed opportunity to build confidence between the parties” in a meeting with rebel representa-tives about their failure to open the corridor.

The confidence-building measures agreed in Sweden this month, which include an exchange of prisoners, could pave the way for a political set-tlement of Yemen’s 4-year-old war, which pits the Iran-aligned Houthis against the government and a Saudi-led coalition.

The two sides have observed a cease-fire in Hodeida for nearly two weeks, ending months of fierce fighting for control of the city. Some 70 percent of Yemen’s imports come through Hodeida, and the Sweden deal is designed in part to facilitate the delivery of relief supplies to pull Yemen back

from the brink of famine.The fighting in Yemen, the

poorest Arab nation, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions to hunger. The UN calls it the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

The Houthis said on Sat-urday they handed over control of the Hodeida port to the coast guard under the Sweden agreement, but the government denied this, saying it was a ploy by the rebels to maintain control. Government officials said the Houthi-appointed commander of the coast guard in Hodeida is a longtime rebel commander who had never served in the coast guard before.

The estimated 300 members of Hodeida’s coast guard had not reported for work in months and have been replaced by per-sonnel loyal to the Houthis, said the officials.

In his meeting with the rebel representatives, Cammaert wel-comed the Houthis’ efforts to start implementation of the Sweden agreement, but noted that this must be “concurrent,” said Dujarric, the UN spokesman. The Dutch envoy also empha-sized that any redeployment would only be credible if all parties and the UN were able to observe and verify it. Cammaert planned to meet tomorrow with representatives of both sides to discuss “the redeployment plans of the parties and the liaison, monitoring and coordination mechanism that will be required to monitor the ceasefire and ensure that credible rede-ployment is achieved,” according to Dujarric.

07MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 ASIA

Modi urges nation to seek ‘loftier goals’ in 2019IANS NEW DELHI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday asked the people to seek “loftier goals” with “renewed zeal” in the coming year as he recalled the various strides India made in 2018.

Delivering his last ‘Mann Ki Baat’ address of 2018, which was the 51st edition of the monthly radio programme, the Prime Minister summed up the year’s achievements in the field of economy, social sector, solar energy, climate change, sports and others, saying it could happen because of the collective efforts of the people.

“Whether it is the life of a person, life of a nation, or the life-span of a society, inspiration is the basis of progress,” Modi said, appealing for renewed zeal and loftier goals to “change oneself and the country too.”

Asserting that the country has taken strides in the area of poverty alleviation at a record pace, the Prime Minister said it has also seen unprecedented improvement in the “ease of doing business” rankings and noted that world institutions have acknowledged India’s growth.

Listing the achievements of the government in 2018, he said: 2018 saw launching of world’s biggest health insurance scheme

‘Ayushman Bharat’; in honour of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India witnessed the unveiling of the tallest statue in the world, ‘Statue of Unity’; electricity reached each and every village of the country; the ease of doing business in India improved notably; on the 75th anniversary of Azad Hind government, a Tricolour was unfurled at Delhi’s Red Fort for the first time, and the highest United Nations Environment Award ‘Champions of the Earth’

was conferred on India.Modi said the country’s self-

defence mechanism got further reinforced and that it was during this year that India successfully accomplished the nuclear triad, which means India is now armed with nuclear capabilities in sea, land and sky.

He said the Swachcha Bharat Scheme and sanitation coverage have been rapidly advancing towards crossing the 95 per cent mark and dedicated the success to the people.

He also listed opening of India’s first multi-modal ter-minal on the Ganga river in Var-anasi and Sikkim’s first airport as major achievements.

The Prime Minister also mentioned that India clinched a large number of medals in Asian Games and performed very well in Para Asian Games and cricket too.

The Prime Minister also

spoke about the tradition of Kumbh Mela and celebration of Republic Day on January 26.

“The world famous Kumbh Mela is also a huge medium of self-discovery, where every visitor experiences a unique feeling and learns to look at the worldly things from a spiritual perspective. This is expected to have a footfall from more than 150 countries, the spir-ituality of Kumbh spreading India’s splendour throughout the world,” he said.

He said this year the country will celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi.

“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is going to grace the Republic Day celebra-tions as chief guest. Mahatma Gandhi and South Africa shared an unbreakable bond,” he said remembering former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

The Prime Minister also

called on people to give impor-tance to positive news and make positivity “viral” instead of dwelling on negative news.

Modi referred to certain news and opinion websites like thebetterindia.com, and yourstory.com, which, he said, write about “inspiring lives” and are “infusing more sensitivity into society” through their stories.

“Can we join hands in one endeavour?.. Let us share such websites among ourselves. Let’s come together to make positivity viral. Spreading negativity is fairly easy. But some really good work is being done around us in our society,” he said.

Conveying his greetings for Lohri, Pongal, Makar Sankranti, Uttarayan, Magh Bihu, Maaghi Purnima, he said, all the festivals may carry different names, the underlying or inherent feeling of celebrating them is singular.

Normal life disrupted as unusual cold grips AgraIANS AGRA

With the mercury dipping to 1.7 degrees Celsius, normal life remains badly affected in the city of Taj. In view of the severe cold, district authorities have revised school timings. Schools will now start at 9.30am instead of 8.30am.

“Extreme cold conditions during morning and evening hours force people to rush back home and stay indoors,” said a shopkeeper of Johri Bazar Bankey Lal.

However, owing to the holiday season, the tourist rush continues to remain high with over 50,000 visiting the Taj Mahal on Saturday.

“But people are avoiding late evening outings. The Agra Municipal Corporation has pro-vided gas heaters at road crossings and the night shelters run by a local NGO, Sri Nathji Nishulk Jal Sewa, are full to capacity,” said Sudheir Gupta, a samaritan of Vijay Nagar Colony.

Voluntary groups are dis-tributing blankets, woollens and eatables to the homeless, Gupta added.

Potato growers across the district, too, face challenging conditions. The fear of being hit by frosty conditions that could devastate their crops in the fields looms large.

The district agriculture department has circulated instructions listing out pre-cautionary measures that farmers should take to protect their crops.

No news of trapped miners as Navy, NDRF begin rescue IANS KSAN

The Indian Navy and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) yesterday began their operation to rescue 15 miners trapped inside a flooded illegal coal pit for 18 days in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district, but there was no news as yet of the miners.

Lieutenant Commander Santosh Khetwal led a team of six divers, including five from the Navy and one from NDRF and assessed the depth of the water in the illegal coal mine.

Two Naval divers dived about 80 feet inside the main shaft of the flooded coal pit, but couldn’t locate any of the trapped miners. The divers spent more than two hours inside the pit in a inflatable raft with all necessary equipment.

“They dived about 80 feet inside the main shaft of the coal pit but they couldn’t locate any-thing due to high accumulation of water in the pit,” Assistant

Commandant NDRF, Santosh Kumar Singh said.

“We have decided to resume pumping of water from the pit on Monday morning with 100 horse-power pumps from Odisha fire services. Moreover, we have decided that Navy and NDRF divers will simultaneously dive inside during the water extraction so that we can try to get to the bottom of the pit,” he said.

Singh said that the Navy will also use the underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) in today’s rescue operation.

Noting that the ultimate aim of the rescuers is to evacuate the trapped miners, Singh said, “Res-cuers never lose hope, as we work to rescue them.” Coal India Limited (CIL) continued to sur-veyed the abandoned coal mines located at the adjacent areas of the mining tragedy site.

“We have surveyed the abandoned mines. We will soon get one of the six submersible high-capacity equipment that can dewater 500 gallon per

minute,” A K Bharali, General Manager of CIL, Kolkata said.

Crew members of Odisha Fire Services have placed their 100 horsepower pumps a tthe tragedy site to dewater the pit from Monday morning.

The district administration has temporarily suspended

pumping out water from the coal pit since December 24 with the two 25 horsepower pumps became ineffective due to con-tinuous operations.

Meghalaya police have arrested Jrin alias Krip Chulet, the owner of the coal mine, from Narwan village. Police said that

a hunt is on for more people including the manager of the illegal coal mine.

Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and sought immediate Central support to rescue the trapped miners.

Indian Navy personnel prepare diving equipment before entering a coal mine that collapsed in Ksan in Meghalaya, yesterday.

Police arrest 11 over Ghazipur constable’s murderIANS GHAZIPUR/LUCKNOW

The Uttar Pradesh Police yesterday said that it has arrested 11 people in the killing of a head constable by a violent mob on Saturday.

“We have arrested 11 people for the death of head constable Suresh Pratap Singh Vats,” Ghazipur Assistant Superin-tendent of Police Chandra P

Shukla said. He said the police have named 32 known and over 100 unknown persons in the case.

Condoling Vats’ death, Director General of Police O.P. Singh tweeted, “The death is extremely tragic. So far 19 accused in three cases have been arrested, which include 11 in the case of murder.” “Strict action will be taken against those involved in violence,” Singh said.

Vats, a head constable posted

at the Karimuddin Police Station, died after he sustained head injury by the stone pelting mob of the Nishad party.

This is the second such death involving police personnel and mobs this month in the state.

On December 3, police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh was killed in Bulandshahr in western UP when he tried to stop a mob of right-wing activists and villagers from keeping cattle

carcasses to block a road from where a large number of Muslims were to return after a religious congregation.

According to police, Vats was part of a police team trying to control the crowd which was protesting against the detention of a few of its members during a series of demonstrations during the day.

The official said that Vats had arrived at the protest site to

control the crowd around 4pm, after finishing his duty at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in the district, which was 15 km away. However, an hour later he succumbed to his injury, he said.

Vats was attached with the Karimuddinpur police station for over a year and belonged to Pratapgarh district. Vats is sur-vived by his wife and three children — a son and two daughters.

Supporters of the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal party block road traffic as they protest against the Punjab government and police for alleged fake polls outside a polling station in Naushera village on the outskirts of Amritsar, yesterday.

Akali Dal protest against ‘fake polls’

Nation mourns iconoclast filmmaker Mrinal SenIANS KOLKATA

India mourned for the auteur, Mrinal Sen (pictured), yesterday, as prominent personalities, from politicians to celebrities, paid glowing tributes to the genius film-maker who died here following age-related ailments.

Sen, 95, the Dadasaheb Phalke award-winning film director, who was famed for his ability to put searching ques-tions before the society - espe-cially the middle class, died at around 10am at his south Kolkata residence yesterday.

Leading the nation in the mourning were President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Kovind lauded Sen for his “penetrating and sensitive por-trayal of social realities”.

“Sad to learn of the passing of acclaimed filmmaker Mrinal Sen. From ‘Bhuvan Shome’ to the ‘Calcutta’ trilogy, his penetrating and sensitive portrayal of social realities made him a fine

chronicler of our times. A loss to Bengal, to India and to the world of cinema,” the President said on his official Twitter handle.

Modi said India is grateful to Sen for making some of the most memorable films.

“Our country is grateful to Shri Mrinal Sen for giving us some of the most memorable films. The dexterity and sensi-tivity with which he made films is noteworthy. His rich work is admired across generations. Saddened by his demise. My thoughts are with his family and admirers,” Modi said on Twitter.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Sen’s demise was an “irreparable loss to the world of filmmaking.

Modi said: 2018 saw launching of world’s biggest

health insurance scheme ‘Ayushman Bharat’;

in honour of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India

witnessed the unveiling of the tallest statue in

the world, ‘Statue of Unity’; electricity reached

each and every village of the country; the ease

of doing business in India improved notably and

the highest United Nations Environment Award

‘Champions of the Earth’ was conferred on India.”

The US adminis-

trations went for

image and media

manipulation that

convinced only

the US audience

that things were

going their way.

Few in Turkey’s

region have been

deceived by these

efforts.

THE WASHINGTON POST

08 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018VIEWS

Turkey’s new regional security role, 70 years late

“The British Ambassador’s private secretary asked urgently that his chief might see the Secretary of State to

deliver ‘a blue piece of paper,’ the trade name for a formal and important message from His Majesty’s Government…. Hend-erson shortly received not one but two documents. They were shockers. British aid to Greece and Turkey would end in six weeks…. The British could no longer be of substantial help in either. His Majesty’s Government devoutly hoped that we could assume the burden in both Greece and Turkey.”

— Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, recounting the events of 21 Feb-ruary 1947, in his memoir “Present at the Creation” “You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.”

— US President Trump handing responsibility for security in northeastern Syria to Turkey, 14 December 2018

US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria was greeted, in the US, by full-spectrum political outrage. From hard-right Repub-lican hawks lamenting any sort of US retreat, to liberal centrists and leftists wringing their hands over the fate of America’s “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) partners, condemnation was loud and indignant.

The New York Times, a staunch PKK/PYD sup-porter (the PKK is a violent mil-itant organi-sation desig-nated “ter-rorist” by US state institu-tions) ran a serious of alarmist edi-torials and articles bewailing the fate of Syria and the SDF. This is despite the fact that the SDF is

nothing but a grotesque camouflage for the PKK’s Syrian branch that fools no one but the US public.

Typical was David Halbfinger’s 20 December article, titled “American With-drawal from Syria Shakes up the Middle East,” in which the author claims that Trump’s decision “abruptly scrambled the geopolitics of the Middle East.” Halbfinger is obviously a recent arrival to the region. No one over here, other than the PKK, feels any sort of “shaking.” The real actors in Syria — Russia, Iran, and Turkey — have been negotiating over the fate of the country for the past two years while the US trucked in weapons for the PKK’s canton

in northeast Syria.Actually, since President Obama

dropped the ball in 2012-2013 and allowed Russia to assert dominance in Syria, the US has had little-to-no real influence over events there. Despite the usual platitudes about human rights and the occasional Tomahawk strike for domestic US con-sumption, the infamous “red-lines-that-weren’t” illustrated America’s lack of both will and ability to push the Syrian conflict into a different trajectory.

Instead, the US administrations went for image and media manipulation that convinced only the US audience that things were going their way. Few in Turkey’s region have been deceived by these efforts, despite Ben Rhodes’s (former foreign policy advisor to President Obama) decla-ration to the New York Times Magazine’s David Samuels that all a US administration had to do on foreign issues was tell media organizations what to publish.

“They literally know nothing,” claimed Rhodes, so any US administration only needed to propagate the information that it wanted known, and everyone else would simply swallow the story.

In the end, the only American accom-plishment on Syria was intense, over-whelming self-deception; all of the brouhaha about Trump’s decision stems from that delusion and from efforts to conceal impotence with displays of mis-guided righteousness. In Turkey, as a result, President Trump’s decision elicited only grim amusement from some, and out-right schadenfreude from others.

For now, the most important issue is whether US withdrawal from northeast Syria will leave a power vacuum for the Syrian regime to fill through cooperation with the PKK/PYD/YPG. No one should feign surprise at that suggestion because collaboration with Damascus is exactly what the PKK/PYD/YPG has done in the past any time it saw the necessity. To prevent that eventuality, Turkey and the US are working to coordinate the changeover.

US official statements have also indi-cated a maximum of three months for complete withdrawal. This means that the US disengagement from Syria will need close observation for several months. Another issue vitally important to Turkey is the collection of weaponry the US

provided to the PKK/PYD/YPG. Despite heavy — and justified — skepticism, the US has repeatedly claimed that those weapons will be retrieved. Frankly, I will only believe that American withdrawal and weapons collection have been satisfac-torily concluded when Turkish intelligence and security officials affirm publicly that the US has, indeed, packed up and gone home, taking all of the weaponry supplied to the PKK with it.

What more clear-sighted observers should concentrate on is the historical meaning of this moment. The US has seen the Eastern Mediterranean as its “stomping grounds” since February 1947, when the British abruptly handed over the region’s security responsibilities.

During the past 70 years, the US per-formed its own version of the famous British predilection for “muddling through,” stumbling from intervention to intervention and disaster to disaster in a region which it did not understand, but which the logic of geopolitical strategy demanded remain under US control.

At least some of those disasters could have been averted if the original plan for a Middle East Command (MEC), which was strongly supported by President Harry Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson, had been instituted. One of the justifications for Turkish (and Greek) admission to Nato was the proposed estab-lishment of an Eastern Mediterranean security structure in which Turkey would have a primary role. Turkey’s regional knowledge could then have been applied more directly to the problems affecting the region.

The MEC, later renamed the Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO), was never realised because the Eisenhower Administration decided not to pursue the plan against strong regional resistance. In its place other arrangements, the ulti-mately doomed Baghdad Pact and its equally doomed successor, the Central Treaty Organization, were instituted.

Today, Turkey’s regional prestige has greatly increased along with its industrial-izing economy and enhanced military capacities. President Trump’s decision to hand security matters to Turkey, thus, finally grants a prime regional security role to Turkey 70 years late, but “better late than never,” as the American saying goes.

DR ADAM MCCONNEL ANATOLIA

QUOTE OF THE DAY

There is a “50-50” chance that Brexit may be stopped if parliament rejects the government’s divorce deal with

the European Union next month.

Liam Fox

British Trade Minister

A travesty of an election

For two years after the official expiration of President Joseph Kabila’s term, the

Democratic Republic of Congo failed to muster an election to choose a successor. This was largely the fault of the corrupt Kabila, who lingered in office and dragged his feet on election preparations. This year, under strong domestic and international pressure, he and his coterie handpicked a loyal successor and promised balloting would be held Dec. 23. After another delay, a vote is set for Sunday in most of the country. But the whole two-year farrago of phony promises, topped by violence and repression in recent weeks, amounts to a travesty. Congo’s people deserve better.

They deserve better because the country, two-thirds the size of Western Europe, sits on huge deposits of mineral wealth that have not been used to benefit more than the ruling elite. They deserve better because this vast Central African expanse has yet to experience a peaceful democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, and has often been a cauldron of misery and death, marked by sexual violence, child sol-diering and the bedlam of rebel militias.

Congo’s people need a chance to defy the chicanery and repression of a regime determined to avoid a true competitive election. Unfortu-nately, credible opposition candidates have fought an uphill battle. The latest

electoral flimflam came in the days before the scheduled Dec. 23 vote. A mysterious fire broke out in a warehouse holding thousands of voting machines. The electoral com-mission announced a one-week delay in the vote, stirring uncertainty.

This week brought even more signs of subterfuge. The electoral commission announced that the voting would be postponed until March in three cities, Beni, Butembo and Yumbi, which account for more than 1.2 million of Congo’s approxi-mately 40 million registered voters, and are strongholds of opposition to Kabila.

The explanation that an ongoing Ebola outbreak near two of the cities would endanger voters was lame. The postponement taints the

electoral process; voters in these three cities are being told they can cast their ballots after a new president is already sworn in.

On December 10, European Union foreign min-isters renewed sanctions on 14 individuals responsible for human rights abuses and obstruction of the electoral process in Congo, including former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who is Kabila’s handpicked choice but hardly a popular one. The gov-ernment expelled the EU ambassador.

The Trump administration has imposed some targeted sanctions on the Kabila regime but has not been nearly forceful enough lately in speaking up for free and fair elections.

The port has come

a long way after its

expansion began

few years ago.

Ruwais Port is now

able to receive

and export about

20,000 containers

per year compared

to about a 1,000

containers in

previous years.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

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

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Qatar’s strong port sector

Qatar’s maritime sector got another boost with commencement of expansion at Al Ruwais Port. The second phase of expansion of Al Ruwais

Port, was announced on Thursday. The expansion includes enhancing 156,000sqm of storage space that will triple its capacity.

The port has come a long way after its expansion began few years ago. Ruwais Port is now able to receive and export about 20,000 containers per year com-pared to about a 1,000 containers in previous years.

After the launch of its first phase of expansion in January 2015, the port was able to achieve significant steps which have played an important role in meeting the increasing needs of the domestic market. It is playing crucial role in meeting the requirements of different projects being implemented in Al Shamal.

The new expansion will serve the port for next 10 years as infrastructure is being developed at the tra-ditional fishing port, which is being expanded to add 300 berths and is expected to be complete by 2020 with all services needed for fishermen.

The expansion aims to deepen the navigational channel of Al Ruwais Port which helps in receiving vessels with larger cargo.

The second phase of expansion of the port would greatly help in the flow of goods from the ships directly to the storage area. It will also help in facilitating the process loading and storing the goods into an integrated storage area

The port has become a source of pride due to consist rise in the number of vessels calling at the port, increased trade and imports and exports. It has become a vital contributor

to the economic development and an important player in Qatar’s economic development.

Development at Al-Ruwais Port began in 2014. A plan was put in place to develop the port in three stages and to develop six berths to receive various types of vessels and commercial goods.

Qatar’s maritime sector is well supported by Hamad Port. Since commencing operations in December 2016, Hamad Port has modernised the way Qatar handles imports and exports and has helped in facilitating the growth and diversification of the coun-try’s economy. It has acquired 28 percent share in the volume of trade in the Middle East.

Within a short period of time, the port has reached a global port connectivity coverage with 40 ports spanning over three continents. The port has seen tre-mendous growth in a short duration and is further cementing Qatar’s position as a regional maritime hub.

It can be easily said that Hamad and Al Ruwais Port take Qatar’s economic development to new heights.

Getting the Taliban

to agree to formal

talks was a hard-

enough sell before

Trump’s decision.

The insurgents,

who have pushed

back hard against

beleaguered Afghan

forces and hold

more territory than

at any time since

the 2001 US-led

invasion, had little

reason to stop

fighting.

09MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 OPINION

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OFFICE

TEL: 4455 7741 / 767FAX: +974 4455 7758

MANAGING EDITOR

TEL: 4462 7505

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR

TEL: 4455 7769

LOCAL NEWS SECTION

TEL: 4455 7743

BUSINESS NEWS SECTION

TEL: 4462 7535

SPORT NEWS SECTION

TEL: 4455 7745

ONLINE SECTION

TEL: 4462 7501info@pen.com.qa

PUBLIC RELATIONS

TEL: 4455 7613pr@pen.com.qa

ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT

TEL: 4455 7837 / 780FAX: 4455 7870 adv@pen.com.qa

CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT

TEL: 4455 7857adv@pen.com.qa

SUBSCRIPTION &

DISTRIBUTION

TEL: 4455 7809 / 839FAX: 44557819info@tawseelqatar.com

D-RING ROAD

POST BOX: 3488

DOHA - QATAR

editor@pen.com.qa

All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers,not of the newspaper.

All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should be send to editor-in-chiefoffice or mailed to the editorinchief@pen.com.qa

This was a great year to be a math geek

What’s next for the United States in Afghanistan?

SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS BLOOMBERG

MICHAEL KUGELMAN BLOOMBERG

For math geeks like me, 2018 was a banner year: not only was it a year in which the field’s top prize was

awarded, it was the only year in this century featuring days lining up with both the Golden ratio, an elegant proportion found

throughout art and nature, and the mathematical constant e, which is at the core of calculus.

But the mathematician in me also can’t help but note that the number 2,018 has some ominous properties: It’s deficient, meaning that the sum of all its positive divisors is less than itself. And it’s also odious, meaning that it has an odd number of 1s in its binary expansion, 11111100010.(1)

This year is pretty cryptic, as well — it features prominently in the first of the three Beale ciphers, an 1880s cryptographic puzzle that supposedly describes the location of a multimillion-dollar treasure.

(Hint: check the cipher’s second line.)

And 2,018 is a crystallogen number, giving it a property derived from chemistry that means it’s slightly unbalanced: atoms with full shells containing 2,022 elec-trons are electronically stable. But 2,018? It’s, well, just a few short. (Maybe three years from now will be less volatile?)

But that shouldn’t stop us from having fun! Although 2,018 might seem a bit concerning on the whole, its constituent parts are much more salutary.

As I pointed out a year ago, 2,018 is two times 1,009. And 1,009 is prime, however, you look at it: its only divisors are one and itself, and when you read it backward — 9,001 — you get another number with the same property. This makes 1,009 a special kind of number that mathematicians call an emirp. (Can you guess why?) Not only that, if you write 1,009 in binary — 1111110001 — you get a number that is the decimal representation of a prime.

And 1,009 is happy, meaning that if you take the sum of the squares of its digits, and then take the sum of the squares of the digits of the result, and so forth, you eventually get to 1. It’s also lucky, which means that it survives the following curious elimination process: Start with the odd

numbers, note the second-largest is 3; and delete every third number. The third-largest number remaining is then 7, so now delete every seventh. The fourth-largest is then 9, so delete every ninth, and so on.

Putting the preceding two observations together, we see that 1,009 is happy-go-lucky! Numbers like that are pretty rare — although there’s another one coming up soon.

Indeed, 2,019 is another happy-go-lucky number. So that gives us something to look forward to as the New Year’s clock counts down. That said, 2,019 is also an apocalyptic power(2) — so what the year will bring is anyone’s guess.

(1) This is all just mathematical musing, of course — any resem-blance to actual events is purely coincidental.

(2) This means that tworaised to the 2,019th power contains 666, the number of the beast.

The author is the MBA Class of 1960 Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and a faculty affiliate of the Harvard Department of Economics. Previously, he was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and the inaugural research scholar at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at the Uni-versity of Chicago.

Zalmay Khalilzad is likely not a happy man right now. Kha-lilzad, the US special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation,

had been on an urgent mission: Launch a peace process with the Taliban, and launch it soon. With US President Donald Trump eager to wind down the war, Washington has been eager to get a deal to give the president cover for a withdrawal.

Khalilzad had made some progress. He facilitated several high-level meetings between senior US officials and Taliban representatives. The most encouraging exchange occurred in the UAE earlier this month. “They told me we cannot defeat you,” Khalilzad said in an interview with the Afghan TV station Tolo News shortly after the UAE talks, referring to the Taliban. The insur-gents told him that “we should first sit with you, which means the US, then with Afghans, and resolve the issues through political means.” Given that the Taliban representation included the head of its political office and chief of staff to supreme leader Mullah Akhundzada, such a conciliatory message is nothing to sneeze at.

And then, like a bolt from the blue, Khalilzad’s boss pulled the rug out from under him. Trump abruptly decided to withdraw nearly half of the 14,000-strong US troops in Afghan-istan. This move makes Khalilzad’s job much more difficult, as Wash-ington seems to have lost ample lev-erage in future talks.

Trump squandered a precious opportunity

The US president has given the Taliban what they’ve long demanded - a commitment to withdraw troops - and they didn’t need to give up any-thing in return, much less conclude a deal. For the Taliban, the withdrawal decision is manna from heaven. For

US negotiators, it’s a punch to the gut.Getting the Taliban to agree to

formal talks was a hard-enough sell before Trump’s decision. The insur-gents, who have pushed back hard against beleaguered Afghan forces and hold more territory than at any time since the 2001 US-led invasion, had little reason to stop fighting.

The Taliban has previously said it may be open to formal talks with the Afghan government to end the war once Washington commits to troop withdrawals. So why not view Trump’s decision as an opening to launch a peace process?

Unfortunately, so long as Afghani-stan’s current government remains in power, that’s likely not in the cards. Even with a troop drawdown plan, the Taliban won’t be itching to talk to the current Afghan government.

Ever since US forces expelled the Taliban from power in 2001, the group has denounced Afghan govern-ments as illegitimate and puppets of Washington. The Taliban would argue that such crude characterisations apply particularly well to the present administration - a national unity gov-ernment that is the product of a US-led negotiation, not an election.

After Afghanistan’s 2014 presi-dential election ended inconclusively, US Secretary of State John Kerry was dispatched to Kabul, where he ham-mered out a power-sharing deal between the two top vote-getters, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. These two men lead the current government.

So when Taliban statements, such as the one released in November, refer to the Afghan government as “installed by the Americans and imposed on the Muslim Afghan nation,” they’re not off the mark.

Ultimately, Trump’s unilateral drawdown decision may have

squandered Washington’s best chance to date to launch peace talks. The Taliban is poised to capitalise on the new battlefield advantage generated by a drawdown unaccompanied by a peace deal.

What are Washington’s options now?

Ideally, Trump would walk back his drawdown decision and give Kha-lilzad’s diplomatic efforts more time. It’s easier to justify a withdrawal if you can say that at least you tried to make peace first.

Realistically, Trump is unlikely to change course; he’s never been com-fortable remaining in Afghanistan. Additionally, the White House - espe-cially with the impending departure of Defense Secretary James Mattis - has few remaining senior officials who support staying the course and are in a position to convince Trump to change his mind, or even to slow down the pace of the drawdown. Trump could well announce a full withdrawal in the coming months.

So what can Washington do to pick up the pieces of a shattered opportunity?

The first step is damage control. Top US officials should assure Kabul that despite imminent troop reduc-tions, they aren’t abandoning Afghan-istan. Washington should emphasise that it will continue to provide critical funding to Afghan security forces and to support efforts to expand the Afghan Special Forces, the crown jewel of Afghanistan’s army which is badly suffering from overexertion.

Such measures can ease Afghan concerns about US abandonment and limit the Taliban’s potential battlefield gains following US troop departures.

Second, if and when contacts with the Taliban resume, Washington should focus on getting the Taliban to formally renounce ties with al-Qaeda. Analysts have long feared that Afghanistan will revert to an interna-tional terrorism sanctuary in the event of a US withdrawal, and this fear may be one reason why a reluctant Trump agreed to keep troops in the country when he announced his Afghanistan strategy last year.

The same fear also drives the US negotiating strategy. In his Tolo News interview, Khalilzad said, “If the menace of terrorism is tackled, the United States is not looking for a per-manent military presence in Afghan-istan.” The Taliban is actively fighting a local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), but it retains ties to al-Qaeda.

Here is where Pakistan can be helpful. Washington should press Islamabad, which enjoys extensive influence over the insurgents, to take up the al-Qaeda issue with the Taliban, and to enlist key regional actors Russia, Iran, and China in this campaign, as well. These four

As I pointed out a

year ago, 2,018 is

two times 1,009.

And 1,009 is prime,

however, you look at

it: its only divisors

are one and itself,

and when you read

it backward — 9,001

— you get another

number with the

same property.

countries don’t get along with Washington, but they also have no interest in Afghanistan reverting to an al-Qaeda sanctuary.

There may be an opening. Tricia Bacon, a scholar who studies alliances between terror groups, has written that the Taliban is not as dependent on the operational and financial support it used to receive from al-Qaeda, while al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri enjoys less standing within the Taliban than did his predecessor, Osama bin Laden.

Third, Washington should extend its full backing to Afghan presidential elections scheduled for next year. Given security, techno-logical, and logistical challenges, the poll will likely be flawed, but the chances of the Taliban talking to Kabul are higher if Afghanistan’s leadership is the product of an election, warts and all, rather than an external US-led meditation.

In recent days, Afghan election officials have indicated the poll will be postponed by several months to fix technical glitches. In the best-case scenario, the delay would not only fix problems in the election process and make it more credible, but it would also allow for more time to build a blueprint for peace talks with the Taliban to begin once the new government takes office.

Amid a suddenly receding US role and presence in Afghanistan, Kabul’s participation in a potential peace process has never been more critical. Khalilzad can limit the damage of his boss’s rash decision by helping create the right condi-tions for an eventual launch of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process that Afghanistan and its long-suffering citizenry richly deserve.

10 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018ASIA

Hasina heading for victory after violent Bangladesh electionsAGENCIES DHAKA

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appeared headed for a landslide win in a general election yesterday marred by opposition claims of rigged voting as several people were killed in clashes between rival supporters.

Early results showed Hasina racing into a clear lead, winning each of the first 29 seats declared — some by tens of thousands of votes — according to Channel 24, which is compiling results from around the country.

The deadly violence and bitter rivalry that marred the election campaign spilled over into voting day, even as author-ities imposed tight security with 600,000 troops, police and other security forces deployed across the country.

Election-related violence killed 17 people yesterday, a police spokesman said, including seven people from the ruling party and five from the oppo-sition alliance.

Spokesman Sohel Rana said more than 20 people were injured.

Over 10 people were killed in clashes between Hasina’s ruling Awami League party and supporters of the main oppo-sition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, police said, while three men were shot by police who said they were protecting polling booths.

An auxiliary police member was also killed by armed oppo-sition activists, according to officials.

Hasina, 71, has been lauded for boosting economic growth in the poor South Asian nation during her decade in power and for welcoming Rohingya ref-ugees fleeing a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.

But critics accuse her of authoritarianism and crippling the opposition — including arch-rival Khaleda Zia who is serving 17 years in prison on graft charges — to cling on to power.

The BNP-led opposition alliance yesterday accused Hasina’s party of using stuffed ballot boxes and other illegal means to fix the result, which was to be announced Monday.

BNP spokesman Syed

Moazzem Hossain Alal told reporters there were “irregular-ities” in 221 of the 300 seats con-tested. Its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami said it would reject the results.

“Voters are not allowed to enter booths. Especially women voters are being forced to vote for the boat,” Alal said, referring to the Awami League symbol.

Bangladesh election com-mission spokesman S M Asaduz-zaman said the body had “received a few allegations of irregularities” and was investigating.

Authorities ordered mobile operators to shut down high speed Internet services until midnight Sunday “to prevent the spread of rumours” that could trigger unrest. One independent television news channel com-plained that its broadcasts were blocked.

Voting in the capital Dhaka was largely peaceful as convoys of soldiers and paramilitary forces were on the streets where most traffic was banned.

“I have never missed voting in my life. This is probably the last election for me and I want a suitable candidate for my country,” 98-year-old Abdus Salam said at a Dhaka polling station.

However, voters in pro-vincial areas reported intimi-dation. Atiar Rahman said he was beaten by ruling party activists in the central district of Narayanganj.

“They told me not to bother, ‘We’ll cast your vote on your behalf’,” he said.

The opposition said the unrest was stirred up to deter voters, and presiding officers reported a low turnout across the country.

Yesterday’s deaths brought to 18 the official police toll for election violence since the ballot was announced on November 8.

Police said they acted “in self-defence” in the southern town of Bashkhali, when they fired on opposition supporters who stormed a polling booth, killing one.

In a separate incident a man was shot by police after he tried to steal a ballot box.

Hasina needs 151 seats to control parliament but experts say a victory would be sullied by accusations that she hamstrung

opponents.The opposition says more

than 15,000 of its activists were detained during the campaign, crushing its ability to mobilise support.

Human Rights Watch and other international groups said the crackdown created a climate of fear which could prevent opposition supporters from casting ballots.

The United States raised con-cerns about the credibility of the election while the United Nations called for greater efforts to make the vote fair.

Seventeen opposition candi-dates have been arrested over what they claim are trumped-up charges while another 17 were disqualified from running by courts, which Hasina’s oppo-nents say are government controlled.

The Bangladeshi leadership has alternated between Hasina and Zia, allies-turned-foes, over the last three decades.

Hasina rejects accusations of authoritarianism but analysts say she feared young voters would support the BNP.

Her government was criti-cised this year for its heavy han-dling of weeks of major student protests that brought Dhaka to a standstill.

Hasina, daughter of Bangla-desh’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was gifted victory in the 2014 election when the BNP boycotted the vote claiming it was not free and fair.

Rights groups have since accused her administration of stifling freedom of speech by toughening a draconian anti-press law and the enforced dis-appearance of dissenters.

Presiding officers count votes at a voting centre after polling has ended in Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday.

Taliban dismiss Afghanistan’s peace talks offerREUTERS KABUL/PESHAWAR

The Taliban have rejected Kabul’s offer of talks next month in Saudi Arabia where the mili-tants, fighting to restore strict Islamic law in Afghanistan, will meet U S officials to further peace efforts, a Taliban leader said yesterday.

Representatives from the Taliban, the United States and regional countries met this month in the United Arab Emirates for talks to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban have refused to hold formal talks with the Western-backed Afghan government.

“We will meet the U S offi-cials in Saudi Arabia in January next year and we will start our talks that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi,” a member of the Taliban’s decision-making Lead-ership Council said.

“However, we have made it clear to all the stakeholders that we will not talk to the Afghan government.”

Taliban spokesman Zabi-hullah Mujahid also said the

leaders of the group would not talk to the Afghan government.

The militants have insisted on first reaching an agreement with the United States, which the group sees as the main force in Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have intensified after Taliban representatives started meeting US envoy Zalmay Kha-lilzad this year. Officials from the warring sides have met at least three times to discuss the with-drawal of international forces

and a ceasefire in 2019.But the United States has

insisted that any final settlement must be led by the Afghans.

According to data from the Nato-led Resolute Support mission published in November, the government of President Ashraf Ghani has control or influence over 65 percent of the population but only 55.5 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, less than at any time since 2001. The Taliban say they control 70 percent of the country.

A close aide to Ghani said the government would keep trying

to establish a direct line of dip-lomatic communication with the Taliban.

“Talks should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned,” the aide said on condition of anonymity. “It is important that the Taliban acknowledge this fact.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of American troops from Syria, a decision that prompted the res-ignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, and there have been reports that he is consid-ering a partial pullout from Afghanistan.

Pakistan PM to pay official visit to TurkeyANATOLIA ISLAMABAD

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan this week will pay a two-day official visit to Turkey, according to Pakistani officials.

Khan’s first official visit to Turkey after taking office this August comes at the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Accompanied by Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Planning Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, and adviser Abdul Razak Dawood, Khan will leave for Turkey on Wednesday, Mohammad Faisal, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman, confirmed to Anadolu Agency.

During the visit, Khan will meet Erdogan and discuss the entire spectrum of bilateral relations between the two countries, as well as exchange views on regional and inter-national developments, said the premier’s spokesperson.

Khan will also address a business forum and hold several meetings with Turkish businessmen and potential investors in Ankara.

“Pakistan and Turkey enjoy historic and unparalleled ties based on a common reli-gious and cultural legacy that dates back centuries. The two countries have excellent political, economic, defence, cultural and people-to-people relations that continue to grow from strength to strength each passing year,” he said

Pakistani vendors sell fish at a fish market in Lahore yesterday.

Fish market in Lahore

Punjab cabinet holds first meeting in BahawalpurINTERNEWS LAHORE

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has chaired the first ever meeting of Punjab cabinet in Bahawalpur and discussed a 22-point agenda.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said another promise had been fulfilled by holding the meeting of Punjab cabinet in Bahawalpur. “We will end the deprivation among the people of South Punjab. The whole province is my home and I will go to its every corner,” he added.

He said the least developed areas would be brought at a par with the developed areas. The cabinet meetings would also be held in other divisions as well.

The public service done by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in a short time was the result of team work, he said, vowing to con-tinue working for public facil-itation with the same zeal, according to a handout issued here.

The cabinet approved the policy of impartial allotment of vehicles to provincial ministers and officers, and also the annual report of Punjab Power Development board for the year of 2017, which would be

presented in the provincial assembly.

It also gave its consent to the draft of the Punjab Water Policy. The draft of the Water Act would be prepared in the light of the policy and the Water Council would be constituted.

The proposal of the con-struction of Dadhocha Dam under the private-public part-nership was also approved. The agenda of the control of the lower portion of the Chashma Right Bank Canal and the pro-vision of complete share of water to the Punjab from the canal was also approved.

The report of the Auditor General of Pakistan on the Dis-aster Management Organization Punjab’s accounts for the year 2017-18 was also approved.

The audit report of the Auditor General Pakistan for district health and education authorities of Punjab for the year 2017-2018 was also approved. The formulation of the Labour Policy of Punjab was also approved.

The meeting also gave its consent to the appointment of the vice chancellor of the Cholistan University of the Vet-erinary and Animal Sciences, and the formation of search committee.

China probe readies to land on dark side of the moonREUTERS SHANGHAI

A Chinese space probe is moving into position to land on the dark side of the moon for the first time, the official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, a mission seen as an important step as the country looks to push

forward its space programme.The probe, the Chang’e-4,

entered a planned orbit on Sunday “to prepare for the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon”, the news agency said, citing the China National Space Administration. It didn’t say when the landing would occur.

The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side — or the “dark side” — is never visible from Earth. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon, but none has landed on it.

China launched the Chang’e-4 probe earlier this

month, carried by a Long March-3B rocket. It includes a lander and a rover to explore the surface of the moon.

Xinhua said that the probe had entered an elliptical lunar orbit at 08.55 Beijing time, which brought it at its closest point just 15 kilometres away from the surface of the moon.

Early results showed

Hasina racing into a

clear lead, winning

each of the first

29 seats declared.

Election-related

violence killed 17

people yesterday, a

police spokesman

said, including seven

people from the

ruling party and five

from the opposition

alliance.

11MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 ASIA

A general view shows a flooded area in the town of Baao in Camarines Sur province, yesterday.

Philippine storm death toll rises to 22AFP MANILA

At least 22 people died from a storm that swept through the central Philippine islands at the weekend, authorities said yesterday, with rescue opera-tions under way in flood-inun-dated communities.

The death toll rose from four a day after the storm brought heavy rain to the Bicol and Eastern Visayas regions, causing massive flooding and landslides, the government’s office of civil defence said. Many of the deaths were due to landslides and drowning, it added, saying floods had yet to recede even as the weather disturbance known locally as “Usman” weakened into a low pressure area.

“Most of the (affected) areas are underwater. We are sending troops and rubber boats to rescue families. In some areas the floods have reached the roofs of homes,” Claudio Yucot, head of the Bicol region’s office of civil defence, said.

At least 16 people died in Bicol while six others were killed

in Eastern Visayas, civil defence officials said. More than 22,000 people fled their homes ahead of the storm, which destroyed rice and corn crops and left some roads and bridges inaccessible, according to regional disaster

officials. Government forecasters said that heavy rain would con-tinue over the next 24 hours in the northern Philippines.

An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of

people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.

The most powerful was Super Typhoon Haiyan which left more than 7,360 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in 2013.

A man and a child walk in the snow-covered Shanshan wetland in Wuhan, Hubei province, yesterday.

China issues blizzard warning as cold snap bitesREUTERS SHANGHAI

China issued a blizzard alert as temperatures around the country plunged yesterday, shutting down train lines, bus routes and grounding some flights.

The National Meteorological Center issued a code blue alert, with heavy snowstorms closing in on regions in the eastern and southern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Anhui and Hunan.

Freezing temperatures and heavy snow saw high-speed lines linking southern Hunan province to the manufacturing hubs of Guangzhou and Shenzhen suspended.

Kim calls for more talks with Moon in 2019AP SEOUL

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a letter to South Korean Pres-ident Moon Jae-in yesterday calling for more peace talks between the leaders in the new year following their active engagement in 2018, South Korea’s presidential office said.

Moon’s office said Kim also expressed regret that he couldn’t make a planned visit to Seoul, South Korea’s capital, by the end of December as pledged by the leaders during their last summit in September in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. The Blue House didn’t fully disclose Kim’s letter.

Moon later thanked Kim for his “warm” letter in a tweeted message and said without elabo-rating that Kim expressed strong willingness to carry out the agree-ments he made this year during a series of inter-Korean summits

and a historic June meeting with US President Donald Trump.

“There will still be a lot of dif-ficulties ahead,” Moon said in his message. “However, our hearts will become more open if we put in that much effort. There’s no change in our heart about wel-coming Chairman Kim (to the South).”

The tweet also included a photo that showed a ruby-col-oured folder emblazoned with the seal of Pyongyang’s powerful State Affairs Commission and the top part of Kim’s letter, which started with: “Dear your excellency Pres-ident Moon Jae-in. Our meeting in Pyongyang feels like yesterday but about 100 days have already passed and now we are at the close of an unforgettable 2018.”

Through three summits between Moon and Kim this year, the Koreas agreed to a variety of goodwill gestures and vowed to resume economic cooperation when possible, voicing optimism

that international sanctions could end to allow such activity.

The rivals have also taken steps to reduce their conventional military threat, such as removing mines and firearms from the border village of Panmunjom,

destroying some front-line guard posts and creating buffer zones along their land and sea bound-aries and a no-fly zone above the border.

“Chairman Kim said that the leaders by meeting three times in

a single year and implementing bold measures to overcome the long period of conflict lifted our (Korean) nation from military tension and war fears,” Kim Eui-kyeom, Moon’s spokesman, said in a televised briefing.

“Chairman Kim said he will keep a close eye on the situation and expressed strong will to visit Seoul.... Chairman Kim also expressed his intentions to meet President Moon frequently again in 2019 to advance discussions on the Korean Peninsula’s peace and prosperity and discuss issues on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” the spokesman said.

Moon’s office did not reveal how Kim Jong-Un’s letter was delivered or whether he made any comments about his planned second summit with Trump in 2019. The letter comes days before Kim is expected to address North Koreans in a New Year’s speech that North Korean leaders tradi-tionally use to announce major

policy decisions and goals.Kim used his New Year’s

speech a year ago to initiate diplomacy with Seoul and Wash-ington, which led to his meetings with Moon and a historic June summit with Trump. In his meetings with Moon and Trump, Kim signed on to vague statements calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when or how it would occur.

Post-summit nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang quickly settled into a stalemate as the countries struggled between the sequencing of the North’s disarmament and the removal of US-led interna-tional sanctions against the North. There continue to be doubts about whether Kim will ever voluntarily relinquish his nukes, which he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival.

Kim and Trump are trying to arrange a second summit in early 2019.

Heat wave bakes Australia for 7th dayREUTERS SYDNEY

Seven people have drowned as a heat wave grips Australia, sending big crowds to the beach to cool down, while a tropical depression in the far north threatens to turn into a cyclone by New Year’s Day.

Five of the deaths were in the southeastern state of Vic-toria between Christmas Eve and Saturday.

A South Korean drowned on Christmas Day while snor-kelling in a lake in the eastern state of New South Wales while another man died in surf on the Sunshine Coast in the eastern state of Queensland.

Temperatures have soared

over 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) from Western Australia down through the sparsely populated central desert into the populous eastern seaboard states for seven days, with the weather bureau predicting the heat to continue after a brief New Year’s Eve respite.

“Over the coming days the heat will contract inland but will build again from mid-week on Wednesday,” said Jonathan How, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology.

The bureau’s “extreme heat wave” warning included Aus-tralia’s most populous city, Sydney, but sea-side cities including Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne were cooled by sea breezes.

Bali’s volcano spews ash in fresh eruptionAFP JAKARTA

A volcano on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali erupted yesterday, belching ash high into the air and over nearby villages as officials warned tourists to keep clear of the area.

Mount Agung has been erupting periodically since it rumbled back to life in 2017, when it grounded hundreds of flights and left 120,000 visitors

stranded. Yesterday morning, the volcano — which is about 70km from the tourist hub of Kuta —sent ash skywards as it erupted for about three minutes, according to the country’s vol-canology centre.

“Residents near Mount Agung as well as climbers and tourists should not carry out any activity in the danger zone or within 4km radius from the crater,” the centre said in a statement.

On December 22, an eruption from Anak Krakatoa triggered a tsunami which hit the western tip of the neighbouring island of Java and southern Sumatra, killing at least 426 and leaving more than 7,000 injured.

In the latest eruption, several villages on Bali were covered in a thin layer of ash but no smoke or lava was detected coming from the crater and no evacu-ation has been ordered.

The volcanology centre also

warned residents near rivers in the area to be on alert for cold lava flows — a type of mudflow that can form from rock and ash in the rainy season and which is often a prelude to the blazing orange lava of popular imagination.

In June, dozens of flights were cancelled after Agung erupted and shot a fresh plume of smoke and ash more than 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) into the sky.

Under fire, Japan joins whalers Iceland & NorwayANATOLIA ANKARA

Japan is drawing criticism worldwide for withdrawing from an international authority on whaling as well as for its decision to restart commercial hunting of whales. Tokyo announced on Wednesday it will quit the Inter-national Whaling Commission (IWC) next year, and resume commercial hunting in its terri-torial waters and exclusive economic zone starting in July.

The governments of Aus-tralia and New Zealand were the first to decry the decision, urging Japan to remain in the pact. Greenpeace condemned the Jap-anese government’s “sneaky withdrawal” from the IWC.

SeaLegacy, a non-profit organisation which aims to raise awareness of ocean conser-vation, said in a tweet: “This is madness — a barbaric move that could set species recovery back decades.”

While it is world’s largest major whaling economy, Japan is by no means alone in the whaling business. Today, three major whale-hunting countries — Japan, Norway and Iceland — catch hundreds of whales and other aquatic mammals each year. Operating for the most part around their own coasts and in the Arctic and Antarctic circles, these countries argue that whaling is an integral part of their culture and at times criticise the IWC for not representing these sensitivities.

An IWC member state since 1951, Japan has consistently been

an ardent proponent of com-mercial whaling. Following a global moratorium sponsored by the US in the IWC in 1986, Japan discontinued its commercial whaling activities, instead con-ducting “scientific whale research” in the Antarctic Circle.

Japan thus allowed the con-tinued capture of the marine mammals, landing them on the shelves of Japanese markets.

In 2017, Japan caught over 300 whales in the Antarctic alone. Japanese whalers hunt roughly double that amount yearly in the northwest Pacific Ocean and along its own coasts, according to media reports.

Founding IWC members Norway and Iceland have con-tinued their whaling practices as part of the body, breaking with the 1986 moratorium.

They both rejected an attempt earlier this year to pass a declaration that would con-tinue the moratorium, blasting it as “intended to be divisive.” This year Norway caught at least 434 whales, and Iceland caught 81, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, a British-based NGO. Last May, Norway drew international criticism by raising its commercial whaling quotas to over 1,200 — up nearly 30 percent — though it has con-sistently fallen short of this limit by substantial margins.

Both Iceland and Norway supported a Japanese proposal to reform the IWC, calling for the establishment of whaling quotas and greater emphasis on the IWC as a regulation rather than con-servation body.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (left) sent a letter

to South Korean President Moon Jae-in calling for

more peace talks between the leaders in the new

year following their active engagement in 2018.

12 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018EUROPE

UK govt eyes military bases abroad: ReportBLOOMBERG LONDON

The UK is working on plans to build two new military bases in the Caribbean and southeast Asia, the Daily Telegraph reported, citing an interview with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson.

The plans are part of an effort to make the UK “a true global player” by increasing the country’s role on the international stage after it leaves the European Union, Williamson was quoted as saying.

It also marks a shift from the so-called 1968 East of Suez strategy in which the UK withdrew from military bases in southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf, the minister told the paper.

“We have got to make it clear that that is a policy that has been ripped up and Britain is once again a global nation,” Williamson

said. The UK already has bases in Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and Diego Garcia, the newspaper reported.

Williamson predicted that the “political focus will shift quite dramatically” after Brexit and the UK has to build “deeper relationships with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Car-ibbean countries, but also nations right across Africa.”

The defence secretary also said in the interview that the UK government’s no-deal Brexit contingency plan — which involves placing 3,500 troops on standby in the event of a chaotic exit from the EU in March — was “good sensible planning.”

“We were always planning to carry a con-tingency there, just to make sure things run smoothly with or without a deal,” he said. A spokesman for the UK Ministry of Defence said he did not dispute the secretary’s com-ments quoted in the Telegraph’s report.

EU is not trying to keep Britain in: JunckerREUTERS BRUSSELS

The European Union is not trying to keep Britain in and wants to start discussing future ties the moment the UK parliament approves Brexit, partly to focus on its own unity ahead of May elections, the head of the bloc’s executive said.

It is being insinuated that our aim is to keep the United Kingdom in the EU by all possible means. That is not our intention. All we want is clarity about our future relations. And we respect the result of the referendum.” Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, told German news-paper Welt am Sonntag.

Juncker said the EU was ready to start negotiating a new deal with Britain right after the British par-liament approves the divorce deal. A vote is now due in the week starting January 14.

He also said Britain should get its act together.

“And then tell us what it is you want,” he said.

“I am working on the

assumption that it will leave, because that is what the people of the United Kingdom have decided,” he added, refusing to be drawn into whether Britain would hold a second Brexit vote. “That is for the British to decide.”

On other challenges facing Europe, Juncker said he was watching closely US President Donald Trump on trade.

“I trust him for as long as he keeps his word. And if he no longer keeps it, then I will no longer feel bound by my word either,” Juncker

said of tensions between the EU and Washington around car tariffs.

He said he felt EU citizens were increasingly growing apart, another problem to tackle ahead of Europe-wide parliamentary elections in May.

“We have to ensure that these rifts do not become too deep,” Juncker said. “We must not imply that the populists are right ... they are just loud and do not have any specific proposals to offer on solving the challenges of our time.”

He said Europe had to stand united “in combating the trolls and hacker groups from China or Russia” that could seek to sway the European vote.

He expressed doubt about EU state Romania, which takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency from January 1, but struggles with cor-ruption and bitter divisions.

“The government in Bucharest has not yet fully understood what it means to take chair over the EU Member States...Romania’s internal situation is such that the country cannot act as a compact unit in Europe,” Juncker said.

The head of the

European Commission,

Jean-Claude Juncker,

said the EU was ready

to start negotiating a

new deal with Britain

right after the British

parliament approves

the divorce deal.

Sacked Macron aide defends use of diplomatic passports

Preparing for New Year

REUTERS PARIS

Emmanuel Macron’s former security aide, who was sacked this summer after his violent conduct fuelled a political scandal, acknowledged yesterday he was still travelling on a diplomatic passport, in an affair that has rattled the French presidency.

After he was fired when a video emerged of his beating a May Day protester, Alexandre Benalla (pictured) returned to the spotlight in France this week, under scrutiny over his recent consultancy work and unauthorised use of diplomatic passports.

The original Benalla scandal became a major headache for Macron just over a year into his tenure, after the president, whose popularity ratings have since slipped, was criticised for acting too slowly in dealing with a member of his inner circle.

Benalla said in an interview with France’s Journal du Dimanche (JDD) yesterday that he would return the diplomatic passports in the coming days, and rejected that he was somehow trying to profit from his status as a former insider by using them or in his work as a consultant.

“Maybe I was wrong to use

these passports,” Benalla said, in a telephone conversation from overseas according to the JDD.

“But I want to make it clear that I only did it for my own ease, to facilitate my passage through airports.”

The French presidency has sought to distance itself from the former bodyguard, and the government said it had formally requested the passports be returned on at least two occasions.

Paris prosecutors on Sat-urday opened a preliminary inquiry into Benalla’s usage of the passports.

Benalla maintained in the JDD, however, that he had ini-tially returned the two ID doc-uments in August, and that they were returned to him along with other personal items by a member of the president’s staff in October.

People stack wooden pallets as they build a bonfire for the celebration of New Year at Scheveningen beach, in Amsterdam, yesterday. Two Dutch villages compete in building the biggest bonfire which will be lit on New Year’s eve.

Anti-govt protest in SerbiaAFP BELGRADE

Serbian protesters piled more pressure on President Aleksandar Vucic as thousands turned out for a fourth week of anti-government demonstra-tions in Belgrade.

Around 25,000 people joined the rally, according to a witness.

“This is a citizen’s demon-stration against the situation in the country, which has been economically and politically complicated, even critical, for a

long time,” protester Vladimir Tosic said.

He and most other demon-strators marched without incident or overt signs of political affiliation in the centre of the capital, with some chanting “Vucic, thief” or waving placards that said “Enough lies”.

Many blew whistles, a symbol of Serb protests since former strongman Slobodan Milosevic held power in the 1990s.

Tosic, who is in his 50s, said the latest protest “united normal Belgrade inhabitants who have

come out to voice despair with the situation”.

Vucic, a hardline nation-alist-turned-European, is accused by the opposition and civil society of having estab-lished autocratic rule and total control over media, using them to campaign against opponents.

The protests represent the biggest challenge to his rule so far, and were first called by opposition parties after one of their leaders was beaten ahead of a political gathering in central Serbia last month.

Thousands of demonstrators attend a the protest “One in five millions” to demand resignation of Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday.

Six men found on UK beachas Channel crossings mountAP LONDON

The governments of France and Britain scrambled to respond yesterday to a mounting number of migrants attempting to cross the English Channel, a trend illustrated by six Iranian men who turned up on a beach in southeastern England.

The recent increase in migrants departing France in small boats with England as their destination led to an urgent telephone call yesterday between French Interior Min-ister Christophe Castaner and British Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

The two European countries “are coordinating to strengthen our actions to combat Channel crossings undertaken by certain irregular migrants on small boats, at peril of their lives,” Castaner wrote on Twitter.

Britain’s Home Office, which oversees immigration, said the two ministers agreed to an “enhanced action plan” and plan to meet again in January. The office did not provide details on what the plan entails.

The six Iranian men were discovered on a beach in Kent along with a rigid-hulled inflatable boat they are believed to have travelled in from France, British officials said. Border agents were called to the beach yesterday morning.

The men received medical checks and were turned over to immigration officials for processing, the Home Office said.

Javid said he cut short an overseas holiday because of the growing number of such inci-dents. On Christmas Day, about 40 migrants were rescued while travelling from northern France to southern England in a number

of small inflatable craft.He warned that it was only

a matter of time before people died in the water and declared the crossings to be a “major incident,” a designation that allows the government to quickly mobilise various agencies.

The crossing is risky because of rough seas and a high volume of commercial and ferry traffic. It is often extremely difficult for the captains of large cargo ships to see and avoid small inflatable boats with a handful of people on board.

British officials blame organised crime gangs for the recent surge in migrants being launched toward England.

Many of the boats are leaving from the area around Calais, a French port city that has long been a magnet for migrants fleeing conflict or poverty in Africa and the Mideast.

British actress June Whitfield dead at 93AP LONDON

British actress and comedic star June Whitfield, whose long career included memo-rable roles in TV series “Abso-lutely Fabulous” and “Terry and June,” has died. She was 93. According to her agent she died on Friday night.

Whitfield enjoyed a career spanning decades, appearing on some of Brit-ain’s most popular TV shows and earning generations of fans drawn by her wide range and impeccable timing.

She was prominent in the “Carry On” series and the sitcom “Terry and June” with Terry Scott in the ‘80s before playing a vital role in “Abso-lutely Fabulous.”

Her time on “Ab Fab” playing the slightly odd mother of Jennifer Saunders’ boozy character Edina introduced Whitfield to fans who hadn’t been born when she started on radio decades earlier.

Fellow “Ab Fab” stars Saunders praised Whitfield for the warmth and wit she brought to the hugely popular show. “I will always be grateful that she agreed to be in Ab Fab and even more grateful that she became a dear friend. She lived and worked with an extraordinary grace.”

Five detained in Dutch ‘yellow vest’ protestsANATOLIA THE HAGUE

At least five people were detained in ‘yellow vest’ protests in the Netherlands.

Responding to calls on social media, around 200 pro-testers gathered in front of the country’s parliament and marched to the city centre, and clashed with security forces.

Police detained five people for making insults, setting off fireworks, or ignoring official warnings.

Pauline Krikke, the mayor of The Hague, said the pro-tests were being called off due to security concerns.

Another group of activists dubbed ‘red vests’ announced an anti-government protest in the central city of Utrecht on January 13.

The group said they would protest in Utrecht for a stronger welfare state.

13MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Russia ready for talks with US: PutinREUTERS MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) told his US coun-terpart Donald Trump in a New Year letter yesterday that Moscow was ready for dialogue on a “wide-ranging agenda”, the Kremlin said following a series of failed attempts to hold a new summit.

At the end of November, Trump abruptly cancelled a planned meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Argentina, citing tensions about Russian forces opening fire on Ukrainian navy boats and then seizing them.

Trump and Putin also failed to hold a full-fledged meeting in Paris on the sidelines of the

centenary commemoration of the Armistice. The two leaders held their one and only summit in Helsinki in July.

“Vladimir Putin stressed that the (Russia-United States) rela-tions are the most important factor for providing strategic sta-bility and international security,” a Kremlin statement said.

“He confirmed that Russia is open for dialogue with the USA on the most wide-ranging

agenda.”Moscow has said one of the

key issues it wanted to discuss with the United States is Wash-ington’s plans to withdraw from a Cold War era nuclear arms pact.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as

saying that now it was up to the United States whether to hold a new meeting in 2019.

“The issue should be addressed to Washington. Both our president and his represent-atives have said that we are ready for the talks when Wash-ington is ready for it,” TASS news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in televised remarks.

In a separate letter to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, Putin pledged continuation of aid to the Syrian government and people in the “fight against ter-rorism, in defence of state sov-ereignty and territorial integrity”.

Putin also sent New Year greetings to other world leaders including prime ministers Theresa May of Britain and Shinzo Abe of Japan, as well as

Chinese President Xi Jinping.Putin wished “well-being

and prosperity to the British people”, the Kremlin said.

Russia’s embassy in London said on Friday Moscow and London had agreed to return some staff to their respective embassies after they expelled dozens of diplomats early this year.

Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats over accusations the Kremlin was behind a nerve toxin attack in March on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury.

Russia, which denies any involvement in the poisoning, sent home the same number of British embassy workers in retaliation.

Russian Foreign

Minister Sergei Lavrov

was quoted as saying

that now it was up

to the United States

whether to hold a new

meeting in 2019.

Russian army set to get S-350 Vityaz missile complex in 2019REUTERS MOSCOW

Russia will in 2019 deploy the S-350 Vityaz new generation short-to-mid range surface-to-air defence missile complex, the Russian Defence Ministry said yesterday, in a long-planned move to replace its ageing S-300 system.

The ministry also said that the Russian military had deployed Pantsir-S and S-400 complexes in 2018 in Crimea as well as in its Arctic region, the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea, and in Khabarovsk region.

Russia has been flexing its military muscles abroad in recent years, and its involvement in the Syrian con-flict and Ukraine has soured relations with the West.

German police seizes 850kg of firework stashAFP BERLIN

German police said they confiscated 850kg of fire-works and firecrackers from a man in Hamburg, ahead of New Year’s festivities.

Police were tipped off by the man’s neighbour that he was stockpiling a large quantity of pyrotechnics.

Officers descending on the man’s home found the fireworks packed into his apartment, cellar and two vans, a police spokeswoman told national news agency DPA.

The pyrotechnics con-tained around 80 kilos of explosive substances — 80 times over the limit of fire-works that can be legally stored in a private home.

Belgium to appeal order to repatriate families of IS rebelsREUTERS BRUSSELS

Belgium will appeal against a judge’s order forcing it to repat-riate two Belgian women convicted of being IS militants and their six children from Syria, the migration minister said yesterday.

A judge said on Wednesday that Belgium had to bring back Tatiana Wielandt, 26, Bouchra Abouallal, 25, and the children they had with militants, from the Al Hol camp where they were being held in a Kurdish-dominated part of Syria.

Maggie De Block, the min-ister in charge of migration policy, told broadcaster VTM that a distinction had to be made between the mothers and the children.

“The children have not chosen to be born in such cir-cumstances ... Four of the six are Belgian children, they have grandparents here, one child is reportedly very ill. We are responsible for seeing what we can do,” she told VTM.

She did not specify what the country might do about the other two children.

“The mothers, that’s a dif-ferent story. They have been convicted here. They have con-tributed to the planning of ter-rorist attacks here. I think we have to assess the risks and not

just willingly accept them.”Both women were con-

victed in absentia of being members of IS militant group, and each sentenced to five years in jail by an Antwerp court in March.

Hundreds of European cit-izens, many of them babies, are being held by US-backed Kurdish militias in three camps since IS group was ousted from almost all its territory last year, according to Kurdish sources.

European nations have been wrestling with how to handle suspected militants and their families seeking to return from combat zones in Iraq and Syria.

France is working to bring back children held by Syrian Kurdish forces, but will leave their mothers to be prosecuted by local authorities, French offi-cials have said.

Paris is concerned that if these minors are left in Syria, they could eventually also become militants.

The Kurds say it is not their job to prosecute or hold them indefinitely, leaving the women and children in legal limbo.

The judge said on Wednesday that Belgium must organise the travel within 40 days after being notified of the decision or pay a daily penalty of $5,718 for each child, up to a maximum 1 million euros.

Aerial danceAerial dancers of the Kitonb theatre group, hanging from a crane, perform during rehearsals ahead of their New Year’s show at the Circus Maximus, in Rome, yesterday.

15 terror suspects dead in joint French-Niger raidAFP PARIS

Some 15 terror suspects have been killed near the Niger-Mali border by a joint Franco-Nigerien task force, the French military high command said.

“On the night of December 27 (...) an air raid mounted by

fighters and Tiger attack heli-copters struck” militants gathered near Tongo Tongo, in southwestern Niger, the high command said in a post in Twitter.

Tongo Tongo was the site of an ambush on October 4, 2017 where militants killed five Nigerien and four US special

forces’ soldiers.Nigerien and French sol-

diers, backed by helicopters, took control of several key posi-tions in the area before mounting a 48-hour sweep.

Overall, about 15 militants were “put out of action”, a term generally used by the military to say they were killed.

During the sweep, “some 20 motorbikes were recovered, along with 26 weapons, including machine guns, and ammunition, the high command said.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly praised the oper-ation in a tweet as “an example of a successful joint operation in western Niger”.

House blaze in Long Island leaves three people hurtAP NEW HYDE PARK

A young boy who jumped from the window of a burning house was one of three people injured in a fire on Long Island.

The fire started around 3am yesterday at a two-story house in New Hyde Park.

New Hyde Park Fire Chief Brian Sherwood told Newsday that a 10-year-old boy escaped the blaze by jumping out of a window. He landed on a car below.

Sherwood said a 68-year-old woman and a 4-year-old girl were found unconscious inside the house and were carried out by firefighters.

All three victims were hospitalised. Two other people in the house were uninjured.

More than 200 fire-fighters from seven depart-ments responded to the fire.

Nassau County police said the fire does not appear to be suspicious.

A police convoy forms part of the security preparations for the inauguration ceremony of Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro tomorrow, in Brasilia. Bolsonaro will take power as an untested leader vowing a crackdown on crime and corruption and ideological opposition to the left. On Saturday, he said that on taking office, he will issue a decree guaranteeing citizens without a criminal history the ability to possess firearms.

Former Argentine foreign minister dead

Brazil set to inaugurate new President

AP BUENOS AIRES

Hector Timerman, a foreign minister in former President C r i s t i n a F e r n a n d e z ’ s government who played a key role in the disputed investi-gation into the deadly 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center, has died, his family said yesterday. He was 65.

Timerman’s brother, Javier, confirmed his death in a tweet, writing “I am going to miss you more than you can imagine.” He had been suffering from cancer.

Hector Timerman was Argentina’s top diplomat from 2010 to 2015. He was detained late last year and placed under house arrest, accused of taking part in a cover-up of Iran’s role in the bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, which left 85 people dead in Argentina’s worst terrorist attack.

Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, whose 2015 death remains unsolved, had contended that a 2013 agreement with Iran, which was portrayed as a joint

attempt to solve the case, in reality ensured that the Iranians involved would never be pros-ecuted. A joint “truth com-mission” called for by the deal was approved by Argentina’s Congress but it was never formed because it was later ruled by local courts to be unconstitutional.

Timerman, who as a sig-natory to the agreement, and Fernandez both denied there was a cover-up.

Investigators have linked former Iranian officials to the attack, but Iran has denied any connection with the attack and declined to turn over suspects.

In one of his final public appearances in July, Timerman took part in a video conference and spoke about his health problems, saying “the only thing that advances is my cancer.”

“Goodbye, dear friend,” tweeted Anibal Fernandez, the former Cabinet chief under Cristina Fernandez, “they hurt you without reason. They will pay for this.”

14 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018AMERICAS

Trump blames

Democrats for

migrant deathsAP YUMA

President Donald Trump deflected any blame from his administration for the deaths of two Guatemalan children this month in US government custody as his Homeland Security chief visited Border Patrol medical officials amid promises of more thorough health screenings for migrant children.

Instead, the president, whose administration has faced wide-spread criticism over the deaths, pointed the finger on Twitter at Democrats “and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally.” They were his first comments on the deaths.

He also tweeted that the children were “very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol.”

The president’s comments came the same day Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was in Yuma, Arizona, to meet with medical staff at the border.

Nielsen said in a statement

that “the system is clearly over-whelmed and we must work together to address this human-itarian crisis.” She called on Con-gress to “act with urgency.”

Her office said she was briefed in El Paso, Texas, on Friday on “recently instituted secondary medical screenings and the more thorough initial health screenings of migrants.”

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said he met with Nielsen and said that he agreed with her that the immigration policy is “broken.”

“El Paso is dealing with the

symptoms as a result of the lack of fortitude in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, to deal with our immigration policy,” the Republican said.

Nielsen’s trip came days after the death of 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Felipe was the second Guatemalan child to die in government custody in three weeks. A 7-year-old girl died in El Paso earlier this month.

Nielsen has called the death “deeply concerning and heart-breaking” and requested medical help from other government agencies, including the US Coast Guard. As Nielsen made the trip to Texas, New Mexico’s Demo-cratic senators, Tom Udall and

Martin Heinrich, sent her a letter Friday seeking answers about the boy’s death.

“The timeline, action and factors that led to Felipe’s death are still developing, but the information that has become public so far is alarming and demands immediate attention and investigation,” the letter says.

US Representative Raul Gri-jalva, an Arizona Democrat whose district includes Yuma and much of the US-Mexico-border, on Saturday issued a statement saying Nielsen was visiting Yuma “under the dark cloud of a Republican-induced government shutdown, the pres-ident’s threats to close the border

and the tragic deaths of two children in DHS custody.

The government of El Sal-vador is pushing back against Trump’s assertion it doesn’t do enough to stem migration north to the United States.

The Central American nation said it has made strides in eco-nomic and social improvements to try to tamp down the root causes of the phenomenon.

A statement released on Sat-urday said that the Salvadoran government has pushed a media campaign urging its citizens not to risk their lives making the dangerous journey, and espe-cially not to expose children. It says migration from the country has fallen significantly this year.

A group of Central American migrants hoping to reach the United States walk along the US-Mexico border fence, in Playas de Tijuana, Baja California State, Mexico, yesterday.

Cyberattack hits US newspapersREUTERS WASHINGTON

A cyberattack caused major printing and delivery disrup-tions at the Los Angeles Times and other major US newspapers, including ones owned by Tribune Publishing Co such as the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun.

The cyberattack appeared to originate outside the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a source with knowledge of the situation.

The attack led to distri-bution delays in Saturday edition of The Times, Tribune, Sun and other newspapers that share a production platform in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The report said it could not provide firm numbers on how many subscribers were impacted but a majority of LA

Times customers received their papers Saturday morning, albeit several hours late.

Tribune Publishing, whose newspapers also include the New York Daily News and Orlando Sentinel, said it first detected the malware on Friday.

The West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times were hit as they are also printed on the shared pro-duction platform, the Los Angeles Times said.

Tribune Publishing spokes-woman Marisa Kollias said the virus hurt back-office systems used to publish and produce “newspapers across our properties.”

“There is no evidence that customer credit card infor-mation or personally identifiable information has been compro-mised,” Kollias said in a statement

The Wall Street Journal and

New York Times did not imme-diately respond to requests for comment.

Most San Diego Union-Tribune subscribers were without a newspaper on Sat-urday as the virus infected the company’s business systems and hobbled its ability to publish, the paper’s editor and publisher Jeff Light wrote on its website.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said it was studying the situation.

“We are aware of reports of a potential cyber incident affecting several news outlets, and are working with our gov-ernment and industry partners to better understand the situ-ation,” said DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman in a statement.

Representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were not immediately available for comment.

Rose Parade in LAVolunteers working on floats to be included in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade which will take place before the Rose Bowl collegiate football game between Ohio State University and the University of Washington on New Year’s Day, in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California, yesterday. This year’s 105th Rose Parade, will be seen by hundreds of thousands of spectators on the parade route and broadcast to millions of fans in over 100 countries. The tradition dates back to 1890.

Colombia probes alleged plot to assassinate leaderAP BOGOTA

Colombian authorities are investigating a possible plot involving Venezuelans to assas-sinate President Ivan Duque, a top official said.

Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes said Colombia’s intel-ligence services had been hearing chatter about alleged plans to kill the conservative Duque. He said the arrest in recent days of three Vene-zuelans in possession of assault weapons had heightened authorities’ concern.

“With immense concern and the utmost condemnation, I want to inform the interna-tional community that, in effect, for the past several months intelligence investigations have been taking place about pos-sible attacks on the president’s life,” Holmes said in a video posted on Twitter.

Blu Radio reported that the Venezuelan nationals arrested in the northern Caribbean cities

of Valledupar and Barranquilla this month had in their pos-session an assault rifle with a telescopic scope as well as a 9-mm mini-Uzi, ammunition and stun grenade.

Citing sources it didn’t identify, Blu said any alleged plot would have likely had the support of armed Colombian leftist rebels or drug-trafficking organizations and would have been timed to coincide with the start of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s second term next month.

Holmes’ 90-second video did not cite any evidence and carefully avoided saying whether authorities had ver-ified the existence of any con-spiracy. There was no imme-diate reaction from Venezuela’s government.

Holmes appealed to Colom-bians to share any information that they have that could affect the president’s safety. He also thanked unidentified foreign intelligence agencies for helping protect Duque.

Four fatally shot in Missouri; suspect arrested

AP ST CHARLES

A St Louis-area man shot to death his girlfriend, her two young children and her mother in the home they all shared, authorities said. He exchanged gunfire with officers as he fled and was captured several hours later in a convenience store, covered in blood and wounded.

Prosecutors filed 15 charges against Richard Darren Emery of St Charles, Missouri, including first-degree murder, assault and attempted robbery. Author-ities said Emery, 46, aban-doned his own pickup and tried unsuccessfully to steal a woman’s car while on the run, attacking her as well.

Emery remained in a local hospital with two gunshot wounds that authorities said did not appear self-inflicted and most likely came from the shootout with officers.

St Charles County Prose-cuting Attorney Tim Lohmar said investigators did not know the motive for the shootings as of yesterday.

“We may never know,” Lohmar said. “This one in particular was the worst example of a domestic vio-lence case. Anytime you have a domestic violence case you worry about the safety of the victim, and this would be your worst nightmare.”

Senator to urge Trump to rethink Syria pull-outAFP WASHINGTON

A senior Republican senator said yesterday that he would be meeting with US President Donald Trump to urge him to reconsider his plan to withdraw all US troops from Syria and many from Afghanistan.

“If we leave (Syria) now, the Kurds will get slaughtered,” Lindsey Graham said on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to the Kurdish troops allied with US forces in Syria.

“I’m going to ask the pres-ident to do something that Pres-ident Obama would never do: reconsider.” He did not say when the two would be meeting.

Graham, who sits on the Armed Services committee and

has frequently visited US troops in conflict regions, said Trump was “frustrated” by the limited options available in Syria.

“I’m going to talk to him,” Graham said. “The president is reconsidering how we would do this. He’s frustrated.

“I get it. We’re not the policemen of the world here. We’re fighting a war against ISIS,” he said, using an alter-native name for the IS militant group.

“They’re not defeated in Syria. I’m asking the president to make sure we have troops there to protect us.”

Graham added: “I’m going to ask him to sit down with his generals and reconsider how to do this. Slow it down. Make sure we get it right and ISIS never comes back. ”

Homeland Security

Secretary Kirstjen

Nielsen met with

medical staff at the

border and said in a

statement that “the

system is clearly

overwhelmed and we

must work together

to address this

humanitarian crisis.”

Oregon hotel fires two staff for mistreatment of black guestAP PORTLAND

An Oregon hotel said it fired two of its employees for mistreatment of a black guest who was talking on his phone in the lobby when he was asked to leave a week ago.

DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Portland tweeted they have “terminated the employment of the two men involved.” They said the men’s actions “were incon-sistent with our standards & values.” The hotel didn’t identify the employees.

Jermaine Massey accused the hotel of racially profiling him after a security guard called police to remove him from the lobby December 22. He was staying at the hotel, and his attorneys said they want a public explanation and intend to pursue legal action, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Escaped inmate in California prison capturedAP SAN QUENTIN

California authorities on a nearly four-day manhunt for an inmate who walked away from San Quentin State Prison captured him yesterday.

Officials from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said they took 21-year-old Shalom Mendoza into custody at a fast food restaurant without incident. He was taken to the Salinas Valley State Prison.

A resident alerted author-ities after seeing Mendoza at the restaurant in Paso Robles.

He’s suspected of car-jacking a vehicle in a store parking lot less than a mile from the prison after fleeing a work assignment outside the prison walls. He was reported missing just after 9:30pm on Wednesday.

15MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018 HOME

2 18CAPITAL MARKET

INVESTMENT

REAL ESTATE/CONSTRUCTION

ECONOMY

BANKS

Qatari economy adjusts to blockade. Significant fiscal and external buffers have enabled Qatar to successfully absorb the adverse shocks from the 2014-‘16 decline in oil prices and the diplomatic rift with its neighbours: IMF

Qatar’s state budget for 2019 features the first surplus in three year; expects substantial rise in revenues.

Qatar more than doubled its trade surplus year-on-year to QR18.99bn in October 2018. The exports of non-crude shot up 71% year-on-year to QR2.44bn.

QNB says Qatari economy is on the course for an overall growth of 2.6% and non-hydrocarbon growth of 5%. Activity is expected to accelerate further in 2019 with GDP growth of 3.2% and non-hydrocarbon growth of 5.3%.

IMF forecast Qatar’s GDP will grow to 3.1 pct for 2019 and said the country’s foreign exchange reserves are expected to increase to $36bn.

Global credit rating agency Moody’s has upgraded Qatar’s banking sector outlook to “stable” from “negative”, reflecting the resilience of the country’s economy and banking system to the ongoing economic and diplomatic blockade.

S&P Global Ratings has affirmed its ‘AA-/A-1+’ long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign ratings on Qatar.

S&P Global Ratings has revised its outlook on Commercial Bank from negative to stable, affirming a short-term rating of A-2 and a long-term rating of BBB+ for the Bank.

Qatar’s top banks delivered a combined net profit of a solid QR12bn for the first half of 2018, up 10.6 percent compared to QR10.85bn reported during the same period a year ago. Among the largest eight banks, QNB led the pack by recording QR6.65bn net profit or 6.67 percent up from H1, 2017.

Barwa Bank and the International Bank of Qatar (IQB) have reached a final merger agreement, creating a combined group with total assets of QR80bn ($22bn).

Qatar Central Bank (QCB) Governor H E Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani announced QCB will be launching a banking service platform before the year-end to support and promote the fast growing financial technology (Fintech).

Qatar beats its Gulf peers in 2018’s Asset Scorecards: Bloomberg

QSE benchmark index outperforms regional peers by rising 20.71% YTD.

Qatar stock market delivers highest returns among Emerging and Developed World markets.

Qatar leads GCC bond and Sukuk issuance in H1, 2018, raising a total of $19.97bn through 47 issuances, representing 31.9% of total value raised in the GCC.

QSE launches two ETFs.

Number of listed companies reaches 46 with the listing of Qamco.

QSE launches ITESG platforms; electronic disclosure system using XBRL.

The market sees $1.45bn in foreign net inflows in 2018 (1.08.2018 figure).

QFMA approves not to suspend stock trading on AGM day.

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani announces €10bn investment in Germany.

Qatar announces to invest $15bn in Turkey.

QP announces raising foreign and shareholder ownerships limits in energy sector companies and listed subsidiaries.

Qatar announces to allow 100% foreign ownership of firms in all sectors and incentives to promote foreign investments.

Hassad Food plans to invest $500m in Sudan.

QP announces its commitment to invest $20bn in the US.

Foreign investments in Qatar reached QR682.3bn in Q2, 2018.

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani inaugurates Manateq warehousing parks in Umm Salal.

Manateq and five Qatari property developers sign QR488.5m deal.

UDC announces plans to invest around QR5.5bn over next five years.

Real estate transactions for the first 9 months grew by 14.4 percent year-on-year.

QATAR RAISED $12BN IN JUMBO BOND ISSUANCE IN APRIL, DESPITE BLOCKADE

Important milestones in Qatar’s energy sectorQatar Petroleum (QP) decided to become the exclusive marketer of all Qatari crude oil exports effective January 1 2018.

QP signed ‘Guiding Principles’ to reduce methane emissions across natural gas value chain.

QP sings deal for sale of LPG & Naphtha to Vietnam with up to 2 mtpa for a period of 15 years.

QP signed a 3-year contract to supply India’s Haldia Petrochem-icals with a total of 600,000 tonnes of Light Naphtha starting in 2018.

QP wins explo-ration rights for an offshore block in Brazil, in part-nership with ExxonMobil.

QP sign deal with an Exx-onMobil affiliate to acquire a 10% interest in 3 offshore exploration blocks in Mozambique.

QP signed an agreement with Eni to acquire a 35% partici-pating interest in three offshore oil Fields in Mexico.

QP announced that it will be offering 49 percent of its shares in Qatalum for IPO.

QP sign deal with ExxonMobil to become a 30% equity holder in 2 ExxonMobil affiliates in Argentina.

QP and Partners won rights for 5 exploration blocks offshore in Mexico.

QP signed a concession agreement with ADNOC for the continued development and operation of the shared Al-Bunduq oil field.

QP selected Chiyoda Corporation of Japan to execute FEED of the onshore facilities of the North Field Expansion project.

QP announced the start of operations by the new ‘Qatargas’ as the only company to export Qatari LNG fol-lowing the integration with RasGas.

QP wins exploration rights in four off-shore blocks in Brazil, as part of two bidding consortia.

QP announced its decision to further increase the capacity of Qatar’s LNG expansion project from 77 to 110mtpa.

QP announced raising the non-Qatari own-ership limit in the energy sector com-panies and in its sub-sidiaries listed on the QSE to 49 percent.

QP announced to move forward to increase Qatar’s LNG output from 77 to 100 mtpa.

QP signed two 5-year sales agreements to supply Japan’s Marubeni a total of 1.2 mtpa of Naphtha.

QP sign SPA deal to supply China with 600,000 tonnes of LPG per year for 5 years. QP is set to distribute today free

incentive shares of Mesaieed Pet-rochemical Holding Company (MPHC) to investors. This comes in implementation of QP’s announcement at the time of the MPHC IPO in December 2013.

QP announced an IPO of shares rep-resenting 49% of the issued share capital of QAMCO.

Qatar withdraws from OPEC effective January 2019

QP signed agreement with Total to acquire a 25 percent participating interest in the exploration block 11B/12B, offshore South Africa.

Janu

ary 2

Febr

uary

1

March

13

Janu

ary 3

Febr

uary

5

March

19

March

29

March

31

May 6

June

27

Sept

embe

r 26

Octo

ber 1

6

Dece

mber

31

Dece

mber

3

Octo

ber 3

March

24

Sept

embe

r 12

June

4

April

29

Sept

embe

r 28

Octo

ber 2

2

Dece

mber

8

Dece

mber

16

Despite the ongoing unjust siege, Qatar’s economy is performing solid and showing strong resilience. Most of Qatar’s key economic and market indicators are all close to or even above pre-crisis levels, and key sectors of the economy, including energy, real estate, construction, capital market and other industries are growing and expanding within Qatar and overseas.

BUSINESS REVIEW

A year of march to progress for Qatar

16 MONDAY 31 DECEMBER 2018MORNING BREAK

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 57 AM

06. 19 AM

11. 37 AM

02. 35 PM

04. 56 PM

06. 26 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 01:30 – 11:30 LOW TIDE 05:30 –19:15

Expected thundery rain associated with

strong wind and high seas to the North.

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum20oC 23oC

Performers entertain visitors during Souq Waqif Spring Festival. For the Spring Festival, several stages have been erected in Al Ahmed Square and the Western parking area where shows were played. Throughout the 15-day festival, a circus show is expected to wow the visitors with acrobats, jugglers, magicians, stilt walkers and other artistes coming from other countries showcasing their skills in their performances. PICS: ANWAR SADATH

Student shopping festival opens at Night Market

The first student shopping festival opened yesterday at the Night Market in Al Duhail with the participation of 24 students from 22 government and private schools.

The participation is aimed at enhancing students’ investment

attitude and encouraging their love for work.

Salah Al Yafie from Tarbiya Center, one of the partners and supervisors of the initiative, said that the idea is unique.

“We chose the best group of stu-dents and trained them to acquire a number of marketing, selling and pur-chasing skills. Then we went on a

business trip to China to get a close look at the most famous international markets there. Many Chinese goods were bought and brought to Doha to be sold in the Qatari market by the stu-dents themselves.”

Talal Al Tamimi, one of the organ-isers of the initiative, explained that organising of such a student festival comes with the aim of pushing students to the field of honest work, relying on themselves.

“We received training courses and then travelled as a group of stu-dents to China’s Quanzhou city, which is famous for markets and trade fairs under the supervision of

the participating centers with the Ministry of Education schools,” said Khalid Hamad Al Madfaa, a 12-year student, from Al Hayat International School.

He also said that during the trip to China, they bought a wide variety of accessories. “We succeeded in our investments,” he added.

“The idea of the initiative and the festival is a unique idea, and for the first time students participated in it. The place of the market is also suitable and the shops are well prepared for sale, purchase and auction. We have a wide variety of products,” said student Abdullah Rabia Al Kuwari.

Ohio researcher creates bed bug information appAP TOLEDO

Just the thought of a bed bug infes-tation is enough to make you start scratching and tossing out furniture.

A new app created by a researcher at Ohio State University has the answers and information on what to do next.

The app funded by a grant from the US Environmental Pro-tection Agency is set up as one-stop information source for eve-rything bed bugs. There are guides for identifying and getting rid of them along with tips for travellers.

Susan Jones, an entomologist at Ohio State, said the app was needed because there’s a lot of misinformation out there about the critters.

“If you don’t know anything about an organism, then you are sort of at the mercy of that creature,” said Jones, who has been studying bed bugs for about 10 years.

The app works on Android and iOS devices and can be found by searching “bed bug field guide.”

Bed bugs can cause instant panic, but few people really know

how to spot them or what to do, she said.

There are right ways and wrong ways to get rid of them, she said, noting that most store-bought chemicals advertised as ways to eradicate bed bugs don’t work. It’s a job that should be handled by professionals, Jones said.

Too often, people who can’t afford to pay someone, try to do it themselves, she said.

A year ago, a woman acciden-tally started a fire while trying to kill bed bugs with rubbing alcohol at a multi-family home in Cincinnati that left people homeless.

That’s just one — extreme — example of what can go wrong.

Michael Potter, an entomol-ogist at the University of Kentucky, said bed bugs have been making a major resurgence and that while most people think of them when travelling, they are most often found in houses and apartments.

The cost of eliminating bed bugs, Jones said, is a reason they continue to be a problem. They can reproduce quickly, can hide from floor to ceiling, and they’re noc-turnal, she said.

“You don’t know where they’re hiding,” Jones said.

‘Aquaman’ leads Box Office in second week

THE PENINSULA DOHA

Souq Waqif Spring Festival

People visiting the first student shopping festival which opened yesterday at the Night Market in Al Duhail.

AP LOS ANGELES

In the final weekend of 2018, “Aquaman” still led the pack at the Box Office, but other films like “Mary Poppins Returns,” ‘’The Mule” and “Second Act” enjoyed post-holiday bumps too, even amid an onslaught of new Christmas offerings like “Vice,” ‘’Holmes and Watson,” ‘’On the Basis of Sex” and the Netflix phenomenon “Bird Box.”

Warner Bros said yesterday that “Aquaman” added an estimated $51.6m in North American ticket sales over the weekend to take first place again. Down just 24 percent from its domestic debut, the DC Comics pic, which has been No. 1 internationally for four weeks, has now grossed nearly $748.8m worldwide.

Although other films in theatres were left in “Aquaman’s” wake, more than a few in the top 10 experienced an uncommon uptick in returns this weekend. Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns” ended the weekend up an estimated 19 percent, in second place, with $28m, while “Bum-blebee,” down only five percent, settled in third with $20.5m.

Up 11 percent, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” got fourth with $18.3m, and “The Mule,” up 24 percent, took fifth with $11.8m.

The Jennifer Lopez-led “Second Act,” which got off to a slow start last weekend, also found itself up 11 percent, with $7.2m in seventh place. But the biggest bump of all came for Disney’s “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” which was up nearly 40 percent

in its sixth weekend in theaters, with $6.5m.“There is a bit of a lull on the weekend

leading into Christmas. People are busy and distracted,” said Comscore’s senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “But the weekend after, most of these films in the top 10 got a bounce.”

This so-called “catch-up” weekend made it a little difficult for the Christmas newcomers to make a huge impact, however, especially when the big wide-releases this time were either politically charged (the Dick Cheney movie “Vice”) or poorly reviewed (“Holmes and Watson,” which is in the single digits on Rotten Tomatoes and got a deathly D+ CinemaScore).

Annapurna’s “Vice,” starring Christian Bale as the former Vice-President, came out on top for the new films, grossing $7.8m from the weekend and $17.7m since its Christmas opening. A leading contender at

the Golden Globe Awards this coming Sunday, the film earned mixed reviews from critics and a C+ CinemaScore from audiences.

“That a movie with that subject matter can ride a wave to sixth place is really indicative of how interested people are in this movie,” Dergarabedian said. “This is required viewing for anyone studying the awards season race.”

Driven by the star-power of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, “Holmes and Watson” managed to take in $7.3m despite the neg-ative audience and critic reviews. The Sony film has grossed $19.7m since Christmas Day.

And in limited release, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg film “On the Basis of Sex” starring Felicity Jones grossed $690,000 from 33 locations, for a total of $1.5m since its debut. The Laurel and Hardy film “Stan & Ollie,” also with Reilly, opened on five screens to $79,674,” and “Destroyer,” with Nicole Kidman, earned $58,472 from three locations.

The box office year as a whole is bar-reling toward a record $11.9bn in returns, as time runs out on 2018, although final numbers won’t be in from all the studios until mid-week.

“This is the perfect way to end a record box office year,” Dergarabedian said. “This weekend represented everything that this year was about: Diversity, escapism and the movie-going experience in the theater, once again proving that the movie theater can take on all competition and come out a winner.”

US actor Jason Momoa, who plays the role of ‘Aquaman’.