Amir honours graduates of Al Zaeem Air College...Jan 30, 2020 · Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad...

SPORT | 12BUSINESS | 01

Institutions need to unify efforts to combat financial

crimes: QCB

We deserved the title: Qatar coach Rivera

Thursday 30 January 2020

5 Jumada II - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 24 | Number 8152

Watch the best of football on beIN SPORTS, on the gowith the new Qatarna 5G plans

Amir honours graduates of Al Zaeem Air College

QNA — DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani patronised the graduation ceremony of the 7th batch of students of Al Zaeem (Leader) Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College at its headquarters in Al Udeid Air Base yesterday.

The graduation ceremony was attended by Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani and a number of Their Excellencies the Ministers.

The ceremony was also attended by the Commander of Sultan Qaboos Air Academy of the Sultanate of Oman, Staff Brigadier Air Jumaa bin Talib Al Jabri, Staff Major General Faleh Shuja Faleh from Kuwaiti National Guard, the Commander of King Hussein Air College in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Staff Colonel Pilot Mohammed Khalaf Khalil Al Jaloudi, the Commander of the Turkish Air War Academy, Brig-adier General Pilot Alparslan Yucel Soysal and the Com-mander of Pakistan Air Force, Air Vice-Marshal Hamid Rashid Randhawa.

Their Excellencies heads of the diplomatic missions accredited to the State and senior officers of the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of the Interior, the State Security Bureau and the Amiri Guard, in addition to a number of leaders of security and military colleges and institutes from brotherly and friendly countries, guests and parents of graduates, attended the ceremony.

At the beginning of the cer-emony, the national anthem was played. Then commander of the graduates’ queue came forward to request H H the Amir to review the queue of the 97 graduates from the State of Qatar and the sisterly State of Kuwait.

After reciting verses from the Holy Quran and the per-formance of the graduates’ parade and the military parade, H H the Amir honoured the first eighth outstanding graduates and the four officer graduates. After that, the seventh batch handed over the flag to the eighth batch and the order for promotion was then read out and the parade queue left.

The air show began for a number of Amiri Air Force

planes and the Al Zaeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College.

The Amiri Air Force aircraft included a number of Rafale, Mirage 2000, Alpha Jet, Apache, Agusta, C-17 and C-130 aircraft, as well as a Twin Otter skydiving aircraft and the Al Zaeem College aircraft which included PC-21s, Super Mushshak and Gazelle.

At the end of the ceremony, the 7th batch of graduates took the oath and performed the national anthem.

The Commander of Al Zaeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College, Staff Brigadier Pilot Hamad Hadid Mubarak Al Ibrahim gave a speech on this occasion in which he said that the 7th batch

includes fighter and helicopter aviation and air support spe-cialists in which graduates attained knowledge and training. He emphasised that the batch is eager to protect the homeland as the leaders of tomorrow.

He pointed out that the grad-uates of the seventh batch com-pleted all the requirements and

obtained a bachelor’s degree in aviation science, which qualifies them to enter practical life with confidence and competence.

This batch of graduates included 33 fixed wing pilot, 28 helicopter pilots, seven weapon systems officers and 29 who specialised in directing fighter aircraft, nine of them were from the State of Kuwait. �P3

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with Armed Forces officers and dignitaries during the graduation ceremony of Al Zaeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College, yesterday.

Amir holds phone talks with Abbas, reassures support to PalestineQNA — DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held yesterday a conversation via telephone with the President of Palestine, H E Mahmoud Abbas.

They discussed the latest developments in Palestine. H H the Amir stressed the State of Qatar’s firm position of sup-porting Palestine and its people.

H H the Amir also stressed, during the phone call, on the importance of Palestinian unity in order to face the challenges and ending divisions to regain unity in Palestinian national efforts. H H the Amir also said that the State of Qatar was ready to work on reaching a fair, comprehensive, and per-manent resolution to the Pal-estinian issue that is based on the resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative.

The Palestinian President thanked H H the Amir for his continuous support to the Pal-estinian cause and the Pales-tinian effort, and for the effort of the State of Qatar towards the just Palestinian cause.

Earlier, the State of Qatar welcomed all efforts aiming towards a long-standing and just peace in the occupied Pal-estinian territories. It also appreciated the endeavours of President Trump and the current US administration to find solutions for the Pales-tinian-Israeli conflict, all solu-tions should be consistent with international law and the rel-evant UN resolutions.

It is essential to note that the success of any initiative to address this seven-decade con-flict is dependent upon the engagement of the main

parties to this conflict in serious and direct negotiations based on the principle of international legitimacy and what is con-sistent with it in the US various efforts and proposed plans.

All Arab states, through the Arab League, have adopted in 2002 the Arab Peace initiative, which articulated a set of prin-ciples conducive to a just peace.

The State of Qatar noted in this context that peace cannot be sustainable if Palestinians rights in their sovereign state within the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem, and the right of return are not preserved.

The State of Qatar reaffirms its commitment for supporting the Palestinian institutions and economy, while stressing that the prosperity of the Palestinian people can only be achieved through a sustainable peace. �P11

DININGguide

THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020

Cabinet approves draft law for food safety committeeQNA — DOHA

The Cabinet, in its meeting yesterday, approved its draft decision on the establishment of the permanent committee for human food safety. Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani chaired the Cabinet’s regular meeting held at the Amiri Diwan.

Following the meeting, Min-ister of Justice and Acting Min-ister of State for Cabinet Affairs, H E Dr. Issa bin Saad Al Jafali Al Nuaimi said that at the outset of the meeting, H E the Prime Min-ister and Minister of Interior extended sincere thanks to Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for his confidence in assigning His Excellency as Prime Minister and Minister of Interior. H E the Prime Minister thanked H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani for

his efforts to serve Qatar.H E the Prime Minister also

welcomed Their Excellencies Ministers and urged them to exert more effort, work and continuous cooperation.

According to the provisions of the draft decision on per-manent committee for human food safety, a committee called the “Standing Committee for Human Food Safety” will be established at the Ministry of Public Health, and it will be headed by a representative of the Ministry of Public Health and the membership of representa-tives from the relevant author-ities, and it will have several spe-cialisations, including: proposing strategies, policies, and proce-dures for food safety in Qatar, and proposing mechanisms to deal with food safety risks at the national level.

The Cabinet took the nec-essary measures to issue a draft

law on the diplomatic and con-sular corps after the cabinet reviewed the recommendation of the Shura Council on the draft law.

The Cabinet approved its draft decision to reorganise the Compensation Claims Com-mittee at the Ministry of Finance.

The draft decision provides for the reorganisation of the Claims Committee at the Min-istry of Finance, and the Com-mittee is formed under the chairmanship of the Undersec-retary of the Ministry of Finance and the membership of repre-sentatives from the concerned authorities, and it is concerned with receiving and studying compensation requests sub-mitted to ministries, government agencies, and public bodies and institutions, in particular, requests for compensation arising from contracting and supplies contracts, and related

compensation requests for delay in the implementation of obli-gations or completion of original or additional works, change orders or amendments that have been made to those contracts.

Furthermore, the Cabinet approved the draft decision of the Minister of Interior to form a committee to implement the rulings issued for the execution of narcotic drugs and dangerous psychotropic substances legally ordered to be confiscated.

According to the provisions of the draft, a committee will be formed to implement the rulings issued for the execution of seized narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, or judicially ordered to seize and destroy, headed by the Director of the Verdict Execution Department at the Ministry of Interior and the membership of representatives from the com-petent authorities. �P6

Qatar’s efforts in combating money laundering praisedTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Chairman of the Union of Arab Banks (UAB), H E Sheikh Mohammed Al Jarrah Al Sabah, praised yesterday the success of Qatar in the field of combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, calling for the region to benefit from the country’s experience.

Speaking at the Compliance and Combating Financial Crime Conference in Doha on the chal-lenges of facing financial crimes, Sheikh Al Sabah said that choosing Doha as the host of the conference was mainly to try to understand and benefit from the country’s experience in the field, adding that the State of Qatar has been vigilant in the face of financial crimes.

He added that Qatar has enough policies and systems in place that enable the country face

challenges in that field. Sheikh Al Sabah also praised the estab-lishment of the National Anti-Money Laundering and Ter-rorism Financing Committee for the role it played in developing a comprehensive framework to fight financial crimes and protect

the Qatari financial system. He added that the efforts and the strategies of Qatar were a source of pride for Arab banks.

He discussed the role of the union in the field of fighting money laundering and the financing of ter-rorism, noting that the organization

holds many conferences in coop-eration with regional and interna-tional institutions in the field. He said that the main goal of these events was to raise awareness about these financial crimes and how they affect society, reported QNA. �P6

This batch of graduates included 33 fixed wing pilot, 28 helicopter pilots, seven weapon systems officers and 29 who specialised in directing fighter aircraft, nine of them were from the State of Kuwait.

in combating money lau

Qatar has enough policies and systems in place that

enable the country face challenges in that field of

combating moneylaundering and the

financing of terrorism.

Chairman of the Union of Arab Banks

Public Health

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020

PAGE | 2 PAGE | 4-5

SPONSORS

MAIN SPONSOR

Department of Pediatrics at Al-Ahli Hospital expands to Al-Wakra

PHCC’s ‘Screen for Life’ marks 2019 as best

year of achievements since launch

Promoting Workplace Wellness

Included with today’s edition

02 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020HOME

Alicafe Classic Coffee 20gm X 22pcs

8.75QA

R

Sea Bass Medium Turkey 1kg

21.75QA

R

Pomegranate India 1kg

5.50QA

R

Al Balad Fresh Chicken Mixed Parts 1kg

10.00QA

R

Turkey White Egg Medium 30’s

8.75QA

R

Rozana Basmati Rice 5kg

19.75QA

R

Lulu Sunflower Oil 5Ltr

18.75QA

R

Dettol Anti-Bacterial Soap Asstd 150gm X 4pcs

12.75QA

R

Sunlight Dishwash Liquid Lemon 1.5Ltr

7.50QA

R

Persil Washing Powder Asstd 4kg

25.75QA

R

30PCS

4KG

5LTR.

4PCS

5KG

Galaxy Smooth Milk Chocolate 42gm X 4pcs

8.75QA

R

Promotion valid from 30.01.2020 to 31.01.2020 . Purchase limit may apply. Offer valid until stocks last.

Promotion valid until 01.02.2020

WEEKEND OFFERS

20 . s last.

Tilda Indian Basmati Rice(Special Biryani Served atHot Food Section

During Biryani Fest Period Made Out of Tilda Indian Basmati Rice)

* Now delivering selected locations.w delivering selected locations.* Now d

03THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020 HOME

Amir patronises graduation of 7th batch of Al Zaeem Air College

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani; Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, during the graduation ceremony of the seventh batch of students of Al Zaeem (Leader) Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College at its headquarters in Al Udeid Air Base, yesterday. BELOW: H H the Amir honouring the first Qatari woman fighter pilot.

Amir honours graduates FROM PAGE 1

Staff Brigadier Pilot Hamad Al Ibrahim praised Al Zaeem Air College for developing its work mechanisms and continuing the policy of moderni-sation and development, which included the utilisation of H125 aircraft as a replacement for the gazelle air-craft, adding that the AW-169 aircraft will be used to provide advanced training in helicopter flight for grad-uates before they join operations in the Air Force.

He stated that the College imple-mented new training courses such as the foundational candidate course and the military diploma course after they were previously held at Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College.

The Commander of Al Zaeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah expressed his pride in the graduation of the first Qatari woman as a fighter

pilot after she finished the required hours of study and training and com-pleted the graduation requirements efficiently and competently.

He indicated that the College received correspondence from several friendly countries requesting seats for their students in the college, pointing out that currently there are students from Iraq and Kuwait.

The College received correspondence from several friendly countries requesting seats for their students in the college, pointing out that currently there are students from Iraq and Kuwait.


Amir meets security and military leaders

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with security and military leaders of various nations at the headquarters of Al Zaeem (Leader) Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College at Al Udeid Air Base, yesterday. BELOW RIGHT: H H the Amir reviewing the queue of the 97 graduates from the State of Qatar and the sisterly State of Kuwait. BELOW LEFT: H H the Amir honouring a graduate at the ceremony.

QNA — DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met at the headquarters of Al Zaeem (Leader) Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College at Al Udeid Air Base yesterday morning with

the Commander of Sultan Qaboos Air Academy of the Sultanate of Oman, Staff Brigadier Air Jumaa bin Talib Al-Jabri; Staff Major General Faleh Shuja Faleh from Kuwaiti National Guard; Commander of King Hussein Air College in the Hashemite Kingdom

of Jordan, Staff Colonel Pilot Mohammed Khalaf Khalil Al Jaloudi; Commander of the Turkish Air War Academy, Brigadier General Pilot Alparslan Yucel Soysal, and Commander of Pakistan Air Force, Air Vice Marshal Hamid Rashid Randhawa,

as well as a number of Their Excel-lencies leaders of security and military colleges, institutes and academies from brotherly and friendly countries who called on H H the Amir to greet him on the occasion of their visit to the country to attend the graduation ceremony of

the seventh batch of Al Zaeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College.

The meeting was attended by the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani.

OFFICIAL NEWS

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday cables of condolences to the President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, H E Abdelmadjid Tebboune, on the victims of the military plane that fell in Oum El Bouaghi Province. The Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, also sent a cable of condolences to the Prime Minister of the People’s Dem-ocratic Republic of Algeria, H E Dr. Abdelaziz Djerad, on the victims of the military plane that fell in Oum El Bouaghi Province. QNA

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will patronise today the graduation ceremony of the 15th batch of officer cadets of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Interior and other security services at Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College.QNA

Amir sends cable of condolences to Algerian President

Amir to patronise graduation ceremony of Ahmed Bin Mohamed Military College

Guatemala FM meets Qatari Acting Charge d’Affaires to El SalvadorGUATEMALA CITY: The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Guatemala, H E Pedro Brolo, met with the Acting Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the State of Qatar to the Republic of El Salvador, Tariq Oth-man Al Othman. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral cooperation relations, in addition to topics of com-mon concern. QNA


Al Muraikhi meets Bangladeshi counterpartQNA — DOHA

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met yesterday with Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, H E Mohammed Shahriar Alam. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral cooperation and rela-tions, in addition to issues of common concern.

H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met separately with

Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan H E Abdul Hakim Dalili and Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Qatar H E Zhou Jian. Talks during the meetings dealt with relations and means of enhancing them, as well as a number of issues of common interest.

H E Minister of State for Foreign Affairs also held a farewell ceremony in honour of Ambassador of the Lebanese Republic H E Hassan Najem, Ambassador of the Republic of

Bulgaria H E Metin Kazak and Ambassador of the Republic Sri Lanka H E Kithsiri Athulath-mudali on the occasion of ending their tenures in the country.

A lineup of Their Excel-lencies heads of diplomatic missions and bureaus accredited to the country, along with a number of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs department directors attended the cer-emony which was held at the Diplomatic Club.

Embassy of India holds reception to commemorate 71st Republic Day of IndiaTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Embassy of India held a reception to celebrate the 71st Republic Day of India on January 28 at Sheraton Hotel, Doha.

Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulahed Al Hamadi; Minister of Adminis-trative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, H E Yousef bin Mohammed Al Othman Fakhro; Director Protocol, Min-istry of Foreign Affairs H E Ibrahim Yusuf Fakhru; and Dean of Diplomatic Corps, Ambas-sador of Eritrea to Qatar Ali Ibrahim Ahmed graced the event.

Ambassador of India to the State of Qatar, H E P. Kumaran, during his speech, conveyed his

gratitude to Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the Government of the State of Qatar for their continued patronage and support for the Indian community in Qatar. He highlighted the achievements in diverse fields by India, and the recent measures adopted by the government for sustained long-term growth.

The Ambassador empha-sised the multi-faceted cooper-ation with the Government of the State of Qatar and pointed out that the last 12 months wit-nessed a number of bilateral activities, including the first ever bilateral naval exercise ‘Zair Al Bahr’, the 5th meeting of the Joint Defence Cooperation Com-mittee and the maiden visit of the Commander of the Qatari Amiri Naval Forces to India.

He also mentioned that 2019 was celebrated as the ‘India-Qatar Year of Culture’, which offered a unique opportunity of renewing and revitalizing special bonds of cultural her-itage between India and Qatar.

He also added that people-to-people ties as well as ongoing mutually beneficial collabora-tions, have added momentum to India-Qatar ties. He hailed the initiatives from the Qatari side to address labour issues in a constructive manner and con-gratulated the Indian com-munity for their valuable con-tribution towards the devel-opment, progress and prosperity of Qatar. Students of various Indian schools in Qatar also ren-dered a scintillating cultural per-formance showcasing India’s vibrant culture.

Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulwahed Al Hamadi; Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, H E Yousef bin Mohammed Al Othman Fakhro; and Ambassador of India to the State of Qatar, H E P. Kumaran, cutting a cake to mark the 71st Republic Day of India in a grand ceremony held at Sheraton Hotel, as the Director of Protocol, Ministry of Foreign Affairs H E Ibrahim Yusuf Fakhru; and Dean of Diplomatic Corps, Ambassador of Eritrea to the State of Qatar, Ali Ibrahim Ahmed look on.

Qatar's first female minister passes awayTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

H E Sheikha Al Mahmoud (pictured), the first female minister of education and higher education of Qatar has passed away. After obtaining bachelor's degree in Arabic language, H E Al Mahmoud started work in 1970 as a teacher and then a school director.

She worked as undersec-retary at the Ministry of Edu-cation and Higher Education based on Amiri Decree No. 79 of 1996. H E Sheikha Al Mahmoud became the Minister

of Education and Higher Edu-cation in 2003, the first female minister in Qatar.

H E Al Mahmoud also chaired many committees including e m p l o y e e s a f f a i r s ,

general supervisory on school development project. H E Sheikha Al Mahmoud received many honours, as she was hon-oured - as a pioneer figure - at the level of the Arab World on Arab Women’s Day in 2002.

Qatar University also chose H E Sheikha Al Mahmoud to be the personality of the year for social responsibility for the year 2018 in recognition of her services throughout her career in inspiring generations, through many achievements and initia-tives, especially in her decades-long educational career.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, with Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, H E Mohammed Shahriar Alam.

Cabinet approves draft law for food safety committeeFROM PAGE 1

Also, the Cabinet approved the draft decision of the Minister of Municipality and Environment to establish a joint committee for the removal and disposal of aban-doned vehicles, machinery, and equipment.

According to the draft, a joint committee will be established in the Ministry of Municipality and Environment called the “joint committee for the removal and disposal of disposed vehicles, machinery, and equipment”, and it shall be formed by representa-tives of the concerned authorities, and shall be concerned with taking the necessary measures towards removing neglected vehicles,

machinery and equipment from the squares, roads, streets, cor-ridors, alleys, sidewalks, and public parking in coordination with the competent authorities.

The Cabinet reviewed the fol-lowing two topics and took the appropriate decision: the views and recommendations of the standing committee for general supervision and follow-up on the implemen-tation of national development strategies, and the views of Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) on the recommendation of the standing committee on water resources regarding a project to develop a water resource policy and the developing of the national strategy for water resources in Qatar.

Qatar’s efforts in combating money laundering praisedFROM PAGE 1

He also cited a number of studies which show that financial crimes still remains a source of worry for the inter-national community, despite the regional and international legislations that were intro-duced. Referring to a study by HSBC that said the global economy lost $2.1 trillion to financial crimes in 2018, while the estimate of the World Eco-nomic Forum was slightly higher at $2.4 trillion. He also said that many global financial institutions were involved in financial crimes, with sanc-tions on these institutions reaching $17bn since 2009.

Sidra introduces first of its kind pain clinic for womenFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

Sidra Medicine, a member of Qatar Foundation, has launched a first of its kind Adult Pain Clinic as part of the expansion plan of its Women’s Services programme.

The clinic treats all kinds of chronic pain conditions in women, including post caesarean section/operative pain, pelvic pain, knee, shoulder or neck pain, headaches and others. It is the first clinic in Qatar which provides specialised care for the most common pelvic pain in women.

The Women’s Adult Pain Clinic at Sidra Medicine is staffed by a team of internationally trained pain man-agement specialists offering a holistic approach to treating chronic pain in women, said Dr Monzer Sadek, Division Chief of Anesthesiology at Sidra Med-icine, during a media tour of the new women’s services, recently.

“The new adult pain clinic is part of Sidra Medicine’s commitment to pro-viding women with compassionate and excellent care. We conduct careful and comprehensive evaluations to determine the cause of the patients’ pain, offering recommendations unique to each patient’s individual needs,” said Dr Sadek.

“Our treatment programme includes options such as injection by guided X-rays, cognitive behavioural therapy, physiotherapy, ultrasound and advanced pain interruption techniques,” he added.

Dr Sadek also emphasised that Sidra Medicine is the only centre in the region which administrates morphine with the epidural injection, which reduce after

effects for women who undergo C-section surgery. His team including two Attending Physicians and Adult Anesthesiologists — Dr Timothy Pavy and Dr Sandeep Kulkarni — has launched the Adult Pain Clinic at Sidra Medicine. If left untreated or misdiag-nosed, chronic pain in women can lead to much suffering and disability.

“Research shows that one in five adults have some type of pain. More than three quarter of women at reproductive age undergo some type of pain and it is under treated all over the world,” said Dr Pavy.

“The most common chronic pain areas diagnosed in women are in the pelvic region, the back or knees. Pelvic pain is usually felt in the groin and lower abdomen. It can be caused by nerve sen-sitivity in the pelvic organs, painful periods, adhesions as well as urinary tract and bowel problems. Another reason for pelvic pain is endometriosis,

a common condition where some of the lining of the womb spills out onto the pelvis causing severe period pain,” he added.

According to the Journal of Women’s Health, chronic pain is more common in women than men, with adults across the world confronting a range of undi-agnosed chronic pain conditions.

“Women outweigh men when it comes to pain,” said Dr Kulkarni. “We conduct a full examination to help determine the cause of the pain. We discuss the available treatment options with patients so that they can decide on the one that best suits them. It is our multi-disciplinary clinic approach that makes healthcare at Sidra Medicine stand out, as our patient and family cen-tered care features input from a range of specialists in different disciplines, including gynecology, pain medicine, physiotherapy and clinical psychology,” he added.

Dr Monzer Sadek (centre), Division Chief of Anesthesiology at Sidra Medicine, with Dr Sandeep Kulkarni (left) and Dr Timothy Pavy. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

Woqod opens petrol station in Rawdat Al HamamaTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Fuel ‘Woqod’ opened a new petrol station in Rawdat Al Hamama yesterday, raising its network of various petrol stations to 102, as part of Woqod’s ongoing expansion plans to enable it to serve every area in Qatar.

Rawdat Al Hamama-3 Petrol Station is spread over an area of 12,750 square metres and has three lanes with nine dispensers for light vehicles, which will serve Rawdat Al Hamama area and the surroundings.

The new petrol station offers round-the-clock services to residents, and include Sidra convenience store, manual car wash, engine oil change and

tire repair, and sale of LPG cyl-inders ‘Shafaf’, in addition to sale of gasoline and diesel products for light vehicles.

Woqod’s Managing Director & CEO, Saad Rashid Al Muhannadi, said: “We are pleased to open new fixed petrol station in Rawdat Al Hamama-3. Woqod aspires to expand its petrol station network in the country to meet

the rising demand for petroleum products and achieve the goal of providing customers with access to best-in-class products and services at their convenience and comfort.

He said Woqod has accel-erated the process for the con-struction of new petrol stations to meet the fuel and energy needs of the country.

The newly-opened Woqod petrol station at Rawdat Al Hammama


Education Minister meets Philippines’ Chairperson of the Commission on Higher EducationMinister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr Mohammed bin Abdul Wahed Al Hammadi, met yesterday with Chairperson of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) of the Philippines, H E Prospero De Vera. During the meeting, they reviewed ways of enhancing joint cooperation in the field of higher education, and some items that will be the basis for a draft memorandum of understanding in the field of higher education between the two sides, which will be prepared for signing later.

QA to host second CAPA Qatar Aviation, Aeropolitical and Regulatory SummitTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Following the success of last year’s CAPA Qatar Aviation, Aero-political and Regulatory Summit, the first summit of its kind held in the Middle East, Qatar Airways looks forward to welcoming industry leaders, national regu-latory authorities, international and regional aviation organisa-tions, and air transport executives from around the world to Doha next month for the second edition.

This important summit will see senior aviation decision-makers from across the public and private sector gather for two days, from February 5-6 to discuss the latest issues and developments regarding inter-national aviation regulation.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker, said: “Given the complex global regulatory environment airlines operate in, I am pleased that this Summit will gather high-level industry experts from both the public and private sector to engage in meaningful discussion on the issues and challenges faced by our industry.”

CAPA – Centre for Aviation Chairman Emeritus, Peter Har-bison said: “With vastly different aviation regulation across the globe, it is essential that we con-tinue an open dialogue on the

issues and opportunities that come with open skies and market access. We are pleased to partner with Qatar Airways again this year to provide this high-level platform of discussion for senior decision makers across the industry to engage and learn from each other.”

Key industry figures set to speak at the event include: H E Akbar Al Baker; IAG CEO, Willie Walsh; Coordinator for Transport and Tourism in European Par-liament, José Ramón Bauzá Díaz; European Commission Director General Mobility and Transport, Henrik Hololei; IATA CEO and Director General, Alexandre de Juniac; Kuwait Airways CEO, Kamil Al Awadhi; Royal Jordanian CEO, Stefan Pichler; RwandAir CEO, Yvonne Manzi Makolo; US Department of Transportation Director International Office of Aviation, Brian Hedberg; Malaysian Aviation Commission Director of Aviation Development, Germal Singh Khera; African Air-lines Association Secretary General, Abderahmane Berthé;

and AACO Secretary General, Abdul Wahab Teffaha. Regis-tration is still open for the event through qatar20.capaevents.com

CAPA - Centre for Aviation (CAPA), part of Aviation Week Network, is the leading provider of independent aviation market intelligence, analysis and data services covering worldwide developments. Established in 1990, CAPA’s platforms help the aviation sector and supplier busi-nesses stay informed, remain connected to industry leaders and fuel inspiration to drive change. CAPA’s global C-level and cor-porate travel summits are held in key aviation markets around the world, attracting executive level speakers, attendees and leading stakeholders of the global commercial aviation industry. Aviation Week Network, the largest multimedia information and services provider for the global aviation, aerospace, and defence industries, serving 1.7 million professionals around the world, is part of Informa Markets, a division of Informa PLC.

A file photo of Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker (right), with CAPA – Centre for Aviation Chairman Emeritus, Peter Harbison.

The summit will see senior aviation decision-makers from across the public and private sector gather for two days, Feb 5-6, to discuss the latest issues and developments regarding international aviation regulation.

Health Ministry issues licences to over 5,000 health practitioners in 2019QNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) revealed yesterday that it issued licences to 5,724 health practitioners in 2019, including 968 physicians, 197 dentists, 3,123 nurses, 361 pharmacists, and 1,075 health practitioners from the auxiliary medical professions category.

The MoPH affirmed keenness to ensure the highest standards of quality and safety of health services provided to the Qatari community and to provide the health sector with c o m p e t e n t h e a l t h practitioners.

Director of the Health Spe-cializations Department at MoPH Dr. Saad Rashid Al Kaabi said that the ministry works to ensure the efficiency of health practitioners working in the State of Qatar, and adopts unified policies for the regis-tration and licensing of health practitioners who wish to work in the health sector in the country.

Concerning the national system for accrediting medical education and continuing pro-fessional development in the State of Qatar, 1219 activities were approved for continuous professional development,

where the percentage of health practitioners’ commitment to the requirements of the national programme for con-tinuing professional devel-opment was 87.8% (as a general commitment ratio) and 99% (as a corrected commitment ratio).

In 2019, 14,787 sessions of the approved continuing pro-fessional development activ-ities were held, providing 579,325 professional devel-opment opportunities and 2,131,594 accredited points from the first category of the national framework for medical education and continuing pro-fessional development.

The Palestinians have not been talking to the United States since Trump announced in December 2017 that he was moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing that contested city as Israel’s capital.

08 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMAN

SHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

DR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK [email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITOR

MOHAMMED SALIM [email protected]

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR

MOHAMMED OSMAN ALI [email protected]

EDITORIAL

QATAR is working to build a vibrant sustainable economy for the future generations. The country’s efforts to move in the path vibrant sustainable economy was highlighted by Minister of Commerce and Industry, H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari, recently during a discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

H E the Minister said that Qatar is among the few early adaptors of new economic models and policies and already working to build a vibrant sustainable economy for the future generations.

Qatar has accelerated the process of economic diversification which is in line with the country’s long-term development goals, which include developing infra-structure and logistic services to become a regional trade and investment hub.

Qatar is moving forward in the implementation of its major development plans. This has consolidated its position as one of the most stable and competitive economies.

Many global organisations have confirmed the strength of Qatar’s solid economy. The World Bank has noted in its report that Qatari economy to expected to rise 3.4 percent by 2021 driven by higher service sector growth as the FIFA World Cup 2022 gets nearer, com-pared with a growth rate of 1.43 percent in 2018.

This year’s WEF edition brought together more than 250 political leaders from G20 group among other coun-tries, along with the heads of a number of international organisations, business leaders, politicians, ministers, academics, technology pioneers, representatives of civil society organisations and cultural leaders.

This forum was held under the theme “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World” and focused on global, regional and national initiatives that have a pos-itive impact on all stakeholders.

The WEF, founded in 1971 in Geneva, Switzerland, is an independent international non-profit organisation with a mission to promote global development. Each year, the WEF brings together a large number of heads of state and government, senior officials and influential businessmen in the global economy.

The annual meeting aims to provide a platform for dialogue and the exchange of ideas among participants, presenting opportunity to strengthen bilateral relations between various countries and international companies.

Qatar’s support to the private sector in line with its belief in the key role it plays in enhancing the compet-itiveness and diversity of the national economy. The State is keen to accelerate the implementation of measures to support this sector, through the launch of partnership projects with the public sector and the establishment of incentive programs to attract foreign direct investment.

Qatar’s vibrant economy

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 7501email: [email protected]

PUBLIC RELATIONS: TEL: 4455 7613email: [email protected]

ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT: TEL: 4455 7837 / 780FAX: 4455 7870, email: [email protected]

CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT: TEL: 4455 7857email: [email protected]

SUBSCRIPTION & DISTRIBUTION: TEL: 4455 7809 / 839 FAX: 44557819, email: [email protected]

D-RING ROAD, POST BOX: 3488, DOHA - QATAR

EMAIL: [email protected]

Quote of the day

A Palestinian state cannot be accepted without the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not for sale.

Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President

Palestinians take part in a demonstration in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday, to protest against US President Donald Trump’s peace plan proposal.

Every president in political trouble looks to foreign policy for a distraction, and President Donald Trump is no different. January began with the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Sole-imani and ends with the release of a White House peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians. Surely it is no coincidence that all this is happening while the president is being impeached. Trump is selling himself as both warmaker and peacemaker.

But while the president can undoubtedly order the killing of enemy leaders, he cannot snap his fingers and end a long-running conflict. Indeed, he is not seriously trying to do so. What was unveiled on Tuesday was a PR campaign, not a peace plan.

Normally when you make peace, you have to do so with your enemies. But the only people present at the White House lectern Tuesday were Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not a Pal-estinian representative in sight - and none was apparently con-sulted in the creation of this plan. The Palestinians have not been talking to the United States since Trump announced in December 2017 that he was moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing that contested city as Israel’s capital.

He is certainly the best friend Netanyahu has ever had. The indicted prime minister and the impeached president stood at the lectern pretending that all they care about is peace. In fact, all

they care about is politics. This “peace plan” is so heavily tilted toward Israel that it should help both Netanyahu and Trump with conservative voters in their respective countries as they face reelection. Maybe that’s what Trump meant by calling it “win-win.”

The losers are Palestinians and all those who think that the only way to safeguard Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state is to create a real Palestinian state with sovereignty over most of the Arab population between the Jordan River and the Mediter-ranean Sea. The peace plan was billed as a “vision” for a “realistic two-state solution,” but this was mere window-dressing for an Israeli power grab and land grab.

You have to read the fine print - specifically page 34 - to see that Trump’s commitment to a Palestinian state is contingent on conditions that will never be met. The “criteria” for “the for-mation of a Palestinian State” include the complete demilitari-zation of the entire Palestinian population, which includes the disarmament of Hamas, the ter-rorist group in control of the Gaza Strip, over which the Pales-tinian Authority has no control. Hamas must go from advocating Israel’s eradication to renouncing the Palestinian “right to return” and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

This isn’t even the most far-fetched part of the plan. Another condition for statehood is the creation of a “a governing system with a constitution or another system for establishing the rule of law that provides for freedom of press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protections for religious freedom and for religious minor-ities to observe their faith, uniform and fair enforcement of law and contractual rights, due process under law, and an inde-

pendent judiciary.”In other words, to become

recognized as a sovereign state, the Palestinians will have to achieve levels of governance achieved by no country in the Middle East other than Israel itself. None of America’s Arab allies - from Egypt to Saudi Arabia - meet these criteria.

But while the promise of Pal-estinian statehood is contingent on fantastic conditions, the plan sets no conditions for allowing Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and all Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu can do that tomorrow - and very well may. Any serious peace plan would make Israel dismantle outlying settlements now totaling roughly 80,000 people. But the plan spe-cifically eschews such com-promise, saying “Peace should not demand the uprooting of people - Arab or Jew - from their homes.” The plan includes a “conceptual map” for a future state of Palestine that looks like a gerrymandered congressional district - not a self-sustaining state.

In return for sacrificing statehood, Palestinians are offered promise of riches: “With the potential to facilitate more than $50 billion in new investment over ten years,” the plan states, “Peace to Prosperity represents the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Palestinian people to date.” Fifty billion dollars is the imaginary sum that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, tried and failed to drum up at a “workshop” in Bahrain last summer. Neither the United States nor any of its allies have any intention of giving the Palestinians that money - and they know it.

Max Boot, a Post columnist, is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a global affairs analyst for CNN.

LULU YILUN CHEN BLOOMBERG

People across the globe are stockpiling facial masks to protect themselves from the new coronavirus, depleting online malls and store shelves from California to Beijing. Yet their efficacy against an outbreak that’s claimed more than 130 lives remains uncertain.

On Amazon and Alibaba, many shops peddling anti-virus masks had run out of stock as of Wednesday. Across China, Hong Kong and Singapore, people lined up for hours at stores and phar-macies hoping to secure dwindling supplies. People from San Francisco to Orlando, Florida said they were unable to find surgical

masks at their usual outlets.While the rush is global,

Chinese people living abroad have been buying masks - especially the popular N95 variant made by 3M Co. - to send back to family members or resell them online, often via Tencent’s WeChat mes-saging app. Demand is only likely to increase -- even though doubts have surfaced among the medical com-munity about their effec-tiveness in curbing the disease, which some doctors say can spread through physical contact. The corona-virus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has infected more than 6,000 - more than the 5,327 cases officially reported in China during the SARS epi-demic of 17 years ago.

“I’ve been running around town for days to buy masks,” said Liu Yan, a 36-year-old, who works in the cryptocur-rency industry in Tokyo and said she scooped up 2,000 masks to send back to people in China without asking for additional money. She added she may stop buying soon because patient numbers were on the rise in Japan and she didn’t want to deprive locals of supplies.

While it’s still unclear how the 2019-nCoV virus is spreading, one confirmed channel is through direct contact with infected people -- most likely coming into contact with respiratory secretions or virus-containing droplets from an infected per-son’s cough. It’s also possible the virus could be shed in

other ways, including through the fecal waste of acutely infected people.

Good hand hygiene, including the regular use of an alcohol-based sanitizer, may be more effective than face masks at preventing trans-mission of the 2019-nCoV virus, said Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Aus-tralia’s Canberra Hospital.

China’s government has responded to the worsening shortage by cracking down on vendors who sell fake masks or overcharge online. More than 80 shops on e-com-merce platform Taobao, run by Alibaba Group Holding, allegedly sold counterfeit 3M and N95 face masks, Chinese state-media reported Monday.

What Trump and Netanyahu just unveiled was a PR campaign, not a peace plan

/PeninsulaQatar

/ThePeninsulaQatar

/Peninsula_Qatar

/ThePeninsulaNewspaper

+974 6698 6188

www.thepeninsula.qa

Wuhan virus outbreak triggers a global run on face masks

Established in 1996

MAX BOOT THE WASHINGTON POST


ASHRAE and GORD sign MoU to fast-track sustainability efforts

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Gulf Organisation for Research & Development has signed a memo-randum of understanding (MoU) with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Qatar Oryx Chapter to foster sustainable devel-opment through joint initiatives.

The MoU was signed at GORD headquarters located in Qatar Science & Technology Park. Broadly, the agreement outlines four areas of coop-eration whereby the partnering organ-isations will work towards capacity building through joint training and educational programs; driving tech-nological dissemination through industry events; embarking on research projects of mutual interest and devel-oping technical publications and standards to speed up sustainable development.

Signing the memorandum were GORD’s Founding Chairman, Dr.

Yousef Alhorr and ASHRAE Qatar Oryx Chapter’s President, Engineer Kinan Fahs. Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Dr. Alhorr said: “For years, GORD has been spearheading sustain-ability endeavours in MENA and beyond. In the same vein, ASHRAE has become a point of reference for HVAC industry across the world with its standards and guidelines. Our part-nership with ASHRAE today will be a coming together of knowledge and expertise that will undoubtedly benefit Qatar and the wider region.”

Engineer Kinan Fahs, President of ASHRAE Qatar Oryx Chapter and Deputy Director of Mechanical Department at MZP Architectural & Engineering Consultancy, said: “Together, we can establish better guidelines and eventually more sus-tainable buildings.”

Giving out details about the upcoming projects resulting from the partnership, Fahs mentioned collabo-ration of GORD and ASHRAE in

establishing standards and guidelines for sustainable outdoor cooling in MENA’s hot climate. Similarly, he men-tioned that sustainability experts from GORD will be invited to present their research and findings at ASHRAE’s future industry events within Qatar.

Following the MoU, ASHRAE will closely work with GORD Institute, that is engaged in continuous long-term

applied research projects on various themes including carbon and climate change, eco materials, energy effi-ciency, sustainable HVAC solutions, environmental sciences and renewable energy. In addition, the partnering companies have plans to hold training sessions focused on sustainable built environment.

ASHRAE is a global engineering

body working towards “building systems, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, refrigeration and sustainability within the industry” with 57,000 members representing more than 132 countries. Within MENA, GORD has been leading the sustainability land-scape with its centers of excellence focused of R&D, capacity building and green building certifications.

GORD and ASHRAE officials during the MoU signing ceremony at GORD headquarters at Qatar Science & Technology Park.

Video Home & Electronic Centre wins 3 Awards from LG for the Year 2019THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Video Home & Electronic Centre popularly known by its retail name Jumbo Electronics is a total solutions provider in Qatar. It 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, distribution, e-commerce, telecom services, B2B, MEP and after sales service.

It ended the year 2019 on a high with not only a healthy growth over the previous year but also hit a hat trick by winning 3 awards from LG for its sales performance and best practices in the retail sector. These awards from LG for per-formance in the Gulf Region includes Best Sales Per-formance for Audio Video Products, Best Sales Per-formance in the B2B2C

category and MEA Second Best Performer Promoter Award in retail.

With a strong focus on improving sales of premium products across categories of air conditioners, home appliances, televisions and information technology through its B2B channel, Video Home & Elec-tronic Centre has developed strong relations with gov-ernment, semi-government and private company’s carrying out projects across the real estate and hospitality sector in Qatar.

This ensures the company is a preferred partner for numerous prestigious projects due to its large basket of offerings as a Total Solutions Company. This robust per-formance in the B2B2C cat-egory was appreciated by LG and it rewarded Video Home & Electronic Centre with the Best Sales Award for 2019 in the region.

Another upcoming division

of LG is its AV business which launched a range of products like Portable Speakers, Sound Bars, Hi-Fi Systems, Home Theatre Systems and Blu-ray & DVD players in Qatar last year that was very well received by customers in the market. Its partnership with Meridian Audio from the UK for premium tuning work brought a richer, more intense experience to its products. Good adoption by customers made LG’s AV per-formance in Qatar the best in the region with Video Home & Electronic Centre winning the Best Sales Performance Award for 2019.

LG has been a pioneer in introducing the TwinWash Washing Machine concept in the market, a washing machine that provided washing/ drying capabilities on the top and a smaller washer at the bottom for delicate clothes enabling the user to wash two loads at the same time.

FROM LEFT: James Lee, LG MEA CEO presents the Best Sales Performance Award for AV to Rajesh Menon, Product Head, Home Entertainment from Video Home; Michael Marquez, Store Manager receiving the second Best Promoter award from Young Hwan Choi, LG MEA GTM Head; Hongju Jeon, LG Gulf President, presents the Best Sales Performance Award in B2B2C to Pradeesh Kumar, B2B Sales Head, Video Home.

Broadly, the agreement outlines four areas of cooperation whereby the partnering organisations will work towards capacity building through joint training and educational programs; driving technological dissemination through industry events; embarking on research projects of mutual interest and developing technical publications and standards to speed up sustainable development.

Ashghal announces diversion at Mesaimeer InterchangeTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Public Works Authority ‘Ashghal’ will implement a traffic diversion on Mesaimeer Inter-change, in coordination with the General Directorate of Traffic, effective from tomorrow.

The traffic signal connecting Rawdat Al Khail Street, Doha Expressway and Industrial Area

Road will be removed for the fin-ishing works of the vital interchange.

A direct alternate link will be provided for commuters from Rawdat Al Khail Street towards Industrial Area Road while traffic between Doha Expressway and Industrial Area Road will be diverted through another alternate lane.

Talabat, Elite Paper Recycling to promote environmental sustainability THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Talabat and Elite Paper Recy-cling have partnered to promote environmental sustainability and recycling across all their programs and activities.

This agreement with EPR reflects Talabat commitment to align and strengthen its vision to support Qatar National Vision 2030 in transforming the country into an advanced society capable of achieving sustainable development by 2030.

Elite Paper Recycling is established as the only paper manufacturing Company in Qatar that can recycle all types of waste paper.

One of the Talabat values is together we grow and the Goal here is to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising those of future generations.

In the coming days, Talabat

will switch all deliveries to be sustainable including boxes and paper bags with higher effi-ciency and reasonable cost.

Francisco De Sousa, Man-aging Director for Talabat

commented: “There are many paths to sustainability as the population is growing and to expand potential for future gen-erations. This is just the beginning of it.”

Talabat is one of the largest food ordering and delivery plat-forms in the Middle East, operating in seven countries: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Jordan.

Talabat and Elite Paper Recycling officials pose for a picture.

Traffic Department taking strict measures against reckless drivingSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

The General Directorate of Traffic is taking strict measures against violations of drifting and reckless driving. The punishment includes imposing fines, booking the vehicle and referring the violators to the Public Prosecution.

“The Department is inviting people to report such cases of violations immediately through Metrash 2 application espe-cially the ones related to drifting because they expose people’s lives and property to danger,” said First Lieutenant Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, patrols and traffic investiga-tions officer.

This came during a meeting on Tuesday, organised by the Traffic Awareness Department at the private Majlis of Saleh Al Nabet, CMC member for Con-stituency 11 .

The gathering was attended by First Lieutenant Ahmed Mohammad Al Kathiri, traffic awareness officer; First Lieu-tenant Mohammad Rabia Al Kuwari, licensing affairs officer; Lieutenant Abdullah Marafiya, traffic safety officer, and a number of residents from the constituency.

The meeting came within the framework of the com-munity partnership program being implemented by the department as part of its annual operational plan to commu-nicate with all segments of society to spread road safety culture.

The attendees discussed a number of traffic issues including the problem of parking trucks in residential areas and the negative effects

resulting from this violation. They also discussed other matters related to traffic engi-neering and safety in the region, enhancing traffic awareness on social media in order to reach more of people especially the youth.

At the outset of the meeting, Al Kathiri, indicated that the General Directorate of Traffic is keen to hold such meetings that contribute to listen to peo-ple’s proposals and opinions, building bridges of communi-cation with citizens, and lis-tening to their queries and traffic problems being faced in different areas.

He also affirmed depart-ment’s keenness to continu-ously coordinate with the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) and the relevant authorities to raise the level of road safety and ensure the smooth flow of traffic, stressing that all attendees proposals will

be considered.He also said in a statement

that a special drive is underway against garages and vehicle accessories engaged in violating the instructions of the General Directorate of Traffic and would repair cars without approval from the department, adding that in almost every month, some of such shops and irregular garages were tempo-rarily closed.

Other officers also praised the efforts of the Ministry of Interior and its concerns for the safety of lives of people and the development of services pro-vided to the public.

The attendees stressed the necessity of joining all officials and civil efforts to enhance the concepts of traffic safety among the youth, and urged the youth to participate in the targeted programs organized by the Ministry and various state institutions.

CMC member for Constituency 11, Saleh Al Nabet, and Officer from the General Directorate of Traffic, Lieutenant Ahmed Mohammed Al Kathiri with other traffic officers and CMC members, during a meeting at a private Majlis at Ein Khaled. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA


Malabar Gold & Diamonds unveils‘Heart to Heart’ jewellery collectionTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Malabar Gold & Diamonds, one among the largest jewellery retailers globally with a strong retail network of over 250 outlets spread across 10 countries launched a special collection of diamond and 18K gold jewellery named ‘Heart to Heart’ collection to celebrate the season of love.

‘Heart to Heart’ jewellery collection showcases exclusive jewellery to sym-bolise the best way to express your love. As the demand for heart shaped jewellery increases during this season of love, the jewellery retailer launched the exclusive collection to cater to the customer demand.

This unique jewellery collection is a perfect gift to express true emotions to your loved ones. With prices starting from as low as QR790, there is something to fit everyone’s budget.

Apart from the pendants in diamonds and 18k, customers can also choose the heart shaped beautifully crafted bangles, bracelets and rings to gift your loved ones. The company has also launched a special 2 in 1 Pendant which can be worn in 2 dif-ferent ways.

To add more delight to this occasion, the customers can also avail a branded Kenneth Kole watch or Giordano watch absolutely free with this limited-edition diamond jewellery. This offer will be

available at their outlets until 16th Feb-ruary 2020.

Apart from these, Malabar Gold & Dia-monds also showcase an incredible col-lection of unique designs in gold and diamond jewellery from Italy, Singapore, Turkey, Bahrain, India, etc to suit the tastes and budget of its different customers.

Customers can also choose gifts to their loved ones from their branded jew-ellery segment that includes Era - Uncut Diamond Jewellery, Ethnix - Handcrafted Designer Jewellery, Mine - Diamonds Unlimited, Precia- Gem Jewellery and Divine – Indian Heritage Jewellery.

Qatar Airways Group celebrates Safety Week 2020THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Airways Group cele-brated its Safety Week earlier this month, with more than 25,000 employees taking part in over 100 events in Doha and at the airline’s outstations around the world.

Qatar Airways Group Safety Week 2020 aimed to raise awareness of the importance of safe practices and behaviours in the workplace to employees. Such initiatives are a vital part of Qatar Airways Group’s work to ensure that safety remains its number one priority.

Events organised during Qatar Airways Group Safety Week 2020 include workshops on safe work practices, fire safety, first aid, health and well-being and safety reporting. All departments and subsidiaries of the Qatar Airways Group took part in the initiative, with

events in outstations including mock fire evacuations, safety quizzes and first aid training.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker, said: “Safety is at the heart of eve-rything we do. We put a great deal of work into ensuring that our safety practices are robust by encouraging a proactive reporting culture, providing training to staff, and investing in the latest technology.

“Qatar Airways Group Safety Week is all about raising awareness of the critical impor-tance of safe practices to our employees so that they can deliver services smoothly and without incident. It was fantastic to see so many employees engage with this initiative and I am proud of the hard work that they do every day to keep their colleagues and customers safe.”

Qatar Airways Group Senior Vice-President Safety and

Security, Ashish Jain, said: “Qatar Airways Group Safety Week is now in its second year, having grown significantly in scale since we first delivered this initiative in 2019. Our focus this year is on encouraging employees to choose safe behaviours at work – some-thing that is vital in any organ-isation but is especially important for us as one of the largest aviation companies in the world. Not only are we engaging our own staff this year, but also our suppliers and stakeholders, as we lead the industry in becoming safer than ever before.”

Last year, Qatar Airways renewed its IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) for the ninth time. IOSA is a highly respected industry audit, carried out by IATA auditors across all subsid-iaries and departments within the Qatar Airways Group.

Qatar Airways officials posing for a photo during the Safety Week 2020.

EAA Foundation announces Chevron Phillips Chemical sponsorship to improve education for disadvantaged studentsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, has announced a contribution from Chevron Phillips Chemical Company Qatar LLC, which will see the chemical producer invest QR385,000 into EAA’s Together Project.

While EAA foundation con-tinues to tackle deep-rooted socioeconomic and geographic barriers hindering children’s education across its globally renowned programmes, The Together Project was launched in 2016 to bring opportunities to out-of-school-children of expatriates from disadvantaged backgrounds in Qatar. To date, Alsilm schools, run as part of the Together project, have enrolled a total of 1,496 stu-dents of 22 different national-ities, both Arabic and non-Arabic speaking.

The sponsorship by Chevron Phillips Chemical comes as part of the

company’s corporate vision performance by design. Caring by choice, whereby its aims to bring positive, measurable change to communities around the globe by making charitable investments and encouraging employee volun-teerism with various organizations.

“We strive to be the neighbour of choice in the communities where we operate and seek to invest in charitable programs that improve lives around the world,” said Jay Bickett, Vice-President, Qatar, for Chevron Phillips Chemical. “Together

with Education Above All foundation, we look forward to improving access to edu-cation for disadvantaged pop-ulations here in Qatar.”

Maryam AL Mannai, Together Project Officer at Edu-cation Above All, said: “Edu-cation Above all is proud to work alongside partners, like Chevron Phillips Chemical, as we strive to provide all students with the inclusive and equitable quality education. As a global company employing thousands, the company understands that talent exists everywhere regardless of socioeconomic status, and given the right opportunity, any student can thrive.

According to Chevron Philips Chemical, education and workforce development is a cornerstone of its community involvement program, and it supports organizations that seek to encourage educational excellence and make positive social impacts.

Officials and students receiving the contribution.

The Together Project was launched in 2016 to bring opportunities to out-of-school-children of expatriates from disadvantaged backgrounds in Qatar.

K.A.S. Eupen concludes its winter training camp in QatarTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Belgian club K.A.S. Eupen recently completed a successful winter training camp at Aspire Academy, benefiting from Qatar’s world-class sport facil-ities and conditions.

Qatar Airways is the official airline and main shirt sponsor of the Belgian club. The world’s number one airline became sponsor of the Jupiler Pro League club in 2019, further adding to its impressive port-folio of global sport partner-ships. The Belgian First Division has established a reputation for developing young talented foot-ballers and has also played a pivotal role in developing many young Qatari players including Akram Afif, who was named Asian Player of the Year 2019.

Qatar Airways Group Chief

Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker, said: “Qatar Airways is delighted to welcome another of our partner football clubs to Doha, following FC Bayern Munich’s successful winter training camp earlier this month. Sport is a key pillar of the State of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, and we are proud to fly top global clubs to Doha to benefit from the five-star sport facilities and infra-structure. We wish K.A.S. Eupen well as they continue to rein-force their position in the Belgian First Division.”

K.A.S. Eupen Sports & General Director Christoph Henkel, said: “In Qatar Airways, the world’s best airline, we have the perfect partner who recently provided an excellent service during our travel to and from Qatar. As always the welcome and hospitality was first class

both on board and upon arrival at Hamad international Airport, providing the perfect start to our winter training camp. Pre-paratory matches against top opponents Ajax Amsterdam and PSV Eindhoven at world-class sport facilities were the perfect finale to a successful training camp.”

The K.A.S. Eupen players took time out from their training schedule to inspire future gen-erations of young footballers as the club hosted a football devel-opment session for local school-children. The event was held in partnership with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy programme Generation Amazing, which uses the power of sport to positively impact young people and communities around the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.The players of Belgian club K.A.S. Eupen.

QC to support Education City’s ‘Park & Plant’THE PENINSULA — DOHA

As part of its endeavour to keep pace with the on-going environ-mental sustainability transfor-mation in Qatar, the Qatar Chamber paid a visit to the Qatar Foundation headquarters to learn about its collaboration opportunities and programs related to environmental sustainability.

The delegation included board members Dr. Khaled bin Klefeekh Al Hajri, Abdul Rahman bin Abdulla Al Ansari, Dr. Mohamed

Jawhar Al Mohamed and Ibtihaj Al Ahmadani.

QC Director-General Saleh bin Hamad Al Sharqi and many busi-nessmen were also present.

During the visit, Sustainability Specialist of Operations at QF, Nawal Al Sulaiti, informed the del-egation on the Foundation’s efforts and initiatives aiming at planting trees and protecting environment.

She also highlighted objectives of the ‘Park & Plant’ initiative which designed to make Education City a greener space and turn it into a

m o r e p e d e s t r i a n - f r i e n d l y environment.

In this respect, Qatar Chamber announced its support for the ini-tiative aiming to plant 20,000 trees before the end of 2022 through encouraging the private sector com-panies to join the initiative whose target is to plant 20,000 trees before the end of 2022.

During the visit, QC board members expressed their full support for the initiative through planting several trees at the Edu-cation City’s park.

The Qatar Chamber delegation during their visit to Qatar Foundation headquarters.

11THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020 GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Palestinians protest against Trump’s peace plan

AFP — JERUSALEM

Palestinians protested yesterday against President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan that gives Israel a US green light to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank.

The protests, including iso-lated clashes, underscored the depth of frustration with a pro-posal seen as overwhelmingly supportive of Israeli objectives that was drafted with no Pales-tinian input.

Clashes erupted yesterday between the Israeli army and Palestinians denouncing the so-called “Deal of the Century”.

Palestinian demonstrators marched from the northern entrance of Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, amid chants con-demning the plan proposed by US President Donald Trump.

The Israeli army used rubber bullets and tear gas can-isters to break up the march, with protesters pelting stones and torching rubber tires.

Similar clashes erupted near Hebron, according to eyewit-nesses. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 41 people were injured, including three by live ammunition.

Trump, who unveiled the plan on Tuesday at the White

House standing alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu with no Pal-estinian representatives on hand, said his initiative could succeed where others had failed. But it grants Israel much of what it has sought in decades of international diplomacy, namely control over Jerusalem as its “undivided” capital, rather than a city to share with the Palestinians.

It also offers US approval for Israel to annex the strategically crucial Jordan Valley — which accounts for around 30 percent of the West Bank — as well as other Jewish settlements in the

territory. Those terms have been roundly rejected by Pal-estinian leaders.

Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, said it could never accept anything short of Jeru-salem as capital of a future state of Palestine.

Three protesters were hos-pitalised after being hit by Israeli fire in clashes near Ram-allah in the central West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said. In Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, protesters set tyres alight, while others hoisted banners vowing they were “united against the deal of the century”,

in a jibe against Trump’s proposals.

Trump’s plan foresees the creation of a “contiguous” Pal-estinian state but under strict conditions, including a requirement that it be “demilitarised”.

The Palestinians would only be allowed to declare a capital in outer parts of east Jerusalem beyond an Israeli security wall.

Those terms were warmly received by some in Israel.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Tel Aviv, some residents voiced concern that Trump had paid no attention to what the Pales-tinians actually want.

A Palestinian demonstrator argues with Israeli forces during a protest against the US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, at Jordan Valley in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, yesterday.

Arab League denounces peace planThe Arab League yesterday censured the US peace plan, saying the so-called “Deal of the Century” violates Palestinian rights. In a statement, the regional organization in the Arab world said that peace could not be achieved unilaterally but depended on the will of the Palestinians as well. Convening an urgent meeting to discuss the plan on Saturday, it said that a serious effort to resolve the dispute could be considered; however, peace could not be achieved by ignoring the reality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967.

Palestinians’ rights ignored: Erdogan

US President Donald Trump’s so-called Middle East peace plan ignores Palestinians’ rights and attempts to legitimise Israel’s occupation, said Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday. Answering the questions of reporters on a return flight from his Africa tour, Erdogan said the plan will not serve peace and solution in the region. It ignores Palestinians’ rights and attempts to legitimize Israel’s occupation, he stressed. “Jeru-salem is sacred for Muslims and Trump’s so-called peace plan proposing to leave Jerusalem to Israel is never acceptable,” Erdogan added.

No Palestinian state without JerusalemPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed that it is impos-sible to accept a Palestinian state without Jerusalem, warning that Palestinians will fight a peace plan unveiled by the US.with all their energy and work to thwart it. “A Palestinian state cannot be accepted without the city of Jerusalem,” Abbas said during a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank “Jerusalem is not for sale,” he added, addressing US President and Israeli Prime Minister.

German politicians slam Trump planSenior German lawmakers have sharply criticised US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Norbert Roettgen, a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Demo-cratic Union (CDU), said the plan was driven by domestic political concerns. “The so-called #PeacePlan is to the detriment of #Palestine and presented as an ultimatum depicts a setback in the conflict. It is primarily a contribution to the ongoing election campaigns in the #USA & #Israel and a welcome diversion from domestic crises in both states,” he said on Twitter. Ralf Stegner, a prominent politician from Merkel’s coalition partner, the Social Democrat Party (SPD), slammed the plan presented by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Pompeo urges Palestinians to present ‘counter-offer’US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday urged Palestinians who rejected President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan to come up with a “counter-offer” that could win Israeli support, as he headed to Britain on a five-nation tour. Palestinian leaders were “free to come up with a counter offer if that’s what they think is appropriate”, Pompeo told reporters travelling with him. “I know the Israelis would be prepared to sit down and nego-tiate on the basis of the vision that the president laid out.”

Russia reviews US plan; Putin to meet Netanyahu QNA — MOSCOW

Russia said yesterday that it is analysing the Israeli-Palestinian plan, or the so-called “Deal of the Century”, revealed by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

“We continue to analyse this information and study the plan prepared by the White House administration,” Kremlin

spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.“A meeting (between

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu will take place tomorrow, so we will have more of what is called a first-hand information,” Peskov said in a statement, cited by Russian news agency (Itar-Tass).The spokesman noted that “at this moment we can only

state that the plan was fully supported by Israel, it received support from a number of other nations, but was met with strict denial from the directly involved party of this so-called deal - the Palestinians.

“We continue to analyze the situation. As you know, Russia remains a responsible member of the Middle Eastern five. If needed, Russia is ready

to continue put all efforts, do everything it can to reach a viable peace in the Middle East,” Peskov concluded.

During his joint press con-ference with Israeli Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced the key points of the so-called Deal of the Century - a plan of peaceful Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 41 people were injured, including three by live ammunition.

Syria army retakes key northwest townAFP — BEIRUT

Syrian government forces recaptured a strategic highway town in the northwest from militants and allied rebels yesterday, in the latest blow to the country’s last major oppo-sition bastion.

Maaret Al Numan, a former anti-government protest hotspot turned ghost town after weeks of bombardment, lies on a key highway connecting the capital to second city Aleppo.

The M5 highway has long been in the sights of the gov-ernment, as it seeks to revive a moribund economy ravaged by almost nine years of war.

“Our forces managed in the past few days to stamp out ter-rorism in many villages and towns,” including Maaret Al

Numan, an army spokesman said. In 2011, Maaret Al Numan was one of the first towns in the northwestern province of Idlib to rise up against the Damascus government.

The following year, it was captured by rebels fighting against President Bashar Al Assad’s rule. It is the latest town to fall in a Russian-backed offensive on the Idlib region this year. The region of some three million people is dominated by militants from Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate, but allied rebels are also present.

The government has slowly chipped away at the south of the bastion, despite several deals between government ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey intended to avert a broad mil-itary offensive. Turkish

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Moscow of “not honouring these agree-ments”. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the govern-ment’s advance into the south

of the province in recent weeks, seeking safety closer to the Turkish border further north. The violence in the northwest has displaced more than 388,000 civilians since

December, the United Nations says. “We are alarmed for the safety and protection of over three million civilians in Idlib,” said David Swanson of the UN humanitarian affairs office.

Coronavirus: UAE reports Middle East's first case AP — DUBAI

A family of four Chinese tourists in the United Arab Emirates yesterday became the first cases in the Mideast of a new Chinese virus that causes flu-like symptoms, with an Emirati doctor saying the first to fall ill only showed symptoms after over a week on vacation.

Dr. Hussein Al Rand, an Assistant Undersecretary at the UAE’s Ministry of Health and Pre-vention, said that there was no reason to panic over virus. However, he acknowledged Emirati officials now were tracing the family’s steps since landing in this federation of seven sheikhdoms that includes Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

“Their condition is stable, they are awake, they are all receiving all the measures,” Al Rand said. “I would say to the public: Please, don’t be pan-icked.” Among those sick in the family are a grandmother, her daughter, the daughter’s husband and the couple’s 9-year-old daughter, al-Rand said. The family from Wuhan, the

epicenter of the viral outbreak, entered the UAE on January 16, Al Rand said. He declined to name the airline the family flew on and the airport at which they arrived. The UAE is home to long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad Airways. Al-Rand also declined to say which cities they visited during their vacation. Authorities at Abu Dhabi’s airport and Dubai

International Airport began screening passengers and crew from incoming China flights on January 23. That’s the day China shut down Wuhan’s airport and other transportation in the city to stop the spread of the virus. The lockdown has since expanded to include 17 cities with more than 50 million people in all.

Kuwait advises citizens against travel to Shanghai REUTERS — DUBAI

Kuwait yesterday asked its nationals not to travel to the Chinese city of Shanghai due to the coronavirus outbreak, state news agency KUNA said.

Oman’s Minister meets Indian officialQNA — MUSCAT

The Sultanate of Oman’s Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, met with Indian Deputy National Security Adviser Pankaj Saran, who is on a visit to Muscat.

The meeting touched on bilateral relations and ways to develop them, in addition to discussing several regional and international issues of common concern, Oman’s ONA reported.

Additionally, Omani Min-ister Responsible for Defense Affairs Badr bin Saud bin Harib Al Busaidi and Indian Deputy National Security Adviser Pankaj Saran discussed the fields of cooperation between the two countries and several matters of common concern.

The Minister praised the level of good relations between the two countries.

Iraq President gives Parliament three days to name new premierAFP — BAGHDAD

Iraq’s President yesterday threatened to unilaterally name a successor to the country’s premier, who resigned in December, if parliament did not nominate a candidate within three days.

“If the concerned blocs are unable to resolve the nomi-nation issue by no later than Sat-urday, February 1... I see

an obligation to exercise my constitutional powers by tasking whomever I find most acceptable to parliament and the people,” Barham Saleh wrote in a letter.

Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned in December after two months of deadly pro-tests against his government, but he has stayed on in a caretaker role, as deeply divided political parties have failed to agree on

a replacement. According to Iraq’s constitution, parliament’s largest bloc must nominate a prime minister within 15 days of legislative elections.

The candidate is then appointed by the president and tasked with forming a gov-ernment within one month.

But Iraq is in uncharted waters, as the constitution makes no provisions for the prime minister’s resignation and

the 15-day period since Abdel Mahdi stepped down has long expired. Any candidate would need stamps of approval from not only the fractured political class, but also the Shiite religious authority, neighbouring Iran, its rival the US and the anti-gov-ernment civil campaign that has gripped Iraq since October. In late December, Saleh formally declined to nominate the gov-ernor of the oil-rich province of

Basra, Assaad al-Aidani, saying he would be too “controversial”.

Iraq has grown increasingly unstable since then, with protest-related violence killing more than 480 people and ten-sions between the US and Iran prompting each to carry out air strikes on Iraqi soil.

Warning of even further deterioration, Saleh urged law-makers to “resume constructive

and serious political dialogue in order to agree on a new can-didate for the premiership who has the people’s approval”.

“We believe that the biggest obstacle lies in reaching rea-sonable parameters to agree on a new candidate for prime min-ister. Continuing in this current situation is certainly impossible and risks making things more dangerous and complex,” he wrote.

Syrian Army soldiers passing through the captured villages of Deir Sharqi and Talmans on the eastern outskirts of Maaret Al Numan in Syria’s northernwestern province of Idlib.

12 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020AFRICA

Attack leaves 15 dead in eastern DR Congo region AFP — OICHA, DR CONGO

Fifteen people have been killed in the eastern DR Congo region of Beni, where hundreds have died in militia violence since November, a local official said yesterday, giving a provisional toll.

In the past 24 hours, “14 bodies have been found hacked to death,” while a pastor was killed in a separate attack, the administrator for the Beni region, Donat Kibwana, said.

Two people with skull frac-tures caused by machetes have been admitted to the hospital in Oicha for surgery, a witness said.

The main attack took place late on Tuesday in Manzingi, a village 20km northwest from Oicha, while the pastor was killed in Eringeti.

According to a toll compiled by a civil society organisation, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), 265 people have now been killed in the Beni region since the army began a crackdown on an armed group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), on October 30.

The massacres seem to be a tactic by the ADF to frighten the population into silence, say

local commentators.The group has also dis-

rupted operations to curb an outbreak of Ebola in North Kivu province Tuesday’s massacre occurred to the west of the ADF’s usual area of operations, which is closer to the Ugandan border.

The army offensive, unfolding in thick forest and jungle, has led to what the mil-itary say is the capture of the group’s headquarters and the killing of five of its six leaders.

The ADF began as an

Islamist rebel group in Uganda that opposed Ugandan Pres-ident Yoweri Museveni.

It fell back into eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1995 during the Congo Wars and appears to have halted raids inside Uganda. Its recruits today are people of various nationalities.

UN experts estimated the ADF in 2018 to number around 450 fighters.

A report to the UN Security Council last week said the ADF seemed to follow an extreme Islamist ideology, but there is no information on whether the group had links with interna-tional jihadist groups.

The spate of massacres has become a major challenge for President Felix Tshisekedi, who took office a year ago last Friday.

In November, angry pro-tests erupted in the city of Beni, the region’s administrative hub, as citizens accused the UN peacekeeping force in DR Congo of failing to protect them.

Tshisekedi, in his first state-of-the-nation address to Con-gress, last month said he had changed the army command in Beni and sent 22,000 troops to the region.

According to a toll compiled by a civil society organisation, the Kivu Security Tracker, 265 people have now been killed in the Beni region since the army began a crackdown on an armed group, the Allied Democratic Forces, on October 30.

Crowd gathers at the scene of a fire accident at Balogun market in Lagos, Nigeria, yesterday.

Firefighting

Two suspected coronavirus cases in SudanANATOLIA — KHARTOUM, SUDAN

Sudan’s health minister Akram Ali Altoum said yesterday two suspected cases of coronavirus has entered his country through Egypt and Ethiopia.

Authorities are taking pre-cautionary measures to protect the country from the disease, he told reporters after a meeting of the Sudanese Council of Ministers.

He said one of the cases is

currently in Gazeera state and the other in the capital Khartoum. “We received two suspected cases came from China through Cairo and Addis Ababa... we want to stress here that the two cases haven’t been confirmed yet but we take the samples and then send them abroad with the help of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to test it” he said.

“We are on high precau-tions with the different

concerning authorities including the sea, land and air-ports as well as the ministries of interior, migration and others. We are also in full coor-dination with the WHO to help us be in compliance with the international standards in this regard” he explained.

Thousands of Chinese work in different sectors in Sudan, especially oil workers. The virus first appeared in China but has spread to 19 countries.

UN: Clashes in West Darfur force 11,000 to flee into ChadAP — CAIRO

Tribal clashes in Sudan’s West Darfur province forced more than 11,000 people to flee into neighboring Chad over the past month, the UN refugee agency said.

Clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs erupted late in December in the West Darfur town of Genena, 20km from the border with Chad. At least three dozen people, including women and children, were killed and around 60 others were

wounded. Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, said 4,000 of the 11,000 have fled during the last week alone. Baloch estimated the clashes have displaced some 46,000 inside the country. Most of those were already internally displaced people, and when the attacks happened in West Darfur, including on dis-placement camps, people fled and found temporary refuge in schools, mosques and other buildings in Genena, he said.

He said UNHCR teams on

the ground heard accounts of people fleeing after their vil-lages, houses and properties were attacked, many burned to the ground.

Baloch warned that the number of people fleeing to Chad to escape tensions in the region could reach 30,000 in the coming weeks. He said the rate of arrivals “risks outpacing our capacity” and more resources and support are needed.The UNHCR said the refugees who crossed the border were scattered in several

villages in Chad’s Ouddai province, already hosts 128,000 Sudanese refugees. “The con-ditions are dire. Most are staying in the open or under makeshift shelters, with little protection from the elements. Food and water are urgently needed, while health conditions are a concern,” said Baloch.

Clashes in West Darfur have posed a challenge to efforts by Sudan’s transitional gov-ernment to end decades-long rebellions in areas like Darfur.

Negotiating an end to the

rebellions in Sudan’s far-flung provinces including West Darfur has been a crucial goal for the transitional government. It’s looking to revive the coun-try’s battered economy through slashing military spending, which takes up much of the national budget.

The transitional military-civilian Sovereign Council took power in August, just months after a pro-democracy uprising led Sudan’s military to over-throw former autocratic Pres-ident Omar al-Bashir in April.

UN discussing resolution to endorse plan for peace in LibyaAP — UNITED NATIONS

The UN Security Council is discussing a resolution that would endorse a plan for restoring peace in Libya and urge progress toward a cease-fire, amid new clashes between the country’s two rival govern-ments.

The initial British-drafted resolution welcomes the peace plan adopted on January 19 at a conference in Berlin attended by leaders of 12 countries, including the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council.

The draft “emphasises the vital importance of making progress towards a political agreement to end the conflict” in Libya Civil war in Libya in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. In the chaos that followed, the country was divided.

The UN-recognised admin-istration in the capital of Tripoli overseeing the country’s west is led by Prime Minister Fayez

Sarraj, while a rival government in the east is aligned with the self-styled Libyan National Army led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar launched a surprise military offensive last April 4 aimed at capturing Tripoli despite commitments to attend a national conference weeks later aimed at forming a united government and moving toward elections. The Sarraj government is backed by Turkey.The draft resolution is certain to be revised during dis-cussions among council members. The initial version demands that all 193 UN member states comply with a UN arms embargo against Libya. It reiterates the council’s decision to impose sanctions on individuals and entities threat-ening prospects for peace in Libya.

The draft also calls for a first meeting “without further delay” of a Joint Military Commission that under the Berlin agreement is to agree on a permanent cease-fire and decide on mon-itoring and verification

procedures and the separation of forces. It asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to make proposals on possible cease-fire monitoring, including the possibility of contributions from regional organisations. The draft doesn’t suggest any names but likely candidates could be the European Union, African Union and Arab League.

Sarraj and Haftar have each appointed five members to the Joint Military Commission, though they haven’t endorsed the 55-point Berlin peace plan.

In Sunday’s latest escalation

of fighting, Haftar’s east-based forces advanced towarda the strategic western city of Misrata, further eroding a crumbling truce agreement brokered earlier this month.

The clashes came just hours after the United Nations decried “continued blatant violations” of the arms embargo by several unspecified countries. The vio-lations fly in the face of recent pledges to respect the embargo made by world powers at the Berlin conference. Germany’s UN ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, told reporters that he

asked for closed Security Council consultations on Libya because “we feel that develop-ments on the ground are not matching expectations.”

He said Germany wanted to make the point that it is very important the draft resolution being discussed by the council is adopted soon because it can also “influence the develop-ments on the ground.” Heusgen said it’ i critical “that the supply of weapons from all directions and from foreign fighters stops.” “Otherwise there will be no solution,” he said.

A hole is seen after a shell fell on a residential area in Hadba Al Badri district, in Tripoli, Libya, yesterday.

6 soldiers dead by roadside bomb in Burkina FasoAP — OUAGADOUGOU

Six soldiers are dead and seven others are missing after their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in eastern Burkina Faso, authorities said.

The violence came as authorities confirmed that 39 people had been killed over the weekend in an attack on a marketplace in the West African nation. Earlier reports had said more than 30 were thought to have died but details were unclear because communication had been cut in the town ahead of the attack. In other violence, a nurse died on Monday while traveling with three others on her way to her post in Kelbo. Gunmen on motorcycles attacked their vehicle, according to a statement from Col. Salfo Kabore, the governor of Sahel region.

Extremist attacks are dra-matically escalating in Burkina Faso, with deaths rising from about 80 in 2016 to over 1,800 in 2019, according to the United Nations.

Congolese demand compensationin UK corruption investigationBLOOMBERG – KINSHASA

A group of Democratic Republic of Congo citizens asked the UK’s Serious Fraud Office to recognise them as victims in its investigation of alleged corruption by Kazakh mining company Eurasian Natural Resources Corp.

The 16 Congolese say they lost jobs, health care, and com-munity development projects when a copper and cobalt tailings project was shut down near Kolwezi, southeastern Congo, in 2009, according to a

statement by Rights and Accountability in Development, a London-based anti-cor-ruption group.

The company has been under investigation by the SFO since 2013 regarding its acqui-sition of mining assets, including several mines in Congo. ENRC, which acquired the project in 2010, has denied any wrongdoing. After the probe opened, the firm’s owners formed a new company called Eurasian Resources Group that now operates the Congolese mines. RAID and the

Congolese organisation, African Resources Watch, helped organise the group of potential victims. Rights and Accounta-bility in Development said in the statement that they had identified more than 32,000 Congolese who could also qualify for compensation, if the company is found guilty.

The Congolese could qualify as victims under the UK’s Com-pensation Principles, which require law enforcement agencies to identify overseas victims in corruption cases and seek compensation for them.

Somalia’s Senatecondemns USpeace planANATOLIA — MOGADISHU

Somalia’s upper legislative house yesterday unanimously passed a resolution condemning the so-called “deal of the century” floated by US President Donald Trump for the Middle East.

On Twitter, Senator Ilyas Ali Hassan announced that the chamber voted for the reso-lution against Trump’s pro-posal, which he said “claims non existence” of Palestine.

“The house condemned the deal and voted on a reso-lution against it and we are not going to accept any deal which compromises the Palestinians’ rights to have a state with Jeru-salem as its capital,” Ilyas told Anadolu Agency.

On Tuesday, Trump released his oft-delayed plan to end the Israel-Palestine dispute in the White House where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was present, whereas Palestinian authorities were not repre-sented. During the news con-ference, Trump referred to Jerusalem as “Israel’s undi-vided capital.”

Several groups and coun-tries, including Palestine and Turkey, have condemned the so-called peace plan.

Air Tanzania postpones maiden flights to China over coronavirusREUTERS — DAR ES SALAAM

Tanzania’s national carrier said yesterday it will have to postpone its maiden flights from commercial capital Dar es Salaam to China, citing concerns over the spread of a coronavirus that has killed 133 people.

State-run Air Tanzania had planned to begin charter flights to China next month ahead of the expected launch of scheduled direct flights to the key Asian tourist market.“We have already received a permit to begin scheduled flights to China,”

Air Tanzania managing director Ladislaus Matindi told Reuters.

“But we will now have to take the necessary precau-tions... We will decide when to launch our first flights to China after taking into con-sideration all the key issues to safeguard the safety of our passengers.” Tourism is the biggest source of foreign exchange in Tanzania, famed for its wildlife safaris and pristine beaches.Around 1.5 million tourists visit East Africa’s third-largest economy each year, according to gov-ernment estimates.

13THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020 ASIA

Mistrust hampers HK battle to fight virus outbreakBLOOMBERG — HONG KONG

Hong Kong was always going to face a huge challenge holding back a disease outbreak raging in mainland China. Deep mistrust built up over seven months of protests in the city is making that task even harder.

As new cases of a deadly new corona virus mounted this week, Chief Executive Carrie Lam was forced to cancel plans to turn a newly built housing estate into a quarantine facility after protesters set fire to the lobby.

She’s denied rumours that the government was blocking shipments of surgical masks and found her efforts to dramatically curtail visits by mainlanders panned by health workers, as well as lawmakers.

The outbreak left Lam facing a strikingly similar situ-ation to one of her predecessors, Tung Chee-hwa, who in 2003 found himself grappling with an uprising against China-backed national security legislation and an outbreak of severe acute res-piratory syndrome that ended up killing almost 300 people in Hong Kong. Tung later resigned — something Lam has so far refused to do, despite having even lower poll numbers.

The current coronavirus scare threatens to erode what little support Lam has, as people worried about their safety join activists seeking more political

freedom in the former British colony. Health sector employees and medical professionals say they have enrolled 15,000 people in a union and are threatening to strike Monday, unless the government meets demands including suspending all entries via the mainland.

“What made our medical staff angry was that the gov-ernment is not doing enough to prevent the virus from spreading and we could die because of that,” said Ivan Law, vice chairman of the union, the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance.

“It’s our job to look after patients. We’re letting the gov-ernment know that they have their job to protect Hong Kong people.” As of yesterday, Hong Kong had confirmed at least 10 cases of the new strain of coro-navirus first identified last month in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. That’s compared with almost 6,000 on the mainland — a number

exceeding the reported cases during the SARS epidemic -- where 132 people have died from the disease.

Hong Kong’s case tally is expected to rise. More than 50 million mainland residents visited last year, thanks to a series of programs and projects backed by the Communist Party in Beijing, such as a bridge to neighboring Zhuhai and the former Portuguese colony of Macau, including several ini-tiated after the SARS outbreak.

The virus scare has thrown Hong Kong back into a state of siege, just as the pitched battles between police and protesters that gripped the Asian financial center for much of last year began to clam down. Bankers and other office workers have been ordered to work from home while residents strip food from grocery store shelves and line up for scarce supplies of face masks and hand sanitiser.

The mask shortage has prompted unflattering compar-isons between Hong Kong and Macau, which said it had secured 20 million masks for a fraction of the population. The world’s largest gaming hub also acted more quickly to curb travelers from Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province.

Even lawmakers from Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing party broke ranks with Lam,

advocating during a meeting Tuesday to seal off the border, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported. They also urged the government to release the number of Hong Kong visitors from Hubei.

Lam pushed back against the idea of a total border closure at a news conference to announce the measures.

“If we close the border and do not let anyone coming in and out of Hong Kong, the impact will be far-reaching,” she said

Tuesday, without elaborating. Her office didn’t respond to a request for comment yesterday.

“What the Hong Kong gov-ernment has done is to allow political considerations to prevail over scientific data,” said Alan Leong, a former leader of the opposition Civic Party who ran for chief executive in 2007.

“This is inexcusable -- the last nail on Carrie Lam’s coffin.”

Even before the outbreak,

Lam’s approval rating hovered near record lows. Residents pegged her performance at 21.5 on a 100-point scale, compared with a low of 36.2 for Tung, according to a Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme survey released earlier this month. Seven months of anti-government protests triggered by Lam’s unsuccessful efforts to pass a law allowing extradi-tions to the mainland have already pushed Hong Kong’s economy into recession.

Women wearing masks visit Nan Lian Garden in Hong Kong, yesterday.

A man walks on a snow-covered path in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, yesterday.

Snowy road

Australia to quarantine Wuhan evacuees on asylum-seeker islandAFP — SYDNEY

Australia plans to evacuate its citizens from the epicentre of the deadly virus outbreak in China and quarantine them on an island normally used to detain asylum seekers, according to proposals unveiled yesterday.

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison said “vulnerable” Aus-tralians — including children and the elderly — and short-term visitors to Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province would be prioritised in extraction efforts.

Officials said about 600 Australians were known to be in the area, which has been locked down in an effort to contain the spread of the virus.

Morrison said Australia was working with New Zealand on the operation and would seek to help Pacific nations evacuate their citizens where possible but his “first priority right now is the safety of Australians”.

“I stress there is rather a limited window here and we are moving very, very swiftly to ensure we can put this plan together and put the operation together,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

“I stress that this will be done on a last-in, first-out basis.” Morrison said they would be held in quarantine for 14 days on Christmas Island, known for its notorious immigration detention centre used to detain asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat.

“The defence forces have been tasked to identify overflow facilities where that

may be necessary and also to provide whatever logistical and other support is necessary to support the operations on Christmas Island,” he added.

He also sought to downplay expectations about how many Australians could be evacuated from Wuhan.

“I want to stress that we cannot give a guarantee that this operation is able to succeed and I also want to stress very clearly that we may not be in a position if we’re able to do this on one occasion to do it on another occasion,” he said.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australia was seeking permission from Chinese authorities to allow its citizens to depart Wuhan, with Australian consular officials travelling from Shanghai to coordinate the efforts.

Japan and the United States have already evacuated hun-dreds of citizens from Wuhan.

The virus, which is believed to have originated in a market trading in wild animals in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has infected nearly 6,000 people in China and killed more than 130.

More than 50 million people have been locked down in and around Wuhan in a bid by authorities to stop an infection that has since spread to more than 15 countries.

Five people in Australia have been treated for the virus and are said to be in a stable condition. There have so far been no confirmed cases in Australia of human-to-human transmission.

Kazakhstan suspends all transport links with China over coronavirusREUTERS — ALMATY

Kazakhstan is suspending all passenger travel to and from neighbouring China, the Kazakh government said yesterday, as an outbreak of a new corona-virus spread.

The government has also suspended the issue of visas to Chinese citizens, it said in a statement.

Buses to and from China have already been halted, trains will stop on February 1 and all flights will be suspended from February 3, the government said.

Kazakhstan has registered

no cases of the new virus, but it has isolated dozens of people with respiratory infection symptoms on their return from China and is carrying out addi-tional tests.

At a briefing yesterday, chief state sanitary doctor Zhandarbek Bekshin urged local companies to make and import more protective masks to meet a surge in domestic demand.

Kazakhstan is so far the only country in the ex-Soviet Central Asian region to com-pletely shut down travel links with China over the virus.

Tajikistan temporarily

halted air travel and closed the land border last week until Feb-ruary 5, saying it was doing so at China’s request because of the Lunar New Year celebrations.

Yesterday, the Tajik gov-ernment said travel may resume as planned after Feb-ruary 5, although its doctors would examine all the Chinese workers involved in local infra-structure projects who arrived back in the country after the holiday.

Tajikistan has also intro-duced additional checks at all border checkpoints with neigh-bouring countries, officials said.

Floods, landslide in Indonesia leave seven deadAP — MEDAN, INDONESIA

Landslides and floods from torrential rains on Indonesia’s Sumatra island killed at least seven people and displaced thousands, the disaster agency said yesterday.

Large areas of Central Tapanuli district in North Sumatra province were inun-dated with up to 2.5 metres of water after rivers burst their banks shortly after midnight, said Agus Wibowo, spokesman for the National Disaster Mit-igation Agency.

He said rescuers recovered five bodies that were buried when the monsoon rains trig-gered a landslide in Andam Dewi village. They also found two more bodies of villagers who were swept away by flash floods.

Thousands of people were involved in the rescue effort, but distribution of aid was hampered by power cuts, blocked roads and the large distance between disaster-hit areas, local disaster agency official Agus Haryanto said.

More than 2,000 people have been forced to leave their flooded homes, Haryanto said.

Bus plungesinto well in India, 26 deadREUTERS — MUMBAI

Twenty-six people were killed and 32 injured when a bus and an autorickshaw collided with each other and plunged into a nearby well in India, a local police official said yesterday.

The accident happened in the western state of Mahar-ashtra late on Tuesday, Suhas Deshmukh, a local police officer in the Nashik district, told Reuters by telephone.

“Both vehicles crashed into each other and the impact caused both to fall into a well on the side of the road,” he said.

Among the dead were two 2-year-old children, he said, adding rescue personnel worked through the night to retrieve bodies.

“In this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the bereaved families,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet. “May the injured recover at the earliest.”

India’s roads are among the world’s deadliest, with 464,910 accidents in 2017 that killed nearly 148,000 people.

As of yesterday, Hong Kong had confirmed at least 10 cases of the new strain of coronavirus first identified last month in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

AIMPLB to SC: Women, men can pray together in mosquesIANS — NEW DELHI

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in an affi-davit in the Supreme Court yesterday said the entry of women into mosques is permitted, and that there is no restriction on men and women praying together.

The affidavit was filed in response to a petition filed by a Maharashtra-based Muslim couple demanding that women should be allowed to “worship in all mosques” and cited dis-crimination against them cur-rently in practice at various mosques.

The issue will also be taken up by nine-judge bench consti-tuted to examine the legal

question associated with the discrimination against women in connection with their entry into various religious places, which includes Sabarimala temple.

The Board in its response said, “The present respondent (AIMPLB) has taken a stand, as per Islamic texts, that entry of woman into mosque for namaz is permitted. Any other ‘fatwa’ to this effect may be ignored.”

However, the Board also contended that the sanctity of ‘fatwa’ is an opinion based upon religious texts, doctrine and their interpretation and has no stat-utory force, and the court has no jurisdiction to restrain ‘fatwa’.

“In case, if some believer of Islam is of the opinion that he/

she needs religious opinion/fatwa, based upon interpreta-tions of religious texts, then delivering of ‘fatwa’ on that issue cannot be restrained by judicial order of this court as the same shall directly hit the right and freedom of religious belief of an individual”, said the Board in the affidavit.

In October 2019, the apex court had issued notice on the plea of Yasmeen Zuber Ahmad Peerzade and Zuber Ahmad Nazir Peerzade, who contended restrictions on entry of Muslim women in mosques across the country were unconstitutional and violates fundamental right to life, equality and gender justice.

The plea sought direction to

the government authorities and Muslim bodies to allow entry of Muslim women into mosques to offer namaz there. The plea also contended that in mosques where women are allowed, there should be no segregation — separate entry, exit or a sep-arate praying area.

The Board said it does not want to comment on any con-trary religious opinion to this effect.

“Islam has not made it obligatory on Muslim women to join congregational prayer nor is it obligatory for woman to offer Friday namaz in con-gregation though it is so on Muslim men. The Muslim woman is differently placed because as per doctrines of

Islam, she is entitled to the same religious reward for praying as per her option either in masjid or at home”, said the affidavit. However, it said the practice of religion on the places of worship are purely private bodies regulated by ‘Muttawalis’ of the Mosques. We being body of experts, without any state powers, can only issue advisory opinion, based on Islam.

“The answering respondent (AIMPLB), and this court for that matter, cannot enter into the arena of detailed arrange-ments of a religious place, which is completely privately managed entity for religious practices of believers in a par-ticular religion”, contended the Board.

14 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020ASIA

China virus toll crosses 130; Japan, US evacuate citizensREUTERS — BEIJING/SHANGHAI

The United States and Japan flew citizens out of the Chinese city at the epicentre of a new virus outbreak yesterday, as the death toll rose sharply to 132 and the first case appeared in the Middle East.

The World Health Organ-isation (WHO) has said it is confident in China’s ability to contain the coronavirus, but concern is mounting as health authorities reported the number of confirmed cases had jumped by 1,459 to 5,974.

The number of deaths from the flu-like virus rose by 26 to 132, almost all in the province of Hubei, the capital of which is Wuhan, the city where the virus emerged last month in a wild animal market. The central province of about 60 million people is under virtual lockdown.

“I was extremely worried that I was stuck there while the situation was changing very rapidly,” said Takeo Aoyama, who arrived in Tokyo on a chartered plane carrying 206 Japanese nationals out of Wuhan, with more flights planned.

“I feel really relieved,” Aoyama, an employee of Nippon Steel who was wearing a mask, told reporters at the airport in the Japanese capital.

Concern is also growing over the impact of the virus on the world’s second-biggest economy, with airlines cutting flights to China — British Airways is the latest to announce a suspension — and

global companies curbing employees’ travel there.

Sectors from mining to luxury goods have been shaken by concerns about the possibility of a worst-case pandemic.

But in what could be a major step towards reining in the disease, scientists in Aus-tralia said they had developed a lab-grown version of the coronavirus, the first to be rec-reated outside China.

As infections spread and the number of cases rises, numerous countries are scrambling to get citizens out of Wuhan while, at the same time, hoping to keep the virus at bay.

A US government official who declined to be identified said a US charter plane had left Wuhan. It had 220 people aboard, a US diplomatic source added, with 50 diplomats and contractors among them.

Australia said it would help

some citizens leave and then quarantine them on Christmas Island, a remote speck in the Indian Ocean best known for housing asylum seekers.

US officials said the White House was weighing whether to suspend flights to China in what would be a drastic measure to control the spread of the disease.

“All options for dealing with infectious disease spread have to be on the table, including travel restrictions,” said US Health Secretary Alex Azar.

The White House is holding daily meetings on the outbreak and monitoring China-US flights as a likely source of infections, sources briefed on the matter said, though it had decided against suspending air traffic for the time being.

The number of cases in China now exceeds its tally of 5,327 infected with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus that killed about 800 people around the world in 2002 and 2003.

While some experts believe the new strain, known as “2019-nCoV”, is not as deadly as SARS, it has created alarm because it is spreading quickly and key features are still unknown, including its lethality.

Like other respiratory infections, it is spread by droplets from coughs and sneezes, with an incubation time from one to 14 days. There are signs it may also be able to spread before symptoms show.

Wuhan, with a population

of 11 million, is racing to build two dedicated hospitals for victims, with the first 1,000-bed facility to be com-pleted on February 3.

The second will have its capacity expanded to 1,600 beds from 1,300, the official People’s Daily said.

Nearly 60 cases have been reported in 15 other countries, including the United States, France and Singapore. Airports around the world are screening passengers from China.

The United Arab Emirates

diagnosed its first case in a family from Wuhan, state news agency WAM said, citing the health ministry.

It was not immediately clear how many people were infected.

In Germany, four people from the same company were infected in what is being seen as one of the first cases of person-to-person transmission outside China.

The WHO has reported a suspected case of person-to-person transmission in Vietnam, and Japan has

reported another.In a possible breakthrough,

researchers in the Australian city of Melbourne said they had developed the coronavirus in a laboratory, from an infected patient, and would share the sample with the WHO and others.

“Having the real virus means we now have the ability to actually validate and verify all test methods, and compare their sensitivities and specifi-cities,” said Julian Druce of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

Two Japanese nationals who were evacuated by a Japanese chartered plane from Wuhan, speaking to reporters after they arrive at Haneda Airport, in Tokyo yesterday.

Four Pakistani students inWuhan contract coronavirusANATOLIA — KARACHI

At least four Pakistani students studying in the Chinese city of Wuhan are suffering from the novel coronavirus, an official confirmed yesterday.

Prime ministerial health affairs adviser Zafar Mirza told reporters in the capital Islamabad that Pakistan was taking “full responsibility” and “taking care” of the students, and its other citizens based in China.

Over 500 Pakistani stu-dents are based in Wuhan, where the first cases of the coronavirus were observed in December.

The Chinese embassy in Islamabad said earlier this week that all Pakistani students in Wuhan, were “safe and sound,” and well attended to.

Mirza underlined that there were no confirmed coronavirus cases in Pakistan so far, adding

that the health of four people under observation who recently returned from China and were suspected of having the virus had improved significantly.

The death toll in China from the novel coronavirus outbreak has climbed to 132, the National Health Commission said yes-terday. Some 5,974 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, also known as 2019-nCoV, have been reported in China.

It was reported that a total of 9,239 people were suspected of being infected with the virus.

The virus, which originated in Wuhan, has spread across 30 provinces in the country.

Tens of cases have also been reported in Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Thailand, the US, Singapore, France, Germany, Malaysia, Australia and Vietnam.

Thai health officials to screen tour guidesREUTERS — BANGKOK

Thai health officials said on yesterday they will start screening tourist sector workers for coronavirus as part of measures to control the spread of the new disease that has killed 132 people in China.

Thailand has seen 14 cases of coronavirus, more than any country outside China, which has confirmed nearly 6,000 cases. All but one of them have been among Chinese visiting Thailand, a popular tourist destination.

“We have to monitor Thais in professions that come in contact with foreign tourists, par-ticularly the Chinese,” said Tanarak Pipat, deputy director-general of the Department of Disease Control.

“This includes professions like guides and tour leaders that bring Chinese travellers to Thailand. If they exhibit symptoms like fever, cough or sore throat then we have to scan for coronavirus.” Tens of

thousands of Chinese tourists visited Thailand in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year on January 25.

There have so far been no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission inside Thailand, Tanarak said.

National carrier Thai Airways

Pcl said on Tuesday it was stepping up protective measures such as disinfecting the pas-senger cabins and cockpits of flights returning from Chinese cities and other high-risk desti-nations. Thailand recorded 25,029 arrivals at five airports from Wuhan, the epicentre of the

coronavirus outbreak, and other affected Chinese cities, between January 3 and January 27, the health ministry said.

Most of those Chinese visitors are believed to have returned home, but there are no official numbers on how many may have been stranded when China’s gov-ernment banned most com-mercial flights to Wuhan last week.

“Most of those people from Wuhan have gone back and we estimate that hundreds remain,” Vichit Prakobgosol, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents said. Many Chinese tourists in Bangkok continue on with their holiday activities, such as praying at the famous Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok, while taking some extra precautions.

“For me personally, I think I will be fine, I’m not so worried about it because everybody wearing masks,” said David Zhang, a tourist from Shanghai, who was wearing a surgical mask.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha wearing a protective mask arrives at the Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

Gunmen kill two female polio workers in PakistanAP — PESHAWAR

Gunmen on motorcycles killed two polio vaccination workers in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, local police said.

Police official Ijaz Khan said security forces in the town of Swabi were searching for the attackers. Both of the killed health workers were women, he added. Swabi is in the deeply conservat ive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bor-dering Afghanistan.

Pakistan regularly carries out anti-polio drives, despite threats from the Taliban who claim the campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.

Pakistan is one of three countries in the world where polio is still endemic. Pakistan was hoping to eradicate the disease in 2018 when only 12 cases were reported.

But there was a sudden surge in polio cases the fol-lowing year when 135 children tested positive for the disease, shocking health officials.

Pakistan closes Khyber Pass border briefly after blasts

REUTERS — PESHAWAR

Pakistan closed the Khyber Pass border crossing with Afghanistan for 10 hours yesterday after mortar bombs landed in Pakistani territory from across the border, a Paki-stani official said.

The Torkham crossing, through which thousands of vehicles pass every week, is the main trade link between the uneasy neighbours.

Exchanges of fire across the border, which Afghanistan has never recognised, are common.

But an Afghan official denied that Afghan forces had fired into Pakistan.

Hundreds of vehicles that had been stuck on both sides began moving across the border yesterday afternoon after the crossing was reopened.

“The border is closed for investigation purposes,” Mahmood Aslam Wazir, deputy district commissioner of the area on the Pakistani side, said at the time.

Bushfires: Australia PM seeks greater federal powersREUTERS — SYDNEY

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday he wants greater federal powers during natural disasters, as authorities warned bushfires ravaging the country for months were sweeping through a national park near the capital.

Morrison said he wanted to set up a “legal framework that would allow the Commonwealth to declare a national state of emergency” before the next summer bushfire season, adding the chain of command between states and the federal gov-ernment remained unclear.

Although he gave no details, the plan showed the conserv-ative leader moving to head off criticism he was too slow to act when the seriousness of the country’s worst bushfire season in a generation became apparent late last year.

Attacked by political oppo-nents and media commentators for holidaying in Hawaii while the fires raged, Morrison initially said the country’s eight state and territory governments had the main oversight during natural disasters.

He later mobilised about 3,000 Australian Defence Force reservists to help regional com-munities affected by the fires.

“It has long been the case that state and territory govern-ments have primary responsi-bility for protecting the life and property within their borders,” Morrison said.

“The scale of the bushfires this season, not least their simul-taneous reach across many borders, has demonstrated to me the limits of these arrange-ments,” Morrison said in a speech in the capital, Canberra. Just to the south of the city,

authorities warned people to stay away from some regional areas due to a 10,000 hectare forest fire, although no suburbs of Canberra itself were under threat.

Over the summer, Canberra has regularly been shrouded in bushfire smoke that has put its air quality among the lowest ranked in the world and prompted government agencies to ask employees to stay home.

A week ago, the city’s airport

was closed briefly when bushfire burned near its edges.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned Canberra will be at the centre of a heatwave that will put the city’s temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius for several days.

Since September, bushfires in Australia have killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals, while 2,500 homes and a wilderness area the size of Greece have been destroyed,

A man surveys the scorched landscape surrounding the Kangaroo Valley Bush Retreat after a wildfire in Kangaroo Valley, New South Wales, Australia, in this file photo.

The World Health Organisation has said it is confident in China’s ability to contain the coronavirus, but concern is mounting as health authorities reported the number of confirmed cases had jumped by 1,459 to 5,974.

15THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020 EUROPE

EU lawmakers give final approval to BrexitREUTERS — BRUSSELS

The European Parliament gave final approval to Britain’s divorce from the European Union yesterday, paving the way for the country to quit the bloc tomorrow after nearly half a century and delivering a major setback for European integration.

After an emotional debate during which several speakers shed tears, EU lawmakers voted 621 for and 49 against the Brexit agreement sealed between Britain and the 27 other member states last October, more than three years since Britons voted out.

Thirteen lawmakers abstained and the chamber then broke into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish folk song of farewell. Britain’s 73 departing EU lawmakers headed for an “Au Revoir” party in the EU chamber after the vote.

Earlier yesterday, Britain’s ambassador to the EU handed documents formalising Brexit to a senior EU official.

Against a backdrop of British and EU flags at the bloc’s Brussels headquarters, Tim Barrow, smiling, passed over a dark blue leather file embossed with the emblem of the United Kingdom.

After protracted divorce talks, Britain will leave the club it joined in 1973 at midnight Brussels time tomorrow, when British flags will be removed from EU offices and the EU flag lowered on the British premises there.

With a status-quo transition period running only until year-end, fresh talks - covering eve-rything from trade to security - will begin soon on a new relationship.

“We are considering a zero-tariff, zero-quotas free trade agreement. But the precondition is that EU and British businesses

continue to compete on a level playing field. We will certainly not expose our companies to unfair competition,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told the chamber.

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier told envoys of the remaining 27 members earlier yesterday that a loose association agreement like the EU has with Ukraine should serve as the basis for new relations, diplomatic sources said.

“We will not give ground on issues that are important to us,” Barnier said, according to sources briefed on the closed-door meeting.

On his last working day as a member of the European Par-liament, leading Brexit cam-paigner Nigel Farage told reporters there was “no going back” once the UK leaves.

“The UK didn’t fit, we’d be better off out,” he said, describing euroscepticism as a settled view in the UK, where “Leave” won the 2016 refer-endum by a narrow 52 to 48 percent margin.

He said British Prime Min-ister Boris Johnson promised him there would be no so-called ‘level playing field’ clauses on fair competition in the new

EU-UK deal, highlighting a major point of contention with the bloc in the coming talks.

As Farage beamed, his Brexit Party lawmakers waved goodbye to the chamber with mini Union Jack flags and chanted “Hurray!”, but their Socialist compatriot Jude Kirton-Darling choked back tears.

“It’s probably the saddest day of my life so far. Brexit is something that attacks the very foundation of our identity,” said Kirton-Darling, who plans to stay in Brussels with her Belgian husband.

Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal EU lawmaker from Belgium and a staunch europhile, lamented

Brexit as a historic debacle: “It’s sad to see a country leaving that twice liberated us, twice gave its blood to liberate Europe.”

As a new reality dawns on Europe from Saturday, the UK’s Permanent Representation to the EU, or UKRep, will become a foreign mission — already dubbed “UKmissEU” by some.

Members of European Parliament hold hands and sing after ratifying the Brexit deal during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels, yesterday.

Anti-Brexit protesters stand outside the Houses of Parliament near the statue of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill in London, Britain, yesterday.

Anti-Brexit protest

Scotland votes to keep EU flag flyingAFP — LONDON

Scottish lawmakers yesterday voted to keep the European Union flag flying outside the devolved parliament in Edin-burgh after Brexit.

The group that manages parliament had planned to lower the flag at 11pm on tomorrow, when Britain offi-cially leaves the EU.

But members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) voted by 63 to 54 to overturn the decision after heated debate.

Presiding Officer Ken Mac-intosh had warned ministers that flags “should not become a political issue” and that they “reflect our relationships in law”.

Scotland voted by 62 percent to 38 percent to remain in the EU during the 2016 referendum but Britain as a whole voted out, and will leave tomorrow.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who leads the pro-EU Scottish National Party, had urged for the EU flag to keep flying, angering oppo-sition parties.

The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats insisted that the “non-political” ruling of the Parliamentary Corporate Body should have stood.

The motion passed by MSPs said that the flag should stay up “as a sign of support and solidarity with those EU nationals who have made Scotland their home”.

Brexit to deprive France of hundreds of local councillorsAFP — PERRIERS-EN-BEAUFICE

They assimilated the culture, learnt the language, paid the taxes, and served as public representatives in their adopted home country.

But from March this year, hundreds of Britons serving as municipal councillors in cities and towns around France will no longer be eligible to hold office. Or vote.

As Britain readies to depart from the European Union after a near half-century alliance, small-town French mayors, especially, are dreading the pending “colossal loss” of a key political resource.

“It is hard to find motivated people in a small town,” said mayor Lydie Brionne of Per-riers-en-Beauficel in Nor-mandy in northwest France, where two of the 11 municipal councillors are Brits.

Just like other citizens of the EU bloc, Britons have since 2001 been entitled to stand in local elections in France, except for the position of mayor which is reserved for French nationals.

They will lose this right after “Brexit” becomes official at midnight tomorrow, though they will be allowed to serve out their mandates until fresh local elections in France in March.

No longer EU citizens, Britons in France will also lose the right to vote in local polls.

Brionne said Perriers-en-Beauficel — population 216 — will struggle to find replace-ments when its duo of British representatives are forced to retire.

One of them is Patrick Head, 64, originally from Wilt-shire in the south of Britain and the 28th Briton to buy a house in the sleepy French commune.

In 2014 — 10 years after moving there — he received by far the most votes in a local election, but despite this massive show of support, he will be “fired” shortly, said a “very disappointed” Head.

“We will miss Patrick because he helps us a lot,” added Brionne, explaining he is a key link between the local authority and the 50-odd Britons living in this corner of Normandy.

“For the last 20 years, many Brits have moved here, they have repopulated the town and given it dynamism,” she added.

After Brexit, “I fear that they will be obliged to go back.” Far from an isolated case, similar fears exist in other towns where Britons have put down roots.

Of France’s 35,048 municipal councils, 712 boast British representatives — 757 individuals in total.

They make up almost a third of the nearly 2,500 foreign representatives among France’s nearly half a million local councillors.

In Poupas, a town of 85 inhabitants in the south of France, three of the 11 coun-cillors are from across the Channel. Two recently obtained French nationality, which means they remain eli-gible to serve.

“It is a colossal loss,” Poupas mayor Pascal Guerin told about the Brexit-induced upheaval.

UK govt says British citizens evacuated from Wuhan to be islolated for 14 daysAFP — LONDON

British citizens evacuated from Wuhan, the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak, will be isolated for two weeks with “all necessary medical attention”, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said yesterday.

“Anyone who returns from Wuhan will be safely isolated for 14 days, with all necessary medical attention,” he wrote on Twitter.

“We are working hard to get British nationals back from Wuhan,” Hancock added. “Public safety is the top pri-ority.” Britain is preparing to evacuate hundreds of its

citizens from the central Chinese city following in the footsteps of several other coun-tries this week.

Thousands of foreigners are among millions of people stuck in the metropolis as China struggles to get to grips with the spread of a SARS-like virus which has claimed 132 lives and begun to spread around the world.

In London, the Foreign Office, which is coordinating the evacuation of British nationals, declined to give details of the arrangements being made.

Once back on British soil, evacuees will be held at a

facility likely on a military base, Britain’s domestic Press Asso-ciation news agency reported.

The Department of Health and other relevant agencies did not immediately respond to requests for further details on the quarantine arrangements.

Britain on Tuesday evening warned nationals against “all but essential travel” to mainland China, not including Hong Kong and Macau, and against all travel to the worst-hit Hubei province.

On Monday, UK health offi-cials told about 1,500 people who had come to Britain from Wuhan in the last 14 days to “self-isolate” at home.

After an emotional debate during which several speakers shed tears, EU lawmakers voted 621 for and 49 against the Brexit agreement sealed between Britain and the 27 other member states last October, more than three years since Britons voted out.

Bulgarians’ patience runs dry over water crisisAFP — PERNIK, BULGARIA

Forced to “live without water, in the 21st century, in a European Union country”: Bulgarian Yana Stoyanova is not bemoaning climate change, but the incom-petence of the authorities which has left some 100,000 people with an acute water shortage.

Accountant Stoyanova does not live in an isolated backwater, but around 30km from the capital Sofia.

She is at the sharp end of a crisis which has led to the envi-ronment minister being charged with mismanagement and forced to resign. It also prompted a par-liamentary vote of no confidence on Wednesday in the gov-ernment — which it survived.

But the scandal has fed public anger at the failures of those

running the EU’s poorest country.The western Bulgarian city of

Pernik should have a plentiful supply of water from the nearby Studena dam.

However, the reservoir there is practically empty, with most of the bed now lying exposed.

Pernik residents meanwhile are receiving murky, undrinkable water — and even that only between 4pm and 10pm.

For three months now, the daily routine for 36-year-old Stoyanova and her electrical engineer husband has revolved around the shortage.

“When we get back from work at 7pm, we run to take a shower and try to wash every-thing before 10pm,” she explains, with buckets and containers being filled before the taps run dry.

“I try to cook with mineral water, I wash dishes with it and of course I only drink mineral water,” says 56-year-old Adelina Ivanova, who has to haul the bottles up seven flights of stairs.

“The meaning of your life in a given day is: ‘Will I manage to take a shower?’, and being so happy when you do,” Ivanova says.

“It’s absurd for a civilised person to be reduced to that.” - ‘Corruption, not climate’ - Bul-garia has had a drier winter than normal and during 2019 received 25 percent less rainfall than average, in what was the second-hottest year on record.

But residents are clear on where they place the blame for the crisis.

“We are victims of negligence and corruption, not the climate,”

sighs 67-year-old Ivan Dragov, who used to work in the area’s water distribution network.

Prosecutors accuse the former Environment and Water Minister Neno Dimov of ignoring warnings about the falling water levels at the reservoir, as well as continuing to allow a local steel-works to draw water from it.

“Thirty years ago, around a dozen businesses were operating in the area and the water level was monitored daily,” says Dragov, adding that there were no shortages for residents back then. Pernik’s former mayor has also been charged with abuse of power over her refusal to enforce rationing during her campaign for re-election last autumn -- which she went on to lose anyway. On Saturday, hundreds of residents took their anger to

government headquarters in Sofia, shouting “resign!”, “killers!” and “Mafia!”

The crisis in Pernik has also thrown a spotlight on Bulgaria’s dilapidated water infrastructure, which results in around 60 percent of water being lost through leaks.

In Pernik, the pipes date from the 1960s and 70s and the losses can reach up to 75 percent.

The new Environment Min-ister Emil Dimitrov has compared the network to a “bottomless barrel”.

The leaks leave up to 315,000 people — in a country of seven million —facing regular water shortages, particularly in summer.

The government has said that cutting down on these losses is a priority, and has pledged 900

million euros to renew this infra-structure in the next two years.

However, the total cost of bringing it up to scratch is esti-mated at six billion euros.

If the situation in Pernik does not improve, authorities have warned that water could run out completely by April.

Even to maintain the current six hours of daily supply, the gov-ernment is having to divert water from another reservoir, with 13 kilometres of pipes still needing to be installed to complete the link. As for Stoyanova, the crisis has only confirmed her bleak opinion of her country’s situation. She is encouraging her daughters, aged 5 and 9, to learn English.

“They don’t have a future here. We’re preparing them to leave Bulgaria as soon as they’re adults.”

16 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020EUROPE

EU to repatriate 600 citizens seeking to flee China virusAP — BRUSSELS

The European Union is working to repatriate about 600 citizens from 14 EU countries seeking to leave China because of a spreading new virus that has already killed more than 130 people.

European Crisis Man-agement Commissioner Janez Lenarcic told reporters in Brussels yesterday that the sit-uation with the deadly virus centred on the Chinese city of Wuhan “is likely to get worse before it will get better.” He said the EU has offered help to China to deal with the virus and can mobilise emergency financing and medical teams if needed.

“We are actively coordi-nating” with Chinese author-ities to repatriate citizens from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Latvia, Nether-lands, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Britain, he said.

He said the organisation of the flights was still under way

and couldn’t give details on when the evacuation flights would leave or what destina-tions they would involve. The United States and Japan have already evacuated some cit-izens from the affected area in China.

Chinese officials said yes-terday the death toll from the virus rose to 132, with con-firmed infections jumping to 5,974 cases. Scientists say there are still many questions to be answered about the new virus,

including just how transmissible and severe it is.

The EU administration urged all of its staff to postpone any non-essential travel to China. The EU is also planning a meeting of health ministers from all 28 members to discuss the virus outbreak.

“We mustn’t underestimate the situation. We need to mobilise all our tools,” said

European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the government to “be prepared” for dealing with a possible outbreak of the new virus, even though Russia has not had a single confirmed case so far. Russia shares a long border with China and up to 2 million Chinese tourists visit Russia every year.

“It is a new phenomenon, and the question is how well we are prepared for this challenge,” Putin said yesterday during a meeting with Cabinet members.

In sports, the Danish top-tier soccer club Aalborg Boldklub decided not to play a friendly against the Wuhan Zall club from the top Chinese league. They had been planning to meet up in Spain.

Tourists wearing face masks walk on Red Square in downtown Moscow, yesterday. Russia has not reported any confirmed coronavirus case, but is preparing for a possible outbreak of the virus.

5 former Russian officials held for planting drugs on journalistAFP — MOSCOW

Russian investigators said yesterday they had detained five former police officers as part of a probe into the high-profile arrest of reporter Ivan Golunov on trumped-up drug charges.

Those detained formerly served in a police drug enforcement unit. They planted drugs in the backpack and flat of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov last June, the Investi-gative Committee said in a statement.

“They falsified the results of evidence-gathering opera-tions which then served as proof of Golunov’s guilt,” said the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes.

Critics say drug charges are routinely used in Russia to silence rights activists or to settle scores with opponents in disputes. The Investigative Committee statement was a rare admission of wrong-doing

on the part of Russian law enforcement agencies.

Before framing the jour-nalist the police officers “ille-gally” bought, stored and trans-ported the drugs, the investi-gators said. They will be charged shortly, the investi-gators added.

Golunov, a journalist with Meduza, an independent news site based in EU member Latvia, was arrested and accused of attempted drug dealing, for which he faced up to 20 years in prison.

His supporters saw his detention as punishment for his reporting.

Days later, Russia released the investigative reporter and dropped the charges against him after an unprecedented public campaign in his defence by supporters. President Vladimir Putin sacked two senior police officers over Gol-unov’s arrest. The case has prompted questions about police’s lack of accountability.

Russia blocks Swiss-based ProtonMail over wave of bomb threatsAFP — MOSCOW

Russia has blocked a second encrypted email provider, Swiss-based ProtonMail, in efforts to halt a prolonged series of anonymous bomb threats, the security service said yesterday.

The FSB security service said Russia acted against Geneva-based ProtonMail after blocking another social network, Netherlands-based Smartmail, for the same reason last week.

ProtonMail, a free encrypted email service, was used to send messages falsely claiming

bombs had been planted in more than 800 public places in four regions, the FSB said.

“We have received reports that ProtonMail and ProtonVPN are currently partially blocked in Russia,” a spokesperson for the Geneva-based provider said.

“We are reaching out to the appropriate authorities to get the block lifted as soon as pos-sible.” Russia’s communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, con-firmed that access to ProtonMail was blocked yesterday.

It accused the Swiss pro-vider of failing to hand over information on email users who

sent threats. ProtonMail’s spokesperson denied this, saying “no communications have yet been received from the Russian authorities.”

The block will be ineffective against cybercriminals but deny access to “regular law-abiding citizens,” the spokesperson said.

The blocking of a second foreign email provider came as Russia scrambles to stop a wave of threats that have led to more than a million people being temporarily evacuated from thousands of buildings.

Both email providers were used to send messages to courts warning of bombs in numerous

public buildings including shopping centres and hospitals, the security service said.

It did not give any motive for the attacks.

Some of the messages referred to controversial busi-nessman Konstantin Malofeyev, and demanded he pay back cryptocurrency, according to media and the Saint Petersburg courts’ press service.

Malofeyev, a businessman and founder of an investment fund, is on US and EU sanctions lists for allegedly funding pro-Russian separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

Some threats mentioned

120 bitcoins worth almost $900,000 (¤800,000), allegedly stolen from a crashed cryptocurrency exchange.

They refer to WEX, a now-defunct spinoff of BTC-e, once one of the world’s largest and most widely used digital cur-rency exchanges, where national currencies can be exchanged for bitcoins.

Malofeyev has denied any involvement in WEX or stealing bitcoins. The suspected head of BTC-e, Russian Alexander Vinnik, was arrested in Greece in 2017 and faces money laun-dering charges in several countries.

Portugal far-right deputy calls for black MP to be ‘sent back’AFP — LISBON

Portugal’s only far-right deputy sparked outrage yesterday after saying a black member of parliament should be “sent back to her country of origin”.

Daily newspaper Publico denounced Andre Ventura’s comments as “abject” in its edi-torial, after his attack on Joacine Katar Moreira, of the left-wing Livre (Free) party. Left-wing deputies have condemned his comments.

Katar Moreira, who was born in Guinea Bissau, west Africa, had introduced a bill on Tuesday calling for Lisbon to return works of art from Por-tugal’s former colonies to their countries of origin.

She suggested the author-ities draw up a list of works of art that Portugal should hand back.

Ventura, leader of the

far-right party Chega (Enough), hit back on Facebook, writing: “I propose that the deputy Joacine is herself sent back to her country of origin. It would be a lot better for everyone.” Moreira is the Livre party’s only deputy, and on Tuesday they denounced “constant personal attacks of a racist nature” against her.

Other parties, including deputies of the ruling Socialist Party and the far-left Left Bloc also attacked Ventura’s com-ments as racist.

Ventura was elected to par-liament last October, the first far-right deputy since the fall of the military regime in 1974 and the return of democracy. Since then, he has launched regular attacks on the black and Roma communities.

Katar Moreira’s proposal is similar to an initiative by the French government, which has

begun returning works of art pillaged from its former colonies.

F r e n c h P r e s i d e n t Emmanuel Macron has called

on other European countries to consider their position on the issue, including Belgium, Britain and Germany, as have a number of their former colonies.

Far-right wing Chega party MP, Andre Ventura (left), and left wing party LIVRE MP, Joacine Katar Moreira, speaking during the State Budget 2020 debate at the Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon.

Catalonia’sTorra to callearly electionAP — MADRID

The regional president of Spain’s conflict-riven Catalonia said yesterday he will soon call an early election amid splits in his government’s unity.

President Quim Torra, who leads a pro-Catalan inde-pendence administration, said that he would set a date for the election once a new regional budget is approved. The regional government was expected to present the budget to parliament later in the day.

A regional election comes as the Catalan separatist movement struggles to maintain unity among its three main political parties. A regional election was not due until 2021.

Torra’s statement came days after he was stripped of his lawmaker’s seat by the Catalan Parliament following a court ruling that he had diso-beyed Spain’s rules on election

propaganda. The separatist sentiment in Catalonia, a wealthy northeastern region, is Spain’s gravest political chal-lenge in decades. It came to a peak in 2017 when the regional government under former leader Carles Puigdemont declared independence. Torra

was named president after Puigdemont fled Spain to Belgium.

Nine Catalan politicians and activists were subsequently given prison sentences for their roles in the secession push.

Spain’s constitution states that the country is indivisible.

Catalonia’s regional President Quim Torra makes an official statement at the Catalan government headquarters in Barcelona, yesterday.

Kosovo blast kills policeman during drug operationAFP — PRISTINA

A policeman in Kosovo was killed and his colleague and a child were wounded in a blast during a drug search oper-ation, police said yesterday.

The blast of an unidentified explosive device happened late Tuesday during the oper-ation conducted by an anti-drug unit at a family home in Zhur, a village in southern Kosovo, a police spokesman said.

“Unfortunately, one of our colleagues... lost his life,” spokesman Shaban Osmanolla told reporters.

The victim came into contact with the device which had been placed in a storeroom.

A 12-year-old child, a member of the family whose house was searched, was also wounded in the explosion, the spokesman said.

The second policeman, who sustained life-threatening injuries, was hospitalised in the capital Pristina, health authorities said.

The owner of the house where the blast occurred was detained.

He was previously sus-pected of possessing drugs and weapons which prompted the search of his home, police said.

Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, is a key staging post on the Balkans route used by criminals to smuggle drugs, weapons and people to western Europe.

Russia rescues 536 fishermen stranded on floeAP — MOSCOW

In a nearly seven-hour oper-ation, Russia’s emergency services rescued 536 ice fish-ermen after they got stranded on a giant ice floe that broke off the island of Sakhalin in eastern Siberia, officials said.

Around 60 more people were able to get back onto the shore on their own on Tuesday evening, emergency officials said. According to some of the Russian fishermen, by the time they had been rescued the frigid water rift between the ice floe and the coast was already 200 meters (660 feet) wide. It’s the third time in a week that emergency services in the Sakhalin region had to rescue ice fishermen stuck on drifting glacial masses. On January 22, around 300 people got stranded on an ice floe and on Sunday 600 others did.

Local authorities blamed the fishermen for ignoring safety warnings.

The EU administration has urged its staff to postpone any non-essential travel to China, and is also planning a meeting of health ministers from all 28 members to discuss the virus outbreak.

UK newspaper Guardian bans fossil fuel adsAFP — LONDON

British newspaper the Guardian yesterday said it will ban fossil fuel adverts across its outlets, becoming the first major international news organisation to do so.

“The ban will apply to any business primarily involved in extracting fossil fuels, including many of the world’s largest polluters,” said the paper. “Our decision is based on the decades-long efforts by many in that industry to prevent meaningful climate action by governments around the world,” acting chief exec-utive, Anna Bateson, and chief revenue officer, Hamish Nicklin, said in a joint statement, calling it the “most important challenge of our times”. The Scott Trust, which owns the media group, has also “almost entirely” divested from fossil fuel companies, they added.

Bateson and Nicklin said the ban would hit the com-pany’s finances, with adver-tising making up 40 percent of its revenue. “It’s true that rejecting some adverts might make our lives a tiny bit tougher in the very short term,” they said.

“Nonetheless, we believe building a more purposeful organisation and remaining financially sustainable have to go hand in hand.” However, they added that the company would not ban advertising for high-carbon footprint products, such as cars or hol-idays, saying it was “not finan-cially sustainable”.

Environmental cam-paigners Greenpeace called the decision a “watershed moment”, and said the Guardian “must be applauded for this bold move to end the legitimacy of fossil fuels”.

Senior climate campaigner Mel Evans encouraged other media, arts and sports organ-isations to follow suit.

In recent months, several organisations including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the British Museum have been forced to stop corporate sponsorship from oil majors by environmentalists.

17THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020 AMERICAS

Trump slams Bolton as Senate trial enters new phaseREUTERS — WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump unleashed his sharpest attack yet on John Bolton after his former national security adviser depicted Trump as playing a central role in a politically moti-vated pressure campaign on Ukraine, as the US Senate prepared to enter a new phase in the president’s impeachment trial.

Senators will begin up to two days of posing questions to both Trump’s legal team and the Democrats in the House of Rep-resentatives lawmakers who have served as prosecutors in the trial on charges of abusing power and obstructing Congress arising from his request that Ukraine investigate political rival Joe Biden.

The questioning precedes a crucial vote later in the week

on whether to call witnesses including Bolton, as Democrats have sought. Senate Repub-licans so far have refused to allow any witnesses or new evi-dence in the trial, with Repub-lican leaders hoping to vote as quickly as possible to acquit Trump, leaving him in office.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told senators on Tuesday he did not have the

votes to block Democrats from calling witnesses because some Republicans remained uncom-mitted, several media outlets reported. Democrats need four Republican senators to join them in voting for witnesses in order to get a majority in the 100-seat Senate.

The Senate is expected to acquit Trump. Removing him from office would take a two-thirds majority. There are 53 Republican senators and none of them has publicly advocated removal. The Democratic-led House impeached Trump last month.

Trump lashed out at Bolton on Twitter. The president said Bolton “couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the UN years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job” and added that “if I listened to

him, we would be in World War Six by now.”

Trump added that Bolton, who left his White House post in September, “goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?”

Contradicting Trump’s version of events, Bolton wrote in an unpublished book manu-script that the president told him he wanted to freeze $391m in security aid to Ukraine until Kiev pursued investigations into Democrats, including Biden and the former vice-president’s son Hunter Biden, the New York Times reported.

Bolton’s allegations go to the heart of impeachment charges against Trump. Democrats have said Trump abused his power by using the security aid —passed by Congress to help

Ukraine battle Russia-backed separatists — as leverage to get a foreign power to smear a political rival.

Trump is seeking re-election on November 3. Biden is a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to face Trump.

Trump has denied telling Bolton he sought to use the aid as leverage to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. Trump has said he fired Bolton. Bolton, a foreign policy hawk who served as a temporary “recess appointee” as American ambas-sador to the United Nations under Republican former President George W. Bush, has said he quit.

The questions during the trial will alternate between Republican and Democratic senators. They will be submitted in writing and read aloud by US Chief Justice John Roberts, who

is presiding over the trial.The questions will take up to

eight hours a day over Wednesday and Thursday. There is no time limit on the answers, which cannot be challenged by senators, Senate aides said.

Trump’s legal team wrapped up its third and final day of opening arguments in the trial on Tuesday, saying that the president did not commit any impeachable offenses even if what Bolton said was true.

Trump’s legal team sought to minimise the importance of Bolton’s allegations and called the manuscript “inadmissible.”

The Senate is expected to turn on Friday to a debate and vote on whether to call wit-nesses in the trial.

Trump urged Republicans to stand firm against witnesses, writing on Twitter: “Don’t let the Dems play you!”

Americans evacuated from Wuhan pass health testAP — ANCHORAGE

A plane evacuating 201 Amer-icans from the Chinese city at the centreof the virus outbreak continued on to Southern Cali-fornia after everyone aboard passed a health screening test in Anchorage, where the aircraft had stopped to refuel.

All the passengers had already been through two screenings in China and were screened twice more in Anchorage by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One passenger received medical attention for a minor injury that happened before boarding the airplane in China, Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s chief medical officer, told reporters after the plane left.

The US government char-tered the plane to fly out dip-lomats from the US Consulate in Wuhan, where the latest coronavirus outbreak started, and other Americans. The plane landed on Tuesday night in Anchorage. The Americans will undergo additional health screenings in California and will be temporarily housed there for a period of time as they finish

the repatriation process, offi-cials said.

“For many of us directly involved in this, it’s become a moving and uplifting expe-rience. The whole plane erupted into cheers when the crew wel-comed them back to the United States,” Zink said.

“This is the best possible outcome,” state health commis-sioner Adam Crum said in a statement. “We wish these pas-sengers the best of luck as they complete their journeys home and I am deeply grateful to eve-ryone who came together to assist us in helping with this repatriation effort.”

State officials had said the plane could carry up to 240 passengers, and Zink said they were prepared for that number. “At the end of the day, 201 pas-sengers loaded and 201 pas-sengers left Alaska,” she said.

The flight crew remained on the upper level of the plane, entirely isolated from the pas-sengers for the entirety of the flight and did not get off the plane in China, putting them at low risk, she said.

The plane is now scheduled to land at March Air

Reserve Base in California’s Riverside County, instead of the original plan to go to Ontario International Airport in neighbouring San Ber-nardino County.

Curt Hagman, an Ontario airport commissioner, said the Centers for Disease Control announced the diversion.

“We were prepared but the

State Department decided to switch the flight” to the airbase, Hagman said.

Officials at the Ontario airport 56km east of Los Angeles had been readying facilities to receive and screen the repatriates and temporarily house them for up to two weeks — if the CDC determined that is necessary, said David Wert,

spokesman for the county of San Bernardino.

Ontario International Airport was designated about a decade ago by the US gov-ernment to receive repatriated Americans in case of an emer-gency overseas, but it would have been the first time the facility was used for the purpose, Wert said.

Personnel in protective clothing approach an aircraft, chartered by the US State Department to evacuate government employees and other Americans from the novel coronavirus threat in the Chinese city of Wuhan, after it arrived at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, yesterday.

Kobe Bryant’s body identified among copter crash victimsAFP — LOS ANGELES

Medical examiners identified the body of NBA legend Kobe Bryant after recovering the remains of all nine people who died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles, officials said.

Bryant’s body was officially identified along with three others using fingerprints, two days after their helicopter crashed into a rugged hillside

northwest of the city.Meanwhile, federal inves-

tigators finished their inspection of the crash site, handing it over to local authorities.

“We are done on the site,” said Jennifer Homendy, a member of the National Trans-portation Safety Board.

Images showed investi-gators earlier flying drones over the accident site and manually combing through twisted,

charred wreckage of the heli-copter, which was scattered over a wide area of 180 metres.

Officials also used drones to replicate the helicopter’s final, fateful flight path, Homendy said.

The coroner’s office con-firmed all nine bodies have been retrieved from the site and “transported to the depart-ment’s forensic science centre” for examination.

The bodies of pilot Ara

Zobayan, baseball coach John Altobelli and Sarah Chester have also been identified.

The remaining five —including Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna — have not yet been officially identified.

The death of Bryant — a five-time NBA champion for the LA Lakers and double Olympic gold medalist— has shocked the world, with tributes continuing to pour in yesterday.

50 troops suffered brain injuries in Iran strike, says PentagonAP — WASHINGTON

The Pentagon raised to 50 the number of US service members who suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iran’s missile strike earlier this month on an Iraqi air base, the third time the number of injuries has been increased.

The new casualty total belies President Donald Trump’s initial claim that no Americans were harmed. Days after the attack, the military said 11 service members were injured. Last week, the Pen-tagon said that 34 US service members were hurt.

Lt Col Thomas Campbell, a Pentagon spokesman, said that 16 additional service members were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. Of the 50, Campbell said, 31 service members had returned to duty.

The service members were treated in Iraq, or at military health centers, including Land-stuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest US military hospital outside the continental United States, and a US military medical facility in Kuwait.

Trump had initially said he was told that no troops had been injured in the January 8 missile strike on Iraq’s Ain Al

Asad Air Base, which Iran carried out as retaliation for a USdrone strike in Baghdad that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani, on January 3. The military said symptoms of concussion or traumatic brain injury were not immediately reported after the strike and in some cases became known days later. Many were in bunkers before nearly a dozen Iranian ballistic missiles exploded.

After the Pentagon reported on January 17 that 11 service members had been evacuated from Iraq with concussion-like symptoms, Trump said, “I heard they had headaches and a couple of other things ... and I can report it is not very serious.” He said he did not consider the injuries to be as severe as those suffered by troops who were hit by roadside bombs in Iraq.

Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, became a bigger concern for the military in recent years as medical science improved its understanding of its causes and effects on brain function. It can involve varying degrees of impairment of thinking, memory, vision, hearing and other functions.

Senators will begin up to two days of posing questions to both Trump’s legal team and the Democratic lawmakers in the House who have served as prosecutors in the trial.

Biden, Sanders lead field in new poll ahead of caucusesREUTERS — NEW YORK

Former vice-president Joe Biden and US Senator Bernie Sanders are leading a crowded field of candidates days before Monday’s Iowa caucuses, the first contest in the process of picking a Democratic presi-dential candidate, according to a poll released yesterday.

Biden was the choice of 23 percent of likely caucus-goers,

the Monmouth University poll shows, slightly ahead of the senator from Vermont at 21 percent. Biden’s lead was well within the survey’s margin of error, meaning the two men were essentially tied.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, at 16 percent, and US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachu-setts, at 15 percent, followed close behind. US Senator Amy

Klobuchar of Minnesota was at 10 percent, the only other can-didate within striking distance of the top candidates.

Biden was the choice among older, more moderate voters, while Sanders attracted younger, more liberal voters, according to the poll. The Monmouth Uni-versity poll was conducted by phone from January 23 to 27, sur-veying 544 likely Iowa Demo-cratic caucus-goers.

Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice-President Joe Biden, talks to campaign volunteers during a stop at Jeno’s Little Hungary, in Davenport, Iowa, yesterday.

New charges against Canada intel official accused of spying

AFP — OTTAWA

Canadian officials announced three new charges against a senior police intelligence officer accused of stealing highly classified materials concerning Canada’s allies abroad.

Cameron Ortis was the director-general of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s national intelligence coordi-nation until his arrest in mid-September for spying.

He was initially charged with seeking to sell classified information to a foreign entity or terrorist group as well as having shared special opera-tional information as far back as 2015.

On Tuesday, the RCMP announced that it had charged Ortis with “three additional counts of unauthorised com-munication of special opera-tional information.”

It added, however, that “as the criminal investigation is ongoing and because the matter is currently in court, the RCMP will not be making any further public statement on the matter.”

Ortis, 47, is scheduled to return to court on Friday for a pre-trial hearing, according to public broadcaster CBC.

Some of the details sur-rounding the case are covered by a court-ordered publication ban and so cannot be divulged.

Ortis was briefly released on bail in October but has been detained ever sense.

“I would definitely imagine that there is concern amongst our Five Eyes community, as well as within Canada,” RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said after his arrest.

FBI raids church in Los Angeles to make migration fraud bustAP — LOS ANGELES

Federal agents raided a Phil-ippine-based church in Los Angeles early yesterday in a human trafficking investi-gation that led to arrests of two church leaders in what pros-ecutors said was a decades-long scheme to trick followers into becoming fundraisers and arrange sham marriages to keep them in the US.

The local leader of the church was arrested on immi-gration fraud charges in the early morning bust along with a worker who confiscated passports of the victims of the scheme, the US attorney’s office said.

Fundraisers who managed to escape from the church told the FBI that they had been sent across the US to solicit dona-tions for the church’s charity, The Children’s Joy Foundation, and were beaten if they didn’t make daily quotas, according to affidavit filed in support of the charges. Some described having to live in cars at truck stops.

An FBI agent investigating the case documented 82 sham marriages over a 20-year period and tracked $20m raised between 2014 and the middle of last year that was sent back to the church in the Philippines.

“Most of these funds appear to derive from street-level solicitation,” according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Anne Wetzel.

“Little to no money solicited appears to benefit impoverished or in-need children.”

18 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020AMERICAS

Peru oppn leader returns to jail pending money laundering trialBLOOMBERG — LIMA

Opposition leader Keiko Fujimori will be returned to jail while she is investigated for money laundering, less than three months after she has been freed by Peru’s top court on the grounds that her constitutional rights had been violated.

In the ruling on Tuesday, the court said Fujimori should be arrested immediately and jailed preventively for 15 months, arguing it was a proportional measure to safeguard the probe.

With Fujimori incarcerated into April 2021, prosecutors should have time to charge her and put her on trial, Judge Victor Zuniga said, according to video broadcast by state television.

Prosecutors told the court they have new evidence that Fujimori took cash from com-panies including Brazilian

builder Odebrecht SA for her 2011 presidential campaign and sought to disguise it as dona-tions from individuals. They also said there’s a serious risk that Fujimori will seek to obstruct the investigation.

The 44-year-old daughter of Peru’s disgraced autocrat Alberto Fujimori was jailed in 2018, only to have the Consti-tutional Court annul the sen-tence 13 months later. In his summing up, Zuniga said that decision isn’t binding.

The ruling is a fresh blow to her party, Popular Force, which received a drubbing in congres-sional elections on Sunday, losing a majority it won in 2016.

President Martin Vizcarra dissolved Congress four months ago following clashes with the opposition over anti-graft reforms.

Minutes before the judge concluded his verdict, Fujimori walked into the court room with her American husband Mark Vito Villanella and took a seat next to her lawyer.

In a pre-recorded video posted on her Facebook page following the ruling, she said she’s a victim of “political vengeance promoted by many interests,” including the media and “a government who wants to concentrate power to avoid” scrutiny. Her husband will take

her case to “foreign govern-ments,” she said. Fujimori hasn’t been formally charged and denies any wrongdoing. She

said last month she’ll take a break from political activity to face the investigation.

Odebrecht is at the center of

Peru’s biggest bribery probe after the company admitted to financing candidates and bribing officials across Latin America.

Peruvian politician Keiko Fujimori (centre) arrives at a courtroom in Lima, accompanied by her husband Mark Villanella (left), on January 20, 2020.

Major quake hits Caribbean, triggering evacuationsAFP — MIAMI

A major 7.7 magnitude earth-quake struck in the Caribbean between Jamaica and Cuba on Tuesday, triggering a brief tsunami alert and sending hundreds of people pouring onto the streets of Havana.

The tremors were felt as far as the US mainland, where police in Miami evacuated some buildings as a precaution.

The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at a depth of 10km at 2:10pm (1910 GMT) — 125km northwest of Lucea, Jamaica.

It estimated there was a low likelihood of casualties or damage, and there were no immediate reports of either.

Hours later, a 6.1 magnitude aftershock hit off the coast of the Cayman Islands, part of a cluster of more than a dozen aftershocks which were mainly in the four-to-five magnitude range and lasted well into the

evening, the USGS said.The US Pacific Tsunami

Warning Center initially warned there was a threat of tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to one meter (about one to three feet) above tide level for the coasts of Jamaica, Belize, Cuba,

Honduras, Mexico and the Cayman Islands. But it lifted the alert update about two hours later.

The first, bigger quake rattled several tall buildings in the Cuban capital Havana, which were immediately

evacuated. The earthquake was felt in several provinces including Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba in the east, Cienfuegos in the center and Havana in the northwest, the official Cubadebate website reported.

But there were no prelim-inary reports of damage or injuries. Jawara Rawjers, a res-ident of Kingston, Jamaica said: “I felt the house trembling and realized that it was a quake.

“It lasted about 20 seconds. I checked my watch and it was 2:12pm. I checked on my family but they didn’t feel anything in their part of the house.”

Many Jamaicans took to social media in the immediate aftermath to post pictures, of swimming pools shaking violently.

In Miami, police said buildings were being evacuated as a precaution after reports of tremors being felt in some areas of the city.

People wait outside after evacuating office buildings after an earthquake struck south of Cuba, in Miami, US, on Tuesday.

Bolivia’s interim President names new ministers, calls for anti-Morales allianceAFP — LA PAZ

Bolivia’s interim president Jeanine Anez named three new ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday and urged conserv-atives to form a pact to defeat ex-president Evo Morales’ party in May 3 polls.

Anez called on her entire cabinet to resign on Sunday but ended up naming only three new ministers as part of a newly-con-firmed government.

In a speech at government house in La Paz, she said the move was necessary “to be absolutely sure that all the members of the ministerial team are committed to honest and transparent management.”

Anez, in power since November 12, had called on her 20-strong cabinet to resign on Sunday hours after communi-cations minister Roxana Liz-arraga resigned in protest at Anez’s decision last week to run

as a candidate in the May pres-idential election.

The cabinet remains largely untouched. She named former presidential candidate Victor Hugo Cardenas to the education portfolio, journalist Maria Isabel Fernandez in communications and Eliane Capobianco as Rural Development minister.

Anez, 52, also called on the political parties opposed to Morales to form an electoral alliance to defeat his Movement for Socialism (MAS) party can-didate Luis Arce.

The government’s priority would be “to continue to work for the tranquility and stability of all Bolivians,” she said.

Arce returned from self-imposed exile in Mexico to launch his campaign in La Paz on Tuesday, but was immedi-ately served with a subpoena, accused of embezzlement during his tenure as Morales’ economy minister.

However, Attorney General Heidy Gil said that no arrest warrant has been issued for Arce.

He was met at the airport by his running mate, former foreign minister David Choque-huanca, amid cheering sup-porters waving an indigenous flag.

Arce, 56, left the airport without speaking to the press

as his supporters chanted: “Arce, president,” and “Fight, friend, the people are with you.”

However, he later wrote on Twitter: “Together with the people, we will win. I feel a lot of affection and now we’ll con-tinue on our road to the presi-dency.” Arce is considered the mastermind behind Bolivia’s economic success under Morales.

Bolivia’s presidential candidate for the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party Luis Arce Catacora arrives for a hearing at the attorney’s office in La Paz, yesterday. Arce is accused of a breach of duties and embezzlement during his tenure as economy minister.

Death toll from flooding in Brazil state rises to 52REUTERS — SAO PAULO

The death toll from last week’s heavy rains in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais has risen to 52 people, with 65 people reported injured and two more missing, the state civil defense agency said on Tuesday.

The losses were most con-centrated in the state capital, Belo Horizonte, with 13 dead, according to the latest numbers.

Some 33,000 people have been displaced or evacuated from their homes, rescue workers said.

Last week, Minas Gerais recorded the wettest 24-hour period since precipitation records began being kept 110

years ago, with accumulated rainfall of 172mm (6.8 inches) from Thursday to Friday, according to the government’s meteorological agency Inmet.

Televised images on Tuesday showed collapsed houses and others that had been submerged in 2 meters (6.6 feet) of water, while resi-dents continue to battle thick mud after heavy rain.

The flooding comes a year after rains allegedly con-tributed to the collapse of a tailings dam in the town of Bru-madinho, also in Minas Gerais, killing more than 250 people.

The National Mining Agency alerted mining com-panies on Monday to carefully monitor their tailings dams. A damaged street is pictured after heavy flooding caused by rains in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, yesterday.

Colombia seeks extradition of senator arrested in Venezuela

AP — BOGOTA, COLOMBIA

Colombian officials are seeking the extradition of a former senator who was arrested in Venezuela after escaping from prison four months ago.

But the prospects of returning Aida Merlano to her jail cell in Colombia any time soon are slim, since Colombia doesn’t recognize President Nicolás Maduro, who controls Venezuela’s government.

Colombia’s Ministry of Justice said on Tuesday that it would process Merlano’s extradition request with Ven-ezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who is recognized as that nation’s interim president by more than 50 countries, including Colombia and the United States, but who has no practical authority.

Maduro ridiculed Colom-bia’s dilemma, calling it a ridiculous position that he blamed on Colombian Pres-ident Ivan Duque’s “extremist policy” toward Venezuela’s government.

“Today I laughed a lot because the government of Ivan Duque said it was going to ask for extraditing this person who has been captured by the legitimate authorities of Venezuela, was going to ask Juan Guaidó,” Maduro said in a television appearance.

He added hat Colombia’s policy has been a step back for “security and cooperation between both countries.” “We have more than 30 fugitives captured, and have no one to hand them over to in Colombia, due to Duque’s stubbornness and ideological extremism,” Maduro said.

Duque’s administration, however, has accused Vene-zuela of giving safe haven to Colombian rebels who have been convicted of multiple crimes. Merlano had been sen-tenced to 15 years in prison for overseeing a vote-buying operation.

Mexico President criticizes ban on access to centres for immigrants

AP — MEXICO CITY

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador yesterday criticized a directive from his own immigration agency that temporarily barred access to the country’s immigration detention centers for nonprofit organizations that monitor conditions and assist migrants.

The National Immigration Institute had said on Tuesday that access for civic, activist and religious groups to the detention centers would be temporarily suspended. It said that “rescheduling the visits will depend on the work load of each migrant center, with the goal of providing services to the migrants to continue without interruption.”

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the institute, however, said later via Twitter that the suspension was “not authorized by superiors” and “disavowed” the statement.

López Obrador also objected, saying it is “pro-hibited to prohibit everything, almost everything.” He defended his administration’s tougher immigrat ion enforcement at the southern border, but insisted there must be transparency.

“How can you imagine that we are going to leave religious groups, members of civil society, social organizations without the ability to enter?” López Obrador said.

Former baseball player Narciso Elvira killed in Mexico

REUTERS — MEXICO CITY

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Narciso Elvira and his son died on Tuesday in his home country, Mexico, local authorities said, after a shooting in the violent, oil-rich Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

Mexico suffered its worst year for homicides last year, with a record 34,582 victims, increasing concerns over the security strategy of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who argues it needs more time to become effective.

The Ministry for Public Security condemned in a statement the “assassination” of Elvira in the municipality of Medellin de Bravo. Veracruz has been convulsed by gang violence and political cor-ruption scandals for several years.

Authorities are searching for the attackers in coordi-nation with local and federal law enforcement authorities.

Elvira launched his career in the late 1980s in the Mexican League before moving on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Keiko Fujimori said she is a victim of “political vengeance promoted by many interests,” including the media and “a government who wants to concentrate power to avoid” scrutiny.


Experts discuss therapies for neuromuscular disordersTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) held a three-day conference on congenital dystro-phies and the precision medicine associated with neuromuscular disorders, with participants hearing from world-leading experts. The event took place at Qatar National Convention Center and involved experts from the region, Europe and the US lecturing on a variety of topics surrounding neuromuscular disorders, with particular reference to congenital dystrophies and myopathies.

These conditions are prevalent in Qatar and the wider Gulf, with the conference also focusing on the potential for personalised medi-cines and new, emerging treat-ments as well as the challenges in implementing the therapies. The third day of the conference was open to the public and allowed members of the community and patients’ families to meet and discuss issues with the international experts and local physicians.

The event was organised by Dr. Alice Abdel Aleem, Assistant Professor of Research in

Neurology, and Assistant Professor of Research in Neuroscience at WCM-Q, and Consultant in Clinical Genetics at Hamad Medical Corporation.

Dr. Abdel Aleem said: “It has been fascinating to hear of the latest therapies that are being developed and to learn from some of the foremost authorities on neu-romuscular disorders in the world. Because of the prevalence of con-sanguineous marriages in the Gulf, the region has a relatively high incidence of congenital disorders, so the third day of the conference

was particularly important as it allowed the community to discuss issues with experts face-to-face. It was a great opportunity, indeed, having Professor Markus Ruegg from the University of Basel in Switzerland joining us.

International speakers at the conference included Dr. Volker Straub, Deputy Dean of the Institute of Translational and Clinical Research at Newcastle University in the UK and Director of the MRC Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases in UK; Dr. Elizabeth Ross, director of the Center for Neurogenetics at

Weill Cornell Medicine in New York; and Dr. Carsten G Bön-nemann, chief of the neuromus-cular and neurogenetic disorders of childhood section at the Porter Neuroscience Research Center in Maryland in the US,.There were also speakers from Qatar, including Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, Director of the Public Health Department at the Ministry of Public Health, who spoke to del-egates about how the burden could be reduced on families who have relatives with congenital dystrophies.

The conference focused on neuromuscular disorders, with particular reference to congenital dystrophies which are prevalent in the Gulf.

Hotels witness high occupancy in Q4 of 2019SACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

Hotel occupancy increased due to reduced average room rates. The hotels added a total of 1,050 rooms to Qatar’s hospitality sector during the last quarter, according to the fourth quarter 2019 review issued by leading regional consulting firm ValuStrat.

“Countrywide sales trans-action volumes accumulated to QR22.7bn in value in 2019. In The Pearl & Al Qassar, transaction volumes increased by a staggering 72 percent during 2019, while total transaction value increased by 55 percent to QR2bn,” Pawel Banach (pictured), ValuStrat’s General Manager, Qatar told The Peninsula.

“Decelerating capital value declines indicate that the real estate market may reach a plateau in the coming quarters. This was most likely aided by increased availability of affordable payment plans and investor friendly gov-ernment policies,” he added.

Park Hyatt (187 keys) in Mush-eireb Downtown, Saraya Town Hotel (310 keys) in Al Ghanim, Double Tree by Hilton Doha (139 keys) in Al Sadd and Hilton Doha The Pearl Residences (414 rooms) in The Pearl were unveiled adding a total of 1,050 rooms to the hos-pitality sector during the last quarter.

Till November 2019, 1.86 million visitors arrived in Qatar, an increase of 14 percent com-pared to the same period in 2018. Countrywide occupancy of hotels

for the same period stood at 64 percent, up 5 percent compared to 2018. The Average Daily Rate (ADR) witnessed a decline of 3 percent YoY.

With an addition of 1,750 units during Q4 2019, the total housing stock in Qatar was estimated at 297,650 units by end 2019. 90 percent of the added supply com-prised of apartments handed over in Lusail (Fox Hills, Al Kharaej and Marina District), The Pearl, Al Sadd and Al Mirqab. Projected comple-tions for 2020 have been adjusted upwards to 10,000 units due to delayed deliveries from 2019.

The average capital value of a residential unit stood at QR7,914 per sqm. More specifically, apart-ments were QR11,477 per sqm and villas were QR6,140 per sqm.

Citywide residential asking rents declined 6 percent over the past 12 months and a negligible 1 percent since the third quarter of 2019.

“During 2019, 60 percent of the added residential supply was concentrated in Lusail, The Pearl

and Al Dafna. It negatively impacted rents in these locations as average asking rents fell by an estimated five percent to eight percent annually,” said Anum Hasan, Senior Market Research Analyst for ValuStrat.

Construction of an estimated 700,000 sq m GLA of office space was completed in 2019, bringing the total office supply to an esti-mated 4.8 million sq m GLA. Five office projects were added during Q4 2019 in Lusail, Al Mirqab, C-Ring Road (Al Mansoura) and Al Sadd comprising 160,000sqm GLA.

Organised retail supply increased five percent during 2019, reaching up to 1.89 million sq m GLA. An estimated 462,000 sq m spread over 5 shopping centres is in the pipeline for 2020. The retail market continues to remain tenant friendly where landlords offer lucrative incen-tives (eg waiving services charges or turnover rents, rent-free periods) to retain existing retailers and attract new leases.

CROSSWORD

Bad Boys for Life is a 2020 American action comedy film starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and is the sequel to Bad Boys II (2003) in the Bad Boys.

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE

MALL ROYAL PLAZA

Anjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 2:00pmUriyadi (2D/Malayalam) 4:30pm;Kung Fu Master (2D/Malayalam) 7:00pm; Thief Of Baghdad (2D/Arabic) 9:30pm; Shylock (2D/Malayalam) 6:15 & 11:30pm; 2 EKRE (2D/Tulu) 2:00 & 6:00pm; Frozen II (2D/Comedy) 4:15pm; Gretel and Hansel (2D/Fantasy) 8:15pm; Kill Chain (2D/Drama) 10:00pmJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 8:45 & 11:30pmThe Great Alaskan Race (2D/Action) 4:30pmQueen & Slim (2D/Drama) 11:00pm

Shylock (2D/Malayalam) 12:45, 6:15 & 11:45pmJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 12:00, 4:45 & 9:30pmAswathama (2D/Telugu) 11:45pmAnjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 3:30 & 9:00pmNaadodigal (2D/Tamil) 2:45 & 8:30pmDagaalty (2D/Tamil) 5:45pmThief of Baghda (2D/Tamil) 2:30, 7:15 & 12:00pm

LANDMARK

AL KHOR

Anjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 12:30, 5:45, 8:30, 11:00pm & 2:00amShylock (2D/Malayalam) 3:15, 8;30, 11;15pm & 1:45amJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 6:00 & 11:00pmDagaalty (2D/Tamil) 12:30 & 6:00pmAswathama (2D/Telugu) 3:00pmUriyadi (2D/Malayalam) 1:00, 8:30pm & 1:30amKung Fu Master (2D/Malayalam) 8:00pm & 2:00am2 EKRE (2D/Tulu) 3:30pmNaadodigal (2D/Tamil) 1:00, 5:30 & 11:00pm

ASIAN TOWN

ROXY

FLIK Mirqab Mall

1917 (2D/Crime) 4:35 & 6:55pmBad Boys For Life (2D/Action) 10:00, 10;45am, 12:00, 1:10, 3:35, 6:00, 8;30, 5:25, 7:00, 9:30, 11:00 & 11:55pmDolittle (2D/Comedy) 10:20am, 1:00, 2:35, 2:35, 7;55, 3:00, 5:00pmFrozen II (2D/Comedy) 4:15pmGretel and Hansel (2D/Fantasy) 0:20amJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 2:45, 5:15, 7:45 & 10;15pmJoker 10:45pmJumanji: The Next Level (2D/Action) 2:25, 5:15, 7:45 & 10:15pmJust Mercy (2D/Drama) 11:15pmLittle Woman (2D/Drama) 12:20, 3:00, 5:35 & 8:10pmSpies in Disguise (2D/Animation) 10:30am & 12:40pmThe Great Alaskan Race (2D/Action) 1:55, 3:40, 4:50 & 6:35pmThief Of Baghdad (2D/Arabic) 8:20 & 10;20pmUnderwater 0:25amUnderwater (2D/Action) 0:20am

Anjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 3:00, 8:30 & 11:00Bad Boys For Life (2D/Action) 12:30, 3:15, 8:30 & 10:30pmAswathama (2D/Telugu) 7;00 & 10:00pmDolittle (2D/Comedy) 12:30, 2:40 & 4:50pmDagaalty (2D/Tamil) 12:30, 5:50 & 11:10pmGretel and Hansel (2D/Fantasy) 5:20pmJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 12:30 & 6:00pmNaadodigal (2D/Tamil) 3:00 & 8:20pmQueen 12:30, 2:50, 5:45 & 7:45pm

Anjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 2:15pmJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 4:45 & 11:30pmKung Fu Master (2D/Malayalam) 7:00pmThief Of Baghdad (2D/Arabic) 9:30pmUriyadi (2D/Malayalam) 11:30pmThe Great Alaskan Race (2D/Action) 2:00pmLittle Woman (2D/Drama) 3:30pmGretel and Hansel (2D/Fantasy) 5:45pmKill Chain (2D/Drama) 7:30pmQueen & Slim (2D/Drama) 11:30pm

Uriyadi (2D/Malayalam) 2:00pmKung Fu Master (2D/Malayalam) 4:30 & 11:30pmThief Of Baghdad (2D/Arabic) 7:00pmShylock (2D/Malayalam) 9:00pmJawaani Jaanneman (2D/Hindi) 2:15, 4:30 & 11:00pmLittle Woman (2D/Drama) 6:45pm; Gretel and Hansel (2D/Fantasy) 8:15pm; Frozen II (2D/Comedy) 2:00pmThe Great Alaskan Race (2D/Action) 3:45pmQueen & Slim (2D/Drama) 7:15pmKill Chain (2D/Drama) 10:00pmAnjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 5:30 & 11:30pm

20 THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2020MORNING BREAK

Qatari, Jordanian artists featured at ‘Narrative’ exhibition

RAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Not only profoundly great artists but remarkable visual storytellers, celebrated Qatari artist Ali Hassan and Jordanian artist Hilda Hiary tell stories, some based on their experiences others spun from their imagination, in the latest exhi-bition at Al Markhiya Gallery.

“Narrative” exhibition opened on Tuesday night to a warm reception from both artists and enthusiasts at Al Markhiya’s gallery at the Fire Station.

For this show, Hassan showcases his signature semi-abstract compositions displaying his three metal sculptures and four paintings, all depicting horses. The works tell stories through a combi-nation of calligraphy, vibrant colours and other forms. Though delving into similar subjects Has-san’s “Saddle” and “Horse of the Desert” series communicate narratives in differing intensity and emotions.

The artist uses his imagination to create unique forms and colours inspired by his mem-ories of places and people and their stories and poetry.

One of Qatar’s most prominent artists, Hassan has worked on Arabic calligraphy for decades as his major interest, honing his craft by experi-menting with different media and attending workshops and courses in various countries.

For over two decades, he has explored his fascination of the Arabic letter “nūn” prolifically creating a huge oeuvre in multiple variations ded-icated to a single alphabet which he had become known for. Through installations, Hassan recently delved into the formal qualities and spiritual dimensions of letters and texts which can be

observed in his works currently exhibited.Hiary’s mixed media artworks command

attention and spark debate among art enthu-siasts with a mix of a number of common ele-ments including objects such as cacti and other living creatures integrated into portraits of people painted with a variety of shapes and colours. Her fondness of deserts and their stories has inspired her 14 works on display.

She has been known for navigating into the socio-political aspect of the society through her artworks which combine figuration and abstraction.

Since the mid-1990s, she has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in museums such as New York’s Micro Museum and the San Pedro Museum in Brazil. The exhibition is open for public viewing until March 20 at Al Markhiya Gallery at the Fire Station.

Celebrated Qatari artist Ali Hassan with two of his works at the opening of ‘Narrative’ Exhibition at Al Markhiya Gallery at the Fire Station on Tuesday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA

Jordanian artist Hilda Hiary (right) with one of her paintings at Al Markhiya Gallery.

Amir honours graduates of Al Zaeem Air College...Jan 30, 2020 · Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad...

Documents

Transcript of Amir honours graduates of Al Zaeem Air College...Jan 30, 2020 · Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad...