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SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021 / ZUL-HIJJAH 1, 1442 AH emergency number 112 NO. 17736 16 PAGES 150 FILS

tennis marketsPage 16 Page 9

The family of Jehan Sadat, widow of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel, listens to prayers during her funeral procession in Cairo, Egypt, July 9. Sadat died in Egypt on Friday. She was 87. Inset: In this Sept 29, 2006 file photo, Jehan Sadat, speaks at a news conference before speaking during the William Siebens American Heritage lecture series at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. (AP)

Widow of Anwar Sadat diesJehan Sadat, widow of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel, died in Egypt on Friday. She was 87.

In recent weeks, Egyptian media press reported that she had been hospitalized and was battling cancer. Last year, she received medical treatment in the United States but was hospitalized again shortly after returning home as her condition deteriorated, her family told local news-papers. No further details about her illness were made available.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s office said later Fri-day that she had been a role model for Egyptian women and granted her a national award posthumously. A key highway in Cairo was named after her. She will be buried after a military funeral ceremony on Friday.

Jehan Safwat Raouf was born in August 1933 in Cairo to an Egyptian middle-class father and a British mother. In 1949, at age 15, she married Anwar Sadat, a military officer at the time who later served as Egypt’s president from 1970 until his assassination by Islamic extremists in 1981. It was said that initially, her parents had opposed her marrying a man 15 years her senior. The couple had four children: daughters Noha, Gihan, Lobna and a son, Gamal.

Jehan Sadat consistently defended her husband’s de-cision to sign a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 after nearly three decades of war, a move that was controver-sial domestically and regionally.

After his assassination, she largely withdrew from pub-lic life. But in recent years, she emerged as a supporter of former military general el-Sissi and his government, after the country’s 2011 popular uprising forced her husband’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, to resign.

Mubarak’s ouster plunged Egypt into chaos and uncer-tainty, and set up a power struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood group that had long been outlawed. Some two and a half years after Mubarak’s ouster, el-Sissi led a military overthrow of Egypt’s first freely elected president, who hailed from the Brother-hood, and rolled back freedoms gained in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. (AP)

EU, GCC explore water security

Deputy Speaker sees red over Green

Labour law amendment eyedBy Saeed Mahmoud Saleh

Arab Times Staff and Agencies

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: MP Hamad Al-Matar has announced his plan to submit a bill to amend Domestic Labor Law No. 78/ 2015.

He pointed out that the overlapping functions of the ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs and Social Affairs have turned the citizens into victims of bu-reaucracy. He wondered how a spon-sor is obligated to shoulder the cost of deporting a worker who absconded. He stressed the need to obligate any-one who hides or hires the absconding worker to pay for the deportation ex-penses.

He inquired about the domestic labor recruitment company that the govern-ment promised to establish. He asked why a citizen pays more than KD2,000 to hire a domestic worker. He then em-phasized the need to open new markets for hiring well-trained workers like In-donesia.

He also proposed the expansion of streets in crowded areas, while calling for the completion of infrastructure in new residential areas.

In addition, Deputy Speaker of the Na-tional Assembly Ahmed Al-Shuhoumi submitted a bill on criminalizing over-grazing.

According to the bill, whoever destroys plant areas through overgrazing or cuts trees and flowers in public squares and streets will be fined ranging from KD250 to KD5,000.

Meanwhile, MP Osama Al-Menawer praised the decision of Minister of Oil and Higher Education Dr Muhammad Al-Fares to recruit Kuwaiti graudates holding technical diplomas who passed the exams and fulfilled the requirements stated in the corresponding job advertise-ments.

On his Twitter account, the lawmaker thanked Al-Fares for responding to the parliamentary demand to hire petroleum engineers and others with relevant spe-cializations who should be prioritized in the recruitment process.

Also:KUWAIT CITY: The Civil Service Com-

mission (CSC) and the Ministry of Fi-nance are currently coordinating with the Ministry of Health to amend the decree on the civil service system by adding Ar-ticle 40bis to allow the Health Ministry employees to cash their unused leave balance, reports Al-Anba daily quoting sources.

Sources told the daily that the CSC and the Ministry of Finance are studying this proposal in preparation for submitting it to the Ministry of Health to take the final decision.

Months ago, the Ministry of Health completed the preparation of a draft on amending the decree which was issued in 1979. The proposed Article 40bis states that “the Ministry of Health is exempted from Article 40.

The Minister of Health is authorized, if needed and if working conditions al-low, to allow employees to cash their an-nual leave balance that exceeds the legal limit.”

BRUSSELS, July 10, (KUNA): A seminar via videoconference Thursday discussed ways to pro-mote cooperation between the Eu-ropean Union (EU) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on water efficiency and security in the Gulf region.

Speakers at the webinar said

that the negative impact of Cli-mate Change is increasingly af-fecting the security of water across the globe and the impact on water security in the Gulf region is pro-found.

The online event was organised by Brussels-based think-tank the Bussola Institute.

AstraZeneca ADDED TO Oxford IN REVISED CERTIFICATEAll means to avoidlockdown, curfewKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (Agencies): Kuwait International Airport is open and traffic is increasing, but be sure to get vaccinated before traveling, reports Al-Rai daily quoting Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and Chairman of Co-rona Emergency Committee Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali.

Sheikh Hamad gave citizens and expatriates a great dose of optimism regarding the plan to return to normal life recently.

“We are starting to reach the end of the tunnel,” Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali affirmed on the sidelines of the graduation ceremony for those who successfully completed the command and staff course.

‘Starting to reach the end of the tunnel’

“The concerned authorities are avoiding imposing curfew by all means, while looking for alternatives in curbing the spread of the virus; such as encouraging citizens and ex-patriates to get vaccinated,” he disclosed.

He added: “We are trying to avoid imposing lockdown and curfew at the moment. God willing, we will not impose cur-few,” noting that “the airport is open and there is an increase in movement. Our brothers and sisters who want to travel, go and relax; but being cautious is a duty. I advise you to be care-ful at all times.”

Emphasizing the importance of the initiative to get vaccinat-ed against Covid-19, the minis-ter said: “I am one of the people who was infected with corona, but I did not feel anything when I got vaccinated.”

He also commended the frontline workers in the Minis-try of Health, including doctors and various medical and nurs-ing staff who work with the highest level of energy day and night, “I thank them very much for what they are doing,” he concluded.

RevisedThe Ministry of Health has

revised the vaccination certifi-cates of those who were vacci-nated with Oxford vaccine by adding ‘AstraZeneca’ to the name of the vaccine, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting an of-ficial source from the health sector.

The source said all those vac-cinated with AstraZeneca/Ox-ford can download the revised certificate from the vaccination platform.

According to the source, everyone who has been vacci-nated with the Oxford vaccine can use the same link to obtain the certificate again, as the min-istry changed the name of the vaccine from Oxford to Astra-Zeneca/Oxford. The source ex-plained Oxford is not known as a vaccine in some countries, so the ministry decided to change the vaccine name in the vacci-nation certificate.

Kuwait’s daily coronavi-rus cases jumped by 1,555 to 374,104 as deaths rose by 11 to 2,100, the health ministry said on Saturday.

Another 1,728 people were cured of the virus, raising the total of those to have over-come the disease to 353,936, ministry spokesperson Dr. Abdallah Al-Sanad said in a statement.

The number of people hospi-talised with the virus currently stands at 18,068, with 326 of them in intensive care units, he added, revealing that some 13,786 swab tests were con-ducted over the last day out of a total of 3,123,626.

He went on to urge nation-als and expatriates alike that abiding by health precautions, mainly, following social dis-tancing rules, is the only way to halt the spread of the virus

Opinion

By Ahmed Al-JarallahEditor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

WHENEVER we talk about “state of in-stitutions”, we always refer to the system that was built in the early years of inde-pendence. It is still the backbone of the state today, despite all the challenges it suffers from due to the corruption that has spread in it in the absence of over-sight and decisiveness. This occurred after the influential individuals and MPs became the decision-makers in the ad-ministration, as they tilt matters towards their interests rather than those that serve the country and its people.

This conviction did not exist in the 1960s when democracy was tender and could be used for anything other than its main purposes. The elites at that time who had a hand in running the affairs of the country did not have personal ambitions other than the progress and development of the country. The overseas visits were not aimed for show or recreation but were aimed to benefit from the experiences of other nations.

On this basis, the late Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad visited China in 1965 when he was the Minister of Finance and Industry in the first government of independence. He possessed enlightened philosophy based on the principle of “give me a fish and you feed me for a day. Teach me how to fish and you feed me for my lifetime”.

During that trip, he became acquainted with all the institutions that could serve the country, despite the contradictions be-tween the socialist communist approach of China and the Kuwaiti pragmatic ap-proach.

From that trip, he obtained the idea of cooperative societies where the consumer is the owner. He also worked on revital-izing the private sector by stimulating it through its participation in projects.

He established productive industrial companies and made them equity com-panies whereby the state pays part of its shares and allows citizens to own the rest. He also launched the development fund.

This step led to the establishment of the National Industries Company and many others, which became the lynch-pin of the national economy. After tak-ing over the presidency of the Council of Ministers, he established the banking profession law and the Central Bank of Kuwait, which allowed banks to trans-form into a large investment and contrib-uting force.

Soon, this legal and institutional sys-tem began to bear fruits quickly through the marriage between the state and the private sector, turning Kuwait into an in-vestment destination in the region at that time.

The state’s goal at the time, as it is prevalent today, was not for everyone to work in the government sector, but rather to put the right man in the right place. No one accepted the idea of turning the offi-cial institutions into a source of electoral benefit.

This means that the corridors of the ministries and institutions would not be crowded with employees, bringing about disguised unemployment because of ill-studied employment policies, or by working with the communist principle - “Work as much as you can and take as much as you need”. This unfortunately is what Kuwait has become today after populism and the spread of electoral bribery.

Here, we must highlight the fact that the rise of China, Japan, the United States, Britain, Norway and Switzer-land was neither due to employee-over-load in official institutions nor due to the state sponsorship of citizens from womb-to-tomb, which currently exists in Kuwait. The country’s flaws are be-coming more exposed with every drop in the oil prices.

Those countries pursued the tradition of pushing their people to work in vari-ous fields, and did not adopt the policy of “citizens turning down professions that they assume are beneath them”.

In addition, these countries have en-trusted most of their activities to the private sector, starting with education, health, electricity and water, and even roads. The state was instead the supervi-sor and regulator, and collects taxes to improve services and impose security and justice.

The policy of subsidies did not focus on food or services. On the other hand, the subsidy in Kuwait has reached the level of giving away cheese and pasta as if the Kuwaitis are minors or chicks fed by the state.

There is no doubt that the way out of the current crisis is by changing the men-tality of the administration, enhancing the involvement of the private sector in all fields, and getting out of the tunnel of the state policy of womb-to-tomb support, which has perpetuated dependency, lazi-ness and corruption.

Email: ahmed@aljarallah.com

Follow me on:

ahmedaljarallah@gmail.com

Complete Jaber Al-Ahmad developmentprojects and end womb-to-tomb welfare

Newswatch

THE Ministry of Social Affairs and the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) continue to expel from the country resi-dents who have reached the age of sixty — residents who are experienced and their presence is of great benefit to this nation — and instead ‘embrace’ the so-called marginal workers.

The 60-year-olds are organized and committed, but when seek to renew the residence permit, the request is turned down because of the age factor. This is like telling this category of people we have had enough of you, “Now take your children and go back to your country.” This is verbal abuse because this is like telling the 60-year-olds, “We don’t want to see you”.

The marginal workers are an afflic-tion, not the people who are sixty years and above. These are the productive people. Oh PAM, stop this abuse and irrational decisions against the sixty years olds.

…Yet, tomorrow is another day.Zahed Matar

Day by Day

KUWAIT CITY: The Amiri Diwan on Saturday mourned Sheikha Bushra Jarrah Sabah Al-Mohammad Al-Sa-bah, who passed away at the age of 68.

The deceased will be laid to rest tomorrow morning at 09:00 am.

Text (men): 99762222, (women): 99030617. (KUNA)❑ ❑ ❑

GENEVA: Kuwait on Friday said it was imperative to hold Israel accountable for the “atrocities” it commits against the Palestinian people, urging the international community to fi nd the root cause of such practices.

Despite a ceasefire that halted the latest outbreak of violence across the Gaza Strip, Israel’s “provocative actions” remain unabated, which include its “illegal” settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territories, Kuwait’s permanent delegate to the UN-Geneva Ja-mal Al-Ghunaim told the Human Rights Council. (KUNA)

Embassy of Kuwaitdenies murder storyKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): The Embassy of the State of Kuwait to the United Kingdom denied on Saturday the validity of what was report-ed yesterday about the involve-ment of Kuwaiti citizens in a murder in London.

The embassy stated in a press statement that it “closely followed up the investigations conducted, stressing that the case is nothing more than a quarrel involving a Kuwaiti citizen who was recently re-leased.” — See Also Page 3

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021 2

Fajr ........ 03:23Sunrise .. 04:56Zohr ....... 11:53

Asr .......... 15:28Maghrib .. 18:51Isha ........ 20:21

Prayer Timings Expected weather for the next 24 hours:

By Day: Very hot and relatively humid specially over coastal areas with light to moderate north east-erly wind to light variable wind with speeds of 10-32 km/h.

By Night: Hot to rather hot and relatively humid specially over coastal areas with light to moderate north easterly wind to light variable wind with speeds of 08-26 km/h.Station Max Exp Min RecKuwait City 48 37

Kuwait Airport 49 31Abdaly 50 31Jahra 50 34Salmiyah 44 37Ahmadi 47 36Wafra 49 32Salmy 47 31

Weather

VACCINE REGISTRATION WEBSITE: https://cov19vaccine.moh.gov.kw/SPCMS/CVD_19_Vaccine_Registration.aspx

KUNA photoChief of the Kuwaiti General Fire Brigade, Lieutenant-General Khaled Al-Mekrad during the inauguration of

the rescue boats.

Coastal rescue strategy launchedChief of the Kuwaiti General Fire Brigade Lieutenant-General Khaled Al-Mekrad on Saturday launched coastal rescue mecha-nisms and advanced marine equipment for rapid intervention to be used in maritime search and

rescue cases.The force said in a press state-

ment that the inauguration included mechanisms for coastal rescue operations equipped with all ad-vanced devices and equipment and portable boats, in addition to

the inauguration of jet skis for water and coastal accidents and depth scanning devices to be used in the search for missing persons under the surface of the water within the development and modernization plan that it operates. (KUNA)

Covid takes its toll on businesses

SMEs will either shut or go bankruptKUWAIT CITY, July 10: According to reliable sources, a large section of small-sized and medium-sized com-panies and others are considering ap-plying for liquidation, indicating the most violent wave that the country is yet to witness in terms of the exit of institutions from the market due to the inability to continue coping with the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses, reports Al-Nahar daily.

They revealed that a number of companies and owners of small and medium enterprises are studying liq-uidation methods to take advantage of the bankruptcy and creditor pro-tection law, which is expected to be activated, and offering many projects for sale at low prices, due to the in-ability to keep pace with the current situation.

The sources explained that studies have revealed a surge in the desire to get rid of projects due to the poor fi -nancial situation and the inability of a number of companies to fulfi ll their

obligations towards suppliers, as well as rental owners. Their liquidity has been exposed to a sharp decline that does not enable them to manage their operations, and this will force the owners of companies to enter the umbrella of bankruptcy law.

Many companies are now offering their assets for sale at prices less than ten percent of their value in order to pay their immediate fi nancial obli-gations in terms of rents, and wages and salaries of their employees, after exhausting all avenues to obtain fi -nancing.

Approximately 50 percent of small and medium enterprises will either close or go bankrupt, and these pro-jects are now being offered for sale.

The sources called on government agencies to review the conditions contained in the fi nancing guarantee law.

Meanwhile, an informed source at the Directorate-General of Civil Avia-tion said the inbound Turkish plane to Kuwait was diverted and not allowed

to land at the Kuwait International Airport (KIA) because it was not equipped with the ADS-B system, re-ports Al-Rai daily.

The source explained, “This sys-tem, which we are currently work-ing on, is new, provided that main-tenance is done on the radar and a return to the old system.”

The source indicated that “this is not the fi rst time that permission was denied to land, but more than 7 fl ights of different airlines that were not equipped with the system that we are currently working on were denied permission to land”. A cir-cular has been issued to all airlines to work with the current system on the radar of the Kuwait International Airport.

The ADS-B or Automatic De-pendent Surveillance-Broadcast is a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via the satellite navigation or other sen-sors and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked.

Travel demand grows bycitizens during Eid break

Turkey remains main destination

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: A member of the Board of Directors of the Union of Tourism and Travel Of-fi ces and Head of the Me-dia Committee of the union Hussein Al-Sulaiten says there is an increasing de-mand for travel via Kuwait International Airport on a weekly basis, especially with the advent of the Eid Al-Adha holidays, which will extend for nine days this year, reports Al-Anba daily.

In a press statement, he ex-plained that many citizens and residents have an opportunity to travel, considering their inability to travel for long periods in the past due to the COVID-19 pan-demic. The number of travelers from Kuwait during the upcoming Eid Al-Adha holidays is expected to reach more than 100,000.

The destinations that have a large turnout of citizens during this year’s Eid Al-Adha holiday are still the same. Turkey is still at the forefront in this regard, witnessing the highest demand from citizens, followed by destinations such as the Maldives, Georgia, Bosnia, and Azerbaijan.

At present, London is witnessing a great demand by citizens due to many reasons, the most important of which is the ease in obtaining a visa compared to other European countries, which require booking an appointment to ob-tain a visa, while the British Embassy allows obtaining a visa through its website.

The heavy demand for traveling to London received a quick response from Kuwait Airways by increasing the number of fl ights to London from one fl ight per week to three fl ights to Heathrow Airport in London, as well as one fl ight of Jazeera Airways per week and a fl ight of British Airways in order to achieve some balance between supply and the signifi cantly high de-mand for travel to London by citizens.

Al-Sulaiten affi rmed that the in-crease in the number of passengers via Kuwait Airport to 5,000 per day, and the increase in the number of

Photo by Bassam Abu ShanabFamilies and bachelors from various nationalities fl ock to the recreation spots during the Friday holiday mainly the beaches at Kuwait City and Salmiya. The visitors spend some good time despite soaring temperatures.

Abandoned cars lifted, citations issued

Restaurant sector suffering from 3 factors

Power supply to bachelors homes cut

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: Head of Ku-waiti Union of Restaurants, Cafès and Catering (KURCC) Fahd Al-Arbash confi rmed that the restaurant and cafè sector is suffering due to three main factors, which have negatively affect-ed its performance since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic till date, reports Al-Anba daily.

In an exclusive statement to the daily, he disclosed the sector is suffer-ing due to the severe shortage of spe-cialized and qualifi ed workers, delay in vaccinating a large segment of the sector’s workforce, and continuation of the closure of commercial com-plexes at 8:00 pm.

He added that KURCC repeatedly asked the Council of Ministers, Minis-try of Health and other concerned au-thorities to ease restrictions imposed on the commercial sector, considering the enormous losses that commercial establishments have incurred as a re-sult of these restrictions. He stressed the need for these authorities to focus on the commercial sector and help it overcome this crisis.

He went on to say that the union also asked the Ministry of Health to expedite the vaccination of workers in restaurants and cafès; pointing out that the workers of large restaurants with more than 100 employees have already been vaccinated, while small restaurants and cafès with a small number of workers are still suffer-ing from delayed vaccination which negatively affected their operations.

❑ ❑ ❑

‘Vaccination is must’: The vac-cination against Covid-19 virus has become a condition for appointment in some government institutions, after the ‘Insurance Regulatory Unit’ of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry stipulated that obtaining at least one dose of approved vaccines can be con-sidered one of the aspects for appoint-ment, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting reliable sources.

The same sources expect other gov-ernment institutions to follow suit es-pecially those which are not linked to the Civil Service Commission (CSC)

In a related context, the daily learned that there is coordination be-tween government institutions and the Ministry of Health to provide vac-cination to government employees at their places of work to make the gov-ernment institutions a safer place for employees.

Informed sources said the vaccina-tion process in government institu-tions will be carried out by mobile vaccination units of the Ministry of Health.

However, the same sources said no circulars have been issued in this re-gard, but the step opens the door for whether restrictions and conditions for work for non-vaccinated people within government agencies but the issue is linked to attending work and meeting visitors.

An offi cial source in the Insurance Regulatory Unit confi rmed that the requirement to obtain a legal vaccina-tion dose coincides with the general goals pursued by the state and its pre-cautionary measures in the face of the Corona pandemic.

By Abdel Nasser Al-AslamiAl-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The super-visory teams of the Kuwait Municipal-ity in a number of governorates car-ried out fi eld tours, which resulted in cutting off power supply to violating establishments, lifting neglected cars and issuing citations for various rea-sons.

In the Ahmadi Governorate, the su-pervisory team cut off the power sup-ply to 15 apartments because the owner had rented out these apartments for bachelors in spite of a warning, while

the supervisory team of the Cleanliness and Road Works Department in Far-waniya issued 301 citations related to public hygiene and removed 266 aban-doned cars.

The supervisory team in the Ha-walli Governorate issued 9 citations -- for placing an advertisement with-out obtaining a license and not adher-ing to health requirements. This is in addition to issuing 17 warnings, while the supervisory team in the Capital Governorate intensifi ed its fi eld tours, which resulted in issuing 3 citations for non-compliance with health re-quirements.

In this context, the Director of the Department of Public Cleanliness and Road Works in the Jahra Municipality Fahd Al-Qarifa explained the supervi-sory team in the Taima carried out a fi eld tour in the Qasr area and lifted 10 abandoned cars.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Works has requested the Central Agen-cy for Public Tenders to reopen the bid-ding for all companies that purchased tender documents for the fi rst phase of the construction, operation and main-tenance of South Mutla’a Purifi cation Plant, reports Al-Rai daily quoting sources.

Panel set up for probe

Focus on co-op’s work, accountsBy Faris Al-AbdanAl-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: Assistant Un-dersecretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs for Cooperatives Sector Affairs Salem Al-Rashidi has formed a commit-tee to look into the work and accounts of the Salmiya Cooperative Society.

The decision, a copy of which has been obtained by the daily, indicates the committee is chaired by Abdul Alim Al-Shamri, with Abdulaziz Al-Abdullah and Adel Al-Fadhli, as members and with Nawaf Al-Shim-mari as member and rapporteur.

Al-Rashidi indicated that committee meets at the invitation of the chairman or his deputy, and the minutes of the meeting are not valid unless most of the members are present and that the committee issues its decisions by a ma-

jority vote of those present. He stated the committee does its

work in accordance with the proce-dures stipulated in the Ministerial Resolution No. 1/T of 2021 regarding the mechanism and controls for inves-tigation and review of the work and accounts of cooperative societies and cooperative unions.

He also stated the chairman of the committee, within a week from the end of the committee’s work, has to submit to the assistant undersecretary for co-operatives affairs the original report.

The committee chairman keeps a hard copy of the report and another copy on his fl ash drive. The decision indicated the committee’s work period is 60 days, subject to extension in ac-cordance with the text of Article 5 of the aforementioned ministerial deci-sion.

fl ights will contribute to the recovery of movement at Kuwait International Airport, and signifi cantly reduce ticket

prices, which will in turn revive the travel and tourism market in Kuwait and benefi t everyone.

LOCALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

3

A DIGEST OF PUBLIC OPINION

‘Security of homeland important, personal freedom has limits’“CERTAINLY, the security of the homeland is more important than of indi-viduals. In this connection, we elucidate that personal freedoms have specific limits and they will cease when these freedoms begin to threaten the security of the homeland and its people,” columnist Talal Abdulkarim Al-Arab wrote for Al-Jarida daily.

“Here we tell the troublemakers that enough is enough, particularly if the aim is to keep the judiciary busy with some cases that have been filed by you. In this respect, to point out that even if the verdicts are issued in your favor, the bad situation will become worse, hence, please have mercy on Kuwait and its people for the sake of the stability of the country.

“During the recent past, we have observed the increas-ing number of cases filed against government reforms or against any decision that was aimed at controlling the health and security of the country.

“These cases were filed by a group of MPs or by those who call themselves political activists and most of these cases were won by the plaintiffs. The judiciary is currently dealing with various topics through an independent and abstract angle, while the complainants are busy to make electoral gains and get media attention or this falls within their preparations to contest the next parliamentary elections by introducing themselves as defenders of personal freedoms.

“Given the above, we conclude that those who introduce themselves as oppo-sition, are actually happy to be decorated as opponents, and this is a new meth-od most MPs adopt and go on to benefit during the parliamentary elections, but it is needless to say these practices will hurt only their country and people.

“In this connection, we recall what occurred at the outset of the corona pan-demic which had spread rapidly in Iran. During that time, Kuwait had taken preventive measures in public interest but a minority of these MPs raised a cry and called for their supporters to enter Kuwait.

“However, when the government succumbed to the request of those MPs they succeeded also in not allowing the government to send them into quaran-tine and this resulted in spreading the pandemic in Kuwait to such extent one former MP was quoted as saying he hopes he contacts the virus and called it a ‘blessing’ but when his brother died of the virus his tone changed and called for imposing health restrictions.

“As a matter of fact, there is a tangible contradiction among those who in-troduce themselves as opposition members just for the sake of it and this was evident when they opposed the written exams for Grade 12 students in the name of protecting students from getting infected while at the same time they were calling for reopening the cafes and restaurants.

“These MPs call for controlling the traffic movement and giving necessary protection for policemen against criminals but the same MPs oppose the enact-ment of firm laws to minimize the danger posed by these criminals.

“In conclusion, we would like to say once again that the security of the home-land is more important than that of the citizen, because personal freedom has specific limits.”

Also:“Do we have politicians to manage the legislative power and lead the latter

wisely and objectively so that we catch up with the civilized world?” columnist Dr. Balqees Al-Najjar wrote for Al-Qabas daily.

“Here we point out that those who are elected by us was in the hope that they will fulfill the promises given to us and put their interest in the homeland and the citizens above everything. In other words, when we cast our ballot we were confident that the relevant candidate will be our voice in the National Assembly and will work to enact laws for the good of the country.

“But, we never imagined that these candidates will not keep their promises and instead work for their personal interests or that of a specific group at the expense of the homeland.

“However, the sophisticated politician is the person who can manage the crises wisely and handle the developments through a clear cut vision and resort to the language of dialogue, not the language of confrontation.

“But if we look at the activities of our esquire MPs, we will unfortunately observe that since the very beginning of the current National Assembly’s term in December 2020, we have been living in a world of crisis and the reactions of the MPs to a large extent have been frustrating or rather shocking.

“This is in addition to in-fighting inside the Parliament and occupying the seats of ministers in violation of the laws and regulations governing the proto-cols. To add insult to injury they formed a queue to sit in the chair of the Prime Minister. This incident got a wide coverage even the international press.

“If the MPs were good mannered politicians, they would have adopted the language of dialogue in dealing with the government instead of screaming and shouting.

“In other words, if the MPs were good mannered politicians, they would sit with the government face to face and discuss issues and agree to what is best for the nation and the citizens.”

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“During the past few days, we received good news that warmed and reas-sured our hearts regarding our economic conditions, especially the future gen-erations whose lives we hope will be more comfortable and better,” columnist Abdulrahman Al-Awwad wrore for Al-Sabah daily.

“A new report by Moody’s said the global credit rating agency confirmed that Kuwait‘s Future Generations Fund is the second largest sovereign wealth fund in the world in terms of the ratio of assets to the country’s GDP. It re-vealed that the fund’s assets constitute about 420 percent of nominal GDP, after the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which ranked first with assets equal to about 425 percent of the GDP of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

“Undoubtedly, this is a new testimony of merit to the Kuwaiti economic mentality which originally planned and thought about establishing the Future Generations Fund that continues to receive a lot of global appreciation.

“This also makes us regain confidence in ourselves and in our ability to work, plan and manage our financial and economic affairs well — a confidence that was shaken a lot during the recent period for reasons which are no longer a se-cret to anyone, the most dangerous of which is the terrible conflict between the two authorities as each authority is willing to destroy the other and not cooper-ate with each other as stipulated in the Constitution.

“The indicators of the latest Moody’s report are not only financial or eco-nomic, but are also political, and most importantly, they are very important indicators that we are able to achieve ... if there is the will to do so.”

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“A few days ago, the traffic patrols launched traffic campaigns against mo-torists who violated traffic rules such as installing devices and equipment that emit annoying sounds on the exhaust of cars. They arrested the violators and reckless drivers who carry out acts that violate the law, impounded their ve-hicles for two months and detained them in police stations,” columnist Mousa Behbehani wrote for Al-Rai daily.

“Here, we see that the Ministry of Interior blamed all of the car owners, while the problem is more than that. There are companies and showroom owners who provide these illegal means to motorists. There is no doubt that behind these companies and sales fairs are agents and dealers who import these devices and equipment. They have obtained commercial permits to import these devices and equipment.

“So, how did the Ministry of Commerce and Industry allow these agents and traders to import these materials in violation of the traffic law. There are also the Inspection and Customs departments, which allowed these materials to enter the country, so the agent who skipped all these laws to pass such materials and succeeded in bringing them into the country is not the only one to blame for this problem.

“The main problem lies in government departments, particularly the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, for disregarding the laws that manage and regulate trade in the country and punish some who committed violations.”

— Compiled by Zaki Taleb

Talal Al-Arab

Kuwaiti under UK probe as womanfound dead after heated argument

Foul play suspected in citizen’s death; corpse found

By Munif NayefAl-Seyassah Staff and Agencies

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The Criminal Investigation and Forensic Evidence offi-cers have opened an investigation into the death of a Kuwaiti who was found dead at his home in Ardhiya.

According to a security source, when the relatives of the victim did not hear from him, they went to his house and found the corpse.

The death was then reported to the Operations Room of the Ministry of Interior and a preliminary report showed the man had died a few days ago and took the corpse to the Criminal Evidences Department to identify the cause of death.

On the other hand, the partially decomposed corpse of an unidentified Asian that was found under a bridge in Mina Abdullah has been referred to Forensics.

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Kuwaiti under probe: The Kuwaiti Embassy in London is closely following up the ongoing investigations with a Kuwaiti citizen who is being held at a police station, reports Al-Rai daily quoting sources close to the issue.

The sources said the Kuwaiti citizen, whose has not been identified, was with a young Moroccan woman in his apartment and allegedly a severe dispute between them led to the murder of the woman.

The sources said another Kuwaiti who was in the same apartment, left the place when things heated up between the couple and eventually led to the murder of the woman.

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Cams on beaches eyed: Director of Construction De-partment in Kuwait Municipality Eng. Ahmed Al-Hajri revealed a plan to install surveillance cameras in front of public facilities on the beaches in coordination with the Ministry of Interior with the aim of curbing the continu-ous destruction of toilets and some state facilities on the beaches, reports Aljarida daily.

In an interview with the daily, Eng. Al-Hajri said the Kuwait Municipality is experiencing a phenomenon of damaged signboards and public utilities, adding, “In the event of deliberate damage to public utilities, legal mea-sures will be taken against such vandalism in order to preserve those facilities.”

Regarding other projects, he explained that the two projects for the construction of the new Municipal Council and the Food Inspection Authority buildings are the most prominent projects of the municipality currently.

There are also youth projects being executed by the municipality with the cooperation of the National Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises to make use of some of the squares.

diwaniya

KUNA photoDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali Al-Sabah

and senior army officers at the graduation ceremony.

Kuwait, Gulf officers graduate

Defense minister says Kuwait Army is proud of Staff CollegeKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali Al-Sabah expressed the Kuwaiti army’s pride in the progress and de-velopment of the Mubarak Al-Abdullah Col-lege of Command and Joint Staff.

This came in a press statement by Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali recently, on the side-lines of the graduation ceremony for a new group of commanding offi cers in the 25th session at Mubarak Al-Abdullah College, which included offi cers from the State of Kuwait, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and brotherly and friendly countries.

Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali explained that the college’s progress and development, and its obtaining of the accreditation for the command and staff courses by the British Defense Academy, was the result of the sin-cere efforts made by those in charge of it.

He told the graduating offi cers from broth-erly and friendly countries, “You are in the land of goodness, the land of Kuwait, which always opens arms to you, and your brothers with whom you have trained are Kuwaiti of-fi cers, and you will continue the journey as future leaders of your countries in cooperation with your brothers in the State of Kuwait.”

For his part, the Assistant Commandant of the College, Brigadier General Pilot Faisal Al- Shammari, indicated in a speech during the cer-emony that leadership qualifi cation is the main pillar and cornerstone of nations’ progress and renaissance, facing challenges and overcoming them, and controlling and managing crises.

Al-Shammari added that this is done by as-signing grave tasks to competent leaders with insight and high determination towards achiev-

ing aspirations, exerting effort and making sac-rifi ces in the service of their country, fulfi lling their oath and sincerity in performing their du-ties and assuming their responsibilities.

He expressed pride in graduating this new group of commanding offi cers, praising the active and distinguished participation of the offi cers of the Ministry of Interior, the National Guard, and dear guests from the offi cers of brotherly and friendly countries, which refl ects the depth of military coopera-tion relations between the Ministry of De-fense and its counterparts in those countries.

He expressed his thanks and appreciation to the leadership and employees of the college for their efforts and sincere and tireless work that resulted in the graduation of this distinguished group of commanding offi cers, calling on them to continue to strive and work to develop their scientifi c capabilities and leadership skills and to complete the process of building and devel-oping the armed forces.

Brigadier General Al-Shammari asked the Almighty to perpetuate the blessing of security, safety, pride and prestige for Kuwait under the wise leadership of His Highness the Amir, Su-preme Commander of the Armed Forces, His Highness the Deputy Amir, the Crown Prince, and His Highness the Prime Minister, may God protect them, take care of them, and direct their steps on the path of goodness.

The number of graduates of the course 25 from the Mubarak Al-Abdullah College of Command and Joint Staff reached 85 offi cers, including 51 from the Kuwaiti army, 3 from the Ministry of Interior, 5 from the National Guard, in addition to 26 offi cers representing 13 brotherly and friendly countries.

‘Adulterer’ lawyer released

Life-term upheld for Iranian manBy Jaber Al-HamoudAl-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The Court of Ap-peals, presided over by Judge Nasr Al-Haid, issued rulings on two cases, and released a convicted lawyer in a third case.

In its fi rst ruling, the court overturned the verdict issued to imprison the president and secretary of the Jahra Club. It instead decid-ed to refrain from pronouncing its ruling and obligated them to maintain good conduct for a period of two years on a bail of KD 1,000 each. It also upheld the acquittal of six other defendants.

The case was fi led by the Public Author-ity for Sports due to the forgery of the min-utes of the Board of Directors’ meetings.

Previously, the Criminal Court had sen-tenced Jahra Club’s President Nawaf Jadeed

and the Secretary Khalaf Al-Sahwu to one-year imprisonment with hard labor, and the payment of KD 1,000 for suspending the enforcement of the ruling.

Meanwhile, the same court, in its second ruling, upheld the life-imprisonment sen-tence issued against an Iranian citizen who was caught smuggling eight kilograms of hashish into the country via sea from Iran.

In addition, the Court of Appeals decided to release a lawyer who was sentenced to ten-year imprisonment for committing adul-tery with a woman and forcing her to abort their unborn child, with the help of a nurse, landing them a jail term of three years. He and his accomplice were released on a bail of KD 3,000 and KD 300 respectively.

In a previous session two weeks ago, the court had ordered to refer the accused to the Central Prison.

MoH condemns smearcampaigns vs workersKUWAIT CITY, July 10: The Ministry of Health has condemned the smear campaigns that have been launched against its health staff for urging people to receive the vaccine, reports Al-Qabas daily.

In an offi cial statement, the ministry said: “The Minis-try of Health appreciates all offi cial and voluntary efforts which help contribute to community awareness -- efforts devoted to urging others to deal and coexist with this epi-demic safely, especially efforts to urge others to take the Covid-19 vaccine.”

“At the same time,” the statement said, “we denounce the smear campaigns that our health cadres are exposed to, just because they urge others to receive the vaccine, these cadres who have devoted their efforts to protecting society in terms of prevention and treatment.”

The sources said there is a need to ignore unconfi rmed information and unknown sources, and highlighted the importance of cooperation and standing united to protect the society in all its components.

KUNA photoFire-fighters battling the blaze in one of the warehouses.

Material loss in huge fire

Military uniform mystery cleared

The General Fire Brigade announced that five teams were able to control a fire that broke out Thursday evening in two warehouses in the Sulaibiya agricultural area without causing any injuries.

The Public Relations and Media De-partment of the force stated in a press statement that the operations room di-rected the firefighting teams from the centers of Sulaibikhat, Jleeb Al Shuy-oukh, Tahrir, Sabhan and Al-Isnad to deal with the fire that broke out in two

warehouses containing food materi-als, wood, oils and highly flammable liquids.

It reported that the fire consumed about 2,000 square meters of the total area of the place which is about 10,000 square meters. She stated that the teams surrounded the fire from all di-rections and began to fight it until it was brought under control, noting that the in-vestigation team also started its work to find out the cause of the fire.

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The Director-ate General of Public Relations and Se-curity Media Department of the Interior Ministry stated that the Criminal Security Sector of the ministry has summoned a person of Arab nationality working in a restaurant, whose photos were published

in military uniform for interrogation, re-ports Al-Rai daily.

Security sources added after the in-vestigation, it became clear that the pub-lished photos dated back to 2017, when he was serving in the army service in his country.

LOCALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

4

Hand of Asianstuck in meatmincer ‘freed’KUWAIT CITY, July 10: Acting on information the Technical Rescue Team of the Directorate-General of Fire Department freed the hand of an unidentified per-son after it was stuck in a meat mincer, reports Al-Seyassah daily.

The Public Relations and Media Department of the DGFD stated after a report was received by its operations room firemen and paramedics rushed to the site of the inci-dent and rushed an Asian to the Adan Hospital and with help from firemen did the needful.

National Day greetings sentKMA vows to prosecute thosewho ‘verbally abuse’ doctors

‘Global medical studies clearly demonstrate benefits of vaccination’

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The Kuwait Medi-cal Association (KMA) has mobilized its forces against the attacks on doctors on the social media by some anti-vaccination activists, which reflects the low level of those who pres-ent such strange ideas and trends, which are of course a blow to health security in light of the great momentum ac-quired by the health authorities at the global level as well as the local level which is a crystal clear evidence, reports Al-Qabas daily.

The association stressed the global medical studies and lo-cal statistics clearly demon-strate the benefits of vaccina-tion, and the harm caused by those who refrain from taking the vaccine at a time when about 3 billion people around the world have been vacci-nated. This number proves the

vaccination is beneficial to pro-tect the health of the people.

President of the KMA, Dr Ahmed Thuwaini Al-Enezi, stressed the association is the le-gitimate representative of doctors in Kuwait and their representative in civil society institutions, and a defender of community health, as it is the first supporter of the vac-cination campaign which is seen

as a major step in combating the corona pandemic.

For his part, the Vice-President of the association, Dr Ali Al-Moussawi, indicated the country’s senior leaders support the great efforts made by medical staff, and appreciate the great sacrifices made by doctors to save people’s lives in the face of this global pan-demic.

The Secretary-General of the Association, Dr Salem Al-Kandari explained the method of attack and bullying, which is characterized by some anti-vaccination campaign-ers, is the biggest evidence of the fragility of their level of standing, without taking into account the danger of their thought to the gen-eral public in the fight against the global corona pandemic.

Dr Muhammad Al-Obaidan, the treasurer of the KMA, vowed to confront and prosecute anyone who verbally abuses the doctors, considering this a direct blow to health security in the country.

HH Amir congratulates BahamasKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): His High-ness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sent Saturday a cable of congratula-tions to the High Commissioner of the Bahamas, Cornelius Alvin Smith, on his country’s National Day, wishing him good health and for the Repub-

lic further progress and prosperity.His Highness Deputy Amir and Crown

Prince Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah sent similar cables.

Convert to resorts

Council member queriesabout private rest houses

By Abdel Nasser Al-AslamiAl-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, July 10: Municipal Council member Ham-ad Al-Medlej has sent a query to Minister of Finance, Khali-fa Hamadeh, asking what grounds he relied on when signing approvals to convert private rest houses (chalets) into resorts and public warehouses.

Al-Medlej tweeted on his Twitter account that the rest houses in question belong to a sheikh and a businessman accused in real estate fraud cases calling the state property is not a private estate, and we will confront anyone who tries to tamper with it.”

It is noteworthy to mention the Municipal Law has set sev-eral controls governing the procedures for granting licenses for building chalets, including that the benefi ciary citizen with whom a usufruct license contract is concluded, declares in writing his desire to the Department of State Properties at the Ministry of Finance to establish a new chalet or to add, change or renovate another existing one, and sends the request after getting it signed from the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance to the Director of the Municipality, along with a copy of a license to exploit a plot of land out-side the general planning line for the construction of a chalet, and a copy of the scheme approved by the state property.

The law also stipulates that the application fi le complete with documents is sent to the Municipality to inspect the lo-cation of the chalet.

Other Voices

Moving American University of Beirut to State of Kuwait

By Ahmad alsarraf

The American University of Beirut was founded 155 years ago by the American

priest Daniel Bliss, and its name was the Syrian Protestant College before it changed to the cur-rent one 100 years ago. Although the name and background of its founder was missionary work, it was always a secular institution.

The teaching curriculum in its fi rst year in-cluded Arabic, English, and French, Turkish, Latin, mathematics, ancient Arab history and the history of religions, including Judaism.

A year later, pharmacy and medicine became part of its curricula in which many elite gradu-ated, some of whom became enlightened politi-cians.

The university also contributed to making Beirut a publishing center in the region when it transferred its printing press from Malta. The university also followed high educational stand-ards and values and a strict American curricu-lum, and was the fi rst in the region to rely on the principles of critical thinking and open and diverse discussions without discrimination be-tween students, with the support of its founder, priest Daniel Bliss.

With the collapse of the security, economic, social, political, and even moral situation in Lebanon, and the fi nancial diffi culties that the university is fac-ing, its administration de-cided to close its doors, or move to another country, especially since there was no objection to the inten-tion to close as this institu-tion was not once a source of wealth for any of them as was the case with diesel, garbage collec-tion, and soil plunder.

With the spread of news of the intention to close, the name of Kuwait emerged at the top of the countries to move to, so offi cials were con-tacted and the idea was welcomed by them.

After exchanging bureaucratic correspond-ences and communications that lasted for months, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Higher Educa-tion set the following conditions for the univer-sity’s transfer:

Changing its ancient name to become ‘Ku-wait National University; segregation of stu-dents; allowing men to wear national dress; allowing females to wear the hijab and niqab; allocating specifi c colleges for cooking and home education for girls; allowing the opening of Islamic places of worship within its campus; preventing the study of critical thinking, and distorted dialectical theories such as the Dar-win’s theory.

This is in allowing charities to open branch-es within the university; allocating 30% of the university’s majors to study religious sciences, Islamic only; restricting teaching to theoretical subjects and refusing to transfer the university hospital with it, because there is a full hospital in the fair ground and the necessity to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Information before holding any concerts and the approval of the Ministry of Interior for any debates as well as the approval of the Ministry of Commerce for any competitions.

The university administration met in Beirut and decided, within seconds, to reject the condi-tions and to consider moving to another country.

Of course, the above statement is not true, but it is very close to reality. If any educational body at the level of the American University thought of transferring its activities to Kuwait, the forces of backwardness and darkness would be on the lookout, with the support of the representatives of ‘Give us money’.

I do not know why I remembered Noah, as I finished this article, and the difficulties he would have faced, and how many licenses he had to extract before he hammered a single nail into the project to build his ‘Ark’ in Ku-wait, and how the land would sink before the licenses were issued.

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e-mail:a.alsarraf@alqabas.com.kw

alsarraf

Dr Ahmed Thuwaini Al-Enezi Dr Ali Al-Moussawi

LOCALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

5

Students urged to complete admission and registration procedures

Acceptance of 5,846 students in internal scholarship plan gets nodKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): Kuwait’s Minister of Oil and Minis-ter of Higher Education Dr. Muham-mad Al-Faris approved Saturday the acceptance of 5,846 male and female students in the plan of internal schol-arships for the academic year 2021-2022.

The Secretary-General of the General Secretariat of the Council of Private Universities, Eng. Omar Al-Kandari, announced in a press statement that the names of students accepted in the internal scholarship plan are for bachelor’s and diploma programs for those who have ob-tained a high school certifi cate or its

equivalent.Al-Kandari stressed the impor-

tance of reviewing the accepted stu-dents in the plan of internal scholar-ships for the universities and colleges in which they were accepted accord-ing to the dates announced to them.

He pointed out that students must complete the admission and registra-tion procedures and hand over the original high school certifi cate, point-ing out the need to adhere to the inter-nal scholarship regulations to facilitate their study path during the mission.

He called on the students to visit the offi cial website of the General Secretariat of the Council of Private

Universities to see more information in this regard and to know the names of those admitted to colleges and universities with the plan of internal scholarships, wishing them success in their academic life in a way that contributes to advancing develop-ment and development in the State of Kuwait.

In other news, earlier this month the Ministry of Education received 24 new schools in four model resi-dential areas, including 12 schools in the city of Sabah Al-Ahmad, 5 in Al-Wafra, 6 in the city of Jaber Al-Ahmad and one school in the north-west of Sulaibikhat.

In the context, the education sources indicated these schools were received based on prior coordination with the Public Authority for Hous-ing Welfare and is expected to go into service during next academic year due to the urgent need to serve the residents of these new cities.

However, according to education sources these schools need security guards to protect them from damage and theft, as well as personnel in the fi eld of education and administra-tion to operate them, in addition to naming these schools and appointing personnel in supervisory positions which should be commensurate with

the budget of these schools.The sources indicated the educa-

tional districts have determined the number of students registered in these new residential areas and the needs of these schools including teachers and workers -- cleaning, and guards -- as well as securing power supply to all these schools in coordination with the Ministry of Electricity.

The sources pointed out the school maintenance work must proceed at an optimal pace to secure all school requirements related to maintenance of all kinds to withstand all seasons, in addition to sanitary works – toilets and air-conditioning units and paint-

ing corridors and classrooms, replac-ing damaged fl oors, maintenance of gymnasiums and other maintenance works that differ from one school to another, according to the notes recorded by school administrations which should be completed before September 2021.

The sources called on all sectors of the ministry to work within one cru-cible so that all educational facilities are ready to receive the students, tak-ing into account the preventive meas-ures put in place by the Ministry of Health through an integrated plan in the context of ensuring the safety of all students.

Authority continues awarenesscampaign on islands of KuwaitKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): The Environment Pub-lic Authority announced the continuation of its awareness campaign on the Kuwaiti islands to preserve the marine environment and coral reefs, especially during the summer period, in order to raise awareness among island-goers of the Environmental Protection Law and to monitor violators.

Director of the Public Relations and Media Department at the authority, Sheikha Al-Ibrahim, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the authority launched a campaign on Kubbar Island to educate its visitors to keep it clean and not to throw waste except in the places designated for it.

She explained to them the importance of preserving beaches and their natural components. Al-Ibrahim added that the aim of these campaigns is to reach the largest pos-sible segment of sea-goers to educate them about the impor-tance of taking care of the Kuwaiti islands which enriches the coral cover in the sea and preserve its natural resources.

She stated that the authority also carried out an inspec-tion campaign on Qaruh Island, and some observed environ-mental violations, including throwing items on coral reefs, indicating that a number of environmental violations were issued due to non-compliance with the environmental pro-tection law.

She stressed the need to adhere to the authority’s instruc-tions, link boats to the places designated for them, and not cause harm to coral reefs to avoid breaking them and pre-serving biodiversity, noting that the authority will launch another new campaign on Umm Al-Maradim Island during the coming week.

One of the paintings on exhibit.

Kuwait charities continue giving ‘aid’ to needy as Eid approaches

Water, health center projects help Yemenis

KUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): With the ap-proaching Eid Al-Adha, where all the meanings of humanity are manifested in its highest forms, Ku-waiti charitable institutions and organizations deliver humanitarian aid to those who deserve it, to mix cel-ebrations with providing a decent life for all, especially the needy groups who are the focus of attention of those responsible for hu-manitarian activity in the State of Kuwait.

Keen to touch the humanitarian needs and respond effectively to them, the Kuwaiti humanitarian aid campaign continued its journey in spite of the exceptional circum-stances the world is going through in COVID-19.

The Kuwait Red Crescent Society recently announced the distribution of Eid al-Adha coupons for the benefi t of 2,500 needy families inside the country and who are registered in the associa-tion’s statements.

The director of the local aid depart-ment in KRCS, Maryam Al-Adsani, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the distribution of Eid Al-Adha coupons to needy families is added to the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society’s continuous projects in providing mul-tifaceted aid.

CampaignShe added that this campaign aims

to bring a smile and joy on the faces of children, women and the elderly, stressing the association’s keenness to support needy families and alleviate them with the approaching Eid Al-Adha.

AL-Adsani explained that the ben-eficiaries of the aid will go to take the sacrifice meat from the shops designated to cover their needs on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha, which contributes to establishing a spirit of joy for everyone.

She indicated that the assistance pro-vided by the association to needy fami-lies inside Kuwait includes widows, orphans, divorced women, people with special needs, the sick, and the elderly and low-income people.

Elsewhere, the Governor of Lahij Yemen, Major General Ahmed Turki, inaugurated the water project in the Al-Waht area in the Tuban district, which

benefi ts more than 2,500 families in the region and its surroundings, with fund-ing from the Kuwait Relief Society as part of the ‘Kuwait by your side’ cam-paign that has been going on for seven years.

In a press statement during the inau-guration of the project, Governor Turki expressed his thanks to the State of Ku-wait, HH the Amir, the government and the people for their generous support to the Yemenis in various fi elds.

He praised the efforts made by the Kuwait Relief Society in supporting Lahij Governorate and the rest of the Yemeni regions with vital and sustain-

able projects that effectively contribute to alleviating the suffering of citizens.

For his part, the director of Response Foundation for Humanitarian Works in Aden implementing the project, Engi-neer Abdul Rahman Al Qasimi, said that the project consists of digging an artesian well with a depth of 150 me-ters, implementing electrical works, connecting the pumping line, supply-ing the pump and building a room for it, noting that this project will ease the burden on the people of Al-Waht area and its surroundings.

In turn, the Deputy Director of the Kuwait Relief Society offi ce in Yemen,

Dr. Adel Baeshen, said that this large project will serve a large segment of the people of Lahij and put an end to the suffering of the residents of the re-gion with the water crisis, pointing to the importance of such development projects, which contribute to alleviat-ing the suffering of Yemenis.

Meanwhile, in an effort to alleviate the suffering of patients and their long wait for treatment, the Yemeni gover-norate of Ma’rib witnessed the laying of a foundation stone for a health cent-er project under the supervision of the Kuwait Red Crescent Society, the third of its kind in Yemen.

KUNA photoIllustration of the bridge.

American artists featured

Reconnaissance holds art exhibition at ‘Den Gallery’KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The Reconnaissance Center for Re-search and Studies, in coop-eration with the United States Embassy in Kuwait, will hold a week-long art exhibition for American women painters, starting on Monday, July 21, at the ‘Den Gallery’, reports Al-Seyassah daily.

The center said in a press statement that this exhibition, the fi rst of its kind, constitutes a window on paintings by Ameri-can artists that were loaned to the exhibition for the fi rst time under the patronage of the US Ambassador to Kuwait Alina Romanowski, in order to pro-vide the interested Kuwaiti public with the opportunity to be exposed closely to the promi-nent artists and their private works in the process of artistic and cultural exchange which has

always been a dominant feature of Reconnaissance Center’s co-operation with the US Embassy since its inception in 2019.

The source pointed out the American artists participating in the exhibition are Monica J. Paisley, Sarah Benveno, Amy Kaufman, Laura Napoli, Emily Payne, Ramona Sakistua, Ali-cia Scardita, Karen Schulz, J.D. Welburn, in addition to Zahra Marwan, who migrated to the United States from Kuwait in the late nineties, reviewing the achievements of female artists and their paintings.

For his part, the founder and CEO of the center, Abdulaziz Al-Anjari, said: “At the Reconnais-sance Center, we are keen to shed light on art and culture, as well as politics and the economy with the countries with which we have of-fi cial diplomatic relations.”

PART opens bridgeThe Public Authority for Roads and Transportation announced on Thursday the opening of a perma-nent bridge on Jassim Al-Kharafi Road (Sixth Ring Road) starting Friday.

The authority said in a press statement that the bridge will be

in the direction of Messilah with a length of 1.3 km and is considered as part of the South Surra devel-opment project, and it will achieve traffi c fl ow to enter from the ser-vice road in the Sixth Ring Road towards Messilah to the Shuhada and Ministries areas. (KUNA)

Kuwait Red Crescent Society distributes Eid Al-Adha coupons to needy families inside the country.

KUNA photosKuwait Relief Society distributes food baskets to families in southern Yemen.

KUNA photoEnvironment Public Authority during a tour of Kubbar

Island.

LOCALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

6

Climate change file one of high-risk issues in recent years

SAB report highlights contributions to environment, climate changeKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): The State Audit Bureau (SAB) issued a report on its con-tributions during the past 19 years in the field of environmental pro-tection and climate change, in line with the guidelines and directives of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (IN-TOSAI).

The Diwan said in a press state-ment Saturday that these guidelines and directives from INTOSAI urge to activate the environmental role of regulatory bodies and contribute to achieving the 13th goal of the sustainable development goals to address climate change.

The report included the most im-portant findings of the Bureau in the field of terrestrial, marine and air environment during the period between 2002 and 2020 from the reality of the audit work it carried

out and the meeting with many government agencies related to en-vironmental affairs.

It pointed out to the most promi-nent bodies related to environmen-tal affairs, including the Environ-ment Public Authority, the Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources, the Public Au-thority for Industry and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, to discuss issues related to the envi-ronment and climate change repre-sented in renewable energy, com-bating desertification, air quality and food security.

The Audit Bureau stated that citizens and those interested in en-vironmental affairs can view the report through its official website by entering the information center on the public intellectual and pro-fessional production page. It in-dicated that the Environment and

Sustainable Development Team in the Performance Oversight De-partment in the Diwan intends to implement a specialized monitor-ing mission on the topic assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of the performance of the concerned authorities in dealing with the ef-fects of climate change in the State of Kuwait, which is expected to be issued during 2021.

The report stressed the impor-

tance of the climate change file as one of the high-risk issues in re-cent years, according to the World Bank’s 2019 Global Risks Report, because of its significant negative effects on the life and stability of the individual, and by virtue of Kuwait’s geographical location, climatic conditions and geological nature, it is exposed to many envi-ronmental challenges.

It reviewed a number of those

challenges, such as high tempera-tures, high levels of suspended dust, increased sandstorms, lack of seasonal rains, limited water sourc-es, and the decline of vegetation cover, noting that these challenges were greatly exacerbated by the be-ginning of the twentieth century as a result of global climate change.

The State Audit Bureau said that the State of Kuwait is aware of the importance of the phenomenon

of climate change, as it joined the United Nations Framework Con-vention on Climate Change from 1995 to 2015 in the Paris Agree-ment on Climate Change. The Bureau pointed out that this agree-ment aims to reduce the concentra-tions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous interference by humans in the climate system and adapting to its harmful effects.

US underscores Kuwait’s ‘pivotal role, partnership’KUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): Kuwait plays a pivotal role towards preserving regional peace and security, US Secre-tary of State Antony Blinken

underscored to Foreign Minister and State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al-Nasser Al-Sabah in a phone call on Friday.

Against the backdrop of the 60th anniversary of the estab-lishment of diplomatic ties, the Kuwaiti top diplomat and his US counterpart agreed that bilat-

eral relations are on an upward trajectory, which in turn, helps bring common goals to fruition, said a foreign ministry state-ment.

KUNA photosCafe 31 staff and patrons

Cafe 312 fi rst of its kind, run by employees with ‘special needs’

By Jaber AbdulkhaleqKUWAIT CITY, July 10, (KUNA): Cafe 312 is the first of its kind in Kuwait, run by ten employees with special needs and offers hot and cold

drinks, various types of juices, sand-wiches and light snacks.

The cafe’s staff is happy with the idea of this project, where they can express themselves and get the needed experiences.

Kuwait calls for continuing int’l efforts in fight against HIV/AIDS

NEW YORK, July 10, (KUNA): Kuwait called on Friday to continue working on fighting HIV/AIDS, and exchange information and experiences in this field to combat this virus.

This came in the speech of State of Kuwait delivered by Chancellor Tahani Al-Nasser during the UN General Assembly’s special ses-sion discussing ways of fighting HIV/AIDS.

In the speech, Al-Nasser wel-comed the UN secretary general’s report on fi ghting Aids issued on March 31.

She expressed thanks to the im-portant information mentioned in the report explaining the progress made in fulfi lling the commitments made in the 2016 Political Declara-tion.

Many countries have fulfi lled their commitments in terms of ac-cess to health services, advanced diagnostic and treatment technolo-gies, and enhancing the perfor-

mance of health systems in general, she added.

This contributed to a 39 percent decrease in deaths from AIDS-re-lated causes from 2010 to 2019, while HIV infections decreased by 23 percent since 2010, she

added.On the other hand, Chancellor

Al-Nasser expressed disappoint-ment that progress is still far be-low the level of global commit-ments for many reasons, most notably the lack of investment in

comprehensive HIV prevention and other social and humanitarian constraints.

This led to an increase in the number of new infections recently, compared to the previous years. Since 2016, an additional 3.5 mil-lion people were infected, and 820,000 people have died, she ex-plained, stressing the importance of strengthen cooperation between relevant agencies and bodies.

In her speech, the Chancellor stressed that Kuwait realizes the importance of prevention and care for HIV cases.

Kuwait has formed a multi-sec-toral high-level national committee to combat AIDS, this developed strategic plan that focused on pre-vention, education and treatment, she noted

Al-Nasser praised Kuwait as be-ing one of the pioneering countries that has a number of preventive laws against the HIV/AIDS, in ad-dition of participating in Interna-tional activities, conferences, and meetings in this fi eld.

‘Progress still far below level of global commitments’

KUNA photoChancellor Tahani Al-Nasser

INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

7

America

Tears, politics and money

School boards havebecome battle zonesRAPID CITY, South Dakota, July 10, (AP): Local school boards around the country are increasingly be-coming cauldrons of anger and political division, boil-ing with disputes over such issues as COVID-19 mask rules, the treatment of transgender students and how to teach the history of racism and slavery in America.

Meetings that were once orderly, even boring, have turned ugly. School board elections that were once uncontested have drawn slates of candidates galvanized by one issue or another.

A June school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, that dealt with transgender students and the teaching of “critical race theory” became so unruly that one person was arrested for disorderly conduct and another was cited for trespassing.

In Rapid City, South Da-kota, and Kalispell, Montana, nonpartisan school board races devolved into political warfare as conservative candidates, an-gered over requirements to wear masks in schools, sought to seize control.

In Pennsylvania, a Republi-can donor is planning to pour $500,000 into school board races.

“We’re in a culture war,” said Jeff Holbrook, head of Rapid

City’s Pennington County GOP.In South Carolina’s Lexington-Richland school

system, a new majority of board members upset over pandemic restrictions forced out the superintendent, Christina Melton, who had pushed to keep a mask requirement in place through the end of the academ-ic year. She had been honored just weeks earlier as the state’s superintendent of the year.

Melton broke into tears at a meeting in June as she offered her resignation. A board member also quit that day, complaining the body decided behind closed doors to force Melton out and avoid a public vote. The board censured the departed member at its next meeting.

“Now we’re known as the district with the crazy school board,” said Tifani Moore, a mother with three children and a husband who teaches in the district.

Moore is running for the empty board seat and promises to tamp down the political split, which she worries has crippled the board.

Composed“It’s so thick, even the kids feel it,” she said.School boards are typically composed of former

educators and parents whose job, at least until re-cently, mostly consisted of ironing out budgets, dis-cussing the lunch menu or hiring superintendents.

But online meetings during the pandemic made it easier for parents to tune in. And the crisis gave new gravity to school board decisions.

Meanwhile, California will require that masks be worn at schools when classrooms open this fall, despite new guidance issued Friday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that says vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to wear face coverings inside school buildings.

Ahead of new school guidelines expected next week, health offi cials in California said Friday that requiring face coverings will allow all schools to reopen this fall for full in-person instruction.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly says that not all schools can accom-modate physical distancing of at least 3 feet or more, so the best preventative measure is indoor masking.

Also, parents worried their children were falling behind because of remote learning or clashed over how serious the health risks were.

“I saw over and over again frustrated parents, thousands of parents, calling into their board meet-ings, writing letters and getting no response,” said Clarice Schillinger, a Pennsylvania parent who formed a group called Keeping Kids in School.

She recruited nearly 100 parents to run in Novem-ber for school boards across Pennsylvania. While the group coalesced around pushing for schools to fully open, its candidates have also sought to bar the teaching of critical race theory, which among other things holds that racism is embedded in America’s laws and institutions

Schillinger said the group is split 70-30 between Republicans and Democrats. But its priorities are unmistakably conservative. She said it is trying to counter the sway teachers unions have over school boards: “It’s really less government — that’s what this comes down to.”

PledgedPaul Martino, a venture capitalist who donates

to Republican candidates and pledged a half-mil-lion dollars to the movement and the creation of a statewide political action committee, said the new PAC will support candidates committed to keeping schools open no matter what, “even if there is the dreaded fall COVID surge.”

Conservative slates of candidates elsewhere across the country have also set their sights on school boards.

In Rapid City, four recently elected school board members will hold a controlling vote on the seven-member body, which oversees the education of roughly 14,000 students. In an area where Trump fl ags still fl y, the four candidates for the usually non-partisan board secured an endorsement in the June election from the local GOP.

In previous elections, seats on the board were often fi lled in uncontested elections. But this year, the campaigns turned into political battles, complete with personal attacks.

Critical race theory is not a part of the Rapid City school curriculum. But that didn’t stop candidates from making it a central issue of the campaign.

“I believe with all my heart this is how they are going to slip socialism and Marxism into our schools,” newly elected member Deb Baker said at a campaign event.

Curt Pochardt, who was unseated as the school board president in the election, said he worries the new partisan dynamic will hurt students’ education.

“It doesn’t help kids when there’s tension on a school board,” he said.

Education experts warn that school boards are squandering time that could be spent tackling issues such as recruiting teachers, ensuring students have internet access at home or improving opportunities for youngsters with disabilities.

“Every time we’re not talking about those issues and we’re talking about something else that’s di-visive and it may not be happening at all — or at least not to the level it’s being portrayed — is lost opportunity for what we really need to be focused on,” said Chip Slaven, chief advocacy offi cer for the National School Boards Association.

In Kalispell, one losing school board candidate who campaigned against mask mandates made it clear he is not fi nished.

“I am the barbed spine of the jumping cholla cac-tus,” Sean Pandina told the board in May. “I’m the cholla in your fl esh that you cannot remove. I’m comfortable with losing the election because I have latched on and am not going away.”

Mark

From left: Public Counsel Senior Staff Attorney Talia Inlender, Judge Mark C. Scarsi, U.S. Marine Corps Hector Ocegueda, Immigrants’ Rights Attorney Helen Boyer, and Deported Veterans Director Hector Barajas, after Judge Scarsi administered the citizenship oath to Ocegueda in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles Friday, July 9, 2021. Ocegueda was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents and grew up in the Southern California city of Artesia. He served in the Marine Corps from 1987 to

1991 and spent four more years in the reserves before he was honorably discharged. (AP)

‘Shifting of goal posts’

Dems craft bill with eye on top courtWASHINGTON, July 10, (AP): As congressional Demo-crats gear up for another bruising legislative push to ex-pand voting rights, much of their attention has quietly focused on a small yet crucial voting bloc with the power to scuttle their plans: the nine Supreme Court justices.

Democrats face dim prospects for passing voting leg-islation through a narrowly divided Congress, where an issue that once drew compromise has become an increas-ingly partisan fl ashpoint. But as they look to reinstate key parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights-era law diminished over the past decade by Su-preme Court rulings, they have accepted the reality that any bill they pass probably will wind up in litigation — and ultimately back before the high court.

The task of building a more durable Voting Rights Act got harder when the high court’s conservative majority on July 1 issued its second major ruling in eight years narrowing the law’s once robust power.

“What it feels like is a shifting of the goal posts,” said Damon Hewitt, the president and executive director of the left-leaning Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Sparring in Congress for months has focused on a different Democratic bill overhauling elections, known as the For the People Act, which Republican senators blocked from debate on the chamber’s fl oor last month.

Separately, however, Democrats have held a marathon series of low-key “fi eld hearings” to prepare for votes on a second measure, the John Lewis Voting Rights Ad-vancement Act, which could come to the House fl oor for a vote in September. The bill would allow courts and the Department of Justice to once again police changes to voting rules in places with a history of electoral discrimi-nation against minorities, a practice the Supreme Court put on hold in 2013.

Democrats hope the hearings they have conducted with little fanfare will help build a legislative record

that could withstand a court challenge. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday that the pro-cess will document what he called “the disgraceful tactics that Republican-led state legislatures are using across the country to keep people from voting.”

That’s criticism that Republicans reject, arguing that the courts and Democratic administrations have selec-tively enforced the law in the past.

“It’s not a coincidence that a decade of court cases were only focused on Republican states,” said Rep. Rod-ney Davis, an Illinois Republican who sits on a commit-tee that conducted the fi eld hearings.

CounteractPressure has built for months on congressional Demo-

crats to counteract a concerted state-level Republican push to enact new voting restrictions, inspired by Presi-dent Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 elec-tion. But there is a new sense of urgency among many in the party’s activist base following the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, which upheld two restrictive Arizona laws and will limit the ability to challenge voting restrictions in court.

“We cannot wait until October or November,” said Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus.

While the specifi cs of the legislation have not yet been released, it would develop a new formula for determin-ing which states and local governments would be subject to a review process known as “preclearance.” The court blocked the practice in 2013, reasoning that the formula used to determine which places are subjected to it was outdated and unfairly punitive. But the court also ruled that Congress could develop a new formula.

Though laws and rules already in place wouldn’t be subject to a retooled Voting Rights Act, future ones

would.“We want to get our work done, but it has to be data-

focused and defensible within the courts,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat who serves on a commit-tee that has held many of the hearings.

Yet serious questions remain about whether the Su-preme Court, which has a new and expanded conserva-tive majority, would still be receptive to a new preclear-ance formula.

There’s also been a major shift in the Republican Party.The Voting Rights Act enjoyed bipartisan support in

Congress for decades. It was reauthorized fi ve times with commanding majorities, the most recent in 2006. But the bipartisan support eroded dramatically after the court’s fi rst ruling, in 2013, in the case of Shelby County, Ala-bama, v. Holder.

“If you look at the sea change in the politics, it all stems from Shelby and the political opportunity that it offers,” Hewitt said.

Republicans say vast strides have been made in ballot access since the civil rights era, which is when the law’s preclearance formula was fi rst established. The initial law targeted states and localities with low minority turnout and a history of using hurdles such as literacy tests and poll taxes to disenfranchise minority voters.

Such barriers are no longer used, and Republicans point to a swell of minority turnout in the last election as proof that many conservative-leaning states, particularly in the South, should not be subjected to preclearance.

They also point blame at Democrats, who in 2019 re-jected a bipartisan bill to reestablish preclearance. Many Democrats instead favored their own measure, which would have eschewed the use of minority voter turnout data, a pillar of the original Voting Rights Act, while leaning heavily on looser standards, such as using the number of legal settlements and consent decrees issued in voting rights cases, to pull places into preclearance.

Market Movements 09-07-2021

Business Change Closing ptsUK - FTSE 100 +91.22 7,121.88EUROPE - Euro Stoxx 50 +76.43 4,068.09SINGAPORE - Straits Times STI +23.81 3,131.40

Change Closing ptsSAUDI - Tadawul -133.54 10,825.01JAPAN - Nikkei -177.61 27,940.42UAE - DFM -2.33 2,779.75EGYPT - EGX 30 -92.45 10,184.80PHILIPPINES - All Shares -90.07 6,834.92INDIA - Sensex -182.75 52,386.19PAKISTAN - KSE 100 -489.72 47,563.45

N. Dakota sues feds over oil, gas lease sale suspension

North Dakota has sued the Biden administration over its suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land and water, saying the move will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

President Joe Biden shut down oil and gas lease sales from the nation’s public lands and waters in his first days in office, citing worries about cli-

mate change.The lawsuit filed Wednes-

day in federal district court in Bismarck claims the move is unlawful. It seeks to force the U.S. Bureau of Land Man-agement to reschedule two lease sales that already have been canceled and block the agency from revoking others in the future.

The lawsuit said the two canceled sales this year have

cost the state more than $82 million.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said in a statement he sued “to protect North Dakota’s economy, the jobs of our hardworking citizens, and North Dakota’s rights to control its own natural re-sources”

The suspension of the lease sales in North Dako-

ta, the nation’s No. 2 oil pro-ducer behind Texas, could cost the state “billions in the coming months,” Stene-hjem said.

A judge in Louisiana tem-porarily blocked Biden’s sus-pension last month, and said his ruling applies nationwide. But the administration con-tinues to develop plans that could extend the ban or make leases more costly. (AP)

In this file photo, pump jacks extract oil from beneath the ground on the Fort Berthold

Indian Reservation east of New Town, North Dakota.

(AP)

Any spike in inflation is likely to be temporary, Fed officials reiterate

Federal Reserve pledges ‘powerful support’ for economyWASHINGTON, July 10, (AP): The Federal Reserve says that its low interest rate policies are providing “powerful support” for the economy as it recovers from the coronavi-rus pandemic.

In its twice-a-year report to Congress on monetary policy released Friday, the Fed indicated that it plans to maintain that support until further progress is made in recovering from last year’s severe recession.

Progress on vaccinations helped to reopen the economy and produced strong economic growth over the fi rst half of this year, the Fed noted. But the lingering effects of the pan-demic still weigh on the economy, with employment well below pre-pandemic levels.

The central bank has kept its benchmark interest rate near zero, while continuing to buy $120 billion a month in Trea-sury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to put downward pressure on long-term interest rates. It said Friday that these efforts will help ensure that “monetary policy continues to deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete.”

The new report will be the subject of two days of hear-ings next week. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will testify Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee, and Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee.

Lawmakers will seek details on exactly when the central bank will start cutting back on its bond purchases, and when it will begin raising interest rates.

The report Friday repeated wording used by the central bank since last year, explaining that it does not expect to begin raising interest rates until its goals on maximum em-ployment and infl ation have been reached.

It also reiterated the Fed’s expectation that monthly bond purchases will remain at the level of $120 billion “until sub-stantial further progress has been made” toward its employ-ment and infl ation goals.

Shortages of materials and diffi culties in hiring have had held back activity in a number of industries, and bottlenecks so far this year and other transitory factors have boosted in-fl ation, according to the report.

“Consumer price infl ation has increased notably this spring as a surge in demand has run up again production bottlenecks and hiring diffi culties,” the report read.

But the report repeated the view of Powell and other Fed offi cials that any spike in infl ation is likely to be temporary.

“As these extraordinary circumstances pass, supply and demand should move closer to balance, and infl ation is widely expected to move down,” the report stated.

However, the Fed report also stated that “upside risks to the infl ation outlook in the near term have increased,” rais-ing the possibility that the spike in infl ation could last longer than fi rst expected.

“The discussion of infl ation developments emphasized the temporary, but likely more persistent than originally expected, infl ation overshoot that was currently underway,” said Krishna Guha, an analyst with investment bank Ever-core ISI.

Minutes of the discussions at the Fed’s last meeting in June showed that central bank offi cials began consideration of when and how they will start reducing the bond purchases but that no conclusions were reached. Most private econo-mists don’t expect the actual bond tapering to begin until late this year or perhaps not until early in 2022.

British economy ‘takes’ another step toward pre-pandemic level

Microchip shortage hurts car production

LONDON, July 10, (AP): The British economy took another step toward its pre-pandemic level following the latest eas-ing of lockdown restrictions, though the 0.8% growth re-corded in May was around half that expected by economists as a microchip shortage hurt car production.

Figures from the Office for Na-tional Statistics released on Friday showed the services sector to be largely behind the increase after a raft of hospitality, leisure and arts firms were able to reopen due to the relaxation of restrictions in England on May 17.

Though the British economy has now grown for four months in a row, May’s increase was lower than April’s 2.3% and below market ex-pectations for a 1.5% rise.

“Underlying growth is moderate outside the sectors being unlocked, with supply constraints contribut-ing to the continuing recent stagna-tion in manufacturing,” said Rory

Macqueen, an economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

Car production had a diffi cult month, suffering its biggest fall since the U.K. was fi rst hit by lockdown measures last year. A shortage of microchips affected the sector, with output in the manufacture of transport equipment declining by 16.5% for the month.

Despite the run of monthly in-creases, the British economy re-mains 3.1% smaller than it was in February 2020, the month before the government first put lockdown measures in place to try to contain the coronavirus.

The UK experienced one of the world’s deepest recessions last year, shrinking by around 10%. Restrictions across the U.K. have been lifted over recent months following a monthlong winter lockdown and the rapid rollout of vaccines. The other nations of the U.K. - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - are lifting restrictions slower than England.

The next easing of restrictions in England is due to take place on July

Flair plans fl ights to US in OctEDMONTON, July 10, (AP): Ca-nadians and Americans looking to fly across the border could have one more airline to choose from this fall, if virus-related travel restrictions between the two countries are gone by then, as planned.

Canadian budget carrier Flair Airlines said that on Oct. 31 it will begin flying to six U.S. leisure destinations including Las Vegas; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Palm Springs, California.

Flair executives suggest that their tiny airline can undercut big Cana-dian and American carriers on price. Swoop, a low-cost carrier owned by

Canada’s WestJet, is trying that ap-proach too.

Flair officials said they will fly to the U.S. from eight Canadian cities including Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

The airline is led by a former ex-ecutive of Hungary’s Wizz Air. It flew charters before converting to a mix of low fares and lots of fees, similar to U.S. carriers Spirit and Allegiant. Flair tried flying to the U.S. once before, but ended that service in 2019.

Flair has five Boeing 737 Max jets and three older 737s, with eight more Max planes on order.

19. This will involve the lifting of all remaining lockdown restrictions that should further boost consumer-facing sectors.

“It’s great to see people back out and about thanks to the success of the vaccine rollout, and to see that refl ected in today’s fi gures for eco-nomic growth,” Treasury chief Rishi

Sunak said.However, the recent sharp uptick

in new infections has raised concerns that the recovery may stutter during the summer, especially if it means many hundreds of thousands of peo-ple have to self-isolate and countless others opt to socialize less while cases are high.

‘Oil price is satisfactory’

OPEC+ must ‘sit down’ totalk compromise solution

By Kamel Al-HaramiIndependent Oil Analyst

SOME hard and tough negotiations have been neces-sary to bring back some discipline in order to retain the unity and success of OPEC-Plus. It worked really hard to achieve comprehensive unity and maintained over 100 percent commitment through each member adhering fully to their quota.

There is plenty of time to bring about some sort of understanding. The driving season is on in the USA and other parts of the world to keep oil prices stable on the

current level of $75 and above until autumn. Therefore, there is no need to be concerned about low oil pric-es, although some members will be tempted to leak a few barrels in order to take advantage of the prevailing situation. In addition to this is the arrival of the autumn season. There-fore, it is all positive so far, despite the current disagreement.

Additionally, this will give the US shale producers comfort to do noth-ing, observe the situation, and keep

on making real money by taking advantage of OPEC-Plus’ actions of the last few months. Meanwhile, the US has been generating real cash fl ow and satisfying the shareholders but not much because most of the produc-ers hedged their volume against fall of oil prices in the future, under the realization of much lower prices. It is paying heavily to hedging companies at the same time. Of course, they had to pay for their gamble in the absence of any future knowledge and perhaps because of share-holder pressure.

Now OPEC-Plus has to look for a solution and some sort of compromise, although the time might not be right. However, the organization did achieve, for the fi rst time, full compliance of all its members without exception.

The role that Saudi Arabia played goes beyond imagi-nation - its persistence, patience and the sacrifi ces it made. OPEC kept in touch with each of the members to achieve the group’s objective for stability, while creating cash fl ow for its members during the past months and bridging on the ongo-ing budget defi cits. Such great efforts that were taken should be remembered for years to come.

It is time for open and frank discussions for OPEC, with 22 members agreeing to the ongoing agreement. It is time for reconciliation and it is time to disagree and split away. The oil price is satisfactory... Reap from the hard work of the past few months. Outside members are more suitable to move forward in order to bring stability to the group.

❑ ❑ ❑

email: naftikuwaiti@yahoo.com

Al-Harami

BUSINESSARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

9

US equity benchmarks notch new highsCaps third straight, choppy week of gains

NEW YORK, July 10, (AP): Bond yields rebounded solid-ly and stock indexes notched new highs Friday as Wall Street closed out a choppy, holiday-shortened week of trading with the market’s third straight weekly gain.

The S&P 500 index rose 1.1% to an all-time high for the second time this week. The benchmark in-dex more than made up for its loss-es a day earlier, giving it a 0.4% gain for the week. The gains were broad with about 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 closing higher. Banks, technology companies and industrial stocks powered much of the rally.

The gains followed bursts of selling this week as bond yields fell sharply, a sign that investors might be turning cautious after a recent run of record highs for stocks. Bond yields also re-versed course Friday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped to 1.36% from 1.28% a day earlier.

“Today was ‘just let’s take a breath on all of this position-changing,” said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager with Globalt Investments.

The S&P 500 index rose 48.73 points to 4,369.55. The Dow Jones In-dustrial Average gained 448.23 points, or 1.3%, to 34,870.16, also a record high. The Nasdaq composite added 142.13 points, or 1%, to 14,701.92, the tech-heavy index’s third all-time high this week.

Small-company stocks did much better than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index rose 48.33 points, or 2.2%, to 2,280.

The market rally comes as investors turn their attention toward company earnings, which kicks off next week, starting with major banks like JPMor-gan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of Amer-ica and Wells Fargo. Analysts expect another strong quarter for Wall Street, due to the improving economy and fewer Americans defaulting on loans compared with earlier in the pandemic.

Banks have been among the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year. The KBW Bank Index of the 24 largest banks is up 27% this year alone, compared with the 16% gain of the S&P 500.

Investors continue to gauge the po-tential impact from COVID-19 vari-

ants, particularly the highly contagious delta variant, as governments in some countries reimpose lockdowns and trav-el restrictions. The problem has been particularly bad in Asia and Oceania, where countries that largely avoided the earlier outbreaks are now dealing with quickly growing caseloads of their own.

The rising number of coronavirus cases has been one of the reasons why investors have moved back into bonds in recent days. Thursday’s yield of 1.28% on the 10-year Treasury note was down sharply from its recent high of 1.75% in late March. Bond prices rise when yields fall.

Investors have also been closely watching the Federal Reserve to see how it reacts to the recovering economy and whether it will pull some of its sup-port sooner than expected. In a report to Congress released Friday, the central bank said its low interest rate policies

are providing “powerful support” for the economy as it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. It indicated that it plans to continue that support until more economic progress is made.

United Airlines rose 2.9% after say-ing it will add nearly 150 fl ights this winter to warm-weather destinations in the U.S. and will also add fl ights to beach spots in Mexico, Central Ameri-ca and the Caribbean.

Biogen slid 3% for the biggest drop in the S&P 500 after the acting head of the Food and Drug Administration called for a government investigation into highly unusual contacts between her agency’s drug reviewers and the drugmaker. The move is the latest fallout since the FDA approved Bio-gen’s controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm last month against the advice of the agency’s own panel of outside advisers.

Oil prices continued to march higher, with U.S. crude oil briefl y touching $75 a barrel overnight. It rose 2.2% to $74.56 a barrel on Friday. Members of the OPEC oil cartel have yet to come to a consensus on whether to increase oil production or not, which has caused volatility in en-ergy markets the past two weeks.

Germany’s DAX jumped 1% to 15,566.88 and the CAC 40 in Paris surged 1.8% to 6,510.77. In London, the FTSE 100 climbed 0.7% to 7,081.08.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 declined 0.6% to 27,940.42, while the Kospi in South Korea declined 1.1% to 3,217.95.

Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 gave up 0.9% to 7,273.30, while the Shanghai Composite index edged less than 0.1% lower, to 3,524.09. Shares also fell in India and Taiwan, but they rose in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng index gained 0.7% to 27,344.54.

Chinese consumer infl ation eased to 1.1% over a year earlier in June, down from the previous month’s 1.3%, after global commodity prices eased, the government reported. Producer price infl ation declined to 8.8% over a year earlier from May’s 9%.

“All told, concerns about price pres-sures in China look set to ease over the coming months, with infl ation likely to settle at a level that is unlikely to trig-ger any shifts in monetary policy,” Ju-lian Evans-Pritchard and Sheana Yue of Capital Economics said in a commen-tary.

Also Friday, the Chinese central bank freed up more money for lending by reducing the amount of reserves com-mercial banks are required to hold. The central bank said the move, announced earlier by the Cabinet, would make an additional 1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) available for lending.

A currency trader watches monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 8, 2021. Shares were mostly lower in Asia on Friday after stocks pulled back from their recent record highs on Wall Street. (AP)

Amtrak to ‘replace’ trains, spend $7.3bDETROIT, July 10, (AP): Amtrak plans to spend $7.3 billion to replace 83 passenger trains, some nearly a half-century old, though much of the fund-ing must still be approved by Congress.

Amtrak said Wednesday that under the contract with German manufac-turer Siemens AG, some of the trains will be hybrids, able to operate on diesel fuel and electricity where wires are available. The new trains will re-place Amfl eet, Metroliner and state-owned equipment starting in 2024.

The new engines and passenger cars will be built at a U.S. factory in Sacramento, California.

The new trains will have more comfortable seating, better ventilation systems, individual power outlets and USB ports, onboard WiFi, and pano-ramic windows. Amtrak CEO Wil-liam Flynn says they’ll pollute far less than the older trains when operating in diesel mode.

The trains will go to lines in New York, New England, California, the Northwest, Virginia and elsewhere. The railroad has an option to buy 130 additional trains from Siemens.

Siemens says the fi rst delivery will be in 2024 to the Cascades line in the northwest, with the rest continuing through 2030. Manufacturing will start in 2023. The trains will have an engine and roughly six to eight cars.

The contract will include equip-ment and a long-term parts supply and service agreement, the statement says.

In an interview, Flynn said the trains will be capable of traveling up to 125 mph (201 kilometers per hour), and they will be able to shift from electric mode to diesel without cur-rent delays due to switching engines. Trains often are limited to 90 mph (145 kilometers per hour) by track conditions, he said.

Amtrak says money will come from about $200 million already ap-proved by Congress, as well as future funding that has to be approved. “We expect that we will have annual fund-ing for our portion of the train sets,” he said. “If there should be a moment in time when that money isn’t specifi -cally available, we have the ability to fi nance the units as well,” Flynn said. That money would be repaid by states with trains, and passenger fares, he said.

China regulator haltsHuya-Douyu ‘merger’HONG KONG, July 10, (AP): China’s market regulator on Saturday blocked the merger of Tencent-backed game streaming platforms Douyu and Huya following an anti-monopoly investigation, as authorities ramp up scrutiny of some of the country’s biggest technology companies.

Huya and Douyu - which provide videogame live-streaming services akin to Twitch in the U.S. - are two of the largest companies of their kind in China. Both count gaming fi rm Tencent among their investors.

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said in a statement that a merger between Huya and Douyu would give Tencent control over the merged entity.

“From the perspective of different key indicators like revenue, number of active users, resources for streamers, the total share is very substantial and the elimination and restriction of competition can be foreseen,” the statement said.

Authorities have stepped up oversight of some of Chi-na’s largest technology fi rms over concerns of monopolis-tic behavior and unchecked growth, as well as how com-panies are collecting and using data from their millions of users.

Also Saturday, China’s cyber-regulator issued draft measures that said companies holding personal informa-tion of over a million users must apply for cybersecurity approval if they plan to list abroad. The Cyberspace Ad-ministration of China said in a statement that the review and approval is necessary because of risks that the data could be “affected, controlled, and maliciously exploited by foreign governments.”

It also said there’s a risk of important data being ille-gally used or transferred out of the country.

Last week, the cyber-regulator ordered a cybersecurity investigation into ride-sharing platform Didi Global Inc. The food delivery platform Meituan is also under an anti-monopoly probe, and e-commerce giant Alibaba was fi ned a record $2.8 billion earlier this year for antitrust viola-tions.

China’s market regulator said the decision to ban the merger between Huya and Douyu is the fi rst instance of regulators prohibiting market concentration in the internet sector.

The two companies fi rst announced last October that they planned to merge, but market regulators later said that they would review the $6 billion deal.

Tencent said it was notifi ed by the regulator that the merger has been halted.

“The company will abide by the decision, comply with all regulatory requirements, operate in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, and fulfi ll our social re-sponsibilities,” the company said in a statement Saturday.

Earlier this week, Chinese authorities said they would also increase supervision of companies listed overseas.

Under the new measures, regulation of data security and cross-border data fl ows, as well as the management of con-fi dential data, will be improved.

Authorities also plan to crack down on illegal activities in the securities market, and will investigate and punish acts such as the fraudulent issuance of securities, market manipulation and insider trading.

China orders takedown of 25 apps from Didi

China’s regulator ordered the removal from app stores of 25 apps owned by Didi Global Inc., the country’s largest ride-hail-ing service, citing severe violations of rules against collecting personal data.

The Cyberspace Administration of China had already taken down the main Didi app last Sunday, pending a cybersecurity re-view, after it debuted on the U.S. stock mar-ket last week.

The 25 additional apps include Didi En-terprises, as well as ones designed for Didi drivers.

A spokesperson for Didi did not immedi-ately respond to a request for comment.

The move comes after Chinese authori-ties said earlier this week they would step up supervision of companies listed over-seas. Under the new measures, regula-tion of data security and cross-border data fl ows, as well as the management of confi -dential data, will be improved.

Didi is the latest company facing the scrutiny from the Chinese government. An investigation found “serious violations” in how Didi collected and used personal in-

formation, the internet regulator said earlier in the week. A statement said the company was told to “rectify problems” but gave no details.

The internet regulator also said Didi was barred from accepting new customers until the investigations were completed.

Didi was founded in 2012 as a taxi-hail-ing app and has expanded into other ride-hailing options including private cars and buses. It says it also is investing in electric cars, artifi cial intelligence and other tech-nology development. (AP)

In this fi le photo, visitors walk past a sign for Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing at the Global Mobile Internet Con-ference (GMIC) in Bei-jing. China’s regulator ordered the removal from app stores of 25 apps owned by Didi Global Inc. (AP)

WASHINGTON, July 10, (AP): The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved a $650 bil-lion expansion in resources to sup-port economically vulnerable nations as they battle the coronavirus pan-demic.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Geor-gieva said Friday that the new support, the largest such expansion in the history of the 190-nation lending institution, would be a “shot in the arm for the world.”

To put the size of the funding expansion in context, the IMF approved a $250 billion boost in SDR reserves following the 2008 financial crisis.

It is a reversal of the stance taken by the Trump administration and it began in February when the Biden administration got behind the effort.

Republican members of Congress have object-ed to the funding, saying that the expanded IMF resources would benefi t U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran. However, the assistance

has been strongly supported by international re-lief agencies.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of the reli-

gious-affi liated development group Jubilee USA Network, said that the IMF action would allow developing countries to immediately receive more than $200 billion in support.

“Wealthy countries who receive emergency reserves they don’t need should transfer those resources to developing countries struggling through the pandemic,” LeCompte said.

More than six months after vaccines became available, reported COVID-19 deaths worldwide have fallen to about 7,800 each day, after topping out at over 18,000 a day in January. The World Health Organization recorded just under 54,000 deaths last week, the lowest weekly total since last October.

However, COVID-19 has illuminated global inequities as deaths worldwide climbed to 4 mil-lion, a milestone recorded Wednesday by Johns Hopkins University.

Vaccination drives are barely getting started in Africa and other desperately poor corners of the world because of extreme shortages of shots.

To fund the spending, the IMF will expand its Special Drawing Rights, a currency reserve that can be tapped by IMF member countries.

BUSINESSARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

10

Striking Volvo workers rejecttentative deal at truck plantVIRGINIA, July 10, (AP): A tenta-tive agreement between Volvo Trucks North America and a union repre-senting nearly 3,000 workers who have gone on strike twice this year at a southwest Virginia truck plant has been rejected by the striking workers, United Auto Workers offi cials an-nounced Friday.

It was the third tentative labor accord rejected by union workers this year.

A UAW statement said workers at the company’s tractor-trailer assembly plant in Dublin would continue their current walkout after rejecting the July 1 tentative pact.

“We appreciate the solidarity and support of the community as we con-tinue to walk the picket line and work to negotiate a fair contract” for mem-bers of UAW Local 2069, said the UAW statement issued in Detroit.

Volvo says the 1.6 million square foot (nearly 150,000 square meter) Dublin plant is the largest manufactur-er of Volvo tractor-trailer trucks in the world. It is one of the largest private sector employers in the region, with approximately 3,300 employees, some 2,900 of whom are represented by the UAW.

The previous contract, reached in 2016, was to have expired in mid-March and negotiations began in Feb-ruary. Unionized workers went on strike from April 17 to 30 and returned to work as negotiations resumed. UAW members rejected a proposed contract

in May. The company announced an-other tentative agreement later that month, but it was rejected June 6.

Volvo Trucks North America noted it was the third tentative agreement approved by UAW leadership but re-jected by UAW members involved in Volvo’s New River Valley truck as-sembly operations in Dublin.

“Given the signifi cant wage gains and fi rst-class benefi ts this agreement delivered, and the strong support it gar-nered from UAW leadership at every level, this outcome is unexpected and very disappointing,” said NRV Vice President and General Manager Franky Marchand.

He said in the statement that the company was considering its next steps.

“The ongoing strike -- which we continue to believe is unnecessary -- is hurting our customers, and has already set back our project to expand and up-grade the facility,” he said. “No one is gaining from the current situation, and we will consider all options related to the bargaining process.”

The Volvo Group is the only heavy-duty truck manufacturing group that assembles all of its trucks and engines for the North American market in the U.S., according to Volvo. It said the plant is undergoing a $400 million in-vestment for technology upgrades, site expansion and preparation for future products, including the Volvo VNR Electric truck.

IMF approves a $650 billionexpansion to fi ght pandemic

New support a ‘shot in the arm for the world’: Georgieva

In this fi le photo, a Canadian National rail worker stands on an idle locomotive as protesters opposed to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion block rail lines

in Burnaby, British Columbia. (AP)

‘Cautious approach’

CN makes its fi nal pitch for $33.6b railroad dealOMAHA, Nebraska, July 10, (AP): Canadian National has made its fi nal pitch to regulators for preliminary approval of its $33.6 billion acquisition of Kansas City Southern railroad.

The Canadian railroad reiterated its main arguments for the deal in a detailed fi ling with the Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday. Earlier this spring, regulators indicated they would take a cautious approach to approving Cana-dian National’s plan to set up a voting trust that would acquire Kansas City Southern and hold the railroad during the STB’s lengthy review of the overall deal.

More than 2,000 letters were fi led with regulators, with most of them supporting the deal. But it also attracted strong opposition from rival Canadian Pacifi c railroad and several hundred commenters who raised concerns about the merger hurting competition.

Canadian Pacifi c lost out on the chance to acquire Kan-sas City Southern when it refused to increase its original $25 billion bid for the smaller U.S. railroad, but CP has continued to seek STB approval for its combination with Kansas City Southern, so it will be prepared if the CN deal fails to get approval.

“We are confi dent that our voting trust meets all the standards set forth by the STB and believe that, after a fair and thorough review by the STB, it should be approved,” Canadian National CEO JJ Ruest said Wednesday.

Regulators will decide later whether to approve Ca-nadian National’s plan to acquire Kansas City Southern with a voting trust. If it is approved, KCS shareholders would get paid before the STB embarks on its full re-view. CN’s bid for Kansas City Southern includes $200 cash and 1.129 shares of its stock for every KCS share. The deal also includes about $3.8 billion in Kansas City Southern’s debt.

According to documents fi led with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, Kansas City Southern began deal negotiations last summer when an unnamed group of investors fi rst offered to buy the railroad for $195 cash per share. That initial offer was rejected, and Kan-sas City Southern held talks throughout the rest of 2020 and early 2021 with those investors and Canadian Pacifi c about a potential deal.

After several rounds of talks with ever-increasing offers, Kansas City Southern chose Canadian Pacifi c’s proposal and announced a merger agreement with that railroad in March that put the railroad’s value at $275 per share. But later, Canadian National intervened with a higher offer that valued Kansas City Southern at roughly $325 per share. Ultimately, Canadian National won the bidding war in May after sweetening its offer to include more stock and to cover the breakup fee Kansas City Southern would owe to CP.

The Surface Transportation Board’s current merger rules haven’t been tested because it hasn’t approved any major railroad mergers since the 1990s. It has generally said that any deal involving one of the nation’s six larg-est railroads needs to enhance competition and serve the public interest to get approved. The board has also said it would consider whether any deal would destabilize the industry and prompt additional mergers.

When the STB initially rejected Canadian National’s voting trust plan on a technicality in May, regulators ques-tioned whether the level of debt Canadian National plans to take on to buy Kansas City Southern would undermine the fi nancial stability of the railroad. Canadian National has said it believes it would remain fi nancially sound after the deal and it would pay down the debt quickly because it has suspended stock repurchases. The STB also requested more details about the merger plan.

Canadian Pacifi c has maintained that allowing CN to buy Kansas City Southern would hurt competition across much of the central United States because those railroads operate parallel rail lines that connect the Gulf Coast to the Midwest. CP offi cials have also said that CN’s plan would add to rail congestion in the Chicago area, and it would likely inspire other railroads to attempt mergers.

Canadian National said it believes it can address the competitive concerns through its operating plan and by selling 70 miles (113 kilometers) of track between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana where Kansas City Southern’s network directly overlaps with CN’s tracks. Canadian National said that after the merger it would also maintain its connections with other railroads to allow cus-tomers to ship goods using a combination of different rail-roads if they choose to.

In this fi le photo, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva speaks at the end of the Financing of African

Economies Summit, in Paris. (AP)

SCIENCEARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

11

Trims drug use

FDA head urges probeinto Alz’s drug reviewWASHINGTON, July 10, (AP): The acting head of the Food and Drug Administration on Friday called for a government investigation into highly unusual contacts between her agen-cy’s drug reviewers and the maker of a controversial new Alzheimer’s drug.

Dr Janet Woodcock announced the extraordinary step via Twitter. It’s the latest fallout over last month’s approval of Aduhelm, an expensive and unproven therapy that the agency OK’d against the advice of its own outside experts.

Woodcock made the request to the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general, the watchdog agen-cy that oversees the FDA and other federal health agencies. The move comes after numerous calls for a probe into the approval from medical experts, consumer advocates and

members of Congress. Two con-gressional committees have already launched their own review.

“We believe an independent assess-ment is the best manner in which to determine whether any interactions that occurred between the manufac-turer and the agency’s review staff were inconsistent with FDA’s policies and procedures,” Woodcock wrote on Twitter. Biogen pledged to cooperate with the inquiry.

Last month, the health news site Stat reported on the unusually close

collaboration between Aduhelm drugmaker Biogen and FDA staff. In particular, the site reported an “off-the-books” meeting in May 2019 between a top Biogen executive and the FDA’s lead reviewer for Alzheimer’s drugs.

The meeting came after Biogen stopped two studies be-cause the drug didn’t seem to slow the disease as intended. Biogen and the FDA began reanalyzing the data together, concluding the drug may actually work. The collaboration ultimately led to the drug’s conditional approval two years later, on the basis that it reduced a buildup of sticky plaque in the brain that is thought to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease.

FDA interactions with drug industry staff are tightly con-trolled and almost always carefully documented. It’s unclear if the May 2019 meeting violated agency rules.

RejectionWhen Biogen and FDA brought the drug before the FDA’s

panel of outside advisers in November, the group was nearly unanimous in urging its rejection.

The FDA isn’t required to follow the group’s advice. And the FDA lead staff reviewer — who had been working with Biogen for months on the drug’s data — called it “exception-ally persuasive,” “strongly positive” and “robust.”

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen called for an investigation into the collaboration after the November advisory meeting. The group’s health director Dr. Michael Carome welcomed Woodcock’s request for an inquiry.

“We’re pleased to see that belatedly she has made this request that should have been made months ago,” Carome said. “The signs of an inappropriate collaboration have been clear to us since November.”

The FDA has faced intense backlash since approving the drug, which costs $56,000 a year and requires monthly IVs.

Three of the FDA advisers who opposed the drug resigned over the decision. Among other issues, they protested that the agency did not disclose that it was considering approving the drug on a conditional basis, based on its effect on brain plaque, rather than any actual benefi t to patients. Aduhelm is the fi rst Alzheimer’s drug approved in that manner.

“I think all the different parts of the decision are worth-while for an independent investigation,” said Harvard Uni-versity researcher Dr Aaron Kesselheim, one of the three advisers who resigned. “The trust that we have in FDA’s ability to make independent decisions is very important.”

On Thursday, the FDA took the unusual step of vastly scaling back prescribing information on the drug. The agen-cy and Biogen announced the new label would recommend that it only be given to patients with mild or early-stage Alz-heimer’s. That came after many doctors criticized the origi-nal label as too broad, because it said the drug could be given to anyone with Alzheimer’s.

Aduhelm hasn’t been shown to reverse or signifi cantly slow the disease. But the FDA said that its ability to reduce clumps of plaque in the brain is likely to slow dementia. More than two dozen other drugs have previously tried that approach without yielding positive results. Biogen is re-quired to conduct a follow-up study to defi nitively answer whether it really works. Other Alzheimer’s drugs only tem-porarily ease symptoms.

Woodcock has been serving as the agency’s acting com-missioner since January. Previously she spent more than 25 years directing the agency’s drug center. While widely respected among government and drug industry circles, she has also been criticized for often pushing aggressively to ap-prove new therapies, even when their benefi ts aren’t certain.

A month after approving a controversial new Alzheimer’s drug, US health regulators on Thursday signed off on new prescribing instructions that are likely to limit its use.

The FDA said the change is intended to address confu-sion among physicians and patients about who should get the drug, which has faced an intense public backlash since its approval last month.

SymptomsThe new drug label emphasizes that the drug, Aduhelm, is

appropriate for patients with mild symptoms or early-stage Alzheimer’s but has not been studied in patients with more advanced disease. That’s a big change from the original FDA instructions, which said simply that the drug was ap-proved for Alzheimer’s disease in general.

Drugmaker Biogen announced the change in a release Thursday, stating that the update is intended to “clarify” the patient group studied in the company trials that led to ap-proval. The FDA fi rst approached the company about nar-rowing the label and OK’d the language.

“Hearing these concerns, FDA determined that clarifi ca-tions could be made to the prescribing information to ad-dress this confusion,” the agency said in an emailed state-ment. Despite the update, the FDA added that “some patients may benefi t from ongoing treatment” if they develop more advanced Alzheimer’s.

When the drug was fi rst approved, a top FDA offi cial told reporters the drug was “relevant to all stages of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The FDA’s OK last month quickly sparked controversy over Aduhelm’s $56,000-a-year price-tag and questionable benefi ts. Three of FDA’s outside advisers resigned over the decision with Harvard researcher Dr. Aaron Kesselheim call-ing it the “worst drug approval decision in recent US history.”

On Thursday, Kesselheim tweeted that the change was “a welcome step” but added that the FDA and Biogen should do much more to combat “misperceptions about this drug.”

Sweeping changes to drug labels are rare, particularly only a few weeks after approval.

“It’s a responsible move by both the FDA and Biogen to maximize the safety while giving the drug the best chance to work,” said Dr. Ronald Petersen of the Mayo Clinic, who has consulted for Biogen and other drugmakers. The drug’s side effects include brain swelling and bleeding.

Aduhelm hasn’t been shown to reverse or signifi cantly slow the disease. But the FDA said that its ability to reduce clumps of plaque in the brain is likely to slow dementia. Many experts say there is little evidence to support that claim.

Health

This image provided by Virgin Galactic shows, (from left), Chief Pilot Dave Mackay, Lead Operations Engineer Colin Bennett, Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Founder of Virgin Galactic Richard Branson, Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations Sirisha Bandla and pilot Michael Masucci. Just a week

shy of turning 71, the London-born founder of the Virgin Group set to become only the second septuagenarian in space. (AP)

A staff member displays blood she’s taken from an elderly patient for an antibody test in Budapest, July 8. Hungary’s capital city is offering free antibody testing to its elderly resi-dents, a bid to pressure the central government to take action over con-cerns that certain COVID-19 vaccines do not provide adequate protection

against the virus. (AP)

Discovery

Experts seek moths name: Bug ex-perts are dropping the common name of a destructive insect because it’s considered an ethnic slur: the gypsy moth.

The Entomological Society of Ameri-ca, which oversees the common names of bugs, is getting rid of the common name of that critter and the lesser-known gypsy ant. The group this week announced that for the fi rst time it changed a common name of an insect because it was offen-sive. In the past they’ve only reassigned names that weren’t scientifi cally accurate.

“It’s an ethnic slur to begin with that’s been rejected by the Romani people a long time ago,’’ said society president Michelle S. Smith. “Second, nobody wants to be associated with a harmful in-vasive pest.”

The society is taking a hard look at some of the more than 2,000 common insect names to remove derogatory and geographically inaccurate ones. About 20 years ago, a committee of fi sh ex-perts renamed the jewfi sh into the goliath grouper.

The moths are invasive and destructive critters in the caterpillar stage. They have a voracious appetite that can denude en-tire forests of leaves, said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, a past society president.

The moths likely got their name be-cause as larvae they have hair with small air pockets that act like balloons allowing them to fl oat for miles, wandering like the group of people they were named after, Berenbaum said. Another theory is that male adult moths have a tan color that could be similar to Romani people.

The Entomological Society is now on the hunt for a new common name, a pro-cess that will take months, Smith said. Until then, even though it’s a mouthful, Smith said the moths should be called by their scientifi c name, Lymantria dispar or L. dispar.

Berenbaum — who has written about weirdly named plants, animals and gene mutations — said given the moths’ de-structiveness, she and other would have some ideas for a descriptive new name.

“You’re not allowed to use obsceni-ties,” she said, “so that’s out.” (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

Calif nixing algae: For the fi rst time, scientists say they have seen a species of bright green algae growing in the waters off California — and they are hoping it’s the last.

The invasive algae can overtake the environment and displace critical food sources for ocean animals on the Southern California coast. A team started removing the patch of fast-growing algae known

entists can determine the algae is gone for good. So far, it’s been confi ned to a roughly 1,000-square-foot (90-square-meter) area not far from a small but popu-lar beach. But tiny fi bers can easily break off and take hold elsewhere.

“We’re at a point here where we’ve got a shot to get rid of it,” said Robert Moon-ey, a biologist with Marine Taxonomic Services overseeing a large pump that a team of three divers uses to remove the algae. “We don’t have the luxury of wait-ing to see what happens.”

The discovery of the species late last year and confi rmation this spring spurred federal, state and local offi cials to act. They are eager to prevent it from spread-ing, noting the algae has invaded other habitats like the Suez Canal. It was cru-cial to act quickly, they said, because swimmers and boaters moving through the water could contribute to the algae spreading.

California faced a similar problem two years ago when a related invasive algae was detected off the coast of Huntington Beach and Carlsbad. It cost $7 million to eradicate and prompted the state to ban the sale of caulerpa taxifolia and other algae.

That species — known as “killer algae” — has caused widespread problems in the Mediterranean Sea. It isn’t edible by many fi sh and invertebrates and can dis-place plants that are, Mooney said. (AP)

as caulerpa prolifera from the harbor in Newport Beach, suctioning it through a tube and fi ltering the ocean water back

out.The process will take four or fi ve days

to complete and much longer until sci-

In this Dec 16, 2020, file photo, the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 is administered at the Arizona Department of Health Services State Laboratory in Phoenix. On July 9, Arizona reported 921 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases, the biggest daily increase in two months, as the coronavirus continued to spread among

unvaccinated people. (AP)

Vaccines still work against mutant

Pfi zer to seek OK for 3rd doseNEW YORK, July 10, (AP): Pfi zer is about to seek US authorization for a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, saying Thursday that another shot with-in 12 months could dramatically boost immunity and maybe help ward off the latest worrisome coronavirus mutant.

Research from multiple countries shows the Pfi zer shot and other widely used COVID-19 vaccines offer strong protection against the highly conta-gious delta variant, which is spreading rapidly around the world and now ac-counts for most new US infections.

Two doses of most vaccines are criti-cal to develop high levels of virus-fi ght-ing antibodies against all versions of the coronavirus, not just the delta variant — and most of the world still is desperate to get those initial protective doses as the pandemic continues to rage.

But antibodies naturally wane over time, so studies also are underway to tell if and when boosters might be needed.

On Thursday, Pfi zer’s Dr Mikael Dol-sten told The Associated Press that early data from the company’s booster study suggests people’s antibody levels jump fi ve- to 10-fold after a third dose, com-pared to their second dose months earlier.

In August, Pfi zer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of a third dose, he said.

Why might that matter for fi ghting the delta variant? Dolsten pointed to data from Britain and Israel showing the Pfi zer vaccine “neutralizes the del-ta variant very well.” The assumption, he said, is that when antibodies drop low enough, the delta virus eventually could cause a mild infection before the immune system kicks back in.

But FDA authorization would be just a fi rst step — it wouldn’t automatically mean Americans get offered boosters, cautioned Dr William Schaffner, a vac-cine expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Public health authori-ties would have to decide if they’re re-ally needed, especially since millions of people have no protection.

“The vaccines were designed to keep us out of the hospital” and con-tinue to do so despite the more con-tagious delta variant, he said. Giving another dose would be “a huge effort while we are at the moment striving to get people the fi rst dose.”

Hours after Pfi zer’s announcement, US health offi cials issued a statement saying fully vaccinated Americans don’t need a booster yet.

US health agencies “are engaged in a science-based, rigorous process to consider whether or when a booster

might be necessary,” the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Pre-vention said in a joint statement. That work will include data from the drug companies, “but does not rely on those data exclusively,” and any decision on booster shots would happen only when “the science demonstrates that they are needed,” the agencies said.

Currently only about 48% of the US population is fully vaccinated — and some parts of the country have far low-er immunization rates, places where the delta variant is surging. On Thursday, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the CDC direc-tor, said that’s leading to “two truths” — highly immunized swaths of Ameri-ca are getting back to normal while hos-pitalizations are rising in other places.

“This rapid rise is troubling,” she said: A few weeks ago the delta variant ac-counted for just over a quarter of new US cases, but it now accounts for just over 50% — and in some places, such as parts of the Midwest, as much as 80%.

Researchers in Britain found two doses of the Pfi zer vaccine, for exam-ple, are 96% protective against hos-pitalization with the delta variant and 88% effective against symptomatic infection. That fi nding was echoed last weekend by Canadian researchers, while a report from Israel suggested protection against mild delta infection may have dipped lower, to 64%.

ProtectionWhether the fully vaccinated still need

to wear masks in places where the delta variant is surging is a growing question. In the US, the CDC maintains that fully vaccinated people don’t need to. Even before the delta variant came along, the vaccines weren’t perfect, but the best ev-idence suggests that if vaccinated people nonetheless get the coronavirus, they’ll have much milder cases.

“Let me emphasize, if you were vac-cinated, you have a very high degree of protection,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectious disease expert, said Thursday.

In the US, case rates have been rising for weeks and the rate of hospitalizations has started to tick up, rising 7% from the previous seven-day average, Walen-sky told reporters Thursday. However, deaths remain down on average, which some experts believe is at least partly due to high vaccination rates in people 65 and older — who are among the most susceptible to severe disease.

New research from France adds to ev-idence that widely used COVID-19 vac-cines still offer strong protection against a coronavirus mutant that is spreading

rapidly around the world and now is the most prevalent variant in the US.

The delta variant is surging through populations with low vaccination rates. On Thursday, Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that’s leading to “two truths” — highly im-munized swaths of America are getting back to normal while hospitalizations are rising in other places.

“This rapid rise is troubling,” she said: A few weeks ago the delta variant accounted for just over a quarter of new US cases, but it now accounts for just over 50% - and in some places, such as parts of the Midwest, as much as 80%.

Researchers from France’s Pasteur Institute reported new evidence Thurs-day that full vaccination is critical.

In laboratory tests, blood from sev-eral dozen people given their fi rst dose of the Pfi zer or AstraZeneca vaccines “barely inhibited” the delta variant, the team reported in the journal Nature. But weeks after getting their second dose, nearly all had what research-ers deemed an immune boost strong enough to neutralize the delta variant — even if it was a little less potent than against earlier versions of the virus.

The French researchers also tested unvaccinated people who had survived a bout of the coronavirus, and found their antibodies were four-fold less po-tent against the new mutant. But a sin-gle vaccine dose dramatically boosted their antibody levels — sparking cross-protection against the delta variant and two other mutants, the study found. That supports public health recommendations that COVID-19 survivors get vaccinated rather than relying on natural immunity.

The lab experiments add to real-world data that the delta variant’s mutations aren’t evading the vaccines most widely used in Western coun-tries, but underscore that it’s crucial to get more of the world immunized be-fore the virus evolves even more.

Researchers in Britain found two doses of the Pfi zer vaccine, for exam-ple, are 96% protective against hos-pitalization with the delta variant and 88% effective against symptomatic infection. That fi nding was echoed last weekend by Canadian researchers, while a report from Israel suggested protection against mild delta infection may have dipped lower, to 64%.

Whether the fully vaccinated still need to wear masks in places where the delta variant is surging is a grow-ing question. In the US, the CDC maintains that fully vaccinated people don’t need to.

Coronavirus

Berenbaum Smith

Woodcock

Featu

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Featu

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Jury member Maggie Gyllenhaal poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the fi lm ‘Benedetta’ at the 74th international fi lm festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, July 9. (AP)

Boldly artful, boundless and stimulating

Todd Haynes docu seeks the genesis of the Velvet UndergroundCANNES, France, July 10, (AP): The most often-repeated thing said about the Velvet Underground is Brian Eno’s quip that the band didn’t sell many records, but everyone who bought one started a band.

You won’t hear that line in Todd Haynes’ documentary “The Velvet Underground,” nor will you see a montage of famous faces talking about their vast infl uence. You won’t even really hear a fairly full Velvet Underground track until nearly an hour into the two-hour fi lm.

Instead, Haynes, the reliably unconventional fi lmmaker of “Car-ol,” “I’m Not There” and “Far From Heaven,” rejects a traditional treatment of the Velvets, a fi tting approach considering the uncom-promising, pioneering subject. His movie, which premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival, is, like the Velvets, boldly artful, boundless and stimulating. You sense that even Lou Reed would be pleased by how “The Velvet Underground” refuses the obvious.

“I didn’t need to make a movie to tell you how great the band is,” Haynes said in an interview. “There were a lot of things I was going to be like: OK, we know this. Let’s get right to how this happened, this music, where these people came from and how this miracle of this group of people came together.”

“The Velvet Underground,” which Apple will release in theaters and on its streaming platform Oct. 15, plums little-seen footage and

features a host of rare interviews, including founding member John Cale (who describes the band as striving for “how to be elegant and how to be brutal”), Jonathan Richman of the Modern Lovers and an early disciple, and Jonas Mekas, the late pioneering fi lmmaker who fi lmed the Velvet Underground’s fi rst ever live performance in 1964 and to whom the fi lm is dedicated.

Resurrects“The Velvet Underground” is most singular in how it resur-

rects the 1960s downtown New York art scene that birthed and fermented the group. Haynes patiently traces the fertile downtown landscape of Warhol’s Factory, the explosion of queer New York and how Lou Reed and the Velvets were turned on by acts like the Ramones or the experimental drone music of La Monte Young. Art, avant-garde fi lm and music collide. The documentary, more than anything, is a revelatory portrait of artistic crosspollination.

“You really felt that coexistence and the creative inspiration that was being swapped from medium to medium,” says Haynes, who notes such localized hotbeds now seem extinct, a victim of a digital world. “I crave that today. I don’t know where that is.”

“The Velvet Underground” is Haynes’ fi rst documentary. Previ-ously, he’s turned to deliberately artifi cial fi ctions of great musi-cians. His “Velvet Goldmine” was a glam-rock fantasia of David

Bowie. In “I’m Not There,” rather than attempt the impossible task of fi nding an actor for Bob Dylan, he cast seven.

“When I was doing research on the Bowie of ‘Velvet Goldmine’ or all the Dylans of ‘I’m Not Here,’ you come across the real thing,” says Haynes. “I always felt like if I’m going to recreate this in a fi ction form, I better do something different with it. So you’re not comparing it with the real thing, apples to apples. You’re in a different language, putting it in a different context and the frame is visible.”

Haynes never met Reed, who died in 2013. But he saw him a few times at events like the Whitney Biennial (“I was too scared,” he says). And Reed gave his permission to use “Satellite of Love” in “Velvet Goldmine.” Laurie Anderson, Reed’s widow and a fi lm-maker, endorsed Haynes directing the fi lm, and other estates, like Andy Warhol’s, were supportive.

Footage by Warhol, the only one to previously really document the Velvets, is laced throughout the fi lm. In split screen, the band members’ screen tests for the Factory (usually seen as still photo-graphs) play at length, with Reed or Cale staring provocatively out at you.

“The only fi lm on them is by one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. That’s so rare and weird. There is no traditional coverage of the band playing live. There’s just Warhol fi lms,” says Haynes. “We just have art within art within art to tell a story about great art.”

PARIS: Paris police released rapper Lil Baby from custody on Friday after fi ning him for having cannabis in his car, according to the city prosecutor’s offi ce. He was stopped along with NBA star James Harden, who was frisked but not detained.

Lil Baby’s arrest on Thursday along one of the French capital’s most upscale avenues shocked fans of both high-profi le Americans, in town for Paris Fashion Week — and also resurfaced questions about racial profi ling in France.

After his release, the Grammy-nominated rapper from Atlanta posted on Instagram “I’m Good” and said that he was heading back to the US.

Plainclothes police stopped Harden, Lil Baby and his body-guard because a strong smell of cannabis was coming from their car, according to a French police offi cial who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to be publicly named.

The offi cial said that Lil Baby, whose real name is Dominique Jones, initially refused to allow police to check the car. The situation was tense because the Americans didn’t understand what was happening. Uniformed offi c-ers then arrived and proceeded to search the car, fi nding 32 grams of cannabis, according to the offi cial.

Lil Baby and the bodyguard were taken into custody on suspicion of transporting drugs, and released Friday morning after being handed fi nes, according to the prosecutor’s offi ce.

Video of the incident shared online shows a plainclothes of-fi cer frisking a confused-looking Harden while he holds his phone.

A student in the area described seeing the ruckus on what is normally a quiet avenue, lined with luxury boutiques. “I turned my head and it was unbelievable, I saw Lil Baby and James Harden ... they are standing and are being frisked,” said the witness, Lance Avraham Pena.

Language appeared to pose a problem and police didn’t recog-nize the two Americans, said Pena, who fi lmed a bit of the scene.

Fans of Harden and the singer in France raised concerns online about racial profi ling. But the Paris police department appeared to defl ect sug-gestions the arrest was groundless by tweeting that it was based on an

“infraction.” Both men are Black, and the police offi cers white.

A lawyer who has researched racial profi ling in France asked, “Would a white person have been stopped the same way? ... It’s not at all sure.”

Lawyer Slim Ben Achour cited research showing that white people in France are less likely to get

stopped and frisked or fi ned for this kind of drug offense. The research also showed that police are more likely to carry out identity checks on Black or Arab men in housing projects known for crime, or in neighborhoods where the assump-tion is that they “don’t belong.”

“You see that you can be a millionaire or a super star and you

always have this stigma,” Achour told The AP. “Black Americans have their own problems and some think that Europe is better, and they see that ... there are common problems.” A representative for Lil Baby did not respond to requests for comment.

Lil Baby topped charts with his 2020 sophomore album “My

Turn,” and reached the No. 3 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with his hit “The Bigger Picture,” which evokes the killing of George Floyd and other police abuse. In the open-ing frames of his “Bigger Picture” Grammy video released earlier this year, police make a Black man get out of his car and wrestle him to the ground. (AP)

Film

Variety

Film

New docu gives Bush administration’s view of 9/11 attacks

At Cannes, glamour gets unmaskedCANNES, France, July 10, (AP): For nearly every-body who has come to the Cannes Film Festival after months in various stages of lockdown and caution, the transition is head-spinning.

Even in normal years, Cannes is an onslaught. But this time, plunging into full-capacity theaters and teeming red carpets is like stepping into another world. The morning after the Val Kilmer documen-tary “Val” premiered at Cannes, its co-director Ting Poo was still reeling.

“Yesterday was so surreal. Just seeing the fi lm with a full theater, and here at the most prestigious fi lm fes-tival,” said Poo. “To go from not being around people to that experience in a day was incredible.”

The pandemic is far from invisible at Cannes. A negative COVID-19 test is required every 48 hours for even those vaccinated — unless they got their shots in the European Union. Moviegoers wear masks indoors. Everything is a little muted. Usually well-booked hotels have vacancies. Screenings that would typically leave hundreds queueing outside don’t fi ll up. The usual tuxedoed ticket-seekers pray-ing for a handout have been pushed away from the Palais, the festival hub, to clear space.

But in places like the Cannes red carpet, life is almost normal — if “normal” can ever apply to a stretch of carpet where coteries of stars drift in every few hours like parade fl oats. Glamour has been un-masked, maybe more than any other time in the last year and a half of pandemic.

Over the fi rst few days of the 74th Cannes Film Festival — held two months later than usual, and af-ter last year’s edition was scrubbed entirely — the red carpet has looked much as it has always before. Mar-ion Cotillard, Bella Hadid, Matt Damon, Helen Mir-ren and Adam Driver have all strolled along, though they may have all been outclassed, fashion-wise, by Spike Lee and his fl amingo-pink Louis Vuitton suit. Most walk unmasked, as the carpet is outdoors and most attending are vaccinated — though proof isn’t required. And there are no fewer photographers than

usual jockeying for stars’ attention.The spectacle has picked up right where it left off.

Nature, even the Cannes sequined variety, is healing. “It’s a little bit like a strange dream, like waking

up from this nap of two years doing nothing and suddenly: Boom,” said Avshalom Pollak, star of Nadav Lapid’s “Ahed’s Knee,” an impassioned Is-raeli drama competing for the Palme d’Or. “There is a very particular kind of feeling to it because it’s like: Where is the world going? Is it restarting? Is it changing? What’s going on here?”

RestrictionsCannes is taking place on the heels of France eas-

ing COVID-19 restrictions and reopening interna-tional travel. About half the French have received at least one vaccination shot, while 38% are fully vaccinated. But the delta variant has pushed infec-tions back up slightly recently, stoking fears of a re-surgence. On Friday, French Health Minister Olivier Véran said the delta variant would likely become France’s dominant strain this weekend.

That, along with images of unmasked attendees at premieres, has pushed the festival to increase pre-screening mask reminders. Swarming beachside af-ter parties have been curtailed, in the hotels along the Croisette fi lm publicists and executives have pushed their chairs out onto open-air balconies. Cannes mayor David Lisnard has even employed a pair of COVID-19-sniffi ng dogs to help with screening.

Ahead of the festival, its director Thierry Frémaux said dinners would be more favored this year than cocktails. On the sun-dabbled French Riviera, most restaurants are spread out on the sidewalks. One ma-jor concession: Frémaux isn’t greeting guests at the top of the Palais stairs with a kiss — though there have been a few rogue smooches.

“The pandemic is not conquered” Frémaux said on Tuesday. “So we all have to be careful, even though most festival-goers are vaccinated.”

But since there’s such variation country to country

in vaccination proof — the US, for example, has no offi cial vaccine passport — the festival is requiring most to test every other day. The joke is that this year a negative test is the hottest ticket in Cannes. And while at fi rst some complained about the less-than-elegant process of retreating to a cubicle to fi ll a tube with saliva, the tented lab just down the street from the Palais had become a regular stop for festivalgoers — just like the Palais Nespresso bar, only less refreshing.

The specially erected testing site is staffed by 60 medical school students. The lab’s director, Guil-laume Armana, said Friday that they were conduct-ing up to 4,000 tests daily.

“We are working with the festival and the regional agency,” said Armana, who said any positive tests would be confi dential. “For now we have maybe 10,000 people to test and everything is under con-trol. It’s the best way to make a festival again here in Cannes and to let the people have a new life.”

Also:NEW YORK: Actor Jeff Daniels will narrate a new documentary, “9/11: Inside the President’s War Room,” that will tell the story of the attacks through the eyes of the Bush administration.

Apple+ and the BBC will collaborate on the pro-ject, which will debut in September near the 20th an-niversary of the terrorist attacks. Both the streaming service and BBC One will show the project.

Several members of the Bush administration will give their view of what happened on that day, in-cluding former president George W. Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, it was announced on Thursday. Condoleezza Rice, national security ad-viser on that day, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and White House chief of staff Andy Card will also participate.

The documentary will focus on the 12 hours fol-lowing the attack. The creative team includes direc-tor Adam Wishart and producers Simon Finch, Neil Grant and Serena Kennedy.

Harden Lil Baby

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People & Places

NEWS/FEATURESARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

13

Television

‘Animals need respect’

Haddish, Shatnerjoin ‘Shark Week’NEW YORK, July 10, (AP): Deep in the ocean, sur-rounded by sharks, Tiffany Haddish stayed cool. She drew on her land-based survival skills.

“I was as frightened around them as I am around like a pack of pit bull dogs,” she said in an inter-view. “I feel like animals pick up on your energy. If you’re in there being scared, they’re like, ‘Well, what you got? Why are you scared?’ It’s like being in the ’hood.”

Haddish is among the celebrities signed on for this year’s Shark Week, with a record 45 hours of pro-gramming on the Discovery Channel and streaming on discovery+ between July 11-18.

Joining Haddish are Brad Paisley, William Shatner, Eric Bana, Snoop Dogg, Eli Roth, Robert Irwin, Ian Ziering, Tara Reid and cast members from “Jackass.” For Shark Week’s 33rd year, there are documentaries, many specials and even a reality series for shark fans to sink their teeth into.

Howard Swartz, a senior vice president at Discovery Channel, said Shark Week

was born as a counterpoint for those who developed a fear of sharks and a desire to eradicate them after seeing “Jaws.”

“What has evolved over the last three plus dec-ades is to show that they’re not these mindless kill-ing machines, that sharks are amazingly intelligent animals,” Swartz said. “Equally important is how critical they are to the ecosystem, how critically important they are to the health of the oceans and therefore to life on our planet.”

“Star Trek” star Shatner boldly went where he really didn’t want to go — diving with sharks. He suffers from galeophobia, a persistent fear of sharks, but he overcame it in “Expedition Unknown: Shark Trek.”

Demand“I think it’s very healthy to be afraid of an animal

that has an 18-inch jaw with three sets of teeth,” he said in an interview. “It’s designed to eat, not you necessarily, but to eat. And if you’re mistaken to be part of its food chain, that’s your problem.”

Eli Roth, the horror fi lmmaker behind the bloody classic “Hostel,” joined the documentary “Fin” to explain why millions of sharks have died to feed the continued demand for shark fi n soup and other dishes. Bana narrates the doc “Envoy: Shark Cull,” which focuses on offi cial controversial shark control programs used in Australia.

Noah Schnapp from the sci-fi series “Stranger Things” suits up to search for the strangest sharks in the ocean, while Irwin comes face-to-face with a Great White for the first time. Even the online televi-sion and video star known as Dr. Pimple Popper is getting in on the act: Dr. Sandra Lee will explore the world of shark skin and see if it can help human skin issues.

Paisley puts his musical talents to the test to see how sound can attract or repel sharks, and Snoop Dogg narrates crazy shark moves — like the beasts making eye-popping leaps out of the water, prompt-ing the rapper to call them “thirsty as hell” — in “Sharkadelic Summer 2.”

For Haddish, her special about the reproduction of sharks — did you know female sharks have two uteruses? — will hopefully show how important to the planet sharks really are.

“We all need each other. It’s like ‘The Lion King’ — the circle of life. We keep each other alive,” she said. “No one on this planet for no reason.”

Swartz says inviting celebrities onto Shark Week is a bit like when “Sesame Street” has on famous guest stars — they help attract a wider, intergenera-tional audience.

“At the end of the day, what the celebrities do for us is to bring people into the tent who might not nor-mally come to Shark Week,” he said. “Having said that, I will say you might be surprised at how many celebrities are fans of Shark Week.”

Dr. James Sulikowski, a professor at Arizona State University, has been on Shark Week before but this time does something no one has ever done — perform an ultrasound on a wild tiger shark.

ProtectIt was necessary since scientists are still trying

to pinpoint where in the Bahamas tiger sharks give birth and how humans can protect the area. But fi rst they needed to fi nd a pregnant shark and that’s where Sulikowski came in, calmly pushing his sono-gram onto a shark’s belly at the bottom of the ocean while dozens of her friends came to inspect.

“It was so many emotions all at once,” he said in an interview. “It’s chaos. It’s terrifying. It’s exhila-rating. You’re doing something that no one has ever done before. You’re pushing the envelope. And right in the back of your mind it’s like, ‘You know what? I could be eaten.’”

“Mothersharker” — Sulikowski’s wonderfully ti-tled show — reveals another side to the often misun-derstood animals. “These sharks are moms,” he said. “These are animals that are nurturing their young, they’re carrying them, they’re protecting them. It’s an aspect that most people don’t realize.”

Other shows include a special about an attempt to tag the last known South African Great White breed-er and another that attempts to answer why in 2017 an entire Great White population disappeared over-night around South Africa’s Seal Island. If you’ve ever wanted to see a submersible mechanical shark in action, you’re in luck with “MechaShark.”

Discovery is also marking the debut of its fi rst Shark Week series. In “Shark Academy,” eight men and women begin a six-week crash course to secure a crew spot on a shark expedition. And it wouldn’t be Shark Week without a scientifi c look at “Sharknado” — Ian Ziering and Tara Reid explore whether a shark tornado is really possible.

Discovery’s “Shark Week” has a rival — its pro-gramming coincides with National Geographic’s “SharkFest,” which has 21 hours of new content and 60 hours of enhanced and archival footage over six weeks, with Chris Hemsworth the biggest draw.

Both ventures share a common theme: To tease out at least a grudging respect for sharks. Or, as Shatner said, “These animals require our respect and an intelligent fear, but not the panic.”

Haddish

Bella Hadid poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the fi lm ‘Annette’ and the opening ceremony of the 74th international fi lm festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, July 6. (AP)

An enchantingly demented rock opera

Eclectic Adam Driver drives ‘Annette’CANNES, France, July 10, (AP): In Leos Carax’s “Annette,” an enchant-ingly demented rock opera, Adam Driver sings in some very strange places. On a motorcycle. At sea. In the middle of lovemaking.

“Annette” has predictably caused a stir at the 74th Cannes Film Festi-val, where its opening-night premiere prompted a wide range of reactions. As you might suspect, opinions tend to differ on absurdist-yet-sincere 140-minute musicals of elaborate mel-odrama scored by Sparks (the pop duo Ron and Russell Mael) and co-starring a glowing baby (the titular Annette) rendered in the form of a puppet.

And yet, if anyone can agree on any-thing in “Annette,” it’s that Driver is really good in it. Extraordinary, even. For an actor prone to launching him-self fully into the visions of fi lmmak-ers, it’s maybe a new pinnacle of rig-orous commitment. In even the most out-there parts of “Annette,” Driver is ferociously dedicated and intensely physical. He goes all in.

“It feels very singular,” says Driver. “Like: I won’t be doing this again” — and then he chuckles — “most likely.”

Driver was in Cannes only briefl y. Immediately after sharing a cigarette with Carax during the applause for “Annette,” he fl ew out to return to shooting “White Noise” in Ohio with Noah Baumbach. But a few hours be-fore the premiere, he met for an inter-view on a hotel balcony off Cannes’ Croisette. His head, he said, was fully immersed in “White Noise.”

But “Annette” is something differ-ent for even the eclectic Driver. He signed on to it seven years ago after Carax, the French fi lmmaker of the blissfully bonkers “Holy Motors,” contacted him having only seen him in “Girls.”

“I’ve been talking about this movie for seven years,” Driver says. “So there is also a sense of relief just hav-ing someone watching it, somewhere. I’m relieved it will be out.”

“Annette” will open in theaters Aug.

6 and debut Aug. 20 on Amazon Prime. In it, Driver plays a famous stand-up comedian named Henry McHenry who performs a sinister, physical show, dubbed “The Ape of ...,” while clad in a boxing robe. (Driver modeled his movements on a gorilla’s.) His wife is Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), an equally famous opera singer. Each night, Henry “kills” his audience while Ann saves them by dying at the end of each performance.

The mix of Carax’s and Sparks’ sensibilities are hard to describe, but everything in “Annette” is heightened, surreal, self-aware — except for the performances. “Even if it feels surreal, I can’t play surreal,” says Driver.

Ron Mael told reporters in Cannes that discussions with Carax began very early on about the movie’s tone. “We were happy to hear, because it’s kind of a shared belief, that the characters should be sincere in what they’re say-ing, that they shouldn’t be distanced,” said Mael, “That’s really important and separate from so many other kinds of modern musicals.”

PerformancesIt opens with the Maels themselves

leading Carax and company in a march out of a recording studio while sing-ing “So May We Start?” But from that point on, the performances have no hint of a wink. When the romance turns dark after the birth of the mario-nette Annette — gifted right away with a beautiful singing voice — the movie slides into tragedy and, maybe, into the heart of artistic creation.

Justin Chang for The Los Angeles Times wrote that the movie “belongs to Driver,” and that he “has rarely ap-peared more imposing in his physical-ity, more bottomless in his capacity for rage and deceit.” Eric Kohn, for IndieWire, called Driver “a deranged force of nature.”

For the fi rst time Driver is a pro-ducer. He stayed with “Annette,” even though it meant waiting seven years — the length of his entire “Star Wars” run.

“When somebody like that wants you to do a movie, it’s like how do you not? It’s so obvious. I only try to do things that are no-brainers in my mind,” says Driver. “I haven’t always followed my own advice. But it has to be so obvious. Do you want to work with the Coen brothers? Yes, obvious-ly. Or Scorsese where it’s going to be in Japan? Sure, of course. So this was easy to stay committed to.”

Driver was particularly enamored with Carax’s celebrated 2012 fantasy “Holy Motors,” which like “Annette” is about imagination and the nature of performance.

“In all his movies, it seems like his actors have such freedom — which turned out to be true,” he says. “He’s also good at balancing that with in-credible choreography. He likes to cherry pick details of impulses and then suddenly he’s choreographing a dance. When I watch his movies, they seem like freedom.”

Driver tends to be more at ease talk-ing about the directors he works with than his own acting. About Carax he describes the director’s notes as soft spoken, “almost whispers.” After a scene, he’d sometimes realize Carax had acted it alongside him, and was now out of breath. But as for what Driver clings to personally in “An-nette”?

“I don’t know myself. I totally get lost in the minutia of fi lmmaking, the technical aspects of it,” he says. “What it amounts to or what it means or what the movie is for me, I don’t analyze often.”

Driver sings almost the entire time in “Annette,” a performance that follows on the footsteps of his Oscar-nominat-ed turn in Baumbach’s “Marriage Sto-ry,” which reached a stunning climax with Driver’s character singing “Be-ing Alive” from Steven Sondheim’s “Company.” Before that, Driver’s musical debut was more tongue-in-cheek, as part of the recording session of “Please Mr. Kennedy” in the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

Film

Adam Driver poses for photographers at the photo call for the fi lm Annette at the 74th international fi lm festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday,

July 6. (AP)

Manson Smith

LOS ANGELES: Actor William Smith, who played bikers, brawlers, cowboys and no-nonsense tough guys in fi lms and television shows including “Laredo,” “Rich Man, Poor Man” and “Any Which Way You Can,” has died at 88.

Smith’s wife, Joanne Cervelli Smith, said he died Monday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. She declined to give the cause of death.

With his chiseled, mustachioed face and bulging biceps, Smith was a constant, rug-ged presence on screen in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, amassing nearly 300 credits.

He played bareknuckle boxer Jack Wil-son, who grappled with Clint Eastwood in an epic brawl in “Any Which Way You Can,” one of the top-grossing movies of 1980.

“It has to be one of the longest two-man fi ghts ever done on fi lm without doubles,” Smith said in an interview for the 2014 book “Tales From the Cult Film Trenches.”

Smith starred as Texas Ranger Joe Riley in both seasons of the NBC western series “Laredo” from 1965 to 1967.

Hey played Anthony Falconetti, the menacing nemesis of the central family in the 1976 ABC miniseries “Rich Man, Poor Man,” and returned for its sequel.

And he played Detective James “Kimo” Carew in the fi nal season of the original “Hawaii Five-O” on CBS in 1979 and 1980.

Born in Columbia, Missouri, Smith would begin acting at age 8, playing small uncredited roles in 1940s fi lms including “The Ghost of Frankenstein” and “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

He would later become an elite discus thrower at UCLA, a martial-arts black belt and a champion arm-wrestler.

He served in the Korean War and acted in bit parts in television shows throughout the 1950s before landing a regular role as a police sergeant in the 1961 ABC series “The Asphalt Jungle.”

Smith would take part in another classic screen brawl, this one with Rod Taylor, as a bodybuilder in the 1970 fi lm “Darker Than Amber.”

He would also play Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father in 1982’s “Co-nan the Barbarian,” after being considered

Variety

Miriam Dussel receives the Forderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino in the category production for the fi lm ‘Mein Sohn’ poses in front of the Hochschule f’r Fernse-hen und Film, in Munich, Germany, Friday, July 9. The award is presented in several categories such as directing, acting, screenplay or production and is en-dowed with a total of 70,000 euros. The prize sponsors are Bayerischer Rund-

funk, Bavaria Film and DZ Bank. ( AP)

for the title role, and a Soviet general in 1984’s “Red Dawn.”

In addition to his wife of 31 years, he is survived by a son, William E. Smith III,

and a daughter, Sherri Anne Cervelli. (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

LOS ANGELES: Rocker Marilyn Manson

surrendered to police in Los Angeles last week in connection with a 2019 arrest warrant out of New Hampshire where he allegedly assaulted a videographer at a concert, authorities said.

Manson, whose legal name is Brian Hugh Warner, is charged with two misde-meanor counts of simple assault stemming from an alleged incident on Aug 19, 2019 at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford.

Gilford police Chief Anthony J. Bean Burpee said Thursday that Manson had turned himself into law enforcement in Los Angeles the week before. Manson was booked and released without bail pending a court appearance in New Hampshire.

Manson’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The victim, a videographer, was in the venue’s stage pit area at the time of the alleged assault, Gilford police previously said. The misdemeanor charges can each result in a jail sentence of less than a year and a $2,000 fi ne if convicted.

Los Angeles Police Capt. Brent McGuyre confi rmed Manson’s surrender to The Associated Press. Manson turned himself in at the department’s Hollywood station on July 2 and was processed on the warrant before being released.

“This is consistent with anybody who has a misdemeanor warrant that is not lo-cal,” McGuyre said. (AP)

SPORTSARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

14

Yankees shut down AstrosGiants top Nats

HOUSTON, July 10, (AP): Nestor Cortes and three relievers combined for a three-hitter and Brett Gard-ner and DJ LeMahieu each drove in two runs to lead the New York Yankees over the Houston Astros 4-0.

Making a spot start, Cortes per-mitted two hits in 4 2/3 innings, striking out two and walking two and lowering his ERA to 1.05.

Lucas Luetge (3-1) pitched 1 1/3 hit-less innings for the win. Chad Green gave up one hit in two innings and Jona-than Loaisiga threw a perfect ninth.

It was New York’s fi rst visit to Hou-ston since Game 6 of the 2019 AL Championship Series. The Astros ad-vanced to the World Series with a 6-4 win in that game on a two-run homer by Jose Altuve with two outs in the ninth.

Giants 5, Nationals 3In San Francisco, Curt Casali hit a

two-run homer while fi lling in for in-jured All-Star catcher Buster Posey, late lineup addition Darin Ruf added a go-ahead drive and San Francisco beat Washington.

Ruf added an RBI single in the fi rst inning against Paolo Espino before con-necting for his ninth homer off loser Sam Clay (0-3) in the fi fth. Wilmer Flo-res homered in the seventh.

Washington’s Tres Barrera hit a two-run triple in the fourth for his fi rst career extra-base hit and RBIs.

Padres 4, Rockies 2In San Diego, reliever Miguel Diaz

rejoined the Padres for the fourth time this season and was part of a dominant performance by the San Diego bullpen.

Trent Grisham drove in two runs, a day after his game-ending single beat Washington 9-8 when the Padres rallied from an eight-run defi cit, matching the biggest comeback in team history.

Four San Diego relievers combined for 5 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out seven. The Padres have won nine straight against Colorado at Petco Park, their longest active home winning streak against any opponent.

Mariners 7, Angels 3In Seattle, Shohei Ohtani became the

sixth player to reach the upper deck of T-Mobile Park with a majestic blast for his 33rd homer, but Mitch Haniger’s two-out grand slam in the eighth inning lifted Seattle past Los Angeles.

Ohtani had the most memorable shot of the night. Haniger hit the most im-portant.

Haniger drove a 2-0 pitch from Jose Quintana (0-4) into the left-fi eld bullpen to cap Seattle’s rally from a 3-0 defi -cit. Seattle kept the inning alive thanks to Jake Bauers hit and J.P. Crawford’s

nine-pitch walk. Cubs 10, Cardinals 5

In Chicago, Kyle Hendricks won his ninth straight decision, Patrick Wisdom hit a two-run homer and Chicago beat St. Louis.

Kris Bryant drove in three runs with a pinch-hit double to start Chicago’s fi ve-run burst in the seventh inning before Wisdom went deep against his former team.

Joc Pederson doubled twice, includ-ing a three-run hit in the fi rst. Chicago won for the second time in three games following an 11-game losing streak.

Indians 2, Royals 1In Cleveland, Bobby Bradley homer-

ed leading off the ninth inning as Cleve-land overcame some brutal baserunning that led to manager Terry Francona’s ejection. Bradley drove a 1-2 pitch from Jake Brentz (2-2) over the wall in right-center for his 10th homer as the Indians got their second straight walk-off win, touching off another wild celebration inside Progressive Field.

On Thursday, Franmil Reyes’ three-run homer in the ninth ended Cleve-land’s nine-game losing streak.

James Karinchak (6-2) got his sec-ond win in two nights, steering around a leadoff double in the ninth.

Rangers 3, Athletics 2In Arlington, Texas, Adolis Garcia’s

two-run single to center fi eld highlight-ed Texas’ three-run sixth after Oak-land’s Cole Irvin took a no-hitter into the inning, and Jordan Lyles won his third straight start.

The only Rangers hitters to reach base in the fi rst fi ve innings against Irvin (6-8) were two hit batters in the fourth inning. Eli White led off the sixth with a grounder deep in the hole at shortstop, and the speedy White beat out the throw from Elvis Andrus, who played his 12 previous major league seasons with Texas.

Reds 2, Brewers 0In Milwaukee, Wade Miley pitched

eight shutout innings and helped himself by doubling and scoring as Cincinnati beat Milwaukee.

Miley (7-4) struck out four and al-lowed seven hits and three walks as the Reds snapped the Brewers’ seven-game home winning streak. The Reds also re-duced Milwaukee’s NL Central lead to six games.

Miley left after allowing a leadoff double to Avisaíl García in the ninth on his 104th pitch. Heath Hembree took over from there and struck out Rowdy Tellez, Jace Peterson and Omar Narváez to earn his fi fth save.

Twins 4, Tigers 2In Minneapolis, Max Kepler hit a

two-run triple during a four-run sixth in-

ning and Minnesota waited out another young Detroit starter.

Like left-hander Tarik Skubal a night earlier, Detroit rookie Matt Man-ning didn’t allow a hit through the fi rst four innings. Minnesota fi nally broke through with an RBI single by Trevor Larnach to start the scoring in the sixth. Left fi elder Robbie Grossman tried for Kepler’s sinking liner, but it hit the ground and skipped past him.

Diamondbacks 5, Dodgers 2In Los Angeles, Eduardo Escobar

hit his 20th home run of the season and last-place Arizona pinned another loss on Los Angeles.

The Diamondbacks, with the worst record in the majors, have won three of four. They’re coming off a successful trip to Colorado, their fi rst series win since May 2.

The Dodgers have lost four of fi ve. Los Angeles didn’t help its cause with a lack-luster offense that produced just fi ve hits, a shaky defense that made two errors and a combined pitching performance that is-sued seven walks and hit two batters.

Braves 5, Marlins 0In Miami, Charlie Morton pitched

seven innings of two-hit ball, Ronald Acuña Jr. was restrained after being plunked by another Marlins and Atlanta beat Miami.

Freddie Freeman homered and Austin Riley doubled and tripled for the Braves. Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson each had two hits and an RBI.

The 37-year-old Morton (8-3) struck out seven and walked two. Morton al-lowed one Miami runner to reach third base, but Joe Panik was stranded after Jazz Chisholm Jr. fl ew out to center fi eld and ended the third inning.

Mets 13, Pirates 4In New York, Pete Alonso hit a

three-run homer and Francisco Lindor clubbed New York’s fi rst grand slam this season during a 10-run sixth inning, and the Mets embarrassed Pittsburgh.

A night after being postponed be-cause of weather for the second time in a week, New York won for the fi fth time in seven games. Friday’s matchup was delayed 41 minutes as lightning, thun-der and heavy rain blanketed Citi Field with one out in the bottom of the eighth.

Red Sox 11, Phillies 5In Boston, Kiké Hernández led off

the Red Sox fi rst with a home run, J.D. Martinez hit a three-run shot and Rafael Devers also homered to lead Boston past Philadelphia.

Hernández’s homer was his fi fth from the leadoff spot this season; only Kyle Schwarber (7) and José Altuve (6) have more. Martinez hit his 18th of the sea-son in Boston’s three-run second inning and Devers hit his 22nd in the four-run fourth as the Red Sox bounced back

New York Yankees starting pitcher Nestor Cortes throws to a Houston As-tros batter during the fi rst inning of a baseball game, on July 9, in Houston.

(AP)

MLB Results/Standings

WASHINGTON, July 10, (AP): Results and standings from the MLB games on Friday.Cleveland 2 Kansas City 1Chic. White Sox 12 Baltimore 1Tampa Bay 7 Toronto 1Boston 11 Philadelphia 5Minnesota 4 Detroit 2Texas 3 Oakland 2NY Yankees 4 Houston 0Seattle 7 LA Angels 3Chicago Cubs 10 St Louis 5Atlanta 5 Miami 0NY Mets 13 Pittsburgh 4Cincinnati 2 Milwaukee 0San Francisco 5 Washington 3San Diego 4 Colorado 2Arizona 5 LA Dodgers 2

American LeagueEast Division

W L Pct GBBoston 55 34 .618 _Tampa Bay 52 36 .591 2-1/2Toronto 44 41 .518 9New York 45 42 .517 9Baltimore 28 59 .322 26

Central Division W L Pct GBChicago 52 35 .598 _Cleveland 44 42 .512 7-1/2Detroit 40 49 .449 13Minnesota 37 50 .425 15Kansas City 36 52 .409 16-1/2

West Division W L Pct GBHouston 54 35 .607 _Oakland 50 40 .556 4-1/2Seattle 47 42 .528 7Los Angeles 44 43 .506 9Texas 35 53 .398 18-1/2

National LeagueEast Division

W L Pct GBNew York 46 38 .548 _Atlanta 43 44 .494 4-1/2Philadelphia 42 44 .488 5Washington 42 45 .483 5-1/2Miami 38 49 .437 9-1/2

Central Division W L Pct GBMilwaukee 53 37 .589 _Cincinnati 46 42 .523 6Chicago 44 45 .494 8-1/2St Louis 43 46 .483 9-1/2Pittsburgh 32 55 .368 19-1/2

West Division W L Pct GBSan Francisco 55 32 .632 _Los Angeles 54 35 .607 2San Diego 53 38 .582 4Colorado 38 51 .427 18Arizona 26 64 .289 30-1/2

Mercury rally past Storm 85-77

Sun beat Dream, wrap up Commissioner’s Cup spotUNCASVILLE, Conn., July 10, (AP): Jonquel Jones had 24 points and 16 rebounds, DeWanna Bonner added 22 points and the Connecticut Sun beat the Atlanta Dream 84-72 to wrap up a spot in the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship.

Connecticut (13-6) will repre-sent the Eastern Conference against Seattle in the inaugural title game Aug. 12 in Phoenix after going 8-1 in Commissioner’s Cup games. The finalists will be vying for a prize pool of a $500,000.

Brionna Jones added 16 points and nine rebounds and Briann January scored 11 points for Connecticut. Cheyenne Parker scored all 15 of her points in the first half for Atlanta (6-12).

Mercury 85, Storm 77In Phoenix, Brittney Griner had

29 points and 15 rebounds to help Phoenix beat Seattle.

Skylar Diggins-Smith added 26 points on 8-of-13 shooting for the Mercury (9-9). They beat the top two teams in the WNBA standings in consecutive games with Diana Taurasi sidelined by a hip injury. Griner had 33 points Wednesday night in a 99-90 overtime win over the Las Vegas Aces.

The Storm (15-5) wrapped up a spot in WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship when the Las Vegas Aces lost to the Minnesota Lynx later Friday.

The teams will meet again Sunday in Everett, Washington.

Lynx 85, Aces 77

In Las Vegas, Layshia Clarendon had 18 points and nine assists and Minnesota beat Las Vegas for its sixth straight victory.

Minnesota (11-7) did not attempt a free throw, the second time a WNBA team has finished a game without an attempt. The Lynx led 10-2, had a 37-18 advantage early in the second and led by at least 12 the rest of the way.

Kelsey Plum had 16 of her 18 points in the second half for the Aces (14-6).

Fever 82, Liberty 69

In Indianapolis, Kelsey Mitchell had 20 points and Indiana won its second straight game after losing 12 in a row, beating New York.

Danielle Robinson added 18, and Teaira McCowan had 15 points for the Fever (3-16).

Betnijah Laney had 23 points for the Liberty (10-10).

San Francisco Giants’ Darin Ruf (33) hits a solo home run against the Washington Nationals during the fi fth inning of a baseball game, on July 9, in San Francisco. (AP)

BASEBALL

Austin Hill, (top, center), celebrates with the team after winning the NASCAR Truck Series auto race, on July 9, at Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa. (AP)

Hill survives demolition derby for fi rst ‘Truck Series’ victory of yearKNOXVILLE, Iowa, July 10, (AP): Austin Hill survived demolition derby on the dirt at Knoxville Raceway for his first NASCAR Truck Series victory of the year. Hill restarted on the inside beside Chandler Smith on the fourth overtime attempt and pulled away in Hattori Racing

Enterprises’ No. 16 Toyota in the first NASCAR national series race on the his-toric half-mile dirt oval.

The 27-year-old Georgia driver raced to his seventh series victory in the wreck-filled race that had 14 cautions and a red flag after wipeout about about a third of

the way behind the leaders on the first overtime try. The race went 171 laps, 21 more than scheduled. The 19-year-old Smith was second, 1.207 seconds back in Kyle Busch Motorsports’ No. 18 Toyota. He held the top spot through seven late restarts before Hill got the advantage on the final try with the inside position.

Grant Enfinger was third, followed by Todd Gilliland, Derek Kraus and Matt Crafton. Kraus rallied after spin-ning early in the final segment after starting from the pole and winning the first two stages. Jessica and Stewart Friensen became the first husband and wife to race against each other in a NASCAR national series event since Elton Sawyer and Patty Moise in 1998 at Atlanta in the Xfinity Series.

Atlanta Dream center Elizabeth Williams (1) fouls Connecticut Sun center Brionna Jones (42) during a WNBA basketball game, on July 9,

in Uncasville, Conn. (AP)from 1-0 and 3-2 defi cits to pull away.

Rays 7, Blue Jays 1In St. Petersburg, Florida, three Tam-

pa Bay relievers combined on fi ve more scoreless innings, Ji-Man Choi drove in three runs and the Rays won their fi fth consecutive game.

Andrew Kittredge (6-1) and Jeffrey Springs each worked two perfect in-nings, with Springs striking out fi ve. J.P. Feyereisen allowed a one-out single in the ninth to Randal Grichuk before completing a fi ve-hitter.

White Sox 12, Orioles 1In Baltimore, Baltimore-area native

Gavin Sheets homered in his fi rst trip to Camden Yards as a major leaguer, and Chicago routed Baltimore.

Sheets, whose father, Larry, played six seasons with the Orioles in the 1980s, said before the game it felt weird to arrive in Baltimore as a visitor earlier in the week. Whatever unease he had was long gone when he smashed a pitch from César Valdez to right-center in the seventh inning.

BASKETBALL

TRUCK RACING

SPORTSARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2021

15

Taefu scores try

Samoa rout Tonga 42-13 in Rugby World Cup qualifierAUCKLAND, New Zealand, July 10, (AP): Center Henry Taefu scored a try among 20 points as Samoa beat Tonga 42-13 on Saturday in the fi rst match of a two-leg Rugby World Cup qualify-ing series.

Taefu, who plays for the Perth-based Western Force in Super Rugby Australia, kicked two penalties to give Samoa a 6-3 lead at the end of a physi-cal fi rst half.

The match came to life in the sec-ond half with six tries - fi ve to Samoa - including a run of four tries in a fre-netic spell between the 45th and 55th minutes.

The teams meet again in Hamilton, New Zealand next weekend and the team that has the best aggregate re-cord after that match will qualify for the 2023 World Cup in France, slot-ting into Pool D with England, Japan, Argentina and a yet-to-be-determined qualifi er from the Americas.

The loser will face the Cook Islands on July 24 in a repechage which will de-termine the last team to qualify for the World Cup from the Oceania region.

“The match was exactly what we expected it to be,” Samoa captain Michael Alaalatoa said. “Obviously it was very tight in the fi rst half. The Tonga boys, they came out fi ring and

were really physical.Tonga came into Saturday’s match

after losing 102-0 to the All Blacks last weekend, slightly strengthened by some late arrivals.

Samoa lost two matches to the New Zealand Maori over the last two week-ends and had a more settled prepara-tion.

N. Zealand top Fiji in first TestDUNEDIN, New Zealand, July 10, (AP): Hooker Dane Coles scored four tries as a second-half replacement to allow New Zealand, shaken by a physical and intrepid Fiji, to eke out a 57-23 win Saturday in the first of two rugby Tests between the teams.

Ranked 11th in the world, Fiji scored three tries including a pen-alty try against second-ranked New Zealand - the three time world champions - to emerge with the much of kudos from the match.

Fiji was only eight points behind New Zealand with three quarters of the match behind it. It was only Coles’ tries in the 52nd, 65th, 72nd and 76th minutes - a record num-ber for a replacement - that gave the All Blacks’ win a veneer of re-spectability.

Protesters against the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) confront police officers in Tokyo, on July 10. The poster, center, reads, ‘Don’t enter Hiroshima,’ with a pic-ture of International Olympic Com-mittee President Thomas Bach and graffiti over his face, as local media report Bach is scheduled to visit Hi-roshima later this month ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics starts.

(AP)

Tokyo Olympics spectators also barred from outlying venuesTOKYO, July 10, (AP): Two more prefectures outside the immediate To-kyo area have decided to bar fans from attending Olympic events because of rising coronavirus infections, Tokyo Olympic organizers confi rmed on Saturday with the pandemic-delayed games opening in just under two weeks.

Tokyo organizers and the IOC ear-lier in the week barred all fans from venues in Tokyo and three neighbor-ing prefectures. They make up the overwhelming majority of Olympic venues, although a smattering of outly-ing areas were allowed initially to have limited attendance.

All fans from abroad were banned months ago.

Now, two prefectures that were per-mitted to have fans have backed out of those plans.

Fukushima prefecture in northeast-

ern Japan has decided to hold its base-ball and softball events without specta-tors. It has been joined by the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, which will hold soccer games without fans at the Sapporo Dome.

“Many people including children have been looking forward to the games, and I’m very sorry to take away their chance of watching base-ball and softball at the stadium,” Fuku-shima Governor Masao Uchibori said Saturday. “It was a very tough decision to make.”

Fukushima was the early focus of the Olympics, trying to shine a light on recovery efforts in an area devastated in 2011 by an earthquake, tsunami, and the subsequent meltdown of three

nuclear reactors.Uchibori said the move by Hokkai-

do on Friday encouraged him to follow suit. He said it was important to have consistency among prefectures.

A few other events being held in the outlying prefectures of Miyagi, Shizuoka and Ibaraki will go ahead with limited spectators, organizers said Saturday.

IOC President Thomas Bach prob-ably didn’t notice, but on Saturday about 40 people staged a small anti-Olympic protest outside the fi ve-star hotel where he is self-isolating after arriving in Tokyo on Thursday.

“He (Bach) seems not to have thought anything about our critical situation and suffering, which makes me more angry,” protester Ayako Yo-shida said.

Polls have shown between 50-80% of Japanese oppose holding the Olym-pics, depending on how the question is

phrased. But opponents have failed to martial large turnouts in the streets.

Protesters carried a sign in English that read “Cancel the Tokyo Olym-pics” and one that had a red line drawn through the face of Bach and was cap-tioned: “You Are Not Welcome.”

Tokyo registered 950 new infec-tions on Saturday, the 21st straight day that infections were higher than a week previous. It was the highest since 1,010 were reported on May 13.

Japan has attributed about 15,000 deaths to COVID-19 with 16.8% of the population fully vaccinated. The pan-demic has not been as severe in Japan as other places, but the country has not performed as well as some of its Asian neighbors.

Infections are popping up as thou-sands of athletes and offi cials start entering Japan with the opening cer-emony set for July 23.

Mollema wins hilly 14th stagePogacar keeps Tour de France big lead

QUILLAN, France, July 10, (AP): Bauke Mollema won a hilly 14th stage of the Tour de France on Satur-day, while Tadej Pogacar protected his commanding lead before the race heads into the Pyrenees.

The 34-year-old Dutch rider for Trek claimed his second career stage victory at the To ur when he broke away on the way down from the fourth of the day’s five climbs. Mol-lema’s other Tour stage win was in 2017.

Mollema set off on the windy descent through sheer gorges from the Cote de Gali-nagues. He quick-ly powered away to build an insurmountable lead and rode the fi nal 42 kilometers up and down the category-two Col de Saint-Louis all alone.

With no opponent in sight when he crossed the line in just over 4 hours, 16 minutes, Mollema had time to raise his arms and soak up the applause. Patrick Konrad edged Sergio Higuita to fi nish second, over a minute behind.

Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates stayed comfortable at or near the front of the peloton through the 183.7-ki-lometer (114-mile) trek from Carcas-sonne to Quillan in southern France, content to let the breakaway group dis-pute the stage victory.

On Sunday, the riders hit the Pyrenees with a 191-kilometer ride starting in Ceret and fi nishing in the tiny mountain-bound nation of Andorra. The trek includes three category-one climbs. After a rest on Monday, the peloton will face three more days in the hills and mountains.

Defending champion Pogacar has kept the yellow jersey since he took control of the race on stage 8 in the Alps. With 2020 runner-up Primoz Roglic and other potential contenders out of the race, Po-gacar has had little trouble protecting his advantage in the general classifi cation over the past week.

Netherland’s Bauke Mollema crosses the finish line to win the fourteenth stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 183.7 kilometers (114.1 miles) with start in Carcassonne and finish in Quillan, France, on July 10. (AP)

RUGBY

CYCLING

OLYMPICS

Pogacar

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SportsColorado Rockies’ Chris Owings scores on a double by Kyle Freeland during the fourth inning of the team’s baseball game against the San Diego Padres in San Diego. Padres won 4-2. (AP)

— See Page 14

Colombia’s team pose for a photo after beating 3-2 Peru in the Copa America soccer match for the third place at the National Stadium in Brasilia, Brazil. (AP)

Colombia ‘edge’ Peru, fi nish 3rdBRASILIA, Brazil, July 10, (AP): Colombia beat Peru 3-2 on Friday in the third-place match at Copa America after striker Luis Díaz scored a pair of goals, one of them assisted by goal-keeper Camilo Vargas.

Peru opened the scoring at the Mané Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia with Yoshimar Yotún in the 28th minute, with an assist from Christian Cueva that allowed him to beat Colombia’s Vargas with a soft lob.

Colombia equalized in the 49th minute after a free kick taken by Juan Guillermo Cuadrado went through the middle of the Peruvian wall and past goalkeeper Pedro Gallese.

Colombia took the lead for the fi rst time in the 66th minute after Vargas kicked the ball above opposite defend-ers to fi nd Diaz face to face with Peru’s Gallese. The striker calmly hit it with his

right foot to make it 2-1. Italian-Peru-vian striker Gianluca Lapadula leveled once again in the 82nd minute with a header after a corner. Díaz scored again in added time with a shot from outside the box. The ball defl ected on a Peru de-fender and beat Gallese.

The two goals on Friday illustrated Diaz’s change in his career fortunes. Only years ago he was playing for a team of Indigenous peoples in his native Colombia. The Porto striker is being considered as one of the best players of the current edition of Copa America, with four goals. The striker was born in the city of Barrancas, close to the border with Venezuela.

Barty holds off Pliskova to win Wimbledon for second GS title

Czech drops to 0-2 in major fi nals

WIMBLEDON, England, July 10, (AP): Everything came so easily for Ash Bar-ty at the start of the Wim-bledon fi nal. Hard to be-lieve one player would grab the fi rst 14 points of a ma-jor championship match.

Surely, it couldn’t stay that one-sided, right? Of course not.

Still, Barty used that perfect start and a strong-enough fi nish to get the

job done, holding off Karolina Plisko-va’s comeback bid to win 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3 at the All England Club on Satur-day for her second Grand Slam title.

“It took me a long time to verbalize the fact that I wanted to dare to dream it and say I wanted to win this incredible tournament. ... I didn’t sleep a lot last night. I was thinking of all the ‘What-ifs,’” the No. 1-ranked Barty said. “But I think when I was coming out on this court, I felt at home, in a way.”

She adds this trophy to the one she won at the French Open in 2019.

Barty is the fi rst Australian woman to win Wimbledon since Evonne Gool-agong in 1980. Barty was a teenager when she fi rst met Goolagong and con-siders her an inspiration and a mentor.

“I hope I made Evonne proud,” said Barty, who wore an outfi t that was a tribute to the dress Goolagong played in when she won the tournament for the fi rst time, 50 years ago.

Barty, 25, was the Wimbledon jun-ior champion a decade ago, then left the tennis tour for nearly two years in 2014 because of burnout. She played professional cricket back home, then

eventually returned to her other sport.Good call. She was at her best at the beginning

of each set against the eighth-seeded Pliskova, a 29-year-old from the Czech Republic with a big serve.

Pliskova dropped to 0-2 in major fi -nals; she also was the runner-up at the 2016 U.S. Open.

“I was fi ghting very hard to make it diffi cult for her,” said Pliskova, a for-mer No. 1 who got choked up during the trophy ceremony and lamented to the capacity Centre Court crowd: “I never cry. Never.” Barty’s most sig-nifi cant wobble came in the second set. She led 3-1, gave that break back, then went ahead again and served for the victory at 6-5. But she sailed consecu-tive forehands long to get broken, then was shaky in the ensuing tiebreaker, ceding it with a double-fault.

But in the fi rst Wimbledon women’s fi nal to go three sets since 2012, Barty went up 3-0 in the decider and never relented. It also was the fi rst since 1977 between two participants who never had been that far at the All Eng-land Club.

The match was played under a cloud-fi lled sky and, because of the threat of showers, Barty and Pliskova shared a warmup session under the closed roof at No. 1 Court earlier in the day, standing side-by-side.

They shared smiles and chatter dur-ing the coin toss before the fi nal, but once things got serious, Barty didn’t mess around.

Right from the get-go, there was not a hint of uneasiness or uncertainty. Her strokes were confi dent. Her demeanor, too. During the match-opening run that put her up 3-0, love-30 and, after Plisk-ova fi nally won a couple of points, 4-0 after 11 minutes, Barty showed off her varied skills.

Australia’s Ashleigh Barty poses with the trophy for the media after winning the women’s singles fi nal, defeating the Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova on day twelve of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London. (AP)

Winning Euro 2020 will be redemption for Southgate

England take on Italy, eye fi rst title in 55 yearsLONDON, July 10, (AP): To hear the England players giddily singing along with the Wembley Stadium crowd to “Sweet Caroline” - “so good, so good” - encapsulates the youthful exuberance and carefree spirit of a group unbur-dened by trying to end the team’s 55-year trophy drought on Sunday.

To hear Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini talk about going all the way shows how pressure to win a trophy for your country can be an endur-ing motivation for yourself and the squad, especially in the twilight of a career.

“Maybe at 36 you feel it more,” Chiel-lini said, “because you understand more how hard it is and the work that goes into it.” The European Championship fi nal on Sunday pits England, which haven’t even reached a fi nal since winning the

1966 World Cup, against one of the con-tinent’s most decorated teams.

The last of Italy’s four World Cup victories came in 2006, when Chiellini had already made his international de-but but didn’t play at the tournament. But the team are a comparative underachievers in the European C h a m p i o n s h i p with their only ti-tle in 1968.

Italy, however, have already reached the fi nal twice in recent years - in 2000 and 2012 - whereas England haven’t got close until now.

With the pandemic restricting travel to London, the permitted crowd of 66,000 at Wembley Stadium will be largely packed with England fans for the national team’s greatest soccer mo-ment since 1966, when coach Gareth Southgate wasn’t even born.

Winning Euro 2020 would be a form

of redemption for Southgate, whose penalty miss against Germany at Euro ‘96 denied England a chance of mak-ing the fi nal.

“I know it won’t be enough for me and for the rest of the staff and for the players if we don’t win it now,” South-gate said. “You get lovely messages

that say ‘whatever happens now,’ but that won’t be how it will be on Mon-day. We’ve got to get it right.

Italy didn’t even qualify for the 2018 World Cup but have excelled with a 33-match unbeaten run since then under coach Roberto Mancini.

“At the beginning, when he told us to have in our minds the idea of winning the Euro, we thought he was crazy,” Chiel-lini said. “Instead, during these years he has created a team which are now on the brink of doing that. And as he has repeated to us after every match, ‘One centimeter at a time,’ and now there is only the last centimeter left.”

They have to fi nd a way past op-ponents that have conceded only one goal in their six games at Euro 2020 and coped with Harry Kane not even scoring in the group stage.

Kane

SOCCER

England’s Raheem Sterling, (left), and Tyrone Mings during a training ses-sion at St George’s Park, Burton upon Trent, England, ahead of their Euro 2020 soccer championship fi nal match against Italy at Wembley Stadium

on Sunday. (AP)

Italy’s Leonardo Bonucci reacts after scoring a penalty kick during the Euro 2020 soccer championship semifi nal match between Italy and Spain at

Wembley Stadium in London, England. (AP)

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic plays a re-turn to Canada’s Denis Shapovalov during the men’s singles semifi nals match on day eleven of the Wim-bledon Tennis Championships in

London. (AP)

Depleted Wales,Argentina ‘draw’CARDIFF, Wales, July 10, (AP): A depleted Wales and a 14-man Argentina drew 20-20 after Jar-rod Evans missed a last-gasp penalty to win the fi rst test for the hosts on Saturday.

Fullback Juan Cruz Mallia was sent off for a high tackle in the 29th minute while Wales were leading 6-3. The match was briefl y down to 13 vs. 14. Just moments before, referee Matt Carley lost patience with oppos-

ing props Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro and Dillon Lewis and sin-binned them.

Argentina responded brilliant-ly to lead 13-6 by halftime, and 20-6 soon after.

Wales were struggling in the set-pieces and the breakdown, and wasting multiple raids into the Argentina 22. But they even-tually tied the score with eight minutes to go and both teams’ re-placement fl yhalves missed late penalty kicks.

See Also Page 15

RUGBY

TENNIS

SOCCER