Volume 22 | Number 7294 | 2 RiyalsSunday 24 September 2017 | 4 Muharram 1439 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

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112UNDER SIEGE

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FIFA 2022 an opportunity for Arab world: FMNew York QNA

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that the 2022 FIFA World Cup is a first and

foremost opportunity for the Arab world and the Middle East to high-light the true and peaceful nature to the rest of the world.

Speaking at the inauguration of the “Adaptation of Sport for Sustainable Development” Exhi-bition organised by Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), on the sidelines of the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Foreign Minister said the organisation of the 2022 FIFA World Cup gives Qatar a great opportunity to stimulate innova-tion, positive change and sustainable development.

Qatar is currently building eight stadiums, 64 training grounds, five fan areas and

accommodation, as well as major infrastructure developments including roads, railways and air-ports, said the Minister.

He added that Qatar is taking advantage of this opportunity to promote innovation and technol-ogy and provide a platform for young people for innovation and entrepreneurship, noting that all this is under the umbrella of sus-tainability, with respect for culture, and aims to accelerate progress towards achieving national development goals as

well as creating a lasting legacy for Qatar, the Middle East, Asia and the world.

The Foreign Minister noted that it is a great honour to be happy in any country that has cho-sen to be the host country for the events of the 2022 FIFA World Cup as it is the first time to host such a tournament in our region. “The World Cup is an occasion to bring people together, overcom-ing geographical, religious,

cultural and linguistic differences,” the Foreign Minister said, adding that there are well-organised activities that will teach partici-pants values such as tolerance, empathy, integration, respect, dia-logue, reconciliation, courage, self-discipline, strategies and lead-ership. “

Meanwhile, Hassan Al Tha-wadi, Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), highlighted power

of sports to transform regions social and economic development during a speech at the UN.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 2017 UN General Assembly in New York, Al Thawadi said Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup will accelerate and inspire social development, cultural expression, technological progress and economic empowerment across the country and region.

→ Continued on page 4

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the inauguration of the “Adaptation of Sport for Sustainable Development” Exhibition organised by Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, on the sidelines of the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Qatar’s efforts to fight terrorism recognised globallyThe Peninsula

Qatar’s record “is recog-nised by the United Nations and its interna-

tional partners”, said the Qatari mission to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday in its response to the speech of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) representa-tive, who accused Doha of “supporting terrorism” in his speech in the 72nd session of UN General Assembly in New York yesterday.

“The UAE statement is a continuation of the series of allegations and fabrications started by the blockading countries in an attempt to undermine Qatar’s sover-eignty, tarnish its image and damage its relations with friendly countries,” said the Third Secretary of the Qatari mission, Ahmed Saif Al Kuwari.

The international com-munity is aware about these attempts he added.

In a symbolic protest move against the siege, the Qatari delegation withdrew from the session when the UAE Minister began to deliver his speech.

Ahmad Saif Al Kuwari, stressed that the unjust siege imposed on Qatar for more than three months is a blatant violation to the principles of cooperation established by the UN and its charter, human rights instruments, friendly relations between countries. The siege pre-planned by hacking of the website of the Qatar News Agency also vio-lates the Gulf Cooperation Council laws, bilateral and international agreements.

He stressed that the siege of Qatar has been condemned by many countries and UN organisation which has demanded to lift of the siege.

→ Continued on page 8

Qatar’s trade with siege countries minusculeSachin Kumar The Peninsula

The siege imposed by some countries on Qatar will have no impact on its over-

all global trade. The trade between Qatar and blockade countries is minuscule compared to the country’s global trade.

Qatar’s trade with blockade countries is just 6.7 percent com-pared to the trade of Qatar with its three major trade partners such as Japan, South Korea and India, according to the figures shared on Twitter account of

Government Communications Office yesterday.

“Qatar’s combined value of trade with the blockading coun-tries is $4bn a year compared with $60bn with Japan, South Korea and India. The country has not missed or delayed a single shipment since the start of the blockade,” said the Government Communications Office on its Twitter account.

It means that the share of siege countries’ annual trade in Qatar’s annual global trade will be even smaller, showing the blockade will have an

insignificant effect on Qatar’s total trade. The trade figures show that Qatar has strong eco-nomic ties all over the world.

The country is in comforta-ble position to defend its currency and its economy, thanks to its huge assets and for-eign investments.

“Qatar’s assets and foreign investments comprise more than 250 percent of country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We can defend our currency and the economy,” tweeted the Govern-ment Communications Office.

→ Continued on page 2

Siege opens new trade opportunities Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

Amid increasing fre-quency of shipments by sea between Qatar

and exporting countries, food prices in the local markets are expected to go back to pre-blockade positions by October and November, said Mohamed Althaf, Director of Lulu Group International.

In an exclusive interview with The Peninsula Althaf said: “We have been working to bring back the prices at pre-siege level. This is our commitment to the custom-ers and we are very close to our target.”

→ Full story on page 5

Qatar Special Forces Parachute Team wins Military World CupSion

QNA

The Qatar Special Forces Parachute Team have won the first place in the Military World Cup, which

took place in Sion, Switzerland, with participation of 16 teams from 8 countries.

The Directorate of Moral Guidance at the Ministry of Defence said that the military jump team participated with 3 groups in the tournament where the five-person Tigers team won the first place with three gold medals, and team won the tournament Cup in all categories.

The Commander of the Joint Spe-cial Forces Brigadier General Hamad Abdullah Al Fetais Al Marri said: “I ded-icate this achievement to Emir H H

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and to the Qatari people,”.

He confirmed that this achievement was scored thanks to the relentless fol-low-up and unlimited support of Minister of State for Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Atti-yah. He said : “Me and the team look forward to winning other tournaments in the future”.

Al Marri noted that the Joint Special Forces have a professional military team that can make achievements and win the championships in any competition or tournament. The team also includes Qatari youth with unlimited capabili-ties and a futuristic outlook and are engaged in insisting on winning and raising the flag of Qatar at all interna-tional forums, despite the blockade.

The Qatar Special Forces Parachute Team after winning the first place in the Military World Cup, which took place in Sion, Switzerland.

The Foreign Minister said the organisation of the 2022 FIFA World Cup gives Qatar a great opportunity to stimulate innovation, positive change and sustainable development.

$60bnQatar’s annual trade

with Japan, South Korea & India

Qatar’s annual trade with blockading countries.

Qatar’s total exports of goods in June 2017.

Japan, South Korea, India and China are among the largest export markets of Qatar.

$4bn

$18.4bn

02 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017HOME

Doha Institute for Graduate Studies received the second batch of students of the Executive Master’s Programme in Public Administration. The programme is designed to enhance the leadership skills of the executive managers of all ministries, bodies and institutions of Qatar. The batch includes 27 Qatari students who were selected from more than 100 applicants.

The Ministry of Culture and Sports concluded its three-month summer activities held at several commercial complexes in Doha. The closing ceremony was held yesterday at Ezdan Mall in the presence of a number of officials from the Ministry of Culture and Sports and public. The ceremony was attended by a number of those who contributed to the success of the activities. There were folklore shows by various groups, children’s cartoons, and performance by an Indian band.

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

The Public Parks Department at the Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment is gearing up to open Al

Maamoura Park, a senior official at the Ministry said.

“Al Maamoura Park is expected to be opened after two weeks. It is ready and we are just waiting for the works of sanita-tion near the park to be completed,” he told The Peninsula.

The park is for families and is equipped with all the required facilities including sports facili-ties, entertainment and play areas for children.

“The department, by giving priority, will open new parks at places which lack parks or in areas which are densely popu-lated. Among the areas planned to get more parks are Al Wakra and Al Wukair.”

The Public Parks Department is also working to make new designs for the new parks. The design will be different, not like the existing ones. The new designs will be special.

“Opening such parks is part of the ministry’s plan and strat-egy to increase the number of public parks and renovate the existing ones so that people can find pleasant areas to relax.” the

source added. Due to the impor-tance of the parks, the government gives priority to it and has achieved a number of projects in this regard.

There are more than 87 pub-lic parks across Qatar, which were opened by the Public Parks Department at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment.

In the last six years, the department has developed 40 parks.

Most of the parks are in Doha whose number is around 30 and they are equipped with all the required facilities. The second area is Al Rayyan which has 19 public parks followed by Umm Salam which has about 5 public parks.

An official at the Ministry said that at every public park, we need a minimum five engineers; electrical, civil, among other staff.

Recently, some parks were opened like Hazm Al Mara-khiya, Mohamed bin Jassim

Park in Umm Salal Mohammed, Ali bin Jassim park, Nasser bin Abdellah Al Attiyah park and Al

Kaaban Park.The parks have playground

for children, cafeterias, parking

lots and sun-shades and are also monitored by CCTV cameras and security room.

The Peninsula

Broadband technologies are today driving substantial transformation in many

development-related sectors, including health, education, finan-cial inclusion and food security, making them a key accelerator towards achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Devel-opment Goals (SDGs), says The State of Broadband 2017: Broad-band Catalyzing Sustainable Development report released by the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.

The report has been released just ahead of the Commission’s fall meeting in New York City on 17 September, and amid the UN General Assembly taking place 12-25 September 2017, also in New York.

According to the report, while 48 percent of the global popula-tion is now online, some 3.9 billion people still do not have Internet access, with the digital gap grow-ing between developed and developing countries. In addition, only 76 percent of the world’s pop-ulation lives within access of a 3G signal, and only 43 percent

of people within access of a 4G connection. The disparities in gen-der access are also becoming wider in developing countries.

“Broadband is crucial to con-necting people to the resources needed to improve their liveli-hoods, and to the world achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” said ITU Secretary-Gen-eral Houlin Zhao, who serves as co-Vice Chair of the Commission with Unesco Director-General Irina Bokova. “The goals for edu-cation, gender equality and infrastructure include bold targets for information and

communication technology. The State of Broadband 2017 report outlines how broadband is already contributing to this and makes val-uable recommendations for how it can increase this contribution into the future.”

Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani, Group CEO, Ooredoo, com-mented that: “The report shines a crucial light on the ongoing global challenge to help people across the world access the life-changing benefits of internet access. At Ooredoo, we continue to invest in mobile technology, people and resources that enable our

communities – in particular underserved women and youth – to enjoy the internet and use it as a means to improve their lives and achieve their full potential. As we deploy the power of digital tech-nology to give people access to the services and support they need, we urge governments, operators and regulators to continue work-ing closely together to address the deepening digital inequality in glo-bal connectivity.”

Ooredoo’s commitment to reduce digital inequality stems from its core mission to make the internet accessible and enjoyable

for everyone. This is highlighted within the report with several examples of Ooredoo’s efforts to harness broadband for sustaina-ble development including: Ooredoo Myanmar’s mAgri app Site Phyo, an app that provides farmers with localised weather information and best practices for growing and maintaining specific crops; Ooredoo Maldives Smart Campus, and Indosat Ooredoo’s Indonesia Belajar, a digital educa-tion programme that aims to use technology to help make educa-tion more available and accessible for children across Indonesia.

New Al Maamoura Park to open in two weeksFamilies only

The park is for families and is equipped with all the required facilities including sports facilities.

In the past six years, the Department has developed 40 parks. Most of the parks are in Doha.

The new park at Al Qutaifiya.

Broadband accelerates major transformation in development: Report

Qatar’s trade with siege countries minuscule

Continued from page 1Japan, South Korea, India

and China are among the larg-est export markets of Qatar. In June 2017, South Korea was at the top of the countries of destination of Qatar’s exports with close to QR3.5bn, with a share of 19.3 percent, followed by Japan with almost QR3.1bn and a share of 16.9 percent and India with about QR2.1bn, with a share of 11.3 percent.

The total exports of goods (including exports of goods of domestic origin and re-exports) from Qatar amounted to around QR18.4n in June 2017.

“Qatar is proud of its eco-nomic ties with partners around the world, which have only been strengthened since

the beginning of the block-ade,” said the office.

“Qatar has accelerated its plan for economic self suffi-ciency. Qatar has discovered new sources for staple items like food and medicine. Qatari people have rallied in support of their nation and their lead-ers,” said the office.

Qatar is the world’s biggest exporter of LNG, GTL (Gas-to-Liquids) and Helium. Developed in partnership with Qatar Petroleum, Pearl Gas-to-Liquids is the world’s largest GTL plant.

According to the commu-nications office, the blockade is a catalyst for Qatar to build a diversified and self sufficient economy.

Programme for executive managers

Three-month summer activities come to an end

03SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 HOME

New York

QNA

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has affirmed Qatar’s readiness to support

brotherly Iraq in order to restore the unity of its people, rebuild its damaged areas and restore its Arab, regional and international role.

Addressing the high-level event on supporting accounta-bility and justice for post-conflict in Iraq, the Foreign Minister expressed Qatar’s aspiration to work with the international com-munity to support Iraq and to promote international peace and security.

The Foreign Minister said that the presence ISIS group (Daesh) in Iraq and the horrific crimes it had committed in this sisterly country posed a threat to the stability of Iraq and the security of the region and the world, adding that (Daesh) crimes pushed large waves of displaced persons and refugees from the countries of the region to escape and leave their homes

and areas in order to preserve their lives.

The Minister said that the unity and solidarity of the inter-national community was the decisive factor in defeating ter-rorists at all levels. He referred to “the harsh and costly experi-ence of the spread of the terrorism phenomenon and its grave dangers to the unity and stability of States and the atroc-ities committed by terrorist organizations constitute a fla-grant violation of the international law, the interna-tional humanitarian law and

human rights”. “It is important to recognize that the defeat of terrorism and the gains achieved have been extremely costly at various levels,” he said, adding “Qatar appreciates the sacrifices made by its counter terrorism partners and reiterates its com-mitment to work with them to combat terrorism in all its forms, depriving it of safe haven and drying its sources and resources.

He said this encourages us for further cooperation and joint action, saying that “We are meet-ing today to discuss what needs to be done after the elimination of the ISIS (Daesh) in Iraq and soon in Syria and wherever ter-rorists are.”

Transition to justiceThe Minister considered that

the transition to justice, redress for victims and accountability of terrorists “will be a message of hope for the family of the State that we are on the right track to eradicate terrorism and punish terrorists for their crimes and to deal with the roots of terrorism based on the international law”, stressing the importance of jus-tice for victims and survivors of

Daesh crimes in Iraq and the region.

The Minister stressed that adherence to the rule of law, respect for human rights and protection of the people is cru-cial to root out terrorism and consolidate the gains made.

He said that the barbaric destruction and looting of archaeological sites and cultural property constituted a war crime and a crime against

humanity as a whole, “ as these sites and monuments are part of the human heritage”, calling for the prosecution of perpetrators.

The Foreign Minister con-gratulated the Prime Minister of Iraq Dr Haider Al-Abadi, and the brotherly Iraqi people on “the decisive achievements made in defeating terrorism and liberat-ing Iraqi lands from the forces of evil and darkness.”

He expressed his deep con-dolences to the families of the victims and expressed his deep appreciation to the International Coalition Against the ISIS group (Daesh) for its great role in sup-porting Iraq and confronting terrorism in the region and the world. “

The Minister expressed thanks to the UN Secretary-Gen-eral Antonio Guterres for the UN efforts in Iraq.

Qatar ready to help Iraq restore its global role: FM

ISIS crimes

The presence ISIS in Iraq and the horrific crimes it committed in the country posed a threat to the stability of Iraq: FM

The PM and the brotherly Iraqi people congratulated on “the decisive achievements”.

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani addressing a high-level meeting on supporting accountability and justice for post-conflict in Iraq, in New York.

Awqaf Ministry announces registration for Quran contest from October 1QNA

The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has set the first of October to start

registration for the Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani for the Holy Quran contest at its 24th session - the sections of the

Quran and the whole Quran for males and females.

The registration will start on Sunday, October 1 until Thursday October 12, from 8 am to 12:30 pm, and from 4pm to 8pm, at Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Hall,Freij Keleib, the contest’s organizing committee said in a

press release today. Sheikh Jassim Bin

Mohammed Contest includes several categories of the Holy Quran, and the sections of “5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 parts” of the Holy Quran for the Qatari citizens.

It also includes a section for

the memorizers of the residents of the imams, muezzins, teachers, readers of the Holy Quran and the famous readers and those who have already won the contest, and test this category in the memorization of the whole Holy Quran reading and memorizing the meanings of the

words “Al Nab’a” partThe committee allocated a

third section for the residents in the memorization of the Holy Quran.

This contest for more than two decades, witnessed a remarkable development in its various sections.

During last Ramadan, the O r g a n i z i n g C o m m i t t e e completed Al-Bara’im part from Qataris and residents as well as the recent converts’ part in cooperation with the Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zaid Al-Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center.

04 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017HOME

Residents enjoying the fine weather at the Doha Corniche yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

Cool weather

QNA

On its fourth day yes-terday, the Katara International Hunt-ing and Falcons Exhibition S’hail

2017 continued to attract enthu-siasts from the hunting and falconry field. The expo is sched-uled to end today.

S’hail 2017 was visited by members of diplomatic missions to Qatar and Minister of Devel-opment Planning and Statistics, H E Dr Saleh bin Mohamed Al-Nabet and the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to Qatar, H E Fikret Özer, who expressed his country’s readiness to participate in the second edition of S’hail as it entailed a wide range of audi-ences along with outstanding participations of high-class local and international repute.

There’s so much for a visitor to see and engage in at the Katara International Hunting & Falcons Exhibition. Among the variety of falcon art and related prod-ucts displayed, there was a special and unique work from Saker Arts for the ‘very special’

and discerning clients.Just as the tag says, it’s an

exclusive art capturing the pas-sion of falconry and Arabic heritage. If someone finds the language difficult to understand, a look at one of these master-pieces can simply make your jaw drop. Made with precious met-als and latest technological designs, these glorious falcon icons are simply a treasure.

Catering to the tastes of the Qataris for several years now, Claire & Rogers Griffiths has been excelling for Saker Arts in the

region. Delighted to be a part of this exhibition now, Claire said the first edition of the exhibition has been a revelation.

About their own part, she explains, “We produce exclusive works of art based on the art of falconry. We design custom-built art pieces made using absolute modern technology for the dis-cerning client and which we are showcasing at the exhibition.

“These are made using the finest gems, gold, silver, emer-alds, diamonds and pearls with craftsmanship from London-based designers. The products carry the Hatton Garden, Lon-don trademark which has been in existence since 1500s and so it has that heritage. Each trade-mark is also unique so we guarantee our client that what they have on display is funda-mentally their right.

“These are jewellery pieces inspired by the falconry. They are completely unique, custom built and ultimate in exclusivity to ensure the value increases over time. They are investment pieces. We only use certified diamond and gems of GIA certification

which are embedded in either 14 carats white gold or 18 carat hall-mark yellow gold, sterling silver and ceramic.”

“We take appointments with our clients, we lay the design brief and take it from there. Most of our pieces would cost a min-imum of QR500,000.

“The falconry art is all about the Middle East and Qatar has its own special place given the knowledge and passion of the people here,” she says.

Adding nostalgia to the Katara International Hunting & Falcons Exhibition are the vin-tage cars and trucks kept outside the main venue and visitors were fascinated by them.

A set of vintage trucks and 4x4 cars used for hunting years ago are on display. The well-pre-served cars are of various makes, which Qataris mainly used for hunting trips. Some of these date back to the 1950’s. Vehicles like the old off-road truck ‘Dodge

Power Wagon’ was aptly described by an elderly visitor. “This car never failed us in the olden days. When we didn’t have much of concrete roads and yet we could never get stuck in the sand while hunting,” he said closely examining the vehicle.

Other models which have survived and are in use till date, like the most popular car in Qatar, ‘The Toyota Land Cruiser is also on show with models dat-ing back to 1980’s.

sim Hamad Al Attiyah. Visitors are invited to enjoy this spec-

tacular car exhibition until October 21st, said a press release.

In partnership with Mawater, Qatar Motor Show, Letbelah and AlRayyan Hotel Doha, the classic cars on display are worth around QR4m.

“We invite visitors of all ages to come down to Mall of Qatar and see our impres-sive line-up of classic cars, that we know everyone is going to love taking pictures with. We thank our partners Mawater, Qatar Motor Show, Letbelah and AlRayyan Hotel Doha, for making this event possible, and we look forward to hosting this month-long event. At Mall of Qatar, we aim to offer memorable events for our visitors throughout the year, and our classic car show is going to bring great excitement to motorheads in Qatar!” said Stuart Elder, Mall of Qatar Chief Execu-tive Officer.

12 Classic carsThe wonderful line up of 12 classic

cars at the show includes a Jaguar XK120 Roadster 1954 and a Oldsmobile Convert-ible 1959. The beautiful cars will be displayed at multiple locations through-out Mall of Qatar from the luxury court to AlRayyan Hotel Doha and visitors can take photos next to their favourite model.

To elevate your experience at Mall of Qatar, Al Rayyan Hotel Doha the first Curio Collection by Hilton in the Middle East, boasts 201 rooms and suites, three outdoor swimming pools, kids play area, wellness center, an array of dining options and flexible meetings and event spaces.

This five-star property offers authen-tic Arabic hospitality, spacious accommodation and direct access to the mall’s luxury court.

Mall of Qatar launches month-long Classic Car ShowThe Peninsula

MALL of Qatar, the nation’s ultimate retail destination, has launched its

exquisite month-long Classic Car Show.

The Show was inaugurated by Mall of Qatar’s Vice-Chairman, Jas-

Falcon expo continues to draw crowds; to end today

A participant with his falcon at the exhibition.

Continued from page 1Al Thawadi was speaking

during the Harnessing the Power of Sport to Achieve Sustainable Development exhibition, which was organised to showcase that the 2022 FIFA World Cup is an opportunity for the Middle East and Arab world to illustrate its potential.

“Don’t underestimate the shared love of sport, it is vitally important that the power of sport is utilised to realise the ambitions across the full extent of the 2030 Agenda and achiev-ing its aim, to profoundly improve the lives of all and transform our world for the better.

“Events of this stature are able to bring billions of people

together from every corner of the world. They can serve to accelerate and inspire in a man-ner and at a pace that few other initiatives can match,” said Al Thawadi.

Al Thawadi outlined the SCs legacy projects, including Gen-eration Amazing, Challenge 22 and the Josoor Institute.

He also highlighted the tour-naments desired impact on young people across the region, and the opportunities such a his-toric opportunity creates.

“Sport is uniquely equipped to play a significant role in attaining these goals,” he continued.

“It breaks down barriers, cre-ates friendships and enhances cultural understanding.

No matter our creed, belief, nationality or economic status, sport touches on our passion and brings out the best of us as indi-viduals and human beings.”

Ambitious goalsAl Thawadi concluded by

saying Qatar’s vision had not changed since the country won the right to host the tournament in 2010.

“When we bid to host the FIFA World Cup, we recognised the immense potential of bring-ing an event to the Middle East and the Arab world for the first time,” said Al Thawadi.

“We firmly believed that the time was right for our region to be given the opportunity to showcase itself to the world in a

new light. It is an unfortunate reality that much of the world views our region through a lens clouded by conflict and negative headlines. Our vision is to trans-form that view.”

He continued: “We won’t deny that our goals are ambi-tious. While we are aiming for the stars, our feet are firmly on the ground.

“This is about dreaming big, to extract as much benefit as possible for people in Qatar, the region and around the world. It is a precious opportunity that we must not waste.

“An opportunity to share a common mission and make a difference through creating a better future. We intend to make the most of it.

World Cup an opportunity for Arab world: FM

Envoys visit expo

S’hail 2017 was visited by members of diplomatic missions to Qatar, including Turkishambassador.

There’s so much for a visitor to see and engage in at the Katara Hunting & Falcons Exhibition.

05SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 HOME

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

Amid increasing fre-quency of shipments by sea between Qatar and exporting coun-tries, food prices in

the local markets are expected go back to pre-blockade positions by October and November, said Mohamed Althaf (pictured), Director of Lulu Group International.

In an exclusive interview with The Peninsula Althaf said: “We have been working to bring back the prices at pre-siege level. This is our commitment to the customers and we are very close to our target.”

The Director said that the new sources of import were very competitive and traders were not willing to go back to the old mar-kets even if the blockade is lifted.

“We have already increased the frequency of our shipments and its effects will soon start hit-ting the markets. It is going to be very regular affair now onwards,” said Althaf.

He said: “The products are flowing in and we will be in a position to offer better prices very soon. I think by October and November we will meet our tar-gets to bring down the prices at the level where it were last year.”

“What we are thinking that even if the crisis is solved and problem of blockade gets resolved, we need not going back to same old sources. We will not start using Jabl Ali. We will depend on direct import because we think this is more sustainable and practical.”

“Now we are in a position to import in bulk and even we can bring a complete ship with part-nership of other local players.”

“During the beginning few days of the blockade, everybody was in state of panic as there

occurred sudden disruption of supply chain. But now I think the things are more or less are very stable,” Althaf noted.

He said that most of the retailers like Lulu had success-fully indentified alternative sources. “Now the importers are working to develop uninter-rupted access to them and issues related to the ports are also being resolved swiftly.”

“For example in case of Lulu, we had very small operation in Spain and Turkey before the blockade. But now we increased our capacity everywhere.”

He said the Lulu had added new logistic capacity and hired more employees to meet needs of enhanced operations. “In Tur-key we have a dedicated team of 20 people working only for Qatar.”

In Spain, he said, with the help of Spanish embassy in Qatar we have identified supply sources for long-life milk, fruits, vegeta-bles, olive oil. “We have also established logistic setups there. In Europe, we always had

operation in UK where after this blockade we increased our capacity and now working in three shifts.”

He said that Lulu had started importing goods from Pakistan. “There is a largest chicken com-pany in Pakistan “Big Bird”. First time Lulu is bringing the prod-ucts of Big Bird to region. Currently, we just started chilled chicken and soon going to import frozen chicken as well,” he said, adding that a number of Pakistani food products were set to hit shelves in Qatar.

“Azerbaijan is another

country we are looking at now for dairy and meat products. We have started bring dairy and meat products from Azerbaijan.” He said that prior to blockade, importers from Qatar were not keen to go to Azerbaijan and its neighbouring countries because of transport challenges. “But now they all have agreement with Iran and road and rail connectivity with Iran. Therefore, all these countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia have access to Bandar Abbas Port from where they load in refrigerated trucks – contain-ers on wheel. And it does not take more than 24 hours from Bandar Abbas Port to reach Qatar.” He said that from Georgia to Bandar Abbas was matter of eight hours and from there to Qatar about 14

hours so within a day “we get goods from Georgia.”

“Perishable goods, dairy products like milk, yogurt are coming now from there.”

He said that importers in Qatar were depending on Bandar Abbas for other countries but there are three to four ports in Iran that were closer to Qatar. “It takes six days to import goods from Pakistan by sea. Regarding India we have very efficient oper-ation from Mundara Port, Gujrat taking about seven days. Izmit Port in Turkey is being used to export goods from Turkey to Qatar.” “And many people in the world are looking towards Qatar as a market now because they know there is a vacuum in absence of Saudi and the UAE products.” Bangladesh for exam-ple, he said, wanted to export food items now. “Kazakhstan traders have already approached us and we are working with them. Bangladesh delegation is coming this week.”

“We have already started import of meat, fruits and vege-tables from Georgia with the help of Georgian embassy in Qatar we have identified the suppliers.”

He said that Turkey and Iran together were big fruits baskets

of the world. “The local markets are flooded with so many prod-ucts from all over the world, I think over a period of time some products will make their space in the market while others will be wiped out of the race.”

He said that dependence on certain countries was a phenom-enon of past now. “Turkey has always been a biggest food exporting country. In Lulu, our imports from Turkey have gone up by 250percent. Practically, Turkey is replacing Saudi Arabia in term of exporting goods to Qatar. Turkey is number one source of import for Lulu, fol-lowed by Oman.”

“Kuwait ranked number three for Lulu. This is sudden increase for Lulu from these countries.” Regarding Iranian products, he said, Lulu is buying from local suppliers and Hasad food and not importing directly from Iran.

“Every 15 days we receive shipments from Turkey; charted cargo flights carrying 75 tonnes of goods from Istanbul and ship-ments from Izmir port.” He said that Lulu is importing eggs and chicken from Turkey and buying Turkish milk from local suppli-ers and there is plenty of Turkish milk available in local markets.

“Tunisia is going to become another source. Tunisia will start exporting many items that Egypt was exporting to Qatar. The shortage of Egyptian products will be replaced by those coming from Tunisia. A lot of products are coming from Morocco.”

He said that to bring effi-ciency in the transportation, containers on wheels are being used to transport goods from Iran to Qatar. “Retailers like us are exploring options of producing something in Qatar and food-processing in Qatar. We are thinking for repackaging, clean-ing which used to be in Dubai.”

Siege opens new trade opportunities for Qatar

Lulu logistic facility in US dedicated for exporting foods to Qatar.

“The products are flowing in and we will be in a position to offer better prices very soon. I think by October and November we will meet our targets to bring down the prices at the level where it were last year. What we are thinking that even if the crisis is solved and problem of blockade gets resolved, we need not going back to same old sources,” Mohamed Althaf, Director of Lulu Group International.

06 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017HOME

QNA

The Tourism Committee of Qatar Chamber reviewed the latest developments in

the tourism sector in the State, and discussed means of devel-oping the sector and finding solutions to the current chal-lenges, in cooperation with the competent authorities in Qatar.

During a meeting chaired by Chairman of the Tourism

Committee and Board Member of Qatar Chamber H E Sheikh Hamad bin Ahmed Al Thani, the Committee agreed to hold an extensive meeting for the tour-ism sector with the competent authorities in the country.

The meeting also agreed on the restructuring of the Tourism Committee and the election of Salman Abdullah Abdul Ghani as Deputy Chairman of the Committee.

QC discusses prospects for developing tourism sector

The Chairman of the Tourism Committee and Board Member of Qatar Chamber H E Sheikh Hamad bin Ahmed Al Thani chairs the meeting held to discuss the latest developments in the tourism sector.

The meeting also agreed on the restructuring of the Tourism Committee and the election of Salman Abdullah Abdul Ghani as Deputy Chairman of the Committee.

The ten winners of the ‘Lulu Mercedes-Benz Car Promotion’, organised by Lulu Hypermarket Group, receiving keys of their prized Mercedes-Benz cars, E200 Model 2017, from Shaijan M O, Regional Director and Shanavas P M, Regional Manager of Lulu Hypermarket Group, in the presence of other Lulu officials and staff, yesterday, at the Regional Office of Lulu Hypermarket Group off D-Ring Road.

10 winners get keys of Lulu Mercedes-Benz Car Promotion

Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

In an new initiative to find the prevalence of dementia in the country as well to help

early diagnosis of the disease, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) will soon start a commu-nity survey.

In this regard an unified dementia guideline will be introduced across HMC hospi-tals, said Dr Mani Chandran (pictured), a Consultant Geriat-ric Psychiatrist at HMC.

“We still don’t know the exact prevalence of dementia in Qatar. We have set up proce-dures in place to work on to the exact figure, we are due to start our community survey which will identify the prevalence. We are also looking at working with the other departments across HMC. That’s why we have initi-ated the hospital guideline called ‘HMC dementia guideline’ so there will be an uniformity of the diagnosis and communica-tion so that we capture real data,” said Dr Chandran speak-ing on the sidelines of an interactive public event held to address the challenges faced by people in Qatar who suffer from various types of dementia, nota-bly Alzheimer’s disease, and their caregivers.

The event was organized by World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) at Education City, in association with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and the Ministry of Public Health.

It was held as September is

World Alzheimer’s Month and international campaign organ-ized to challenge the stigma that surrounds dementia and to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s disease. This year marks the sixth Global World Alzheimer’s

Month and the theme for 2017 is “Remember Me”, highlight-ing the importance of early detection and diagnosis of dementia.

Although accurate data on prevalence of dementia in Qatar, according to the Alzhe-imer’s Disease International (ADI), two percent of the Qatar population in 2010 was 60+, in 2050 this will be 20 percent. Qatar is ranked 41 in the world for the most deaths related to dementia per 100,000 cases. Also an estimate of 1000 dementia cases are prevalent in Qatar and it will be increased 49, 000 by 2050, according to a presentation by Dr Chandran.

Presentations were also made by Dr Hanadi Al Hamad, Chair of Geriatrics and Long-term Care Department at HMC; experts from Ehsan, Center for Empowerment and Elderly Care; researchers from Qatar University. Additionally, a mov-ing personal testimony from a participant whose spouse suf-fers from Alzheimer’s disease was given. Many of those who spoke referred to the need for further focus on research and outreach programs. The event ended on an encouraging note, with Dr Walid Qoronfleh, Direc-tor of Policy and Research at WISH, highlighting the positive collaborative work being undertaken by various stake-holders in Qatar and the efforts being made to engage with the community.

WISH is an initiative of Qatar Foundation. WISH’s lat-est report, titled ‘Enhancing the

Response to the Burden and Impact of Dementia: Through Policy and Social Innovation in the Eastern Mediterranean Region’, can be accessed via its website: www.wish-qatar.org/wish-2016/forum-reports

HMC to survey prevalence of dementia in Qatar

The Peninsula

Sidra Medical and Research Center (Sidra) has launched a survey to

seek insights on the expecta-tions from families in Qatar about the medical and research centre. The approach is a key step towards the organisation’s efforts to deliver patient and family focused care – by ensuring that the community is at the centre of hospital decision making.

Community Engagement and Events Manager, Dr Eman Nasralla said, “Our ability to enhance patient care at Sidra, hinges on having an open dia-logue with the community. We encourage parents, expectant mothers and fam-ilies in Qatar to answer the short survey. Their feedback and expectations about Sidra and our services is important to us, so that we can make improvements and imple-ment changes to ensure that

the needs of the community are met.” The survey includes questions related to what is important for patients and families when they receive healthcare from physicians, nurses, reception staff and the organisation itself. It is also seeking to get a better under-standing of how the community would like to be kept updated about Sidra as well as health topics that would be of interest.

“The survey is just the first step in our proactive efforts to engage more directly with our community beyond healthcare. We want to ensure that they receive the best service and the outcomes they deserve. We are seeking more ways for them to be involved including focus groups, vol-unteer efforts, networking events and health information sessions.” The survey is avail-able here: https://www.s u r v e y m o n k e y . c o m / r /Q3CAMP. For details, please visit: www.sidra.org.

Sidra holds survey to know expectations of families

Dr Mani Chandran, a Consultant Geriatric Psychiatrist at HMC, speaking during a public event.

“We still don’t know the exact prevalence of dementia in Qatar. We have set up procedures in place to work on to the exact figure, we are due to start our community survey which will identify the prevalence. We are also looking at working with the other departments across HMC. That’s why we have initiated the hospital guideline called ‘HMC dementia guideline’ so there will be an uniformity of the diagnosis and communication so that we capture real data,” said Dr Mani Chandran.

07SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 HOME

The Peninsula

Community College of Qatar (CCQ) will put some of the decisions in principle in its new branch in Al Khor

which will start receiving stu-dents starting from October 22, where 1,800 students attending the college are from the north-ern areas the State, said President of CCQ Dr Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi.

The Cabinet approved, at its last meeting, a draft of the H H Emiri decision to reorganise the College to place it at the forefront of higher education institutions in Qatar. It has also opened new disciplines to serve the labour market offering bachelor degree. It has affirmed the great interest of Qatar in education and the sponsorship.

Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA) Dr. Al Nuaimi said he wants Al Khor experience to succeed in excellence, calling at the same time the students from northern area to join this branch as it is near their residential areas. Al Nuaimi pointed out that apart from the Al Khor a plot of land was allocated for the estab-lishment of another branch in Al Wakrah, which is in the design stage, while the College is con-sidering the establishment of a third branch at Al Shihaniya,

pointing out that there is increas-ing interest to join the college.

Dr Al Nuaimi noted that the College is now in a different sit-uation than it was in 2010, in terms of buildings that have now increased to five buildings serv-ing students separately or in terms of programmes and disci-plines and the number of students who increased from 900 students at the opening, to about 4,500 male and female students now.

The government has allo-cated plot of land at Al Mazruaa area to establish the College main management building.

The college has 17 programs of Diploma in Arts and Sciences, in addition to offering bachelor degree programs in engineering, general administration and information systems, as well as joint programs for these two lev-els, as in the case of public

administration of personnel in different sectors of the State Al Nuaimi outlined.

The College constantly offers each year a programme or two programs in new disciplines serving the community at the level of diploma or bachelor, Dr Al Nuaimi added.

He noted that the College has many cultural, scientific, voca-tional, technical and applied programs and activities aiming to prepare specialized technical cadres trained in academic and practical fields that meet the needs of the community and the labour market.

Dr Al Nuaimi further said that the College has a programme with an Australian Border Man-agement University that is complementary to a program launched with the General Cus-toms Authority for high-level outputs in the Customs sector.

The College has previously signed a memorandum of under-standing (MoU) with the General Customs Authority and the Cus-toms and Tax Studies Center at Charles Sturt University in Aus-tralia, to provide customs-related educational services and tech-nical and research assistance.

In addition, Dr Al Nuaimi noted that the College also has a programme of arts in coopera-tion with the Ministry of Culture and Sports and another for

Health Information Systems, one of the scholarship programmes for the Ministry of Administra-tive Development, Labor and Social Affairs. And then the “ Teacher Assistance” program which is held in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and the min-imum requirements for admission is to obtain a high school certificate , that besides the diploma program of logistics and supply management, point-ing out that the College is keen that its programs do not conflict with what already exists at Qatar University to prevent repetition and duplication.

Dr Al Nuaimi underlined the importance of continuous train-ing for students at the bachelor’s or diploma level as well as for the teaching staff to serve the labor market in areas of lan-guages, public administration, technical specialties, health information etc. The President of (CCQ) stressed that the Col-lege is inspired by the spirit of the speech delivered by Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to the citizens and resi-dents on July 21, as a roadmap

for future options and how to deal with them, especially with the challenges imposed by the current circumstances, making imperative for everyone in var-ious educational institutions and others to adhere to diligence, creativity, thinking and self-reli-ance, for scientific initiatives in all disciplines required by the State, away from laziness and dependency.

The College follows the pol-icy of open admission for every Qatari who holds high school, government, commercial or industrial secondary school Cer-tificate at any rate and for any year. Transfer from the study of the diploma to the bachelor’s

degree is done according to the conditions of which the student obtain a minimum rate of 2.5 degrees from 4 degrees “open good” provided that the disci-pline is available and meets the needs of the labor market.

There are about 350 Qatari students affected by siege imposed on the State of Qatar, Dr. Al Nuaimi said. He also added that a coordination between the college, Qatar University, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Hamad Medical Cor-poration and the Committee for Receiving Complaints and Griev-ances is needed to find suitable solutions for them.

CCQ lines up ambitious programs

Dr Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi, President of the (CCQ), speaking to a QNA reporter.

The Cabinet approved, at its last meeting, a draft of the H H Emiri decision to reorganise the college to place it at the forefront of higher education institutions in Qatar. It has also opened new disciplines to serve the labour market offering bachelor degrees. This move has affirmed the great interest of Qatar in education and the sponsorship.

There are about 350 Qatari students affected by siege imposed on the State of Qatar, Dr. Al Nuaimi said. He also added that a coordination between the college, Qatar University, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Hamad Medical Corporation and the Committee for Receiving Complaints and Grievances is needed to find suitable solutions for them.

The college has 17 programs of Diploma in Arts and Sciences, in addition to offering bachelor degree programs in engineering, general administration and information systems, as well as joint programs for these two levels, as in the case of public administration of personnel in different sectors of Qatar, Dr. Al Nuaimi outlined.

08 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017HOME / MIDDLE EAST

Families from the town of Sharqat celebrate yesterday as Iraqi forces advance to recapture the insurgent stronghold of Hawija after retaking the nearby northern town from the Islamic State (IS) group on the second day of a new offensive.

Families of Sharqat celebrate

US-backed force seizes Syria gas plantBeirut

AFP

A US-backed militia has seized Syria’s biggest pre-war gas treatment facility from the Islamic

State group in the eastern prov-ince of Deir Al Zor, a spokesman and monitor said yesterday.

“The Syrian Democratic Forces and the Deir Al Zor Mil-itary Council were able to take control of the Conoco plant in northern Deir Al Zor province after two days of clashes,” SDF spokesman Talal Sello said in a statement.

The advance in the resource-rich province was confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, which added that the militia had also captured the adjacent gas field.

The SDF did not confirm that the gas field had been cap-tured, saying only that its forces were “combing the plant and surrounding points.”

The facility known as the Conoco plant had the largest capacity of any in Syria before the conflict erupted in 2011: 13 million cubic metres of natural gas per day, according to The Syria Report, an economic digest.

It was constructed by a partnership of ConocoPhilips and Total, and came up to full capacity in 2002.

In 2005, it was handed over to the state-run Syrian Gas Company when Conoco with-drew from the country.

The plant and adjacent gas field were first captured by rebels in late 2012, a year into the uprising that began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

In 2014, the Islamic State group captured the facility and gas field as it rampaged across parts of Syria and Iraq, seizing large stretches of territory that it eventually declared its “caliphate”.

The US-backed SDF and its Deir Al Zor Military Council are battling IS on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river that slices diagonally across Deir Al Zor province.

Syria’s army, backed by Russian firepower, is carrying out a separate operation largely on the western bank of the river, including in the provin-cial capital Deir Al Zor city.

Deir Al Zor province, on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq, is rich with oil and gas fields that served as a key revenue stream for IS at the peak of its power. Syria’s Kurds have cap-tured key oil fields in the country in recent years, includ-ing in Rmeilan in Hasakeh, where they are refining crude.

Qatar Chamber officials meeting with the representatives of private companies importing raw materials, yesterday.

Private sector proved ability to face siege: QCQNA

Vice-Chairman of Qatar Chamber of Commerce, Muhammed bin Ahmed bin

Towar Al Kuwari, said that the Qatari private sector has proved its ability to face the siege imposed by three Gulf states on the State of Qatar since June 5.

Al Kuwari said that the Qatari market remained steadfast even after more than a hundred days of the unjust siege. He added that the Qatari market was not affected, as expected by the siege countries which was betting on the geographical and demo-graphic size of the state, out of the belief that it will not bare the land, air and sea siege they imposed in violation of all international norms and laws.

He pointed out that the neigh-bouring countries that bet on the siege of Qatar, have forgotten that countries are not measured by geographical area or population. “Many geographically small coun-tries have achieved a lot more than other countries with large

areas,” he said, citing the Repub-lic of Singapore, which has become the largest economic suc-cess story of the modern era, and its economic growth has become a role model for the countries of the world.

Al Kuwari stressed that the siege, no matter how long it con-tinues, will not affect the Qatari economy, especially that Qatari businessmen and companies are enjoying outstanding relations with suppliers from around the world. He added that the flow of goods needed by the Qatari mar-ket will continue without any obstacles. He said that the efforts being made by the State of Qatar to localise more industries and encourage investment in small and medium industries, whether through local investors or by attracting foreign investment, will play a major role in boosting local production of various commodi-ties and in reducing imports.

He stressed that the State of Qatar has succeeded in building a strong and solid knowledge-based economy building a true

partnership between the public and private sectors. It was natu-ral that the private sector would move in all directions to face this unjust siege, he added.

Qatar has used several avail-able options and alternatives to meet the needs of the local mar-ket for all goods, he said, pointing that the launch of new lines between Hamad Port and a number of regional and interna-tional ports, has contributed to the promotion of the movement of imports from countries around the world. The strength of the Qatari economy and the vigilance of businessmen were crucial factors in avoiding any gap in the domes-tic market, he said. He explained that no interruption in the supply of any of the commodity was reg-istered, pointing that the shortage in the goods that used to come from the siege countries was cov-ered by alternatives from other markets without any impact on the consumer.

He expressed appreciation to the great response by business-men with the pivotal role played

by Qatar Chamber in this regard.Al Kuwari praised the Qatar

Chamber’s efforts that have been exerted in confronting the siege since the beginning of crisis, and its prompt responses in order to maintain the flow of goods and products. Qatar Chamber has communicated with the business-men since the first day of the siege to find new alternatives for the importation of commodities, especially food, as a matter of urgency, he said, adding that it also coordinated with various concerned government agencies and formed specialised commit-tees to tackle all obstacles in order to ensure the continuous flow of goods from abroad without inter-ruption. He added that the Chamber has identified in this regard the food and logistics stocks in the private sector, urged all businessmen to avoid putting additional burdens on the con-sumer due to the increase of some freight charges, and called for directing private sector invest-ments to establish new projects needed by the domestic market.

The facility known as the Conoco plant had the largest capacity of any in Syria before the conflict erupted in 2011: 13 million cubic metres of natural gas per day.

Global symposium on Jerusalem highlights issuesIstanbul

Anatolia

Any effort to address the issue of Jerusalem is very important, said a top

Turkish religious official yester-day. “Today what is happening in every part of the Islamic world where the tears and blood flow without halt, in Rakhine [Myan-mar], in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq, this is related to memory,” Yavuz Unal, the deputy head of Tur-key’s Religious Affairs Directorate, told the opening of a two-day international

symposium on rights violations in Jerusalem.

Unal said the symposium in Istanbul would serve to help Pal-estinians, most of whom are living in exile, and “most impor-tantly they have to pass through identity checkpoints to go to their own houses or fields”.

The International Jerusalem Symposium aims to evaluate vio-lations of rights in the region as well as help raise international awareness of these violations, according to the organisers.

The organisers said the event — o r g a n i s e d b y

the Istanbul-based NGO Burak Foundation, Umraniye Munici-pality, and Istanbul Medeniyet University —would bring together local and international politicians, academics, and clergymen.

Also speaking at the Istanbul event, former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Ekrima Sabri thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “being on our side and supporting Jerusalem”.

El Bachir Jarallah, who heads the Istanbul-based rights group Parliamentarians for Al Quds (Jerusalem), founded to support the Palestinian cause, stressed the

importance of international sym-posiums, and said Muslims should work hard to protect Jerusalem.

Istanbul Medeniyet Univer-sity Rector Ihsan Karaman said that Turkey has the duty to prop-erly explain Jerusalem to the younger generations. Karaman said that he believed meetings on Jerusalem would help revive an awareness in the country and produce “good politics”.

Adem Yenihayat, head of the Istanbul-based Burak Founda-tion, said that participants from Qatar, Indonesia, and other coun-tries in the region were taking

part in the symposium.Yenihayat also said that an

exhibition called “Jerusalem: From the Ottoman Archive” would be open to visitors.

Speaking at the same event, Hasan Can, the Mayor of Istan-bul’s Umraniye district, said that Jerusalem’s past, present, and future will be discussed at the symposium, and a book will be published at its conclusion.

On the tension in the region over the restrictions at Al Aqsa, Can said Turkish people gave the strongest response to this by stag-ing a protest in Istanbul.

Iran tests another medium-range missileTehran

AFP

Iran said yesterday that it had successfully tested a new medium-range missile in

defiance of warnings from Washington that such activities were grounds for abandoning their landmark nuclear deal.

State television carried footage of the launch of the Khoramshahr missile, which was first displayed at a high-profile military parade in Tehran on Friday.

It also carried in-flight video from the nose cone of the missile, which has a range of 2,000km and can carry multi-ple warheads. “As long as some speak in the language of threats, the strengthening of the coun-try’s defence capabilities will continue and Iran will not seek

permission from any country for producing various kinds of missile,” Defence Minister Amir Hatami said in a statement.

The test comes at the end of a heated week of diplomacy at the UN General Assembly in New York, where US President Donald Trump again accused Iran of destabilising the Middle East, calling it a “rogue state whose chief exports are vio-lence, bloodshed and chaos”.

Previous Iranian missile launches have triggered US sanctions and accusations that they violate the spirit of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers. Iran sees missiles as a legitimate and vital part of its defence — par-ticularly as regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel import huge amounts of military hardware from the West.

Continued from page 1

The siege measures against Qatar undermine the UN efforts to strengthening cooperation between coun-tries and jointly face the common challenges efforts strongly supported by Qatar, despite such numerous attempts to distort its image.

The Third Secretary of the Qatari mission, Ahmed Saif Al Kuwari, said that the international community is aware about the objectives of the campaign against Qatar and the siege coun-tries failed to provide proof of its claims against Qatar and the demands are only an attempt to punish Qatar for its policy of defending human rights and freedom of expression and its role in resolving disputes by peace-ful means.

Qatar is working with its partners on different aspects, including security and legal matters, and also through its participation in the International Alliance of fighting terrorism and other international and regional efforts.

It is also working as per legal procedures to enhance regional and international cooperation related to fight-ing terrorism and to ban any kind of financing.

Qatar is keen to imple-ment all commitments issued by Security Council which are related to fight-ing terrorism and combating its financing.

UN recognises Qatar’s efforts on fighting terrorism

09SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Turkish Chief of General Staff, Gen. Hulusi Akar (left), welcomes Iraqi Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Othman Al Ghanimi (centre), at an official ceremony in Ankara, yesterday.

Turkey plans security steps over Kurdish voteIstanbul/Baghdad

Reuters

Turkey said yesterday it would take security and other steps in response to a planned independ-ence referendum in

northern Iraq’s Kurdish region that it called a “terrible mistake”, as a Kurdish delegation was in Bagh-dad for talks on the crisis.

Meanwhile, The Turkish par-liament yesterday approved a one-year extension of a mandate to use troops abroad in Syria and Iraq, two days before Iraq’s Kurd-ish region is due to hold a controversial independence referendum.

The United States and other Western powers have also urged authorities in the semi-autono-mous Iraqi region to cancel the vote planned for tomorrow. They say the move by the oil-produc-ing Kurdish area distracts from the fight against Islamic State.

In Iraq, a Kurdistan regional government delegation arrived in Baghdad yesterday for talks with the Iraqi government in an effort

to defuse tensions, but a senior Kurdish official said the vote was going ahead anyway.

“The delegation will discuss the referendum but the referen-dum is still happening,” Hoshiyar Zebari, a top adviser to Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, said.

Asked if a cross-border oper-ation was among the options, the Turkish premier told reporters: “Naturally, it is a question of tim-ing as to when security, economic and security options are implemented. Developing

conditions will determine that.”Ankara, which has Nato’s

second-largest army, warned on Friday the Iraqi vote would threaten security and force it to slap sanctions on a neighbour and trading partner, although it did not specify what measures it might take.

Turkey, home to the largest Kurdish population in the region and fighting a Kurdish insurgency on its soil, has warned that any break-up of neighbouring Iraq or Syria could lead to a global con-flict. The Kurdish region exports oil through Turkey.

In a speech to parliament, Turkish Defence Minister Nuret-tin Canikli voiced concern about the referendum’s impact on the region’s ethnic and sectarian rela-tionships, saying it could trigger an “uncontrollable fire”.

“Pulling out just a brick from a structure based on very sensi-tive and fragile balances will sow the seeds for new hatred, enmity and clashes,” he said.

A particular area of concern is the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, which is outside the recognised

Kurdish region and is home to Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs and Assyr-ian Christians. Turkey has long seen itself as protector of the Turk-men minority. The spokesman for

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also kept up the diplo-matic pressure yesterday. “If the referendum is not cancelled there will be serious consequences. Erbil

must immediately refrain from this terrible mistake which will trigger new crises in the region,” spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on Twitter.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim (centre) greets people during an emergency session of parliament on a government request to extend military operations in neighbouring Iraq and Syria at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) in Ankara yesterday.

Nigerian scribe held over report on camp protestLagos

AFP

A Nigerian journalist was detained for reporting that relief materials were alleg-

edly being diverted from a camp for flood victims, his employers and police said yesterday.

More than 100,000 people were forced to flee their homes in early September following floods in central Benue state, prompting authorities to set up makeshift camps to distribute relief materials to the victims.

Emmanuel Atswen, a reporter with the state-run News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), was arrested on Friday over his Sep-tember 12 story on a protest at a camp in central Nigeria which accused officials of diverting relief materials.

“The reporter was arrested over an alleged defamation of character and falsehood by a commissioner involved in the relief efforts,” state police spokesman Moses Yamu said.

He said the commissioner for

water resources had complained he was wrongly quoted as con-firming that materials were being stolen.

“The commissioner insisted he did not say what was attrib-uted to him and asked that the story be retracted,” he said.

He said it was true materials were being moved to another camp, but the reporter said they were being diverted without ver-ifying his story.

Yamu said the journalist had been released. “He was released on bail this morning and has been asked to report back to the police on Wednesday,” he said.

NAN yesterday said it stood by the story because it did not violate “the tenets of the journal-ism profession”.

Nigerian officials are often accused of diverting relief mate-rials for their personal use, sparking regular protests at camps for internally displaced persons, especially in the north-east where Boko Haram Islamists have waged an eight-year rebellion.

Istanbul police detain 36 IS militantsISTANBUL: Turkey’s official news agency says Istanbul police have detained 36 peo-ple as alleged members of the Islamic State group.

The Anatolia reported that anti-terror police con-ducted simultaneous raids at 15 different addresses in Istanbul to apprehend five suspects who allegedly had travelled to Iraq and Syria for IS. The news agency says 31 of the people detained are foreigners. There was no information on their nationalities.

Several deadly attacks in Turkey that killed more than 300 people since 2015 have been blamed on IS.

Along with combatting the extremist group’s cells inside its borders, Turkey launched a military operation in northern Syria in August 2016 to clear the border zone of IS members after a suicide bomb ripped through a street wedding in Turkey’s Gaziantep province.

Soldier & civilian dead in armed attack in TurkeyAnkara

QNA

A soldier and a civilian were killed and two soldiers were injured today following an attack by gunmen from the banned PKK

organisation in southeastern Turkey.The security forces and the Turkish army have

constantly targeted the terrorist organisation’s sites and pursued its elements in the south and southeast of the country, in response to terrorist attacks carried out by them inside Turkey.

The Turkish parliament yesterday approved a one-year extension of a mandate to use troops abroad in Syria and Iraq, two days before Iraq’s Kurdish region is due to hold a controversial independence referendum.

Turkish Chief of General Staff meets Iraqi counterpart

As Germany prepares to give Chancellor Angela Merkel a fourth term in office in the September 24 election, there is a sense of celebration and optimism. Germany is a democracy and a leader

getting elected again and again despite heavy odds is an undisputable testament to her superior talent and governance skills. And there is no surprise, in Germany or abroad, about Merkel’s likely reelection. It’s considered something natural. She has been considered the leader of the free world, the most powerful leader in Europe whose voice is equally powerful at the European Union, and a leader everybody is now turning to with hope in their hearts when US President Donald Trump, who should actually be leading the world, is turning away leaving a painful vacuum.

But even amidst this sense of optimism, there is a sad news coming from Germany about the rise of the far-right party Alternative for Germany, called AfD. AfD is a party of racists, climate change deniers and hate-mongers who believe that Germany should stop atoning for its Nazi past. With the party getting eight percent to 12 percent support in polls, it is predicted to be the first ultranationalist party to enter Germany’s parliament since the 1950s and surprisingly, its rise comes at a time when far-right parties have suffered setbacks in neighbouring

Poland, Austria and France. Since its formation in 2013, the party has managed to enter 13 of 16 state parliaments.

The rise of the far-right will have huge consequences for Germany’s future and will lead to unravelling the progress it has achieved in social harmony and racial integration. Merkel, after getting elected, will have to work assiduously to prevent a spread of the

far-right sentiment. But it’s easier said than done. Since anti-immigration sentiment and Islamophobia are the two key factors fueling the rise of the right, mainstream parties will be forced to veer to the right to prevent the AfD from poaching in their territory. This is already happening. The government and mainstream political parties have appealed to the anti-immigrant sentiment, allowing AfD’s ideology to shape the election and public debate. That’s a huge victory for the racists.

The AfD has got a disruptive and divisive ideology. Its manifesto promises a ban on all mosques and minarets, prohibition of Muslim calls to prayer and criminal action against people wearing the veil. It has also called for a change in attitude to Germany’s historic crimes in the second world war.

Unfortunately, Merkel is paying a heavy price for her pro-immigration policies. Germany welcomed hundreds of thousands immigrants, mostly from Syria, more than any other .

10 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017VIEWS

E S T A B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

msalim@pen.com.qa

Rise of AfD

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It would be sensible, reasonable and democratic to stop and say, there won‘t be a referendum, which they know won›t happen.

Mariano RajoySpainish Prime Minister

The biggest shock in German election is likely to be the rise of the racist AfD, making it the first far-right party in parliament since 1960s.

World leaders have gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and one of the main agenda items has been to take urgent action

to combat climate change.With a recent study by the Pew Research

Center establishing the threat of climate change to be as nearly great as the terrorism of Daesh, both the understanding and aware-ness of the links between climate change and security have increased tremendously. That creates grounds for questioning the relation-ship between climate change and terrorism.

The United Nations, the EU, the G7 coun-tries as well as an increasing number of states classify climate change as a threat to global and/or national security.

Many academics and national security experts also agree that climate change con-tributes to an uncertain world where terrorism can thrive.

However, the links between climate change, conflict and fragility are not simple and linear. The increasing impacts of climate change do not automatically lead to more fra-gility and conflict. Rather, climate change acts as a threat multiplier.

It interacts and converges with other existing risks and pressures in a given context and can increase the likelihood of fragility or violent conflict.

States experiencing fragility or conflict are particularly affected but also seemingly stable states can be overburdened by the combined pressures of climate change, population growth, urbanisation, environmental degra-dation and rising socio-economic inequalities.

Since such terrorist organisations as Daesh and Boko Haram have been simultane-ously occupying the agenda of the world along with climate change issues, we can observe a considerable increase in the under-standing and awareness of the link between climate change and security in recent years.

In the latest report by the UN’s Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change (ICCP), it is stated that climate change is an increasingly greater threat to human security.

The German Foreign Office has also been discussing how the effects of climate change have contributed to the rise of terrorist groups such as Daesh, Boko Haram, and Al Shabaab.

According to its report, climate change nourishes terrorist acts and strengthens the efforts of terrorist groups such as Daesh and Boko Haram.

It is inevitable that some people are involved in terrorist organisations in an unstable environment where their govern-ments cannot protect their citizens who have to leave behind their lands and their lives due to the changing climate.

In other words, poverty, inequality, and marginalisation resulting from climate change constitute a more fertile ground in terms of human resources for the develop-ment and strengthening of terror groups.

“Terrorist groups are increasingly using natural resources — such as water — as a weapon of war, controlling access to it, and further compounding, and exacerbating

Climate impasse on terrorismSelin Calik MuhasilovicAnatolia

resource scarcities,” Lukas Ruttinger writes in a German government-funded report, Insurgency, Terrorism and Organised Crime in a Warming World.

Resources as a strategy of violenceAs the negative impacts of climate

change increase and contribute to fragil-ity, this benefits terrorist groups, ultimately leading to further destabilisa-tion and fragility, and increasing vulnerability to the negative impacts of climate change.

These dynamics can be further exacerbated by using increasingly scarce natural resources as a weapon. Livelihood insecurity and water scar-city are important factors in creating a fertile ground for terrorist groups’ recruitment in the conflict zones.

According to recent reports from the Nigerian military, Boko Haram has resorted to using natural resources as a weapon and part of their strategy of violence.

They have poisoned water sources, such as wells and streams, in areas where they were dislodged by state troops, making water use dangerous for both humans and livestock.

While it remains unclear whether this strategy is being systematically used as a weapon against civilians, it underlines the strategic importance of natural resources in the conflict.

In Syria, scarcity of water played a key role contributing to the outbreak of civil war and continues to impact the strategic choices of parties to the con-flict. Violence, devastation and the descent into state fragility provided a perfect breeding ground for the extremists, who both benefit from live-lihood insecurity and water shortages, to mobilize combatants and systemati-cally use water as a weapon of war.

In 2014, a number of reports stated that the Syrian regime used deliberate water and electricity supply cuts to weaken their opponents in the divided city of Aleppo. In other cases, it diverted the water supply only to those neigh-borhoods under its control, inflicting severe harm on civilians and farmers dependent on irrigation.

Although different actors instru-mentalise water, Daesh is responsible for by far the largest number of inci-

dents. Apart from ideological reasons, deprivation resulting from policy failure and drought made it much easier for Daesh to

recruit as high as 60 to 70 percent of its fighters locally.

According to Prof. Oktay Tanri-sever, who has specialized in regional security as well as energy and environ-mental diplomacy issues of Turkey and its neighbors at the Middle East Univer-sity (METU), the reduction of energy sources for terror organisations, such as Daesh, creates some advantages.

When energy sources decrease, the high prices naturally cater to dissatis-faction among energy consumers and the larger public and this provides grounds for terrorist organizations to provoke the masses against states.

“Terrorist organizations can gain functionality in the struggle to control energy sources among the states by playing a subcontractor role,” he added.Climate change vs. human culpability

The effects of global climate change are already dramatic enough and will be more dramatic in the future. There will also be a number of security impli-cations. However, according to some academics, climate change played a role in the past conflicts but was not the most important factor leading up to the conflict. They think that climate change alone would never result in a conflict: the political and economic contexts of a country are more important.

Therefore, some overdramatized predictions pose problems, because they’re based either on quantitative research only, counting the numbers of security incidences, thereby missing the specific, historically grown dynamics of conflicts in particular regions.

Dr Clemens Hoffman from Stirling University currently works on a project exploring the “Geo-Political Ecology of the Middle East.”

He said: “Some academics are assuming a relation between weather events and global climate change and warming, which is sometimes difficult to verify scientifically.

“The Earth’s climate is warming and there are more weather extremes, but the relationship between weather extremes such as droughts, conflicts and global climate change needs to be researched and verified on a case-by-case basis. “Sometimes this may prove difficult to do. Third, and probably most problematic, are the political implica-tions.” He stated that if global climate change is to blame for conflict and ter-rorism, then there is no ‘human culprit’ for any crimes or conflicts.

In the case of Syria, it would mean we discount the culpability of the Assad regime for the civil war and, instead, blame global climate change.

So, climate change is a big worry and the world should do more about it, but that does not mean that all prob-lems in the world are related to climate change, nor does it mean that we need those alarming arguments to take action against global climate change.

Climate change does not create ter-rorists or criminals. But in a changing climate, the context these groups oper-ate in changes significantly. So, what we are seeing is that climate change creates a context within which these groups can proliferate, grow and rise.

Climate change is a big worry and the world should do more about it, but that does not mean that all problems in the world are related to climate change, nor does it mean that we need those alarming arguments to take action against global climate change.

ED ITOR IAL

11SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 OPINION

experienced five major floods since 2010) make this unwise choice? The current head of the federal flood insurance program, Roy Wright, thinks he knows the answer: a decision by Congress in 2012 to raise premiums for the troubled National Flood Insurance program that covers what private insur-ers won’t. Flood insurance now doesn’t fit into stretched family budgets.

Though federal flood insurance is required to get a federally backed mortgage in high-risk zones, maps of those zones have been redrawn in some areas to ease the financial burden of homeowners. Also, it turns out that some people who buy insur-ance to get a loan later let it lapse, since there is limited enforcement. In Florida’s hazard zones, only 41 percent of households have flood insurance.

The fact that the majority of Floridians and Hou-stonians didn’t buy flood insurance underlines why, as a matter of practicality, not politics, every person needs to have health insurance. And whether gov-ernment-provided or purchased in the market, it has to be comprehensive and affordable. That’s not the case now.

Many Republicans want to do away with the Obamacare requirement that everyone purchase some kind of health insurance, the politically unpopular “individual mandate.” They want to allow people to buy bare-bones plans that, for example, don’t cover items like cancer or medi-cines. They say Americans who want cheap, minimal coverage or no health insurance at all

The very least the UK owes the Rohingya is protection

Condemnation of the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing being carried out against the Rohingya Muslims in Myan-mar is growing around the world, with the Dalai Lama, the Pope, Nobel Laure-

ates and world leaders from many countries calling for an end to hostilities.

There is no easy way to end the suffering there, but it is imperative that the world speaks out as one against such atrocities, yet the UK govern-ment’s voice has barely been heard at all. Of all the countries that should be playing a role in protect-ing the vulnerable Muslim minority people in Myanmar, the UK should be leading efforts, as blame for the conflict in those lands is very easily traceable back to British Colonial times.

Even without knowing the dark secrets of Brit-ish involvement, people are horrified about what is happening in Myanmar, with hundreds of thou-sands of people forced from their homes by violent vigilantes, either led by or with help from the army and stories of rapes and murder commonplace, alongside the dramatic footage of burning villages. The hatred which has been stirred up by national-ists is all too obvious in the TV reports and the Islamophobia that has been created by (among others) Ashin Wirathu, a monk who calls himself the “Buddhist Bin Laden”, is truly frightening.

If the UK and other western countries do not tackle this and condemn the attacks on a Muslim minority people, this inaction will again be seized upon as evidence of the West’s hatred of Islam by extremists with another agenda. They will do nothing to help the Rohingya but will use their name for propaganda and recruiting more fighters for their cause, just as they have with previous examples of Muslims being persecuted.

The Rohingya have been living in those lands for over two hundred years, but resentment over

the internal displacement of Buddhists stems back to 1826 when Britain annexed the part of Myanmar where most Rohingya Muslims live today. Bengali Muslims arrived in large numbers to become labourers and administrators for the British, but it is not the colonists who are blamed for this in today’s nationalist narrative, but the descendants of these migrant workers.

Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948, but the position of the Rohingya Muslims has become ever more perilous. The United Nations has described the Rohingya Muslims as the most persecuted minority in the world. Attempts at cre-ating an independent state for themselves have failed, and they have been denied citizenship in their own country since 1982 and with it the right to education, healthcare or even property ownership.

Far from speaking out against the violence, Aung San Suu Kyi has hidden behind the same lan-guage of having to fight terrorists as was used by Bosnian Serbs in the 1990s, Western leaders in the “War on terror” in Iraq and Libya. Although she is not alone in her hypocrisy, as a Nobel Laureate, expectations of her are much higher.

Yet her response so far has been mealy-mouthed, and the British government have not held her to account when they most certainly have the opportunity to do so. Last year the UK sold weapons worth half a million pounds to the gov-ernment in Myanmar, which could very well be used against the Rohingya now. £250k was taken from the UK’s aid budget to train the army there,

which in this climate of violence is completely inexcusable.

Aung San Suu Kyi has personal as well as polit-ical ties with the UK, having a British husband and two sons born and raised in the UK. She not only graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, but returned to live in the UK after working briefly at the UN. She married British scholar Michael Aris in 1972, and lived in the UK until 1988, giving birth to and raising their two sons Alexander and Kim Aris there. Her sons continued to be raised in the UK by their father when she returned to Burma to first look after her ailing mother and then to lead the political opposition, and hence are British citizens.

When the Taliban blew up ancient monuments to Buddha in Afghanistan, there was an immediate angry reaction to the desecration of such impor-tant artefacts of cultural significance — rightly so. The problem is that rape, murder, and the destruc-tion of people’s homes in Myanmar has not inspired the same level of reaction.

The UK needs to step up and provide leader-ship in alleviating the suffering in Myanmar:

• The Myanmar government is stopping UN aid from getting in: we must demand that blocks are removed immediately so that humanitarian aid can reach people. Charities are raising money already, so we must ensure it gets to where people need it most. There is also a huge humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh where the UK must play a leading role in aid efforts.

• Our government must acknowledge the UN

As Congress continues to strug-gle with health insurance reform, members should be ruminating on the scenes of “recovery” beaming in from

Texas and Florida, where the majority of households — many now severely dam-aged or destroyed — had not purchased flood insurance.

As after Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012, many of those now waiting to see if federal aid and charity will help rebuild homes, of course, wish they had.

Flood insurance in storm-prone areas and health insurance have a lot in com-mon, especially when it comes to the mental calculus that goes into the pur-chase. You are paying money to insure against a personal calamity you hope won’t happen, even though you know that it’s a real possibility.

Texas and Florida will experience hur-ricanes and floods. Just as surely, you are likely at some point to face an expensive medical condition. Weather disasters will probably grow more common thanks to climate change. And more people will face bank-account-draining illnesses thanks to longer lifespans, better treatments and high medical prices.

Yet there’s been a 9 percent drop in flood insurance coverage in the Houston area over the last five years and a drop of 15 percent in Florida, Associated Press investigations recently found. In some of the most severely affected counties, the drop was over 20 percent.

Why would Floridians (who regularly face hurricanes) or Texans (who’ve

Why hurricanes are a lot like health care

A Rohingya refugee stands among makeshift shelters in the refugee camp of Balukhali, near the locality of Ukhia.

should be allowed to choose that option — to play the odds and use their money elsewhere.

“You know what, Americans have choices - and they’ve got to make a choice,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CNN. “And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to spend hundreds of dol-lars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Well, for most middle-income families, that’s not the kind of choice people are making. In explaining why she decided to forgo flood insurance in Houston, Kris Ford-Amofa told a New York Times reporter that she had always tried to stick to a budget, down to choosing the pancake syrup that gives her the best value.

Likewise, when Americans choose not to have health insurance, it’s because they’re (unwisely) playing the odds and triaging the finite dollars in the family budget. If you’re a family struggling to pay for daily necessities like rent, food and college, you may decide to do without.

This week, the US census bureau reported that median household income in 2016 rose to $59,039, a 3.2 per cent increase since 2015. But for many families, health insurance premiums and medical expenses have risen more.

Insurance plans for a family of four in some parts of Florida went from $550 to $1,600 a month in the last several years and some are poised to go 10 to 20 percent higher in 2018, Margot Kast, an insurance agent, told me. She calculated similar price rises in some other states. Those prices have been overwhelming for many who earn too much to qualify for government subsidies. “Most people want insurance; they just can’t afford it,” she said.

In hurricanes, as in health, when the unwelcome cata-clysm happens the costs are even more unaffordable. Meanwhile, the pain and suffering are so enormous that government cannot turn its back.

Now we will all pay to rebuild those homes in Texas and Florida — a cost that is likely to run into the tens or hun-dreds of billions.

As a society, emotionally we have to pitch in to rebuild wrecked homes. Likewise, when a pregnant woman turns up at a hospital in labor, or a 60-year-old man develops crushing chest pain, we can’t turn away.

Flood insurance — whether federally provided or pri-vately offered — needs to be required if you live in a flood plain. Likewise — Congress, pay attention, here — compre-hensive health insurance needs to be mandated or provided for every American.

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findings of ethnic cleansing and “slow genocide” and the hate speech being used by the military, Buddhist extremists and national-ists against Rohingya Muslims. We must stop using the language of “ethnic tensions”, as this is mis-leading and disingenuous; instead, we must join the coalition of genocide charities, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and faith leaders in condemning what is happening in the strongest possible terms.

• We must demand unequivo-cal condemnation from Aung Sang Suu Kyi: A UN report has already gathered damning evi-dence. Its recommendations need to be implemented, and the UK should use its place on the Secu-rity Council to more effect.

• We must demand that citi-zenship rights be immediately given to Rohingya Muslims, the denial of which over many dec-ades has made this latest persecution easier.

• UK aid to Burma must be stopped (especially military train-ing) until the situation is acknowledged and a way of measuring the results of any such training is established.

• We should propose the re-implementation of sanctions which were lifted when “democ-racy” was supposed to have been introduced. The current human rights violations are not just on a par with, but even worse than those that had been taking place under the military regime.

The writer is an activist, commenta-tor and broadcaster.

Salma YaqoobAl Jazeera

If the UK and other western countries do not tackle this and condemn the attacks on a Muslim minority people, this inaction will again be seized upon as evidence of the West’s hatred of Islam by extremists with another agenda.

Elisabeth RosenthalBloomberg

Flood insurance — whether federally provided or privately offered — needs to be required if you live in a flood plain. Likewise — Congress, pay attention, here — comprehensive health insurance needs to be mandated or provided for every American.

12 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017ASIA

Sushma: Islamabad rejecting dialogueUnited Nations

IANS

Denouncing Pakistan as the “world’s greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity”, Indian

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj accused Islamabad of being “only engaged in fighting us” and rejecting peace and dialogue.

Speaking at the high-level session of the General Assem-bly yesterday, she accused Pakistan’s leadership of spurn-ing the hand of friendship, choosing instead to fight and sponsor terrorism.

It was a speech marked by fiery remarks, responding the unusually virulent attacks by Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his praise: “Incred-ible speech by EAM @SushmaSwaraj at the @UN! She has made India extremely proud at the world stage.”

India had offered the hand of friendship and agreed to bilat-eral dialogue, but “Pakistan is responsible for the aborting that peace process,” Sushma Swaraj said.

She contrasted India’s devel-opment, including under previous governments, with Pakistan’s descent into a “fac-tory of terrorism” as a lesson for Islamabad’s leadership for whom “the wisest thing” would be introspection.

She resorted to ridicule to deflate Abbasi’s accusations made against India on Thursday calling him a “champion of hypocrisy.”

“He accused India of

state-sponsored terrorism, and of violating human rights,” she said. “Those listening had only one observation: ‘Look who’s talking!’”

That remark was met with scattered laughter.

“A country that has been the world’s greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity became a champion of hypoc-risy by preaching about humanity from this podium,” she said raising her voice with indignation.

“Abbasi wasted rather too much of his speech in making accusations against us,” she said. More than a third of his address was about India.

“If Pakistan had spent on its development what it has spent on developing terror, both Paki-stan and the world would be safer and better-off today,” she said. She compared the progress made by India and Pakistan, whose births in August 1947, were separated only by hours.

“Why is it that today India is a recognised IT superpower in the world, and Pakistan is rec-ognised only as the pre-eminent export factory for terror.

“India has risen despite being the principal destination of Paki-stan’s nefarious export of

terrorism,” she said.The other contrast between

New Delhi and Islamabad was democracy, with Pakistan under the yoke of military rule or dominance.

“There have been many gov-ernments under many parties during 70 years of Indian free-dom, for we have been a sustained democracy,” she said.

In a compliment to previous

governments that included the almost 60-year rule by the Con-gress, she declared: “Every government has done its bit for India’s development. We have marched ahead, consistently, without pause, in education, health and across the range of human welfare.”

In the first segment of her speech, Sushma Swaraj gave a report card on India’s progress

in development, mentioning Jan Dhan, Mudra, Ujjwala, Skill India, Digital India, Clean India, Start-Up India, Stand-Up India, which aim to empower the poor.

The Jan Dhan banking pro-gramme for the poor had opened bank accounts to 300 million Indians, a number about the size of the US population, she said. “The impossible has been made possible in India.”

We all lied about Jaya’s health: TN MinisterChennai

IANS

Tamil Nadu Minister for Forests C Sreenivasan has sought people’s

apology for “lying” about the health condition of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa when she was admitted in Apollo Hospital.

Speaking at a public meeting in Madurai, around 500km from here, on Friday night Sreenivasan said: “We would have told lies that she (Jayalalithaa) had idlis and people met her. The truth is that nobody saw her.”

Sreenivasan said he is seeking apology from the people now for “those lies”.

According to him, every-one in the government and in the ruling AIADMK party “lied about the people” who had met Jayalalithaa in Apollo Hospital, where she was admitted on September 22 last year.

Sreenivasan said even the national leaders used to sit in Apollo Hospitals Chief Pratap Reddy’s room and the AIADMK Ministers would also be seated in that room.

Arvind Subramanian to continue as CEA Senior journalist & mother murdered in Mohali

New Delhi

IANS

A Rohingya petitioner told the Supreme Court that they were not illegal

immigrants but refugees who fled Myanmar and came to India for shelter in wake of their per-secution on the grounds of their religion and community iden-tity and were entitled to all protection under the interna-tional conventions on refugees

and treaties.Contesting the Central gov-

ernment’s stand that they being foreign nationals enjoyed no pro-tection under the Indian Constitution, Rohingya refugee Mohammad Salimullah, who has moved the top court, seeking its protection from being deported said that protection under Article 14 - guaranteeing equality before law and Article 21 - guaranteeing protection of life and liberty was available to both Indian citizens

and non-citizens alike.In his rejoinder to the Cen-

tral government’s affidavit, he said: “Rohingya are not involved in any act of militancy. They are a fleeing persecuted ethnic minority whose only claim is to peaceful asylum. Any individual case of involvement in militancy may be dealt with by the gov-ernmental in accordance with the law of the land...

“...there cannot be a general assumption that entire Rohingya

community in India is involved in militancy related activities.”

Denying the Central govern-ment’s assertion that some of the Rohingyas were involved with ISI/ISIS, petitioner Salimullah described this as a “mere assumption” and in this context, referred to concern expressed by UNHCR that “States may be inclined to expel groups or indi-viduals based on religious, on mere assumption that they may be involved in terrorism”.

US Defence Secretary to visit IndiaNew Delhi

IANS

India-US defence cooper-ation is set to get a boost when US Secretary of

Defence Jim Mattis visits India next week during which he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hold talks with Defence Minister Nir-mala Sitharaman.

The visit, from Septem-ber 26-28, is the first Cabinet-level visit to India u n d e r t h e T r u m p administration.

It will help underscore the enduring US commitment to strategic partner India, said a US Embassy press release.

Mattis will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the India Gate, meet Sithara-man, and also Prime Minister Modi.

“The Secretary will emphasize that the United States views India as a valued and influential partner, with broad mutual interests extending well beyond South Asia.

Chandigarh

IANS

Senior journalist K J Singh and his aged mother were found brutally murdered

in their residence in Mohali town of Punjab, adjoining Chandigarh, yesterday, police said.

Both victims were attacked by their assailants in their cor-ner house in Phase 3 B2 of Mohali, 10km from here. Police said that Singh’s mother, Gur-charan Kaur, 92, was strangulated.

Singh, 66, was stabbed in the stomach and his throat was also slit with a sharp-edged weapon. He was killed in a bru-

tal manner by the attackers.Acting on a directive from

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, the Punjab Police has set up a Special Investigative Team (SIT) under Inspector General (Crime) to probe the murder.

The bodies were discovered yesterday afternoon when their maid came to the house but no one answered the bell. Police sources said that the murder could have taken place around 1am yesterday.

The motive behind the dou-ble murder is still not known. The house was found ransacked and some items were missing.

Singh’s car was also taken away by the assailants.

New Delhi

IANS

CChief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Srubrama-nian, whose term was due

to end in October, has been given an extension of one year, the government said yesterday.

“Subramanian will continue for one more year after comple-tion of his three year tenure on October 16,” Finance Ministry said in a tweet. Earlier there were reports that the CEA had submitted his resignation to the government, which was denied by the ministry officials.

The officials had earlier clarified that he would continue as the government was consid-ering the extension.

Subramanian was appointed

as the Chief Economic Advisor on October 16, 2014, for a term of three years. He is on leave from US-based Peterson Insti-tute for International Economics, where he’s a senior fellow.

Being the key advisor to Finance Ministry Arun Jaitley, he has been instrumental in sug-gesting some key reforms.

The Economic Survey

2016-17, was for the first time split into two volumes - pre-Budget and post-Budget. The Survey, authored by the Chief Economic Advisor, advocated a Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme as an alternative pov-erty reduction mechanism in place of various ongoing social welfare programmes.

He pitched for a scheme to transfer a reasonable basic income to Indians below the poverty line based on a survey on misallocation of resources which showed that districts where needs are the greatest are precisely those where state capacity is the weakest.

The survey’s findings sug-gest that a more efficient way to help the poor would be to pro-vide them resources directly, through a UBI.

Governance for us is not about votes : ModiVaranasi

IANS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday the BJP did not believe in vote

bank politics as the country was above party politics.

On the second day of his visit to his Varanasi parliamen-tary constituency, Modi told a gathering that he had launched a major war against corruption and the corrupt to ease the life of the common man. He also said cleanliness was worship for

him as it could rid the poor of various diseases and a lot of economic burden.

“Governance for us is not about votes or winning elec-tions. The priority is the development of the nation. For us, the country is bigger than party,” he said, in his address to farmers in Shahanshahpur on the outskirts of Varanasi. He said most of the problems faced by the common people in India were rooted in corruption.

“I have launched a war against it and will take it further

to ensure that graft is weeded out from the country.”

The Prime Minister urged the people to also ensure that the mission for cleanliness gets their support.

He said it was his good for-tune to lay the foundation stone of a public toilet in Shahanshah-pur village “because sanitation is also a kind of worship for me.

“It will rid the poor of my country of various diseases and the economic burden due to those diseases that result from dirty surroundings. Hundreds

of diseases come knocking at your doorsteps because of lack of hygiene,” Modi said.

He quoted a Unicef report that each household in India which does not have a toilet spend around Rs 50,000 a year on treatment for different ailments.

“It is the responsibility of every citizen and every family to keep their surroundings clean so we are able to build clean vil-lages, clean cities and a clean nation,” Modi said.

The prime minister urged

the people to take cleanliness not only as a mission but also turn into a habit for everyone.

Referring to his govern-ment’s housing scheme, Modi said he wanted every one in the country to have a roof over their head when in 2022 India com-pletes 75 years of independence.

He said he realized that it was an onerous task but he would be the man doing it. “I know it is difficult. But if Modi cannot do the difficult job who else will.”

India’s Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj addressing the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, yesterday.

We are peace loving refugees: Rohingyas to SC

Speech at UN

Sushma Swaraj accused Pakistan’s leadership of spurning the hand of friendship, choosing instead to fight and sponsor terrorism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his praise: “Incredible speech by EAM @SushmaSwaraj at the @UN! She has made India extremely proud at the world stage.”

13SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 ASIA

The new full-size standing statue RX-0 Unicorn Gundam from the Mobile Suit Gundam UC anime is unveiled at a press preview in Tokyo, yesterday. The 19.7-metre tall statue will open to the public today at the DiverCity Tokyo mall.

Tech giant

North Korea tremors likely natural: Experts

Seoul

Reuters

A small earthquake near North Korea’s nuclear test site yes-terday was probably not man-made, the

nuclear proliferation watchdog and a South Korean official said, easing fears Pyongyang had exploded another nuclear bomb just weeks after its last one.

China’s Earthquake Admin-istration said the quake was not a nuclear explosion and had the characteristics of a natural tremor. The administration had said earlier the magnitude 3.4 quake detected at 0829 GMT was a “suspected explosion”.

The CTBTO, or Comprehen-sive Test-Ban Treaty Organization, which monitors nuclear tests, and officials of the South Korean meteorological agency said they believed it was a natural quake.

The Pentagon and the US

State Department did not imme-diately respond to requests for comment

A US intelligence official and US-based non-governmental experts said their initial assess-ment was that the quake was either natural or connected to North Korea’s latest and largest nuclear test on September 3, and not caused by a new nuclear test.

“It seems likely that these small tremors are related to the shifts in the ground due to the recent large test,” said David Wright of the Union of Con-cerned Scientists in the United States.

The seismic activity came just hours before North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who warned on Thursday that

North Korea could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific, was due to address the United Nations General Assem-bly in New York.

Ri did not respond when asked by reporters whether North Korea had conducted a new nuclear test.

A US government

intelligence analyst said the events could have been a “mine-type” collapse of tunnels damaged by North Korea’s pre-vious nuclear test, but was more likely a small earthquake.

An official of South Korea’s Meteorological Agency said acoustic waves should be detected in the event of a man-made earthquake.

“In this case we saw none. So as of now, we are categorising this as a natural earthquake.”

The earthquake, which South Korea’s Meteorological Agency put at magnitude 3.0, was detected 49km from Kilju in North Hamgyong Province, where North Korea’s known Punggye-ri nuclear site is located, the official said.

All of North Korea’s six nuclear tests registered as earth-quakes of magnitude 4.3 or above. The last test registered as a 6.3 magnitude quake.

A secondary tremor detected after that test could have been caused by the collapse of a tun-nel at the mountainous site, experts said at the time. Satellite photos of the area after the Sep-tember 3 quake showed numerous landslides apparently caused by the massive blast, which North Korea said was an advanced hydrogen bomb.

The head of the international nuclear test monitoring agency CTBTO said yesterday that ana-lysts were “looking at unusual seismic activity of a much

smaller magnitude” than the September 3 test in North Korea.

“Two #Seismic Events! 0829UTC & much smaller @ 0443UTC unlikely Man-made! Similar to “collapse” event 8.5 mins after DPRK6! Analysis ongoing,” CTBTO Executive Sec-retary Lassina Zerbo said in a Twitter post, referring to the Sep-tember 3 test.

Russia’s emergency ministry says background radiation in nearby Vladivostok was within the natural range.

The US Geological Survey said it could not conclusively confirm whether the quake, which it measured at magnitude 3.5, was man-made or natural.

“The depth is poorly con-strained and has been held to 5 km by the seismologist,” USGS said. Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia Nonproliferation Pro-gram at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies at Monterey, California, said: “Seismologists are very good at discriminating between earthquakes and explo-sions. I see no reason to doubt that it was an earthquake.”

There was no immediate reaction from China’s Foreign Ministry, but the news was widely reported by Chinese state media outlets and on social media.

Tensions have continued to rise around the Korean Penin-sula since Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test, prompting a new round of UN sanctions.

Davao

AP

The Philippine president says he became a local millionaire at a young age

due to inheritance and reiterated he has no unexplained wealth as alleged by his leading critic, who questioned his claim that he was born into an impover-ished family.

President Rodrigo Duterte gave some details of his personal assets at a dinner with journal-ists Friday in his southern home city of Davao, repeating a pledge to immediately resign if anybody can prove that he has question-able wealth concealed in bank accounts.

Duterte said his parents owned land in Davao where a profitable ice plant stood, and that he and his siblings divided the family assets after his father,

a former Davao provincial gov-ernor, died in 1968. Duterte mentioned without elaborating that his family then was also involved in logging.

He said he suggested that the inherited landholdings be sold due to squabbling among the Duterte siblings.

“When we divided, we had our first millions already,” Duterte said. “Long ago, I was just a student, fourth year. I already had about 3 million pesos.”

Duterte mentioned a local bank, now closed, where he said he had cash deposits years ago, adding that his critics could still check the records of that bank. “If you want to really trace my money, start from there,” he said. All his remaining landhold-ings are now in the name of his children, Duterte said. He added that he currently has only about

500,000 pesos in the bank, but did not provide other specific details of his other properties. His last public assets declaration put his worth at more than 27 million pesos as of December last year.

Opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV has accused Duterte of concealing more than 2 bil-lion pesos in undeclared bank accounts when he served as a top Davao city official, contra-dicting, the senator said, the president’s claim that he came from an impoverished family. Philippine law requires officials to declare their assets and lia-bilities each year, and those who fail to do so could face dismissal from office.

In past interviews and speeches, Duterte has said he was born into a poor family but later walked back on those r e m a r k s , s a y i n g h e

and his siblings have inherited properties from his father even though they lived a modest life.

Trillanes has repeatedly called on Duterte to sign waiv-ers so investigators could check his allegations that the president had concealed wealth in Philip-pine banks, some in joint accounts with his daughter, which he said were not publicly declared in the past in violation of the law.

Duterte has denied the alle-gations. “You show any bank account, foreign, and I will step down tomorrow,” the president said.

He repeated an earlier accu-sation that it was Trillanes who has undeclared foreign bank accounts, mostly joint accounts with Chinese associates, citing information that the president said was given by an unspeci-fied foreign government.

Pyongyang

AFP

Tens of thousands of Pyongyang residents were gathered in the capital’s

Kim Il-Sung Square yesterday to laud leader Kim Jong-Un’s denunciation of US President Donald Trump.

Such set-piece rallies, organised by the authorities, are a regular feature of political life in Pyongyang, and are intended as a physical demonstration of popular support for the leadership.

Students in white shirts and red ties held up the red flag of the ruling Workers’ Party, with a yellow ink brush representing intellectuals, a hammer for the workers, and a sickle for the peasantry.

Ranks of workers and resi-dents listened, their fists clenched, as speakers repeated Kim’s denigration of Trump as “mentally deranged” and a “dotard”.

The US president dubbed Kim “Rocket Man” in a speech at the United Nations last week in which he threatened to “totally destroy” the North if it attacked the US or its allies.

In a statement on Friday Kim responded by saying that “a frightened dog barks louder” and Trump would “pay dearly” for his comments -- triggering the US head of state to describe him as a “madman”.

On one side of the square a giant poster depicted innumer-able red missiles plunging towards a collapsing US Capi-tol, with the slogan “Korea’s Answer”.

The bellicose rhetoric between Kim and Trump has become increasingly personal, and raised fears of miscalcula-tion in the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

“I would like to put down my pen and take up arms again to perform my duty to defend the fatherland,” said Pyongyang

Mechanical University student Ri Il Ung, 24.

“Trump is a warmonger and a backstreet gangster,” he added. “It’s quite ridiculous that such a person could become a politician.”

Ordinary North Koreans normally only ever express offi-cially-approved sentiments when speaking to international media.

The North Korean regime is intensely militaristic and bases its claim to legitimacy on defending the country from external aggression, and ana-lysts say that Trump’s comments are grist to its mill.

Kim is also using the drama to reinforce his leadership, they add. Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear arms to protect itself from a US invasion, and carried out its sixth atomic test earlier this month, earning itself an eighth set of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

It has also tested two inter-continental ballistic missiles that

Pyongyang heaves with show of support for Kim

appeared to bring much of the US mainland into range, and regu-larly issues bloodcurdling threats. Thousands of people marched through the square, past portraits of Kim’s predecessors, his father and grandfather Kim Jong-Il and

Kim Il-Sung, behind a banner proclaiming: “Let us safeguard with our lives the central com-mittee of the party headed by the great comrade Kim Jong-Un.”

Environmental protection ministry official Han Kwang Nam

told AFP: “We fear nothing, we are not afraid because we have the greatest ever general, the respected Supreme Leader Com-rade Kim Jong-Un.

“We will surely gain victory.”

Participants of a mass rally shout slogans as they gather on Kim Il-Sung Square in Pyongyang yesterday.

A man watches a television news screen showing a map of the epicentre of an earthquake in North Korea, at a railway station in Seoul, yesterday.

Tensions have continued to rise around the Korean Peninsula since Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test, prompting a new round of UN sanctions.

Duterte insists inheritance made him wealthy

14 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017ASIA

Students balance water bottles on their heads during military style training at university in Nanning in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China, yesterday.

Rohingya influx almost over: Dhaka Cox’s Bazar AFP

The flood of Rohingya ref-ugees into Bangladesh has come to a virtual halt,

Dhaka officials said yesterday, almost a month after violence erupted in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and sent nearly 430,000 people fleeing across the border.

Officials gave no reason for the dramatically reduced num-bers. But Rohingya Muslim leaders said it could be because villages located near the bor-der in Myanmar’s Rakhine state were now empty.

Bangladesh Border Guard commanders said hardly any refugees are now seen crossing on boats coming from Myan-mar or trying to get over the land border.

In the past two weeks there have been up to 20,000 peo-ple a day entering Bangladesh.

The UN says 429,000 Rohingya have sought refuge in Bangladesh since attacks by Ronhingya militants in Rakhine on August 25 sparked a major M y a n m a r m i l i t a r y crackdown.

Many gave up money and jewellery to get places on boats crossing the Naf river, which marks part of the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

“Our guards have not seen any Rohingya coming in the past few days. The wave is over,” Bangladesh Border Guard commander S M Ariful Islam told AFP.

The United Nations also said “the influx has dropped”. It said it will now release updates on the numbers of ref-ugees entering Bangladesh once a week, rather than daily.

Rohingya community lead-ers said most of the Rakhine villages near the Bangladesh border are now deserted.

“Almost all the people I know have arrived in Bangla-desh,” Yusuf Majihi, a Rohingya leader at a camp at Balukhali, near Cox’s Bazar, said.

“Village after village has become empty due to the attacks by Myanmar soldiers and torching of the houses by Moghs (Buddhists),” he added.

Zambonga City Anatolia

The Philippine govern-ment has rejected several recommenda-

tions of United Nations member-states to investigate alleged extrajudicial killings resulting from President Rod-rigo Duterte’s intensive war on drugs.

Manila argues that the country has already addressed the issue in the interactive dialogue and denied the existence of extra-judicial killings. “The Philippines had sufficiently explained that deaths which occurred in the course of the implementation of the anti-illegal drugs campaign are not EJKs,” the country said in a statement.

“These are deaths arising from legitimate law enforce-ment operations or deaths that require further investi-gation following the established rules of engage-ment by the country’s law enforcers,” it added.

Manila only accepted 103 out of the 257 recommenda-tions made during the 36th session of the Universal Peri-odic Review (UPR) of the Philippine human rights sit-uation in May, taking note of the remaining 154 proposals. The statement added that 99 out of the 154 proposals can be supported however the government cannot guaran-tee implementation. The last 55 of the recommendations were disagreed upon as their premises and contexts “were sweeping, vague and even contradictory of the country’s democratic processes”.

Dhaka

AP

Bangladesh police say two Myanmar photojournalists arrested while covering a

massive influx of Rohingya ref-ugees from their country have been released on bail, but that they can’t leave the country because the charges against them have yet to be dropped.

Their attorney Jyotirmoy Barua says that Minzayar Oo and Hkun Lat were freed late Friday following a court order.

Police said yesterday that the two were arrested on Sep-tember 13 for taking photographs and collecting secret state information in the Teknaf area bordering Myanmar and providing false identity to government officials.

Police said they also violated immigration rules by coming in as tourists and working as journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded their immediate release and dropping of all charges against them.

“Those who are left in Rakhine live far off the border,” he said.

Farid Alam, another Rohingya leader, said “I have not heard of any Rohingya crossing the bor-der in the past five days. All I could see is people concentrat-ing near the main camps.”

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said this week that troops had ceased “clearance operations” targeting Rohingya militants in Myanmar’s border area.

The United Nations previ-ously said the military crackdown could amount to “ethnic cleans-ing”. But despite the calm on the border, there were new signs of unrest in Myanmar.

While the army chief blamed Rohinyga militants for an explo-sion outside a mosque in Rakhine, Amnesty International accused the military of starting fires in the region to prevent refugees from r e t u r n i n g . M y a n m a r

commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing issued a statement saying Rohingya militants planted a “home-made mine” that exploded in between a mosque and madrasa in Buthidaung township on Friday.

The army chief accused mil-itants of trying to drive out around 700 remaining villagers. Analysts highlighted however that the militants’ influence depends on the networks they have built across Rohingya communities.

Amnesty said new videos and satellite imagery indicated fires were still raging through Rohingya villages, scores of which have already been burned to the ground.

According to government fig-ures, nearly 40 percent of Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine have been abandoned over the past month.

Human Rights Watch yester-day also echoed allegations from

Bangladeshi officials that Myan-mar security forces were laying landmines along the border.

A number of Rohingya, including children, have been killed by mines at the border.

Bangladesh authorities are meanwhile stepping up efforts to bring order to the chaotic aid dis-tribution for refugees.

Soldiers have been deployed around a 70 square kilometre area where Rohingya have built camps on hills or in open spaces near existing UN run camps.

“We are in the process of tak-ing over the whole relief distribution,” an army spokesman told AFP.

He said the troops would dig hundreds of latrines for refugees after doctors warned that the camps were on the brink of a health disaster.

Even before the latest exodus, the camps were home to some 300,000 Rohingya who had fled previous violence in Rakhine.

Rohingya refugees scuffle as aid is distributed in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, yesterday.

Thai junta says police helped Yingluck escapeBangkok

AFP

Thailand’s deputy junta leader has accused three police officers of helping

sneak ex-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra (pictured) out of the country last month, a vanishing act that stunned the kingdom.

Yingluck, whose government was toppled by the military in 2014, has not been seen since August 25, when she failed to turn up for a court verdict in her criminal negligence trial.

Thailand’s junta says it was unaware she was planning to escape — something many Thais have found difficult to believe

given the round-the-clock sur-veillance Yingluck frequently complained of.

Analysts say the former pre-mier, who faced up to a decade in jail, most likely cut a secret deal with the junta to exit the country.

But the military has denied the charge and is now pointing the finger at the police.

Authorities interrogated three police officers this week after seizing a car that was alleg-edly used to drive Yingluck to the border with Cambodia, from where she is believed to have flown to a third country.

“They said they received the order (to help her escape),” Prawit Wongsuwon, the junta’s

number two, said of the police officers on Friday.

Prawit refused to elaborate on who masterminded the plot.

“I will not tell the media but the person who ordered it is in

Thailand,” he said, adding that Yingluck was unlikely to have crossed into Cambodia through a formal checkpoint.

Earlier in the week, the king-dom’s deputy police chief said the three officers were involved in Yingluck’s escape, but would not face charges because there was no arrest warrant out for her at the time. Critics have asked for hard evidence, such as clear photos or CCTV, to back up the allegations.

Yingluck’s whereabouts remain unknown, but there are widespread reports she has joined her brother Thaksin, who was also toppled in a 2006 coup, in Dubai.

The siblings are massively

popular among the rural poor and have dominated elections for more than a decade.

But they are loathed by Thai-land’s elite and its military allies, who have battered the Shina-watra dynasty with a series of protests, coups and court rulings.

The junta, which seized power in 2014 and has repeat-edly delayed a return to democracy, is desperate to avoid any instability that could chal-lenge its regime. Analysts said the generals feared that jailing Yingluck could unleash protests among her fervent supporters.

The Supreme Court will now deliver its ruling in absentia on September 27.

Human Rights Watch yesterday also echoed allegations from Bangladeshi officials that Myanmar security forces were laying landmines along the border.

Two Myanmar photojournalists freed on bail

A Rohingya Muslim refugee carries a child at a Bangladesh school housing refugees from Myanmar, yesterday.

Manila rejects report on extrajudicial eliminations

Thousands in Bali flee from Mount AgungBali

AP

Thousands of villagers on the Indonesian resort island of Bali huddled

yesterday in temporary shel-ters, sports centres and with relatives, fearing Mount Agung will erupt for the first time in more than half a century.

Authorities raised the vol-cano’s alert status to the highest level Friday following a “tre-mendous increase” in seismic activity. Its last eruption in 1963 killed 1,100 people.

Villager Made Suda said he left overnight with 25 family members and as much food, clothes, cooking equipment and bedding they could carry to stay in the Klungkung sports centre.

“I feel grief and fear, feel sad about leaving the village

and leaving four cows because it’s empty. Everyone has evac-uated,” he said yesterday.

The National Disaster Mit-igation Agency said no one should be within 9km of the crater and within 12km to the north, northeast, southeast and south-southwest where lava flows, lahars or rapidly moving white-hot ash clouds from an eruption could reach .

Waskita Sutadewa, spokes-man for the disaster mitigation agency in Karangasem district around Mount Agung, said that nearly 11,300 villagers have been officially evacuated.

He said the real number of displaced might be two or three times that, since many have voluntarily fled their homes.

Officials have said there is no current danger to people in other parts of Bali, a popular tourist island.

Balancing act

15SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 ASIA

Re-enactors enagage in a mock Viking battle at the St Ives Medieval Faire in Sydney yesterday.

Vikings, Down Under

New Zealand election ends in stalemateAuckland

Bloomberg

New Zealand’s elec-tion ended in a stalemate late yes-terday, with Prime Minister Bill English

and the main opposition leader Jacinda Ardern vying for the support of a small, anti-immi-gration party to reach a majority.

English said he would talk with New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters in com-ing days and that his National Party, which won 46 percent of the vote, was in the strongest position to deliver stable govern-ment. Ardern refused to concede, saying she too will speak with Peters and her ally the Green Party to try to secure a majority. Labour won 35.8 percent of the vote.

“On tonight’s provisional results, National has won more seats than Labour and the Greens combined,” English told supporters in Auckland late yes-terday. “We have the responsibility of working to give New Zealand strong and stable government.”

Seeking a rare fourth term in office for National, English, 55, has pledged tax cuts and a con-tinuation of steady economic management if he is returned to power. He has also promised to address some of New Zealand’s most pressing social issues such as child poverty and a housing shortage. Ardern, 37, has vowed to close the gap between rich and poor and would spend more than National on welfare, health and education.

Peters, who has backed National and Labour govern-ments in the past, refused to say which way he’ll go. The 72-year-old maverick will try to extract policy concessions and ministe-rial positions in return for his

support in talks that could take a couple of weeks.

Even though National remains the biggest party in par-liament, there is no obligation for Peters to choose it over Labour. Making the task harder for Eng-lish, the tiny Maori Party, whose two lawmakers helped National reach a majority in the last par-liament, has failed to secure any seats.

“We do have the main cards, we’re not going to squan-der that,” Peters told supporters. “We’ll make a deci-sion in the interest of all New Zealand” and “that will take some time.”

With 99 percent of votes tal-lied, National won 58 of the 120 seats in parliament, while Labour got 45. New Zealand First’s 7.5 percent of the vote gives it 9 seats, and the Green Party, with 5.8 percent, has 7. The numbers could change after other votes, including overseas ballots, are counted.

Labour would need both the Greens and New Zealand First to oust the government, and its two potential partners have a frosty relationship.

“I know that our parties don’t agree on everything, but now is the time to put those differences aside and to work together to create the government of change that New Zealanders want,” Greens leader James Shaw told supporters.

Peters, whose populist

appeal has seen him compared to Donald Trump, advocates slashing immigration to just 10,000 a year from about 73,000 currently.

He also proposes adopting a Singapore-style monetary policy so that the central bank can directly control, and devalue, the New Zealand dollar.

However, he has proven to be more moderate in his previ-ous stints in government than his rhetoric while in opposition suggests.

“This party is a realistic, common-sense party, we don’t like extremism,” Peters said yesterday.

“We believe in laws and pol-icies that support the mass majority of New Zealanders and not just a small elite.”

In return for backing a National government in 1996,

Peters was appointed deputy prime minister and treasurer.

When he supported Labour in 2005, he was rewarded with the

foreign affairs portfolio. Only two months ago

National had looked assured of victory as Labour languished in the polls. The elevation of Ard-ern to the leadership changed all that — she electrified the cam-paign and created a wave of excitement that saw her party jump to level pegging with National.

However, Labour started to fade in the final days under relentless attack from National over its economic credentials and a lack of clarity on tax policy.

Emerging from her Auckland home last night, Ardern told reporters she was disappointed with the results but refused to throw in the towel.

“There’s still a lot in play at the moment,” she said. “I don’t expect there will be any conver-sations for a little while yet.”

Islamabad

Internews

The National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC)

will impart technical and vocational training to 100,000 youths both men and women in 116 trades next month under the fourth phase of the Prime Minister’s Youth Skill Development Pro-gramme (PMYSDP).

“We will continue striv-ing to enhance the quality of training and bring it at par with international standards so that our youth is well equipped and easily secure jobs both at home and abroad,” NAVTTC Executive Director Zulfiqar Ahmad Cheema said while address-ing a video conference attended by senior officials of the commission from Kara-chi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.

The NAVTTC is the apex body at the national level to regulate, facilitate and pro-vide policy direction in vocational and technical training.

During the session, status of the training under PMYSDP was thoroughly evaluated and further reforms were dis-cussed to make the existing setup more transparent, effective and meaningful in the fourth phase. Zulfiqar Cheema said the industrial linkages should be strength-ened so that our youth could easily get jobs upon comple-tion of their training.

Pakistan province plans to improve health careIslamabad

Internews

The first-ever province-spe-cific Public Health Forecasting and Supply

Chain Strategy was handed over yesterday to departments of health and population welfare of the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Additionally, updated Essen-tial Medicine Lists (EML) were also handed over to govern-ments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan.

The Supply Chain Strategy, which has been finalised with the assistance of USAID and the Global Health Supply Chain Pro-gramme-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project, lays down a five-year roadmap whereby gaps in current public health supply chain systems and financing will be incrementally addressed.

Supply chain reforms in

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will require an estimated Rs3.4bn to transform the entire landscape of public health by ensuring product availability at last mile.

The provincial governments have not only revised their Essential Medicine List in line with the World Health Organi-zation (WHO) latest 2017 global standards but also prioritised a very essential indigenous list of medicines pertaining to pre-ventative medicine.

USAID Director Health and Vice President, GHSC-PSM Project handed over these to provincial policy makers of the three provinces.

This would serve as a tool for provincial policy makers, managers and service provid-ers to ensure adequate procurement planning at the district level. Marking the occa-sion, a ceremony was held in Islamabad with the participa-tion of USAID Director Health Office for Pakistan Dr Sangita

Patel, Fazal Nabi Khan, Secre-tary, Population Welfare Department, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Asmat-ullah Kakar, Secretary Health, Government of Balochistan, Director Generals Health Serv-ices, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and Balo-chistan, Doris Youngs, Senior Vice President, Chemonics International, and Dr Muham-mad Tariq, Country Director, GHSC-PSM.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Muhammad Tariq termed the project’s technical assistance to provincial governments as ‘his-toric’ towards strengthening public health supply chains and emphasised the need of increased public financing.

He thanked USAID Pakistan and the provincial governments for proactively pursuing adop-tion of technology and supply chain best practices for improved health outcomes in the provinces.

Mary English (fourth left), wife of New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English, and their children, watch on as Bill English speaks during an election night event in Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English among balloons on stage during an election night event in Auckland, yesterday.

Seeking a rare fourth term in office for National, PM Bill English, 55, has pledged tax cuts and a continuation of steady economic management if he is returned to power.

‘Lady Beast’ fights for girl gamers in JapanChiba

AFP

In her online world, she is “Lady Beast”, deftly operat-ing her green monster Blanka

in dizzying hand-to-hand street-fighting combat on the global professional gaming circuit.

In real life, she is Yuko Momochi, a 31-year-old slender Japanese woman with short hair dyed light brown, who is hoping

to encourage more girls into the male-dominated world of pro-fessional gaming.

A former car saleswoman, Momochi got her break in com-petitive gaming in 2011 after she defeated a previously invincible character in a Street Fighter match, earning her a sponsor-ship offer from an American team.

She was Japan’s first female professional gamer and now also

spends her time hosting events and searching for female talent who could one day turn pro. “My parents wanted me to be a civil servant,” she laughs at an inter-view with AFP on the sidelines of the Tokyo Game Show, one of the world’s largest. “A girl raised by steady parents has turned out like this!”

Visitors to the Tokyo Game Show are left in little doubt they are entering a male-dominated

world. Only a handful of female players are in evidence in the loud atmosphere in exhibition halls greet the 250,000 mostly male visitors expected to attend the fair.

The violent world of online gaming also tends to appeal more to men, Momochi said.

“When I started going to game arcades, I was playing fighting games, which meant it’s all men around you. It was tough

to get in there alone,” she recalled.

As they are so small in number, female gamers stand out and attract attention, not always positive, she said.

“You often hear names like ‘bitch’. It’s fine if you can take it but normally you’d be hurt,” she said. Momochi started gaming at a young age, playing Donkey Kong and other video games with her brother.

100,000 Pakistani youth to get technical training

16 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017EUROPE

Freiburg

AFP

Forty years ago next month, German anti-terror com-mandos stormed a

Lufthansa jet in Somalia, shot its Palestinian hijackers and freed 90 hostages, a climax in a bloody era of far-left militancy.

The 1977 Mogadishu raid became a symbol of the “Ger-man Autumn” when the state was at war with the “urban guerrillas” of the Red Army Fac-tion (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, and their international allies.

Yesterday, the storied old Boeing 737 “Landshut”, having quietly rusted away in Brazil for almost a decade, finally came home, destined to serve as a memorial to that turbulent era.

Broken up into its fuselage and wings, it was flown aboard two giant Russian transport planes from Fortaleza via Cape Verde to the southern German

city of Friedrichshafen, where it was greeted by thousands at a “Landshut — Welcome Home” ceremony. Foreign Minister Sig-mar Gabriel, whose ministry bought the gutted plane for the bargain price of $24,000, has called it “a living symbol of a free society that refuses to give in to fear and terror”.

In the years since that dra-matic night when gunshots blasted through its cabin, the air-craft kept flying — first for Lufthansa, then for French, Indo-nesian and finally a Brazilian airline, which in 2008 retired it on the jungle’s edge. Now the plane, weathered by tropical sun and rain, will find a new home in Germany’s Dornier aerospace museum near Lake Constance.

On October 13, four militants of the RAF-allied Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Mallorca-Frankfurt flight LH 181, demanding the release of 11 RAF members.

During a five-day odyssey

which included seven refuelling stops in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the cell’s leader, who called himself Captain Martyr Mahmud, shot dead the pilot, Juergen Schumann. The jet landed in Mogadishu on Octo-ber 17, where Mahmud issued an ultimatum, threatening to set off plastic explosives and dous-ing passengers in alcohol to accelerate the fire.

After nightfall, 30 German commandos landed, the plane’s lights turned off. Operation “Feuerzauber” (“magic fire”) was the first mission of the new GSG 9 unit. While German offi-cials played for time, the special unit approached the plane’s rear blind spot from behind sand dunes, then climbed blackened ladders to its doors and escape hatches.

The commandos stormed in and riddled all four hijackers with bullets. The 82 passengers, four remaining crew and the commandos all survived.

Barcelona

AFP

Just four metro stops separate Gracia from Nou Barris, two districts in Barcelona that are

nevertheless sharply divided over whether they want to stay in Spain or leave, as a banned inde-pendence referendum looms in Catalonia.

The issue has the entire northeastern region split roughly down the middle, with the most recent poll commissioned by the regional government in July find-ing that 49.4 percent of Catalans were against independence while 41.1 percent were in favour.

Sheltered from the rain in his flower stall in Nou Barris, Igna-cio Perez watches with annoyance as a bus passes bear-ing the slogan “Hello Republic”, part of the “yes” campaign for the referendum on October 1 that Madrid is trying to stop at all costs. “That bothers me,” the

63-year-old florist said. “It’s relentless, always the same, but those aren’t people’s problems. If only they put the same effort into bettering the health system, education or employment.”

If it weren’t for the poster, passers-by could be forgiven for forgetting that Catalonia is in the midst of a push for independence driven by its separatist leaders — so few are the signs in this working-class district of Barce-lona. Nou Barris is where many immigrants from other parts of Spain settled last century, and Spanish — not Catalan — domi-nates conversations here. Spanish flags fly from its high-rises, not the yellow, red and blue separa-tist banners often seen in other parts of this wealthy, 7.5-million strong region.

Separatists secured an abso-lute majority in the Catalan parliament after regional elec-tions in 2015, though they got just 47.6 percent of the vote. Regional

president Carles Puigdemont has said he will start taking steps towards separating from Spain if the “yes” wins the day on Octo-ber 1, regardless of the turnout. In Nou Barris, the separatist vote in the 2015 elections reached just 29.1 percent while parties against independence won 53 percent.

Over in Gracia, however, things are radically different. A former summer village for Barce-lona’s elite, it is now one of the most fashionable districts. Along its pedestrian streets, separatist flags adorn houses as do “Yes” signs. Here, separatists won 60.5 percent of the vote in 2015, the highest score in Barcelona.

“I don’t understand that they don’t want to go vote,” said Soledat Farre, a 59-year-old who works in sporting events, as she prepared electoral information in an office of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a pow-erful pro-independence civil association.

Madrid

Reuters

The mounting political crisis in Spain over Catalonia’s campaign for independence intensified yesterday

with a new row over the control of the local police force as the regional government pressed ahead with plans to hold an ille-gal vote next weekend.

The State prosecutor in Catalonia told all local and national police forces yesterday that they had been temporarily placed under a single chain of command reporting directly to the interior ministry in Madrid.

But Catalonia’s interior chief, Joaquim Forn, said his department and the local police, or Mossos d’Esquadra, did not accept this decision. “We denounce the intervention of the state to control the police forces of Catalonia ... We will not accept this control,” Forn said in a televised speech.

It was not immediately clear whether the regional adminis-tration and the Mossos could actually oppose the decision, as Spanish laws allow for the pos-sibility of state police taking the lead over the police of an auton-omous community during a joint operation.

The central government representative in Catalonia, Enric Millo, had earlier said the Mossos remained in charge of security in Catalonia though they would be “coordinated” directly by the interior ministry and not by the local authorities, together with two national police forces also on the ground in Catalonia. “We are not taking

over the police competencies of the regional government,” Millo told reporters after an event held by his People’s Party (PP) in Palma de Mallorca, in East-ern Spain.

Millo also called on Catalan leaders, including Forn, to stop encouraging street protests and demonstrations. Catalan news-paper La Vanguardia said the prosecutor’s order would remain in place until at least Oct. 1, when the vote is due to take place.

The Mossos are one of the symbols of Catalonia’s auton-omy and for many Catalans the prosecutor’s decision may be reminiscent of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and subse-quent dictatorship of Francisco Franco, when the Mossos were

abolished. Several pro-inde-pendence groups have called for widespread protests today in cen-tral Barcelona. “Let’s respond to the state with an unstoppable wave of democracy,” a Whatsapp message which was used to organise the demonstration read.

The Catalonian government opened a new website yester-day with details of how and where to vote on October 1, challenging several court rul-ings that had blocked previous sites and declared the referen-dum unconstitutional.

“You can’t stem the tide,” Catalonia’s president Carles Puigdemont said on Twitter in giving the link to the new web-site. But Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted again that the vote should not go ahead. “It will not happen because this would mean liquidating the law,” he said at the PP event in Palma de Mallorca.

Acting on court orders, the Spanish state police has already raided the regional government offices, arrested temporarily sev-eral senior Catalan officials accused of organising the refer-endum and seized ballot papers, ballot boxes, voting lists and elec-toral material and literature.

The finance ministry in Madrid has also taken control of regional finances to make sure public money is not being spent to pay for the logistics the vote or to campaign.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 police officers coming from other Spanish regions have already arrived in Catalonia or are on their way. They will join 5,000 state police already based in the region and 17,000 local Mossos.

Spain and Catalonia clash over policing

Divisions over independence vote surface

A group of people throw ballots for the October 1 referendum from a building with a banner in favour of the referendum in Sant Jaume Square, in Barcelona, yesterday.

Last flight home for icon of ‘German Autumn’ of terror

Nice

AFP

The former justice min-ister of Monaco was detained by police look-

ing into his relations with a Russian billionaire embroiled in a long-running fraud dis-pute with a Swiss art dealer.

Philippe Narmino was brought in for questioning after prosecutors opened an inquiry into suspected influ-ence peddling, a source close to the case said. Narmino quit his post earlier this month after French daily Le Monde detailed his ties with Dmitry Rybolovlev, owner of the AS Monaco football club.

The paper noted that Narmino and his wife were treated with gifts and expen-sive dinners, and were guests at Rybolovlev’s Swiss chalet in early 2015, just as the fraud dispute erupted between Rybolovlev and Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier.

Bouvier was arrested in Monaco in February 2015, and French news site Mediapart in August published extracts of telephone calls between Rybo-lovlev’s lawyer and Monaco police officials, suggesting that he may have tipped off the police to Bouvier’s arrival in the principality.

“The accusations against me and the repeated attacks sustained by the judiciary no longer allow me to properly assure leadership,” Narmino said. Rybolovlev had once been one of Bouvier’s biggest clients, buying a total of 37 masterpieces worth $2.4bn over a decade.

Rimini

Reuters

Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement which is riding high in opinion polls

has named 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio to lead it into parliamen-tary elections early next year, which could see the maverick party win national power.

Di Maio, deputy speaker of the chamber of deputies, is the party’s most prominent and popular politician and had been groomed for the leadership in recent years by 5-Star’s founder, the 69-year-old come-dian Beppe Grillo.

Boyish looking and usually immaculately turned out in suit and tie, Di Maio presents a moderate image in striking contrast to Grillo, who is famous for his raucous tirades against Italy’s ruling elite.

“You have given me an enormous responsibility ... I assure you I’ll carry it out with discipline and honour,” Di Maio told supporters yesterday at the party’s annual gathering in the Adriatic coastal town of Rimini. “I promise I will form a govern-ment team to be proud of for the first time in our history.”

Grillo, who has so far acted as 5-Star’s de facto chief, is now expected to gradually withdraw from the limelight. “I will always be like a dad for all of you but I am old,” he told the gathering on Friday.

Di Maio has taken tough stances on law-and-order and immigration and is widely seen on the right of the party which says traditional left-right labels have no meaning.

He won by a huge margin over seven rivals in an online vote of 5-Star’s members held on Thursday and Friday, reflecting the movement’s credo of internet-based direct democracy. His election was considered a formality because the other candidates were all little-known figures, mostly local councillors.

Di Maio won 83 percent of the vote. The only people seen as having any chance against him decided not to run, open-ing the party up to accusations of failing to run a proper contest.

Di Maio will now try to put that criticism behind him as he gears up for a crucial period ahead of elections due by May next year.

5-Star has a narrow lead in most opinion polls, which give it around 28 percent of the vote, just ahead of the ruling Demo-cratic Party. However, that would not be enough to give it a majority in parliament unless it allies itself with another party, something it has so far always refused to do.

The right-wing Northern League and Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia (Go Italy!) each have around 14 to 15 percent.

5-Star, founded by Grillo as a protest movement nine years ago, bases its appeal mainly on a campaign against corruption and vested interests in Italy.

Its policies include the introduction of universal income support for the poor, green energy and increasing the budget deficit to fund invest-ments in infrastructure.

Italy’s 5-Star names youthful new leader

Former Monaco justice minister detained

An old Boeing 737 plane, the former “Landshut” aircraft of German airline Lufthansa, is being loaded on a flatbed truck for further transport after it landed onboard of an Antonov AN 124 cargo plane at the airport in Friedrichshafen, southern Germany, yesterday.

New website

The Catalonian government opened a new website yesterday with details of how and where to vote on October 1, challenging several court rulings that had blocked previous sites and declared the referendum unconstitutional.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted again that the vote should not go ahead. “It will not happen because this would mean liquidating the law,” he said.

17SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 EUROPE

Paris

AFP

Tens of thousands of dem-onstrators rallied to a call yesterday by firebrand

leftist politician Jean-Luc Melen-chon to join a protest in Paris against President Emmanuel Macron’s sweeping reforms of the labour code.

Melenchon was leading the march through the streets of the French capital on a bright sunny afternoon, with the crowd shout-ing “resistance, resitance” and no to “a social coup d’etat”.

It marks the third in a series of nationwide protests comes a day after Macron signed his landmark reforms into law using a fast-tracked procedure that avoided a lengthy parliamentary debate.

The changes to the labour code, which runs to around 3,400 pages in some editions, give small businesses more flex-ibility to negotiate pay and conditions with their staff, instead of being bound by national agreements.

They also make it easier to lay off employees and cap com-pensation awards for unfair dismissal while also giving higher payouts to workers made redundant.

Macron argues the changes — the cornerstone of his pro-gramme aimed at boosting entrepreneurship — will help bring down stubbornly high unemployment of 9.6 percent. Melenchon’s hard-left France Unbowed party has accused Macron of unravelling decades of hard-won social gains.

Zabou Hervieu, 48, came by coach from Brittany to the dem-onstration. “I am here for my daughter. She’s 10. Will there still be real jobs with good salaries when she’s grown?”, he said, leaning on a walking stick due to back and knee problems.

The left has also come out swinging against Macron’s plans to cut housing subsidies and reduce the scope of a wealth tax, claiming it as proof that the cen-

trist is a closet right-winger.“France has never had so

many billionaires and million-aires. Why is it always the workers who have to tighten their belts?”, demanded Lous Bousquet, 33, unemployed and sporting a Mao cap.

France’s youngest ever pres-ident has vowed not to be swayed. “I believe in democracy but democracy is not the street,” the 39-year-old told CNN tele-vision last week. Yesterday’s march will test continuing resist-ance to the measures.

On Thursday, some 132,000 people demonstrated across France, around half as many as protested a week earlier. Addressing reporters at the Elysee Palace after signing five executive orders before televi-sion cameras Macron boasted that he had implemented his campaign pledge to shake up labour relations “in record time”.

The move to give bosses and workers more freedom to nego-tiate was “unprecedented” in French post-war history, he said.

Melenchon, a veteran 66-year-old political showman

who placed fourth in this year’s presidential election, cast it as an attack “on the last country in Europe that is holding out on its post-war social gains”. “The bat-tle of France has begun,” he said on Thursday.

The measures chip into worker protections that have long been sacrosanct in France, frustrating reform-minded gov-ernments whether on the left or the right. Three months of nego-tiations with union leaders produced a split between those willing to compromise — includ-ing the largest private-sector union, the CFDT — and those determined to fight the reforms, led by the country’s largest union, the militant CGT.

The resistance has, however, been weaker than that faced by Macron’s Socialist predecessor Francois Hollande last year over his changes to the labour code, which sparked months of some-times violent protests.

The new reform comes as former investment banker Macron’s approval ratings plunge, with recent polls show-ing that only around 40 percent

of French voters are satisfied with his performance.

His characterisation of opponents of the labour changes as “slackers” has become a rallying cry, with protesters coining slogans such as “Slackers of the world, unite!” Macron insists he has a mandate for change after his presidential win in May and his party’s thumping parliamen-tary victory in June

“Emmanuel Macron sees the election as a blank cheque to do what he wants...He has an authoritarian approach to power,” David Guiraud, France Unbowed’s 24-year-old spokes-man on youth issues, said.

Public opinion is divided, according to a recent BVA poll, with most respondents saying they think the reform will boost France’s competitiveness but fail to improve conditions for workers. Philippe Braud, pro-fessor emeritus at Paris’s Sciences Po university, said he believed popularity was not a concern for Macron. “He knows he won’t be defeated in the street,” Braud said.

Berlin

Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, poised to win a fourth term in today’s election, and her

centre-left challenger Martin Schulz urged supporters yester-day to keep fighting for votes with a third of the electorate still undecided.

Merkel is widely expected to cruise to re-election with the Schulz’s Social Democrats trail-ing by double digits but the far-right Alternative for Ger-many (AfD) could emerge as the third largest party, complicating the outlook for her next coalition.

A new INSA poll published by Bild newspaper showed slid-ing support for Merkel’s conservatives, who dropped two percentage points to 34 percent, and the SPD, down one point to 21 percent - both now joined in an unwieldy “grand coalition”.

The anti-immigrant AfD, meanwhile, rose two percentage points to 13 percent, cementing its bid to be the first far-right party to enter parliament since the end of World War Two.

Merkel urged supporters to drum up votes by focusing on conservatives’ efforts on behalf of families, a pledge to avoid tax increases and emphasis on increasing security in Germany. The Christian Democratic leader also lauded the role of the Euro-pean Union in providing stability in “a troubled world”. “We want to boost your motivation so that we can still reach many, many

people today. Many are still undecided,” Merkel said before heading north to her home constituency.

In Greifswald, she led a crowd in practicing CPR as loud-speakers blared the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive”. “I should be in better shape, with the inter-national media here, but I’ll give it a try,” a smiling Merkel told the crowd.

First elected in 2005, Merkel remains popular in Germany but has regularly faced jeers and whistles from left- and right-wing demonstrators during rallies during this campaign.

In Munich on Friday, Merkel

defended her 2015 decision to admit about one million asylum seekers on humanitarian grounds, but pledged to prevent a repeat of that crisis.

In the western city of Aachen, Schulz pledged to fight for every vote until polls close at 6pm today. He said high voter turn-out was vital to offset growing support for the AfD, whom he described as “a party of haters”. “Young people, think about Brexit. Think about Trump,” he said. “Go vote. Take this right to vote seriously, and use it.”

S c h u l z s a i d t h e

SPD overcame resistance from conservatives in their coalition to push through a minimum wage, same-sex marriage and other social priorities. Schulz asserted that Merkel was “a world champion in not deciding,” someone who simply parroted others’ ideas.

He vowed to push for further reforms, including better elderly care facilities, affordable hous-ing, an end to discriminatory practices that harm children of migrants, and free child care.

Merkel’s interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, told

Internet provider t-online.de the government would combat “Islamist terrorism” by strength-ening European borders and bolstering security at home. He criticised the AfD as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and said Ger-many’s BfV domestic intelligence agency was studying “whether right-wing extremists are seizing power and exerting influence on the party”. The AfD was founded in 2013 with the original goal of opposing large bailouts of finan-cially strapped euro zone countries but from 2015 shifted its focus to immigration.

Mainstream parties have ruled out governing with the AfD. It has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks after its top candidate Alexander Gauland said the German integration min-ister should be dumped in her parents’ homeland of Turkey, and that Germans should be proud of what their military did in World War One and Two.

Jewish and Muslim groups say the AfD’s rhetoric has opened the door to more hate speech and anti-Semitism. Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he feared the AfD’s entry into par-liament would change the public tone in Germany. “I worry that the AfD will aggressively deepen divisions in our country,” he said.

The AfD, which has already won seats in 13 of 16 state legis-latures in Germany, has promised to re-energise debate in the fed-eral parliament after four years of what it calls “boring” rule by Merkel’s grand coalition.

AfD executive board mem-ber Georg Pazderski said the party was seeing a huge increase in support. “People are no longer ashamed to come to the AfD and to identify with the AfD.”

Electoral arithmetic might yet nudge Merkel to renew her coalition with the SPD, or she might opt for a three-way alli-ance with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and environ-mental Greens.

FDP Chief Christian Lindner told a rally in Duesseldorf his party hoped to be the third big-gest force in parliament, but would only govern if its demands and conditions were met.

Vilnius

Reuters

Lithuania’s government lost its majority in parliament yesterday after its junior

coalition partner quit, saying they has been sidelined over policies ranging from alcohol age limits to subsidies on cen-tral heating.

A parliament vote on next year’s budget, expected by early December, will be the first test for the minority government following the departure of the Social Democrats after less than a year in power. The govern-ment will need to convince opposition parties to support it on a case-by-case basis. The Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, the sole party remain-ing in power, have a block of 57 members in Lithuania’s 141-seat parliament.

The country, once ruled from Moscow but now a mem-ber of both the European Union and Nato, is rebuilding its mil-itary in the face of an assertive Russia but has found develop-ment hampered by emigration and raising wages, eating away at competitiveness.

“All preconditions are in place for our government to continue until the next general election in 2020,” Saulius Skvernelis, prime minister since November 2016, said. “The Social Democrats took a short-sighted and suicidal decision,” he added. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius, a Social Democrat, said he will leave his party to continue in the government.

At least one of the two other Social Democrat appointees will leave the 15-member gov-ernment, said Social Democrat chairman Gintautas Paluckas, elected in April this year on a reform mandate.

“Relationships within the coalition were bad, our opin-ions differed on almost all major issues and, since Farm-ers and Greens looked for votes elsewhere, we had scant possibilities to shape its poli-tics,” he said.

The Social Democrats, which have held power for long stretches since Lithuanian inde-pendence, have been looking for a way to reconnect with the vot-ers after finishing a distant third in the 2016 general election.

Merkel reaches out to undecided German voters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel poses with members of her election campaign team at her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party’s #fedidwgugl Haus walk-in manifesto in Berlin yesterday.

French left stages street showdown

Protestors march during a “France Insoumise” (France Unbowed) party’s demonstration against the government’s labour reforms in Paris yesterday.

Lithuania gets minority govt as junior partner leaves

MOSCOW: Russian police said yesterday that they had opened a criminal case following a series of violent arson protests over a film about the country’s last tsar. The film, “Matilda”, is by award-win-ning director Alexei Uchitel and tells the story of a love affair between Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, and half-Polish ballerina Matilda Ksh-esinskaya, who described the relationship in her memoirs.

“Matilda” is to be released internationally in late October despite protests from religious conservatives who are offended by what they believe is its disrespectful depiction of a man the Russian Orthodox Church regards as a martyr.

Some cinemas have said they will not be showing the film because of threats they received. “A criminal case has been opened in connection with the fact (the cinemas) were forced not to show the film under the threat of violence against the spectators and causing of harm and damage to the cinemas’ owners”, the police said in statement, not naming the film or those detained or charged.

Russia opens criminal case over arson attack linked to film

Elections today

Merkel is widely expected to cruise to re-election with the Schulz’s Social Democrats trailing by double digits but the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could emerge as the third largest party, complicating the outlook for her next coalition.

Schulz vowed to push for further reforms, including better elderly care facilities, affordable housing, an end to discriminatory practices that harm children of migrants, and free child care.

Spelunker rescued after 60 hours locked in cave

18 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017AMERICAS

San Juan

AFP

Some 70,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes after a rain-

swollen dam in Puerto Rico failed in the latest disaster caused by Hurricane Maria, which was expected to head into open waters.

With the storm death toll standing at 33 across the Carib-bean, Puerto Rico’s National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for people living along the Guajataca River in the northwest of the island, saying an earthen dam there was in danger of collapsing.

“All Areas surrounding the Guajataca River should evacu-ate NOW. Their lives are in DANGER!,” the NWS tweeted on Friday, saying flooding had already begun downstream. Governor Ricardo Rossello also issued an order for 70,000 peo-ple living in the area to flee.

Public safety chief Hector Pesquera said a drain which nor-mally releases water from the dam in a controlled fashion had stopped working, the El Vocero daily reported. Footage from WeatherNation TV showed water gushing down a ramp-style

conduit, washing away huge chunks of soil from the grassy green slopes of the dam.

Early yesterday, the NWS extended the warning to the west-ern Quebradillas and eastern Isabela areas, home to another 8,000 people. Puerto Rico was already battling dangerous floods after Hurricane Maria hit early on Wednesday, devastating the Car-ibbean island.

Rossello has called Maria the most devastating storm in a cen-tury after it destroyed the US territory’s electricity and tele-communications infrastructure. So far, a preliminary assessment said 13 people had died as a result of the storm, he told CNN.

“Right now our efforts are to make sure we have everybody safe, that we can rescue people. Our efforts have already pro-duced almost 700 rescues so we’re clearly focused on that.”

In its latest update at 0900 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center said Maria was tilting toward the western Atlantic and away from the Bahamas, where storm warnings were discontin-ued. It was a welcome reprieve for the archipelago that had already been badly battered by Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

So far, at least 33 people have been confirmed dead as a result of Hurricane Maria, including 15 in Dominica, three in Haiti and two in Guadeloupe. After speaking with Puerto Rico’s governor on Thursday night, US President Donald Trump promised to speed up relief efforts.

Of the 13 victims, eight died in the northern town of Toa Baja, one of the worst-hit areas which was ravaged by winds of more than 125 miles per hour (200km per hour) and then hit by flooding when the island’s largest river, La Plata, burst its banks.

Many residents did not evacuate on time, while others say they never heard the warn-ing sirens. Others could be seen returning home after several days away to begin the arduous process of clearing their homes of the heavy mud left by the floodwaters in order to start the process of rebuilding.

Marisol Rosario, a 55-year-old housewife who fled with her husband, said the violent winds forced her to flee without taking their dog. “I thought I would find him dead, but he managed to climb on top of the furniture and survive,” she said tearfully.

Washington

Reuters

US Senator John McCain said late on Friday that he opposes the latest Republican bill to

dismantle Obamacare, dealing the measure what could be a fatal blow given the party’s slim Senate majority.

With several other Republi-cans still undecided on the measure, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week he intended to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote next week, though he did not prom-ise to do so.

A vote would set the stage for another dramatic Capitol Hill decision on the 2010 law that brought health insurance to mil-lions of Americans and became former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

For seven years, Republicans have hammered Obamacare as an unwarranted government intrusion into American health-care. President Donald Trump made repealing Obamacare one of his top campaign promises in

2016. Democrats have fiercely defended it.

The announcement by McCain, a Republican who has often been at odds with Trump and who cast a crucial “no” vote in July that helped defeat an ear-lier Republican repeal bill, had the potential to up-end McCon-nell’s plans. McConnell’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

At a rally in Alabama, Trump said McCain’s decision was “totally unexpected, terrible”. Despite the setback, Trump said: “We still have a chance. We’re going to do it eventually.”

Republicans have only a nar-row Senate majority and cannot

afford to lose many votes on the bill. They are also on a tight timetable.

McConnell has been trying to schedule a vote on the bill by September 30, the last day on which the bill could pass with only a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate. A vote taken any later than that would have to garner at least 60 votes for pas-sage. Weeks after the humiliating defeat in July, when the Obamacare repeal fight seemed to be over, the current bill was introduced by Republican Sen-ators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain’s, and seemed to gain momentum.

But McCain laid out his oppo-sition in a statement: “I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal.” He said he took no pleasure in announcing his opposition and noted that the bill’s authors “are my dear friends”.

McCain complained about the rushed process Republicans used to push the bill forward. He said he would consider support-ing a bill like it if it had emerged from extensive hearings, debate and amendment. “But that has

not been the case,” he said.McCain, who cast his “no”

vote in July just days after being diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer, said he could not support the bill without know-ing how much it would cost, how it would affect insurance premi-ums and “how many people will be helped or hurt by it,” infor-mation that will not be available until the non-partisan Congres-sional Budget Office provides a full assessment at the end of September.

The Graham-Cassidy bill would take federal money spent on the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled, as well as subsidies to help Americans buy private insurance, and divvy it up to the states in block grants. Advocates say that would give states more discretion to man-age their own healthcare schemes.

Although the CBO has not yet fully assessed the bill’s effects, independent analyses indicate it would fundamentally redistrib-ute federal healthcare money, generally with Republican-lean-ing states benefiting and Democratic-leaning states los-ing, largely because a majority

of the states that opted to expand Medicaid under Obamacare were Democratic-leaning.

A Washington Post-ABC News opinion poll said Ameri-cans prefer Obamacare to the Graham-Cassidy alternative by 56 percent to 33 percent. Gra-ham said in a statement he was not giving up. “We press on,” he said. Shares of health insurers turned up after McCain announced his oppositions. Cen-tene ended 1.6 percent higher while Humana closed up 0.2 per-cent, reversing earlier losses.

State-by-state impacts from Graham-Cassidy would vary, the Axios news website reported on Friday, citing a study by the Centers for Medicare and Med-icaid Services (CMS), the unit of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees Medicaid and the Obamacare programme.

The CMS study found that by 2026, Alaska would lose 38 per-cent of its federal funding for insurance subsidies and Medic-aid; Arizona would lose 9 percent; Maine would gain 44 percent; Ohio would lose 18 per-cent; and West Virginia would lose 23 percent, Axios reported.

These states are home to Republican senators who are under pressure on healthcare. Both of Alaska’s Republican sen-ators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, are still on the fence over Graham-Cassidy.

The CMS had no immediate comment on the Axios report. Besides McCain, Kentucky’s Rand Paul is the only other Republican senator who has publicly said he opposes the bill. Maine’s Susan Collins said she was leaning against the bill, the Portland Press-Herald newspaper reported on Friday. Kansas’ Jerry Moran is also undecided.

No Democrats support the bill. To pass Graham-Cassidy, the Republicans need at least 50 votes in the 100-seat Senate, which they control 52-48, with Vice President Mike Pence cast-ing a potential tie-breaking vote.

The insurance industry, hospitals, medical advocacy groups such as the American Medical Association, American Heart Association and Ameri-can Cancer Society, the AARP advocacy group for the elderly and consumer activists oppose the bill.

McCain opposes Obamacare repeal bill

United nations/Havana Reuters

Cuba urged the United States on Friday to cooperate with its

investigation into incidents that the US says have harmed its diplomats in Havana and not to politicise the matter, days after Washington said it was considering closing its Cuban embassy.

In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the top level of the government in Havana had ordered an investigation into the mysterious matter, which threatens the fragile detente between the old Cold War foes.

However, a Cuban gov-ernment source told Reuters that the United States had provided no evidence of the harm, including hearing loss, dizziness and nausea, that it says US diplomats and their relatives based in Havana have suffered.

Cuban doctors had also not been allowed to examine anyone, the source said. “The investigation to clarify this issue continues, and in order to be able to arrive to a con-clusion, it will be crucial to count on the cooperation of the US authorities,” Rodriguez told the UN. “It would be unfortunate if a matter of this nature is politicized,” said Rodriguez. Cuba has denied any involvement in the affair.

US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was among five Republican senators that a week ago called for US Pres-ident Donald Trump to retaliate against Cuba by expelling its diplomats and possibly shuttering the US embassy in Havana.

Rubio helped forge Trump’s new Cuba policy, rolling back parts of the detente achieved under Dem-ocratic former President Barack Obama and taking a harder line on the Commu-nist-run island.

Cuba’s state-run media this week said the only party interested in a deterioration in relations were a small group of Republicans led by Rubio.

Washington

Reuters

The United States sees value in the New START arms control treaty with Russia,

despite Washington’s concerns about Moscow’s track record on arms control and other issues, senior US officials said.

The remarks by the Trump administration officials suggest the treaty will remain in force and the door remains open to pursuing an extension of the accord, which is set to expire in 2021. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty gives both countries until February 2018 to reduce their deployed stra-tegic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550, the lowest level in decades. It also limits deployed land- and submarine-based miss i les and nuclear-capable bombers.

Reuters has reported that

President Donald Trump, in his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, criticized the New START treaty, saying it favored Moscow. But one of the Trump administration officials said the US was not looking to discard New START. Senior US officials, including US Defence Sec-retary Jim Mattis, have questioned Russia’s reliability on arms con-trol, citing longstanding US allegations that Russia has violated the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Russia denies treaty viola-tions and accuses the United States of them. The accusations come amid a nosedive in US-Russian relations. US intelligence agencies accuse Russia of med-dling in the US presidential election, which Moscow denies, and recent tit-for-tat exchanges between Washington and Mos-cow include moves to slash each others’ diplomatic presence.

Texas

Reuters

A 19-year-old Indiana University student was grateful to be alive after

he was left behind by a college spelunking club and spent nearly three days locked in a cave without food or drinking water.

“I managed to get some water from the cave walls, by basically licking the moisture off the wall,” Lukas Cavar said in a telephone interview on Friday. Cavar was on a beginner’s field trip to a cave south of the university’s main campus in Bloomington, Indi-ana. He said he was separated from his group on Sunday and found nearly three days later, curled in a ball and sleeping by the cave’s locked entrance.

“My biggest worry was not making it out alive,” Cavar said. “I was afraid I would never see my friends or family again.” He had a headlamp and there was some sunlight in the cave. Cavar passed time by search-ing for water, talking to himself and sleeping.

University officials did not immediately return mes-sages seeking comment. According to the Indiana Daily Student university newspaper, leaders of the school’s Caving Club would not comment on how Cavar became separated from the group.

When Cavar reached the cave’s gated entrance he found it padlocked. He yelled for hours, trying to attract the attention of people on a nearby road. His cellphone could not get a signal. After a while, Cavar said people began to notice he was miss-ing, including the person with whom he shared a ride to the cave and they organized a search.

By Tuesday night, Cavar’s parents had called the uni-versity and reported their son missing. A few hours later, a leader of the Caving Club res-cued him, the university newspaper said.

Cavar did not seek med-ical treatment and returned to his dormitory room. “The first thing I wanted to do was eat and drink and put on some warm clothes,” he said.

US sees value in New START arms control treaty with Russia

Cuba urges US not to politicise allegations of diplomats

Dam fails in Puerto Rico; 70,000 told to evacuate

A car submerged in flood waters is seen close to the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico, yesterday.

Republicans have only a narrow Senate majority and cannot afford to lose many votes on the bill. They are also on a tight timetable.

19SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 AMERICAS

NEWS BYTES

FARC pays tribute to feared former guerrilla leaderBOGOTA: The remains of a feared ex-guerrilla chief killed in a bombing raid seven years ago were laid to rest in Colom-bia late on Friday, with tributes led by the new Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (FARC) political party. Jorge “Mono Jojoy” Briceno — real name Victor Julio Suarez Rojas — died in an attack ordered by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in 2010 against the rebel army then also known as the FARC. Briceno, branded the “symbol of terror” by San-tos, had 62 arrest warrants for murder, kidnapping and terrorism in Colombia. He was also wanted in the United States for drug trafficking and kidnapping. The ceremony — attended by around 200 people — took place in south Bogota, where his remains were taken to a family grave. The FARC party, launched by former guerrillas in early September fol-lowing a peace agreement reached with the government last year, invited guests to “pay a tribute to the defender of the humble”. “In your name, I also ask for forgiveness from Colombia for the war. Never again will we allow ourselves to take the road of violence,” Jorge Ernesto Suarez, Briceno’s son, said during the event. “We are not celebrating. We are commemorating the life of someone, initiating a road towards to reconciliation from several perspectives,” Suarez said. But the event was criticized by politicians, with Defense Minis-ter Juan Carlos Pinzon calling it a “justification of crime”. While it was taking place, the UN’s mission in Colombia was working to destroy the last arms handed over by 7,000 ex-FARC guerrillas as part of the peace agreement.

Venezuela slams Canada sanctionsCARACAS: Venezuela’s government criticized Canada’s Fri-day announcement of targeted sanctions against 40 of its senior officials, accusing Ottawa of “submission” to US Pres-ident Donald Trump in a bid to overthrow the South American country’s leftist administration. Canada’s move, which fol-lowed a similar decision by the United States, came after months of protests against President Nicolas Maduro’s gov-ernment. At least 125 people were killed in the demonstrations. Critics say Maduro has plunged the nation into its worst eco-nomic crisis ever and brought it to the brink of dictatorship. Maduro says he was facing a US-backed “armed insurrec-tion” seeking to foment a coup. Canada’s measures include freezing the assets of the officials and banning Canadians from having any dealings with them. Caracas late on Friday night decried the sanctions as a sign of external meddling and an attempt to churn up turmoil in Venezuela.

Washington

Reuters

Wisconsin, Ohio, Cali-fornia and 10 other states said on Friday

that they were among 21 states that Russian government hack-ers targeted in an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election in favour of Donald Trump though no votes were changed.

The Department of Home-land Security confirmed it had notified the states of the activ-ity but declined to identify them. Russia has denied election med-dling, and President Trump has denied any collusion with Russia.

Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington state also confirmed they were targeted by Russian hackers but said they were not successful. Arizona and Illinois confirmed last year that they were targets.

The Associated Press con-firmed Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Dela-ware, Oregon, Oklahoma and Virginia were also targets, bring-ing the total states identified to 21. Those states did not imme-diately return messages seeking comment late Friday.

“There remains no evidence that the Russians altered one vote or changed one registra-tion,” said Judd Choate, president of the US National Association of State Election Directors.

Wisconsin Elections Com-mission Administrator Michael Haas said Homeland Security told the states that

“Russian government cyber actors” targeted state voter reg-istration systems.

Homeland Security officials have said that in most of the 21 states only preliminary activity was observed from hackers and a small number of networks were compromised. Some states had complained in June they had no idea if Russians had attempted to infiltrate their systems.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said on Friday that hackers had scanned state elec-tion systems but not breached the system. “It is completely unac-ceptable that it has taken DHS over a year to inform our office of Russian scanning of our sys-tems, despite our repeated requests for information,” he said.

Homeland Security spokes-man Scott McConnell said in a statement the government believes “officials should be kept informed about cybersecurity risks to election infrastructure” but also wants to protect “the integrity of investigations and the confidentiality of system owners.”

US intelligence agencies have concluded the Kremlin orchestrated an operation that included hacking and online propaganda intended to help Trump win, Reuters reported in August.

Senator Mark Warner, a Vir-ginia Democrat who co-chairs the Senate Cybersecurity Cau-cus, said Friday in a statement it is “unacceptable that it took almost a year after the election to notify states that their elec-tions systems were targeted.”

He said officials must inform

states of attempts to enter elec-tion systems “just as any homeowner would expect the alarm company to inform them of all break-in attempts, even if the burglar doesn’t actually get inside the house.”

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said DHS told it that its systems were scanned in the weeks before the 2016 election. “A scan is similar to burglars jiggling the doors of a house and moving on when they realize the doors are locked,” the state said.

Washington state’s top elec-tion official, Kim Wyman, said the state learned in 2016 of attempted intrusions from Rus-sian internet addresses and immediately alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The list of targets includes battleground states like Wiscon-sin, Ohio and Iowa, but other key states like Michigan said Fri-day they were told they were not targeted. It also included states that were not seriously con-tested like California and Texas.

Wisconsin was one of a handful of battleground Mid-western states that helped Trump win the presidency over Democratic rival Hillary Clin-ton. Trump carried the state by 22,748 votes, or about 0.8 of a percentage point. Many of the other states were not seriously in contention in the 2016 race.

Several congressional com-mittees are investigating and special counsel Robert Mueller is leading a separate probe into the Russia matter, including whether Moscow colluded with the Trump campaign.

Mexico City

Reuters

A magnitude 6.2 earth-quake that shook southern Mexico yes-terday spread fear in the capital and frus-

trated rescuers, some of whom were forced to suspend the search for survivors of an ear-lier, bigger tremor.

The United States Geological Survey said the new quake was relatively shallow with an epi-center near Juchitan, a tropical region of Oaxaca state hard hit by another major earthquake on September 7.

In Mexico City, where the tremors were mild, no new dam-age was reported. But rescue efforts at a collapsed residential building in the Tlalpan neigh-bourhood of Mexico City were suspended because of a risk that buildings already damaged by

Tuesday’s quake would collapse. At least 305 people died in the quake on Tuesday. Rescue work-ers in brightly coloured hard hats stood around awaiting further instructions.

“We hear that there are pos-sibly more people alive, but the clock is ticking and they are injured and dehydrated,” said Jose Juan Sanchez, 28, a crane operator who had been helping to clear rubble. “It’s frustrating not being able to do anything.”

At other sites, soldiers and volunteers continued efforts to reach quake victims even after seismic alarms rang out in the city, sending thousands of star-tled residents running out onto the streets, many in pajamas, shortly before 8am (1300 GMT).

In Oaxaca, another smaller earthquake was felt at 8:24am (1324 GMT). President Enrique Pena Nieto said a bridge near Juchitan collapsed along with other infrastructure weakened by the earlier tremors.

In a Mexico City shelter housing those who have lost their homes in the quakes, people stood in a circle and prayed after

the alarm sounded yesterday.Near a collapsed office build-

ing in the trendy Roma district, the earthquake alarm sounded twice and people gathered in the street for about five minutes, but calm prevailed and normal activity resumed in about five minutes.

When Tuesday’s 7.1 magni-tude quake hit, Mexico was already reeling from the Septem-ber 7 earthquake that killed at least 98 people and was the strongest in the country in 85 years. At least 52 buildings were brought to the ground by Tues-day’s earthquake and an army of trained rescuers and scores of volunteers have been frantically removing rubble in a day-and-night search for survivors.

Apartment buildings, offices, a school and a textile factory were among the structures flat-tened, leaving thousands homeless.

Officials said there could be

some 20,000 badly damaged homes in the adjacent states of Morelos and Puebla. RMS, a risk modeling company, estimated economic losses of $4bn to $8bn.

After several days of search-ing, rescuers have been finding more corpses than survivors, and frustration was mounting at what some said was bad organization at rescue sites and uneven deliv-ery of food aid.

“Whoever you ask will tell you the same thing, it is bloody outrageous that the government is not helping,” said rescue vol-unteer Angel Castellanos, 35, adding that local authorities in Tlalpan had only sent police as security to the site. The govern-ment has organized a massive search and rescue operation involving thousands of soldiers and police, but in outlying areas of the city and surrounding vil-lages, victims complain that help has been slow to arrive.

Mexican volunteers, profes-sionals and soldiers backed by teams from countries as far away as Japan have so far saved 60 people from the rubble but nobody has been found alive in the past 24 hours.

Tuesday’s quake hit on the anniversary of the deadly 1985 tremor that by some estimates killed 10,000 people. A govern-ment response panned as lacking at the time severely damaged the credibility of the ruling Institu-tional Revolutionary Party.

Mexico is better prepared to deal with the aftermath of earth-quakes nowadays, helped by disaster planning, civic groups, a stringent building code and communication technology. Despite the shrinking odds that more survivors would be pulled out from huge piles of debris, workers at many sites said they would not give up if there was the faintest chance of success.

People gather on a street after a tremor was felt in Mexico City yesterday. RIGHT: Mexican and International rescue teams remove a platform as they search for survivors in a collapsed building after an earthquake at Roma neighbourhood in Mexico City.

Latest Mexico quake spreads alarm

Ohio, California among states targeted by Russian hackers in 2016 race

Los Angeles

AFP

A gunman who massacred eight people at a packed hair salon in a small Cal-

ifornia beach town six years ago was sentenced late on Fri-day to life without parole.

Scott Dekraai opened fire at the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles, in October 2011, killing ex-wife Michelle and her friend, who had testified against him at a custody hearing, as well as six others.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals handed the 47-year-old eight consecu-tive life sentences — one for each victim — describing him as the “face of evil” in the community.

Dekraai was facing exe-cution but Goethals removed capital punishment as an option following allegations over the misuse of informants in the county jail system.

During an emotional sen-tencing hearing, relatives of Dekraai’s victims repeatedly lashed out and insulted the bespectacled defendant.

Given a chance to speak, Dekraai said he wished he could “turn back the hands of time” and claimed that he had been “waiting a long time to apologise”. He also apolo-gized to his son “as a father and as a role model... I was wrong for what I did. I’m totally to blame for my total loss of self-control.”

Gunman in California salon massacre jailed for life

Quake toll rises

The United States Geological Survey said the new quake was relatively shallow with an epicenter near Juchitan, a tropical region of Oaxaca state hard hit by another major earthquake on September 7.

At least 305 people died in the quake on Tuesday. Rescue workers in brightly coloured hard hats stood around awaiting further instructions.

20 SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017HOME

A view of the traditional nomadic tent of Kyrgyzstan at the ongoing first edition of Katara International Hunting and Falcons Exhibition, S’hail 2017, at Katara Cultural Village, yesterday. The Kyrgyz diaspora in Qatar participates in the exhibition and the tent will be there till tomorrow.

Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

Virginia Common-wealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar), the first

campus in Education City, is marking its 20th anniversary, by showcasing diversity and success of their alumni through an outstanding exhibition.

The exhibition 20/20/20 is being held at the VCUarts Qatar Gallery until October 21, with artworks of 20 alumni demonstrating their talents as a testimony of success. 20/20/20, is curated by VCUarts Qatar alumni Mar-yam Yousuf Al Homaid and Ahmad Oustwani.

“The exhibition highlights the success we have achieved in the last 20 years,” Dr. Akel I. Kahera, VCUarts Qatar Dean told media speaking on side-lines of the exhibition.

Emphasising on the rea-sons for choosing an exhibition by the alumni he said, “One of the ways to

really acknowledge the suc-cess of a university is through the alumni. Many people know that students come, they get a degree, what do they do after that is mostly unknown. Alumni are the true testimony to the larger community; so part of our success relies on the alumni. They carry the legacy, from one generation to another. That’s why we focused on the alumni.”

Since, 1998, VCUarts Qatar has produced 650 alumni. The 20/20/20 exhibi-tion is a sample of the fruitful achievements of 20 VCUarts alumni in a spectrum of multi-disciplinary creations.

Among the exhibits, ‘Hmmm…’ is a creation of Hana Al Saadi. A sculpture of a ballerina wearing an abaya arises questions about the objectification of women for the viewer. This is an exten-sion of her previous work done to have a deeper under-standing of the society.

‘Genetics-DNA’ the art work by Maryam Faraj Daham Al Suwaidi, is a brief descrip-tion where it shows clearly the

effect of the environment on the variable where it expresses that whatever your background is, the environ-ment around you is what will define you as a person, and will have a major influence on your identity.

Sahar Mari’s ‘experiment 1208 (yellow, orange, magenta and blue) are part of a color

experiment aeries using Islamic pattern design. Each pattern constellation is colored using one color pal-ette and replicated in different variations, which highlights the effect of color and balance in each composition.

20/20/20 is the first of a slew of events to be held to mark the 20th anniversary of

VCUarts Qatar. Giving a glimpse of the future events, Dr. Kahera said, “ We will have programmes that will invite the public, programs that will chronicle our suc-cess, programs that will educate, will celebrate and acknowledge, and capture the history of the school here in Qatar.”

VCUarts marks 2 decades of excellence

The Peninsula

The importance of get-ting research funding right – and ensuring it enables discover-ies and innovations

that can make a genuine impact – was outlined by an interna-tional expert through a Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D) ‘ R e s e a r c h D i a l o g u e ’ discussion.

Professor Jonathan Grant, Assistant Principal for Strate-gic Initiatives and Public Policy at King’s College London, emphasised how funding for research is essential to produc-ing outcomes that bring economic and social benefit, and improve lives, as well as for retaining public faith in research and development, during a recent talk at Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), part of QF R&D.

The seminar, titled ‘How Research Makes a Difference: The Effectiveness and Effi-ciency of Research Funding’, outlined that funding for the ‘wrong type of research’ poses an ‘emerging threat’ to the sci-ence and innovation efforts of countries around the world, drawing on global case studies and policy developments con-cerning the analysis and measurement of research impact.

QF R&D is home to an inter-nationally-renowned funding

organization, Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), which supports original, competi-tively-selected research that addresses Qatar’s priorities. Professor Grant, who is also Professor of Public Policy at the Policy Institute at King’s Col-lege London, said, “There is a social contract between the researcher who receives a grant and the citizens of the country that is funding their research.

“Conducting research is a huge responsibility and privi-lege – it allows a researcher to explore a topic they are pas-sionate about, but they must also ensure that their work serves the country that is sup-porting them. Without this, research will not have legiti-macy, and so nations have a moral imperative to assess and demonstrate the impact and benefit of the research they

fund, and to ask themselves whether this funding is not only effective, but also efficient.” With his chief areas of research interest being biomedical and health R&D policy, research impact assessment, and the use of research and evidence in decision-making and formu-lating policy, Professor Grant’s career has seen him hold n u m e r o u s h i g h - l e v e l positions.“QF R&D is focused on enabling and supporting research and innovation that generates economic and soci-etal impact for Qatar, and this is reflected in our portfolio of funding programs, including QNRF’s mission-driven National Priorities Research Program and QSTP’s Product Development Fund for startups and SMEs,” said Dr Hamad Al Ibrahim, Executive Vice Presi-dent, QF R&D.

Research funding is essential to improve lives: Expert

Professor Jonathan Grant speaking at QF R&D’s ‘Research Dialogue’ series.

The Peninsula

In a move aimed at developing safer vehicles, Toyota will utilise new additions to its Total Human

Model for Safety (THUMS) virtual crash dummy soft-ware to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries while making an even more diverse range of testing possible.

Toyota has added three new models to represent children aged ten, six, and three to Version 4 of the software. THUMS allows injuries sustained by human bodies during vehi-cle crashes to be simulated on the computer.

THUMS forecasts the extent of injuries sustained throughout the human body, and thus, is utilised in the technological devel-opment of passenger protection devices such as airbags, and to contribute to improved vehicle safety performance. THUMS is also increasingly being used in the field of motor-sports. For example, it has been used by NASCAR (the US-based National Associ-ation for Stock Car Auto Racing) to analyse high-speed impacts, leading to better seat structure design thereby reducing the like-lihood of rib fractures sustained by drivers as a result of racing accidents.

The ten-year old

(138cm tall), six-year old (118cm tall) and three-year old (94cm tall) additions to THUMS Version 4 repre-sent the average physique of children at each respec-tive age. As with the large male (189cm tall), average-build adult male (179cm tall), and small female (153cm tall) models that are already being sold, the new models will come in two versions?a passenger ver-sion and a pedestrian version?for a total of six new additions to the THUMS line-up. This expanded line-up takes into consideration the influence of age and phy-sique, and allows for a more thorough injury anal-ysis. “Toyota since its founding has been com-mitted to producing vehicles that are safe and provide peace of mind,” said Takayuki Yoshitsugu, Chief Representative, Mid-dle East and North Africa Representative Office, Toy-ota Motor Corporation. “The addition of the new child models provides a valuable tool in the devel-opment of safer vehicles. Toyota has consistently conducted safety-related activities based on three pillars: development of safe motor vehicles, educa-tional activities concerning traffic safety, and partici-p a t i o n i n t r a f f i c - e n v i r o n m e n t development.”

Toyota enhances THUMS software for safer vehicles

Dr. Akel I Kahera (left), Dean of VCUarts Qatar, at the 20/20/20 exhibition being held in celebration of two decades of Art and Design Excellence at VCUarts Qatar. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

Kyrgyz diaspora participates in S’hail 2017

FAJRSHOROOK

04.06 am

05.23 am

ZUHRASR

11.26 am

02.52 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

05.29pm

06.59 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 07:30 – 19:00 LOW TIDE 01:00 – 13:30

Hazy to misty at places at first

becomes hot daytime with

chance of local clouds and hu-

mid by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum 30oC 38oC

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department