Green ACs to be made more - The Peninsula Qatar · QATAR 148 UNDER SIEGE DAY TH ... Qatar General...

Volume 22 | Number 7330 | 2 RiyalsMonday 30 October 2017 | 10 Safar 1439 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

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QATAR

148UNDER SIEGE

DAY

TH

Fikret Ozer, Ambassador of Turkey to Qatar (third left), cutting a cake with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs H E Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud (fourth left), Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohamed bin Saleh Al Sada (left), Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani (second left) and other officials during Turkish National Day celebrations at the Ambassador’s residence in Doha yesterday. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula → See also page 3

Turkish National Day celebrations

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

Green air-condition-ers (ACs) will go greener as plans are afoot to take the energy efficiency

rating of existing 8.5 star ACs to 9.5 and upgrade the specifica-tion of other home electric appliances in a bid to cut the electricity consumption signif-icantly, said Kahramaa Chief.

“Qatar has a law banning the entry of ACs with less than 8.5 energy efficiency rating and within next two years, we are going to increase it to 9.5 star-rating,” said the President of the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahrama), Issa bin Hilal Al Kuwari.

Al Kuwari said that the effi-cient ACs help reduce the electricity consumption in big way as 60 to 70 percent of elec-tricity in Qatar and other GCC countries is being consumed by ACs.

“Many regulations will be issued in the coming years to make home electric appliances like washing machines and microwaves energy efficient,” said Al Kuwari.

He said that rules will be also made to regularise the size of flush tank for the conserva-tion of water.

Kahramaa President was speaking in a panel discussion under the theme of “Sustain-ability in Qatar: Challenges and Opportunities” on the sidelines of the opening of Qatar Sustainability Week (QSW) event at Qatar National Convention Center (QNCCS) yesterday.

The session was attended by Abdullah bin hamad Al Atti-yah, Chairman of Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sus-tainable development, Ibrahim Mohamed Jaidah, GCEO Arab Engineering Bureau and QGBC Board Member, Eng Eissa bin Mohammed Al Mohammed Al Mohannadi, Chairman Qatar Green Building Council, Dafer Mustafa Hallawa, CEO, Tadmur Holding Group and Eng Abdulla Al Mehshadi, CEO Msheireb Properties.

The move for making ACs and other electric appliances energy efficient is part of Kahramaa’s ongoing National Program for Conservation and Energy Efficiency (Tarsheed).

“The programme aims at reducing the per capita of elec-tricity and water at 20 percent and 35 percent respectively,” said Al Kuwari.

He said that the programme educates the consumers how to bring efficiency in the con-sumption of utility so they could lead a comfortable life without wasting it.

Kahramaa made five-year plan to rationalise the con-sumption of electricity and water and reduce carbon emis-sion, Al Kuwari said.

Emir greets Erdogan on National DayQNA

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday a cable

of congratulations to Presi-dent of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the occasion of his country’s National Day. Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani sent a similar cable.

Prime Minister and Inte-rior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Kha-lifa Al Thani sent yesterday a cable of congratulations to the Prime Minister of Turkey, Binali Yildirim, on the occa-sion of his country’s National Day.

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

With the theme ‘Prom-ise of Prosperity and Glory’, Qatar National

Day celebrations will start on December 9 at Darb Al Saai and continue for ten days.

The celebrations will high-light the patriotism and solidarity of the people of Qatar for its leadership, despite the unjust blockade imposed on the coun-try, said HE Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali, head of the National Day organizing committee , during a

press conference held at the Qatar National Theater, yesterday.

“This year celebrations come as Qatar is under siege imposed by some countries, which makes this year’s celebrations more unique. Qataris proved that they are united and standing behind their Emir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, and this unity the real vision behind the Qatar National Day celebrations,” he said.

“Since we started to cele-brate it in 2008, the vision of Qatar National Day is to enhance loyalty, unity and pride of

national identity,” he added.The main aim is strengthen-

ing the loyalty between the people and the leader, enhanc-ing the sovereignty and cohesion between the citizens and resi-dents of Qatar and to increase the pride of Qatar’s unity in every inch of its land, the minister said.

He also urged people to par-ticipate in the celebration either as individuals or as institutions and to create new ideas to uphold Qatari tradition and her-itage as well as the vision of the Qatar National Day.

→ Continued on page 3

Green ACs to be made more energy efficient

QNA

The State of Qatar con-demned yesterday the Israeli government’s

decision to establish a new settlement unit in the area of Qalandia Airport, in the northwest of occupied Jerusalem.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement yesterday that the step is a violation of the rights of the Palestinian people to estab-lish their independent state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.

The implementation of the decision would under-mine international efforts for the two-states solution, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The statement called on the international community to assume their responsibil-ity towards Israel by ending its settlement policy on occu-pied Palestinian territories.

Oil prices on the right track: Al SadaThe Peninsula

Minister of Energy and Indus-try H E Dr Mohamed bin Saleh Al Sada yesterday said that the

oil price is on the right track, as the level of global commercial reserves are declining to the rate set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

On the sidelines of the opening of Qatar Sustainability Week (QSW), the Minister said the rate set by Opec is the average of the oil reserves in the past five years and according to the numbers, the current reserve decreased from 300 million barrels to almost 160 million, which means that Opec is on the right track.

H E Al Sada added that the agree-ment Opec signed with the oil producing countries who aren’t mem-bers of the organisation is successful, where the latest reports show 120 per-cent commitment level which confirms a move in the right direction and marked an obvious decline in reserves.

The Minister of Energy and Indus-try said oil is heading towards the fair price, as reflected by recent price increases, which sometimes led to more than $60 a barrel.

The Minister reiterated that the State of Qatar’s commitment to reduc-ing oil production last week, based on the decision made by Opec in its meet-ing in December 2016.

The Minister added that the State of Qatar will support any decision Opec may make regarding reducing production in its upcoming meeting to be held in November, saying if the upcoming conference sees the need to extend the reduction of oil produc-tion, Qatar will support it.

With regards to Qatar’s efforts with sustainability in the energy and industry sectors, the Minister said sustainability is an integral part of Qatar National Vision 2030, which was launched and sponsored by the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, affirming that the State of Qatar is seeks to achieve sustaina-bility in different ways led by developing the laws, regulations and procedures to reduce emissions and energy consumption especially elec-tric power.

The Minister said regulations and laws have been set to import equip-ment and appliances that use less energy such as air conditioners.

National Day celebrations to kick off on December 9

The move for making ACs and other electric appliances energy efficient is part of Kahramaa’s Tarsheed campaign.

Qatar slams Israel move on settlements

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari visiting a stem cell transplant patient.

Major Stem cell transplant surgery A multi-disciplinary team of experts

from the National Center for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR) of

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has performed Qatar’s first allogeneic hemat-opoietic stem cell transplantation

(allogeneic -HSCT). The transplant was per-formed on a 32-year-old female patient diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer.

→ See also page 2

The Minister added that the State of Qatar will support any decision Opec may make regarding reducing production in its upcoming meeting to be held in November, saying if the upcoming conference sees the need to extend the reduction of oil production, Qatar will support it.

02 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017HOME

Emir issues decrees ratifying memorandum of understandings QNA

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued Decree No. 78 of 2017, ratifying a cooperation Memorandum

of Understanding (MoU) in the field of cul-ture between the governments of the State of Qatar and the government of the Repub-lic of Azerbaijan, signed in Doha on 08/02/2017, which is annexed to this decree and has the force of law in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution.

H H the Emir also issued Decree No. 79 of 2017, ratifying a memorandum of

understanding on cooperation in the field of youth and sports between the govern-ments of the State of Qatar and the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan, signed in Doha on 08/02/2017, which is annexed to this decree and has the force of law in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution. H H the Emir also issued Decree No. 80 of 2017, ratifying Agreement of Cooperation in the Fields of Standardi-zation, Metrology, Certification and Accreditation between the Government of the State of Qatar and the Government of Turkmenistan signed in Doha on 15/3/2017,

which is annexed to this decree and has the force of law in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution.

H H the Emir issued Decree No. 81 of 2017 approving the amended Protocol to the Marrakesh Agreement for the Estab-lishment of the World Trade Organization and its Annex (Trade Facilitation Agree-ment), which is annexed to this decree and has the force of law in accordance with Arti-cle 68 of the Constitution.

H H the Emir issued Decree No. 82 of 2017 ratifying the Air service agreement between the Government of the State of

Qatar and the Government of Burkina Faso, signed in Doha on 22/03/2016, which is annexed to this decree and has the force of law in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution.

H H the Emir also issued decree No. 83 of 2017 ratifying the MoU between Qatar Central Bank and Bangladesh central bank, signed in Doha on 08/05/2017, which is annexed to this decree and has the force of law in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution. The decrees are effective start-ing from their date of issue and are to be published in the official gazette.

QRC provides support to Mogadishu bombing victims

The Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) has provided support to the victims of

the Mogadishu bombings, which took place about two weeks ago, and they are cur-rently being treated in hospitals in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

QRC Secretary-General Ali bin Hassan Al Hammadi visited the victims of the recent terrorist bombings in the Somali capital Mogadishu, who were transferred for treatment in Sudanese hos-pitals, where he provided support for the wounded, wishing them quick recovery, and expressed hope that Somalia would return to sta-bility soon, the QRC said in a statement Sunday.

The wounded expressed their thanks and gratitude to the QRC.

Al Hammadi said in a press statement that the efforts of the State of Qatar will continue to provide assistance to the wounded, pointing to the close cooper-ation between the Qatari Red Crescent and its Sudanese counterpart in all areas of humanitarian work.

QRC Secretary-General noted the projects carried out by the QRC in Sudan, based on the historical relations between the two brotherly countries. He also expressed his thanks and appreciation to the Government of the Sudan for its role in hosting and treating Somali wounded.

Emir issues decision on reorganising CCQThe Peninsula

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued yesterday the Emiri Decision No. 19 of 2017 on reorganis-

ing the Community College of Qatar (CCQ).

The decision is effective starting from the following date of issue in the official gazette.

This Decision aims to place the Community College of Qatar in the ranks of its counterpart higher educational institutions, to grant bachelor’s degree and to introduce new specialties that serve the labour market.

The decision introduced the College as an independent body of academic nature for univer-sity, academic, technical and applied education, and is of a legal entity and with a budget annexed to the general budget of the State with its headquar-ters in Doha.

Other branches of the Col-lege may be established with a

decision from the board of trus-tees and based on a recommendation from the Col-lege’s president.

The College aims to prepare technically specialised person-nel that are academically and scientifically trained in special-ties that meet the society and the labour market’s needs. The Col-lege also aims to prepare graduates with associate diploma degrees to be qualified to finish to complete the bach-elor’s degree at the College or at different universities, as well as preparing graduates with bach-elor’s degrees to be qualified to immediately join the labour market.

The College also aims to introduce continuing education programs and applied programs depending on the needs of the public and private sectors.

The board of trustees man-age the College and is formed by head of the board, a deputy head that shall replace him in his absence or vacancy, not less than

five or more than seven mem-bers of experience and scientific status. A decision by the Prime Minister shall be issued upon the proposal of the Minister of Edu-cation and Higher Education for assigning the members and their salaries.

The College will have a pres-ident, board of academic staff members, an academic council headed by the dean of the Col-lege, assistant deans members, heads of departments and pro-grams of the faculty and a number of professors, as well as student representatives chosen according to the rules of the Col-lege .

The College was established in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030 in September 2010 to provide a diverse range of educational opportunities which including 2-year academic pro-grams that prepare students for transfer to four-year universi-ties, 2 + 2 academic programs as well as 2-year career oriented programs to meet the country’s

critical workforce and labour needs.

The College started with an enrolment of 308 full-time stu-dents and today it is the fastest

growing institution in Qatar with an enrolment of 4300 students at four different campuses offer-ing a number of associate and bachelor degree programs.

QNA

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued Law No. (20) of 2017 amending some provisions of Law No. (8) of 1990 on the regulation of human food control.

Under this amendment, the closure of a violating shop shall be complete if its condition does not allow the closure of the part where the violation took place. The violator shall be required to pay the closing costs.

A sign is to be placed on the front of the shop reading: “Closed for violation of the law regulating the control of human food”. The closure decision is to be published on the website of the issuing agency and in two local newspapers that are widespread at the expense of the violator.

The Law stipulates that it shall be implemented and pub-lished in the Official Gazette.

Law on regulating human food control issued

Qatar’s first allogeneic stem cell transplant takes place at HMCThe Peninsula

Making a major step in cancer care in the coun-try, a multi-disciplinary

team of experts from the National Center for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR), of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), has performed Qatar’s first allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-geneic -HSCT).

The transplant was per-formed on a 32-year-old female patient diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer.

The patient, a mother of four, was diagnosed with myeloid leukemia (AML) earlier this year after noticing unexplained bruis-ing on her upper and lower limbs. She visited her doctor and underwent blood tests which revealed hyper leukocytosis – an indication of myeloid leukemia (AML). She was quickly admit-ted to NCCCR where she underwent a bone marrow exam which confirmed the suspected

diagnosis of myeloid leukemia (AML).

Doctors at NCCCR responsi-ble for the patient’s care identified an allogeneic stem cell transplantation as the best treat-ment option; however, as the stem cells used in the procedure need to come from a (genetically similar) healthy person, a close blood relative was needed as a donor. Two of the patient’s brothers volunteered to be potential donors and were tested to check their suitability. The eld-est brother was found to be the most suitable potential donor and was prepared for the proce-dure. The patient is now recovering well and will be dis-charged soon.

HE Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, the Minister of Public Health, along with Dr Abdulla Al Ansari, HMC’s Acting Chief Med-ical Officer, and other senior officials from HMC, visited the patient after the transplantation. Dr Hanan spoke with the patient and thanked the clinical team members involved in making the

procedure a success.Commenting on the success

of the procedure, which is the first of its kind in Qatar, Dr Hanan said, “Allogeneic stem cell transplantation represents a new milestone in our efforts to pro-vide the very best cancer care and treatment in Qatar. The pro-cedure’s success underlines our ongoing journey to combat can-cers of the blood with the most advanced treatment modalities. Significant advances have been made throughout Qatar. We now take on the challenge of making further advances in developing our knowledge and expertise in cancer prevention and treatment to decrease the incidence of can-cer in Qatar and increase survival rates, ultimately aiming to free our population from this often-devastating disease.’’

Allogeneic stem cell trans-plantation involves the transfer of stem cells from a genetically similar healthy person (known as the donor), to a patient (known as the recipient), following high-intensity chemotherapy or

radiation. It is used to eliminate cancer and restore a patient’s blood and immune systems. Due to the time it takes to build the immune system back up after the transplant, several months of close expert monitoring are needed to prevent complications following the procedure.

Professor Karl Alexander Knuth, Medical Director at

NCCCR, said, “This is a major step in HMC’s ongoing success in developing advanced treatment options for cancer patients. The availability of stem cell transplan-tation for the treatment of malignant diseases of the blood and bone marrow today means that our patients can now receive their treatment here in Qatar without needing to travel abroad.”

Dr Al Ansari also shared a similar view saying, “HMC is committed to developing excel-lence in comprehensive cancer care services in Qatar through the integration of clinical care, research, and education at all levels and across all specialties and services, as required by Qatar’s National Cancer Frame-work 2017-2022.”

Minister of Public Health, H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, with the transplant team.

Ministry holds meeting on guidelines of psychological service in public schoolsQNA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education held a meeting for the psy-chologists in public schools, to discuss

the guideline of psychological service, and the work of the psychological specialist for the academic year 2017-2018.

It emphasised the need to change the way of thinking and working, which neces-sitate the provision of quality education and learning for sustainable development at all levels and environments, especially since such development can not be

achieved through mere technological solutions.

The meeting included a presentation on the developmental aspect in the work of the psychologist, and a presentation on the preventive role in this regard, in view of the consideration that the school is the primary social institution, in which students spend most of their day, and its an important social body that enjoys suf-ficient support from the community, being supported by various educational services.

A presentation of the therapeutic aspect

of the work of the psychological specialist for all grades was presented as an appli-cation of strategies and methods of treatment in many basic theories of coun-selling and psychotherapy, especially in the behavioural and cognitive behavioural trend, with the aim of promoting positive behaviours against the negative ones.

In addition, some information and guidance that help the psychological spe-cialists in their work were presented along with a brief presentation of the guideline of psychological service and its annexes.

QNA

An Advisory Council delegation is partici-pating in the meetings

of the first session of the second meeting of the sec-ond convocation of the Arab Parliament, to be held on Sunday in Khartoum, Sudan.

The three-day meeting will focus on a number of issues such as the current Arab

conditions, the Arab parliament efforts in supporting joint Arab work, and other related topics.

The delegation is also set to participate in other Arab Parliament commit-tee meet ings such as Palestine committee, sub-committee on human rights, f o r e i g n , p o l i t i c a l a n d national security affairs committee.

Advisory Council to attend Khartoum meet

03MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 HOME

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi with Ambassador of the Syrian Republic to Qatar, Nizar Al Haraki. Talks dealt with bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them, as well as issues of mutual concern.

Al Muraikhi meets Syrian Ambassador

Erdogan set to visit Doha in December Irfan Bukhari The Peninsula

President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will visit Doha in December this year to co-chair the Third Ses-

sion of Supreme Strategic Committee between Qatar and Turkey.

Addressing the gathering at a reception to celebrate the National Day of the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Ambassador Fikret Ozer said that the third ses-sion of Supreme Strategic Committee between Qatar and Turkey would be held in Doha in December 2017 for which Presi-dent Recep Tayyip Edrogan will visit Qatar.

He said that the excellent relations between Turkey and Qatar in every field had been car-ried forward after the siege in accordance with instructions of Turkish President and H H the Emir. “The first meeting of Supreme Strategic Committee between Turkey and Qatar was held in December 2015 in Doha; the second meeting was held in Trabzon in December 2016; now the third meeting will be held in December this year in Doha,” he said, adding that within the scope

of these strategic relations between two countries, around 30 agreements had been signed and the number would touch 40 in 2017. He said that Turkish peo-ple preferred peace to the war and had adopted the words of Great Ataturk “peace at home, peace abroad”.

“We shape our foreign policy in accordance with our values. Due to this, we say ‘stop’ to the atrocities against Syrian people, confront separation of Iraq and go ahead following the same direction for the Gulf crisis.”

The ambassador further said: “As a result of this understanding, we see the State of Qatar as a country that should be backed due to its contributions to the

global system and (we) try to give every necessary support against injustices to which Qatar has been exposed.” He said that Turkey had the aim to enhance bilateral trade volume which was currently $1bn and “we will extend our trade relations to every field.”

“We do not limit our bilateral cooperation to political, economic and cultural fields only as we attach a great importance to the security of Qatar for the security of the region.”

Within this scope, the ambas-sador said, Turkey was providing necessary support to Qatar to ensure security of Qatari broth-ers with the presence of Turkish soldiers in Doha. “Considering the State of Qatar as one of the lead-ing friendly and brotherly countries in the region, Turkey preferred to develop bilateral cooperation with Qatar in edu-cation field as well. Yunus Emre Cultural Centre was opened in 2015 while Turkish school was inaugurated in 2016.”

The ambassador said that as many as 84 students were stud-ying various courses at Yunus Emre Cultural Centre while Turk-ish School was providing education opportunity to approx-imately 100 students in its second year.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Costa Rica, Manuel Gonzalez Sanz, with Qatar’s Ambassador to Costa Rica H E Mohammed bin Kurdi Taleb Al Marri. They discussed bilateral relations and ways of developing them, in addition to matters of common concern.

Costa Rican Minister meets Qatari envoy

Turkish Ambassador Fikret Ozer said that the third session of Supreme Strategic Committee between Qatar and Turkey would be held in Doha in December 2017 for which President Recep Tayyip Edrogan will visit Qatar.

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali (right), addressing the press conference organised by the National Day organising committee, at the Qatar National Theatre yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

Continued from page 1“We want to embody the

vision of Qatar National Day through activities and celebra-tion and that is why we are keen to choose only activities which can impact and give people the real feel of patriotism, loyalty, unity, and solidarity,” he said.

On the events aspirations of the National Day committee, the minister said they aspire for it to have an impact on the

behaviour and personality which serves the country and helps its development. It also aspires to highlight the national icons in the different political, cultural, economic, and social fields, led by Founder Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani.

The motto of the Qatar National Day 2017 is inspired by a quote of the Emir, which trans-lates into ‘Promise of Prosperity

and Glory’. The committee also used

one of Founder’s poem verses to be an inspiration to the Qatari population.

To recall, in 2016, Qatar had decided to cancel National Day celebrations in solidarity with the people of Aleppo. It was marked with a massive fund-raising campaign at Darb El Saai to support the Syrians in the besieged city of Aleppo.

National Day celebrations to kick off on December 9

QNA

Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin

Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Michele Alliot-Marie, Member of the European Par-liament and chairperson of the EU delegation for rela-tions with the Arab Peninsula.

During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the rela-tions between the State of Qatar and the European Union and ways of develop-ing them, in addition to the latest developments of the Gulf crisis.

FM meets EU Parliament Member

A delegation of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) visited the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID), where they were welcomed by Chairman of the DICID, Dr Ibrahim Saleh Al Nuaimi. During the visit, the delegation learned about the various sections of the DICID, including the centre’s library, which contains more than 2,000 books.

UNAOC delegation visits DICID Chairman of General Authority of Customs meets French envoyThe Peninsula

Chairman of General Author-ity of Customs, Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Jamal received

French Ambassador to Qatar, Eric Chevallier, in Doha.

The meeting was held within the framework of cooperation

between both countries and aims to see the best international practices applied by the General Authority of Customs.

During the meeting they dis-cussed several issues related to the Customs field such as facili-tating commercial movement at ports in addition to movement

of goods through air cargo. Ambassador Chevallier also has received invitation to participate in the 20th edition of Milipol Qatar, which displayes the latest equipment and devices, and innovative services in the field of homeland security and elec-tronic security.

Chairman of General Authority of Customs, Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Jamal, with French Ambassador to Qatar, Eric Chevallier.


iEARN empowers teachers & students learn togetherThe Peninsula

Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) a program of Education Above All (EAA), has hosted its iEARN (International

Education and Resource Network)-Qatar teacher train-ing workshop at Qatar University. The iEARN program facilitates teachers and students to learn collaboratively and work on finding solutions to global issues within an online network across 140 countries.

A group of 35 teachers from seven schools in Qatar attended the two-day workshop that introduced teachers to Project Based Learning methodology and prepared teachers to start one of iEARN projects that aim at improving the health and wel-fare of our planet. For the fourth year running, the iEARN-Qatar program is implemented in col-laboration with the National Center for Educator Develop-ment (NCED), College of Education at Qatar University, and sponsored by Qatar

Chemical and Petrochemical Marketing and Distribution Com-pany, Muntajat.

Shamma Al Dosari, Online Education Specialist, ROTA Pro-gram, said: “We are delighted to collaborate with NCED and Muntajat to improve the learn-ing experience and outcomes for students in Qatar, an endeavour that contributes to the Human Development pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030.”

“iEARN’s motto is ‘learning with the world, and not just about it’. The iEARN program is not only a global network of

teachers and students, but also a platform that helps schools to work on finding solutions to glo-bal issues which directly contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The iEARN-Qatar program provides professional development for teachers, which in turn will improve students’ learning out-comes. Project-Based Learning helps students to acquire skills in critical thinking and cross-cul-tural awareness while connecting their learning to real world issues, making learning both challenging and enjoyable,” Abdulbaki added.

Since the program was launched in 2008, more than 700 teachers from 100 schools have attended iEARN-Qatar workshops and participated in numerous iEARN projects with their students. The program also offers educators an opportunity to join the ROTA Knowledge Net-work which helps them build an online project portfolio and inte-grate project-based learning activities into their lessons.

Dr Abdullah Abu-Tineh,

Director of the National Centre for Educational Development at the College of Education ,Qatar University, said: “This training program is being held for the fifth year to empower teachers in employing project–based learn-ing in their classes and help them encourage their students to learn through implementing skills like research, problem-solving and

cooperation with their peers.”Amal Ajlan Al Kuwari, PR and

Communications Manager, Muntajat, said: “Muntajat is proud to be partners with ROTA through the iEARN-Qatar program which provides educational and devel-opmental opportunities for students and also invests in skilled teachers for the wider community.”

iEARN is the world’s largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the internet and other technolo-gies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a dif-ference in the world. More than 50, 000 educators and 2 million young people across 140 coun-tries make up the global education network.

UNACO delegation visits QU and Foundation for Education Above AllQNA

United Nations Alliance of Civilization (UNACO) del-egation, currently visiting

the country, toured yesterday the Qatar University and the Foun-dation for Education Above All.

The delegation met with the Dean of Shari’ah and Islamic Studies College Prof Yousef Al Sidiqi, and learned about the uni-versity’s experience in promoting dialogue and alliance of civilisations.

Al Sidiqi explained the approach of the Alliance of Civ-ilizations, which is taught to all university students, and the “Encyclopedia of Surprise”, which is considered the first and the largest scientific in the Islamic world and seeks to con-tribute to understanding the West and promote the path of dialogue and alliance of civilisa-tions in cooperation with international organisations.

CEO of Education Above All, Fahad Al Sulaiti, briefed

the visiting delegation on the Foundation’s programmes that advocate the fundamental right to receive education around the world through more than 50 pro-grams in 43 countries.

Al Sulaiti stressed the Foun-dation’s keenness to ensure that people who are marginalised and exposed to risk in developing countries receive quality educa-tion without discrimination, in the belief of the importance of education and its central role in human development.

Mercedes S-Class 2017 model recalled

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce, in col-

laboration with Nasser Bin Khaled Automobiles, dealer of Mercedes Benz vehicles in Qatar, has announced the recall of S-Class model of 2017 because the park con-trol unit does not correspond to the current series production and the majority of the power sup-ply for the vehicle interior is switched off in case of a crash.

The Ministry said the recall campaign comes within the framework of its ongoing efforts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.

The iEARN program facilitates teachers and students to learn collaboratively and work on finding solutions to global issues within an online network across 140 countries.

Participants at the iEARN Qatar teacher training workshop at Qatar University.

United Nations Alliance of Civilization delegation with officials of Qatar University and the Foundation for Education Above All.

Qatar Charity launches 2nd phase of Rufaqaa initiativeQNA

Qatar Charity (QC) has launched the second stage of the strategic plan for

the Rufaqaa Orphan Care Initi-ative under the slogan “Rufaqaa Continues to Give”, targeting to sponsor 150,000 orphans by the end of next year 2018.

Qatar Charity began its orphan sponsorship projects more than three decades ago as part of its social welfare serv-ices. At the end of 2013, the Charity launched the Rufaqaa initiative that focuses exclu-sively on children and orphans around the world, aiming to take the lead in establishing social solidarity, to serve humanity and to contribute to sustainable development projects.

In less than four years, the Rufaqaa initiative has made Qatar Charity the largest orphan care organisation worldwide, sponsoring 106,000 orphans including the sponsorship of 73,000 orphans over the past for years alone. This was achieved thanks to charitable people’s collaboration with the organisation in its efforts to include cases in need.

In his speech at the press conference that announced the launch of the second stage of the Rufaqaa Initiative’s strategic plan, Faisal Al Fuhaida, Execu-tive Director of the Charity’s Operations Department, said that the success achieved in the first phase of the initiative would not have been possible without the comprehensive care pro-vided for orphans at the educational, health and social levels. These services also included entertainment and training activities and pro-grammes directly supervised buy our field offices around the world. This success is also due to the completion of a number of huge projects serving orphans such as the Sheikha Aisha bint Hamad Al Attiya city in Sudan which serves 5,000 orphans, as well as orphan homes and insti-tutions in Bangladesh which benefit 2,000 orphans. “More-over, we build excellent relationship with the sponsors, enabling them to follow up and check on their sponsored orphans in various easy meth-ods, and we also facilitate the process of paying their dona-

tions,” he said. He also stated that the

Rufaqaa Initiative, thank God, continues its mission confidently under the slogan “Rufaqaa con-tinue to Give” by launching the second phase of its strategic plan which aims to extend its aid to about 50,000 new orphans in several countries with the spon-sored orphans to 150,000 by the end of 2018. The charity wants to fill the gap in this field, espe-cially with the continuing crises and disasters, the latest of which is the Rohingya crisis. Faisal Al Fuhaida expressed his hope that charitable people will respond this campaign.

Al Fuhaida also extended his thanks to all sponsors, donors and supporters of the orphan progams and projects, praying Allah to accept their charities, to reward them, and to make these and other good deeds a shield protecting the State of Qatar from all evils and tribula-tions so that it continues to live in affluence and welfare.

The Rufaqaa initiative’s 2018 plan aims to provide compre-hensive care for additional 50,000 orphans around the world, as well as launching additional services for the cur-rent beneficiaries in various fields and expanding major orphan care projects.

Statistics indicate that 3 chil-dren lose on or both parents every 3 minutes around the world. Therefore, Qatar Char-ity, thought its Rufaqaa Initiative, is proud to sponsor more than 50 orphans every 24 hours which means 15,000 orphans every year.

The upcoming sponsorship projects will target orphans in Palestine, Turkey (Syrian Refu-gees), Lebanon, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo where each orphan receives aid equivalent to 250 Riyals per month, in addition to the Sudan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Tuni-sia where the monthly aid for each individual amounts to 200

Riyals.Once a new sponsorship is

established, the sponsor receives a detailed report of the spon-sored orphan’s status (twice a year). He will also be able to communicate directly with the sponsored orphan through voice and video calls. Moreover, he will have an electronic account enabling him to manage his donations, track the transfers and review reports. He will also have access video and photo-graphic reports and will be able to go on field trips to meet his sponsored orphans and see the services we prove to him.

The press conference included a presentation about the Rufaqaa Initiative that dis-played its most important achievements so far, the prizes it received, the projects it imple-mented and the services it offers for both donors and beneficiar-ies. The presentation also referred to the Sheikha Aisha model village for orphans in Sudan, showed a video clip depicting the success story of a sponsored orphan, as well as the statement of an official from Al-Arqam Academy for girls who has participated in the Sponsor-ing School project that was implemented by the initiative. The presentation also showed two pupils studying at school and who have participated in this initiative as a model for the youngest sponsors.

Noteworthy is that Rufaqaa is a humanitarian initiative that addresses children and orphans’ needs around the world through effective programs that allevi-ate their suffering and life-threatening dangers.

The initiative was launched on 13 December 2013 to be Qatar Charity’s global orphan care marketing incubator.

It’s vision revolves around taking the lead in establishing social solidarity in the field of orphan sponsorship, to serve humanity and to achieve sus-tainable social development.

In less than four years, the Rufaqaa initiative has made Qatar Charity the largest orphan care organisation worldwide, sponsoring 106,000 orphans including the sponsorship of 73,000 orphans over the past for years alone.


Symposium explores joint research activitiesThe Peninsula

Qatar University College of Engineering (QU-CENG) in collaboration with Texas A&M Uni-versity at Qatar

(TAMUQ) and Hamad Bin Khal-ifa University (HBKU) recently held a symposium on research activities in Qatar.

Themed “Joint Symposium on Research Activities in Qatar”, the event aimed to explore research collaboration opportunities between CENG, HBKU and TAMUQ and to agree on one sys-tematic plan of the institutions’ joint research projects.

Attending the event were Prof Abbes Amira, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at CENG, Dr César Malavé, Dean at TAMUQ, Prof Loannis Econo-mou, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at TAMUQ, Prof Hassan Bazzi, Associate Dean for Research at TAMUQ and Prof Muammer Koç, Director of Sus-tainability Division at HBKU ,as well as CENG, HBKU and TAMUQ faculty and staff.

The event’s program included presentations delivered by

speakers from CENG, TAMUQ and HBKU. They discussed a wide range of topics that align with the Qatar National Research Fund’s (QNRF) research priorities namely energy, information and commu-nications technology (ICT), biomedicine and health care.

They included “Multi scale approaches in water research at the Department of Civil Engineer-ing - Qatar University”, “Designing Future Gas Process-ing Technology: Environmental,

Efficiency and Product Design Challenges”, “Energy Water Food nexus”, “Active and stable nickel/alumina catalysts for steam and dry reforming of methane”, “Next Generation Buildings”, “Micro-structure Design of Materials for Sustainable Applications”, “Mul-tiphase Flow Assurance in Oil and Gas Industry”, “Water Shut-off in Oil and Gas Wells Using Poly-meric Gels”, “Biomedical Imaging and Sensing for Health and

Well-Being of Self and Society”, “An overview of biological proc-esses and their potential for CO2 capture”, “A New Paradigm in Diabetes, Cancer Cardiovascular and Genetic Diseases”, “Cyberse-curity”, and many more.

In closing, the event featured a session on the impact of the blockade imposed on Qatar on research and new research pri-orities in Qatar.

In his remarks, Prof Amira

said: “The joint initiatives include research programs, groups, stud-ies and a white paper from the three institutions about the rec-ommendations from this event, and reflect CENG commitment to deliver high-quality research in line with society needs. This sym-posium underlines CENG ongoing efforts to strengthen links with various institutions from academia and industry to promote academic and research excellence.”

Prof Koç said: “The 2nd Joint Research Workshop brought leading faculty and researchers from HBKU, QU and TAMUQ to further identify and prioritise col-laboration opportunities and necessities in the wake of recent regional issues. This event was ended with concrete ideas, solu-tions and recommendations to be shared with extended R&D com-munity and decision makers in Qatar.”

Participants at the symposium.

Search Inside Yourself training comes to DohaThe Peninsula

Qatar Development & Con-sultancy Centre in collaboration with SIYLI is

bringing Search Inside Yourself training program to Doha com-munity for the first time.

The event will be held at Sharq Village and Spa on November 10 and 11. In 2007, the Search Inside Yourself training program was born at Goggle through the work of one of their original engineers, Chade Meng Tan.

Originally a leadership train-ing program exclusively for Goggle staff, the Search Inside Yourself training program was so highly successful at Goggle that word of it began to spread around Silicon Valley — soon, other organisations were eager to access it as well.

In order to serve this grow-ing demand, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) was initiated in 2012. Since then, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute has

grown to become a highly recog-nised international training organisation training 20,000+ individuals in over 100 cities around the world.

The two-day Search Inside Yourself trainings include learn-ing sessions in mindfulness, emotional intelligence, commu-nication, stress management, creativity and more.

Following the two-day train-ing, there are four weeks of homework practices intended to help participants integrate their learning from the inside out, and then one more 1 hour webinar to wrap up final questions.

Program sessions include mindfulness (the science of being present), self-awareness (under-standing your own habits, thoughts, and emotions), self-management (skillfully managing your impulses and reactions), motivation (aligning your values and work), empathy (understand-ing others’ feelings and experiences) and leadership (influencing with compassion).

Souq Al Wakrah expects brisk business as weather improves Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

As the cold weather is approaching, activities at the

Souq Al Wakrah are slowly flourishing. The change in the weather and opening of the beach has helped the area and it has been seen as an ideal destina-tion for people who want to get away from the busy streets of Doha.

Other attractions for visitors at the Souq Al Wakrah includes the ambience of the area, ample parking space, choice of restaurants, the bird mar-ket and a chance for shopping.

It has become a new attraction for beachgoers. “Souq Al Wakrah is different from any other place. The atmosphere is very calm and the beach is very clean. It’s not far from Doha, so we come here often. Children will have a swim and we have dinner at any of the restaurants,” said Umm Malik, a mother of three young children.

The family beach at the Souq Al Wakrah has other facilities such as changing rooms and surveillance of life guards.

The beach has attracted major events this year, includ-ing the Spring Festival. The restaurants oversee the beach area serves visitors perfectly

to enjoy the weather. “We get more visitors dur-

ing the weekends and after the opening of the beach more people are coming. Number of customers has also increased after the Spring Fes-tival , because many people had an experience of the place during the festival,” said a res-taurant employee.

Many small shops in the complex resemble traditional Qatari buildings with walls built with a mud coating and traditional big wooden doors and lanterns. The ceilings of the roofs are made of palm leaves.

With the temperatures falling, many other businesses at Souq Al Wakrah also expect more customers over the next few weeks.

“The place is busier dur-ing festivals and more customers come during the

weekends compared to week days. We surely get more cus-tomers and higher sales during the winter season. We expect a good season this year,” said a shop keeper sell-ing readymade garments.

“Some customers have got used to the place and they come regularly,” he added.

Another shop keeper sell-ing Arabian perfume said, “Usually during the winter we get more customers. We have already seen more visitors in the past couple of weekends, hope it will increase in the coming weeks.”

Souq Al Wakrah, also houses a mosque with gates and walkway made of wood and a well symbolising the old lifestyle in Qatar. Its ample parking space makes it con-venient for the visitors unlike other high end commercial complexes.

Indian Embassy Open House addresses various issuesThe Peninsula

The monthly Open House to address urgent con-sular and labour issues/

cases of Indian nationals in the State of Qatar was held at the Embassy on October 26. The grievances brought to the notice of the Embassy related to issues of delayed payment of wages and violations of contract terms and conditions.

Ambassador P Kumaran, Third Secretary (Labour& Community Welfare) Dr M Aleem and other officials met all the complainants, dis-cussed their problems in detail and assured them of the Embassy’s active follow up of their cases with the con-cerned authorities in the Government of Qatar.

Devis Edakulathur, Pres-ident and Babu Rajan, Vice-President, Indian Com-munity Benevolent Forum (ICBF), the apex community association working under the aegis of the Embassy for the welfare of Indian work-ers, and some other members of the ICBF Management Committee also participated in the Open House.

An Embassy team visited the Central Prison and Depor-tation Centre to enquire about the welfare of detainees from India. The total number of Indian nationals in the Cen-tral Prison and the Deportation Centre currently is 215 and 77, respectively.

Since January, 10 Open Houses have been held. A total of 52 complaints were received during these Open Houses. Out of these, 40 com-plaints have been resolved, 12 are under active follow up of the Embassy.

The Embassy has issued 31 Emergency Certificates (ECs) in October to Indian nationals for their repatria-tion to India. The Embassy also issued 18 air tickets to needy Indian nationals for their return in October.

During October, the Embassy also organised four consular camps at Salwa, Mesaieed, Al Khor and Dukhan and Zikreet areas and rendered 209 consular services to the Indian nationals.

Themed “Joint Symposium on Research Activities in Qatar”, the event aimed to explore research collaboration opportunities between CENG, HBKU and TAMUQ and to agree on one systematic plan of the institutions’ joint research projects.

A perfume shop at the Souq Al Wakrah. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

A textile shop at the Souq Al Wakrah. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula


The Peninsula

The Minister of Munici-p a l i t y a n d Environment, H E Muhamed bin Abdul-lah Al Rumaihi has

launched Qatar Green Building Council’s (QGBC) Qatar Sustain-ability Week (QSW) 2017.

QSW is a week-long event held under the patronage of H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, taking place from October 28 to Novem-ber 4.

The opening of QSW 2017 included the start of one of the week’s most prominent events: the third edition of the Qatar Green Building Conference, held

under the patronage of H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice-Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation, at the Qatar National Convention Cen-tre (QNCC).

In his opening speech, The Minister of Municipality and Environment, H E Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi said that Qatar, under the wise leadership

of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is keen to achieve Qatar’s development vision to become an economic model based on knowledge.

“Preserving the natural envi-ronment for future generations requires radical solutions to the great challenge of developing a

new economic model that does not depend on oil and gas-based industries and ensures sustain-ability for future generations,” HE Al Rumaihi added.

HE the Minister stated that Qatar has a variety of natural resources, but these resources are limited and the current rate of consumption is not sustaina-ble, noting that each nation’s

survival and growth depends, directly or indirectly, on the con-servation of its resources and environment in a sustainable manner.

His Excellency further pointed that Qatar National Vision 2030 is a future strategy for development and an essen-

tial component of sustainability, as it aims to expedite the devel-opment of the State of Qatar by balancing economic growth with human and natural resources.

“Environmental develop-ment is one of the four main pillars of this vision and it defines the way to achieve balance between development needs and environmental protection, and

that the realization of the vision of Qatar is the responsibility of the all the categories and sectors of the Qatari society,” said the Minister.

He added that the need to develop institutional capacities and support the partnership between the public and private sectors to be able to meet the current needs without compro-mising the ability of future generations to meet their needs as well.

Al Rumaihi also stressed that sustainability is a point of con-cern for all in Qatar, and the government has a prominent role in promoting sustainability through systems, policies and economic incentives, emphasiz-ing the safety of the environment using the latest technologies, pro-grams, plans and researches as well as supporting others in terms of sustainability awareness in local society.

He added that QGBC’s organ-izing of Qatar Sustainability Week is vital and important as a unique platform that enhances the vision of sustainability at home and brings together the diverse community of sustaina-bility in the public and private sectors and provides an ideal opportunity for the people of Qatar to learn more about initi-atives and efforts for providing a sustainable and healthy society.

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment is keen to

achieve sustainable development that preserves natural resources and develop them for future gen-erations by assessing the environmental impacts of projects and achieving the objec-tives of the environmental sustainability system by encour-aging the expansion of green buildings, HE the Minister explained.

The success of sustainable development depends mainly on the private sector as well as the government and society, HE the Minister said pointing to the importance of environmental responsibility and the sustaina-ble use of natural resources and the balance between meeting the immediate needs and the requirements of preserving the environment and to absorb the shift in demand for consumer goods, which is a key element in the positive change phase.

The conference brings together industry leaders and sustainability experts to address and showcase their innovative solutions to Qatar’s and the region’s most pressing environ-mental challenges. The conference will run from Octo-ber 29-30, and will feature a range of sessions covering three inclusive themes: ‘Future Sus-tainable Cities’, ‘Green Business is Good Business’, and ‘Sustain-ability as a Lifestyle’.

QSW is designed to actively engage Qatar’s public and pri-vate sector organizations in a

wide range of sustainability-ori-ented activities. The event aims to foster a culture of sustainabil-ity among residents and visitors, as well as to promote engage-ment from members of the community. This is in line with ultimately achieving the global sustainability goals outlined in Qatar National Vision 2030.

Mohammed Abdulaziz Al Naimi, Chief Operations Officer, QF, said: “Qatar Foundation has always placed sustainability firmly at the forefront of its agenda. Engineer Meshal Al Shamari, Director, QGBC, said: “The effectiveness of Qatar Sus-tainability Week 2017 is determined by the active partic-ipation of the various partners from both the private and pub-lic sectors. QSW 2017 has more than 70 partners and 150 events.”

“This initiative plays a cru-cial role in raising awareness among the wider community, while showcasing the incredible milestones Qatar has reached in the areas of sustainability and green buildings. We’re honored to have the backing of all the sup-porting partners and look forward to welcoming Qatar’s residents to the variety of events taking place throughout the week.” QSW 2017 will host a number of activities, including a bridge-building competition, a photography competition, and a beach and desert clean-up, as well as the renowned Qatar Sus-tainability Awards.

MME launches Qatar Sustainability Week

H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice-Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation (fourth left) with H E Abdullah bin hamad Al Attiyah, (second left), Chairman of Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development; H E Muhamed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi, Minister of Municipality and Environment (centre); at the exhibition of Qatar Sustainability Week and Conference at QNCC yesterday. Pics: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

In his opening speech, The Minister of Municipality and Environment, H E Mohamed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi said that Qatar, under the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is keen to achieve development vision to become an economic model based on knowledge.

The Peninsula

The Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Develop-

ment yesterday launched a new book titled ‘Sustainable Development and Energy Nexus’ at the Green Buildings Conference.

The book entitled ‘Sustainable Devel-opment and Energy Nexus’ was produced by The Al-Attiyah Foundation to serve as a concise reference tool for policy mak-ers, industry practitioners, academia and anyone interested in the global sustaina-bility agenda. In addition, the book will be a good educational and public aware-ness tool.

Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Chairman of The Al-Attiyah Foundation, said in his foreword: ‘this publication is a demonstration of the commitment of the Foundation to its vision to provide robust and practical knowledge and insights on global energy and sustainable develop-ment topics’. As a strategic partner of the Green Building’s Conference, Al-Attiyah, took part in a keynote panel session. He used the opportunity to share insights from the book which specifically exam-ines the role of the energy industry in the global pursuit of sustainable development through the lens of the United Nations Sus-tainable Development Goals (SDGs). The connection between a nation’s ability to

achieve each of the seventeen sustaina-ble development goals and their access to sustainable energy is explored in some detail.

In particular, the book reflects upon the role of energy in relation to the fol-lowing five themes: Theme One, Energy and Human Welfare; Theme Two, Energy and Environmental Concerns; Theme Three, Energy and Socio-Economic Devel-opment; Theme Four, Energy and Ethical Issues and Principals; and Theme Five, Partnerships for Development. In conclu-sion, the world has fewer than fifteen years to achieve its bold and all-inclusive agenda to close the human development gap.

Oil and gas exploration and produc-tion are often the pioneer economic activities in relatively underdeveloped areas, and can lead to further economic and social progress or activities including migration, spontaneous settlement, agri-cultural activities and infrastructure development.

The challenge to society in the com-ing years will be to ensure continued development to help the billions of peo-ple now in poverty, while at the same time managing the role of oil and gas in order to mitigate any negative impact on the environment and valuable ecosystems on which people depend. The book can be downloaded from the Foundation’s web-site: www.abhafoundation.org

‘Sustainable Development and Energy Nexus’ launched

H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah (second left), Chairman of Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development; Ibrahim Mohamed Jaidah (left), GCEO of Arab Engineering Bureau and QGBC board member; Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, President Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa); Eng. Eissa bin Mohammed Al Mohammed Al Mohannadi, Chairman, Qatar Green Building Council; Dafer Mustafa hallawa, CEO, Tadmur Holding Group; and Eng. Abdulla Al Mehshadi, CEO of Msheireb Properties; during a session of Qatar Sustainability week and Conference at QNCC yesterday.

The Peninsula

Indonesian Ambassador to Qatar, Muhammad Basri Sidehabi praises

Indonesian cultural delega-tion participating in Cultural Diversity Festival held in Katara amphithea-tre. The festival is held by Cultural Village Founda-tion-Katara in collaboration with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) bureau in Doha. The event kicked off from 4 October until 11 Novem-ber 2017. While Indonesia cultural performances showed on 27 and 28 Octo-ber 2017.

The envoy supports the festival which promotes world culture with the par-ticipation of over 27 countries from all over the world who showcase their traditions and heritage in Katara which is a promi-nent cultural edifice in the Middle East

According to Ambassa-dor Sidehabi, cultural performance is an effective effort to promote tourism in Qatar. “The festival is part of multi-track diplo-macy to enhance RI-Qatar

relations especially since the visit of Emir Qatar, H.H. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to Indonesia on 17-18 October 2017”, said the former Indonesian member of Parliament.

A coordinator of Indo-nesian delegates, Amanah Asri, said the Festival is the most valuable moment for every country to partici-pate. ““This festival is a great opportunity to show our culture, our identity of our beautiful country,” said the woman who is very active in promoting Indo-nesian culture aboard. to p r o m o t e c u l t u r a l diversity.

The Indonesian per-formance begins with

Kincir-kincir dance from Betawi. Various other Nusantara dances continue to flow, among others Tor-tor from North Sumatra, Piring from West Sumatara, Lancang Kuning from Riau, Singge Pemunten from Lampung, Pendet Bali, Angin Memiri from Sulawesi, Sajojo from Papua and closed with Geb-yar-Gebyar which have a standing ovation from audi-ences. The cultural dances was performed by 20 dancer of Nona Asri group dance which showcases a variety of traditional clothes with striking colors and colorful traditional clothes

Indonesia Disapora dance group in Qatar, Puspa

Kinarya (PQ) who often won various awards of International art and cul-tural festival in Qatar also participate in the event. “The audience is enthusi-astic,” said Chairman of the Dharma Wanita Persatuan (DWP) of the Indonesian Embassy in Doha, Andi Una who attended the festival.

According to the Indo-nesian Embassy’s Minister Counsellor Boy Dharma-wan, the festival is aimed not only to showcase Indo-nesian culture but also to promote its tourism amongst the Qatari and expatriates. Indonesia can proudly claim to have some of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.

Indonesia participates at Katara fest

Indonesian cultural delegation.


The Peninsula

Bedaya (Center for Entrepre-neurship and Career Development) recently held

a breast cancer awareness dis-cussion in collaboration with well-known TV anchor and Ambassador of Qatar Cancer Society Asmaa Al Hammadi at Market Café.

The discussion was held under the title “Prevention is a small step that goes a Long way,” which was moderated by Al Hammadi, Asma Bu Jassoom spoke about her journey with the disease and the methods of treat-ment that were followed to fight this battle. Her success encour-aged her to share her experience with the attending ladies, spread the spirit of hope, and create awareness about the importance of early examination and screen-ing to avoid the disease.

During the discussion, the “Victorious” added that the sup-port of family and friends is of paramount importance, as they are the ones who raise the morale of those infected with this disease. She said: “The availability of ther-apy and an excellent medical team helped her fight and over-come breast cancer.”

“Despite the health and psy-chological state I experienced, I found another aspect of the dis-ease and that was the passion and compassion that I felt from my family and friends,” Bu Jassoom added. She informed the gather-ing that with psychological support, optimism and following the guidance of the specialized medical team, the treatment of this disease has become possible and to lead a natural life after recovery.

The survivor concluded her discussion by talking about her

experience with breast cancer, her treatment trips and the fam-ily support during all the stages of her recovery. “The experience has taught me to look at life in a better perspective and given me the understanding of life in a deeper meaning,” she said.

During the discussion, Reem Al Suwaidi, General-Manager of Bedaya Center, said,” Many breast cancer awareness cam-paigns are held globally, especially in October to push the community for screening and examination for early detection of the disease and ways to pre-vent it. We therefore, held a discussion session on this sub-ject due to its importance and our keenness to contribute in spreading and raising awareness among the community about breast cancer and to support the efforts led by our wise govern-ment in this regard.”

Bedaya organises breast cancer awareness talk

Officials and other participants during the discussion.

The Peninsula

Qatar Airways has r e s p o n d e d t o increased customer demand for services to Thailand by launching

direct flights to Pattaya, the air-line’s fifth route to the country.

The new four-times-a-week service, which starts on 28 Jan-uary 2018, is in addition to the airline’s existing flights to Bang-kok, Krabi, Phuket and soon to be launched, Chiang Mai.

The launch of the service to historic Chiang Mai is scheduled to start on December 12, 2017.

Located on the popular southeast coast of Thailand, Pat-taya and nearby Rayong are major destinations for sun-seek-ers looking to soak up the local culture or relax and bask on one of the areas extensive beaches. Holiday-makers on the route are

expected to come from Qatar Airways’ extensive network of destinations across Europe and the Middle East.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of our newest route to Pattaya in Thailand, our fifth route to one of Southeast Asia’s most popular destinations. Thai-land is continuing to grow in popularity with our passengers, who love travelling to this beau-tiful country to enjoy its incredible culture, cuisine and natural scenery.

“Qatar Airways is commit-ted to responding to customer demand by flying our passengers where they want to go and pro-viding them with our unrivalled five-star service to destinations around the world.”

Qatar Airways will operate a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with 22

seats in Business Class and 232 seats in Economy Class on flights between Doha and U-Tapao Rayong Pattaya International

Airport, on its winter schedule. It will be the first five-star Mid-dle East airline to offer flights to and from Pattaya.

Qatar Airways’ new serv-ice to Pattaya will help to reinforce the strong ties between Qatar and Thailand. Qatar Airways currently oper-ates f l ights to three destinations in Thailand, with services 35 times a week to Bangkok, 14 times a week to Phuket and daily to Krabi com-mencing 1 December 2017. From 12 December 2017, Qatar Airways will also fly four times a week to Chiang Mai, which will take the airline’s weekly frequency to 60 flights a week.

Qatar Airways currently holds the title of ‘Airline of The Year’ as awarded by the prestig-ious 2017 Skytrax World Airline Awards. In addition to being voted Best Airline by travellers from around the world, Qatar’s national carrier also won a raft of other major awards at the cer-emony, including ‘Best Airline in

the Middle East,’ ‘World’s Best Business Class’ and ‘World’s Best First Class Airline Lounge.’

Qatar Airways operates a modern fleet of more than 200 aircraft to a network of more than 150 key business and lei-sure destinations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America. The airline is launch-ing a host of exciting new destinations planned for the remainder of this year and 2018, including Canberra, Australia; St Petersburg, Russia and Cardiff, U.K, to name just a few.

Flight Schedules: Doha (DOH) to Pattaya (UTP) QR828 departs 20:05 arrives 06:30 (next day) - Monday, Wednesday, Fri-day and Sunday

Pattaya (UTP) to Doha (DOH) QR829 departs 07:50 arrives 11:40 - Monday, Tuesday, Thurs-day and Saturday

Qatar Airways launches direct flights to Pattaya

The Peninsula

Qatar Airways has given match tickets to two lucky football fans to join in the celebrations and watch the final of

the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 football tournament in Kolkata, India.

The fortunate winners won the tickets as part of a social media contest held by Qatar Air-ways, the Official Airline of FIFA. They were selected from thou-sands of spectators who submitted pictures using the #KolkataTogether hashtag to enter the contest.

Qatar Airways cabin crew participated in the awards

ceremony by presenting medals to players from the England team, after they won first place in the tournament in a sensa-tional performance against Spain. England beat Spain with a 5-2 win in the thrilling final match before a capacity crowd of more than 66,000 people at Kolkata’s Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan stadium.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “This final game has capped a magnificent tournament for all of those who took part in the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017. We are delighted to be the Offi-cial Airline Partner of FIFA and join in the celebrations with thousands of dedicated football

fans. “As a nation, we place great importance on sports as a means of bringing people together. We at Qatar Airways are excited to take part in this tournament to help inspire and nurture the next generation of young football players.”

FIFA Director Marketing Services, Jean-François Pathy, said: “The support of our Official Partners is vital to the success of all our FIFA events. In that respect, Qatar Airways has done a tremendous job in building excitement around the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 through #KolkataTogether. The use of such innovative digital cam-paigns creates positive engagement with our fans and

contributes to promoting foot-ball not only in India but also around the world.”

Twenty-four national teams competed for the top trophy, tak-ing part in 52 matches over 23 days in six different Indian cit-ies: Mumbai, Delhi, Goa, Kochi, Kolkata and Guwahati. This year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup was the first-ever FIFA tournament to take place in India.

Qatar Airways flies more than one hundred times a week between Doha and 13 destina-tions in India, including Delhi, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozhikode, Goa, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Amritsar.

QA contest: Two fans get FIFA U-17 Cup tickets

Qatar Airways cabin crew during the ceremony.

People hold a giant Turkish flag as they parade during the celebrations for the 94th anniversary of Republic Day in Istanbul, yesterday.

08 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017MIDDLE EAST

Erbil

Reuters

Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani (pictured ) informed the region’s par-liament yesterday that he would give up his position

as president on November 1, after an independence referen-dum he championed backfired and triggered a regional crisis.

Barzani, who has cam-paigned for Kurdish self-determination for nearly four decades, asked parliament in a letter to take measures to fill the resulting power vacuum. “I refuse to continue in the posi-tion of president of the region after November 1,” said the let-ter, which was published by his Kurdistan Democratic Party. “I will continue serving Kurdistan as a Peshmerga”, or Kurdish fighter.

The region’s parliament met in the Kurdish capital Erbil on Sunday to discuss the letter, in which Barzani said his presiden-tial powers should be divided between the government, par-liament and judiciary. It was not clear whether lawmakers needed to vote to accept his deci-sion to step down. A Kurdish official had told Reuters on Sat-urday that Barzani had decided to hand over the presidency without waiting for elections that had been set for Nov. 1 but which have now been delayed by eight months.

The region, which had enjoyed unprecedented auton-omy for years, has been in turmoil since the independence referendum a month ago prompted military and economic retaliation from Iraq’s central

government in Baghdad.Barzani has also been criti-

cised by Kurdish opponents for the loss of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, considered by many Kurds to be their spiritual home.

Barzani’s resignation could help facilitate a reconciliation between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraq’s central government, whose retaliatory measures since the referendum have transformed the balance of power in the north.

Barzani has led the KRG since it was established in 2005. His second term expired in 2013 but was extended without

elections being held as Islamic State militants swept across vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

U.S.-backed Iraqi govern-ment forces, Iranian-backed paramilitaries and Kurdish fight-ers fought alongside each other to defeat Islamic State but the alliance has faltered since the militants were largely defeated in the country.

After the Kurdish vote deliv-ered an overwhelming yes for independence, Iraqi troops were ordered by the country’s prime minister Haider al-Abadi to take control of areas claimed by both Baghdad and the KRG.

Abadi also wants to take

control of the border crossings between the Kurdish region and Turkey, Iran and Syria, includ-ing one in the Fish-Khabur area through which an oil export pipeline crosses into Turkey, car-rying Iraqi and Kurdish crude oil.

Violent clashes there and south of Erbil as the Peshmerga fought back offensives have left dozens of casualties on both sides.

The fall of Kirkuk—a multi-ethnic city which lies outside the KRG’s official boundaries—to Iraqi forces on Oct. 16 was a major symbolic and financial blow to the Kurds’ independence drive because it halved the region’s oil export revenue.

Iraqi forces and the Pesh-merga started a second round of talks on Sunday to resolve a con-flict over control of the Kurdistan region’s border crossings, Iraqi state TV said.

A first round was held on Fri-day and Saturday, with Abadi ordering a 24-hour suspension on Friday of military operations against Kurdish forces.

He demanded on Thursday that the Kurds declare their ref-erendum void, rejecting the KRG offer to suspend its independ-ence push to resolve a crisis through talks, saying in a state-ment: “We won’t accept anything but its cancellation and the respect of the constitution.”

Kurdish leader Barzani announces resignationTunisia

Anatolia

A terrorist group affili-ated with Al Qaeda was captured late Saturday,

according to interior minis-try’s statement.

“Four terrorists, between the ages of 27 and 32, linked to Al Qaeda were busted in the capital,” the statement said.

The Al Qaeda linked “Uqba Ibn Nafi” terrorist group was first known for their attacks on Chaambi Mountains near the Algerian border, in 2012. The attack killed scores of Tunisian army personnel and police.

Later they targeted secu-rity forces in the west of the country in the years of 2013 and 2014.

Al Qaeda linked terrorist group busted in Tunisia

Beirut

AFP

Three Lebanese nation-als kidnapped in the Iraqi capital Baghdad

last week have been freed and were expected to arrive in Beirut later yesterday, Leb-anon’s interior ministry said.

The three men, named as Imad Al Khatib, Nader Hma-deh and George Batrouni, were kidnapped on arrival in Baghdad on October 22.

A statement from the interior ministry said yester-day the men were freed in an operation coordinated between Lebanese and Iraqi authorities.

It said the men had been kidnapped by a “gang”, add-ing that one kidnapper had been killed in the rescue operation and others arrested.

The statement said addi-tional kidnappers were still being pursued, without spec-ifying the suspected motives for the abduction.

Kidnappings for ransom or for sectarian or political reasons were rife in Iraq fol-lowing the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, but they became less common from 2015 onwards.

Three Lebanese kidnapped in Iraq freed: Ministry

MPs are seen at the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Parliament during a session, held to discuss end of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government’s (IKRG) President Masoud Barzani’s term of the office in Erbil, yesterday.

“I refuse to continue in the position of president of the region after November 1,” said the letter, which was published by his Kurdistan Democratic Party. “I will continue serving Kurdistan as a Peshmerga”, or Kurdish fighter.

Dubai

Reuters

A fire broke out on a gas exploration rig in southwestern Iran yes-

terday, killing at least two people, the Oil Ministry said.

“Efforts to contain and extinguish the blaze are con-tinuing at the Rag Sefid field. I can only confirm two deaths,” ministry spokesman Kasra Nouri said on televi-sion.The impact of the fire on the rig’s exploration work was not immediately clear.

On Friday, a fire at an oil refinery south of the capital Tehran killed at least six workers.

Qaryatayn

Reuters

Twenty six Syrian hostages who escaped from their Islamic State captors

received an emotional home-coming yesterday in the central province of Homs, witnesses and officials said.

They were among at least 70 people abducted and taken by fleeing Islamic State mili-tants to a secret location in the desert east of the town of al-Qaryatayn on Oct. 21 when the Syrian army and pro-govern-ment militias regained control of the town.

The others are still missing, according to local officials, who have not disclosed the identi-ties of any of the hostages.

Al-Qaryatayn lies nearly 300 kilometres (190 miles) west of Deir al-Zor city, the current focus of the Syrian govern-ment’s offensive, with Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, against Islamic State.

About 200 people turned out in al-Qaryatayn on Sunday to welcome home the return-ing hostages, according to Reuters reporters who visited the war-scarred town during a trip organised by the Syrian authorities. Parents wept as they embraced returning sons

while other relatives and local residents threw sweets and sugar in the air in celebration.

“Thank God for your return,” said an elderly man as he embraced a young man. Most in the crowd declined to be interviewed.

Syrian authorities said jihadists had taken revenge after being forced out after three weeks of fighting around the outskirts of al-Qaryatayn, by slaughtering scores of the city’s inhabitants.

A senior local official said the hostages escaped after they got past an Iraqi jihadist mili-tant while he took a nap and seized his gun and shot him dead.

But the joy surrounding the hostages’ return was still over-shadowed by executions witnessed in the town in the past few weeks when militants rounded up local officials and members of the security forces, police and members of their families and executed them in broad daylight, according to officials. “We forgot our joy when thinking of the nightmare that we went through,” Found Ghosn, a local government offi-cial told Reuters TV, saying city officials had identified at least 70 out of 130 people slain dur-ing the revenge killings.

Syrian hostages who escaped IS receive rapturous homecoming

Fire at Iran gas rig kills at least two workers: Ministry

Ankara

Anatolia

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the winners of the country’s

2017 Presidential Culture and Grand Awards during a recep-tion to mark the anniversary of the Republic Day of Turkey at the presidential complex on Sunday.

Ilber Ortayli, a veteran Turkish historian, was named

as winner of this year’s social sciences award. Goksel Bakta-gir, a well-known musician, will get the music award.

Director Yavuz Turgul will receive the prize for cinema, Erdogan said.

Traditional arts award was announced for Ali Toy, “who produces work of arts with a unique synthesis of calligra-phy and architectural design,” the president said.

Selahattin Kara, known for

his Istanbul-focused painting, is the winner of the painting prize. Late Nurettin Topcu, an academic and writer, will be given the Vefa (Loyalty) award.

The presidential culture and arts awards are annual prizes that have been awarded by Turkish presidents since 1995.

This year’s Presidential Culture and Grand Awards cer-emony will be held later in this year, Erdogan said.

Erdogan announces winners of presidential awards

Jerusalem

Anatolia

Palestinian Prime Minister R a m i H a m d a l l a h demanded yesterday that

Britain apologise for the dec-laration promising a Jewish

state in historical Palestine, ahead of its 100-year anniver-sary in the coming week.

Hamdallah said the Balfour declaration, made by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Bal-four while Palestine was a British protectorate, had been

a “historical injustice” against the Palestinian people.

He also said Britain should not be celebrating the declara-tion, in reference to a dinner in London that will be attended by Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu and his

British counterpart Theresa May to mark the declaration’s importance in the creation of Israel in 1948.

“[The celebration] is a chal-lenge to the international public opinion, which supports our national cause,” said

Hamdallah, who was speaking at the opening of new public school in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Palestinian President Mah-moud Abbas and members of his government have previ-ously claimed they are

prepared to sue the British gov-ernment for the Balfour declaration, on the grounds it led to the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, though they have not made any concrete steps towards doing so.

Palestinian PM demands British apology for Balfour

Turkey marks 94th Republic Day

09MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 MIDDLE EAST

A blue-and-yellow macaw waves the Jordanian flag during a Pet Bird exhibition in the Jordanian capital Amman, yesterday.

Baghdad

Reuters

Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters yester-day started a second round of talks to resolve a conflict over control of the Kurdis-

tan region’s border crossings, Iraqi state TV said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi ordered a 24-hour sus-pension of military operations against Kurdish forces in north-ern Iraq. The two sides held a first round of talks on Friday and Saturday.

Abadi said the talks are meant to prepare for the peace-ful deployment of Iraqi troops at the border crossings with Tur-key, Iran and Syria in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Clashes broke out between the two sides after Iraqi forces captured the oil-rich city of Kirkuk from the Peshmerga, in a surprise offensive ordered by Abadi after the Kurds held an independence referendum in northern Iraq on September 25.

Kirkuk is part of so-called disputed areas, claimed by both the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Regional Govern-

ment (KRG) in northern Iraq.“The second round of talks

about deploying federal troops in the disputed areas has started,” State TV said, giving no further details.

Abadi wants to take control of the disputed areas and the border crossings, including one in the Fish-Khabur area through which an oil export pipeline crosses into Turkey, carrying Iraqi and Kurdish crude oil.

The KRG on Wednesday pro-posed an immediate ceasefire, a suspension of the referendum result and “starting an open dia-logue with the federal government based on the Iraqi constitution” - a call rejected by Baghdad.

US-backed Iraqi government forces, Iranian-backed paramil-itaries and Kurdish fighters fought alongside each other to

defeat Islamic State, also called ISIS, but the alliance has faltered with the militants largely defeated in the country.

The multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the KRG’s official boundaries, fell to Iraqi forces without much resist-ance on October 16. But the Peshmerga began to fight back as they withdrew closer to the core of the Kurdish region.

The fall of Kirkuk, consid-ered by many Kurds the heart of their fatherland, was a major symbolic and financial blow to the Kurdish drive for independ-ence championed by KRG President Masoud Barzani, since it halved the region’s oil export revenue. The most violent clashes happened in the north-western corner as the Peshmerga fought back offensives toward Fish-Khabur and south of their

capital, Erbil, leaving dozens of casualties on both sides.

Speaking in Geneva on Thursday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he was “dis-appointed that the parties have been unable to reach an entirely

peaceful resolution” and that he had encouraged Abadi to accept the KRG “overtures for talks on the basis of the Iraqi constitu-tion”. Abadi demanded on Thursday that the Kurds declare their referendum void, rejecting

the KRG offer to suspend its independence push to resolve a crisis through talks. “We won’t accept anything but its cancel-lation and the respect of the constitution,” he said in a state-ment during a visit to Tehran.

Iraqi forces & Kurdish Peshmerga start new talks

Dust clouds swirling around an Iraqi security forces' rocket launcher after firing against Kurdish Peshmerga positions in the area of Faysh Khabur in the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi ordered a 24-hour suspension of military operations against Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. The two sides held a first round of talks on Friday and Saturday.

Amman

Reuters

The Syrian Army, supported by Russian jets and Ira-nian-backed militias,

escalated bombing yesterday of areas of the Syrian city of Deir Al Zor still held by Islamic State.

Former residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were heavy aerial strikes on eastern Syria’s largest city as troops pushed towards the Hay l Umal area, which overlooks some of the remaining militant-held neigh-bourhoods where an estimated 1,500 civilians are trapped.

The Syrian army has gradu-ally tightened the noose around the militants after it opened a land route into the city in Sep-tember with the help of Russian air strikes and Iran-backed mili-tias, breaking a siege that had lasted nearly three years.

“The situation is cata-strophic, there are families under the rubble and others who fled have no shelter,” said Sheikh Awad al Hajr, a tribal leader, referring to the plight of those remaining inside the city and in cities, towns and farms in the fertile strip along the Euphrates bordering Iraq.

Fighting and relentless air strikes in Deir al-Zor province,

the last stronghold of the Islamic State, have prompted tens of thousands of civilians to flee, former residents and aid work-ers say.

Relatives of some civilians and Syrian opposition figures accuse the Russian army of bombing boats and dinghies car-rying families fleeing the western

banks of the Euphrates. Moscow denies it targets civilians in its military operations in Syria and says it hits only militant hideouts and facilities.

Russia has thrown its mili-tary weight behind the Syrian army campaign to regain the strategic oil-rich province which has become the focus of Syria’s

more than six-year long civil war. They are racing with U.S- backed forces to grab territory from Islamic State.

While the Syrian army appeared to make more gains inside Deir al-Zor city, the mili-tants made a surprise offensive in the last 24 hours that pushed back pro-government and

Iranian-backed militias from Albu Kamal, the last border post on the Syrian Iraqi border still in militant hands.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and former resi-dents said the jihadists recaptured the strategic towns of al Qwaira and Makhan on Sat-urday in several deadly ambushes that inflicted heavy casualties on pro-government and Iranian Shi’ite militias.

The latest jihadist assault pushed back the army to the city of Mayadeen, further north along the Euphrates river that the mil-itants lost earlier this month.

“The Islamic State was able to push back the regime and its Iranian-backed militias to the heart of the city of Mayadeen,” said Amer Huweidi, an activist from the city in touch with locals and residents.

Mayadeen is a strategic city that has been a base for the mil-itants after they were driven out of their de facto Syrian capital in Raqqa city.

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State is waging a sepa-rate campaign against the group in Deir al-Zor, focused on areas to the east of the Euphrates River which bisects the province.

The coalition secured the Omar oilfield, Syria’s largest oil-field, this month.

Syrian army & allies step up attacks in Deir Al Zor Shelling kills pro-opposition journalist

Syrian forces stand guard in the desert town of Al Qaryatain, yesterday, after troops retook it from Islamic State (IS) group fighters.

Beirut

AFP

A Syrian journalist work-ing for pro-opposition television was killed by

regime shelling in Damascus province yesterday, his net-work and an NGO reported.

Qays Al Qadi, who was in his 20s, worked for Al-Jisr, an Istanbul-based satellite chan-nel that was founded in 2015 and opposes the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

A picture taken by a pho-tographer who contributes to AFP showed a young man lying on the ground, his face bloodied and a press card around his neck. The channel said on its Facebook page that Qadi had been killed “in bombing by the Assad regime” on Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area east of Damascus.

Qadi was Al-Jisr’s “bureau chief” in the area, which pro-government forces have targeted heavily for a week despite it being designated a “de-escalation zone”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, also said the reporter was killed in the bombardment of Eastern Ghouta along with 10 other civilians.

Qadi’s death comes three weeks after a cameraman working for Syrian state tel-evision was killed when a landmine planted by the Islamic State group exploded in the central province of Homs.

Reporters Without Bor-ders (RSF) said in March that 211 journalists and citizen journalists had been killed in six years of war in Syria.

A Syrian government offi-cial says Islamic State militants have released 25 apparent hostages as they retreated from a town in the central Homs province.

Homs Governor Talal Barazi tells The Associated Press yesterday there are another 19 people originally from Qaryatayn still held by IS. Government forces and allied troops regained control of Qaryatayn last week, chas-ing the militants out after they were held for three weeks. The militants left a trail of blood behind them, killing at least 70 residents.

Tehran

AFP

Iranian authorities yesterday prevented an “illegal gath-ering” at the tomb of ancient

Persian king Cyrus the Great and arrested a number of sus-pects, local media reported.

The Mizanonline news website said the intelligence ministry had identified mem-b e r s o f “ a counter-revolutionary group which had wanted to organise an illegal gathering under the pretext of celebrating Cyrus”.

Authorities on Saturday cut the main highway between the cities of Shiraz and Esfahan, which leads to an archaeolog-ical site where the tomb is believed to be located.

They said the closure was for road work. Semi-official

ISNA news agency reported that the head of the elite Revolution-ary Guard, General Hashem Ghiassi, had issued a warning S a t u r d a y t o t h e “counter-revolutionaries”.

Authorities in Iran last October arrested several organ-isers of a rally at the same site.

Footage posted on social media showed participants chanting for freedom of expres-sion, along with nationalistic and anti-Arab slogans.

Authorities later said they had arrested a number of rally organisers “for having violated norms and chanting slogans against the values” of the Islamic republic of Iran.

Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC and ruled over ancient Persia for about 30 years.

Iran blocks ‘illegal’ rally at ancient king’s tomb

Feathered patriot

10 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 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

[email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

[email protected]

The punditry world has never been as united as it is today: virtually everyone agrees that the independ-ence referendum that was organised on September 25 in Iraqi

Kurdistan was an unmitigated disaster. There is also a consensus on what factors caused Kurdistan Regional President Masoud Bar-zani to miscalculate so badly, so there is little point recounting those arguments here.

The short-term consequences of the crisis also appear to be fairly obvious. Federal authorities, with associated paramilitary forces, will reassert its authority over most if not all of the disputed territories, strategic oil fields, and border points, including airports.

Large population centres within the Kurdistan Region proper are unlikely to be directly impacted, but they will be made to feel the economic consequences of the reas-sertion of federal control.

Meanwhile, Kurdish politics have already completely fractured, with the regional president and his party losing virtu-ally all claim to legitimacy (having lost legal legitimacy a long time ago) while a series of actors continue blaming each other for the disaster.

The real question is how Baghdad and Erbil can resolve their dispute peacefully and in a sustainable manner. A long-term resolu-tion of the dispute between the two sides will depend on a number of factors, very few of which are likely to materialise without mas-sive intervention from the international community, the likes of which have only rarely been successful in the past, and cer-tainly not in Iraq.

Identifying a new form of federalismThe first step towards resolution is for

both parties to properly define their inter-ests, which is far easier said than done. Both sides will need considerable time and effort to deflate their egos and coalesce around interests that can reasonably be satisfied. Baghdad’s current sense of hubris, and the chauvinistic taunting that has been taking place on the airwaves and the halls of gov-ernment increase the likelihood that the federal government will present maximalist demands. On the other hand, Erbil will have serious trouble getting used to its reduced clout after 14 years of an oversized role in Iraqi internal politics.

A serious constitutional reform effort will have to follow, mainly for the purpose of identifying a new form of federalism that everyone can live with. This will have to involve a fair and transparent revenue shar-ing mechanism, the establishment of a fair and impartial dispute resolution mechanism that both sides can rely on, etc. That process on its own is likely to take years, and that assumes that both parties are willing to go through the exercise, which is far from cer-tain at this point.

What next for Iraq after the failed Kurdish referendum?Zaid Al Ali Al Jazeera

Based on past experience, there is a serious risk that none of these objec-tives will be met, and that the current crisis will be allowed to simmer for years before finally boiling over once again. Since 2005, when the current constitution was adopted, Baghdad has tried and failed to revise the text on a number of occasions, including in far happier and more stable times. It has also failed to make any serious progress in establishing the institutions that it is theoretically obligated to establish by the Constitution, including the upper chamber of parliament and a whole slew of others.

Moving from crisis to crisisIn the current environment, left to

its own devices, Baghdad will live day by day, moving from crisis to crisis, rather than seeking a major resolution of its relationship with Erbil. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) is yet to be defeated; then there will be

parliamentary elections, which will be followed by the inevitable govern-ment formation crisis, which will then lead to a struggle for control over security policy and institutions. All of which means that any serious effort to resolve the crisis with Erbil will not appear on the radar for years.

The regional context will not help either, given how angry virtually all governments appear to be with Erbil. All of these countries will always priori-tise their own personal interests and relations with Baghdad over any sym-pathy or sense of loyalty they might have for the Kurds. That was made extremely clear by the way in which all regional airlines cancelled their flights to the Kurdistan Region’s airports at Baghdad’s request after the independ-ence referendum. Plus, a renewed anti-Kurdish chauvinism, fuelled by the Peshmerga’s embarrassing retreat from Kirkuk and other areas, will certainly not help.

Therefore, if there is to be a solution, it will have to come from the interna-tional community. If the United Nations and countries of goodwill wish to pre-vent the current seething tensions from exploding into a new conflict in the immediate or long term, they will have to invest significant resources, first to convince Baghdad that it has an interest in a long-term solution, and second to find one or several options that Bagh-dad, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah can live with. This will require a multi-pronged approach that will be as difficult to devise as it will be to implement.

It will require deploying massive goodwill, resources, patience, imagi-nation and determination, not all of which are in plentiful supply at the moment. While a successful outcome remains unlikely, it is not impossible, so perhaps the best approach for the rest of us is to cling to whatever hope we can muster.

The writer is an Iraqi lawyer who has pub-

lished widely on Iraq and on constitutional

law.

If there is to be a solution, it will have to come from the international community. If the United Nations and countries of goodwill wish to prevent the current seething tensions from exploding into a new conflict in the immediate or long term, they will have to invest significant resources, first to convince Baghdad that it has an interest in a long-term solution, and second to find one or several options that Baghdad, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah can live with.

ED ITOR IAL

Iraqi forces gather at their camp on the front line in the northwestern town of Fishkhabur, near the borders with Syria and Turkey.

A Sunday surge of protesters boisterously rallying against Catalonia’s bid for independence took the wind out of the sails of the so-called independence movement of the autonomous Spanish territory. The look

on sacked Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s face would have said it all. He has been defeated despite claiming victory in an unconstitutional referendum held on October 1 that voted for the wealthy region of 7.5 million to secede from Spain.

Hundreds of thousands of jubilant supporters of Spain poured onto the streets of Barcelona to demand a united nation and denounce the separatists’ bid to break up the country. An ocean of Spanish flags greeted the eye, a marked departure from the wave of Catalonia flags that have been beamed by media outlets over weeks now.

The show of support for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s move to fire Puigdemont and the provincial police chief, dissolve the Catalan Parliament and temporarily strip Catalonia of its autonomy speaks volumes about the farce that was played out in the name of a referendum in which a minority participated.

Catalonia, which produces a fifth of Spain’s economic output has its own language and culture. But so have many other regions within European states and even outside the continent. The European Union was conceived to be a suprastate and not one in which

member states struggle to hold back autonomous regions. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said it in so many words last week: “I would not like an EU that in 15 years consisted of 98 states.” Two days ago, he did not speak of the distant future: “I do not want a situation where, tomorrow, the European Union is made up of 95 different states.”

European Council President Donald Tusk asked Spain not to use the argument

of force against Catalonia, but to use the force of argument.

The demand for Catalan independence has been ignored inside Spain and decried across the world. Washington has sided with Rajoy in the battle to keep Spain united. Madrid has called for regional elections in Catalonia on December 1.

It is expected that Puigdemont’s designs to split the country along ethnic lines would be undermined during regional elections. Spaniards, including those from Catalonia, are likely to stand by Madrid in its attempt to rein in a wayward region prodded into a separatist frenzy by some selfish politicians.

The nation-state was conceived in modern times to enable societies and cultures to form sovereign groups. It is an institution designed to impart strength to social systems, not to weaken them. Scotland learnt it the hard way how inconvenient the propensity to secede can get.

Let Europe and the world hope that Spain remains united and is able to defeat fissiparous forces.

Viva Espana!

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I would deal with President Trump in the most righteous way, welcome him as an important leader. I would have to also listen to him, what he has to say.

Rodrigo DutertePhilippine President

Madrid is strong enough to take on separatist forces as the demand for Catalonian independence pushes it into a raging storm.

11MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 OPINION

high levels of repetitive strain injury from cutting open chickens that they can no longer close their fingers or hold their children’s hands. We work with hotel cleaners who when they complain of sexual assault are told to go back to the hotel room and apologise to the male guest. Such exploitation and such pain should have no place in our modern world.

Our world is not short of invention. New tech-nologies transform our world in ways we could never have imagined. The washing machine and piped water have given women back years of their lives. Mobile phones have opened up the world to billions.

Yet all too often, these new technologies of the 21st century are married to a capitalism which belongs in the 19th century

There’s a point in every struggle when momentum shifts behind you. Optimism becomes ambi-tion. I recall those moments in our resistance to overcome our

dictator in Uganda. I felt a perseverant optimism, as a young refugee, that got me through customs at Heathrow Air-port. In Beijing in 1995, I saw hope surge globally for women’s rights.

These days I am locked in the latest form of a lifelong struggle — the fight against global extreme inequality. I’m feeling increasingly optimistic. This week an ambitious new Commission on Global Economic Transformation cochaired by Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz launches. I am honoured to join it on behalf of Oxfam. The Commission heralds a new confidence about the rules and governance our global economy needs.

The world we confront sees eight men own the same wealth as the bottom 3.6bn people. Oxfam’s research has revealed that over the last 25 years, the top one percent have gained more income than the bottom 50 percent put together. Seven out of 10 people on our planet must survive on less than $7 a day.

The economic ideas of yesterday have bequeathed us an economy built for the one percent that is destroying our planet and destroying the future for our children.

It is women crushed at the bottom of a global economic heap, whose poverty powers the supposed success of globali-sation. They are more likely to be in the most dangerous, precarious, part-time employment, with lower wages. They are sexually harassed and assaulted. And they are the ones doing the cooking, the cleaning and the caring; free labour worth trillions — $10 trillion a year to the global economy according to McKinsey.

In the United States, Oxfam works with poultry workers who have such

The makings of a more human economy— designed to push risk onto those at the bottom and profit to those at the top. Technology is not at fault — it is what we make it. We can reimagine a “fourth industrial revolution” that serves all of humanity, not only the owners of capital and technology.

Business will help to take our economy in a different direction.

But it must be a different business to the kind got us into this crisis — that create decent jobs and pay living wages, restore the environment, pay their taxes and treat women and girls equally. The future of busi-ness lies in models that serve their workers, their suppliers and their communities, not just shareholders.

That’s a break from current global trends. Take the UK: according to the Bank of Eng-land’s Chief Economist, in the 1970s, only 10 percent of com-

pany profits were paid as dividends to shareholders. Today, it’s 70 percent.

Governments ultimately must have the confidence to cede no more space to the one percent driving this crisis in the name of the market.

Markets are a vital engine for prosperity and growth, but we cannot continue to accept the pretence that it should be the engine that steers the car, or decides the best direction to take. Markets need active management in the interests of everyone to fairly distribute the pro-ceeds of growth.

Far from rejecting globalisation, we need govern-ments to cooperate with each other — and put in place new muscular rules and governance on issues from taxa-tion to wages.

We all lose out when our governments compete to drive down poverty wages and enable the richest corpo-rations and individuals from avoiding hundreds of billions in taxes. Just think of the way international coop-eration (eventually) brokered progress to tackle climate change.

We must now forge an ambitious but common-sense design of an economy purposed to benefit the 99 percent, not the one percent. These are the makings of what Oxfam calls a more human economy. It is no less than the “global economic transformation” that is needed today.

The writer is the executive director of Oxfam International.

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The one virtue of a hard Brexit

Think of it like an invisible spider web, silently linking together people and places. Or perhaps it’s more of an invisi-ble road network, or an invisible electrical grid: a system that facilitates transactions,

that makes it possible to board an airplane in one country and arrive in another, to trade spare parts across borders, to benefit from international insur-ance agreements and accepted rates of exchange.

In truth, there is no metaphor that fully encap-sulates the rules, laws, arbitration procedures, mutually respected standards and other agree-ments that make up the international trading system in the 21st century. It is a thing unto itself. In the past, long-distance exchanges of goods and people usually took place within empires — the Roman Empire, the British Empire — or else depended on the implicit threat of force: If you don’t fulfill your contract, we’ll bomb your port or beat up your emissary.

In places that don’t have a legal framework for commerce and trade, that’s how things still work. In the early 1990s, I met a young “businessman” in Ukraine who explained to me that he only did deals

with cousins. His family members, fanned out across several cities,

swapped and bartered with one another because they trusted no one else. He was operating in a law-less space — a world most of us can’t remember. More than that: Most of us have grown so accus-tomed to the opposite, to a world of mutually agreed upon and peacefully enforced international laws, that we no longer appreciate it. Many of us have begun to dismiss the rules as “bureaucracy,” the people who write them as “needless experts,” the law-based order as a sinister plot.

So what if it all disappeared? This isn’t a theo-retical question. Some version of that cataclysm might take place in March 2019, if not earlier, in Britain. This weekend the complex set of British-European divorce agreements hit yet another in a long series of predictable snags. A minority, but a loud minority, in Britain now wants to drop the talks and go cold turkey: carry out a “hard Brexit,” a sudden withdrawal from four decades of jointly constructed European Union law, but without any transition deals to fill the gaps.

With apologies to my British friends — and to their children, whose lives would be profoundly affected — I am beginning to think that a really hard, really abrupt Brexit would serve a useful pur-pose for everybody else. You don’t appreciate the finely regulated, smoothly running, carefully nego-

tiated world we inhabit? Try living outside it.Among the things that could happen, if nothing

is done to prepare: All air travel between Britain and the EU could stop, because if Britain leaves the Open Skies agreement, which it joined as an EU member, airlines will not be able to land there. Trucks — filled with spare parts or fresh produce — would accumulate in long lines at the ports, since neither British nor European customs operations are prepared to apply the new tariffs that would appear as the free-trade agreements ceased.

Britain’s eight nuclear plants would slowly run out of fuel and parts, since the country would no longer be part of the Euratom regulatory body and cannot purchase nuclear equipment from outside it. British banks, among the world’s most interna-tional, would abruptly lose the right to serve European customers.

Further side effects could include shortages, as trade ground to a halt; inflation, especially in food, as imports dried up; and the loss of health insur-ance for Europeans living in Britain and Brits living in Europe. There will be at least 759 treaties to renegotiate, according to the Financial Times. These include dozens of trade agreements with non-European countries, from Canada to Chile, as well as treaties regulating such varied topics as

Prime Minister Theresa May addresses a news conference at the EU summit in Brussels, Belgium.

fishing rights and antitrust law. Each one requires teams of law-yers, meetings, time and negotiation.

Whatever happens, Britain will surely require vast new numbers of bureaucrats, people to work on the new arrangements and people to enforce them.

It will almost certainly turn out that Britain saved money by being part of Europe, because economies of scale made regula-tion much cheaper. It will almost certainly turn out that Britain was more powerful— with more sov-ereignty — when it was part of a large organisation with interna-tional clout. Many of the other parties to those 759 deals will seek to take advantage of an iso-lated country with far fewer allies. British consumers, workers and entrepreneurs will pay the price.

There are plenty of people who don’t believe or foresee this scenario. John Redwood, a former Tory minister, has been tweeting with great confidence about how easy it will be to trade outside Europe. Others have echoed him, and maybe they’re right. But if they aren’t — then the sight of Britain’s sudden banishment to a world where you are better off dealing with cousins will be a useful tonic for everybody else.

The author writes a biweekly foreign

affairs column for The Washington

Post.

Anne Applebaum The Washington Post

Whatever happens, Britain will surely require vast new numbers of bureaucrats, people to work on the new arrangements and people to enforce them. It will almost certainly turn out that Britain saved money by being part of Europe, because economies of scale made regulation much cheaper.

Winnie Byanyima Al Jazeera

Far from rejecting globalisation, we need governments to cooperate with each other — and put in place new muscular rules and governance on issues from taxation to wages.

A migrant worker carries scrap material she collected from debris of demolished buildings on the outskirts of Beijing, China.

12 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Moroccan police search for protesters from Al Hirak Al Shaabi movement in Al Hoceima in the troubled northern Rif region, yesterday. Al Hirak activists were marking the anniversary of the death of fishmonger Mouhcine Fikri, who was crushed to death a year ago as he reportedly tried to protest against a municipal worker seizing and destroying his wares.

Protest anniversary

Dubai

Reuters

Iran will continue to pro-duce missiles for its defence and does not con-sider that a violation of international accords,

President Hassan Rowhani said yesterday in a speech broadcast on state television.

Rowhani spoke days after the US House of Representatives voted for new sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile pro-gramme, part of an effort to clamp down on Tehran without immediately moving to under-mine an international nuclear agreement.

He also meet the head of the UN nuclear watchdog in Tehran, who again vouched for Iran’s compliance with the 2015 accord that curbed its nuclear programme in return for sanc-tions relief, which has drawn fire from US President Donald Trump.

“We have built, are building and will continue to build mis-siles, and this violates no international agreements,” Rowhani said in a speech in parliament.

The United States has already imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, saying its mis-sile tests violate a UN resolution, that calls on Tehran not to undertake activities related to missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it has no plans to build nuclear-capable missiles. Rowhani also criticised the United States over Trump’s refusal this month to formally certify that Tehran is comply-ing with the accord on Iran’s nuclear programme, even though international inspectors say it is.

“You are disregarding past negotiations and agreements approved by the UN Security council and expect others to negotiate with you?” Rowhani said.

“Because of the behaviour it has adopted, America should forget any future talks and agreement with other coun-tries,” Rowhani added, referring to unnamed countries in East Asia, an apparent reference to North Korea.

Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), met Rowhani, President of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi, and For-eign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran, an IAEA state-ment said.

“Director General Amano reiterated that the nuclear-r e l a t e d c o m m i t m e n t s undertaken by Iran are being implemented, and that the JCPOA represents a clear gain

from a verification point of view,” it said, using an abbrevi-ation for the 2015 accord.

“For the future, he stressed the importance of full imple-mentation by Iran of its nuclear-related commitments in order to make the JCPOA sustainable.”

Trump’s decision not to cer-tify Iranian compliance with the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers means Congress now has less than 60 days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the agreement that Amano’s agency is in charge of policing.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Tehran will stick to the agreement as long as the other signatories do, but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out, as Trump has threatened to do.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has pressed the IAEA to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they are not con-cealing activities banned by the nuclear deal.

Asked whether Amano had made any requests for new inspections, Salehi said after meeting Amano: “He has no request in this area,” Iran’s state news agency Irna reported.

Salehi said Iran could resume production of 20 per-cent enriched uranium in four days, but did not want the Iran deal to fall apart.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Saturday that he could not imagine the United States ever accepting a nuclear North Korea, and stressed dur-ing a week-long trip to Asia that diplomacy was America’s pre-ferred course.

Jerusalem

AP

Under pressure from the United States, Israel has delayed a bill that would

connect a number of West Bank settlements to Jerusalem, offi-cials said yesterday.

The bill aims to solidify the city’s Jewish majority, but stops short of formal annexation, mak-ing the practical implications unclear. The bill says the commu-nities would be considered “daughter municipalities” of Jeru-salem. Israel’s hard-line government has been embold-ened by the Trump administration’s more sympa-thetic approach to Israel and its settlement enterprise than that of President Barack Obama, and the draft bill is part of a series of pro-settler steps the government has taken in recent months.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to remain in President Donald Trump’s good graces. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as saying Israel needs to coordinate the bill with the US.

“The Americans turned to us and inquired what the bill was about. As we have been coordi-nating with them until now, it is worth (to continue) talking and coordinating with them. We are working to promote and develop the settlement enterprise,” it quoted Netanyahu as saying at a government meeting.

Earlier yesterday, David Bitan, the Likud party’s parlia-mentary whip and a close Netanyahu ally, told Israeli Army Radio the vote was delayed because “there is American pressure claiming this is annex-ation.” Trump has sent an envoy, Jason Greenblatt, to attempt to breathe life into moribund peace talks, which collapsed under US

tutelage in 2014. The effort so far appears to have yielded lit-tle progress.

Trump has presented Israel with a more lenient approach to its settlements than his prede-cessor. While the administration has said that settlements are “not helpful” to advancing peace with the Palestinians, Trump’s Mideast team, headed by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, is led by people with deep ties to the settler movement.

Unlike Obama, Trump does not demand a settlement con-struction freeze, though he has urged restraint. Nor does he demand the establishment of a Palestinian state, breaking from two decades of US policy.

Trump has backed away from a campaign promise to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a key Israeli wish, sparking rare crit-icism from Israeli lawmakers.

Somalia sacks security chiefs as attack toll hits 27

Rowhani: Iran will keep producing missiles

Mogadishu

AFP

The death toll from a deadly attack on a hotel in Mogadishu rose to 27 yes-

terday, prompting the Somali government to sack its police and intelligence chiefs.

The move came after Al-Qaeda aligned Shabaab gunmen staged coordinated bomb attacks Saturday outside the Nasa Hablod Hotel 2 before storming the building.

Two weeks ago, Mogadishu was hit by a massive truck bombing that killed 358 people in the troubled country’s worst-ever attack. Saturday’s carnage was unleashed when a car bomb

exploded outside the hotel entrance followed by a minibus loaded with explosives going off at a nearby intersection.

The gunmen then rushed into the popular hotel, launching a siege that lasted several hours. Officials had initially given a toll of 14 dead, saying “most” of the casualties were civilians although a senior police official and a former MP were among them.

“Five gunmen stormed the building, two of them were killed and the rest captured alive,” security ministry spokes-man Abdiasiz Ali Ibrahim told reporters. Sporadic gunfire could be heard inside the build-ing where the gunmen had holed up, but several people

managed to escape, officials said. “Most people fled the hotel through a back door but some are still trapped inside,” Mohamed Dek said after man-aging to escape the hotel after the initial explosion.

“I was very lucky.”The Shabaab claimed the

attack in a statement on its Andalus radio station, saying it was a hotel where “apostate officials” were staying.

The latest toll was given by Security Minister Mohamed Abukar Islow at a cabinet meet-ing at which ministers approved the dismissal of intelligence agency boss Abdillahi Mohamed Sanbalooshe and police chief Abdihakim Dahir Said.

Mass grave with 36 bodies found near Libya’s BenghaziBENGHAZI: Authorities in eastern Libya have found an open mass grave in a quarry containing 36 bodies, the largest such discovery since the country’s civil war. Spokesman Awad Aladouli of the eastern interim government’s Ministry of Interior says yesterday the bodies were found in Al Abyar City southeast of Benghazi overnight into Friday morning. The dead, apparently of different ages and socio-economic backgrounds, in attire rang-ing from athletic wear to business suits, included people shot in the head, blindfolded and with hands tied behind their backs. Investigations are ongoing, with 22 bodies identified. Libya descended into chaos following a popular 2011 uprising that top-pled and killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi. The oil-rich North African nation has three rival administrations, but a mul-titude of militias hold actual power on the ground.

Liberia’s ruling party backs challenge to presidential resultMONROVIA: Liberia’s ruling party, whose candidate finished runner-up in the first round of this month’s presidential elec-tion, said yesterday it would back a legal challenge to the result, accusing President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of interfering in the vote. The extraordinary charge by Unity Party against Johnson Sirleaf, one of its own members, throws into question a second round run-off scheduled for November 7 between its candidate Vice President Joseph Boakai and front-runner George Weah. Unity Party said in a statement that the October 10 poll, meant to usher in Liberia’s first democratic transition of power since 1944, “were characterised by massive systematic irregularities and fraud”. The statement, read to reporters by Unity Party Chairman Wil-mont Paye, said Johnson Sirleaf had acted inappropriately by meeting privately with elections magistrates before the vote.

Turkey arrests IS suspects in raidsISTANBUL: Turkish police yesterday rounded up dozens of Islamic State suspects including Syrian nationals in a security sweep on the country’s national day holiday, local media reported. Twenty-two suspects were arrested in the eastern province of Erzurum including alleged senior members of the jihadist group, and 39 suspects in the northwestern Bursa province, the official Anadolu news agency reported, citing security sources. The sus-pects included two Azerbaijanis and 28 Syrians, it added.

Under US pressure, Israel delays move to expand Jerusalem

Nairobi

AP

A top Kenyan govern-ment official yesterday accused opposition

leaders of inciting riots and attacks on police since a repeat presidential election, while opposition chief Raila Odinga visited a Nairobi slum and told thousands of cheering support-ers that the government intends to rule by force.

As the rift between the East African country’s two main political factions appeared to widen, the Ken-yan election commission was finalizing and verifying its tally of votes from an election that was boycotted by Odinga supporters, essentially yield-ing what they see as a hollow victory to President Uhuru Kenyatta. Odinga said in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday that the elec-tion on Thursday was a sham and that a new vote should be held within 90 days.

At least nine people have died in violence linked to the election, which was a rerun of an Aug. 8 vote that was nullified by the Supreme Court which cited irregular-ities and illegalities. Some were shot by police; several died in clashes between dif-ferent ethnic groups, highlighting the ethnic loyal-ties that drive Kenyan politics despite the disavowals of national leaders.

Opposition leaders incited riots, says Kenyan official

Residents walk at the scene of a blast a day after two car bombs exploded in Mogadishu, Somalia.

NEWS BYTES

Rowhani spoke days after the US House of Representatives voted for new sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile programme. “We have built, are building and will continue to build missiles, and this violates no international agreements,” the President said in a speech in parliament.

13MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 ASIA

New Delhi

IANS

In a major diplomatic initia-tive, India yesterday flagged off its first consignment of

wheat to Afghanistan to be tran-shipped through Iran’s Chabahar port.

“Today, as we jointly flag off the first shipment of wheat from India to Afghanistan through Chabahar Port, we are taking an important step in realising that shared aspiration to carve out the new routes of peace and prosperity,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said over a joint video conference with her Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani.

“The wheat that is leaving the Indian shores today, is a gift from the people of India to our Afghan brethren.

“It is testament to the con-tinued commitment of the government and the people of India to support our Afghan brethren in building a normal, peaceful, prosperous, secure and bright future for themselves. This is a manifestation of our New Development Partnership that we committed to when Foreign Minister Rabbani was in India last month,” she said.

The shipment to Afghanistan comes in the wake of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s one-day visit to India on October 24 just before US Secretary of State

Rex Tillerson reached here in his first visit in his official capacity. India is a major development aid partner for strife-torn Afghani-stan and New Delhi’s role was appreciated by Tillerson in a joint address to media with Sushma Swaraj.

“This shows the convergence between the ancient civilisations of India, Afghanistan and Iran to spur unhindered flow of com-merce and trade throughout the region,” she said.

“The shipment is part of a commitment made by the Gov-ernment of India to supply 1.1 million tonnes of wheat for the people of Afghanistan on grant basis,” an External Affairs Min-istry statement said.

According to the statement, the two Foreign Ministers wel-comed the fact that this was the first shipment that would go to Afghanistan through Chabahar after the trilateral agreement to develop the port as a transport and transit corridor between India, Iran and Afghanistan was signed by Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi with Iranian and Afghan Presidents Hassan Rou-hani and Ashraf Ghani in May last year.

“The people of India, Afghanistan and Iran have been connected through centuries; shared commonalities of art and culture, ideas and knowledge; language and traditions,” Sushma Swaraj said.

India sends wheat to Afghanistan via Iranian port

Italian PM in India to boost bilateral tiesNew Delhi

IANS

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni arrived here yes-terday on a two-day state visit to India, the first such visit in a decade, in a bid to

boost ties between New Delhi and Rome after the faceoff over two Italian marines.

Romano Prodi was the last Italian Prime Minister to visit India in February 2007.

“Coming after a gap of more than a decade, the visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral, polit-ical and economic relations between the two countries,” the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement ahead of Gentiloni’s visit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold delegation-level talks with Gentiloni today fol-lowing which a number of agreements are expected to be signed.

Gentiloni will also call on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President Venkaiah Naidu during his visit. Diplomatic ties between India and Italy virtually came to a near freeze following the February 2012 firing by two

Italian marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, from M V Enrica Lexie, killing two Indian fishermen off Kerala.

India took the marines into custody though Italy claimed the ship was in international waters and the case should be handled by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas (Itlos) at The Hague. In September 2014 Latorre was allowed to return to

Italy on health grounds follow-ing a Supreme Court order. In May 2016, Girone too was allowed to return. Both the marines are now in Italy await-ing an order from the Itlos.

The stand-off between New

Delhi and Rome affected the talks for a free trade pact between the European Union and India. Indo-Italian ties got a breather when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited the Vatican in September last

year for the canonisation of Mother Teresa.

According to official figures, Italy is among India’s five larg-est trading partners in the EU, with bilateral trade at $8.79 bil-lion in 2016-17.

Modi unveils railway track in Karnataka

India, UAE hold second strategic dialogue

Bidar

IANS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday dedi-cated the 110km railway

track from Bidar to Kalaburgi in Karnataka, which will reduce distance from Ben-galuru to New Delhi and upcountry destinations by 380km and save 6-8 hours of travelling time.

“Though the new rail line was initiated by (then) Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, its work was stalled for so many years due to lack of efforts during the UPA govern-ment’s two terms,” said Modi.

Appreciating the role of BJP’s state unit President B.S. Yeddurappa in ensuring the completion of the project, he said 60-65% of the work on the track was completed when his BJP was in power in Kar-nataka. The new track was laid over 16 years at a cost of Rs1,542 crore from the origi-nal estimates of Rs370 crore.

New Delhi

IANS

Keeping with New Del-hi’s growing links with the Gulf, India and the

United Arab Emirates (UAE) yesterday held their second Strategic Dialogue in Abu Dhabi with Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar heading the Indian side.

“Deepening ties with a Gulf partner. MOS @mjak-bar and MOS Dr Anwar Gargash from UAE co-chaired 2nd India-UAE strategic dialogue in Abu Dhabi,” External Affairs Min-istry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted

The first round of the Dia-logue was held in New Delhi in January this year.

India and the UAE’s bilat-eral trade amounts to $53 billion. The UAE is India’s third largest trading partner while, for the UAE, India is the largest trading partner.

The UAE is among the top investors in India in terms of foreign direct investments. It contributes significantly to India’s energy security and has been the fifth-largest sup-plier of crude oil to India in 2016-17.

It is also a strong partner of India in the fight against terrorism.

Ahmedabad

IANS

The Gujarat government yesterday set up a three-m e m b e r e x p e r t

committee to inquire into death of nine infants in 24 hours at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, even as 18 children succumbed at the government facility dur-ing the last three days.

“This is a very sad incident and we have already appointed a committee to look into the reasons,” Chief Minister Vijay Rupani told reporters here. The committee, led by a Deputy Director of Medical Education, is expected to look at the prima facie reasons for the deaths and

is expected to submit its report in a day.

“We will initiate immediate measures to overcome any neg-ligence or lacunae in the treatment found by the panel,” he said, but quickly added: “But, prima facie, it appears that the case is not about lack of avail-ability of medicines or medical facilities.”

Of the nine children who died, four were born in the hos-pital, while the other five were referred to the civil hospital from towns of five districts with “extremely low birth weight” complications, while some suf-fered from life-threatening diseases and were in critical condition, an official said.

Panel to probe infant deaths in Ahmedabad hospital

Agra

IANS

Acting firmly after a Swiss couple was assaulted by five youngsters in Fateh-

pur Sikri near here, the Uttar Pradesh government has ordered the rounding up of anti-social elements around the historical monuments in and near Agra.

In the last 24 hours, more than 50 ‘lapkas’ or touts who target foreign visitors at Fateh-pur Sikri, Agra Fort and Taj Mahal have been rounded up. They have been booked for har-assment and disturbing public peace and sent to jail.

Senior Superintendent of Police Amit Pathak said infor-mation centres were being planned at the monuments where tourists will get help from Tourism Police. A booklet will be published giving full details

of distances and fares.Chief Minister Yogi Adity-

anath, who was in Agra three days ago, expressed his unhap-piness at the unlawful activities of unauthorized canvassers and vendors at the historical monuments.

With three world heritage monuments and several archi-tectural marvels, Agra is annually visited by nearly 10 million Indian and foreign tourists.

“Tourism is the mainstay of Agra’s economy, supporting a network of hundreds of big and small hotels, emporia, resorts and travel networks. After the opening of the Yamuna Express-way and the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, there has been a spurt in footfall,” says the Pres-ident of the Agra Hotels and Restaurants Association, Suren-dra Sharma.

In Fatehpur Sikri, tourism

supports hundreds of families, he added.

On October 22, a young Swiss couple, both aged 24, walking along a railway track were brutally set upon by five young men at Fatehpur Sikri. The Swiss man suffered frac-tures. Both were warded at the Apollo Hospital in Delhi.

Hotel owners are worried about the impact the incident will have on tourism.

“True, ‘lapkas’ bring a bad name to the city. But generaliz-ing the negative features dents the fair and positive image of Agra as a whole and the tour-ism industry in particular,” said Raj Kumar, owner of Hotel Alleviate.

“Agra’s hotel business is tourist friendly and provides reasonable hospitality which has been appreciated by customers from across the globe,” he added.

Congress party supporters shout anti-government slogans outside the Government Civil Hospital medical superintendent’s office in Ahmedabad, yesterday.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni arriving at Palam Air Force station in New Delhi, yesterday.

50 arrested after attack on Swiss coupleGoa to ban exports to control rising fish pricesPanaji

IANS

Faced with a shrinking catch and high prices, the Goa government may

temporarily ban fish export to stabilise prices, Fisheries Min-ister Vinod Palienkar has said.

Speaking to reporters dur-ing the inspection of the Chapora Fort, 20km from Pan-aji, Palienkar also said that subsidies for the fishing indus-try were not really helping to keep prices within the common man’s reach and a majority of the haul was being exported.

“We are looking to ban exports. Goans do not get much fish to eat here. There is a need for a ban,” Palienkar said.

Availability of cheap fish had been the poll plank of

several political parties like the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and the Goa Forward ahead of the February 4 assembly polls.

Palienkar has also said his ministry doles out Rs 108 crore every year in subsidies to fish-ing trawler owners, but most of the fish caught is being diverted for exports.

“Most of the fish catch is being exported. How can we tolerate this when local Goans are not getting fish to eat and they have to shell out large sums of money to eat their fish thali at home,” he said.

“This government is think-ing of cutting down the subsidy for large trawlers and the money saved will be diverted towards formation of a fisher-ies corporation,” Palienkar said.

30,000kg of plastic bags seized in DelhiNew Delhi

IANS

Following a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order banning plastic bags less

than 50 micron in thickness in the national capital, 30,000 kg of plastic bags have been seized in the city, an official statement said.

Also 1,650 challans have been issued and Rs 31.8 lakh

has been collected as environ-mental compensation fine.

On August 10, the NGT had imposed an interim ban on use of plastic bags with thickness less than 50 microns in Delhi and also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on violators.

The drive against plastic bags was conducted by New Delhi Municipal Council, three municipal corporations of Delhi, Delhi Cantonment Board

and other departments concerned.

Delhi Environment Minis-ter Imran Hussain yesterday directed officials to intensify implementation of the NGT order and said that banned plastic bags were still being used in the city, according to the statement.

He also urged officials to carry out widespread raids and mass awareness programmes.

Strengthening ties

“Coming after a gap of more than a decade, the visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral, political and economic relations between the two countries,” the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Romano Prodi was the last Italian Prime Minister to visit India in February 2007.

14 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017ASIA

A Rohingya refugee woman collects water from a shallow well, dug from the sand along a drain at Uchiprang refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, yesterday.

Refugee woes

Kabul/Islamabad

AFP & Internews

Taliban insurgents, some wearing night-vision goggles, killed 22 Afghan policemen in separate attacks on

checkpoints over the weekend in the latest blow to the country’s beleaguered security forces.

Militants wearing the goog-les launched a pre-dawn assault on a police post in Khan Abad district in the northern province of Kunduz yesterday and killed 13 officers, said provincial police chief Abdul Hamid Hamidi.

Only one policeman survived the attack, he told reporters.

The attackers destroyed the checkpoint and stole a Humvee, according to district governor Hayatullah Amiri.

On Saturday Taliban fighters killed nine policemen and wounded two others stationed at checkpoints in Ghazni, the

capital of the southeastern prov-ince of the same name, said provincial governor’s spokesman Mohammad Arif Noori.

Twelve of the militants were killed and four wounded, Noori said. The Taliban claimed the attacks in statements to media.

The insurgents have stepped up attacks on security installa-tions as they seek to demoralise police and troops and steal equip-ment to fuel the insurgency.

The militants have acquired “dozens” of armoured Humvees and pickup trucks in recent years, defence ministry deputy spokesman Mohammad Rad-manesh said recently. Some of those vehicles have been used in suicide attacks on police and mil-itary bases with devastating effect. Afghan forces have suf-fered soaring casualties since Nato forces ended their combat mission in late 2014.

Meanwhile, the United States has laid out some very specific

expectations of how Pakistan can help create the conditions that will help bring the Taliban to the negotiation table, a senior dip-lomat for South Asia Alice Wells said here yesterday.

“All this is Pakistan’s sover-eign choice. This is not about America giving dictation, she elaborated saying: “We have described our strategy; we have described a very important role-for Pakistan, who we see as a very important country in the region, but it’s up to them whether or not they want to work with us on this strategy.”

Briefing journalists on US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s recent visit to the region, she said “the longstanding relationship with the militant and terrorist organisations threaten Pakistan’s stability.”

The Trump administration believes that the Taliban leader-ship and the Haqqani network retains an ability to plan, to recu-perate, and to reside with their families in Pakistan, she said add-ing that “the Quetta and Peshawar leadership councils of the Taliban have their names for a reason.”

Praising Pakistan’s efforts against terrorism, Wells said that the country made a strategic decision in 2014 to defeat terror-ist groups and fought the battle eventually regaining control and sovereignty over the Fata territories.

“We’d like to see the same strategic commitment brought against other militant groups, whether they’re operating or

have used Pakistan’s territory, whether they are directed against India or directed against Afghanistan.”

She said the secretary, dur-ing his trip, had a candid conversation with Pakistani offi-cials, where the secretary underscored the Trump strategy as an opportunity. “It’s an oppor-tunity since Pakistan, with the exception of Afghanistan, has the most to benefit from a stable and peaceful country next door.”

Islamabad has always main-tained that peace in Afghanistan is beneficial for it as well as for the region. For that, Pakistani officials have argued, interna-tional forces and Afghan army needs to uproot militant groups inside Afghanistan that use the territory to attack Pakistan.

Wells, who’s the acting assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, stressed that the administration wants to see practical steps from Pakistan

over the next few weeks and months. Stressing her point, she said that Pakistan needs to quickly demonstrate good faith and efforts to use its influence to get the Taliban to the table.

“These are things that are seen and felt and measured, and so we look forward to the next weeks and months to see the prac-tical steps that Pakistan takes out of its own self-interest and ensur-ing that its own country is not destabilised by some of the actions of the groups that have been able to use its territory.”

Answering a question about the Taliban’s political commis-sion, she said the South Asia strategy “is predicted on a nego-tiated political settlement that is sustainable.

That obviously requires a partner in the Taliban, and we are looking to see those moder-ate elements of the Taliban be empowered to undertake this kind of dialogue.”

Karachi

AFP

Pakistan yesterday released 68 Indian fishermen held for trespassing into its ter-

ritorial waters, officials said.Indian and Pakistani fisher-

men are frequently detained for illegal fishing since the Arabian Sea border is not clearly defined and many boats lack the tech-nology to fix their precise location.

“The fishermen were released from Karachi’s Malir jail,” Afaq Rizvi, a senior official

from the prison, said.He said 380 Indian fisher-

men remained behind bars in the country.

Fishermen often languish in jail even after serving their terms, as poor diplomatic ties between the two neighbours mean fulfilling bureaucratic requirements can take a long time.

In July Pakistan released 78 Indian fishermen held for tres-passing into its territorial waters.

Ties between India and Pakistan have remained strained since an attack on an

Indian army base in the disputed region of Kashmir last year, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

There have since been repeated incidents of cross-border firing, with both sides r e p o r t i n g d e a t h s a n d injuries.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule seven decades ago. Both claim the Himalayan territory in full and have fought two wars over the mountainous region.

Islamabad

Internews

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) of Pakistan has challenged

before the Lahore High Court a provision of the Elections Act, 2017, that paved the way for ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif to become chief of his Pakistan Muslim League party despite his disqualification in the Panama Papers case.

‘The disqualification recorded by a court of law under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution cannot be over-taken by sub-constitutional law,‘ SCBA secretary Aftab Ahmad Bajwa argues in his petition filed through Advocate Azhar Siddique and also ques-tions the election of Mr Sharif as president of the PML-N for being unconstitutional.

He says if a person cannot become a parliamentarian due to the operation of constitutional law, he surely cannot become head or office bearer of a politi-cal party. Bajwa argues that it is a settled principle of law ‘what cannot be done directly, cannot be done indirectly’. He states that the election of Sharif as president of the PML-N is a complete mockery of justice and fair play and against all canons of law.

He submits that parliament

lacks unlimited and unfettered powers through a ruling party to bypass the doctrine of basic structure and other constitu-tional interpretations. He argues that all the laws relating to elec-tions cannot be articulated through a single legislation.

The SCBA secretary pleads that a provision in a democratic form of government cannot lay down unlimited rights in view of Article 17, whereby it was clearly mentioned that every person has a right to form a political party subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law, such right can-not be already granted takenaway by repealing Politi-cal Parties Order, 2002.

He says no provision can be made with aim and object to favour the one political party and all the opposition parties have shown their reservations regarding deletion of the con-ditions of disqualification and such legislation can‘t be made operative through any proce-dure of law. The lawyer also challenges Section 232 of the impugned Act, which provides that a disqualification shall not exceed more than five years.

The petitioner asks the court to declare that Nawaz Sharif having been disqualified by the Supreme Court under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution cannot be elected as the party head or office-bearer of the PML-N.

Yangon

AP

Myanmar authorities have charged two for-eign journalists, a

local freelancer who works as an interpreter and their driver for allegedly flying drones ille-gally over and around the government’s parliament buildings, police said yesterday.

Mok Choy Lin, a Malaysian, and Lau Hon Meng, a Singapo-rean, journalists for Turkish Radio and Television, were detained along with their local interpreter and freelance jour-nalist Aung Naing Soe after flying drones over the parlia-ment building on Friday, police said.

The four were charged under the Export and Import

Law and face up to three years in prison if found guilty, police said, adding that a trial would begin at the end of a 15-day remand.

Police officer San Aung said the drone was imported with-out permission.

The detained journalists and driver have not been allowed to see family members since the arrest on Friday, one of the family members said.

The Myanmar ministry of information said in a statement Saturday that the government has informed the Singaporean and Malaysian embassies about their citizens’ detention.

A state-run newspaper said the journalists intended to take photos of parliament buildings and pagodas the capital, Nay-pyitaw, when security guards spotted them.

Myanmar charges foreign scribes for flying drones

22 Afghan policemen dead in multiple attacks

Pakistan frees 68 Indian fishermen

Islamabad

Internews

Amid indignation and condemnation from all sides, the government

of Pakistan has formed a team to investigate the heinous attack on a journalist in the capital.

According to an interior ministry statement, the chief commissioner and the inspec-tor general of Islamabad police have been tasked with investigating the attack on the reporter Ahmed Noorani, who was pursued by six assailants and badly beaten near Zero Point on Friday.

The committee has been directed to finalise its report within three days.

Separately, police officials said that the acting Inspector General of Police Ashraf Zubair Siddiqi had also formed a four-member team to probe the incident, which consists of Superintendent of Police (SP) City Zubair Sheikh, SP (Investigation), sub-divi-sional police officer (city circle) and the Aabpara sta-tion house officer.

Sources said that the team had sought footage and stills from dozens of CCTV cameras fixed as part of the Safe City Project, adding that these would help pinpoint the culprits.

The unknown perpetra-tors have already been booked for attempted mur-der and other charges in response to a complaint lodged by the journalist‘s driver, Mumtaz Chaudhry, who was also injured in the attack.

Meanwhile, the journalist bodies also swung into action, with the Rawalpindi-Islama-bad Union of Journalists forming its own committee to probe the incident.

Headed by veteran jour-nalist Nasir Zaidi, the body includes senior journalist Nasir Malik, National Press Club President Shakil Anjum and RIUJ President Mubarak Zeb Khan.

The committee met on Sunday to hammer out a strategy on how to proceed with the probe. The members also visited Mr Noorani to obtain his account of the events that transpired on Fri-day, and is expected to hold meetings with senior govern-ment functionaries, law enforcement and security officials from Monday.

Lawyers’ Association challenges law allowing Sharif to head PML-N

Afghan forces have suffered soaring casualties since Nato forces ended their combat mission in late 2014.

Indian fishermen released from Malir jail show their travelling cards at a railway station in Karachi, yesterday.

Body formed to probe attack on Pakistani journalist

15MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 ASIA

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (second left), inspecting the Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory, as his wife Ri Sol-Ju (right) looks on, in Pyongyang, North Korea, yesterday.

Cars travel along a road in heavy rain in Tokyo yesterday. Typhoon Saola is approaching the Japanese capital less than a week after Typhoon Lan left five dead, one missing and scores injured.

Typhoon alert in Japan

Beijing

Reuters

China aims to pass a national supervision law and set up a new com-

mission next year to oversee an expansion of President Xi Jin-ping’s campaign to fight corruption in the ruling Com-munist Party and government, the party said yesterday.

The moves will be made during the country’s annual meeting of parliament early next year, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the party’s anti-graft watchdog, said in its report to a five-yearly party congress last week.

The report, issued by the official Xinhua news agency, had not been previously released, and gave few other details on the commission.

“All provinces, regions and cities must closely connect regional practices, integrate reform pilot scheme experi-ence, implement the overall plan according to the decision of the party’s Central Commit-tee, and promote organisational integration,” the report said.

The new National Supervi-sion Commission will take over from the CCDI and merge mul-tiple anti-graft units, according to an announcement last year. It will also expand the purview of Xi’s anti-graft campaign to include employees at state-backed institutions who are not necessarily party members.

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi’s signature anti-cor-ruption drive has jailed or

otherwise punished nearly 1.4 million party members and he has emphasised the importance of improving China’s rule of law architecture. In his congress address, Xi said China would keep up with the “irreversible” momentum of the anti-corrup-tion campaign, and announced a central leading group respon-sible for overseeing China’s law-based governance.

Xi also said the party will scrap the practice of secretive interrogations known as “shuanggui”, in which cadres accused of graft and other dis-ciplinary violations are routinely subjected to extraju-dicial detention, isolation and interrogation by the CCDI.

The CCDI only hands cases over to police and judiciary for prosecution. International rights groups have raised con-cerns of torture, including sleep deprivation, being used to obtain confessions.

Jakarta

AP

Indonesia says it has won a two-year court battle that confirms the legality of the

government’s seizure of a Thai vessel linked to human traffick-ing and illegal fishing in Indonesian waters.

Minister of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Susi Pudjias-tuti said the “monumental” ruling from a court in Aceh province shows that govern-ments can win in the fight against cross-border crime.

Pudjiastuti said in a state-ment this week that the ministry plans to make the refrigerated cargo ship Silver Sea 2 part of a museum to teach the public about illegal fishing.

The ship was seized by

Indonesia’s navy in August 2015 amid a crackdown on illegal fishing and after an Associated Press investigation showed its links to human trafficking in the fishing industry.

Several months before its capture, the ship and Thai fish-ing trawlers had abruptly left an island in remote eastern Indo-nesia, where the Thai fishing industry held trafficked crew members captive, to escape a government crackdown on ille-gal fishing.

The AP, which was investi-gating slavery on fishing vessels, subsequently identified where the cargo ship had fled using satellite images from US-based DigitalGlobe that became evi-dence in the Indonesian government’s court case.

Pudjiastuti said the vessel’s

violations included intentionally turning off electronic systems that allowed the ship’s location to be tracked by maritime authorities and other vessels. DNA testing was used to prove that the $1.5 million of fish on board was from Indonesian waters.

When identified in the DigitalGlobe satellite images, the Silver Sea 2 was in Papua New Guinea waters, receiving illegal Indonesian catch from two fish-ing trawlers in a process known as transshipment.

It was captured by an Indo-nesian navy vessel off the island of Sumatra after returning to Indonesian waters. The Thai captain was detained and a probe launched into suspected human trafficking, transporting illegal fish and off-loading the catch at sea.

Jakarta

AP

Indonesian authorities lowered the alert status of Bali’s Mount Agung vol-

cano from the highest level yesterday, following a signif-icant decrease in activity in recent days.

More than 140,000 peo-ple fled the area around the mountain after its alert sta-tus was raised to the highest level on September 22, indi-cating an eruption may be imminent.

The region has been rat-tled daily by hundreds of tremors from the volcano. Mount Agung, located about 70km northeast of Bali’s tourist hotspot of Kuta, last erupted in 1963, killing about 1,100 people.

Kasbani, a government volcanologist who uses just one name, said the decision to downgrade Agung’s status was made after several sci-entific indicators showed its activities were decreasing drastically.

Tremors from the 3,031-meter (9,900-foot) volcano, which indicate rising magma, reduced significantly, from about 1,000 a day to less than 400 a week ago.

Kasbani said the radius of the volcano’s danger zone declined from 12km to 7.5km from Agung’s crater.

Bangkok

Reuters

The bones and ashes of Thai-land’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej were brought to

their final resting places yester-day, the fifth and last day of an elaborate funeral ceremony that drew hundreds of thousands of mourners to the streets of Bangkok.

King Bhumibol, the world’s longest reigning monarch when he died last year at the age of 88, ruled Thailand from shortly after World War Two and was revered as a stabilising figure through

coups, protests and natural disasters.

The $90 million royal funeral drew mourners clad in black from across the country to Bang-kok, where King Bhumibol was cremated on Thursday in an elaborate gold crematorium built for the ceremony outside the Grand Palace.

Over 19 million Thais - more than a quarter of the 69 million population - participated in cer-emonies by presenting symbolic sandalwood flowers to be burned at temples and crema-torium replicas across the country, according to the

government.On Sunday, the late king’s

bones were moved to the Chakri Throne Hall, where royal relics are kept within the Grand Pal-ace in a ceremony that involved senior monks from temples across the country. His son, new King Maha Vajiralongkorn, led the religious rite.

On Sunday evening, Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana led the final royal procession on horse-back to the Wat Rajabopidh and Wat Bovoranives temples where her grandfather’s ashes were placed in keeping with a cere-mony steeped in religious

symbolism and tradition. Mourn-ers, some in tears, were gathered outside the temples.

“I will always have him stored in my heart. Whether as pictures, however old and torn, the memory of him will always be kept in my heart,” said Chal-ermporm Prabutr, 72.

Wat Rajabopidh was built by the late king’s grandfather, King Chualalongkorn, and houses the remains of other royals includ-ing the late king’s father, Prince Mahidol and the princess mother, Srinagarindra.

Some of the late king’s ashes were also be laid at Wat

Bovoranives, the temple where he entered the monkhood in 1956 after his grandmother’s death, a custom for Buddhist males after the death of a relative.

Wat Bovoranives is also the centre of the more austere strain of Thai Buddhism founded by the late king’s great grandfather, King Mongkut.

Many Thais have worn black for the past year in mourning for King Bhumibol. The military government has told people to wear bright clothes from Mon-day, when the mourning period formally ends.

Manila

AFP

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte yesterday pledged to “limit my

mouth” in a meeting with Japan’s revered Emperor Aki-hito this week following previous concerns in Tokyo the profanity-prone leader would spark diplomatic tensions.

Duterte said he would have an audience with the 83-year-old Akihito — a popular and respected figure in Japan — dur-ing his two-day visit to Tokyo. A scheduled meeting last year was cancelled following a death in the imperial family.

That meeting had put Japa-nese officials on faux pas alert after a video of Duterte with President Xi Jinping in China

showed him apparently chew-ing gum — considered rude in Japan on such an occasion.

“I suppose that I have to limit my mouth there except maybe to bring the warm greet-ings of the Filipino nation, a grateful nation to Japan,” Duterte told reporters before departing for Tokyo on Sunday night.

“It’s a kind of a homage to see the emperor before he abdi-cates,” Duterte added, referring to Akihito’s plan to retire after nearly three decades on the throne.

The acid-tongued Duterte often curses critics, including former US President Barack Obama, and is known to shun formal protocols.

Since winning elections last year, Duterte has sought to boost

the Philippines’ ties with Japan, its top foreign aid donor and second largest trading partner in 2016 after China.

That comes as he loosens the country’s 70-year alliance with the United States in favour of closer relations with China and Russia.

On his second trip to Tokyo, Duterte said he would ask for Japanese aid in rebuilding the southern Philippine city of Marawi following a five-month battle against militants loyal to the Islamic State group which left the city in ruins.

Duterte will meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before hosting a regional sum-mit in Manila next month to be attended by Asia-Pacific lead-ers and US President Donald Trump.

Philippine president ‘to limit mouth’ in Japan emperor meet

China aims to set up new anti-graft unit

Indonesia court upholds seizure of illegal Thai fishing vessel

Thai king’s remains laid to rest at end of five-day ceremony

Bali volcano’s alert status lowered

In his congress address, President Xi Jinping said China would keep up with the “irreversible” momentum of the anti-corruption campaign, and announced a central leading group responsible for overseeing China’s law-based governance.

Duterte names ex-rights lawyer as spokesmanMANILA: A tough-talking ex-human rights lawyer has been named Philippine Pres-ident Rodrigo Duterte’s new spokesman, replacing a former pastor who had been one of the most vocal defend-ers of his deadly drug war.

Duterte, whose narcotics crackdown has killed thou-sands of people and drawn international criticism, said he would appoint congress-man and former university law professor Harry Roque as his spokesman.

Roque takes the place of Ernesto Abella, who has often downplayed Duterte’s pro-fanity-laced speeches and controversial remarks as “rhetoric” or “hyperbole” and has tempered the president’s pronouncements.

Duterte did not give a reason for replacing Abella, but said Roque was the right person for the job.

President’s visit

16 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017EUROPE

Huge Barcelona rally for Spanish unityBarcelona

Reuters

Hundreds of thou-sands of supporters of a unified Spain filled Barcelona’s streets yesterday in

one of the biggest shows of force yet by the so-called silent major-ity that has watched as regional political leaders push for Cata-lan independence.

Political parties opposing a split by Catalonia from Spain had a small lead in an opinion poll published yesterday, the first since Madrid called a regional election to try to resolve the country’s worst political crisis in four decades.

Polls and recent elections have shown that about half the electorate in the wealthy north-eastern region, which is already autonomous, oppose secession from Spain, but a vocal inde-pendence movement has brought the current crisis to a head.

Spain’s central government called an election for December 21 on Friday after sacking Cata-lonia’s president Carles Puigdemont, dissolving its par-liament and dismissing its government. That followed the assembly’s unilateral declaration of independence in a vote boy-cotted by three national parties.

The regional government claimed it had a mandate to push ahead with independence fol-lowing an unofficial referendum on October 1 which was ruled illegal under Spanish law and mostly boycotted by unionists.

Waving thousands of Span-ish flags and singing “Viva Espana”, protesters yesterday turned out in the largest display of support for a united Spain since the beginning of the crisis— underlining the depth of division

in Catalonia itself.“I’m here to defend Spanish

unity and the law,” said Alfonso Machado, 55, a salesman stand-ing with a little girl with Spanish flags in her hair.

“Knowing that in the end there won’t be independence, I feel sorry for all the people tricked into thinking there could be and the divisions they’ve driven through Catalan society.”

SLIGHT UNIONIST LEADThe poll of 1,000 people by

Sigma Dos for newspaper El Mundo, which opposes inde-p e n d e n c e , s h o w e d anti-independence parties win-ning 43.4 percent support and pro-independence parties 42.5 percent.

The survey was taken from Monday to Thursday, just as the central government prepared to take control of Catalonia.

Madrid said on Saturday that secessionist politicians, includ-ing Puigdemont, were free to take part in the December 21 election. The hardline CUP has been unclear if it would.

The deposed Catalan govern-ment would soon have to make difficult decisions, Puigdemont’s former deputy Oriol Junqueras said yesterday in an editorial in the Catalan online newspaper El Punt Avui.

He stopped short of saying they would take part in the election.

“We need a shared strategy ... it’s important to weave solid alliances with those who are willing to build a state that serves its citizens,” he said, possibly alluding to a rumoured alliance between his own ERC party and the Catalonia arm of the anti-austerity Podemos party.

Such an alliance could put the independence movement in difficult position as it would mean joining forces with parties that reject Madrid’s hard line but do not support secession.

With weeks still to go before the election, the poll showed the CUP, kingmaker for the pro-secessionists in the dismissed 135-seat parliament, would win seven seats, down from a cur-rent 10.

The pro-independence coa-lition Junts pel Si, which held 62 seats previously, was split into parties PDeCat and ERC for the poll as they are unlikely to run on a single platform. The two parties would win between 54 and 58 seats in total, the poll showed.

In a speech at yesterday’s unity rally, former European Parliament president Josep Bor-rell called for voters to turn out en masse in December to ensure independence supporters lose their stranglehold on the regional parliament.

“Maybe we’re here because many of us during elections didn’t go and vote. Now we have a golden opportunity. This time, nobody should stay at home,” Borrell said to cheering crowds.

DAMAGE TO CATALONIAPuigdemont, speaking from

the Catalan nationalist strong-hold of Girona on Saturday, called for peaceful opposition to Madrid’s takeover. But he was vague on precisely what steps the secessionists would take as Spanish authorities move into Barcelona to enforce control.

European countries, the United States and Mexico have also rejected the Catalan decla-ration of independence and expressed support for Spain’s unity.

But emotions are running high and the next few days will be tricky for Madrid as it embarks on enforcing direct rule and putting officials in adminis-trative roles. National police were accused of heavy-handed-ness during the October 1 referendum.

Officers of the regional police force, called the Mossos d’Esquadra in Catalan, were sta-tioned in main public and government buildings on Sunday.

But the force is believed to have divided loyalties. The cen-tral government has removed the Mossos’ chief, Josep Lluis Trapero, and said units could be replaced if warranted.

In an open letter yesterday, the Interior Minister Juan Ignacio

Zoido praised the Mossos for their work and urged them to accept the new leadership structure, which will temporarily be directed from Madrid.

The main secessionist group, the Catalan National Assembly, has urged civil servants not to follow orders from the central government and to mount “peaceful resistance”, while the pro-independence trade union CSC has called a strike.

Since the return of democ-racy in the late 1970s Spain has suffered several traumatic epi-sodes, including an attempted military coup in 1981, a violent Basque separatist conflict, and

more recently an economic cri-sis. The Catalan issue is however the biggest challenge to the ter-ritorial integrity of what is now a progressive EU nation.

The chaos has also prompted an exodus of businesses from Catalonia, which contributes about a fifth of Spain’s economy, the fourth-largest in the euro zone. Tourism in hugely popu-lar Barcelona has been hit and markets have darted up and down on the fast-moving developments.

European leaders have also denounced the push, fearing it could fan separatist sentiment around the continent.

Political parties opposing a split by Catalonia from Spain had a small lead in an opinion poll published yesterday.

‘Viva Espana’

Waving thousands of Spanish flags and singing “Viva Espana”, protesters yesterday turned out in the largest display of support for a united Spain since the beginning of the crisis.

Pro-unity supporters take part in a demonstration in central Barcelona, Spain, yesterday.

Former European Parliament president Josep Borrell addresses a demonstration.

Heathrow probes how security data found in streetLondon

AFP

Heathrow Airport said yesterday it has launched an internal

investigation after a memory stick containing extensive security information was found on a London street by a member of the public.

The USB drive contained dozens of folders with maps, videos and documents -- some marked confidential or restricted -- detailing secu-rity at Europe’s busiest airport, according to the Sun-day Mirror newspaper, which first reported the incident.

A man discovered the unencrypted device discarded on a west London pavement, and handed it into the paper, which said it reviewed the contents and passed it on to Heathrow officials.

A spokeswoman added: “We have also launched an internal investigation to understand how this hap-pened and are taking steps to prevent a similar occurrence in future.”

The device reportedly contained 174 documents, some referencing measures used to protect Queen Eliza-beth II, and others outlining the types of IDs needed for different areas of the airport.

It also included timetables of security patrols, and maps pointing to the positions of CCTV cameras, the Sunday Mirror said.

Russians honour Stalin victimsMoscow

AFP

Russians gathered in cen-tral Moscow yesterday to honour the victims of Sta-

lin-era purges, as many called for the release of a jailed activ-ist who researched mass graves.

In an annual ceremony organised by the country’s old-est rights organisation Memorial, hundreds of people are set to take turns during the day to read from a list of names of people killed during Joseph Stalin’s rule.

This year’s ritual will take place near the Solovetsky Stone, a monument in Lubyanka Square, across from the former KGB headquarters.

The ceremony comes as Yury Dmitriyev, a respected activist and head of Memorial’s

Karelia branch in northwestern Russia who had researched and exhumed mass graves of victims of Stalin’s Great Terror, is still held in custody.

“Freedom to Yury Alekseev-ich Dmitriyev,” said one participant at the ceremony.

“Is history repeating itself?” asked another.

The 61-year-old activist was arrested last year and accused of producing pornography, which he denies. Dmitriyev now faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

His supporters say the case against him is an attempt by authorities to muzzle the out-spoken historian.

Rights groups have accused President Vladimir Putin of seeking to whitewash the Soviet dictator’s crimes amid patriotic

fervour whipped up by state propaganda.

Sunday’s ceremony, called “The Return of Names”, also holds a special resonance this year as Russia gears up to mark the centenary of the 1917 Revo-lution which brought Bolsheviks to power and unleashed repres-sion against people of all walks of life.

Participants ranged from older Muscovites to young mothers with prams and even children, all reading from the victims’ list.

“Pyotr Ivanovich Markov, 57, priest at a church in the vil-lage of Malakhovka, executed on February 21, 1938.”

“Dmitry Aleksandrovich Samgin, 19, a history student at the Moscow State University, executed on December 10, 1937.”

A woman puts a candle on the Solovetsky Stone monument in front of the Federal Security service building (KGB during USSR times), in central Moscow, yesterday.

Merkel to try to kickstart German coalition talks

Berlin

Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pic-tured) was due to meet

with possible coalition part-ners yesterday to kickstart the process of forming a gov-ernment after talks got off to a rocky start last week, media reported.

Merkel, whose conserv-ative alliance came first but lost seats in the September 24 national election, is trying to forge a three-way coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and envi-ronmental Greens that is untested at a national level.

The process is proving tricky, with disputes about climate and immigration pol-icy played out in German media over the weekend after what one negotiator described as a “big clash” between participants on Thursday.

Bild am Sonntag news-paper said Merkel would try

to “rescue” the talks by meet-ing with Horst Seehofer, who heads the conservative Bavarian CSU party, two offi-cials from the Greens and FDP leader Christian Lindner at an undisclosed location.

The political mood remained stormy.

Bild am Sonntag said Lindner, for instance, had argued that he should be allowed to bring a second FDP official to the high-level meeting since the Greens were also bringing both Cem Ozdemir and Katrin Goering-Eckardt.

The exploratory talks are due to continue today after the three sides failed to reach agreement on immigration and climate issues during a session on Thursday.

The possible partners in a so-called Jamaica coalition - a name chosen because the parties’ black, yellow and green colours mirror those of the Jamaican flag - are at odds over ending coal production to lower carbon dioxide emis-sions and migrant caps.

Many conservatives want to take a harder line on immi-gration, blaming their election setback on Merkel’s decision to allow in more than a million migrants in 2015 and 2016.

Other issues such as pen-sions and labour regulations - which could be on the agenda today - appear less contentious.

17MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 EUROPE

Iceland Prime Minister wins re-electionReykjavik

AFP

Iceland’s conservative prime minister came out on top in a snap election despite a string of scandals, final results confirmed yester-

day but it remained unclear whether he will be able to form a viable coalition.

Prime Minister Bjarni Ben-ediktsson, 47, was accused named last year in the “Panama Papers” worldwide tax-evasion leaks. He has also been accused of wrongdoing during Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008.

His Independence Party, however, beat its rivals in Satur-day’s election, according to final results published on Sunday, although no party came near to winning a majority in parliament.

The Independence Party won 16 seats in the 63-seat parlia-ment. Turnout was 81 percent.

It could now take days, weeks or even months before Iceland has a new government in place as thorny coalition nego-tiations await.

Benediktsson’s challenge comes from the Left Green Movement and its potential allies, the Social Democratic Alli-ance and the anti-establishment Pirate Party.

The Left-Green Movement came in second with 11 seats, the Social Democratic Alliance with seven seats, and the Pirates with six seats.

A total of eight parties won seats in parliament.

Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson has invited the leader of each of those parties to his residence today. After meeting them individually, he will decide who gets the first mandate to try to assemble a government.

Under the Icelandic system, the president, who holds a largely ceremonial role, usually tasks the leader of the biggest party with putting a government together.

“I am optimistic that we can form a government,” Benedikts-son said after the polls closed on Saturday.

The Independence Party lost

five seats in parliament, accord-ing to yesterday’s results, but still came out on top—apparently helped by Iceland’s thriving economy, fuelled by a flourish-ing tourism sector.

The party has been involved in almost every government in Iceland since 1980.

But growing public distrust of the elite has spawned several anti-establishment parties.

These have splintered the political landscape and made it increasingly difficult to form a stable government.

Benediktsson’s main rival, the Left-Green Movement won fewer votes than expected.

It will need at least five allies to form a 32-seat majority to dethrone the conservatives.

If it manages to do so, it would form only the second left-leaning government in Iceland since the country’s proclamation as a republic in 1944.

“I’m worried that we may have to face up to the likelihood of long, drawn-out discussions and attempts to form a govern-ment,” Arnar Thor Jonsson, a law professor at Reykjavik Univer-sity, said.

Negotiations to form a coa-lition after the October 2016 election took three months.

Some voters are tired. It was Iceland’s fourth election since the year 2008 and the second in a year.

“I hope we will have more stable politics now... but I’m rather pessimistic about it,” Einar

Orn Thorlacius, a lawyer in Rey-kjavik, said.

Benediktsson called Satur-day’s election after a junior member of his centre-right coa-lition pulled out over accusations that the prime minister had cov-ered up his father’s recommendation letter for a convicted paedophile to help “restore his honour”.

Benediktsson is a former lawyer and businessman whose family is one of the richest and most influential in Iceland.

He has been implicated in several financial scandals and

was mentioned in the Panama Papers—leaked documents that exposed offshore tax havens.

That scandal forced the res-ignation of then prime minister S i g m u n d u r D a v i d Gunnlaugsson.

Gunnlaugsson made a come-back to lead one of the new parties that ran in Saturday’s election.

Analysts said the strongest possible government would be a three-party coalition compris-ing the two biggest parties, the Independence and the Left-Greens—but their clashing

ideologies make such a collabo-ration unlikely.

Left-Green leader Katrin Jakobsdottir, 41, said that on election night she was keeping all options open.

“We have eight parties in parliament and right now there doesn’t seem to be any obvious majority. All parties are open for discussion,” she said.

Her campaign promises included investing in social infra-structure and ensuring that Iceland’s economic prosperity reaches the health care and edu-cation sectors.

The Independence Party won 16 seats in the 63-seat parliament. Turnout was 81 percent.

New government

Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson has invited the leader of each of those parties to his residence. After meeting them individually, he will decide who gets the first mandate to try to assemble a government.

Bjarni Benediktsson of the conservative Independence Party addresses supporters at the Grand Hotel, in Reykjavik, yesterday.

6 hurt on rides at Swiss fairBerlin

AP

Swiss media have reported that six people have been injured in a

roller coaster crash and a merry-go-round mishap at a fair in the city of Basel.

Swiss television SRF reports that one cart bumped into another one on the roller coaster, likely because of technical problems with the brakes. One woman was severely injured in the crash on Saturday night and was hospitalised while four oth-ers were treated at the scene.

Separately, a man was injured when he was thrown to the ground while exiting a merry-go-round. He was hospitalised.

SRF reported that police were investigating the incidents.

French women rally against harassmentParis

AP

French women are pro-testing harassment in 11 cities across the

country under the #MeToo banner in the wake of mounting allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Women’s group Les Effronte-e-s has called on women to “go on the street to show ... we are thousands and thousands who have to live, cushion the blow, digest it and handle often-traumatizing experiences.”

In Paris, a few hundred people gathered on the Republic Plaza for the protest yesterday.

French statistics show that over 80,000 adult women face rape or attempted rape every year in the country but only 10 per-cent file a complaint.

Five dead as storm hits central EuropePrague

AFP

At least five people died in a windstorm that hit cen-tral Europe yesterday,

causing widespread power out-ages and traffic disruptions.

In the Czech Republic, fall-ing trees killed a woman in a forest near the central city of Trebic and an elderly man on the street in Jicin northeast of Prague.

In Poland, a driver died in his car after crashing into a fallen branch on the road near the northwestern city of

Szczecin, and another was killed when a branch hit his car in the western city of Opole, firefight-ers said.

In Germany, a man sleeping in a van at a camping site on Jade Bay in the north of the country drowned when he tried to escape flash floods on foot, police said. His brother, 59, sur-vived by holding fast to a pole.

The strong winds halted traffic on dozens of railways and several roads across the Czech Republic.

The Czech Hydrometeoro-logical Institute said it had registered the fastest gust of

wind on Snezka, with a top speed of 180km an hour.

In the north of the country, some rivers reached the high-est flood-alert levels, and the wind also toppled a wooden Orthodox church in the city of Most.

“At present, hundreds of thousands of households are left without power,” Sona Holin-g e r o v a H e n d r y c h o v a , spokeswoman for the state-run power producer CEZ, said in a statement.

About 200,000 people were also grappling with power out-ages in western Poland.

Missing Russian chopper found on Arctic seabedOslo

AFP

A Russian helicopter that went down off the coast of Norway’s Svalbard

archipelago in the Arctic this week has been found and the eight Russians on board are pre-sumed dead, Norwegian rescue crew said yesterday.

The Mil Mi-8 chopper, car-rying five crew and three scientists, went missing on

Thursday as it was flying to Bar-entsburg from Pyramiden, a former mining community in Svalbard that is now a tourist site.

It went down two or three kilometres from Barentsburg, a Russian mining community in the archipelago.

“The wreck of the Russian helicopter has been located... northeast of Heerodden, at a depth of 209 metres,” the rescue services said in a statement.

“The search has now con-cluded, and has moved into a search phase for the presumed dead.”

A sea patrol plane, a Danish aircraft, two Norwegian helicop-ters and several vessels had been searching the area since Thurs-day. No contact had been made with the chopper before or after it went down.

A small robot submarine located the wreck after investi-gating an area where an oil patch

and bubbles were observed, res-cue services said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but vis-ibility in the area was reduced because of snow and darkness, which falls early this time of year at this latitude.

Norway was afforded sover-eignty of Svalbard, located around 1,000km from the North Pole, under the 1920 Treaty of Paris.

Nationals of all signatory states enjoy “equal liberty of

access and entry” to Svalbard and its waters. As a result, Rus-sia operates a coal mine in Barentsburg, home to several hundred Russian and Ukrainian miners.

According to Russia’s consul general in Svalbard, Viacheslav Nikolayev, the helicopter was owned by the Arktikugol coal min-ing company and was used regularly to fly the miners between Barentsburg and Svalbard’s main town of Longyearbyen.

Dutch court to open ‘Red Terror’ war crimes trialThe Hague

AFP

A Dutch-Ethiopian national goes on trial in The Hague today accused of

war crimes, including ordering the deaths of 75 prisoners, dur-ing bloody purges in Ethiopia known as the “Red Terror”.

In the rare case before a Dutch court, the 63-year-old is alleged by prosecutors to have been a henchman for Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in northwestern Gojjam prov-ince in the 1970s.

The hearings in The Hague involve “a grim series of events involving the incarceration, tor-ture and murder of opponents of the 1970s revolutionary regime in Ethiopia,” the prosecution service said in a statement.

Identified in Dutch media as Eshetu Alemu, the defend-ant is a long-time resident of The Netherlands and has acquired Dutch citizenship.

“A total of 321 victims have been named in four war crimes charges which include the “arbitrary detention and cruel and inhuman treatment of civil-ians and fighters who had laid down their arms.”

Witnesses have come for-ward to detail “acts of torture” which included “beatings and kicking and involved victims being tied up and suspended in mid-air while they were beaten

with sticks on their faces and against their bare feet”.

“In August 1978, the suspect allegedly ordered the killing of 75 young prisoners” in a church, the prosecution said, adding the bodies were then dumped in a mass grave.

In the fourth charge, Alemu is accused of “the incarceration and inhumane treatment of 240 people” sentenced to prison without trial.

“Several witnesses have testified that they were locked up in small rooms with too many people where there was hardly any daylight. There were no or insufficient sanitary facil-ities, unclean food and drinking water and lack of medical care,” the prosecution said.

Mengistu ruled Ethiopia from 1977 with an iron fist fol-lowing the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

The hearings in The Hague involve “a grim series of events involving the incarceration, torture and murder of opponents of the 1970s revolutionary regime in Ethiopia: Prosecutors

Workers remove the debris from a storm-damaged wheat mill, yesterday, as a storm hits many parts of Germany.

18 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017AMERICAS

People pick their pumpkins from what remains at a pumpkin patch in Pomona, California, ahead of Halloween.

Halloween preparations

Washington

AFP

Official Washington was abuzz this weekend over reports that a grand jury

has charged at least one person stemming from the US probe of Russia’s attempts to tilt the 2016 presidential elections in Donald Trump’s favour.

There was no indication, in reporting by CNN that other media later confirmed, of who might be charged or what crimes might be alleged in the ongoing inquiry led by former FBI chief Robert Mueller.

But Trump, in a rapid burst of tweets yesterday, again denounced the investigation as a “witch hunt” and repeated his

denials of any collusion with Russia.

Mueller’s team has remained mum about reports that a first arrest could be made as early as

tomorrow. He is empowered to pursue not only Russian inter-ference but any other crimes his large team of prosecutors should uncover.

But Chris Christie, a Repub-lican governor close to Trump, said yesterday on ABC that “the important thing about today for the American people to know is the president is not under inves-tigation. And no one has told him that he is.”

Typically, such an inquiry would first target lower-level people while building a case against those higher up.

Representative Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Dem-ocrat on the House intelligence committee, demurred Sunday when asked whether Trump was

under investigation. “I can’t answer that one way or the other,” he told ABC.

But he mentioned two pos-sible targets on whom much speculation has focused: former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump cam-paign director Paul Manafort, both of them once involved in undeclared lobbying for foreign interests.

It was not clear that Christie would know whether Trump is in fact being investigated. He may have been referring to a remark in May by former FBI chief James Comey, who told a Senate panel in May that Trump was not a target of the inquiry.

As the Mueller investigation nears a dramatic new phase,

Republican officials and right-leaning media have stepped up their attacks on Democrats, above all on Trump’s rival in last year’s election, Hillary Clinton -- attacks that Democrats dis-miss as blatant attempts to divert attention.

Trump, in his tweets Sunday, again complained of Clinton’s handling of emails while secre-tary of state, of Democratic Party funding of what he said was a “fake” dossier on Trump’s back-ground, and of a US sale during the Obama administration of uranium rights to Russia.

“There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOME-THING!” Trump tweeted.

In the uranium case, Russian

energy company Rosatom sought in 2010 to buy a share in Toronto-based UraniumOne. A panel of nine US government agencies, including the State Department, approved the sale, though Clinton says she was “not personally involved.”

As Mueller’s inquiry advances, there have been calls from some Republicans -- and from the conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal -- for him to resign. Christie cau-tioned on Sunday that the former FBI chief should be “very, very careful.”

Democrats meantime have warned that if Trump were to fire Mueller -- or issue preemptive pardons to anyone caught in his net -- it would be crossing a line.

Washington

AFP

The US Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in a death penalty case

that focuses on a key inequity in the US legal system: the fair-ness of condemning to death someone who has had a poor legal defence.

The death penalty in the US is imposed “not for the worst crime, but for the worst lawyer,” says Stephen Bright, president and senior counsel at the South-ern Center for Human Rights.

The Supreme Court’s nine justices will weigh the implica-tions of a poor defense as they address the sentencing of Car-los Ayestas -- a man of Honduran origin condemned to death for, along with two accomplices, tying up a 67-year-old woman and beating her to death after they broke into her home in 1995.

According to the defense, there were several mitigating factors -- Ayestas was an alco-holic before adolescence, an addict, and had suffered brain trauma and severe mental health problems.

He was tried in Harris County, Texas, which encom-passes the city of Houston and where more people have been sentenced to death than

anywhere else in the United States. It is the third time a case from the county has arrived before the Supreme Court this year.

“That tells you that there is a problem,” said Robert Dun-ham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

“When you have three out-lier practices in one jurisdiction in one year, it begins to look like a renegade county as opposed to just an outlier county.”

The American penal code stipulates a defendant has the right to counsel and “reasona-ble necessary” means for his or her defense -- in particular to fund investigations likely to e s t a b l i s h m i t i g a t i n g circumstances.

But in the case of Ayestas, the “trial counsel didn’t do any-thing for almost a year and a half, until about a month before trial,” according to Lee Kovarksy, who is arguing the case before the Supreme Court.

“A reasonable lawyer is sup-posed to look into this person’s social history, get a mental health profile and figure out what the most effective mitigation case will be. None of that happens here.”

Once Ayestas’ guilt was established, he added, it should have been asked whether some-one like him belongs “in the

category of the worst of the worst.” “Do they deserve the death penalty in light of the cir-cumstances in which they lived their life?” Kovarsky said.

His view was echoed by Brandon Garett, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

“The main job of a defense lawyer in a death penalty case is to give the jury a reason not to sentence someone to death,” he said.

For Ayestas, he added, it was “no surprise that the jury took 12 minutes to decide whether to sentence him to death.” “They had no reason to consider not to sentence him to death.”

In order to challenge a per-son’s detention following poor legal defense in the United States, a petition for habeas cor-pus can be filed -- arguing the person was detained against their constitutional rights.

But in Texas, the law com-plicates things for prisoners -- requiring lawyers to prove the sentence would have been dif-ferent if the defendant had been better represented.

“You need a team to do cap-ital defense. A lawyer alone is not enough,” says Emily Olson-Gault -- director and chief counsel at the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project.

Poor legal defence comes into spotlight in death penalty case

Puerto Rico seeks to cancel Whitefish dealSan Juan

AP

Puerto Rico’s governor yesterday demanded that the board of the

island’s power company can-cel the $300m contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings amid increased scrutiny of the Montana company’s role in Hurricane Maria recovery efforts.

The announcement by Gov. Ricardo Rossello comes as federal legislators seek to investigate the contract awarded to the small com-pany from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown.

“There cannot be any kind of distraction that alters the commitment to restore elec-trical power as soon as possible in Puerto Rico,” Ros-sello said, adding that nearly $8m has been paid to White-fish so far.

Whitefish spokesman Chris Chiames told The Asso-ciated Press that the company would soon issue comment. Power company spokesman Carlos Monroig did not return messages for comment.

Speculation rife as first arrest in Russia probe likelyWitch hunt

Trump, in a rapid burst of tweets, again denounces the investigation as a ‘witch hunt’ and denies charges.

Mueller’s team has remained mum about reports that a first arrest could be made as early as tomorrow.

New York

AFP

A few more days and the last of Hurricane Sandy’s damage will finally be

cleared from Mohamad Rah-man’s southern Brooklyn home -- five years after the storm rav-aged New York.

Two young women install a door frame on the two-story house’s ground floor under the watch of Ben Fransua, who man-ages construction for an organization renovating homes damaged by the hurricane.

When he visited the house, situated less than a mile from the beach, for the first time last spring, Fransua discovered the walls full of mold and holes -- souvenirs from Sandy, which caused nine feet (three meters) of floodwater on October 29, 2012.

His non-profit -- a branch of SBP, the disaster recovery organ-ization founded to help rebuild Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- took over the construction site, supported by AmeriCorps, a national body that engages hundreds of thou-sands of Americans in community service each year.

But while this renovation is

finished, three more are on deck, Fransua explains. There are 50 names on the waiting list and every week, two or three more people contact the organization, said the SBP’s Alana Tornello.

When Sandy struck, the Princeton graduate was in Japan working in the aftermath of the

2011 Fukushima nuclear acci-dent. A Staten Island native, she decided to return to New York to help.

Since 2012 the SBP has ren-ovated 299 houses -- including 30 under the “Build it Back” municipal program, which has helped a total of 8,200

homeowners who did not have flood insurance.

But bureaucracy, rising con-struction costs and unscrupulous storm-chasing contractors are several reasons Tornello cites to explain why dozens of buildings remain damaged five years on from Sandy, which killed more

than 40 people in New York and cost the state $42m.

“To be fair,” she said, “this was the first time that the city was dealing with an event of this size.”

But, she added, “from the homeowners perspective, it’s been an incredibly difficult and devastating five years.”

Shortening deadlines is the goal of the SBP, which helps owners every step of the way, from initial building surveys to the completion of projects. The organization has tapped the expertise of companies like Toy-ota, known for optimizing production speed.

SBP also combines public and private funding sources, uti-lizing donations from individuals, societies and reli-gious organizations -- but Tornello is worried funding could dry up, with help and donations shifting to recently affected areas.

In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria -- which whipped Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico in recent months -- authorities in New York stressed the importance of preparing for future storms, which scientists fear are likely due to climate change.

New Yorkers still live with scars of Hurricane Sandy

Storm Philippe moves towards FloridaHavana

AFP

Tropical Storm Philippe formed over Cuban skies Saturday and is on a path

to strike south Florida, Cuban and US metrologists said.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm was about 50 miles north of Havana at 0001 GMT

yesterday, moving north at 28 miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour. On the forecast track, Philippe’s center will swiftly cross the Straits of Florida, “and move across the Florida Keys or the southern tip of the Florida peninsula overnight, and across the northwestern Bahamas Sun-day morning,” the NHC said.

The Hurricane Center also

warned that brief tornadoes were possible across portions of South Florida. Rain-soaked Florida was pummeled by Hur-ricane Irma in August, and Tropical Storm Emily in July.

Cuban Civil Defense earlier warned citizens of a storm -- at the time a tropical depression -- bringing strong wind and heavy rain, and causing large ocean swells.

SBP’s Alana Tornello sets up a banner in the yard of a home which is being prepared for Project UPLIFT, a $7.5m home elevation pilot programme, in Brooklyn, New York.

US-Mexico friendship race

19MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017 AMERICAS

Participants in the United States-Mexico international race cross the international bridge between the two countries from the US into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. More than a thousand runners from different countries took part in the event promoted by municipal and state authorities of both countries to strengthen ties of friendship.

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk to a motorcade outside the White House before traveling to the Trump International Hotel for dinner in Washington, DC.

Dinner trip

Washington

Reuters

Cuba will make it eas-ier for its US-based citizens to travel to the island, Foreign Minister Bruno Rod-

riguez said, in a gesture to win support from Cuban Americans during a diplomatic crisis over allegations of mysterious health attacks.

“The US government closes, and Cuba opens,” Rodriguez told a meeting of pro-Havana Cuban Americans in Washington.

He said Cuban citizens in the United States would no longer need to have a special review of their Cuban passports to reha-bilitate them before traveling to the island.

Rodriguez said that proce-dure had become more difficult due to staff shortages at the Cuban embassy after the US government expelled 15 Cuban diplomats this month due to the dispute over the mystery attacks on US personnel in Cuba. “It’s unacceptable and immoral, from the point of view of the Cuban government, for people to be harmed by a difference between governments,” he said.

Some Cuban Americans said Havana was simply acceding to demands that it should have acceded to long ago, like allow-ing them home without a special procedure.

While the United States has

not formally accused Cuba of carrying out what it says are attacks that have caused hear-ing loss and cognitive issues in its diplomats, President Donald Trump said last week Havana was responsible.

Cuban government officials accused Trump this week of slandering their country.

Tension over the alleged attacks, some of which involved high-pitched sounds, came after Trump said in June he wanted to partially roll back the historic detente between the United States and Cuba, ordering tighter restrictions on travel and trade. These have yet to be unveiled.

Rodriguez said Cuba was making it easier for the chil-dren of Cubans in the United States to attain Cuban nation-ality and allowing Cuban Americans to travel to the country on cruise ships that

embark at two ports on Cuba.Havana will also allow some

Cubans who left the country ille-gally to return, he said.

There are roughly 2 million Cubans or Americans of Cuban origin in the United States.

One attendee at the event, Andres Pertierra, a US-born cit-izen with a Cuban father, said he was excited he now qualified for a Cuban passport.

“These changes inspire grat-itude and bring Cubans abroad closer to Cuban government,” said the legal assistant.

“The Cuban government is making sure that it is clear that the weight of responsibility for failure to normalize falls squarely on the shoulders of the Trump administration.”

Meawnhile, Cuba has hit out at allegations that mysterious sonic attacks made American diplomats ill in the country, dis-missing them as “political manipulation” aimed at under-mining relations.

At least 24 diplomats in Cuba suffered health problems from November 2016 to August 2017, in what US officials say may have been a result of attacks carried out with some kind of covert acoustic device.

Washington has not for-mally blamed Havana, but in mid-October Trump said that he holds Cuba responsible -- and the White House has said it believes the country could bring the attacks to a halt.

Temer plans to shuffle cabinet in MarchBrasilia

Reuters

Brazilian President Michel Temer will shuffle his cabinet in March and

likely exclude members of his main allied party after many of its lawmakers turned against him this week, a sen-ior government source said.

The source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said he did not expect the Brazilian Social Democ-racy Party (PSDB) to be part of the future government.

The reshuffle follows the biggest revolt yet against Temer’s 13-month govern-ment when the majority of PSDB lower-house deputies on Wednesday voted to put him on trial over corruption charges.

The PSDB plans to field its own presidential candidate next year and may well quit Temer’s coalition of its own accord as the elections draw closer, the source said.

Though the lower house voted to shelve a corruption case against Temer, the upheaval in his ruling coali-tion is likely to derail Temer’s plans to plug a budget deficit to help Brazil recover from its worst ever recession.

The planned cabinet changes will take place as ministers have to leave the cabinet by April to run in October elections.

Smaller allied parties have asked Temer to eject the PSDB from his government. It cur-rently holds four cabinet posts.

The source said Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes, a member of the PSDB, might stay on even if his party leaves the government.

Temer, whose popularity is at rock bottom, has no plans to run for re-election.

Havana to make it easier for Cuban Americans to visit

A wise move

Plan is a gesture to win support from Cuban Americans during diplomatic crisis over charges of health attacks.

Cuban government officials accused Trump this week of slandering their country.

Washington

AFP

Hillary Clinton got a reminder that exactly one year ago, then FBI

director James Comey said he was re-opening a probe into her emails. “Oh is that today?” the former Democratic presidential candidate quipped on Twitter late Saturday, in response to a post by election forecaster Nate Silver who noted the anniver-sary of Comey’s move and said

it was “probably decisive” in last year’s White House race.

Comey shocked the country when he informed Congress on October 28, 2016 that he was reo-pening an FBI investigation into Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server as secretary of state, months after declaring the probe found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

The about-turn just days before the election followed the discovery of missing Clinton emails with classified material

on the laptop of a former congressman.

Clinton has called Comey’s move a major factor in her loss to Donald Trump, saying: “If the election had been on October 27, I’d be your president.”

But Comey has said it was the right choice and he would do it again if he had to.

Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million over Trump, but lost the indirect by all-important state-by-state electoral college count.

Clinton marks painful date with Twitter quip

Security tightened after miners attack govt posts in AmazonRio de Janiero

Reuters

Brazilian army and police officers have ramped up security in the northern

town of Humaitá in the Ama-zon region after illegal gold miners set fire to the offices of government environmental watchdogs, officials said yesterday.

The buildings of Brazil’s Environmental Protection

Agency (Ibama) and the Chico Mendes Institute of Conserva-tion of Biodiversity (ICMBio) in the northern Brazilian town of Humaitá were hit on Friday, according to the military police.

The attacks came after a crackdown on illegal mining operations with a government taskforce burning about 30 boats worth about $20,000 each in a prohibited area near a forest reserve on the Madeira River early Friday morning.

Ibama acts as an environ-mental monitoring group to protect Brazil’s natural resources while ICMBio is in charge of for-est reserves.

The attacks have raised con-cerns of further violence from illegal miners who often look for gold in protected areas or indig-enous lands amid rising tensions over land ownership.

Military police official Rogens de Souza Morais said ille-gal miners - or “garimpeiros” as

they are known - and up to 5,000 protesters took to the streets after the operation on Friday.

“Some garimpeiros financed fireworks to protesters. People also used rocks to hit Ibama,” Morais told the Thomson Reu-ters Foundation.

He said army and federal police officials are now strength-ening security in the region.

A gold rush in the Amazon by illegal miners has decimated

parts of the forest and poisoned the rivers with mercury and other toxins while also involv-ing human trafficking and prostitution, according to fed-eral prosecutors.

An Ibama official confirmed a taskforce last week launched an operation against illegal gold mining along the Madeira River, saying Brazilian legislation allowed the destruction of equip-ment used in criminal environmental activities.

Wisconsin juvenile prisons struggle to change courseMadison

AP

Pandora Lobacz was trying to assert control of her classroom at Lincoln Hills

youth prison when she ordered an inmate pacing in front of her desk to return to his seat.

“You’re not running this classroom. I am,” Lobacz recalls the boy saying, shortly before he punched the 4-foot-7, 110-pound teacher in the left eye, knocking her unconscious.

The attack was the most vivid example yet of what prison staff and state lawmak-ers say are worsening problems at Wisconsin’s Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake School for boys and girls, after a fed-eral judge’s order in July to curtail use of pepper spray, sol-itary confinement and shackles as methods of control.

Though the use of such techniques is out of step with similar institutions across the U.S., ending them has been dif-ficult. Gov. Scott Walker’s administration told the judge earlier this month that it has not yet fully complied with the order because of ongoing “sig-nificant unrest.” And staff members blame the order for emboldening inmates who, they say, are confident they can get away with more than before.

“I’m terrified,” said Lobacz, who hasn’t returned to work since her Oct. 11 assault. “I’m ter-rified I was one punch away from being killed or paralyzed.”

Twenty-nine states and Washington, D.C., either pro-hibit the use of solitary confinement by law or practice within juvenile prisons, accord-ing to the Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest. Fifteen other states limit the amount of time juveniles can spend in solitary confinement.

Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, said the Wisconsin prisons’ problems come from poor management. Staff who argue they need things like pep-per spray, solitary confinement and shackles are saying “our culture within the facility has become so corrupted by vio-lence we have no other options,” he said.

The methods “are not neces-sary, they don’t work and they just lead to more violence,” said Butts, who has researched youth justice for nearly three decades.

Problems at the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake prisons, about 215 miles northwest of Milwaukee in the woods of northern Wisconsin, have been developing for years.

McCartney lifts spirits in quake-hit MexicoMexico City

AFP

Paul McCartney lifted spir-its in quake-hit Mexico at a concert here punctuated

with the cry “Fuerza Mexico!”More than 48,000 fans gath-

ered in the city’s Azteca Stadium Saturday to hear the former Beatle in his first Mexico City concert in five years.

Before launching into “Maybe I’m amazed,” McCart-ney raised his fist, evoking the hand signs used to call for silence during the search for survivors in the ruins left by the September 19 earthquake. “Fuerza Mexico!” he shouted to the roar of the crowd, delighted by his use of the Spanish phrase meaning “Be strong, Mexico!”

The 7.1 magnitude quake

toppled buildings in the city, kill-ing more than 400 people and leaving thousands homeless.

Shortly after the quake, McCartney sent a message on Twitter to Mexicans expressing his affection and support “in these difficult times.” During his previous Mexico City concert, McCartney filled the giant plaza in the heart of the city known as the Zocalo with 200,000 fans.

20 MONDAY 30 OCTOBER 2017MORNING BREAK

Producer Monika Bacardi (left), director Graciela Rodriguez Gilio (centre) and producer Andrea Iervolino pose with children before a press conference of the film “Beyond the Sun”, at the 12th Rome Film Festival in Rome, yesterday.

While in Rome...go ‘Beyond the Sun’

World Trade Center, the headquarters of Qatar Petroleum, illuminated in pink on Saturday to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pic: P K Niaz / The Peninsula

Lit up for a cause

FAJRSHOROOK

04.23 am

05.40 am

ZUHRASR

11.18 am

02.30 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

04.57 pm

06.27 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 01:30 – 12: 45 LOW TIDE 04:45 – 20: 45

Hazy to misty / foggy at places by

early morning becomes relatively

hot daytime with some clouds.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

27oC 35oC

Las Vegas shooter’s brain up for testingLas Vegas

AP

Scientists are preparing to do a microscopic study of the Las Vegas gunman’s brain, but what-

ever they find, if anything, likely won’t be what led him to kill 58 people in the worst mass shooting in modern US his-tory, experts said.

Stephen Paddock’s brain is being sent to Stanford University for a months-long examination after a vis-ual inspection during an autopsy found no abnormalities, Las Vegas authori-ties said.

Doctors will perform multiple forensic analyses, including an exam of the 64-year-old’s brain tissue to find any possible neurological problems.

The brain will arrive in California soon, and Stanford has been instructed to spare no expense for the work, The New York Times reported. It will be further dissected to determine if Pad-dock suffered from health problems such as strokes, blood vessel diseases, tumours, some types of epilepsy, mul-tiple sclerosis, degenerative disorders, physical trauma and infections.

Dr Hannes Vogel, Stanford Univer-sity Medical Center’s director of neuropathology, would not discuss the

procedure with The Associated Press and referred questions to officials in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. They also refused to provide details.

Vogel told The Times that he will leave nothing overlooked to put to rest much of the speculation on Paddock’s health as investigators struggle to iden-tify a motive for the shooting.

The examination will come about a month after Paddock unleashed more than a thousand bullets through the windows of a 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel into a crowd below attending an outdoor country music festival. After killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more, Paddock took his own life with a shot through his mouth, police say.

Investigators working around the clock remain frustrated by a lack of clues that would point to his motive. Authorities have resorted to putting up billboards in southern Nevada seek-ing tips and now the intensive brain study that medical experts say likely

won’t yield definitive answers.If a disease is found, experts say it

would be false science to conclude it caused or perhaps even contributed to the massacre, even if that explana-tion would ease the minds of investigators and the world at large.

“There’s a difference between association and causality, and just because you have anything, doesn’t mean it does anything,” said Brian Peterson, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners and chief coroner of Wisconsin’s Milwau-kee County.

The microscopic study is not a standard practice but is regularly used as needed. Families sometimes request such a detailed examination to better understand their own genetic risks.

Peterson said it’s also common in high-profile cases such as Paddock’s, where so much is riding on the results that all forensic options must be exhausted.

Douglas Fields, a neuroscientist who studies the rage circuit in brain

systems, said horribly violent events, such as mass shootings and terrorism, rarely involve actual brain abnormal-ities but can be triggered by psychiatric problems.

Perpetrators often are suicidal psy-chopaths who are motivated to commit heinous crimes because they have internalized their isolation and anti-social behaviour as an existential threat for themselves, he said.

“When police look for motive, it’s kind of misplaced in cases like this because they appear to be crimes of rage. There’s no motive for crimes of rage. It’s a crime of passion,” Fields said. One such case involved the Uni-versity of Texas shooter Charles Whitman, who fatally shot 13 people in 1966 from a clock tower on the Aus-tin campus. Whitman was found to have a pecan-sized tumour in his brain, though the suggestion that it caused his rampage is still debated decades later. Peterson, who is not involved in the Paddock case, said an initial inspection that is standard for any autopsy would generally include dis-secting the brain at one-centimetre intervals to look for issues identifiable to the trained eye — infection, tumour, symmetry, bleeding and blood vessel abnormality.

The examination will come about a month after Paddock unleashed more than a thousand bullets through the windows of a 32nd floor hotel suite.

Bernstein keeps shining century after birth New York AFP

Decades after his death, Leonard Bernstein (pictured) may still be the

most identifiable conductor in the public imagination — dramatic on-stage, bold off-stage and succeeding unlike so many others in making classical music accessible.

But although Bernstein hardly needs rescue from obscurity, the breadth of his work is rarely con-sidered in its totality.

Ahead of next year’s centen-nial of Bernstein’s birth, the New York Philharmonic — where he was music director from 1958 to 1969 — is putting on a wide-rang-ing festival that explores Bernstein as a composer, conductor and public figure.

The festival will of course include “West Side Story,” Bern-stein’s Broadway musical whose tunes have entered the US popular songbook. But the Philharmonic, bringing in star conductors and soloists, is also showcasing his con-cert works including all three of his symphonies. Leading US violinist Joshua Bell, who is performing Bernstein’s philosophical “Sere-nade (after Plato’s ‘Symposium’),” described Bernstein as a “musical icon” who became one of the first American classical musicians to win respect in Europe.

Bernstein as a conductor was

“incredibly demonstrative and emotional in a way that hadn’t been seen before, but also very honest and never pretentious,” Bell said.

As a composer as well, “every-thing was very heart-on-sleeve,” Bell said, noting that Bernstein was especially proud of “Serenade (after Plato’s ‘Symposium’),” which muses on the meaning of love with unu-sual instrumentation of a dominant violin and diverse percussion.

“I’m second-guessing, but I guess he didn’t want to be known just as a Broadway composer, because he was so much more than that,” Bell said.

The festival, which runs through November 14, comes with an exhibition on the persona of Bernstein, who died in 1990.

For many in the 1960s, Mas-sachusetts-born Bernstein became the quintessential New Yorker — and Bernstein used his platform for political advocacy, notably by championing racial equality.

‘Jigsaw’ climbs box office chartsLos Angeles

AFP

Hollywood may be suffering through a spir-itless patch but Halloween films can still lend a needed jolt, as Lionsgate’s new “Jig-

saw” horror film and a clutch of other scary films showed by boosting an otherwise flimsy week-end box office.

“Jigsaw,” the eighth chapter in Lionsgate’s “Saw” horror franchise, took in an estimated $16.3m over the three-day weekend, according to industry website Exhibitor Relations. It beat out the same studio’s “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween,” with $10m.

But after that, no film in the top 10 made as much as $6m, with audiences distracted by base-ball’s World Series and the hugely popular Netflix series “Stranger Things.”

Even “Jigsaw” fell some $4m below expecta-tions in its opening weekend, Variety.com reported.

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