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Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani met with Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Talks dealt with bilateral relations.

BUSINESS | 21 SPORT | 28

Volume 21 | Number 7094 | 2 RiyalsWednesday 8 March 2017 | 9 Jumada II 1438

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Hukoomi 3 launched The Peninsula

Launch of Hukoomi 3, the new generation of e-gov-ernment portal, which

features more government serv-ices for the public from different ministries and state entities was announced at QITCOM 2017.

Quoting Tareq Al Emadi, head of the e-government por-tal at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Qatar News Agency said that Hukoomi 3 aims to abolish paperwork in processing daily transactions.

Through the new portal, users can access their personal data such as commercial registry, property details, health card, electricity and water bills. Passport services, insurance and driving licence renewal will be added later, he added.

Several government entities

in various disciplines were employed to provide all the data related to Qatar to be documented so that the user can benefit.

Through Hukoomi 3 users will be able to process 650 different transactions from home without the need to be present at a government facility. The number of services increased by 500 compared to those that were provided by

Hukoomi 2, said Al Emadi. He said that the Ministry of

Transport and Communications conducted an online and tele-phone survey to learn about the needs of users before upgrad-ing Hukoomi 2 and launching Hukoomi 3.

The new portal includes introductory pages about each available service and the type of required procedure, Al Emadi said, adding that data about investment in Qatar has been made available on the portal for investors in Qatar and abroad.

The data were compiled from the Ministry of Finance, Qatar Central Bank, Qatar Exchange and other relevant government entities.

Hukoomi 3 is accessible through an application on all mobile phones as well as tablets and desktops, Al Emadi said.

Registration of patents goes onlineQNA

The Ministry of Economy a n d C o m m e r c e launched yesterday a

service to register patents electronically through its website.

The Ministry said in a press statement that the service is part of its efforts to constantly develop its offering. The entire patent registration process from application through processing will be online. The new service will speed up the process and save applicants the effort of having to go to the Ministry. The Ministry said that patents are crucial to inventors and investors who seek to commercialise a product. It also protects the inventors' rights from possible infringe-ments related to their product.

Registering the patent also recognises the contribu-tion an individual or an organisation made in a field regardless of whether they wish to commercialise that contribution or not.

Infrastructure plan for 10,400 plots of land

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) and Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kah-

ramaa) are working together on a multi-billion riyal project to provide basic infrastructure serv-ices to 10,400 plots of land allotted to citizens for homes at 13 locations across the country.

The projects aim at build-ing infrastructure like roads, electricity and water connec-tion, sewerage system among other services that are being developed in phases. Accord-ing to the plan, tenders for the projects are being floated at a cost of QR2bn per year for three

years. The projects for devel-oping infrastructure and basic services will be completed in five years.

Basic services have been provided at many plots at two locations — Al Wukair North and Al Mashaf West areas where construction works for building houses have started. Some villas are almost com-plete while a number of others are in advanced stages of con-struction. Details about the projects were given by officials from Ashghal and Kahrmaa in a joint press conference held at a project site at Al Mashaf West area, Al Wakra yesterday.

The event was attended by Dr Saad bin Ahmad Al Muhan-nadi, President of Ashghal, and Eng Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, President of Kahramaa, among other officials.

A plan was presented in the conference about the delivery of infrastructure projects for citizens’ sub-divisions over a period of five years.

“Some 80 percent plots have been already allocated to the citizens, said Al Muhannadi. During this year, infrastructure projects for Al Wukair North and Al Mashaf West areas will be completed, which together will serve 1,829 land plots.

In 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, infrastructure facilities will be completed at remaining locations to serve 1,303, 2,511, 2,487 and 2,270 plots of land respectively, he added.

→ Continued on page 5

Drone to rescue people from drowningRaynald C Rivera The Peninsula

A pioneering life sav-ing technology will soon be available on Qatari coasts to save potential drowning

victims. Drones will soon be deployed on Qatari coasts to save people from drowning, thanks to the new ‘Ooredoo Res-cue’ concept.

The new drone technology is one of the attractions at Oore-doo’s booth at the QITCOM 2017 which concludes today.

The new technology likely to be launched early next year will see solar-powered buoys set up on Qatari coasts.

“The buoys will be equipped with cameras and sensors to detect people in the water within their range, monitor the situa-tion in real time and send a signal to the coastguard control centre to deploy the drone which will then bring the inflatable life raft to save a drowning person,” Amr Abdelhady, CEO of N-GON, told local media yesterday.

N-GON, a Qatari startup which are providers of UAV

solutions, has partnered with Ooredoo to provide

this next generation life saving technology. The new solution will

provide the life raft in the fastest time possible, to allow the per-son to hold on to the floatation device until human aid can reach them.

Ooredoo will provide the 4G Supernet network which will operate the drone as well as Wifi to the areas where the buoys will be located, said Abdelhady, add-ing it will likely be launched early next year after finalising agreement with the Ministry of Interior for the manufacture, deployment and maintenance of the technology.

“This new concept was recently showcased at the Mobile World Congress and we have received many inquiries from other countries in the Gulf, Turkey, Bulgaria,” said Abdelhady.

Ooredoo Rescue is one of the advanced solutions being show-cased at the Ooredoo booth at QITCOM 2017. A preview of Qatar’s first-ever 5G technology, a live interactive Security Oper-ations Centre (SOC), Smart Stadium concepts, the latest Health and Connected Home technologies are also featured at the booth.

Increase in Haj quota expected this yearThe Peninsula

Qatar expects significant increase in Haj quota for pilgrims from Qatar this

year, following an announce-ment by the Saudi authorities in this regard, an official has said.

Over the past four years, quota allowed for all the coun-tries was reduced by about 20 percent due to expansion projects at the Grand Mosque of Makkah.

"An increase in the Haj quota is expected in line with announcement of Saudi author-ities about raising the capacity for accommodating more pil-grims from this year. We are waiting for an official announcement in this regard,” said Ali bin Sultan Al Mesaifir, Head of Haj and Omra Affairs Department at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs.

More than 10,800 people have applied in the first week, since registration of aspiring pilgrims started early this month. Registration will

continue until the end of this month, he added.

“More applications are expected this year compared to last year when 18,000 requests were received," said Al Mesaifir.

Applications will be screened in mid-April to check whether they meet the terms and conditions. The applicants will be notified through text messages and e-mails.

Candidates have been asked to provide complete and accurate information because requests with missing informa-tion will be rejected. Grievances are not accepted after scruti-nising the applications.

All procedures like registra-tion with tour operators, announcement of details about accommodation would be com-pleted before the month of Ramadan.

The online registration sys-tem is working smoothly this year despite the huge number of applications, said the official.

→ Continued on page 5

Multi-billion outlay

The projects by Ashghal and Kahramaa aim to build infrastructure like roads, electricity and water connection, sewage system among other services being developed in phases.

The multi-billion riyal project covers 10,400 plots of land allotted to citizens for homes at 13 locations across the country.

The drone displayed at the Ooredoo booth during the QITCOM Conference and Exhibition at QNCC yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin/ The Peninsula

Global demand for cooled helmet

The solar-powered cooled helmet designed and developed in Qatar by

Qatar University, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) and Aspire Zone has received global interest, according to the Doha-based team in charge of the helmet concept which can reduce the skin temperature.

→ Full report on page 2

Through Hukoomi 3 users will be able to process 650 different transactions from home without the need to be present at a government facility.

PM meets Pakistani Chief of Army Staff

02 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017HOME

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has sent a written message to Pakistan's Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, pertaining to bilateral relations. Qatar's Ambassador to Pakistan Saqr bin Mubarak Al Mansouri delivered the message during a meeting with Sartaj Aziz yesterday.

FM sends message to Sartaj Aziz

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

The French embassy in Qatar yesterday marked the 2017 International Women’s Day

by presenting a video titled 'Qatar Women Pushing Limits' which featured six extraordinary and inspirational Qatari women.

“Because I‘m a strong believer that films reach out to many, I wanted to celebrate the 2017 International Women’s Day with a video showing some remarka-ble Qatari women. There are so many in Qatar that we would need hours to praise them all,” French Ambassador to Qatar, Eric Chev-allier, said during the occasion which took place at the ambassa-dor's residence .

“These six women excel in very different domains, govern-ment institutions, sports, entrepreneurship and business, higher education, culinary art, entertainment … but what they

have in common is their unwa-vering determination to achieve a goal," Chevallier added.

"The theme of this video is 'I do it' because women in Qatar, as in all countries, manage to play major role in our societies.Their

strength, their dedication and their contribution to meaningful change deserve to praised, not only today, but every day," he said.

Aysha Al Mudahka, CEO of Qatar Business Incubation Center (QBIC), is one of the legendary

women featured in the video. “We are proud about the place that Qatari women have reached. They defeated all challenges to reach all domains - in tourism, luxury industry, business and culture. The government offered

them everything they may need to achieve their goals,” she said.

Other women who were fea-tured in the video were Sheikha Asmaa Al Thani of the Qatar Olympic Committee, extreme sport and adventurer, Fatma Al

Rumaihi, CEO of Doha Film Insti-tute, who had long supported cinema development and crea-tion in the Middle East and beyond, Nada Mohamed Wafa, the first woman to represent Qatar at the Summer Olympics in 2012, Mashal Al Rashid, the first Qatari to graduate from ENA Paris, one of the highest French Diplomas, and Aisha Al Tamimi, a Qatari chef. In addition, song-writer and composer Dana Al Fardan has contributed in mak-ing the video with the music from her album Sandstorm .

Challenges faced by Qatari women and women in general were mentioned in the video, including issues such as how women balance between the profession and home. The video also highlights that Qatari women are ambitious and they receive support from the govern-ment as well as their families,and so they are motivated to achieve more.

French embassy marks Women's Day with documentary on Qatari women

95% satisfied with MoI services last yearThe Peninsula

An overwhelming 95 percent of customers were satisfied with the services of the Ministry of Interior

last year which shows a signifi-cant improvement over the past three years.

According to data released by the Ministry, the total number of transactions through differ-ent departments of the Ministry of Interior last year was 71,565,367 , with a monthly aver-age of 5,963,781 transactions and daily 198,793 transactions.

The average number of transactions per hour was 8,283 with 138 transactions every minute.

The Ministry’s statistics

showed that the number of visa services was 6,857,124, while residency-related transactions reached 3,245,873. Entry and exit through the ports reached 18,583,651.

A total of 46,947 Police Clearance Certificates were issued last year along with 56,265 building permits.

Almost 90,694 vehicles were registered, 94,680 driving licences were issued and 972,007 vehicle technical tests were conducted during the year.

In order to simplify the pro-cedures and save time and efforts of the service seekers, the Ministry had implemented many plans and strategies that included expansion of its serv-ices accessibility in different geographical areas of the state and transforming manual serv-ices to electronic services through Metrash 2 app or through the website of the Min-istry, Hukoomi or self-service kiosks.

The number of electronic services was 47,948,796 which amounts to 67% of the entire transactions and the number of transactions through the service centres was 23,616,571 that marked 33%.

The efficiency of the services provided by the Ministry to the public is assessed through dif-ferent mechanisms such as the public satisfaction survey, time calculation of each transaction, the level of impression and rep-utation with the service beneficiaries.

These efforts have helped in improving the efficiency of the services of the Ministry through its service centres in different localities of the State.

The total number of calls made to 999 in 2016 was

3,389,606 which included serv-ice requests to traffic, injuries, illnesses, complaints, enquiries, fire reports and other personal services.

Through Metrash 2, the total transactions were 2,267,698 with an increase of 75.3% compared to 2015, whereas the number of subscribers to Metrash2 app reached 303,527. As much as 96 services are now accessible through Metrash 2, by which the users can save their time and efforts to a great extent.

These steps taken by the Min-istry are based on the concept of transforming to “a paperless min-istry”. All sectors of the Ministry are doing their best to develop services through constant scien-tific studies, researches and statistics.

Monthly average

The total number of transactions last year was 71,565,367 with a monthly average of 5,963,781 transactions.

Almost 90,694 vehicles registered and 94,680 driving licences issued last year.

Al Muraikhi attends ArabLeague meeting Cairo

QNA

Qatar participated in the 147th session of the Arab League Council at

the level of foreign ministers which was chaired by Alge-rian Minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and Arab League, Abdelkader Messahel, in the presence of Arab League Secretary Gen-eral Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.

Qatar is taking part in the meeting with a delegation headed by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi.

The meeting's agenda includes 30 points related to the question of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Israeli violations in the occu-pied city of Jerusalem, and how to address the transfer of diplomatic missions to Jerusalem and support the Palestinian Authority's budget and the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.

It also includes Arab water security and Israel's stealing of Arab water, in addition to the latest devel-opments in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq, and Iranian interference in Arab affairs and the draft agenda of the 28th Arab summit scheduled on 29 March in Amman, Jordan.

Other issues include ways to fight terrorism, joint Arab action, and the development of Arab relations with the international and regional organizations.

The Arab League meeting in Cairo assumes importance in the light of several chal-lenges faced by the Arab world.

The Peninsula

A total of 3,527 students have been vaccinated as part of this year’s Teta-

nus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (TdaP) vaccination campaign by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).

The Ministry recently announced the annual cam-paign to vaccinate 10 graders in private and public schools against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis diseases.

Vaccination at private schools by trained medical teams from the Ministry will continue until early next week. At Independent schools, medi-cal teams from the Primary Healthcare Corporation will start vaccinating students from March 12 to March 16. The cam-paign against tetanus

,diphtheria and pertussis dis-eases is organised by the MoPH’s vaccination section, which represents the Health Protection and Communicable Diseases Control Department for the seventh year in collab-oration with the PHCC and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The cam-paign is aimed at the grade ten students (first secondary). These three diseases targeted by vac-cination are considered dangerous that may cause death or disability in young adults.

Health protection and Com-municable Diseases Control Department at the MoPH has also urged parents to take the oppor-tunity and give consent to vaccinate the children as it has a major impact on their health pro-tection and prevention of serious diseases.

3,527 students vaccinated under MoPH campaign

Global demand for cooled helmet designed in QatarThe Peninsula

The solar-powered cooled helmet designed and developed in Qatar by

Qatar University, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Leg-acy (SC) and Aspire Zone has received global interest, accord-ing to the Doha-based team in charge of the innovative helmet concept which can reduce the skin temperature of construc-tion workers by up to ten degrees centigrade.

“There is a global demand because there is a worldwide need for such technology. The

safety of workers in hot climates is something that is a priority in countries across the world, and it is very rewarding to see that the research we have conducted here in Qatar together with the SC can fulfil a global need,” said Dr Saud Abdul Aziz Abdul Ghani, Professor at the College of Engi-neering at Qatar University.

Interest in the helmet has been registered from all corners of the world. “We have had interest from Spain, from a com-pany specialised in kit for the protection of workers, and another from Holland. We’ve seen that locally in Qatar a lot of

companies have approached us, in the region as well as there was interest from the UAE in the oil and gas sector, where they were looking to combat heat stress for workers and wanted to make them work in safer conditions,” Dr Saud added.

With the first batch of the helmets to be issued to workers this summer, the Professor who has taught at a number of pres-tigious UK-based universities sees the development as a tan-gible legacy of the tournament.

“After our concept made the news in many different countries earlier this year, we’ve had

contacts from all over the world. A construction company from South Korea got in touch, saying they were really interested and wanted to trial the helmet and give us their feedback. We’ve had companies in Egypt, India and Mexico reaching out to us.

“I believe this could revolu-tionise the industry globally, and change the way in which con-struction work in hot climates is conducted. This is already prov-ing to be a legacy of 2022, because the impulse of the tour-nament is helping to drive innovation forward in the region.”

Officials and Qatari women achievers at the function held at the residence of French Ambassador to Qatar yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

03WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 HOME

Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

Hamad Medical Cor-poration (HMC) experts yesterday warned against the use of dietary sup-

plements as a weight loss tool. They have also advised people to take oral supplements for weight loss only if prescribed by physicians.

“Taking dietary supplements to lose weight is the biggest mis-take anyone can make, ” said Dr Buthaina Ibrahim, Senior Con-sultant - Diabetes and Endocrinology Department and a member of Qatar Metabolic Institute.

“People should be aware of such supplements. They can damage the kidney because it dehydrates the body and can even lead to a kidney failure. It is very serious. If anyone wants

to lose weight, they should con-sult a physician or seek help from a dietitian,” she said speaking at a press conference held at the Hamad bin Khalifa Medical City.

Experts also say that some oral supplements sold as weight loss tools get into the country under the label of dietary

supplements. “Such supplements is a

multi billion industry all over the world and the problem is they come as dietary supple-ments and get approved. There is no restriction on dietary sup-plements and people bring such things here and sell. It’s a die-tary supplement and not a medicine or tool for weight loss and people should understand this,” said Dr Waheeba Al Haj, Consultant, Bariatric Medicine and Surgery at HMC.

“Some such supplements make the person lose water in the body at the beginning or some bacteria will create diarrhea and make people lose some weight, so they think it is working. Also, most of these sup-plements come as herbal products and people have the misconception that herbals are safe, but herbals have lots of tox-ins,” she added.

The press conference was held to emphasise the impor-tance of controlling overweight and obesity for healthy kidneys.

“There is a very close rela-tionship between obesity and kidney diseases. If a person has mild renal problems and if he does minor weight loss man-agement, the renal function will

become normal. If he is at the stage of dialysis then some medication or surgery is needed. Also, one of the man-datory requirements for renal transplants is to reduce weight,” said Dr Moataz M Bashah, Director, Metabolic and Bari-atric Surgery at HMC.

Regarding bariatric (weight loss) surgeries, he said that the

service has been expanded from the Hamad General hospital to the Al Wakrah Hospital and to the Cuban Hospital.

“We have conducted around 4,000 surgeries so far, but the surgery is not a solution for obes-ity. It can have an effect for like two years. So the most impor-tant fact in losing weight is to modify lifestyle,” he added.

Warning against use of dietary supplements for weight loss

FROM LEFT: Dr Buthaina Ibrahim, Dr Moataz Bashah, and Dr Waheeba Al Haj at a press conference at Hamad bin Khalifa Medical City yesterday. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

Call to seek advice

People advised to take oral supplements for weight loss only if prescribed by physicians.

Some oral supplements for weight loss imported under the label of dietary supplements.

Results of Arab Opinion Index 2016 to be announced on March 13The Peninsula

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies will announce the results of

Arab Opinion Index 2016 at a press conference on March 13.

The centre said that the findings of 2016 opinion survey are based on 18,310 face-to-face interviews conducted by 840 researchers between Septem-ber 10 and December 30/2016

in different Arab countries.The opinion poll is the larg-

est public survey of its kind in the Arab world which measure the most important changes in the Arab world and general trends during the year. The results of the annual survey are expected to give scholars an opportunity to understand how the Arab citizens view the most pressing issues such as attitudes towards democ-racy, institutional performances

evaluations, and superpowers' policies towards the Arab region.

Conducting the Arab Opin-ion Index for the fifth consecutive year by the Arab Center allows scholars, policy makers and researchers to make comparisons with the findings of the previous years to see the changes which happened in the Arab public attitudes towards the main issues surveyed since the launch of the survey in 2011.

Mohammed OsmanThe Peninsula

Under the slogan 'Pioneer-ing and Creativity', the Education Conference

and National Scientific Research Week will take place from March 12 to March 16 at the Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC). The conference will discuss over 30 researches in 44 workshops.

The Ministry has set up spe-cial committees and made all necessary preparations for this year's education conference aimed at providing a platform for experts, teachers and stu-dents to exchange knowledge, experiences and research, said Fawzia Al Khater, Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Affairs at the Ministry of Educa-tion and Higher Education.

The conference will bring together experts, academics and researchers to discuss the latest educational developments and research outcomes.

The five-day conference and research week is organised jointly by the Ministry of Edu-cation and Higher Education and the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) under the patron-age of the Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khal-ifa Al Thani.

Speaking at a press confer-ence yesterday at the Ministry headquarters attended by offi-cials of QNRF and the Ministry, Al Khater said that the confer-ence will address the current educational trends in Qatar and enhance the role of teachers in solving problems.

The last day of the confer-ence will witness announcement

of the winning researches and honouring of winners at the concluding ceremony, said Al Khater.

The conference will focus on three major areas including leadership of change, innova-tion and pioneering learning societies, scientific research –reflection and innovation, keeping up with the latest edu-cational developments, said Dr Asma Al Mohannadi, Head of the Scientific Research Skills team at the Ministry of Education.

The conference seeks to improve quality of educational practices in the country, enhance the role of teachers, and exchange local and inter-national experiences.

The conference will feature 44 workshops and key-note speakers. The workshop and session will highlight educa-tional practices and training workshops, presentations of researches prepared by teach-ers and experts in the education field to address immediate problems and improve performances.

Over 323 teachers and edu-cational staff from 83 schools

will participate in the research competition. The researches cover three major aspects; teaching, learning and the impact of psychological and sociological aspects on the aca-demic achievements of the students.

The 9th national scientific research exhibition will take place for two days on the side-lines of the conference to showcase students' researches which met the research meth-odology specifications and standards. Some 917 research projects selected from 1,983 researches presented by stu-dents from 220 schools will be presented. On the last day of the exhibition, the first three win-ners will be honoured.

Two competitions on astronomy and FameLab will take place as part of the confer-ence, said Dr Abdullah Al Kamali, Special Programmes Manager at QNRF. Competition of astronomy is an annual con-test organised by Hamad bin Khalifa University, targeting preparatory and secondary schools students in independ-ent, private and international schools.

FameLab is a science com-munication competition initiated by Cheltenham Science Festivals and British Council in 31 countries. The competition was launched in Qatar by the British Council and QNRF and supported by the Ministry of Education and Higher Educa-tion, Qatar University and Hamad Bin Khalifa University.

Qatar National Bank is spon-soring the conference and research week along with QNRF a n d o t h e r r e s e a r c h institutions.

Hassan Al Mohammadi, Director of Public Relations; Dr Asma Al Mohannadi, Head of Scientific Research Skills team at the Ministry of Education; Fawzia Al Khater, Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Affairs at the Ministry; and Dr Abdulla Al Kamali, Special Programmes Manager, Qatar National Research Fund, at the press conference.

Education Conference & Research Week to feature 44 workshops

Education trends

The Education Ministry has set up special committees and made all preparations for this year's conference.

Conference to address educational trends and enhance the role of teachers in solving problems.

04 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017HOME

Qumra Talks

Producer Mike Reiss described the lessons that he has learnt along the way, demonstrating how all these skills came together in The Simpsons, the internationally-renowned animated comedy.

The Peninsula

Qatar Chemical Company Ltd. (Q-Chem) celebrated gradua-tion ceremony of 14 sponsored

students, who have been recognised for successfully completing Certifi-cate II and Certificate III for Technician Preparatory Program (TPP) at the College of North Atlan-tic – Qatar (CNA-Q).

Organised by CNA-Q, the grad-uation ceremony was held at the Diplomatic Club recently.

A Q-Chem delegation led by Ahmed Al Sulaiti, Human Capital Manager, attended the ceremony.

With enhanced technical skills and key competencies following their graduation, the students will be able to work at several departments within Q-Chem facilities located at Doha,

Mesaieed, or Ras Laffan.”We want to thank the CNA-Q

management for their contribution to the success of our stu-dents to pave the way for their future plans,” said Al-Sulaiti.

Speaking to the stu-dents, Al-Sulaiti said: ”Today is the end of a memorable program and now you are ready to start a new phase in your

development endeavors. You have a world of opportunities to discover and a rewarding career within Q-Chem companies. Q-Chem is committed to providing qualified and talented employees with opportu-nities to grow and advance.”

Qatar Chemical Company Ltd. (Q-Chem) along with in associate com-panies Qatar Chemical Company II Ltd. (Q-Chem II) and Ras Laffan Olefins Company Ltd. (RLOC) manufacture and deliver vital petrochemical products

worldwide that impact every aspect of people’s daily lives. The high value products are precisely manufac-tured to the highest global standards using state-of-the-art processes.

It is a matter of great pride for the company that this endeavour has placed it in the forefront of Qatar’s vision to sustain itself through economic diversification, and, importantly, giving the nation its deserved status on the world stage.

Q-Chem celebrates graduation of 14 sponsored students

Students and officials of Qatar Chemical Company Ltd, at the graduation ceremony.

The Peninsula

In line with its efforts to benefit its loyal customers in Qatar, Quality Retail Group, the prominent retail chain and Careem,

the region’s leading online ride-hailing serv-ice, have joined hands to bring together an exclusive line of promotions that will add value to the daily interactions in Qatar. Both Quality Group and Careem are teaming up to launch its inaugural promotion tomorrow.

In its maiden deal, Careem will be offer-ing a 25 percent discount on the first two rides for all Quality Retail customers who sign up to Careem using the promo code, made avail-able at all Quality Retail Customer Care Service Counters. By partnering up with Careem, Qual-ity Retail Group aims to provide reliable, safe and affordable rides to its customers build on the promise of its quality service.

The Careem app; available on Google Play Store and the iOS App-store, provides relia-ble, safe and affordable transportation choices via a mobile app, on the web and through a call centre, the company informed.

A customer can easily book a ride in 10-15 seconds and be on his or her way within 5-6 minutes, the company said.

This is the first of many promotions the Quality Retail Group and Careem partnership entails. More exciting and exclusive offers are on the charts, to be made available to the cus-tomers on a regular basis.

These efforts will hopefully simplify peo-ple’s lives and drive the region towards better living. Quality Retail Group currently operates seven outlets across Qatar and will always strive to provide innovative consumer friendly solutions for an unmatched shopping experi-ence to its ardent customers.

Quality Retail Group & Careem join hands; offer premium ride

The Peninsula

Mike Reiss, winner of four Emmy Awards and famed for writing The Simpsons for

three decades, took the audience through his illustrious career at a packed auditorium in the Museum of Islamic Art, as part of this week’s Qumra Talks.

The session, “On writing and Producing with Mike Reiss”, saw Reiss describe the lessons that he has learnt along the way, demonstrating how all these skills came together in The Simpsons, the internationally-renowned animated comedy.

The self-deprecating writer immediately enamoured the audience to him by stating, “Please remember, I’m a com-edy writer not a comedian.”

However, the talk itself was full of great humour bringing his points about writing comedy to home by playing some of his favourite scenes from The Simpsons.

Imparting advice to attend-ees who are starting out in their career, Reiss said: “In this job you have to make your own luck, and work on as many ideas and projects as you can. When I started working with The National Lampoon, I had five other projects on the go.”

Reinforcing the advice, Reiss also suggested writers and film-makers should take any job that comes their way as you never know what it will turn into. Reiss

was offered the role of writer of The Simpsons, a new show in 1988, on TV network Fox Broad-casting Company, which was also a newcomer to audiences. He took gamble and here he is three decades later sharing his story in Qatar — and many other parts of the world.

Rounding up the lively event, which was attended by students, upcoming writers and vloggers, Reiss said: “You can’t teach com-edy. Or how to craft it. It just comes from observation. You have to watch a lot of good com-edy. Watching good work inspires you to do good work.”

The session touched upon topics such as character devel-opment, ‘What makes a good joke?’, and the writing process of The Simpsons. It was the sec-ond in the series of Qumra Talks organised as part of Qumra, the industry event by the Doha Film Institute, in partnership with the Northwestern University in Qatar.

Qumra Talks features three specially curated discussions, open to the public. It brings together leaders from the film, TV, technology and online worlds to offer new perspectives into areas that are redefining the film and media ecosystem.

A large number of people from cross section of society are turning up for the Qumra event in the country. The Qumra Meet-ings are a series of one-on-one meetings, workshops and

tailored mentoring sessions between representatives from the selected projects and sea-soned industry experts.

Qumra organised by Doha Film Institute (DFI), screenings are open to the public and feature projects funded by the Institute through its grants and co-financ-ing initiatives, as well as a series of films chosen by the Qumra Mas-ters accompanied by Q&A sessions.

The event is organised in

three main sections: The Qumra Master Classes are daily sessions; each led by one of the Masters. The participating filmmakers have full access to these sessions, which are also open to accred-ited industry guests to attend in an observational capacity.

DFI the of the local film com-munity through cultivating film appreciation, enhancing indus-try knowledge and contributing to the development of sustaina-ble creative industries in Qatar.

Producer Reiss shares his journey to career

Mike Reiss speaks on stage during the Qumra Talks on “Writing and Producing Animation’, on day four of Qumra, yesterday.

The Peninsula

HAMAAD Bin Khalifa Univer-sity’s (HBKU) Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII), part of College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), will host 8th Annual Interna-tional Translation Conference at the Qatar National Conven-tion Center (QNCC) on March 27 and 28.

The event held for trans-lation and interpreting scholars and practitioners in the Middle East, provides a platform to experts to discuss profession’s role, its chal-lenges and push the boundaries of its potential.

This year’s event focuses on ethics and social respon-sibility in practice in the profession.

Speaking about the confer-ence Dr Amal Mohammed Al Malki, Founding Dean of CHSS, said: “Translation and interpre-tation are going to take centre-stage in coming years within broader field of com-munications. Our conference aims to help government insti-tutions, private enterprise, and non-profit organisations develop an understanding of how to solve challenges facing the profession.

HBKU to host translation conference on March 27

05WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 HOME

Humanitarian issue

The forums’ first day will have two sessions discussing development and humanitarian action and practices in addition to sustainable development strategies in Palestine.

More than 200 participants from 75 local, regional and international humanitarian and developmental organisations along with a number of donors will participate in the two-day forum.

Emiri Guard Commander Major General Hazza bin Khalil Al Shahwani yesterday met with Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan General Qamar Javed Bajwa at Barzan Camp. During the meeting, they discussed issues of common interest between the two countries in the military field, and ways of enhancing them.

Emiri Guard Commander meets Pakistan Army Chief

The Peninsula

The Humanitarian and D e v e l o p m e n t a l Forum for Palestine will begin today at Westin Hotel, Doha

under the slogan “Together we make Hope.”

The event is sponsored by Qatar Fund for Development and a number of International Organisations, and is organised by Qatar Charity.

More than 200 participants from 75 local, regional and international humanitarian and developmental organisations along with a number of donors will participate in the two-day forum.

The forum will be held

under the auspices of Qatar Fund for Development, OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), UNRWA, Organization of Islamic Coop-eration, The United Nations Development Programme in Palestine (UNDP), Doctors with-out Borders, and Welfare Association-Palestine

During the opening session, a number of speeches will be delivered by Qatar Charity, Qatar Fund for Development, Embassy of Palestine in Qatar, Organisation of Islamic Coop-eration and Arab league and the sponsors will be honored.

The forums’ first day will have two sessions discussing development and humanitarian action and practices in addition to sustainable development strategies in Palestine. On the second day of the forum, two sessions will be held to present developmental and humanitar-ian experiences in Palestine in the areas of education, health, economic empowerment, and social welfare and to launch a range of initiatives for the ben-efit of the Palestinian people at

a charity dinner attended by audience of both genders. A number of specialized techni-cal workshops will also be held during the forum’s first day.

The forum aims at strength-ening the coordination and partnership opportunities between various supporters of the Palestinian people, examin-ing the current development and humanitarian status, and find-ing the most effective solutions to support the Palestinian peo-ple. The forum will also increase the opportunities of exchanging experiences and information relevant to development and humanitarian action in Pales-tine, launching a range of initiatives for the benefit of the Palestinian people and congre-gating resources and support for the development and humani-tarian pressing issues in Palestine.

Scope of the forum: educa-tion, health, economic empowerment and social welfare.

Mohammed bin Ali Al-Ghamdi (pictured), Executive Director of International Devel-opment Department and the Supervisor of the forum said, “QC gives the Palestinian cause a higher priority because it has touched the conscience of humankind over 70 years ago. In this regard, QC spares no effort to support the Palestinian people who are still suffering due to blockade, high unem-ployment rate, and poor infrastructure and inadequate basic services. Therefore, QC has made a decision to hold this forum annually in order to sup-port the Palestinian people and to strengthen their resilience.”

Continued fom page 1The press conference was

followed by a site visit to Al Mashaf West project, to review the completed and current works on the ground. Ashghal is expected to deliver this project this year, in addition to the Al Wukair North project, which together include 1,829 plots.

The Al Mashaf West project is meant to convert Al Mashaf West area into a sustainable res-idential area that can accommodate future population growth. This package includes 1,186 plots.

The project includes the

construction of a local roads network with a total length of 70 km, which includes 92 main and local streets, in addition to the construction of 13 signalised intersections of which three are major interchanges, and the provision of street lighting. The project also includes the con-struction of drainage networks, and electricity, water, and com-munications networks.

The Al Wukair North which serves 643 land plots, includes the construction of a total of 23 km of roads, and 8 signal-controlled intersections, in addition to pro-vision of street lighting. The

project also includes the construc-tion of a drainage network, and electricity, water, and communi-cations networks.

The remaining projects include West of Abu Hamour / Ain Khalid ( 255 plots) , South of Al Shihaniya ( 280 plots) West of Umm Slal (216 plots), Rawdat Egdaim and Izghawa (592 plots ) North of Al Nassiriya (461 plots), Al Froosh / Al Kharaitiyat (619 plots), Al Kheesa – (197 plots) , West of Al Khor / Al Edga (679 plots), West and South of Smeisma (1,122 plots) , Al Wukair South (3,508 plots) and Rawdat Al Jihaniya (637 plots).

The Peninsula

The Community College of Qatar will hold Fourth Humanities conference

2017 under the theme “A Nation in Transition”, on March 29 and 30 at the City Centre Rotana in Doha.

Organised by CCQ and sponsored by RasGas and Qatar Petrochemical Company (QAPCO), the event will tackle ambitious pursuit of many countries towards transition, among them State of Qatar, with its National Vision 2030 and its four pillars: Human, Social, Economic and Environ-mental Development.

This year’s conference will feature high-level speakers

from around the world, bring-ing together approximately forty scholars from sixteen countries to explore challenges and successes of transition that people and nations have encountered, and continue to encounter, through topics such as education, gender roles, tra-dition, social media, government, technology, glo-balisation, and economics.

The Community College of Qatar’s First Humanities Confer-ence was launched in 2013 with the title, “Seeing Life, Life as Seen: Constructing Reality” to promote scholarly dialogue and exchange and contribute to the existing body of knowledge within the humanities and social sciences fields.

Continued from page 1Registration service is avail-

able at the Ministry website www.hajj.gov.qa in Arabic and English. The deadline for receiv-

ing application is March 30.The Saudi Authorities have

upgraded the system to ease the procedures for this year.

Haj visa will be issued online

and the tour operators will be allowed to print the visas at their offices. They are not required to send passports to the Saudi embassy for printing visas.

Forum on Palestine to begin today

Geneva

QNA

QATAR has stressed its belief in the concept of comprehensive protection of children that doesn’t focus only on detecting violations and punishing assailants but also takes precautionary measures to protect children from all circum-stances that put them under risk whether at home, school or even online, second secretary of Qatar’s permanent mission to UN Office in Geneva, Noor Ibrahim Al Sada, said as she addressed the 34th session of the Human Rights Council.

Qatar also takes special inter-est in building a strong society and coherent families that help in rais-ing healthy children away from all forms of violence, Al Sada said during an interactive dialogue with UN secretary general’s spe-cial representative on violence against children and UN secretary general’s special representative on children and armed conflict.

Al Sada said Qatar has adopted the necessary legislations and created specialised entities that protect children such as Qatar Foundation for Social Work, which has under its umbrella a number of specialised centres such as the social protection and rehabilitation center that works to protect and rehabilitate women and children victims of violence and re-integrate them into soci-ety. She praised the increasing global interest in eradicating vio-lence against children, which culminated in having it listed as a goal on the 2030 Agenda for Sus-tainable Development.

Essa Bin Hilal Al Kuwari (third left), President of Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation; Dr Saad bin Ahmed Al Mohannadi (centre), President of Public Works Authority (Ashghal); and other officials at the construction site tour at the location of Roads and Infrastructure Development Sub-Divisions in Al Mashaf West yesterday. Pic Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

Project includes local roads

March 30 deadline for Haj applications

CCQ to hold humanities meet on March 29

Qatar reaffirms support for protection of children

06 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017HOME

Tech-innovation

With Vodafone’s Mobile Asset Tracking Solution, customers will know the exact location of their assets with complete visibility and control.

Amna Pervaiz Rao The Peninsula

Vodafone officially launched its mobile asset tracking and connected cabinets solutions in Qatar

with its partner Zelitron Innova-tive IoT Applications. It conducted a tour to bring global expertise and power of interna-tional network, which is helping different organisations to take advantage of the Internet of Things (IoT) at Qatar’s ICT event QITCOM 2017, which took place at Qatar National Convention Centre QNCC yesterday.

Vodafone IoT tour brought together, experience in leading developments in the areas of Smart Transportation, Smart Security and Smart Business including Connected Cars, Fleet Management, Mobile Asset Tracking, Connected Cabinets, Smart Street Lighting and Pub-lic Safety.

“We are introducing IoT today. We’ve been working in this market for over 20 years. IoT will connect every device that uses internet. Vodafone is help-ing organisations of all sizes optimise, automate and innovate

using IoT technologies, As per the statistics, in 2012 there were only 9 billion devices connected to IoT. This year the number will jump to 29 billion devices and it is expected by 2020, the figure will cross 50 billion. Recently we entered into an agreement with BMW cars internationally where the cars will be equipped with Vodafone IoT chip,”said Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, Director of Enterprise Sales, Vodafone Qatar.

“This is a technology revolu-tion that Vodafone is bringing to Qatar to support efforts to build a knowledge-based economy with a vibrant ICT sector that works as an enabler to Qatar National Vision 2030,” said Al Thani.

Mohammed Al Yami, Voda-fone’s Director of External Affairs told The Peninsula, “Being con-nected means moving forward,

this is a major tool used in smart life. The technologies we have introduced today will help every-one to move towards a better lifestyle. Today we are brining exciting 5G test. 5G will be the next generation of mobile technology, which the International Telecoms Union expects to be formally defined by 2020.”

“Vodafone is at forefront of making 5G a commercial reality with 5G technologies research underway to prepare its net-works for a transition towards

new mobile standard. 5G is expected to enhance speed and resilience of mobile networks, enabling Vodafone customers to remain connected as their usage of mobile data increases, but also expand connectivity for IoT deployment,” he added.

Dimitris Flokos, Zelitron’s Business Development Director explained, “With Vodafone’s Mobile Asset Tracking Solution, customers will know exact loca-tion of their assets with complete visibility and control. Mobile

assets are critical to all busi-nesses, whether they are delivery trucks or plant machinery, ship-ping containers or pallets. By monitoring the status of these assets, customer can ensure they are put to the best possible use.”

“The Connected Cabinets solution will help customers optimise performance of their retail cabinets such as drinks fridges and freezers, that can report their location, operating conditions and stock levels in real time,” he added.

The launch of Vodafone’s Fleet Management solution in January 2017 is a telematics serv-ice designed to track and perform logistics management for companies aiming to enhance productivity and tackle road safety issues.

Vodafone showcased its global provisioning of managed IoT con-nectivity for Philips Lighting. Every connected street lamp contains a Vodafone IoT Managed connectiv-ity enabling authorities to monitor and manage lighting. The system enables engineers to check per-formance, identify faults and control the lighting remotely with benefits that include improving services for citizens, reducing operational costs, reducing energy consumption and improving safety.

Vodafone launches mobile asset tracking solution

Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani (left), Director of Enterprise Sales, Vodafone Qatar, with Dimitris Flokos, Zelitron’s Business Development Director at the Vodafone booth at QITCOM Conference and Exhibition, yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

The Peninsula

Hamad International Air-port (HIA), the award winning five-star gate-

way to Qatar, is the official sponsor for this year’s QITCOM Exhibition and Conference, which is Qatar’s biggest annual digital event, connecting smart technology with international expertise, industry specialists, key government decision mak-ers , innovators and entrepreneurs.

Under the theme of ‘QATAR - Towards a Smarter Future’, QITCOM 2017 brings together stakeholders from all sectors to exchange ideas and collaborate towards achieving the vision of a smarter Qatar.

A digital transformation programme is underway at HIA to ensure it continues to set benchmarks in customer expe-rience, while continuously improving efficiency, safety and security. Underpinning the transformation are some of the most innovative and leading-edge technologies.

As official sponsor of QITCOM 2017, HIA has chosen the

opportunity to showcase how its Smart Airport Program is trans-forming the passenger journey; and to launch its new smart watch app and augmented real-ity offering which will enable visitors to discover the unique art exhibits on display at HIA.

Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer at HIA said: “Strategic investments in technology are at the heart of our mission to continuously i m p r o v e e f f i c i e n c y

and to provide great customer experience. At QITCOM, we are demonstrating how technology is used by HIA to become “con-nected” airport of the future.”

Visitors to HIA’s exhibition stand get an opportunity to experience Smart Airport con-cept first-hand through a simulated journey. At the begin-ning of the journey, each visitor is given a smart phone, a smart watch and travel information and encouraged to experience

un-assisted interaction at vari-ous airport touch points, including self-check-in, self-bag-drop, immigration/border control, E-gate and self-board-ing gate; while observing how the airport measures its service levels in real-time. The simu-lated journey also showcases HIA’s unique Beacon-enabled mobile app, which provides live flight notifications, turn-by-turn navigation and information of ongoing retail offers.

HIA showcases Smart Airport Program

FROM LEFT: Hareb Ibrahim Al Mohannadi, Office Manager, Abdulaziz Al Mass, VP Commercial and Marketing HIA, Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer HIA, Suhail Kadri, VP IT HIA, Saeed Yousef Al Sulaiti, VP Security HIA and Gaush Mohammed, Manager at the HIA booth at QITCOM.

The Peninsula

Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Qatar Postal Services Company (Q-Post) for cooperation in local deliv-

ery services. The MOU was signed at QMIC’s booth at the QITCOM exhibition. This new partnership establishes framework for these two entities to work jointly in using QMIC’s newly devel-oped delivery platform branded as Tasleem (means delivery in Arabic) in order to support on-demand local delivery services in Qatar and beyond.

As part of the agreement, both parties have agreed to pilot Tasl-eem in next few months as a stand-alone local delivery platform to pave the way for a potential large scale launch at a later stage.

Q-Post and QMIC will collaborate to further evolve QMIC’s Tasleem platform to tackle different use cases and address differ-ent deployment scenarios to ensure it is fully tailored to meet the needs and growing demands of local and regional markets.

On this occasion, Faleh Mohammed Al-Naemi, Chairman and Managing Director of Q-Post said: “QPost is embarking on a major digital transformation initiative to broaden the set and enhance the quality of services we deliver to our customers. "

Dr. Adnan Abu Dayya, Executive Director and CEO of QMIC said “ We are pleased to work with Q-Post to start piloting this platform and to evolve it to maximise its impact for all partners and to deliver value to end users.”

Tasleem is latest addition to QMIC’s expanding set of locally-built platforms and services in area of intelligent mobility. It uses the prin-ciples of sharing economy, namely crowd logistics, to offer on-demand local delivery services by efficiently matching supply and demand.

The Peninsula

THE General Directorate of Information Systems and Tel-ecom Department at Ministry of Interior took part in the fourth Qatar Information and Communication Technology Conference and Exhibition Qitcom 2017.

The Directorate displayed several systems to show the systems of using and com-pleting transactions through Metrash 2 App on smart phones and through the web portal of the Ministry of Inte-rior. Statistics of MoI achievements in 2016 and guidelines of making use of services of the ministry.

The Telecom Department has exhibited many state-of-the-art devices and equipment used to enhance function and communication of different departments of the Ministry.

Speaking on the occasion Brigadier Abdul Rahman Ali Al Maliki, Assitant Director of GDIS said the Department has demonstrated almost 211 electronic services, which are accessible through the Min-istry’s website or Metrash 2.

Ministry takes part in QITCOM

QMIC & Q-Post join hands for local delivery services

Qatar Rail and QNBN have made a commitment to work together on all operations related to the use and maintenance of fiber optic cables and passive telecommunications infrastructure.

07WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 HOME

Tasmu indispensable

Addressing the inaugural session of QITCOM 2017, Al Sulaiti reiterated Smart Qatar Program (Tasmu) is an indispensable project launched in order to manage the functions and apply smart technological applications across all sectors.

Amna Pervaiz Rao The Peninsula

During the plenary session ‘Innovative Ideas Transforming Transportation and Logistics’; Land

Transport Affairs, MoTC, Qatar, Qatar Ports Management Com-pany, Qatar Rail and QMIC experts discussed trends shap-ing the industries and what the future may look like at QITCOM 2017 yesterday.

The discussion topics included; changing ways in which people and goods are moving around. Whilst both industries are being shaped by data and infrastructure trans-formations, logistics industry is also exploring possibilities pre-sented by 3D printing and drone delivery.

Dr Ulrich Koegler, Partner at PwC, pointed out that

productivity is increasing and this can be capitalised on by gov-ernment through introduction of standards, forward looking and adaptive regulation, and incentivising of experiments.

Silvester Prakasm of the Land Transport Authority of Sin-gapore reminded the audience that sometimes the biggest bar-rier to technology is human acceptance and hard work is required to win trust.

Capt. Abdulla Al Khanji, CEO of Qatar Ports Management Company, Mwani Qatar said “Mwani Qatar, is closely involved in development of seaports and related services to highest inter-nationally recognised standards of safety, security and quality.”

“Now, people can easily access to Hamad Port, Entry passes can be issued through internet in this case people will be able to save time, money and energy. ‘Smart Scanners’ are placed all around the port, the

entry and exit can be made by cards provided by Hamad Port. To maintain the security stand-ards, we can operate the functions over our mobile phones,” he further added.

Unveiling the Innovations to enable smart living, Dr Adnan Abu Dayya, CEO of QMIC said: “QMIC provides solution to address mobility and data econ-omy challenges since 2009, from R&D to large-scale platforms.

QMIC has an innovative ini-tiative of CAV ( Connected and Automated Vehicles) which facilitates reducing the accidents up to 80 percent, enhances traf-fic efficiency and enabler for automated driving.”

While discussing progress of the company and future initia-tive Abu- Dayya noted “QMIC have had a significant progress in Qatar, In April 2014 QMIC conducted First field demo of V2X in MENA region at QSTP. QMIC will carry out a field pilot

in Qatar from 2017 till 2018. By 2019/ 2020 QMIC will launch Potential Early Deployment.”

Panel sessions also covered importance of cybersecurity, data privacy, regulation, and interoperability.

The sessions were moderated by Mark Spelman, Co-Head of Ini-tiative on Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and Society at World Economic Forum, and Simon Giles, Accenture Managing Director, Global Cities Lead.

The conference continues today with six sessions running between 09:30am and 5pm cov-ering Qatar Smart Nation, cybersecurity, strategies for healthier societies, emerging challenges of environmental sustainability and sports mega events.

The second keynote speech will be given by Carlo Ratti, Pro-fessor at MIT, at 10:00 on the subject of disruptive technolo-gies transforming cities.

Raynald C Rivera The Peninsula

Th e M i n i s t e r o f Transport and Com-munications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti stressed vital

importance of Smart Cities and of turning Qatar into a digital society through the government’s various initiatives.

Addressing inaugural session of QITCOM 2017 conference yes-terday, Al Sulaiti reiterated Smart Qatar Program (Tasmu) is an indispensable project launched in order to manage the functions and apply smart technological applications across all sectors.

Launched on Monday, Tasmu targets technological solutions to five key sectors including health, logistics, transport, sports and environment towards a dig-ital economy.

He said the Ministry is “working with a number of com-petent authorities especially in the manufacturing industry, health, urban planning and other sectors so that we can provide high profile infrastructure to meet our ambitions.”

He lauded QITCOM 2017 as it gathered key decision makers,

technology providers, experts and representatives of public and pri-vate sectors and entrepreneurs from the region and the rest of the world, as well as the many inno-vative presentations on Smart Cities and new technologies.

He said the event is “a reflec-tion of the Ministry seeking to provide infrastructure to entrench the deserved digital society in accordance with the National Vision 2030 seeking to adapt a programme that is inno-vative holistically in order to participate in building Qatar’s smart future.”

This year’s conference includes eight plenary sessions in addition to keynotes and

roundtable sessions on various topics under the main theme “Qatar-Towards a Smart Future.”

Waleed Al Sayed, Chief Exec-utive Officer of Ooredoo Qatar

echoed the same sentiment on the crucial role of Smart Cities.

“Smart Cities are at the core of the digitisation of the econ-omy. What Smart Cities do is

leverage the investments made by the public and private sectors to deliver citizen and business services with intelligence, in order to provide a high standard

of living for all citizens in Qatar and enable businesses sustain-able growth in a knowledge base economy,” said Al Sayed.

“As our City grows bigger and more complex, we face new challenges every day. Our coun-try wants to maintain high standards of liveability, resiliency and sustainability. We at Oore-doo will help private and public sectors use Smart technologies to help solve today’s biggest challenges in Qatar—like energy management, intelligent traffic and transportation, network, security, storage capacity and public safety,” he added.

Elmir Velizadeh, Azerbaijan Deputy Minister of Communica-tions and High Technologies also spoke at the opening of the con-ference presented his country’s strategic plan to become a lead-ing media hub as part of an Asia connected by ‘one belt, one road.

Dr Allan James, VP for Worldwide Business Develop-ment at Hyperloop One, gave the first keynote speech on the future of mobility. He discussed Hyper-loop travel, which is able to transport people 3km in the same time it takes Olympic champion Usain Bolt to cover 100m.

The Peninsula

Ooredoo and Qatar Rail-ways Company (Qatar Rail) yesterday signed

an agreement at QITCOM that will see Ooredoo implement its next-generation In-Building Solution (IBS) across the Qatar Rail Red Line Metro network.

The agreement was signed at Qatar Rail’s QITCOM Stand by Waleed Al Sayed, Chief Executive Officer, Ooredoo Qatar and Eng. Abdulla Al Sub-aie, Managing Director and CEO of Qatar Rail, which was also attended by senior exec-utives from both companies.

As part of the agreement, Ooredoo will work closely with Qatar Rail and their systems contractor to complete the project, which will include the planning, designing, installing and commissioning of the Ooredoo IBS service. As con-struction of the stations continues, Ooredoo will install the network infrastructure required to provide voice and data services for passengers during their travel on the Doha Metro Red Line.

Once in place, the Ooredoo IBS service will enable travel-lers to connect to Ooredoo’s Supernet network at any of the Qatar Rail Metro Red Line sta-tions. Al Sayed commented: “We’re proud to be working with Qatar Rail to implement the Qatar Rail Development Programme (QRDP) network requirements. This project will demonstrate the power and reach of the Ooredoo Supernet at Qatar Rail Metro Red Line buildings, including in under-ground areas, at grade and elevated stations. Ooredoo continues to be the technology provider of choice for Qatar’s most prestigious projects, as we

work to provide the very best services for the people and companies of Qatar.”

Al Subaie said: “Ooredoo has demonstrated its experi-ence and expertise in connecting Qatar with world-class ICT infrastructure in the past and we are confident that this partnership will enable us to provide the smoothest con-nection for our customers. Today’s agreement is designed to support our vision to provide customer-centric integrated railway services that are acces-sible, efficient, safe, and reliable while maximising social, eco-nomic, and environment benefits for Qatar.”

At the signing ceremony, both Ooredoo and Qatar Rail reaffirmed their commitment to achieve operational readi-ness and installation in-line with the overall project time-lines, reflecting Qatar’s strategic expansion in align-ment with the Qatar National Vision 2030.

This is the latest phase in the two companies’ partner-ship and collaboration. Last year, Ooredoo signed a Mem-orandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a collabora-tion framework to provide next generation ICT solutions for the design, construction and oper-ation of the Qatar Rail Development Programme (QRDP).

This technology agreement was one of the most far-reach-ing and comprehensive ever agreed by a leading ICT pro-vider and a rail infrastructure developer. Upon completion, citizens, residents and visitors to Qatar will all benefit from an incredible range of communi-cation services provided both on-board trains and at stations.

The Peninsula

Qatar Rail, in addition to signing an MoU with Oore-doo, signed MoUs with,

Qatar National Broadband Net-work (QNBN), and Vodafone Qatar during QITCOM 2017, yesterday.

Attending the signing cere-monies were H E Jassim Saif Ahmed Al Sulaiti, Minister of Transport and Communications, Qatar Rail’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, . Abdulla Abdulaziz T Al Subaie, Ooredoo Qatar Chief Executive Officer Waleed Al Sayed, Dr. Eng. Ahmed Al-Sulaiti, QNBN Chief Executive Officer, and Vodafone Qatar CEO Ian Gray along with senior management from each company.

Abdulla Abdulaziz T. Al Sub-aie commented on the occasion, “We are pleased to finalise these MoUs with Ooredoo, QNBN and Vodafone and look forward to building on strong and fruitful partnerships that will benefit this landmark project that is set to have a transformational effect on the transportation sector. We understand that in today’s fast paced world, people want to stay connected and we are working with our partners, utilizing their knowledge and expertise to ensure the very best telecom-munication services possible.”

He went on to say: “Qatar Rail was keen on establishing

strategic partnerships with each of these leading telecommuni-cations providers in Qatar to ensure that future users of the Doha Metro can stay connected while using the railway network.”

The MoU with Ooredoo will ensure availability of high-qual-ity telecommunications services to general public using the Doha Metro Red Line from commence-ment of railway services.

Waleed Al Sayed, Chief Executive Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, commented: “This project will demonstrate the power and reach of award-winning Oore-doo Supernet at Doha Metro Red

Line buildings, including in underground areas, at grade and elevated stations. Our next-gen-eration In-Building Solution (IBS) will cover an impressive 18 stations across the Doha Metro Red Line including the central point of Musheireb, which will serve as a busy transit point and main intersection for the Red, Green, Gold and Blue Lines. Ooredoo continues to be a lead-ing technology provider for Qatar’s most prestigious projects, as we work to provide the very best services for the people and companies of Qatar."

Qatar Rail and QNBN have made a commitment to work

together on all operations related to the use and mainte-nance of fiber optic cables and passive telecommunications infrastructure.

The MoU with QNBN aims to use opportunities for cooperation in managing, operating, and main-taining fiber optic cables and related technologies located in Qatar Rail stations, ensuring highest interna-tional standards are met to provide proper infrastructure for high-qual-ity telecommunications network for metro users, therefore provid-ing vital support to this landmark economic project.

The MoU with Vodafone will ensure the availability of high quality telecommunications services to the general public using the Doha Metro Green and Gold Lines from the commence-ment of railway services.

Minister stresses importance of Smart Cities

Minister of Transport and Communication, H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti (second right) visiting one of the booths during the QITCOM Conference and Exhibition which kicked off at QNCC yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Experts discuss trends shaping logistic industry

Ooredoo to implement IBS across Metro network

Officials of Ooredoo and Qatar Rail signing the agreement.

Qatar Rail signs MoUs with QNBN & Vodafone

Officials exchanging documents after signing Memorandum of Understanding.

08 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Iraqi forces retake Mosul govt offices

Mosul

AFP

Iraqi forces said yesterday they had seized the main government offices in Mosul and its famed museum as they made steady progress in

their battle to retake the city's west from jihadists.

The advances, which also included the recapture of three neighbourhoods, were announced on the third day of a renewed offensive against the Islamic State group in west Mosul — the largest remaining urban stronghold in the "caliphate" declared by the jihad-ists in 2014.

Supported by the US-led coa-lition bombing IS in Iraq and Syria, Iraqi forces began their push against west Mosul on February 19.

The advance slowed during several days of bad weather but was renewed on Sunday.

The latest gains have brought government troops and police

closer to Mosul's densely populated Old City, where hundreds of thou-sands of civilians are believed to still be trapped under IS rule.

Iraq's Joint Operations Com-mand (JOC) said in a statement that federal police and the elite Rapid Response unit had been able to "liberate" the headquarters for the Nineveh provincial government.

They also seized control of the Al-Hurriyah bridgehead, it said, in a step towards potentially relink-ing west Mosul with the city's east, which government forces seized from the jihadists earlier in the offensive.

All the bridges crossing the Tigris in Mosul have been damaged or destroyed, and Iraqi forces would either have to repair them or install floating bridges to recon-nect the two banks of the river which divides the city.

Officers said yesterday that security forces had also managed to recapture the Mosul museum, where the jihadists destroyed priceless artefacts, releasing a video of their rampage in Febru-ary 2015.

The video showed militants at the museum knocking statues off their plinths and smashing them to pieces. In another scene, a jack-hammer was used to deface a large Assyrian winged bull at an archae-ological site in the city.

The jihadists' attacks on ancient heritage in Iraq and Syria have sparked widespread inter-national outrage and fears for some of the world's most precious archaeological sites.

Turkey's Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford and Russian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov meet in Antalya, Turkey, yesterday.

Generals meet to improve coordination against ISIstanbul

AFP

The top generals of the Turkish, Russian and US military met yesterday in

a bid to step up coordination in Syria and avoid clashes between rival forces in the fight against IS.

The meeting between Turkish Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford and Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov appears to be the first of its kind.

Their discussions in the

southern Turkish city of Antalya come as a US-led coa-lition is making progress to push the Islamic State group (IS) out of Syria, where Ankara has been increasing its efforts against the jihadists.

Turkey, Russia and the United States are all fighting against IS, though they support different camps and military tension remains because of Turkish opposition to the involvement of Syrian Kurd-ish militia.

Turkey has said that the next target of its cross-border Syria campaign would be Man-bij, which is now controlled by

the US-backed Syrian Demo-cratic Forces (SDF), a group dominated by Kurdish fighters.

The SDF has controlled Manbij since last year when it pushed out IS, but recently it has clashed with Turkish-backed forces.

"Common issues relating to regional security, in partic-ular Syria and Iraq, are being discussed at the meeting," the Turkish army said in a state-ment, without giving further detail. Antalya has previously hosted several NATO meetings, as well as the G20 summit in 2015.

Battling IS

The latest gains have brought government troops and police closer to Mosul's densely populated Old City.

Security forces had also managed to recapture the Mosul museum.

Ceasefire declared in Syria's Eastern GhoutaMoscow

AFP

A ceasefire has been declared in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, a rebel

bastion near Damascus, to run from midnight last Sun-day to March 20, Russia's Defence Ministry said.

"A 'regime of silence' has been introduced from 00:01 on March 6 to 23:59 on March 20 (Damascus time) in the area of Eastern Ghouta," the Ministry said in a statement yesterday.

It added that "no viola-tions" had so far been reported.

The Army of Islam (Jaish Al Islam), a powerful rebel fac-tion, is headquartered in Eastern Ghouta, the last oppo-sition stronghold near Damascus. The district has faced a blistering army offen-sive in recent months and is near opposition-controlled areas of Damascus increasingly targeted by the government.

Syria's Al-Watan daily, which is close to the govern-ment, yesterday quoted a "source close to the state's efforts to conclude national reconciliation in flashpoint areas" as saying he did not have "any information" on a new agreement in the eastern neighbourhood of Damascus and Eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the conflict, reported yesterday that raids hit many towns in the East-ern Ghouta district as well as rebel districts in eastern Damascus.

Hamas steps up war on drugsGaza

Reuters

Marijuana and prescrip-tion painkillers are flooding into the Gaza

Strip as never before, prompt-ing officials from the ruling Islamist group Hamas to seek tougher punishments for smug-gling drugs into the blockaded territory.

The quantity of drugs seized in Gaza in January was as much as for the whole of 2016, offi-cials said. Eight major dealers were arrested in one of the big-gest police stings to date.

Palestinian and Egyptian gangs move marijuana and an opioid painkiller called trama-dol from Egypt into Gaza, where two million Palestinians live in a territory about 45 km long and

up to 12 km wide and where four in 10 young men have no job, pushing some towards drugs.

“They think tramadol will change the reality and will make them feel at peace,” said Fadel Abu Heen, a psychiatrist. “They want to lose awareness

and any feeling of reality.”In their latest raid, police

seized more than 100kg of marijuana, worth as much as $5m on the streets of Gaza, and 250,000 tablets of tramadol, which sells for between 130 and 170 shekels ($35-$45) for 10

pills. Until 2013, most smug-gling was through a network of tunnels Palestinians and Egyp-tians had built under the border to move everything from food and consumer goods to cars, cattle and rockets.

But Egypt destroyed the tunnels — blowing them up or flooding them — in 2014 and 2015 to crack down on the trade. Since then, smugglers have found new ways of shift-ing merchandise.

Drugs are moved inside cooking gas canisters or wash-ing machines. Sometimes, small quantities are thrown or cata-pulted from Egypt into Gaza. There are kilometres of tubes used to move small packages, and in some cases drugs are shipped inside goods imported from Israel.

Turkish foreign minister lands in Germany for rallyHamburg

Reuters

Turkey’s foreign minister arrived at the Turkish consulate in Ham-burg yesterday to address a rally

for Turkish voters in Germany despite what he called shameful actions by police to force the closure of the origi-nally planned meeting hall.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking hours before flying to Hamburg, accused Ger-many of a systematic effort to stop meetings intended to rally a “yes” vote in a Turkish referendum next month to grant sweeping new powers to Presi-dent Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Authorities cited safety grounds in closing the venue, as it had with three previous halls where Turkish officials

had planned to address members of Germany’s 1.5 million strong commu-nity of ethnic Turkish voters.

Turks living in Germany, the Neth-erlands and other European countries could prove decisive for Erdogan’s political future.

“I am going to Hamburg ... I will come together with our citizens tonight. Nobody can prevent this, and nobody can try to do so,” he told a diplomatic reception in Istanbul. “It is unaccepta-ble for the venue’s owner to be pressured by the police and intelligence to cancel the event.”

“We don’t want relations to be bad with any country, including Germany. But if they approach us with hostility, we’ll give the necessary response,” he said, without elaborating.

A Palestinian employee displays marijuana bars at the office of the Gaza Prosecutor General in Gaza City.

Banjul

AFP

Almost 100 prisoners including rapists and rob-bers have been freed from

Gambian jails as the new govern-ment struggles to reform an overcrowded system that long relied on strict mandatory sentencing.

Even first-time offenders were given sentences without parole under the former regime

of Yahya Jammeh, and the new government has vowed to over-haul unsanitary penitentiaries they say are unfit for purpose.

A government source said Friday that new President Adama Barrow had pardoned scores of prisoners from three different jails, some convicted of serious violent offences. "The Prison high command Thursday released 98 prisoners who were held at Mile Two, Old Jeshwang and Janjan-bureh Prisons," the source said.

Gambia frees scores of prisoners

09WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 ASIA

US stations missile defence in South KoreaSeoul

Reuters

The United States started to deploy the first ele-ments of its advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

anti-missile system to South Korea following North Korea's test of four ballistic missiles, US Pacific Command said yesterday.

The announcement came as North Korean state media said leader Kim Jong Un had person-ally supervised Monday's missile launches, stepping up threats against Washington as US troops conduct joint military exercises with South Korea.

"Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday's (Monday) launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alli-ance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea," US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris said in statement.

The move by the US military is likely to deepen the brewing

conflict between South Korea and China, which has angrily opposed the THAAD deployment as destroying regional security balance.

The four ballistic missiles landed in the sea off Japan's northwest, angering Seoul and

Tokyo, days after North Korea promised retaliation over the military drills which it sees as preparation for war.

US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed the launches during a phone call yesterday.

"Japan and the US confirmed that the latest North Korean mis-sile launches were clearly against UN resolutions and a clear prov-ocation against the regional and international community," Abe said. "(North Korea's) threat has entered a new phase."

"Trump also spoke to South Korea's acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn to discuss the North's missile launches," Hwang's office said.

"The missile test was under-taken by an army unit commissioned with attacking Us military bases in Japan," the North's official KCNA news agency said.

"In the hearts of artillerymen ... there was burning desire to mercilessly retaliate against the warmongers going ahead with

their joint war exercises," KCNA said.

"He (Kim) ordered the KPA Strategic Force to keep highly alert as required by the grim sit-uation in which an actual war may break out any time, and get fully ready to promptly move, take positions and strike so that it can open fire to annihilate the enemies."

The missiles North Korea

fired on Monday were unlikely to have been intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), South Korea said, which can reach the United States.

They flew on average 1,000km and reached an altitude of 260km.

"Some landed as close as 300km from Japan's northwest coast," Japan's Defence Minister said earlier.

"The United States and Japan have requested a United Nations Security Council meeting on the launches, which will likely be scheduled today," diplomats said.

The planned installation of the US anti-missile defence sys-tem, which South Korea has said would be operational by the end of the year, has led to a diplo-matic standoff between China and South Korea.

Thailand seizes ivory haul from MalawiBangkok

AFP

Thailand has seized more than 300 kilogrammes of ivory from Malawi on

flights into Bangkok's main a i r p o r t , a u t h o r i t i e s announced yesterday, under-scoring the country's continued role as a regional smuggling hub.

The latest haul of some 422 pieces of elephant tusks highlights the extensive inter-national links boasted by wildlife gangs.

"Packages stuffed with

ivory, together weighing 330 kilogrammes, were discov-ered on two Ethiopian Airline flights from Addis Ababa," the customs department said in a statement, adding that the parcels had originated in Malawi's capital Lilongwe.

"A Gambian man, who came to collect the packages on Sunday, was arrested and charged with smuggling banned wildlife products."

The international trade in ivory has been outlawed since the late 1980s after a precip-itous decline in the population of African elephants.

Kuala Lumpur

AFP

North Korea and Malaysia yesterday banned each other's citizens from leav-

ing their countries, with Kuala Lumpur saying its nationals were effectively being held "hos-tage" in a row over assassination of Kim Jong-Nam.

The extraordinary tit-for-tat moves came as the reclusive North faced growing interna-tional condemnation for a volley of missiles it fired into the Sea of Japan, defying stringent global

sanctions aimed at halting its weapons programme.

Yesterday's developments marked a dramatic heightening of tensions with Malaysia three weeks after the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was murdered at Malaysia's main airport with the banned VX nerve agent.

"The North decided to "tem-porarily ban the exit of Malaysian citizens in the DPRK", the official news agency KCNA said, citing the foreign ministry and using the country's official name, the Democratic People's

Republic of Korea.The prohibition would

remain in place "until the safety of the diplomats and citizens of the DPRK in Malaysia is fully guaranteed through the fair set-tlement of the case that occurred in Malaysia".

The Malaysian foreign min-istry said 11 of its citizens were currently in North Korea -- three embassy staff, six family mem-bers and two who work for the UN's World Food Programme.

The WFP said the pair, as UN staffers, "are international civil servants who do not represent

any country". It said it took the safety of its staff seriously and was closely monitoring the situation

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak condemned the ban and said he was ordering a sim-ilar ban on the movement of "all North Korean citizens in Malaysia".

Analysts said they could number around 1,000.

"This abhorrent act, effec-tively holding our citizens hostage, is in total disregard of all international law and diplo-matic norms," Najib said.

Bangkok

AFP

Thailand's army said yes-terday it would drop a defamation case against

three human rights workers who alleged that troops tortured insurgents, a rare climbdown by a military notorious for taking critics to court.

The charges against Porn-pen Khongkachonkiet -- the chair of Amnesty International Thailand -- Anchana Heemmina and Somchai Homlaor were widely seen as seen as an attack

on the reporting of alleged army abuses.

The 2016 report, based on interviews with 54 former detainees, described alleged tor-ture tactics used by soldiers and police across the south, which has been blistered by a 13-year conflict.

More than 6,800 people -- mostly civilians -- have been killed in the insurgency by Malay locals against the Thai state, which governs the region with strict emergency laws.

The trio faced up to seven years in jail for defamation and

a separate charge filed for pub-lishing the report online.

But yesterday, the army's southern command spokesman unexpectedly said the charges would be dropped.

"We didn't want the three human rights activists pun-ished," Colonel Pramote Prom-in said after meeting the trio in Bangkok, adding the charges would shortly be withdrawn.

He repeated the army's denial of any torture and said the military has its own "meas-ures to punish" abuses.

Bali prosecutors seek one-year jail for AussieDenpasar

AFP

INDONESIAN prosecutors yesterday demanded a one-year jail term for an Australian businessman on trial for alleg-edly using hashish on the resort island of Bali.

Giuseppe Serafino, 48, was arrested with British former Reuters war journal-ist David Fox, who said he was using hashish to relieve stress caused by covering conflicts.

The pair are charged with using, possessing and trans-porting hashish after allegedly being caught in pos-session of small amounts of the drug in October.

Serafino, who ran a bar in the Bali resort area of Sanur, told the court he had been using hashish for nine years to help alleviate the symp-toms of mouth cancer.

The Australian could have faced several years in jail for breaking Indonesia's tough anti-drugs laws.

But prosecutor I Gede Wiraguna Wiradarma recom-mended a lower sentence because Serafino was a first-time offender who had admitted his wrongdoing.

He called on the judges to "declare the defendant to be convincingly guilty of using drugs and sentence him to one year in prison, reduced by the period he has served in the detention".

Phnom Penh

Anatolia

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) yesterday denied

claims made by Prime Minister Hun Sen that he was the puppet master in the ascendance of the party’s former deputy to the leadership position.

The Cambodia Daily reported that Hun Sen was tak-ing credit for last week’s appointment of Kem Sokha to the role of CNRP president -- one that was left vacant after former president Sam Rainsy, in exile since late 2015, stepped down.

It quoted Hun Sen as having said that Sokha’s rise to party president “was orchestrated” by him.

His remarks came after a conversation between the two

last year was leaked over the weekend, in which Hun Sen -- who has been in power for over 30 years -- said it would be eas-ier to work alongside Sokha than Rainsy.

In February, Rainsy stepped down from the role to save the party from dissolution threat-ened by amendments to the law on political parties, which pro-hibit those with criminal convictions from leading a party.

Sokha was formally voted in as CNRP leader last week.

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann yesterday said that party members weren’t paying any attention to the leaks.

When asked if Sokha had indeed negotiated with Hun Sen, Sovann said: “No… I don’t know.”

He underlined that the party does not need to pay attention to the leaks.

“We are busy nominating

candidates for the commune election, developing a political message and planning activi-ties,” he said.

The commune elections, when party representatives are elected at a local commune level, are to be held in a few months.

Yesterday, CNRP public affairs director Kem Monovithya announced that Hun Sen’s rul-ing Cambodian People’s Party had threatened the CNRP with legal action unless it removes the word “change” from its cam-paign slogans.

At present, the slogan calls on people to “Change the com-mune chief who serves the party with commune chief who serves the people.”

Sokha spent five months in hiding to avoid being hauled before the court in that case, emerging in October.

Bangkok

Reuters

A leader of Thailand's "red shirt" opposition group was jailed for two years

yesterday for insulting the monarchy during a street pro-test in 2010.

The Supreme Court said it had upheld the ruling of a lower court that Yosvaris Chuklom, also a comedian, was guilty of the crime of lese majeste, which can carry a penalty of up to 15 years for each offence.

The military government has made increasing use of the royal insult law against critics since taking power in 2014.

Yosvaris was a leader of the group loyal to the populist

movement of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, Yingluck Shina-watra, who was prime minister in the government that was overthrown in the last coup.

Although Yosvaris did not name the king in his speech in 2010, at a time the red shirts were in opposition, the court ruled that his gestures had made the insult clear. He had said he no intention of insult-ing the king.

Neither he nor his lawyer made any comment after the Supreme Court's ruling.

There has been a significant increase in the use of the lese majeste laws since the widely revered King Bhumibol Aduly-adej died in October.

North Korea and Malaysia trade travel bans

Thai customs and forensic officials inspect pieces of ivory at the airport in Bangkok , yesterday.

Thai army drops case against rights workers

Thai 'red shirt' leader jailed for royal insult

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors arrive at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, yesterday.

Defence system

Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include Monday's launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea: Official.

The KCNA news agency reported that the missile test was undertaken by an army unit commissioned with attacking US military bases in Japan.

Cambodia oppn denies PM's claims

The relations between Malaysia and North Korea have hit a new low with both sides taking tit-for-tat actions in a continuing stand-off sparked by Malaysia’s investigation into the murder of North

Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13. In an unprecedented and highly provocative move, North Korea yesterday barred Malaysians from leaving the country, sparking an equal reaction from Malaysia. Pyongyang is said to have been infuriated by Malaysia’s plan to question three men hiding in the North Korean Embassy as part of its investigation.

North Korea’s decision to prevent Malaysian diplomats and citizens leaving the country was condemned by Najib Razak, Malaysia’s Prime Minister. “This abhorrent act, effectively holding our citizens hostage, is in total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms,” he said.

There is no doubt that the North Korean action is in complete disregard of all

international laws and diplomatic norms. Najib has called an emergency meeting of his National Security Council to discuss the situation.

North Korea is already facing a chorus of condemnation for its latest ballistic missile tests and Pyongyang yesterday declared that the ongoing

joint US-South Korea military exercises were meant to conduct a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” against the country. Its economy is crippled by the punitive sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the world powers over its nuclear adventures and it is facing near-total diplomatic isolation. Malaysia is one of the few countries with which it has been

enjoying a modest relationship and the current tensions show that Pyongyang is on a self-destructive path. It’s difficult to gauge what drives the policy and thinking of a country’s leadership if it is bent on digging itself into a dungeon, unmindful of the huge consequences of its actions.

Malaysia has every right and duty to investigate the murder of a foreign national on its soil and its investigation so far has been just and in accordance with international laws. North Korea’s paranoia is inexplicable and will only lead to doubts that it has something to hide. Also, Pyongyang stands to lose in this diplomatic duel because it will only strengthen Malaysia’s resolve to get to the truth. The international community and international agencies too want the law to prevail because what has happened is a public murder of the most outrageous kind, using a chemical weapon in a crowded international market. Pyongyang has no option but to cooperate with the investigation and help to bring the criminals before the law.

10 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017VIEWS

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

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

msalim@pen.com.qa

A new escalation

QUOTE OF THE DAY

We are in a state of great fear. If we cannot stop the advance of racist parties, Europe will head (back) to the pre-World War II period.

Mevlut CavusogluTurkish Foreign Minister

North Korean attempts to scuttle Malaysia’s investigation into the murder of Kim Jong Nam are certain to fail.

On Monday, March 6, in Washing-ton, DC, Donald Trump issued another executive order restrict-ing the entry of Muslims.

The second rendition of the Muslim Ban dropped Iraq from the list of Muslim-majority states, exempted current visa and green card holders from the restricted states, and featured other tweaks made to deflect any constitutional challenge.

On Sunday, March 5, in Washington State, a Sikh man was shot and wounded in front of his Seattle home. A hatemonger told Deep Rai to “go back to your own country”, then pro-ceeded to shoot him.

This shooting follows the murder of another man of Indian origin in Kansas City, who was similarly told to “get out of my coun-try” before being fatally shot on February 24.

The murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla came roughly a month after Trump’s enactment of the first Muslim Ban, which spurred the mass protests and legal challenges that ultimately brought about its demise, and the re-drafted executive order issued on Monday.

Upon first glance, it may seem as if the vigilante violence that targets Muslims, and in the case of Rai and the late Kuchibohotla, individuals stereotypically perceived as Mus-lims, is entirely disconnected or tenuously linked to the banning of Muslims.

The latter involves formal state policy, while the former concerns the irrational or deviant actions of private individuals. How-ever, in the way that the xenophobic or Islamophobic rhetoric of politicians embold-ens animus on the part of citizens, government law and policy also endorses big-oted views and authorises the violence unleashed on Muslims and individuals per-ceived as Muslims.

This dialectic, whereby the state criminal-ises Muslim identity or brands it suspicious by law, effectively instructs its citizens to partake in the national project of identifying and pun-ishing “the terrorist outsider”.

Endorsing damaging stereotypesIslamophobia is the presumption of guilt

assigned on to Muslims by state and private actors. But it must also be understood as a dialectic, namely, a process by which state policies such as the Muslim Ban or counter-radicalisation policing endorse ingrained and popular stereotypes of Muslims as alien, inas-similable, and prone to terrorism; and second, emboldens the private animus and violent targeting of Muslim subjects.

Therefore, Islamophobic policies, like the Muslim Ban, impact far more than immigra-tion or national security policy. Their legal impact is merely one dimension of their aggregate damage.

By endorsing the Islamophobic premise that Muslim identity is presumptive of radi-cal threat or terrorism, Islamophobic policies and programmes enacted by the state propagate the damaging stereotypes

How Muslim ban incites vigilante Islamophobic violence

Khaled A BeydounAl Jazeera

associated with this premise, and pro-mote the private vigilantism that threatens Muslims, and communities mistakenly caricatured as Muslims.

This is especially the case during the Trump era, whereby his powder keg of political rhetoric and ominous policy has spurred a frightening rise in hate crimes and incidents targeting Muslims and perceived Muslims.

Private Islamophobia, or the animus and violence unleashed by individuals, affects far more than just Muslims, but also Sikhs, Latinx communities, Arab and Middle Eastern Christians, South Asian Hindus, East African non-Muslims, and other groups that fit the caricature

of the Muslim outsider.Therefore, state pol-

icies built upon Islamophobic baselines expose more than merely Muslims to the

xenophobic violence and vigilantism.‘State-sponsored Islamophobia’Law is far more than merely law.

And the Muslim Ban is a policy that affects far more people than merely immigrants travelling to the United States from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

While its direct legal effect is to exclude nationals from these states, its cumulative influence is far more expan-sive and injurious.

The Muslim Ban rubber stamps the embedded idea that terrorism is exclu-sive to Islam, and regardless of one’s legal status, exposes bona fide and imag-ined Muslims to the attacks of hatemongers that take the law into their own hands.

State-sponsored Islamophobia incites the increased arson and vandal-ism of mosques, the attacks on Muslim women wearing the headscarves, the rise of anti-Muslim slurs emanating from the right and the left, and indeed, the shooting of Rai and murder of Kuchibohotla.

This Muslim Ban, unfortunately, will not only spur more Islamophobia at air-ports, but also spells more malice, menace, and murder beyond them.

The writer is an assistant professor of law at the Barry University Dwayne O Andreas School of Law. He is a native of Detroit.

The Muslim Ban rubber stamps the embedded idea that terrorism is exclusive to Islam, and regardless of one’s legal status, exposes bona fide and imagined Muslims to the attacks of hate-mongers that take the law into their own hands.

ED ITOR IAL

Immigration activists, including members of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, rally against the Trump administration’s new ban against travellers, outside of the US Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington DC.

11WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 OPINION

routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times dis-cussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

“Emails released to IndyStar in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on fed-eral terror-related charges.

“Cyber-security experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence’s are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence’s personal account was hacked last summer.”

Well fancy that. When Mike Pence was debating Tim Kaine and said, “it’s important in this moment to remember that Hillary Clinton had a private server in her home that had classified information on it,” adding that “her private server was subject to being hacked” and “we could put cybersecurity first if we just make sure the next secretary of state doesn’t have a private server,” did he consider add-ing that he knew what he was talking about since he used an AOL account to talk about sensitive security matters and had himself been hacked?

The parallels don’t stop there. According to the article, “Pence’s office said his campaign hired out-side counsel as he was departing as governor to review his AOL emails and transfer any involving public business to the state.” Which was exactly what Hillary Clinton did - and what Pence and Trump so vehemently criticised her for. When Trump invited the Russian government to hack Clinton’s email to recover what had been deleted, it was those personal emails he was talking about.

And Pence is not the only one: Scott Pruitt, Pres-ident Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, not only used a private email account to conduct official business as attorney general of Oklahoma, he lied about it during his confirmation hearings.

Not one woman less: Time to march forward

Women and girls — everyone — mark today (March 8) in your diaries and on your calendars as an important moment in history. Be available for the whole day and be optimistic.

Today women will be going on strike in more than 40 countries, from capital cities to small towns, with many more joining them in spirit. We are determined to have a better world for all women and girls, for all our children and our grandchildren, be they in Islam-abad, Mar del Plata or Washington, DC. As women’s rights movements prove time and time again, human rights and dignity will not just be handed to us. We must stand up and demand our rights. March 8 is the first day of our new lives.

Deep-rooted inequalityThe reasons compelling us to strike and stand in

solidarity are not academic. Nor can we lose sight of the sheer scale of injustice pervading women’s and girls’ lives today in 2017. Violence against women, alone, is a global crisis: more than a billion women worldwide will experience physical or sexual vio-lence in their lifetime — that’s one in three women.

This figure doesn’t include coercive control, such as psychological and economic control. Women and girls who face discrimination because of their race, disability, gender identity and sexuality and poverty, are impacted most. These horrifying statistics are not just numbers on a page; they are the experiences of women and girls the world over.

None less than 16-year-old Argentinian high school pupil Lucia Perez — the late Lucia Perez, that is. Just over four months ago she was kidnapped, drugged and gang-raped. The extent of the violence killed her. Her experience is devastatingly common.

Because of her death and those of many other women and girls, a powerful movement of resistance has gathered to say “enough”. Across Latin America, a region that includes seven of the 10 countries with the highest rate of female murder in the world, women have been taking to the streets — proclaiming “Ni Una

Menos”, Spanish for “not one woman less”.Our strike is about pushing back the insidious

structures our world has created that murder, rape and beat women; that rob them of their land; that trap them in poverty and degradation.

This injustice that women and girls face daily comes from, at its core, the deep-rooted and sense-less inequality between women and men.

This inequality is fostered by the patterns we follow culturally and socially in our daily lives, which are informed by a long history of prejudice — and entrenched in today’s education, culture, media, religion and law. At worst it supports men’s sense of entitlement to, and control of, women bodies.

The economics matter, too. Rather than disman-tling or being negligent to the dignity of women and girls, our current neo-liberal economic model per-petuates the exploitation and abuse of women — without economic autonomy women have no way to escape cycles of violence.

Our societies depend on the disproportionate amount of unpaid care work that women do, yet these societies fail to value or redistribute it appro-priately And it is women who provide the majority of cheap labour to serve the global economy. So many women are trapped in jobs with poverty wages and scant rights, facing the threat of violence, while the fruits of their labour are embezzled by men. That is why the women’s struggle is also a struggle against this current economic order.

Yet this patriarchal injustice can — and will — be overcome.

Enough is enoughIt starts with us. Every single one of us has a

responsibility to make the world an equal, healthy and just place for women and girls.

The discriminatory social norms that we know drive violence against women and girls can be chal-lenged and changed. When we hear sexist language or see sexist behaviours, we can intervene and say “enough”. This is one of the most effective ways to erode the normalisation of violence against women and girls. In Latin America, we will be shouting until we are listened to: “If our bodies are not worth any-thing, produce without us.”

Decision-makers — in our governments, but also in corporations and in the mainstream media — must step up and lead by example. Indifference and empty rhetoric only keep the status quo alive. They must lis-ten first and foremost to the voices of women’s rights movements working with women.

Governments must urgently bring harmful culture and tradition closer to international human rights, and dismantle the legal discriminations and barriers that keep and push women back — such as the 18 countries in which husbands can legally prevent their wives from working. They must crucially add their voices to the widespread calls for a more human, more feminist economy. It is abhorrent that our cur-rent economic system has allowed only eight men to have as much wealth as the world’s poorest 3.6 billion citizens — the majority of whom are women.

And leaders everywhere must end the legal and social impunity that perpetrators and supporters of violence against women all too often enjoy, be they

I have some disturbing news to share: Republicans might not be as deeply committed to proper email manage-ment as you’ve been led to believe.

During the campaign, the entire Republican Party argued that despite Hil-lary Clinton’s copious qualifications for the presidency, it would be unconscionably dangerous to let her anywhere near the Oval Office because she had used a private email account while Secretary of State. Crowds at Republican events would chant “Lock her up!” whenever Clinton’s name was mentioned. In one debate, Donald Trump said to Clinton that if he were pres-ident, “You’d be in jail.” W ith FBI director James Comey’s help, Trump and Republi-cans made Clinton’s use of private email the single most important issue of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Which is why this story from Tony Cook of the Indi-anapolis Star is so interesting: “Vice-President Mike Pence

Pence is a hypocrite on official emails

People taking part in a protest to mark the International Women’s Day in Poland.

Perhaps now that this has come out, Republicans will stop pretending that the email “issue” was anything more than a club to bludgeon Hillary Clinton with, and the deep concern they expressed for cybersecurity was utterly insincere.

But this actually matters beyond the question of catching Republicans in the act of hypocrisy.

That’s because there are strong reasons to believe that the Trump administration is leaving sensitive information vul-nerable, and may not be complying with the Presidential Records Act, which mandates that White House staff retain their communications — including their emails.

In late January, we learned that top White House officials, including Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner, and Sean Spicer, were using email addresses from the Republican National Committee — with a private server! Once the story broke their addresses were deleted, but pre-sumably had it remained secret, they would have continued to use them.

That’s not the only cybersecurity issue we still have to worry about. At the end of January, the New York Times reported that Trump was still using his old, unsecured Android phone, which is unbelievably reckless for the presi-dent of the United States. As Wired magazine put it , “All it takes is clicking on one malicious link or opening one unto-ward attachment — either of which can appear as though it were sent from a trusted source — to compromise the device. From there, the phone could be infected with malware that spies on the network the device is connected to, logs key-strokes, takes over the camera and microphone for surreptitious recording, and more.”

According to some reports , the phone is a Samsung Gal-axy S3, which is five years old and is no longer supported with security patches.

Now maybe steps have been taken to secure Trump’s phone, though the White House hasn’t said anything to that effect. And maybe his aides are in full compliance with the Presidential Records Act, though we do know that some staffers were using a messaging app called Confide, which deletes messages after they’ve been read (Sean Spicer was reportedly angry about the use of this app, since it could be used to leak to reporters without leaving any trace). Maybe this White House is taking both its legal obligations and the security of its communications with the utmost seriousness, and there won’t be any problems from this point on.

But have they given us any reason to believe that?

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in politics, business, entertainment or elsewhere. There is no corporate structure behind the strike. Together, we are part of a grass-roots movement of women, women’s organisations and allies.

This solidarity most of all extends to women who wish to support the strike but are unable to — be it due to job insecurity, because they are fully burdened with unpaid care work, or as we know, in many cases, due to fear of violence and intimidation. We are optimistic about change. More girls across the globe are completing primary education than ever before. Maternal deaths have fallen. There are more women in power.

While we are positive more change can come for the benefit of women and girls, all of this progress faces new threats - be it from economic inequality, climate change, religious fanaticism or anti-rights nationalism.

We have momentum. Women’s rights activism has long reverber-ated in villages and communities, much in the global South; we stand with those brave women. And striking works for women: just recently, plans to criminalise abor-tion and miscarriage in Poland were thwarted by a day-long strike led by women. While in South Korea, women protested against the introduction of higher penalties for doctors performing abortions.

Now is not the time to step back, but to continue marching for-ward with our heads and placards held high for all to see. Our world must be better than this. Not one woman less.

Governments must urgently bring harmful culture and tradition closer to international human rights, and dismantle the legal discriminations and barriers that keep and push women back.

Agustina Paz Frontera & Winnie ByanyimaAl Jazeera

Paul WaldmanThe Washington Post

Cyber security experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence’s are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence’s personal account was hacked last summer.

12 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017ASIA

Philippines approves death penalty billManila

Reuters

Philippine lower house lawmakers over-whelmingly approved the re-imposition of capital punishment for

serious drug offences yesterday, clearing another hurdle in Pres-ident Rodrigo Duterte's drive to use death as a deterrent against crime.

Voting 216 to 54 with one abstention, lawmakers passed the third and final reading of the bill to bring back the death penalty, but in a watered-down draft that excludes crimes like abuse, kid-nap-for-ransom and plunder.

The bill, which permits death by hanging, firing squad and lethal injection, must now go to the Senate.

A return of the death penalty, over a decade after it was abol-ished under pressure from the church, has been a top priority for Duterte, who was swept to power on promises of a merci-less war on drugs and crime.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since Duterte took office eight months ago, mostly drug users killed by mys-terious gunmen in incidents

authorities attribute to vigilan-tes, gang members silencing informants, or unrelated murders.

Re-imposing capital punish-ment was Duterte's first piece of draft legislation and was submit-ted on his inauguration on June 30.

It argued the justice system had been "emasculated" and

tough measures were needed.Duterte has questioned why

lawmakers excluded serious crimes other than drugs, saying it runs counter to his law and order agenda.

He has spoken repeatedly of his desire to hang criminals, as many as 20 per day.

Robert Ace Barbers, who heads the house committee on dangerous drugs, said death for those who manufacture and pos-sess large volumes of narcotics was appropriate because of the "irreparable damage" drugs had caused to society.

"The entire future of our c o u n t r y h a s b e e n compromised".

Human rights groups and Catholic bishops oppose the bill and have protested outside Con-gress and warned politicians supporting it to expect a back-lash from their constituents.

Opponents spoke out strongly in the house, describing the measure as barbaric, regres-sive and no deterrent against crime.

Representative Jose Christo-pher Belonte said lawmakers voting in favour would have "blood on our hands".

Congressman and former

Manila mayor Joselito Atienza said the bill would put "a curse on our predominantly Catholic nation".

The passage through the Senate is not guaranteed to be smooth.

Some Duterte loyalists in the chamber oppose it.

Deliberations by the 24-seat upper house on its own version of the bill were suspended last month after the justice depart-ment reminded senators the

Philippines is a signatory to a United Nations treaty that pro-hibits executions.

The death penalty has been imposed and repealed on and off in the Philippines since after World War II.

Four dead as Manila resumes war on drugsManila

Reuters

PHILIPPINE police killed four suspected drug dealers in three separate incidents yesterday, a provincial police commander said, just hours after a relaunch of anti-drugs operations that the national police chief said he hoped would be "less bloody".

The incidents were the first reported deaths of drug suspects since Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Ronald dela Rosa announced the restart of operations he hoped would be less bloody "or even bloodless".

"Three suspected drug peddlers were shot dead yes-terday when they resisted arrest after selling packets of "shabu" methamphetamine to undercover officers in two towns in Bulacan" according to Senior Superintendent Romeo Caramat.

A fourth man was killed when he confronted police manning a checkpoint, he said, adding three handguns and drugs were recovered.

The reinstatement came just over a month after Duterte pulled police back from his crackdown in the wake of the killing by rogue drugs squad police of a South Korean businessman.

Dela Rosa said "clean, dedicated and patriotic" offic-ers would form the new drug enforcement unit.

Jakarta

AFP

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday played down the possibility that

Australia and Indonesia would stage joint patrols in the dis-puted South China Sea, a move that would have angered Beijing.

Australian and Indonesian officials first discussed the pos-sibility of patrols last year, and President Joko Widodo report-edly said he wanted to raise the issue with Turnbull on a visit to Sydney in February.

Widodo told The Australian newspaper he saw patrols, potentially around Indonesia's Natuna Islands at the southern edge of the hotly contested

waters, as important as long as they did not raise tensions.

But during a visit to Jakarta yesterday, Turnbull played down the possibility of pushing ahead with a plan that could have upset one of Australia's key trading partners.

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea despite par-tial counter-claims from several other nations.

"We are not going to under-take any actions which would increase tensions in the South China Sea," the prime minister said.

"Our commitment is to increase our cooperation with each other in terms of maritime security. So we talk about more collaboration, more coordina-tion, but... it has not been taken

any further than that."Australia is opening the door

to greater trade with China as ties between Canberra and key ally the United States fray in the era of President Donald Trump.

Trump reportedly ripped into Turnbull during a phone call over a refugee deal agreed with the administration of then-pres-ident Barack Obama.

Canberra said in January it was working to recast the Trans-Pacific Partnership with-out the US and opened the door for China to sign up after Trump ditched the trade pact.

Australia, like the US, has no claims of its own in the South China Sea, but insists that all shipping has a right to pass through what it regards as inter-national waters.

Mirziyoyev unveils statue of predecessorTurkmenabat

AFP

Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev yes-terday unveiled a statue

of his feared predecessor during his first official trip abroad to Turkmenistan.

Mirziyoyev replaced Islam Karimov late last year after his death from a stroke following some 27 years of iron-fisted domination over the Central Asian nation.

"This is the first monument to Islam Karimov and a worthy tribute to the first president of Uzbekistan," the president said

at an event with Turkmen strongman Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Mirziyoyev, who served as prime minister for 13 years, has shown signs that he might be willing to open up the country's political system, but a transition to democracy seems highly unlikely.

Since he took over, several prominent political prisoners have been released and efforts made to smoothen ties with other countries in the region.

Observers are watching to see if Mirziyoyev moves away from Karimov's foreign policy balancing act that saw

strategically located Uzbekistan play Russia, China and the West off against each other.

There was some speculation that Mirziyoyev would make his first trip abroad a symbolic visit to Moscow but instead he opted to head to nearby gas-rich Turkmenistan.

The two leaders also opened two strategic bridges worth almost $500m connecting the countries with new road and rail links.

The newly built rail link between the two countries is part of a larger link that will extend through Oman, Qatar and Iran.

Manila

Reuters

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte said yesterday he hopes there will be a

"happy compromise" between the mining industry and protect-ing the environment, throwing support once more to an embat-tled minister who shut half of the country's mines.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Regina Lopez will appear before Con-gress for her confirmation hearing today, and will likely

have to defend her decisions on mine closures amid concerns over job and revenue losses.

Lopez is among just a few of Duterte's appointees yet to be confirmed by lawmakers.

The Philippines is the top nickel ore exporter and Lopez's approval would probably sus-tain worries over supply disruptions that could lift global prices of the stainless steel ingredient.

"I know that we need the dollars but somehow we have to look at the other way," Duterte said.

"She has a good case. Hope-fully we can strike a happy compromise there," he said.

Lopez, a fiery environmen-tal crusader, last month ordered the closure of 23 of the country's 41 mines and suspended five others to protect watersheds after a months-long review by th environment agency.

Duterte has largely backed Lopez's mining crackdown, and did not appear to deviate from his stance yesterday.

"You just cannot ignore the cries of Gina Lopez," he said, adding that she has clearly

pointed out the environmental harm mining has caused in nickel-rich southern Mindanao island.

"We cannot be allowing dig-ging forever in every nook and cranny of the mountain ranges. It will spell disaster," said Pres-ident Duterte, also the former mayor of Davao City, the biggest city in Mindanao.

Earlier yesterday, Lopez said she had asked Duterte to halt a second review of the 28 mines that she ordered closed or sus-pended, challenging its legality after first supporting it.

Capital punishment

Voting 216 to 54 with one abstention, lawmakers passed the third and final reading of the bill to bring back the death penalty, but in a watered-down draft that excludes crimes like abuse, kidnap-for-ransom and plunder.

Opponents spoke out strongly in the house, describing the measure as barbaric, regressive and no deterrent against crime.

Activists hold placards during a protest rally against the passing of the death penalty bill, at the gate of House of the Representatives in Quezon City, yesterday.

Australia plays down joint sea patrols with Indonesia

Duterte seeks responsible mining

Members of the Uzbek diaspora in Turkmenistan attend a ceremony unveiling a monument to Uzbekistan's late president Islam Karimov, in Turkmenabat, yesterday.

HK seizes record haul of shark finHong Kong

AFP

HONG KONG authorities have seized more than a tonne of shark fins as activists warn traders are sneaking the sought-after delicacy into the city by mislabelling shipments to get around bans by major transporters.

"Four containers of shark fin weighing 1.3 tonnes were discovered on separate occasions at Hong Kong's main sea port and were from India, Egypt, Kenya and Peru", the government said.

Anyone found trading in products from endan-gered species could face a fine of $643,952 and two years in jail.

The new seizure coin-cided with the publication of a report by interna-tional conservation group Sea Shepherd which said large shipments of fins were still arriving in Hong Kong, despite carrier bans.

Traders are sneaking in the product by giving them false labels, the report said.

Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, and South Africa's President Jacob Zuma during a news conference at the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Leaders' Summit 2017 in Jakarta,yesterday.

13WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 ASIA

Yangon

AFP

Thousands were fleeing a Myanmar town bordering China yesterday after at

least 30 people were killed in fighting between the army and ethnic rebels as Beijing called for an immediate ceasefire between the two sides.

The violence is some of the most intense to rattle the Chi-nese-speaking Kokang region since clashes in 2015 left scores dead and forced tens of thou-sands to flee into China.

In a statement released yes-terday, the army said it used heavy artillery to repel rebels who swept into Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region, before dawn on Monday.

Insurgents from the Myan-mar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) "failed" in their attempt to take Laukkai, the army said, adding civilians and "some army officers" died in a series of clashes around the town.

An army source requesting anonymity said that "about 7,000 local residents are flee-ing to the China side because of fighting".

Yesterday, Beijing appealed for both sides to halt the fighting.

"Relevant parties should cease fire immediately and restore order to the border areas as soon as possible," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

The rebels, who were said

to be wearing police uniforms when they made the surprise raid, suffered the heaviest losses with the military recovering 20 charred bodies it says belonged to fallen insurgents.

"Communications have been cut around Laukkai but fighting continued yesterday morning," according to the leader of another rebel group allied with the insurgents in Kokang.

"Almost all residents from Laukkai town are fleeing," said Brigadier General Nyo Tun Aung from the Arakan Army recently, estimating that thousands had left.

Many rebel groups in the border region share close cul-tural ties with China, speaking Chinese dialects and using the country's yuan currency.

Stranded Afghans and Pakistanis back homeTorkham

AP

Thousands of stranded Afghans and Pakista-nis returned home yesterday as Pakistan temporarily reopened

two main crossings that had been closed last month after a wave of militant attacks, officials said.

The Torkham and Chaman crossings were to remain open until today for nationals from both countries with valid visas who want to return home, a measure intended to calm ten-sions and ease a backlog.

"Nearly 5,000 Afghans left for their country and another 1,500 Pakistanis crossed in the opposite direction," said Fayyaz Khan, a Pakistani official at the Torkham crossing.

He said overland trade between the two countries has yet to resume.

"I have a valid visa and I promise that I will never come back here. Please allow me go

back to my country," Matiullah Khan, a 52-year-old Afghan, said as he and his family waited at a checkpoint.

Pakistan shut the crossings

three weeks ago after a wave of suicide bombings that authori-ties said was linked to Islamist militants based in Afghanistan.

The two countries have long accused each other of ignoring Al Qaeda and other militants who operate along the porous, moun-tainous border.

Khairullah Azad, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan For-eign Ministry, urged Pakistan to restore normal movement at the crossings, saying the two-day reopening was insufficient for people living on both sides of the frontier.

"Thousands more still wait-ing on both sides of the border for their turn in long queues were told to try their luck again on Wednesday (today)," Khan, the border crossing official, said.

Bibi Jamila, 55, was stranded in Kandahar for several days where she had gone to attend a wedding. "I am a Pakistani citi-zen but they are not allowing me to cross to the other side," she said.

She appealed to both coun-tries to keep in consideration the impact on ordinary citizens who have family on both sides of the border

"We don't want to live like this," Jamila said.

The opening of the crossings

came a day after Pakistan said a group of militants crossed over from Afghanistan and attacked several military posts, setting off clashes that killed six soldiers and 10 militants.

It said it had complained about the attack to Kabul and

called on Afghanistan to take action.

Meanwhile, at least two Pakistani soldiers and five mili-tants were killed yesterday in the northwestern town of Swabi dur-ing a raid on a militant hideout, the military said.

China calls for ceasefire after Myanmar clashesCambodia drug arrests reach nearly 5,000Phnom Penh Reuters

CAMBODIAN authori-ties have arrested more than 4,800 people in a two-month-old cam-paign against drugs and that number could more than double, the country's drug czar said yesterday.

Giving the latest arrest figures at an event in Phnom Penh, Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan said there were offi-cially estimated to be more than 12,000 drug users, but the real number could be higher.

"There are other drug users who do it quietly and their parents hide them from authorities so the number could be twice or triple that," said Kim Yan, who also chairs the National Authority for Combating Drugs.

"In just two months, more than 4,000 people were arrested so the arrests may reach 10,000".

Kim Yan did not say how many people had been charged.

Those arrested for drugs offences are taken to rehabilitation centres, the condition of which has been criticised by human rights groups.

Kabul

AFP

Reporters Without Borders yesterday launched a cen-tre to protect women

journalists in Afghanistan, the second most dangerous in the country for the profession after Syria.

The centre will aim to lobby the government for better work-ing conditions and rights for women reporters.

It will also talk to families to try to change perceptions that journalism is no job for a woman.

"We want to support women journalists both in war zones and within the news organisations for which they work to defend

both their rights and their phys-ical safety," the centre's president Farideh Nikzad said.

"The biggest challenges are security and abuse in the work-place," Nikzad said.

RSF's secretary-general

Christophe Deloire added: "By protecting women journalists, we are defending media free-dom in Afghanistan."

The country currently has some 300-400 women journal-ists, mainly in the big cities.

They find themselves caught between Taliban militants on the one hand and their own fami-lies on the other, who often do not consider the job to be a suit-able profession for a woman.

Four women journalists have been killed by their own relatives since 2002 for this very reason, according to RSF.

Afghanistan suffered its deadliest year on record for all journalists in 2016, according to a recent Afghan Journalists' Safety Committee report.

It said 13 journalists were killed last year, with the Taliban behind at least ten of the deaths.

In January last year seven employees of popular TV chan-nel Tolo, often critical of the insurgents, were killed in a Tal-iban suicide bombing in Kabul in what the militant group said was revenge for "spreading propaganda" against them.

But the centre also hopes to pressure media bosses to com-bat discrimination.

Shilaa Baheer, a 25-year-old journalist from the northern province of Balkh, said she was forced to leave her TV station after enduring "disrespect by my colleagues".

She is now an independent radio reporter.

People carry their belongings and evacuate from an area after fighters of the Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) launched an attack, in Laukkai, yesterday.

Afghan family freed from LA custody

Pakistani soldiers check the identity of citizens returning from Afghanistan at the border town of Chaman, yesterday.

Border reopens

The Torkham and Chaman crossings were to remain open until today for nationals from both countries with valid visas who want to return home, a measure intended to calm tensions and ease a backlog.

Khairullah Azad, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, urged Pakistan to restore normal movement at the crossings.

Santa Ana

AP

An Afghan family of five who travelled to the United States on special

visas and were detained by immigration officials at the Los Angeles airport were released from custody, according to the US government and the family's attorneys.

The mother, father and their three young sons, including a baby, arrived at the airport on Thursday for a connecting flight to Washington state, where they

planned to resettle.Instead, US immigration

officials detained them and split them up.

They planned to send the mother and children to a deten-tion centre in Texas, but lawyers intervened over the weekend and got a federal judge to quash the transfer.

Homeland Security officials haven't said why the family was held, while immigrant advocates asserted in a court petition that there was "absolutely no justi-fication whatsoever."

Government officials said in

a federal court hearing on Mon-day that the Afghan family was given back their passports and visas and will be interviewed on April 5 in Seattle to determine if they are eligible to use those visas to remain in the United States.

Lawyers said the family never should have been sub-jected to such treatment after going through the more than yearlong process to obtain spe-cial immigrant visas, which are given to foreigners who work for the US military in their coun-tries, often risking their lives.

Kabul opens centre to protect women reporters

Third literature festival to be held next yearIslamabad

Internews

After the two successful editions of Pakistan Mother Languages Lit-

erature (MLLF) Festival, the third one will be held on Feb-ruary 17 and 18, 2018 at Lok Virsa in Islamabad.

This was announced by the organisers of the festival on Sunday.

Speaking at the appreci-ation ceremony for the volunteers of the second MLLF, chairperson of the lead organiser Indus Cultural Forum, Niaz Nadeem said that the festival will continue to coincide with international mother languages day which is celebrated on February 21 every year.

“There is a debate going on about the importance of literature festivals in Paki-stan. Through MLLF we are trying to make the literature relevant to the masses because we are featuring the languages which majority of Pakistani write and speak".

He thanked Lok Virsa, Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO), the Cul-ture Department of Sindh Government and Foundation Open Society Institute for their generous support to the event.

Executive Director of Lok Virsa Dr Fozia Saeed said that it is right time that the par-ents take responsibility to teach their children their mother languages.

“The MLLF is demonstra-tion of how responsible citizens can volunteer to pro-mote and protect their languages and culture in addition to doing their jobs” she said.

Executive Director of Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) Naseer Memon highlighted the importance of the festival and said this initiative has resulted into national debate and dis-course on the status of mother languages.

He said the Senate of Pakistan held first ever pub-lic hearing on the issue of national languages which is a welcome outcome of the festival.

Prominent scholar and writer Ahmed Saleem said the festival is a window of knowl-edge and exposure to rich cultural and linguistic diver-sity of Pakistan.

The ceremony concluded with distribution of certifi-cates of appreciation for volunteers and honorary shields for the members of ICF, SPO and Lok Virsa.

Security

The centre will aim to lobby the government for better working conditions and rights for women reporters.

The centre hopes to pressure media bosses to combat discrimination.

14 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017ASIA

Poor quality of food in Indian Army allegedNew Delhi

IANS

Another soldier has taken to social media to complain about the system of 'batman' in the Army

and what he said was "poor quality food served to the men in uniform". The Army, however, dismissed his contentions as "baseless".

Sindhav Jogidas of the Army Medical Corps said he was air-ing his grievances publicly because his complaints to the Prime Minister's Office and the Defence Ministry had gone unheeded.

On the other hand, the Army said yesterday that Sindhav never served as a 'sahayak' or buddy with any officer or Junior Commissioned Officer.

"The operational and pro-fessional effectiveness of the Indian Army, which rests on the bedrocks of discipline, trust and espirit de corps, cannot be diluted based on false

and non-existent perceived grievances and misdemeanours of a few," the Army statement added.

Sindhav said: "I apologise to the people of the nation and the government (because) my video will hurt your sentiments. Every Jawan wants the respect of the Army to be high."

"How long can we tolerate? A lot of wrong things are happen-ing," he said while speaking in Hindi. Referring to the 'batman' system, also called 'sahayak' duty, he said some officers treated sol-diers attached to their residences

as their servants. "Jawans have to follow

orders because those who speak (against it) are victimised."

He said he went to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office and the Defence Ministry to complain and again to the Prime Minister's Office.

"I did not want the issues related to the Army to come on the social media.

"When the reply came, they slapped a case of disciplinary action against me and there were two Courts of Inquiry. I was harassed for a year but I kept quiet.

"I took leave again and came to Delhi... I went to Sena Bha-van (Army Headquarters) but no one allowed me to go inside. Then I wrote a letter to (Army Chief) General Bipin Rawat but there was no reply.

"At the end, I was given a charge-sheet because I had written against my officers. I have already been punished twice. This time I had to give up 14 days of salary as fine.

IS operative cornered in LucknowLucknow

IANS

A gunfight between a sus-pected IS operative and commandos of the Uttar

Pradesh Police's Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) was under way here yesterday, the police said.

The ATS, based on "con-crete" information from intelligence, had gone to appre-hend Saiful, suspected of

involvement in the blast in a train in Madhya Pradesh, from a house in Haji colony of Thakurganj area when he sud-denly opened fire on the team.

Following this, ATS com-mandos returned fire at Saiful, who was on the first floor. A sen-ior ATS officer is heading the operation, a senior police offi-cial said.

"We are trying to ensure that he is arrested alive and there is

no collateral damage as this is a residential area," said another official.

At least eight persons were injured in an explosion in a pas-senger train, going to Ujjain from Bhopal, in Madhya Pradesh's Shajapur district yes-terday, authorities said.

The explosion took place at around 9.50AM in the last com-partment, adjacent to the guard coach, railway officials said.

Thousands flee Myanmar town after rebel raidYangon

AFP

Thousands have fled a Myanmar town border-ing China after over 30

people were killed as the army fought back ethnic rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, officials said yesterday.

The violence is some of the most intense to rattle the Chinese-speaking Kokang region since fighting in 2015 left scores dead and forced tens of thousands to flee into China. The area is in north-eastern Shan state, which has seen repeated bouts of heavy fighting between the army and a band of well-armed ethnic minority militias since November, undercutting a government peace bid.

The fighting has also raised fears of a repeat of 2015, when the displaced flooded across the border into China, raising tensions with Beijing. In a statement released yesterday, the army said it used heavy artillery to repel rebels who swept into Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region, before dawn on Monday.

Ambush fails to free extremist in BangladeshDhaka

AFP

Suspected Islamist mili-tants hurled bombs at a prison van in a daring

attempt to free Bangladesh's most-wanted militant leader from death row, police said yesterday. Police arrested a 24-year-old man at the scene and launched a hunt for his accomplices after the gang threw bombs at the van car-rying Mufti Abdul Hannan in the town of Tongi just outside Dhaka yesterday.

"Their aim was to snatch Mufti Hannan," local police chief Firoz Talukder said, referring to the high-profile ringleader of the Harkatul Jihad Al Islami group.

Several of the bombs went off but the van was able to return to prison with Hannan and 18 other prisoners, he added. Police recovered a range of weapons from the scene, including a grenade and molotov cocktails, along with a pistol and butcher's knife.

The man captured follow-ing the brazen attack was a former student at an Islamic boarding school, police said.

In a separate incident yesterday, two men described as Islamist extremists attacked a police checkpoint in the eastern town of Chandina.

"They shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) and hurled two homemade bombs at police during a routine check," local police chief Nasiruddin Mridha said.

"We fired back with shot-guns and arrested both as they tried to escape," he said, adding the pair were injured in the firefight.

Colombo

AFP

Sri Lanka said yesterday it would conduct a joint investigation into the kill-

ing of an Indian fisherman in the narrow strip of sea between the two countries, but denied its navy was responsible.

The victim, who was

reported to be 21, was shot dead Monday and Indian fishermen have said the Sri Lankan navy was responsible.

A source in the Indian for-eign ministry said New Delhi was "deeply concerned" and had taken up the matter with the Sri Lankan government.

Fishermen from the two countries often stray into each

others' waters, creating diplo-matic difficulties, though most are detained. It was the first death in six years.

"Initial investigations indi-cate that the Sri Lanka navy is not involved in this alleged inci-dent," the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said in a statement.

"If in fact a shooting has taken place, it is a matter of

grave concern and all possible action will be taken, in cooper-ation with the relevant Indian authorities, to investigate into this incident."

The latest incident is the worst since two Indian fisher-men were shot dead in Sri Lankan waters in January 2011.

It has triggered protests in the Indian coastal town of

Rameswaram where the victim was from. India and Sri Lanka are separated by the narrow Palk Strait, which is a rich fishing ground. Sri Lanka's navy says it has seized 46 Indian trawlers in the island's territorial waters this year, along with 85 crew mem-bers who have been detained for prosecution by local authorities.

Sri Lanka to probe death of Indian fisherman

Southern Nepal hit by strikeKathmandu

IANS

Curfew was imposed in Nepal's Terai and Madhes regions yesterday in view

of the prevailing tension there since the death of three Madhesi Morcha cadres in a clash between security forces on the previous day.

Sporadic protests and dem-onstrations took place in several parts of Nepal's southern region yesterday in reaction to the deaths. An alliance of Madhes-based parties has called for a two-day strike to protest against the killings.

Public transport, factories, industries and educational insti-tutions were badly hit, as irate Morcha cadres held demonstra-tions and burned tyres in Rajbiraj -- the headquarters of Saptari district. Markets in Bhar-daha, Kanchanpur, Rupani and Kalyanpur areas remained shut

during the day. Hundreds of protestors took to the streets and chanted slogans demanding compensation to the kin of the deceased, medical treatment to the injured, declaration of the deceased as martyrs and action against the guilty.

They vandalised the Com-munist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxists-Leninists) [CPN-UML] regional office at Lahan

Municipality-1, gheraoed Saptari District Administration Office (DAO), ransacked Rajbiraj Municipality and Nepal Telecom office, and also damaged a National Human Rights Com-mission vehicle, police said.

In view of the violent pro-tests, security has been beefed up at the District Court, DAO, District Police Office and the District Land Revenue Office.

Indian minister says 'hormonal' women need protectionNew Delhi AFP

Female students need curfews to protect them from their own "hormo-

nal outbursts", India's women's minister has said, sparking ridicule on social media. Many Indian univer-sities inflict curfews on women while allowing their male students freedom to stay out at night, a policy that crit-ics say is sexist and outdated.

Asked about the practice on a television talk show, Manekha Gandhi said it was

necessary to protect young women from their own hormones.

"To protect you from your own hormonal outbursts, perhaps a certain protection, a Lakshman Rekha (red line) is drawn," she said in com-ments broadcast on the NDTV news channel Monday.

"You can make it (the cur-few) six, seven or eight, that depends on college to college but it really is for your own safety," she told the studio audience of college students during a special show to mark International Women's Day on March 8.

Nepalese riot police running for cover as Madhesi activists hurl stones at them in Saptari District, yesterday.

Indian police standing outside a house where a suspected militant is said to be hiding in Thakurganj area in Lucknow, yesterday.

Soldier's video viral

Sindhav Jogidas of the Army Medical Corps said he was airing his grievances publicly because his complaints to the Prime Minister's Office and the Defence Ministry had gone unheeded.

NEWS BYTES

MUMBAI: Delhi University professor G N Saibaba, who is wheelchair-bound, was yesterday sentenced to life impris-onment by a Maharashtra court for his links with Maoists.The Gadchiroli Sessions Court handed out life imprisonment to four others while their sixth accomplice was jailed for 10 years. The suspended English professor of Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University, was arrested in May 2014 from Delhi. The prosecution claimed that incriminating docu-ments, compact discs and pen drives containing literature about the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist were recovered from his possession.

KOZHIKODE: Six youths were yesterday arrested for rap-ing seven school girls, who are inmates of an orphanage near here, police said. Statements of the victims — students of Classes 8 and 9 — were recorded by a magistrate earlier in the day. A Kalpetta police station official said all the six alleged attackers have been identified through an identifi-cation parade. The youths have been arrested and now they will be presented before a magistrate.

KATHMANDU: A 49-year-old Australian man has died while descending from Mount Everest Base Camp while trekking in the Himalayas, according to a trekking group. Austral-ian trekker Matthew Paul Jones experienced high altitude sickness close to Base Camp and died on Friday, said Pardip Karki, manager of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal. Karki said a post-mortem on Jones' body had been completed and his body would be sent back to Australia once the necessary documentation had been completed.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The 47th Kerala State Film Awards yesterday were swept by the parallel cinema, leav-ing the big names and the mainstream film industry in the backseat. Vinayakan's performance in the film "Kammati-paadam", directed by Rajeev Ravi, won him the Best Actor. Interestingly, the Best Director honour went for the first time to a woman. Vidhu Vincent won it for her film "Manhole", which was selected as the Best Film. It's a movie on manual scavengers. Also honoured at the Kerala State Film Awards was the late O N V Kurup, the legendary literary figure who penned numerous award-winning lyrics. The award for the Best Actress went to Rajisha Vijayan for her role in the film "Anuraga Karikkin Vellam".

University professor gets life imprisonment for Maoist links

6 held for assault on orphanage girls

Kerala state film awards announced

Aussie man dies on Everest descent

15WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 EUROPE

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni visit Versailles Palace during a Franco-German-Italian-Spanish summit ahead of upcoming EU Summit, near Paris, on Monday night.

Summit talks Poll: UK public against exiting European Union without dealLONDON: British people are against the prime minister's plans to leave the European Union without a deal if par-liament rejects the agreement struck with Brussels, accord-ing to a new poll released yesterday by The Independent.

Last month, Theresa May's government agreed to give lawmakers a vote on the final Brexit deal before it is concluded with Brussels. However, they warned that if parliament rejected the terms of the final deal, Britain would still leave the bloc and revert to World Trade Organization rules to trade with the EU.

But only 25 percent of British people would support leaving the EU "with no set future relations in place," according to a BMG Research poll commissioned by the daily newspaper The Inde-pendent, which surveyed 1,576 people online.

A total of 56 percent favoured other options at odds with May's plans.

Among those, 27 percent said May should try to rene-gotiate a deal, 15 percent said Britain should stay in the EU on existing terms and 14 per-cent said Britain should stay in on new terms that the gov-ernment should try to negotiate.

May's "no deal is better than a bad deal" approach has received strong criticism.

Former prime minister John Major said last week that exiting the EU without a deal would be "the worst possible outcome".

And the House of Lords is expected to vote for an amendment to the Brexit bill to give parliament a vote on the final withdrawal deal and any future ties with the EU.

If the amendment goes through, it would further delay the start of the Brexit process.

May faces Lords defeat over vote on Brexit dealLondon

Bloomberg

UK Prime Minister Theresa May (pic-tured) faces a new setback in her effort to trigger Brexit as

lawmakers demand more power to shape the final deal she reaches with the European Union. The House of Lords is set to defeat May in a vote, re-writ-ing her draft law to guarantee a parliamentary veto if the deal she makes is not considered good enough.

Lawmakers would also be able to stop May walking away from talks with no deal under the amendment, which the une-lected upper house is expected to pass during its scrutiny of the bill. “I have said all along that we would not block Brexit, while reserving our right to challenge and scrutinise any legislation put before us,” said Angela Smith, the opposition Labour Party’s leader in the Lords.

May’s government could face new court challenges if Par-liament is not “properly engaged in the process” of shaping the Brexit deal, she said.

May is vulnerable to a defeat in the Lords because the 252

Conservative members are out-numbered by Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent, or “crossbench,” peers.

She overcame a first hurdle shortly before 1:30 pm, when peers rejected a Liberal Demo-crat proposal for a referendum on the eventual Brexit agreement.

In response to that vote, Lib-eral Democrat Leader Tim Farron told reporters his party

will vote against invoking Arti-cle 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, the official trigger for Brexit talks. The party issued a state-ment saying it has proposed a new amendment to deny the bill passage to the next legislative stage in the House of Lords.

Other amendments up for discussion include one calling for the government to provide quarterly updates to Parliament on the Brexit negotiations, another seeking to guarantee the rights of people in Northern Ireland to claim Irish citizenship, and two seeking Parliamentary votes on the final Brexit deal. Peers last week defeated May with another amendment on the rights of EU citizens.

The amendment to guaran-tee a meaningful vote is almost certain to win support in spite of the government’s opposition. This is because it has the back-ing of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and rebels in May’s ruling Conservative Party, including former Cabinet min-ister Douglas Hogg.

May’s team argues that giv-ing legislators the power to veto the final Brexit deal and send the premier back to the negotiating table to ask for something bet-ter would undermine her.

The House of Lords is set to defeat May in a vote, re-writing her draft law to guarantee a parliamentary veto if the deal she makes is not considered good enough.

Germany unhappy with Rome summit preparationsBrussels

AFP

Germany, the EU's most powerful state, said yester-day it was dissatisfied with

a declaration being prepared for a landmark Rome summit on the bloc's post-Brexit future later this month.

The European Union leaders at 27 — minus Britain's Theresa May — say they want the March 25 summit in Rome marking the

60th anniversary of the EU's founding treaties to be a ringing reaffirmation of EU unity. But preparations so far have instead highlighted sharp differences.

"I am anything but satisfied with the current state of prepara-tion" of the Rome declaration, Michael Roth, a junior foreign office minister, told reporters in Brussels.

EU leaders must make clear the bloc was more than just the single market but had higher

ambitions reflected in shared val-ues of democracy and rule of law, Roth said. This was especially so for "too many young people who risk being caught up by national-ism and populism," he said as he met with counterparts to discuss the Rome preparations.

Stressing his views were shared by the "whole German government," Roth said the EU had to offer them a real future.

"We have to make clear ... that we stand for growth and

employment ... we have to deliver significantly more than has been the case until now."

Germany's criticism comes after Slovak Premier Robert Fico last week slammed preparations for the Rome summit as "pathetic." The summit was meant to send a clear signal that as the bloc celebrates its 60th birthday it has a future despite Brexit and growing eurosceptic sentiment.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker last week

laid out five options for Rome to consider, ranging from doing nothing, returning some powers to member states to creating a "multi-speed" Europe to allow much faster integration for those who want to forge ahead.

France and Germany favour Juncker's "multi-speed" option but others, such as the Visegrad group of Eastern European states — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — fear they could be left behind.

Tusk job row threatens to overshadow EU summitBrussels

AFP

A row over Poland's bid to replace European Union President Donald Tusk

(pictured) threatens to over-shadow a summit this week that was meant to focus on post-Brexit unity.

Most of the 28 EU leaders had hoped to push through Polish ex-premier Tusk's re-election with a minimum of fuss so they could concentrate on other challenges.

But instead, the two-day sum-mit starting tomorrow risks being consumed by splits along old east-west lines as the euro-sceptic Polish government proposes a rival candidate, with support from Hungary.

The leaders also face rifts over Britain's exit as they meet without Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday to draw up plans to mark the EU's 60th birthday in Rome later this month.

Unity is at a premium for the EU as it deals with Britain's

departure, Russian aggression and new US President Donald Trump.

Centrist former Polish pre-mier Tusk has broad support among the leaders for a second mandate until 2020 for his han-dling of crises including migration and Greek debt.

As leader of the European Council he heads the body that groups the 28 national leaders of the EU, and hosts Brussels summits. But Poland's right-wing governing Law and Justice party

surprised many by suddenly pro-posing Euro-MP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski instead of Tusk,

its long and bitter foe."Tusk has a very strong posi-

tion," an EU official told AFP, as Poland has no veto in the deci-sion and is likely to be supported only by Hungary, led by the eurosceptic Viktor Orban.

Under EU rules it would need a majority of at least 72 percent of the 28 leaders, representing at least 65 percent of the EU pop-ulation, a European Council official said. But there is disquiet at the way an internal political feud has spread to the European

stage at a time when it is meant to be giving the impression of unity. "I think we will leave our Polish friends to face the cold wind alone," an EU diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Tusk has been at odds with Law and Justice for years, espe-cially its chief, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who accuses him of "moral responsibility" for his twin brother and then-president Lech Kaczynski's death in a 2010 plane crash in Russia.

FROM LEFT: Actors Toby Jones, Rhys Ifans, Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson with supporters pose with a banner in front of the Houses of Parliament in London yesterday as they urge the government to re-consult local authorities on their ability to accommodate vulnerable refugee children from Europe, effectively keeping the "Dub's scheme" open.

Support for refugee children Romanian lawmaker proposes pardoning corruption sentencesBucharest

Reuters

A lawmaker from Romania's ruling Social Democrats proposed extending a

draft bill granting prison pardons to include corruption offences, weeks after protests forced the government to abandon plans to decriminalise some graft charges.

It is unclear whether the Social Democrat party, which together with junior partner ALDE holds a large parliamen-tary majority, would support the amendment presented by Sen-ator Serban Nicolae, who said it was a personal not party proposal.

The government says the bill

is needed to ease pressure on the European Union state's over-crowded prisons — something echoed by Nicolae. "I don't think ... the corrupt must live three to a bed in dampness and with pre-carious hygiene," he told reporters.

Romania is seen as one of the European Union's most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its jus-tice system under special monitoring. While the European Commission has repeatedly praised the judiciary for progress stamping out graft, it has noted parliament has a track record of trying to weaken legislation.

In early February, the cabi-net of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu approved an

emergency decree that would have shielded dozens of public officials from prosecution, draw-ing international criticism and triggering the largest nationwide protests in decades.

The ruling coalition rescinded the decree and reshuf-fled the cabinet. In its initial form, the draft pardons prison sen-tences of up to five years except for violence, treason, genocide and other serious crimes, as well as repeat offenders. It would halve sentences for pregnant women and single family earn-ers. Nicolae's amendment would include pardoning sentences for bribery, influence peddling, abuse of power and conflict of interest.

16 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017EUROPE

People carry bouquets of flowers ahead of International Women's Day at the Rizhsky flower market in Moscow, yesterday.

International Women's Day rushItalian farmers bring sheep to Rome to protest quake responseRome

Reuters

Italian farmers from regions ravaged by earthquakes brought sheep to central

Rome yesterday to protest what they say are serious delays in reconstruction efforts.

More than 10,000 farm ani-mals have been killed or injured by quake damage and

subsequent freezing weather, farmers' association Coldiretti said.

Outside parliament, a makeshift paddock housed three sheep rescued from areas struck by tremors while farm-ers waved flags and banners reading "Bureaucracy is more deadly than earthquakes".

Thousands of farming busi-nesses are housed in the central regions of Lazio, Marche, Abruzzo and Umbria where tremors have rumbled since August.

Prime Minister Paolo Gen-tiloni has approved a draft law to help people affected by the quakes, including £35m to com-pensate farmers for lost income.

The law also aims to make it easier for regional govern-ments to buy temporary stalls. Farmers say about 85 percent of their livestock need shelter.

"Breeders still don't know where to put their surviving cows, pigs and sheep, which are either stuck out in the cold, at risk of death and disease, or in derelict buildings," the farm association said.

Stress caused by cold and fear has reduced milk produc-tion in the region by 30 percent. Local crops like lentils are also at risk as seeds cannot be sown on fractured land, it added.

The agriculture ministry said the process of releasing emergency funds to farmers was under way.

Germany hunts man for child murderBerlin

AFP

German police launched a manhunt yesterday for a 19-year-old man sus-

pected of stabbing a nine-year-old boy to death and bragging about the murder in an online video.

Police said they were alerted on Monday by people who had viewed the clip on the encrypted darknet, an online space crim-inals use to trade weapons,

drugs and child pornography.A team of police discovered

the child's corpse around 1930 GMT on Monday in the base-ment of the suspect's house in the town of Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia state. The suspect was named as Marcel Hesse, described as an unemployed and socially withdrawn man not previously known to police.

Trained in martial arts, the 1.75m (five foot seven) tall, slim, blonde man was thought to be wearing military style clothing

and possibly armed. Police launched a large-

scale search of the town on Monday night, using sniffer dogs and helicopters. "The victims and the suspect lived next door to each other," said a police spokesman. He added that authorities had no idea about a possible motive, saying that "there's no one we can ask."

Police did not report the content of the video and whether it showed the child's body.

Sheeps are parked during a demonstration of farmers and breeders of the quake-hit areas of Marche, Abruzzo, Umbria and Lazio yesterday in front of Italy's Chamber of Deputies in Rome.

Russia denies Kiev's claims of terrorism The Hague

AFP

Russia hit back yester-day at claims it is "sponsoring terror-ism" in war-torn eastern Ukraine, dis-

missing as "neither factual nor legal" Kiev's contention that it is breaking its treaties by support-ing pro-Moscow rebels.

"The Russian Federation complies fully with its obliga-tions under (the) treaties that are now relied upon by Ukraine," to bring a case before the UN's top International Court of Justice, Moscow's representative said.

"We see neither a legal nor factual basis" for the measures asked for by Ukraine, Roman Kolodkin, legal director at Rus-sia's foreign ministry, told the court in The Hague.

Ukraine on Monday urged the ICJ to order emergency measures to bring stability to its eastern regions. It said its claim against Moscow was based on the international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism and the convention of elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. But Kolod-kin said these were issues "clearly beyond the court's jurisdiction."

Nearly three years of con-flict have claimed about 10,000 lives in eastern Ukraine — and led to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's southern peninsula of Crimea in 2014 — pushing ties between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War. Ukraine lodged its case at the ICJ in mid-January, saying it had protested for sev-eral years against Moscow's alleged financing of pro-Russian separatist rebels battling

Ukrainian government forces.Kiev has asked the court —

which rules in disputes between countries — to order Moscow to stop funnelling money, arms and people into eastern Ukraine.

But Ilya Rogachev, another Russian representative, told the 16 judges hearing the case that Kiev "is misleading the court."

Ukraine "is involved in an armed conflict being waged by its authorities and its armed forces including irregular bat-talions against the people of the eastern Ukraine," Rogachev said. "Stigmatising those as ter-rorists and sponsors of terrorism could have serious conse-quences" in future peace talks, he warned.

"Ukraine's own evidence, which shows that it is at least equally engaged in indiscrimi-nate shelling, places a very important question mark next to the characterisation that Ukraine alone places on these acts as acts of terrorism," added one of Russia's lawyers, Samuel Wordsworth.

Daniel Kristensen poses with debris from the wreck of a World War II aircraft, which he and his father found on Monday near Birkelse by Aabybro in Northern Jutland, Denmark, yesterday.

World War II aircraft debris

VIENNA: Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said yesterday he wanted to change legislation to per-mit a ban on foreign officials making speeches in Austria if human rights or public order were threatened, a move aimed at Turkish politicians.

Sobotka told ORF radio he would not allow foreign poli-ticians to bring their domestic battles to Austrian soil and that he was sending draft legisla-tion to legal experts before presenting it to the cabinet.

Austria's move comes at a time of Turkish fury over the cancellation of several politi-cal rallies in Germany aimed at drumming up support among for President President Tayyip's plans to overhaul the constitution. Erdogan accused Germany of "fascist actions".

Sobotka said the new leg-islation would apply to Turkish campaigning on its constitutional referendum.

"With the agreement of the federal government, the Interior Minister can... forbid a foreign politician from tak-ing part in an event... if this serves to protect the human and basic rights enshrined in the European human rights convention," Sobotka said.

The minister added this could mean travel bans, a ban on campaigning appearances or the cancellation of events.

When asked whether this could mean a travel restric-tion for Erdogan, Sobotka said cancelling an event should be sufficient and that Erdogan was welcome in Austria on state visits, but not to whip up tensions within Austria's Turk-ish community. "If necessary (it could mean) a travel ban, the security forces have to decide this. There are several possibilities how you can reach the aim (of not having) foreign politicians making campaign appearances."

Austria wants to ban foreigners campaigning on its soil

Facebook wins German case against refugee in Merkel selfieWurzburg

AFP

Facebook clinched victory yesterday in a German court case brought by a

Syrian refugee whose selfie with Chancellor Angela Merkel had made him the target of rac-ist trolls.

The court ruled that the US social media giant was not obliged to actively search out and delete defamatory posts, like those that had falsely linked the claimant to Islamist attacks and violent crimes.

Anas Modamani, 19, had sought an injunction demand-ing that the company, represented by Facebook Ire-land Limited, stop the spread of such defamatory fake news, which have been shared count-less times.

The company has in the past blocked such content, but

only upon request — like posts which had falsely linked Moda-mani to delinquents who tried to set fire to a homeless man in Berlin last Christmas.

Modamani and his lawyer Chan-jo Jun had demanded that Facebook actively search out and take down all slander-ous posts using the famous selfie images — not just those they had flagged to the com-pany. They argued Facebook could use its algorithms to automatically identify them, just as it does for nudity and copyrighted music.

"It must become more costly to break the law," Jun had tweeted ahead of the court ruling in the southern city of Wurzburg.

The court however found it was unclear whether Face-book could indeed conduct such pro-active searches "without major technical

hurdles", and said this question may have to be settled by another court in the future.

Modamani arrived in Ger-many in 2015, along with tens of thousands of other refugees and migrants.

When Merkel visited his Berlin refugee shelter in Sep-tember that year, he took two selfie images with her in jubi-lant scenes also captured by news photographers.

Since then, those images have been reposted in differ-ent, often false, contexts, while right-wing fury flared online against Merkel's liberal stance on refugees.

Users have cut and pasted Modamani's picture into "wanted" posters and on fake news reports, typically alleg-ing that the refugee made famous by the Merkel selfie had later turned out to be a terrorist.

Bone of contention

Russia dismissed Ukraine's claims that it is "sponsoring terrorism" in war-torn eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine said its claim against Moscow was based on the international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism and the convention of elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.

PARIS: A growing majority of French voters see Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front as a threat to democracy even though a third approve of its ideas, a Kantar Sofres-Onep-oint poll showed yesterday.

Le Pen, who most polls see coming on top in the first round of France's presiden-tial election, has sought to make the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front less of a fringe party since she took its reins from her father in 2011.

Majority of French voters mistrust Le Pen's part: Poll

17WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 EUROPE

Migration 'Trojan horse' of terrorism: OrbanBudapest

AP

Migration is the "Tro-jan wooden horse" of terrorism and the current lull in the migrant flow is

only temporary, Hungary's prime minister said yesterday.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an early supporter of US Presi-dent Donald Trump, has ordered the reinforcement of fences on Hungary's southern borders to keep out migrants. Orban says the migrants, many of whom are

Muslims, are a threat to Europe's Christian identity and culture.

Orban said the migration issue would remain as long as its causes in the countries of origin were not dealt with and its potential risks were not recognised. "Migration is the Trojan wooden horse of ter-rorism," Orban said at a swearing-in ceremony for a new group of border guards, called "border hunters" by the govern-ment. "The people that come to us don't want to live according to our culture and customs but accord-ing to their own — at European standards of living."

Orban said the migration pressure on Hungary's borders would continue as millions of people were planning to come to Europe in hope of better lives. "We are still, at this moment, under siege," Orban said. "The migration flow has only slowed but it is not over. We have gained time to strengthen our lines of defence."

As Orban was speaking to the 462 new border guards, lawmak-ers from his governing Fidesz party and the far-right Jobbik party approved new rules which further limit the rights of asylum

seekers and give police more power to send migrants back to Serbia.

During a state of emergency due to migration, recently extended until September 7, all asylum seekers will kept at camps built from shipping con-tainers on the border with Serbia until a final decision is made on their asylum requests.

The decision is in line with Hungary's intention to close all other refugee reception centres around the country, some of which were shut last year.

Police will also be allowed to

return to the Serbian border any migrants caught anywhere in the country who cannot prove their legal right to be in Hungary. Since July 5, only migrants found within 8km of the border could be sent back to Serbia.

The new legislation was strongly criticised by human rights advocates, who said asy-lum seekers' rights to legal assistance would be severely limited.

"There are hardly 400 asy-lum seekers in the country," said a statement issued by seven rights groups.

Against migrants

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has ordered the reinforcement of fences on Hungary's southern borders to keep out migrants.

Orban says the migrants, many of whom are Muslims, are a threat to Europe's Christian identity and culture.

Fashion models present creations by Chanel in front of a replica of a space rocket launch during the Fall-Winter 2017-2018 ready-to-wear collection at the Grand Palais in Paris yesterday.

Rocket at fashion showNew revelation hits Fillon campaign

is to be charged later this month.Ladreit de Lacharriere is the

CEO of Fimalac, a financial serv-ices holding company, and owns the literary magazine La Revue des Deux Mondes.

The publication paid Pene-lope Fillon some £100,000 in 2012-13 but there is little evi-dence of her work. Investigators are looking into a possible link between this job and the bestowal of France's highest civilian honour, the Grand Croix of the Legion of Honour, on Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2011

when Fillon was prime minister.

The Canard Enchaine also said investigators were looking into a consultancy firm called 2F Conseil that Fillon set up in 2012 after he left office as prime min-ister, which the paper says has paid him hundreds of thousands of euros.

Fillon has denied any wrong-doing with his consultancy work.

With just seven weeks to go before France goes to the polls in the April 23 first round of a two-stage vote, Fillon has

remained as the rightwing can-didate despite calls for him to allow rival Alain Juppe to stand in his place because of the scandal.

On Monday, he won the "unanimous" backing of his Republicans party after Juppe, 71, adamantly rejected the calls while lamenting the state of Fil-lon's candidacy, calling it a "waste".

Juppe also chastised Fillon for the disdain he has shown the justice system and his swipes at the media.

Berliners in mourning as polar bear cub diesBerlin

AFP

Berliners were distraught yes-terday as Fritz,

the German capital's four-month-old cud-dly polar bear cub, died after suffering f r o m l i v e r inflammation.

The uber-cute Fritz was seen as a successor to Knut, the polar bear who shot to international stardom after he was aban-doned by his mother and hand-reared in the Berlin Zoo.

Fritz was born on November 3, the first polar bear birth in eastern Berlin's Tierpark zoo in 22 years. He had a twin sibling which died shortly after birth. "We are stunned, very sad and depressed. It is unbelievable how quickly this little polar bear has grown in our hearts," said zoo director Andreas Knieriem.

After delighting visitors for years, Knut died suddenly of a suspected brain tumour in 2011 at age four, sparking grief among his legions of fans.

In Fritz's case, zookeepers had found him lying listlessly next to his mother Tonja on Mon-day morning. A series of checks found the cub to be suffering from a severe case of liver

inflammation.He was given antibiotics and

painkillers, but the seriousness of his condition became clear when the Tierpark said Monday they hoped he would survive the night.

But by around 7:30 pm (1830 GMT) his breathing became irregular, and he was pro-nounced dead around half an hour later. An autopsy was being carried out. "Fritz did not make it," said top-selling Bild daily on its online homepage and in a tweet. The chancellery joined in the mourning, with Angela Mer-kel's chief of staff Peter Altmaier attaching Bild's tweet and add-ing: "Anyone who remembers little Knut is sad. But above all, we must protect polar bears in nature!"

Avalanche rattles skiers in French AlpsTignes

AFP

An avalanche forced skiers to jump out of their skis yesterday at the popular

French Alps resort of Tignes but no one was seriously injured, a local official said.

Twenty-five "more or less shocked" people sought help from rescue workers, Nicolas Martrenchard told a news con-ference. "Four skiers were buffeted by the impact" of the rush of snow and had to aban-don their equipment on the slope, added Martrenchard, dep-uty prefect of nearby Albertville.

An initial report that several skiers were engulfed by the ava-lanche sent alarm bells ringing through the sprawling resort just three weeks after an avalanche claimed four lives nearby.

Up to 200 people took part in search efforts, all arriving overland because poor visibil-ity prevented the use of helicopters. Rescue workers and sniffer dogs were deployed along with firefighters' vehicles and ambulances.

The slopes gradually began reopening after the rescue oper-ations. The fast-moving "powder snow" avalanche was made of light, recently fallen snow that fell away "naturally", experts said. The avalanche risk — which is normally assessed only for off-piste and closed slopes — was at four on a scale of five.

At level five, all slopes are

closed. The area had 50cm of snow overnight following regu-lar snowfalls since Saturday, avalanche risk expert Cecile Coleou said. "That meant an accumulation of a metre over three days, which represents a thick layer of unstable snow," she said, adding however that it was "extremely rare" for an ava-lanche to reach an active ski slope.

Coleou said the avalanche risk would remain high at least until today.

Tignes is one of the biggest ski stations in the Alps, offering 480 hectares of slopes served by around 80 ski lifts.

The avalanche on February

13, which hit during school hol-idays, was a "slab" avalanche, caused when dense wind-packed snow breaks off from a slope. Rescuers quickly retrieved the bodies because the victims were carrying transmitters designed to assist in locating them. They had been only a few dozen metres from a ski lift when the 400-metre-wide ava-lanche ripped down the mountain.

That incident brought to 14 the number of accidents recorded in the French Alps and Pyrenees so far this winter, claiming a total of seven lives.

Last winter there were 45 accidents and 21 fatalities.

One of the worst avalanches in the Alps in the past decade took place in the summer of 2012 in the Mont-Blanc range. Nine climbers from Britain, Germany, Spain and Switzerland were killed as they tried to scale the north face of Mont Maudit, which translates as Cursed Mountain.

Avalanches can travel at speeds of up to 400km per hour.

In January, 29 people died in Italy after an avalanche buried a hotel in the central town of Rigopiano.

The force of that impact was calculated by police as being equivalent to the three-storey stone and wood structure being hit by 4,000 fully loaded trucks.

French far-right Front National party candidate for the presidential election Marine Le Pen (left) with President of employer organisation ETHIC Sophie de Menthon during a debate in Paris, yesterday.

The three-month old polar bear Fritz with his mother Tonja in their enclosure in Berlin last month.

Paris

AFP

Scandal-plagued French presidential hopeful Fran-cois Fillon was hit by a new

revelation yesterday, this time over an interest-free, undeclared loan he received from a billion-aire friend.

The conservative candidate "did not deem it necessary" to report the £50,000 loan he received from Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2013 to a state transparency watchdog, the Canard Enchaine weekly said in its edition to appear today.

"The 'oversight' may be costly for the presidential can-didate," said the investigative and satirical newspaper, which also made the allegations in Jan-uary about the fake jobs scandal that has threatened to derail Fil-lon's candidacy.

Le Canard Enchaine reported that Fillon's lawyer Antonin Levy had confirmed the loan had been repaid in full, but did not say when.

Once the frontrunner to become France's next president in May, 63-year-old Fillon has had to battle to stay in the race because of the revelations that he had paid his wife Penelope hundreds of thousands of euros from public funds, allegedly for fake jobs.

The former prime minister

A view of the avalanche site in the French Alps.

18 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017AMERICAS

NEWS BYTES

Senate panel backs Trump's National Security Adviser pickWASHINGTON: The US Senate Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve Army Lieutenant General H R McMaster’s reappointment as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, despite some concern over his handling of a sexual assault case. The committee vote was 23-2, with two abstentions. The complete vote break-down was not immediately available, but one “no” came from Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand, a leader of congressional efforts to address sexual assault in the mili-tary, said she was concerned about McMaster’s past decision to allow two service members accused of assault to advance their careers while the case against them was open, in vio-lation of Army regulations. The case against them was later dropped. The Senate does not normally approve a president’s national security advisor. However, US law requires McMas-ter’s reappointment to the new position to be approved because he is an active-duty military officer.

Peru & Venezuela in diplomatic rowLIMA: Peru recalled its ambassador in Caracas for consul-tations as the countries’ governments traded insults over the crisis in Venezuela and ties with Washington. In a pro-test note to the Venezuelan embassy in Lima, Peru expressed “total rejection of the insolent comments” against its President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Kuczynski had annoyed Venezuela’s socialist government by calling for Latin America to intervene in what he termed a “humanitarian crisis” in the country. The United States “does not invest much time in Latin America since (that region) is like a friendly dog sleeping on the rug, but in the case of Venezuela it is a big problem,” Kuczynski said, during a recent speech in the United States. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez retorted by calling Kuczyn-ski a “coward”, during a speech in Caracas.

Noriega recovering after brain surgeryPANAMA CITY: Manuel Noriega, Panama’s former dictator, was convalescing yesterday after a successful operation to remove a benign tumor from his brain, his lawyer said. Nori-ega, who ruled from 1983 to 1989, was released from prison in January for the first time in three decades ahead of Tues-day’s hours-long surgery at Santo Tomas public hospital. “It was a success. He is in intensive care, recovering,” his lawyer, Ezra Angel, said. Judicial authorities granted the 83-year-old Noriega a period of home arrest until April 28 to undergo the operation after which they will decide whether he is fit to return to prison. Noriega, who spied for the CIA before his drug trafficking and brutal regime sparked a US invasion in 1989, was initially sentenced in the United States in 1992.

Hutchinson

AP

Emergency crews yes-terday struggled to contain deadly wild-fires that have scorched hundreds of

square miles of land in four states and forced thousands of people to flee their homes ahead of the wind-whipped flames.

The fires were burning in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado, and warn-ings that fire conditions were ripe were issued for Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska, as powerful thun-derstorms moved through the nation’s midsection overnight, spawning dozens of tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service. The fires have killed at least five people.

In Kansas, wildfires have burned about 625 square miles of land and killed one person. The Kansas Highway Patrol said Corey Holt, of Oklahoma City, was killed Monday. His tractor-trailer jackknifed as he tried to back up because of poor visibil-ity on highway 34 in Clark County, and he succumbed to smoke after getting out of his vehicle. Two SUVs crashed into the jackknifed truck, injuring six people who were taken to hos-pitals, state trooper Michael Racy said.

About 545 square miles of the state’s burned land is in Clark County, which is on Kan-sas’ southern border with Oklahoma. Thirty structures, including some homes, have been damaged in the county, said Allison Kuhns, a spokes-woman for the county’s emergency management office.

About half of those structures were near the small city of Eng-lewood, which was one of two communities evacuated. Kuhns said there also have been sig-nificant cattle losses and that there were entire ranches that were engulfed.

Elsewhere, the largest evac-uations were in Reno County, where 10,000 to 12,000 people voluntarily left their homes Monday night, said Katie Horner, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Emer-gency Management. She said 66 people from the area were in shelters yesterday in Hutchin-son, which is 40 miles northwest of Wichita. Several hundred more people evacuated their homes in Russell, Ellsworth and Comanche counties, which are in central Kansas.

The Kansas fires forced the closure of some roads, includ-ing two short stretches of Interstate 70, the main highway that cuts across the state from Colorado to Kansas City.

In the Texas Panhandle, three fires have burned more than 195 square miles of land and killed at least four people.

One of the blazes near Amarillo threatened about 150 homes, while a larger fire in the north-east corner of the Panhandle near the Oklahoma border was only 5 percent contained as of yesterday morning, according to Texas A&M Forest Service. That larger fire was responsible for a death on Monday, author-ities said yesterday without providing further details.

A wildfire in Gray County, which is also in the Texas Pan-handle, killed three ranch hands who were trying to usher cattle away from the flames, said Judge Richard Peet, the coun-ty’s head administrator. One of the three apparently died of smoke inhalation Monday night and the other two were badly burned and died on the way to hospitals, he said.

Forest Service spokesman Phillip Truitt said as many as four firefighters were hurt bat-tling the fires Monday. He provided no details on their con-ditions yesterday morning.

In northeastern Colorado near the Nebraska border, fire-fighters lost ground to a blaze in rural Logan and Phillips counties.

They had the blaze 90 per-cent contained Monday evening, but only 50 percent contained yesterday, despite working overnight to douse hot spots and flare-ups. The fire has burned more than 45 square miles of land and destroyed three homes. Nearby residents were warned to be ready to evacuate if the fire advances toward them. More than 70 firefighters from 13 departments battled the blaze, which was reported east of Ster-ling on Monday morning.

Wildfires in four states claim 5; thousands flee

New York

Reuters

The new, more narrowly tailored temporary travel ban President Donald

Trump signed on Monday will be more difficult to challenge successfully in court, legal experts said. They said that since his order no longer covers legal residents or existing visa hold-ers, and makes waivers possible for some business, diplomatic and other travelers, challengers are likely to have a harder time finding people in the US who can legally claim they have been harmed, and thus have so-called “standing” to sue.

Trump’s first executive order signed on January 27 caused

chaos and protests at airports. The order was hit with more than two dozen lawsuits, many that claimed it discriminated against Muslims. The new ban, which goes into effect on March 16, removes Iraq and adds catego-ries of people who would be exempt from the order. The Trump administration said the executive order is necessary for national security reasons.

It also lists groups of people that could be eligible for waiv-ers, including travellers who have previously been admitted to the United States for work or school, those seeking to visit or live with a close relative and who would face hardship if denied entry; infants, young children and adoptees or

people in need of medical care, employees of the US govern-ment and international organisations among others.

All the exceptions make the new order “a lot harder to attack,” said Andrew Greenfield, an immigration attorney with Fragomen law firm in Washing-ton DC. Trump had promised to make the new directive harder to fight in court and many of the changes were expected. The US Department of Justice said the new order applies “only to those who are overseas and without a visa”. Foreign nationals out-side the country who do not have a US visa do not have the same protections under the US Constitution as people already here, legal experts said.

Washington

Reuters

U.S. Senator John McCain called for President Don-ald Trump to release any

evidence supporting his claim the Obama administration wire-tapped him while probing Russia’s influence in the 2016 election.

“I think the president of the United States, if he has any information that would indicate that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower, then he should come forward with that infor-mation. The American people deserve it,” McCain, a Republi-can from Arizona, said.

Jason Chaffetz, a Republican lawmaker who heads the U.S.

House of Representatives Over-sight and Government Reform Committee, told CBS in an inter-view on Monday that he had “not seen anything directly that would support what the presi-dent has said.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who heads the Senate Judiciary subcommittee look-ing into allegations Russia meddled in the election, said the panel would be asking both Fed-eral Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and the Justice Department whether he had told the law enforcement agency this weekend to reject Trump’s wire-tapping claim.

The White House said on Monday that Trump still has con-fidence in Comey despite his

assertiveness in challenging Trump’s claim that the adminis-tration of former President Barack Obama had wiretapped him. Asked whether Trump still had confidence in Comey, White House Spokesman Sean Spicer said, “There’s nothing that I have been told by him that would lead me to believe that anything is different than what it was prior.”

He was “almost 100 percent certain” Trump had not spoken to Comey since the Republican president made the allegation on Twitter on Saturday. “I’m not aware that that occurred,” Spicer said. But, when asked during an early-morning interview on Monday with ABC’s “Good Morn-ing America” whether Trump accepted Comey’s assertion.

Washington

AFP

The United States is con-sidering separating immigrant children

from their parents in a bid to deter illegal migration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said on Monday.

Kelly, in an interview with CNN, was asked whether DHS was weighing an initiative that would split children from their parents if they were caught trying to enter the US illegally.

“I would do almost any-thing to deter the people from Central America to getting on this very, very dangerous net-work that brings them up through Mexico into the United States,” Kelly said.

“We have tremendous experience in dealing with unaccompanied minors,” he said. He noted the DHS turns them over to the Health and Human Services department, which puts the children in foster care or links them with parents or family members in the US.

“Yes, I am considering, in order to deter more move-ment along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that. They will be well-cared for as we deal with their parents.”

President Donald Trump ran on a platform arguing that mass immigration by unskilled workers costs US taxpayers bil-lions and depresses wages and job opportunities. He vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep out migrants he branded drug-dealers, mur-derers and rapists.

US may split immigrant kids from parents

McCain calls on President to back up wire-tapping claim

New travel ban raises the bar for legal challenges

Evacuations

The fires were burning in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado.

The largest evacuations were in Reno County, where 10,000 to 12,000 people voluntarily left their homes.

Protesters chanting during a rally against the travel ban at San Diego International Airport in San Diego, California, yesterday.

19WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017 AMERICAS

Washington AFP

The CIA can turn your TV into a listening device, bypass popular encryption

apps, and possibly control your car, according to a trove of doc-uments published by WikiLeaks yesterday which it said came from the US spy agency.

WikiLeaks said the docu-ments show that the Central Intelligence Agency is rivalling the National Security Agency, the US government’s main elec-tronic spying body, in cyber warfare, but with less oversight.

The group posted nearly 9,000 documents it said came from the CIA, calling it the larg-est-ever publication of secret intelligence materials. The CIA would neither confirm nor deny the documents were genuine, or comment on their content.

“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of pur-ported intelligence documents,” said spokesman Jonathan Liu in an email. WikiLeaks claimed that a vast trove of CIA docu-ments representing “the majority of its hacking arsenal” had been leaked within the cyber security community—and that it had received, and released, a part of them.

“This extraordinary collec-tion, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its posses-sor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA,” it said.

“The archive appears to have been circulated among

former US government hack-ers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.”

WikiLeaks said the docu-ments show the CIA has produced more than 1,000 mal-ware systems—viruses, trojans, and other software that can infiltrate and take control of target electronics.

These hacking tools have targeted iPhones, Android sys-tems such as the personal phone reportedly still used by President Donald Trump, pop-ular Microsoft software, and Samsung smart TVs, which can be transformed into covert microphones, according to WikiLeaks. The agency has also examined hacking into the elec-tronic control systems on cars and trucks, potentially making it able to control them.

By infecting smartphones, WikiLeaks said, the CIA can get around the encryption technol-ogies of popular apps like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Weibo, and Confide by collect-ing communications before they are encrypted. WikiLeaks said the documents’ leak sug-gests that the CIA has not sufficiently controlled its own cyber weapons, potentially per-mitting them to fall into the hands of other hackers.

“Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA’s cyber arsenal are pervasive and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals,” WikiLeaks said.

New York Reuters

Three women at the same nursing home on Monday celebrated living more

than 100 years with cake, songs and flowers while sharing their secrets of long life with friends, family and neighbors.

The three centenarians—Lucille Price, 100, Sophia Smith, 101, and Grace-Marie Baker, 102 -- cut into a white cake while more than 50 people gathered at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in the borough of Brooklyn.

After the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the crowd serenaded Baker, Smith and Price, all in wheelchairs,

with “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”“We’re going to be celebrat-

ing life and the continuation of a celebration in our lives,” Clau-dia Titus, director of activities at the center, said of the party for the three. Amid prayers, readings from the Bible and bouquets of flowers, the cente-narians gave differing recipes for their long lives.

“It’s the soup, chicken soup,” said Smith, who was born in Guyana and enjoys going to church and visits from her five grandchildren. She arrived at the nursing home when she was 100.

Baker, who was born in Brooklyn, said God was the rea-son for her long life. “He’s been taking care of me. I’ve had a lot of sick days but he wasn’t ready

for me,” said Baker, whose hob-bies include cooking, painting and visiting museums. Price, a former housewife and hair-dresser also originally from Guyana, said no special diet had kept her going.

“I got no secret because I do whatever everybody else do. I eat whatever I have to eat and I eat any food, any food I eat,” said Price, who has 20 grand and 35 great-grandchildren and has lived at the nursing home since 2005. The party was not held to cele-brate birthdays, but was to mark the centenarians’ long lives, nurs-ing home officials said.

The center specializes in short-term, post-acute rehabil-itation and long-term residential care.

Washington

Reuters

President Donald Trump yesterday backed a draft US House of Represent-atives Republican bill to

repeal and replace the Obamacare healthcare law and said it was open to negotiation, adding that he was working on a system to cut drug prices.

House Republicans late on Monday unveiled healthcare leg-islation that would eliminate the requirement that most Ameri-cans obtain medical insurance and create a system of tax cred-its to coax people to purchase private insurance on the open market. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the Republican measure would take millions of people off health insurance rolls and would ben-efit the wealthy.

The unveiling of the plan marked a key step toward car-rying out pledges by Trump and Republicans in Congress to dis-mantle the Obamacare law even as lawmakers face pressure from constituents not throw Ameri-ca’s healthcare system into

chaos. In a series of Twitter posts, Trump called the Republican draft “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill” and said that it was “now out for review and negotiation.”

Trump, who has previously called for lower drug prices, added, “I am working on a new system where there will be com-petition in the Drug Industry. Pricing for the American people will come way down!” He gave no details. The president also said there would be additional action to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines “in phase 2 & 3 of health-care rollout,” although it was not immediately clear when or how that addition would come.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former Presi-dent Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, enabled about 20 million Amer-icans who previously had no insurance to obtain medical coverage.

The Republican plan would do away with an expansion of the Medicaid government healthcare programme for the poor that was instrumental in reducing the number of uninsured Americans. It also would remove the pen-alty paid by Americans without medical insurance and roll back government subsidies that helped lower-income people

purchase insurance through gov-ernment-run exchanges.

Republicans control both Congress and the White House but the future remains uncertain for the plan. It must win approval in the House and the Senate, where it faces a higher bar for passage, before it could go to Trump for his signature. In the Senate, Republicans hold a nar-rower majority and some conservatives have already expressed doubts.

The plan was criticized by Democrats and met with skep-ticism from some Republicans concerned about its tax credits and Medicaid provisions.

Trump was due to meet with the team of House members charged with tracking support for legislation. Lawmakers on two key House committees will review the bill today.

White House Office of Budget and Management Director Mick Mulvaney yesterday said the plan should pass the House before lawmakers break in mid-April.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has pro-posed his own alternative healthcare plan, criticized the

House plan as a windfall for pri-vate insurers, dubbing it “Obamacare Lite.”

“So much of their bill is a bailout for the insurance com-panies,” Paul told Fox News.

Health insurers and hospi-tals have lobbied lawmakers and the Trump administration to try to mitigate the impact of rolling back Obamacare, aiming to pre-vent people who gained insurance through the law from losing it.

Wall Street analysts said the draft bill was within their expec-tations but they foresaw more negotiations regarding the Med-icaid component, which could help hospitals. Insurers have said that Obamacare does not work. Many including UnitedHealth Group Inc, Aetna Inc and Humana Inc have exited most of the states where they sold individual insur-ance plans created under the law.

Hospitals have been con-cerned about losing government payments from customers, par-ticularly those in the Medicaid programme under any new healthcare law. That has weighed on shares of companies such as Tenet Healthcare Corp and Com-

munity Health Systems.Nearly half of the previously

uninsured Americans who gained coverage under Obamacare got it through the expansion of Med-icaid, which would end in 2020 under the House plan, then face funding caps.

Some industry groups have expressed concern that lawmak-ers are moving forward without knowing how much the new pro-posal will cost or how it will affect healthcare coverage. Mul-vaney told CBS he expected the Congressional Budget Office’s review of the bill in a few days.

Pelosi, appearing on the CBS programme “This Morning,” said, “Show us the numbers about what the impact is personally on people. Show us the numbers as to how many people will be thrown off.”

The Republican proposal would eliminate many of the taxes related to Obamacare but would preserve two popular pro-visions: prohibiting insurers from refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions and allowing people up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ insur-ance plans.

Trump backs House Republican healthcare plan

WikiLeaks exposes alleged CIA hacking programme

3 Brooklyn women at same nursing home celebrate 100 years of life

Three over 100-year-old women, 101-year-old Sophia Smith (left), 101-year-old Lucille Price (centre), and 102-year-old Marie Baker cutting a cake at a birthday celebration for the three residents of the Crown Heights Center in the Brooklyn Borough of New York City.

New York Reuters

A new round of threats against Jewish com-munity centers across

the United States forced the facilities to be placed on lock-down or evacuated yesterday, the groups said, and all 100 US senators asked the federal government to help them enhance security.

Threats were phoned in or emailed to JCCs in states including New York, Wiscon-sin and Florida overnight and early yesterday. A letter signed by all 100 US senators was sent yesterday to Home-land Security Secretary John Kelly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey requesting they assist Jewish groups to enhance security.

“We are concerned that the number of incidents is accelerating and failure to address and deter these threats will place innocent people at risk and threaten the financial viability of JCCs,” the letter said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is lead-ing the nationwide probe, was not immediately available for comment.

The threats have contin-ued even after a federal investigation of a surge of phoned and emailed threats against US Jewish groups yielded an arrest last week. Former journalist Juan Thomp-son, 31, was charged in St Louis on Friday with using fake email accounts to threaten to bomb Jewish sites while posing as his ex-girlfriend. US authorities said they were examining more than 100 threats made against Jewish community centers and schools by phone this year, which appear unre-lated to the Thompson allegations.

In the latest threats, the Louis S Wolk Jewish Commu-nity Center near Rochester, in upstate New York, received an emailed bomb threat, Brighton Police Chief Mark Henderson said. The Harry and Rose Sam-son Family Jewish Community Center in Milwaukee and the day school of the David Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie, Florida, also said they were threatened.

London

Reuters

Minor floods caused by ris-ing sea levels may end up costing US coastal

communities as much money and resources as major hurri-cane disasters, US scientists said.

As climate change causes sea levels to rise, such “nuisance flooding” is expected to become more frequent and hit cities like Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston and Miami where it hurts

— the wallet, researchers said.Over the last 20 years, Wash-

ington has endured more than 94 hours a year of nuisance flooding. By 2050, the capital could see as many as 700 hours of flooding a year, the scientists estimated in a study published in American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future.

“Since these events are not extreme, they don’t get a lot of attention,” said Amir AghaK-ouchak, professor of civil and environmental engineering at

the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and co-author of the study. Nuisance flooding is defined by the National Ocean Service as “flooding that leads to public inconveniences such as road closures”, but rarely causes death or injury.

The floods can overwhelm storm drains, and slowly degen-erate infrastructure and strain city resources.

Roads and sidewalks were not built to be under saltwater for hours on end, and cities

usually have to close roads and send in trucks to clean them up, the scientists said.

“They definitely can’t with-stand this,” said lead author Hamed Moftakhari, also of UCI. And the damage leads to “long, drawn-out costs”, he added.

In Boston specifically, “king tides” overwhelm walkways and roads several times a year.

The east coast city is pre-dicted to see up to 100 hours of such nuisance flooding a year by 2030, the UCI scientists said.

Residents have already noticed the semi-frequent inconvenience, according to Mia Goldwasser, Boston’s climate programme manager.

“There’s always people send-ing pictures to the city saying, ‘Look at all the flooding happen-ing with very little rain’,” she said in a telephone interview this week. The city has already noted several waterfront hotspots where “it’s going to be worse [in the future] if there’s already flooding”.

'Nuisance' floods may cost US cities more

New threats force more US Jewish centres to evacuate

New bill unveiled

The Republican plan would do away with an expansion of the Medicaid government healthcare programme for the poor that was instrumental in reducing the number of uninsured Americans.

The plan also would remove the penalty paid by Americans without medical insurance and roll back government subsidies that helped lower-income people purchase insurance through government-run exchanges.

20 WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2017HOME

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

FAJRSHOROOK

04.35 am

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ZUHRASR

11.45 am

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MAGHRIBISHA

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PRAYER TIMINGS

Cityscape Qatar 2017 from March 13The Peninsula

Cityscape Qatar 2017, the larg-est real estate development and investment exhibition in Qatar, will be held under the patronage of Prime Min-

ister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani. Now in its sixth year in Qatar, the event will be held from March 13 to 15 at the Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Center (DECC).

Ahmed Zakaria, Exhibition Direc-tor, speaking on behalf of Cityscape Qatar said: “We are honoured to have the continued support of Prime Min-ister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani. This clearly emphasises the importance of the property market to the Qatar government, underlines the state’s support for the industry and the integral role Cityscape Qatar plays bringing regional and international industry professionals together.”

“We have been overwhelmed by the response from key international and regional industry players with more than one third of last year’s exhibitors reconfirming their partici-pation in the 2017 edition. Qatar holds great potential for both investors and developers and it clearly has the finan-cial stability to induce confidence from even the most cautious investors”, con-cluded Zakaria.

With expected attendees of more than 7,000, Cityscape Qatar 2017 will bring together the real estate commu-nity from around the globe to enhance and support the growth of the

industry under Qatar’s National Vision for 2030 while enabling all participants to see Qatar’s future and the opportu-nities arising from 2022 FIFA World Cup. Several projects that will be dis-cussed and highlighted throughout the exhibition, some of which will be part of Qatar’s National Vision for 2030, include the Qatar Rail project, hotels and the state-of the art stadia being developed for the FIFA World Cup 2022.

The high profile three-day exhibi-tion and conference will feature a wide

range of real estate opportunities including leading local real estate com-panies; Al Bandary Real Estate, Ezdan Real Estate, Retaj Real Estate and regional and international heavy-weights including, Gold Sponsors Regus and Kohler, Al Qaseer Invest-ment And Property Development, Kleindienst, Copperstones, Etqan, and the Economic Group to thousands of homebuyers, private and professional investors as well as key industry pro-fessionals from Qatar, the region and around the globe.

Cityscape Qatar 2016 attracted 92 of the world’s leading real estate com-panies exhibiting along with 6,633 participants over the course of the three day event. Cityscape Qatar 2017, which is expected to be the largest ever real estate event to be held in the coun-try, is well positioned to build on the success of previous events and will include a three day exhibition, learn-ing and networking features, along with a number of landmark deals which are due to be struck through-out the upcoming event.

Officials reviewing various projects.

QMIC & Cohda Wireless sign technology dealThe Peninsula

The Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) located at the Qatar Science & Technology Park and

Cohda Wireless, headquartered in Adelaide, Australia, announced the signing of a technology collaboration agreement in support of deploying con-nected & automated vehicle systems in Qatar. The agreement was signed at the QMIC booth at QITCOM exhibition. The event was attended by executives from both entities and invited guests.

Since 2010, QMIC has been active in the area of connected vehicles (V2X) R&D, and back in April 2014 it carried out the first field demo of an industry-compliant V2X system and applications in the Middle East and North Africa region at the Qatar Science & Technol-ogy Park. As the next step to facilitate potential full deployment of V2X and CAV in Qatar, QMIC has committed plans to carry out a field pilot of V2X and CAV system and applications in 2017/2018 in Qatar.

As part of the MOU, both parties will collaborate to support QMIC’s

efforts in carrying out a V2X/CAV field pilot in Qatar and to jointly explore col-laborating on other V2X/CAV projects in Qatar and the region. This partner-ship will leverage the significant expertise QMIC has accumulated in all aspects related to V2X/CAV as well as the broad international knowledge and leading experience of Cohda Wireless in V2X/CAV.

Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, the Execu-tive Director and CEO of QMIC, said: “We are very pleased with the progress we made in realising our strategy in V2X and in successfully transitioning our effort from the R&D stage to the field piloting and early deployment stage. Given the large technology & services scope of this area, securing interna-tional partnerships with like-minded players is critical for sustainable suc-cess. Hence, we are extremely pleased to work with Cohda Wireless to fully leverage their technology and field experience in this domain and in a way to complement ours”.

Bernd Luebben, Vice-President Business Development of Cohda Wire-less commented on this partnership by

saying, “As the market leader for soft-ware solutions in the fields of connected autonomous vehicles and V2X, Cohda Wireless is very pleased to be working with QMIC towards the shared goal of making roads safer, greener, and less congested. Connected Autonomous Vehicles requires the most mature V2X communications technology and very low signal delay. Cohda has the most mature, reliable and best performing V2X and CAV solutions available.”

Connected-vehicles technology (V2X) is a key enabler of

next generation road safety and is a critical enabler for automated driving. A study by the US Department of Transportation concluded that con-nected vehicles could potentially address up to 80% of road accidents involving non-impaired drivers. As such, deploying V2X in Qatar can con-tribute significantly to improving road safety. In addition, V2X can offer many other benefits in terms of driver com-fort and traffic efficiency, as this emerging technology will open a door for many new applications.

Officials at the signing ceremony.

IHSAN holds arts & handicraft workshops The Peninsula

In the framework of the joint coop-eration between the Qatar Foundation for Social Work

(QFSW), IHSAN Center, one of the QFSW Centres, has organised two arts and handicraft workshops for IHSAN members over the period of four days, in collaboration with NAMA Social Development Center.

The workshops’ activities revolved around crochet handicrafts, with the aim of empowering mothers and pro-viding them with new productive skills that help boost their income and self-reliance, as well as to strengthen their hand muscles, and integrate them with fellow affiliates, which helps break

their daily routine and enhances their self-esteem. It is worth mentioning that IHSAN Social Club is currently

witnessing significant development through the creation of new services, programs and activities, so as to cover

all aspects of life, from sports activi-ties and handicraft skills to cultural and recreational seminars and lectures in a variety of fields. This is in addition to the Club’s elderly patrons and fre-quenters during daytime with supervision and health care services. The Social Club seeks to attract the eld-erly and create social interaction among them, where they can exchange experiences among themselves in var-ious disciplines, as well as to empower them and strive to leverage those expe-riences for the benefit of the community. The first workshop kicked off on March 5, and continued for two days, while the second will take place from March 12 to March 14, at the headquarters of IHSAN Center.

Participants at the workshop.

HIGH TIDE 02:00 - 13:15 LOW TIDE 09:30 - 19:00

Hazy at places at first becomes mild

daytime with scattered clouds.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum17oC 27oC