SPORT | 20BUSINESS | 13

Brahimi hat-trick seals big Al Rayyan victory

BUSIN 20

k sealsayyan

SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020

9 JUMADA I - 1441

2 RIYALS

www.thepeninsula.qaVolume 24 | Number 8126

Enjoying pleasant weather

QNA & AFP — DOHA/BAGHDAD

The State of Qatar has warned of the continuation of the mani-festations of escalation in Iraq, saying that could lead to unfor-tunate results.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged all parties to exercise restraint to spare Iraq, its people and the people of the region, the vicious cycle of violence and the con-sequences of direct and indirect armed escalation.

The Ministry further called on the international com-munity to shoulder its respon-sibilities towards the region. Meanwhile, Iran’s top security body vowed to retaliate in the “right place and time” after the United States killed Revolu-tionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, outside Baghdad international airport yesterday. “America should know that its criminal attack on General Soleimani has been the country’s biggest mistake in west Asia, and America will not avoid the consequences of this wrong calculation easily,” the Supreme National Security Council said in a statement.

“These criminals will face severe vengeance... in the right place and time,” it added after holding an extraordinary meeting following Soleimani’s death. The council described Soleimani as a “glorious general” who was the “pride

not only for Iranians but all Muslims and downtrodden... across the world”. But it added that although his death was a “great loss”, his role would be taken up by another general.

The Pentagon said US Pres-ident Donald Trump had ordered Qasem Soleimani’s tar-geted killing after a pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the American embassy in the Iraqi capital, throwing rocks and setting fires. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei swiftly promised “severe revenge” for the death of military mastermind Soleimani, the biggest escalation yet in a feared proxy war between Iran and the US on Iraqi soil.

Iran’s allies from Lebanon-based Hezbollah to Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad con-demned Soleimani’s death, while many capitals voiced concern and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the “world cannot afford” another Gulf war.

Tens of thousands took to the streets of Tehran chanting “Death to America” and holding up posters of Soleimani, who was widely admired in the Islamic republic. The US embassy in Baghdad urged all American citizens to leave Iraq “immediately” and US nationals working at southern oil fields were being evacuated, Iraq’s petrol ministry said.

�P3, 4, 8 & 11

Weekend MIA Park Bazaar opens with 50 stallsRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) Park exuded a more vibrant vibe yesterday with the opening of MIA Park Bazaar, a weekend market which is a modern take on Qatar’s old souq tradition.

Around 50 stalls offering a wide variety of products attracted hundreds of buyers during the bazaar’s opening day yesterday evening. They thronged the stalls offering ready-to-wear clothes, caps, footwear, shayla, sunglasses, bags, and wallets.

Jewellery, watches, cosmetics, fra-grances, and other accessories also were crowd-pullers at the bazaar. The stalls representing home-based businesses also sold toys, handicraft, home display items and sumptuous home-cooked cuisines to the visitors.

“The bazaar is a great place to be during weekends because of the nice weather and the variety of products sold

at cheap prices, some of which can’t be found in the market,” said Martha, one of the regular visitors who bought some acces-sories as a gift to her friends.

“I found these unique necklaces and bracelets which are perfect to gift my friends when I fly home next month,” she added.

With the diverse mix of products on sale, the bazaar, which is located just adjacent to the museum, becomes a one-stop shop for many visitors.

“It’s the food that attracts me to come here every time and I’m happy to know the bazaar started today. There are some really delicious food to sample here,” said Amit, one of the visitors who dropped by the bazaar with friends after looking at the exhibition currently running at MIA.

While many people flocked to check out and buy items from the bazaar, others enjoyed the cold weather having picnic with friends and family or simply walking around the park.

Children also had fun flying kites, skating and biking around while others took to the park’s playground to enjoy the various play equipment on the final days before schools resume this coming week. �P3

Qatar surprised at Arab League Secretary-General’s contradictory remarksQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that it was surprised from the remarks made by the Arab-League Secretary-General in which he rejected only non-Arab military intervention in Libya.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed in a statement yesterday that the remarks violate the decision made by member states following the emergency meeting of the Arab League that took place on December 31 of 2019, which rejected foreign intervention in general. � �P3�

Qatar’s reserve power surplus records highest in regionSANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

The peak electricity demand in Qatar was recorded 8,475 megawatts in 2019 where the power production reached 10,578 megawatts showing a reserve power surplus about 2,000 megawatts, which is the highest in the Arab region.

The performance indicators of the power network of Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) are considered the best in the Arab countries and the world in terms of reliability.

The excellent performance of Kahramaa aims at keeping pace with urban development and providing an attractive infrastructure for investment, suggests Kahramaa’s per-formance report of 2019 issued recently.

With the commission of Umm Al Houl Power Plant, the power production capacity of Qatar increased by about 30 percent which is enough to meet the rising demand of elec-tricity in the country which wit-nesses fast sustainable development.

The total number of dis-ruption in electricity supply in the main network recorded a decrease of 8 percent in 2019 compared to 2018 and the number of interruptions in the medium voltage network decreased by 17% in 2019 com-pared to 2018.

In 2019, Kahramaa also

succeeded in ensuring the supply of electricity on all official occasions and sporting events that the country wit-nessed by providing technical support to the network and the presence of technical teams on the site of the events.

Kahramaa provided 8,116 electricity connections to new users and connected 1,500 farms with its network in 2019. A total of 1,286 new power trans-mission stations commissioned and 1,200 were retrofitted which helped reduce seven percent in supply service disruption in 2019 compared to 2018.

Kahramaa launched many innovative initiatives and solu-tions which which provided fast track services to its clients including investors, contractors and other users reducing the time to obtain the service significantly.

Kahramma’s service has become 100 electronic which would be submitted through electronic portals, with the option to follow it electronically without the need to visit any service center.

In the context of continuous improvement of services, Kah-ramaa also organised a number of awareness workshops for its authorised contractors as the link between Kahramaa and the investors and the owners, during which the services and procedures provided by the institution are introduced, and they were educated how to benefit from them. �P3

NMoQ listed in world’s Top 10 museums and cultural venues of 2019IRFAN BUKHARI THE PENINSULA

World’s famous web magazine on architecture and art, designboom, has placed National Museum of Qatar in the list of Top 10 museums and cultural venues of 2019.

“In March (2019), the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) opened to the public. Designed by Jean Nouvel, the winding gallery offers a journey through a series of unique, encompassing environments including architectural space, music, poetry, archaeological objects, commissioned art-works, monumentally-scaled art films, and more,” designboom.com writes about National Museum of Qatar.

“In total, 11 galleries take visitors from the formation of

the Qatar peninsula millions of years ago to the nation’s present. Giving voice to the nation’s rich heritage and culture and expressing the aspi-rations of its people, NMoQ will provide diverse educational opportunities for Qatar and advance the nation’s cultural vision on the global stage,” the prestigious web magazine adds.

In its article ‘Big Stories of 2019’, the online magazine says at the end of every year since 2013, designboom has compiled the most talked about projects from the previous 12 months as part of our BIG stories series.

“2019 was a standout year for the typology with a number of much-anticipated projects opening in all corners of the globe. Bold designs characterize the designs, with established names collaborating with

institutions to bring their cre-ative visions to life.”

The designboom is based in Milan, Beijing and New York and has gained a global reach of 3.5 million readers and 450,000 newsletter sub-scribers. Founded in Milan in 1999, designboom is the world’s first and most popular digital architecture and design mag-azine, according to designboom website.

Jean Nouvel, the architect of National Museum of Qatar also tweeted on December 8, 2019, about museum’s listing by designboom writing, “The @ NMOQatar in @ designboom’s top 10 museums and cultural venues of 2019. Its goal: giving voice to the nation’s rich her-itage and expressing the aspi-rations of its people.”

Earlier in August last year,

the spectacular National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) had been declared by TIME Mag-azine as one of the World’s Greatest Places for 2019. TIME had listed NMoQ on the “100 destinations to experience right now” which included museums, parks, restaurants and hotels.

The list of TIME is divided into three categories namely greatest places “To Visit” which include 37 museums and parks, greatest places “To Stay” which comprise 44 hotels, and greatest places “To Eat and Drink” which consist of 19 restaurants. NMoQ had been listed on the greatest places “To Visit” for 2019 along with Mori Building Digital Art Museum in Japan, Camp Adventure in Denmark, Central Library in Canada and Newseum in Washington, DC, among others.

Families enjoying at Al Bidda Park yesterday. With its long running trails and large playgrounds, Al Bidda has become one of the favourite park for residents who wish to enjoy the fine weather. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA

Around 50 stalls offering a wide variety of products attracted hundreds of buyers during the bazaar’s opening day last evening. They thronged the stalls offering ready-to-wear clothes, caps, footwear, shayla, sunglasses, bags, and wallets. Jewellery, watches, cosmetics, fragrances, and other accessories also were crowd-pullers at the bazaar.

The iconic National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) PIC: QASSIM RAHMATULLAH/THE PENINSULA

Iran vows to avenge Soleimanideath in ‘right place and time’

Qatar urges restraint

EU trade chief fixes January US

trip in bid to ease tensions

OFFICIAL NEWS

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday cables of con-dolences to the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of the Repub-lic of the Sudan, H E Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, on the victims of a military plane crash in Darfur, west-ern Sudan. The Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdul-lah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, also sent a cable of condolences to the Prime Minister the Repub-lic of the Sudan, H E Dr Abdalla Hamdok, on the victims of a mili-tary plane crash in Darfur, western Sudan. QNA

Amir condoles with Chairman of Sovereignty Council of Sudan

02 SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 04.59 am 06.20 am

W A L R U WA I S : 19o↗ 28o W A L K H O R : 18o↗ 29o W D U K H A N : 19o↗ 28o W D O H A : 20o↗ 30o W M E S A I E E D 21o↗ 29o W A B U S A M R A 16o↗ 30o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 09:54 – 00:00 LOW TIDE 04:00 – 18:43

Misty at places at first becomes moderate temperature daytime with slight dust at times and scattered clouds, cold by night.

Minimum Maximum20oC 30oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.39 am04.59 pm

ASR ISHA

02.38 pm06.29 pm

HMC workshops boost school students' knowledge, motivate them to self-learn THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Health Professions Awareness and Volunteering Program recently organised workshops for school students during the first semester break from December 22, 2019 to January 2, 2020.

Balqess Al Khazraji, Director of the Health Profes-sions and Volunteering Program at HMC, said the workshops aimed to increase the students’ knowledge and motivate them to self-learn, while also providing them with important skill development in areas such as planning and goal setting.

Nine workshops were held under a variety of titles such as professional planning, discov-ering health professions, first responder and improving life-style skills. The workshops were held in Bayt al Dhiyafah,

Medical Education Center and the Itqan Clinical Simulation and Innovation Center, all within HMC’s Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City. The work-shops ran for between one and two weeks and at the end of each workshop, students received a training and volun-teering certificate accredited by HMC.

The Discovering Health Profession workshop provided the students with an overview of the roles and jobs performed by various hospital staff, including doctors, nurses and

other support professions, and also explained the role of dif-ferent medical equipment.

The First Responder workshop covered a wide range of topics including how to deal with medical emergencies, CPR techniques and basic first aid.

The workshop also increased safety in the com-munity by training students how to be ready to respond to emergencies at any time. The workshop concluded with a presentation on the importance of health awareness at home and in community level.

HMC is the main provider of secondary and tertiary healthcare in Qatar.

City Exchange Shark XI win INTERTEC QIA Champions Cricket League tourney THE PENINSULA — DOHA

City Exchange Shark XI won the inaugural INTERTEC QIA Champions Cricket League tournament with a ten-wicket victory over Tusker in the final at the Old Ideal Indian School ground.

The two-day tournament, organised by the Qatar Indian Association for Sports & Games, saw 13 exciting matches played out at the floodlit venue, involving eight participating teams: YAAS Cricketers, Doha Rockers, Vanoo CC, Tusker, JP XI, Oscar CC, Shark XI, CCRC.

Batting first in the final, Tusker posted a total of 62 for

a loss of three wickets. Mufiyas contributed with 12 runs (1x6) while captain Rajaneesh took the team to a respectable total with a late flurry, scoring 26 off 10 balls (1x4, 3x6).

In return, Shark XI romped to their target in 25 balls, with their unbeaten opening part-nership of Prince and captain Pranav striking gold, just like they had done in the semifinal. Prince scored 29 off 11 balls (1x4, 3x6) and Pranav followed up his blistering half-century in the semifinal with a 34-run display off 14 balls (1x4, 4x6) to help Shark XI to the INTERTEC QIA Champions Cricket League title. Gulf Incon WLL sponsored

the prizes for the best individual performances in the tour-nament: VIP Velocity Player of the Final: Pranav (Shark XI); Voltas Player of the Tour-nament: Pranav (Shark XI); Carlton Excalibur Best Batsman: Imran (Vanoo CC); Carlton Tube Best Bowler: Mohammed Shafeek (Tusker).

The final day of the tour-nament also saw a closing cer-emony where the tournament’s sponsors, supporters and patrons were honoured. QIA officials announced that the organisation would conduct more cricket tournaments in the upcoming year, including an exciting ‘Cricket Carnival’.

City Exchange Shark XI won the inaugural INTERTEC QIA Champions Cricket League tournament with a ten-wicket victory over Tusker in final at Old Ideal Indian School ground.

Culture Ministry prepares plan for new theatre seasonTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Culture and Sports has said that it is preparing a plan for the new theatre season and the strategy of the Center for Theater Affairs during 2020 which will be released during a press conference soon.

In this context, the artiste Salah Al Mulla, Director of the Center for Theater Affairs, said in a statement that the work is in full swing to give the theat-rical movement more energy despite having provided a lot over the past season.

He noted that the focus on young promising actors is of the utmost importance at the present time, as the centre firmly believes that youth will play key role in the theatrical

movement in the future. Al Mullah said that ‘Our Youth on Stage’ festival was held in its first edition last year, while the second edition is currently being prepared, in addition to the establishment of many courses and workshops that worked during the past period to develop the talents of young actors.

The centre prepared a plan to provide more support to young talents and many meetings were held with

promising young Qatari theater actors to get to know their ambitions.

The Director of the Center for Theater Affairs, affirmed that he would go ahead in devel-oping the performance of the local young theater actors by supporting the second edition of the University Theater Fes-tival - our youth on the stage - which achieved great success in the past year and witnessed the competition of five theatrical works from universities and

institutes in the country. He pointed out that youth centres and clubs spare no effort in sup-porting young people, as they include cultural committees that provide all support for theater lovers.

Al Mulla said that the past theatrical season witnessed great youth participation, as the youth stood beside the senior actors on the same stage, which provided them more experience, and there are many prizes that will be presented to the prom-ising actors who participated in the work included in the current season.

He said that the centre has prepared plans to groom and sponsor the talented actors who will show their creativity during the festival by providing theat-rical job opportunities for them.

Iman Al Marri, director and author of ‘22 Bosat’ play, who participated in the first version of ‘our youth on the stage’, thanked the management of the Center for Theater Affairs and the university theater festival for bringing theatrical spirit in young artistes.

She said that theater has a great role in spreading awareness and advancing soci-eties, especially the junior theater, which aims to reveal the creative talents of youth, and it is well known that youth are the pillar of development in all civ-ilised societies. She praised the efforts made by those respon-sible for the theater for bringing about appropriate solutions for the difficulties the artistes faced, providing all kinds of moral and material support.

Artiste Salah Al Mulla, Director of the Center for Theater Affairs, said in a statement that the work is in full swing to give the theatrical movement more energy despite having provided a lot over the past season.

Fourth Mahaseel Festival concludes todayRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

The fourth Mahaseel Festival, its biggest and longest edition yet, concludes today after 13 days of offering fresh local agri-cultural produce at cheap prices and a number of activities to the public.

However, those who wish to buy vegetables, dairy and meat products at the Mahaseel market can still do so since it will remain open during Thursdays, Fridays and Sat-urdays until March 31, said Katara Cultural Village, organ-isers of the festival.

Located at Katara’s southern

area, this year’s festival wit-nessed huge daily turnout from different segments of the com-munity who patronized high quality local products offered by Qatari farms at competitive prices which play an important role in the national economy.

Many of the visitors who came to the festival lauded the

event not only for the high quality and affordable products sold but also the presence of other features including work-shops, fun activities and games for children. They pointed out that the festival has occupied a distinguished position in Katara’s calendar as one of the annual festivals which plays a

vital role in the promotion of local products and providing platform for local farms to reach wider customer base by selling their products directly to them.

Farm owners taking part in the festival have also expressed appreciation for Katara’s efforts in helping them through their several initiatives including organising the festival every year and recently launching the Farmers’ Forum.

The inauguration of the Farmers’ Forum office at building 47 coincided with the festival’s opening day. A first-of-its-kind in Qatar, the office is expected to play an important role in the agricultural sector by

bringing owners of farms together to exchange experi-ences, providing workshops and seminars that will contribute to the development of local agri-cultural production, and encouraging investment in agri-cultural projects.

Organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Munici-pality and Environment, this year’s festival is the biggest among its editions in terms of participation with the rise in the number of participants from 22 stalls last year to 34 this year. Among the participants are 24 local farms producing vege-tables, honey, and dates, three dairy and juice companies and

three poultry and egg com-panies, in addition to six farms growing ornamental plants.

The festival has also wit-nessed Productive Families taking part with a dedicated section where they sell local cuisine among other products. In addition, a large space has been allotted for workshops and children’s games.

Launched in 2016, the annual Mahaseel Festival forms an important part of Katara’s initiatives to support gov-ernment efforts to achieving food security and self-suffi-ciency which contribute to the realization of the Qatar National Vision 2030.

Stalls selling locally grown flowers and ornamental plants are among the crowd-pullers at the fourth Mahaseel Festival, which concludes today at Katara Cultural Village. (RIGHT) Fresh vegetables on display at one of the shops at the festival.

However, those who wish to buy vegetables, dairy and meat products at the Mahaseel market can still do so since it will remain open during Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until March 31, said Katara Cultural Village, organisers of the festival.

Nine workshops were held under a variety of titles such as professional planning, discovering health professions, first responder and improving lifestyle skills. It concluded with a presentation on the importance of health awareness at home and in community level.

03SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020 HOME / MIDDLE EAST

Qatar’s reserve power surplus records highest in region

Al Bidda Metro Substation, which was opened at the end of November last year.

The stalls offering variety of products at the MIA Park Bazaar, which opened yesterday. RIGHT: A bustling corner at the bazaar. PICS: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

Ghosn to be heard in Lebanon as Japan, Turkey probe escapeAFP — BEIRUT

Former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn (pictured), who skipped bail in Japan and fled to Beirut, is due to be summoned by Lebanon’s public prosecutor next week, an official said Friday.

Japanese investigators are probing how the man who was once the country’s best paid corporate executive managed to slip out of house arrest and dodge trial, causing a national embarrassment.

In Turkey, where Ghosn switched jets on his way to Beirut, a private aviation company said its aircraft were used illegally and filed a com-plaint after the authorities arrested seven individuals over the secret transit.

The Lebanese authorities have already stressed that Ghosn — who holds the French, Leb-anese and B r a z i l i a n nationalities — had entered the country legally and that Beirut had no extra-d i t i o n a g r e e m e n t with Japan.

An official on condition of anonymity said a summons was expected to be handed to Ghosn next week, as a result of Interpol issuing a “red notice” against him.

“The Lebanese judiciary is obliged to hear him. But it can still decide whether to arrest him or let him remain free,” the official said, adding that Ghosn could be heard on January 7 or 8. Ghosn was arrested in Tokyo in November 2018 and has been under house arrest since April, facing multiple charges of financial misconduct.

An Interpol “red notice” is a request to law enforcement across the world to provi-sionally arrest a person pending

extradition, surrender or similar legal action. It is not an arrest warrant. The exact circum-stances of Ghosn’s escape remain unclear and Japanese investigators searched his Tokyo residence Thursday for clues.On Thursday, Kyodo News quoted an associate of Ghosn, Imad Ajami, as claiming the tycoon was helped by two private security operatives who pretended to be part of a music band for a Christmas party.

But according to public broadcaster NHK, a surveil-lance camera at his Tokyo res-idence showed him leaving alone around noon on December 29 and not returning.

In Turkey, the interior min-istry opened an investigation into how Carlos Ghosn was able to switch private jets in Istanbul unnoticed. The probe is focused

on two jets: one that flew f r o m Osaka to Istanbul, f r o m w h e r e a n o t h e r took off 45 m i n u t e s l a t e r , bound for Beirut.

The T u r k i s h

private jet company MNG filed a complaint yesterday alleging its aircraft were used illegally and said one employee admitted to falsifying the flight manifest to keep Ghosn off the passenger list. Ghosn said in a statement on Thursday that he acted alone without his family’s help. The 65-year-old is due to speak to the media in Beirut next week. “I have not fled justice — I have escaped injustice and political perse-cution,” Ghosn had said in a December 31 statement. Some Lebanese see him as a symbol of their country’s fabled entre-preneurial genius and a star representative of its vast diaspora.

Weekend MIA Park Bazaar opens with variety of products

FROM PAGE 1

The bazaar is open on Fridays from 2pm to 8pm and

Saturdays from 12 noon to 8pm until April 25.

When it was launched in February 2012, the bazaar was

held first Saturday of every month, except in summer. Later it was expanded to every Sat-urday and since 2016 it started

operating on Fridays and Saturdays.

One of the major destina-tions in Qatar, the MIA Park also

features a number of cafes and kiosks as well as public art installations including the “7” steel sculpture designed by

famous artist Richard Serra and the 10-piece sculptural work by Liam Gillick called “Folded Extracted Personified.”

Iran vows to avenge Soleimani death in 'right place and time' FROM PAGE 1

Muhandis was the Hashed’s deputy chief, but was widely recognised as the real shot-caller within the group.

Ceremonies to mourn both men will be held today, a day before Iraq’s parliament is set to hold an emergency meeting.

A leading Hashed member, Hadi Al Ameri, urged law-makers “to take a bold decision to oust foreign troops from Iraq, because their presence has become a threat for Iraqis”.

Some 5,200 US troops are stationed across the country, and a US defence official said that some additional forces

had arrived in recent hours to boost security at the American embassy.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the US strike as “extremely dangerous and a foolish escalation,” as Khamenei declared three days of mourning.

Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said the strike was a “flagrant violation” of a security accord with the US, warning it would “spark a dev-astating war in Iraq”.

And Iraqi President Barham Saleh called for “restraint” — an appeal echoed b y a l a r m e d f o r e i g n governments.

But paramilitary figures in Iraq including US-blacklisted Qais Al Khazali and mili-tiaman-turned-politician Moqtada Sadr called on their fighters to “be ready”.

And in Lebanon, the leader of the Tehran-backed Shiah movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, warned of “pun-ishment for these criminal assassins”.

As fears of a regional con-flagration grew, Yemen’s pro-Tehran Houthi rebels — who have launched a string of missile attacks on Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia – called for “swift reprisals”.

But there were daring cel-ebrations in Baghdad’s Tahrir

Square, the epicentre of a three-month-old protest movement that has slammed the Iraqi government as corrupt and beholden to Tehran.

“Oh Qasem Soleimani, this is a divine victory,” demon-strators chanted as some danced in the streets.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump “for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively,” as the Jewish state braced itself for possible reprisal attacks.

Analysts said the strike — which sent world oil prices soaring — would be a game-changer in the tensions between Iran and the US.

“Trump changed the rules — he wanted (Soleimani) elim-inated,” said Ramzy Mardini, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace.

Phillip Smyth, a US-based specialist in Shiite armed groups, described the killing as “the most major decapi-tation strike that the US has ever pulled off”.

He said it would have “bigger” ramifications than the 2011 US operation that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and the 2019 American raid that killed Islamic State group Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

Ties between the US and Iran have deteriorated markedly since Washington

abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions.

On Tuesday, a mob of Hashed supporters surrounded the US embassy, angered by American air strikes that killed 25 fighters from the network’s hardline Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah faction.

The US had acted in response to a rocket attack days earlier that killed an American contractor working in Iraq.

Trump had blamed Iran for the embassy siege and rocket attacks, saying: “They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat.”

Qatar surprised at Arab League Secretary-General’s contradictory remarks

FROM PAGE 1

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the remarks also failed to mention the inter-vention of some Arab countries who backed armed militias in Libya, who undermined the United Nations’ efforts of establishing peace and holding a comprehensive Libyan dialogue.

The statement also added that the selective nature of the remarks published on the Arab League’s website were surprising as they do not indicate the Arab consensus that the league should reflect. The statement also highlighted that the Arab League remained silent for long months when Arab parties were backing armed militias in their attack on Tripoli that terrorized the Libyan people while trying to assume power from t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l l y - r e c o g n i z e d government.

The State of Qatar called on the general secretariat of the Arab League Council to be more accurate when articulating the position of all member countries, and renewed its support to the legitimate government in Libya. It also called on all parties involved to stop supporting mercenaries and armed terrorist militias.

Syria: Attacks in Idlib force 44,000 to fleeANATOLIA — IDLIB

Some 44,000 civilians fled Idlib, a de-escalation zone in the northwestern Syria, over the last four days, a Syrian NGO said yesterday.

With the latest developments, the number of civilians who fled Idlib since November has reached 328,000.

On December 20, the Assad regime and its allies launched a military campaign mainly in the cities of Maarat Al Numan and Saraqib as well as the surrounding rural areas, capturing 35 residential areas.

In the past four days, some 44,000 civilians out of 428,000 fled as a result of the attacks, Mohammad Halaj, the head of Syria’s Response Coordination Group,

said yesterday. If the attacks intensify again, there is concern that migration will start in the Jabal Al-Zawiya region in southern Idlib, which might cause dis-placement of over 250,000 civilians.

Families seek shelter and are in need of urgent basic supplies such as blankets and beds, he added. In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Since then, over 1,300 civilians have been killed in attacks by the regime and Russian forces in the de-escalation zone as the cease-fire continues to be violated. More than 1 million Syrians have moved near the Turkish border due to the intense attacks over the last year.

Migrant boat sinks off Turkish coast, 8 deadAP — ANKARA

A boat carrying migrants sank off Turkey’s Aegean coast, killing eight people, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said yesterday. A search-and-rescue mission continued for about seven migrants thought to be missing.

A ministry statement said a rubber boat with about 15 people on board went down late on Thursday off the coast of Fethiye, in Turkey’s southwest corner.

The coast guard dispatched three boats, a team of divers, a plane and a hel-icopter to the area as soon as it received

word of the sinking. The bodies of eight people, three of them women, were recovered, the ministry said.

There was no information on the nationalities of the migrants who were on the boat. Turkey is a main crossing point for migrants trying to make their way to Europe to escape violent conflicts or eco-nomic hardship.

A deal between Turkey and the European Union in 2016 helped stem migration flows, but many asylum-seekers still attempt the dangerous trip across the Aegean Sea to Greek islands.

Solidarity with protesters

04 SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

AFP — UNITED NATIONS

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the “world cannot afford” another Gulf war, following the killing of Iran’s top military commander by a US strike.

“The secretary-general has consistently advocated for de-escalation in the Gulf,” a

spokesman for Guterres said in a statement. “This is a moment in which leaders must

exercise maximum restraint. The world cannot afford another war in the Gulf.”

The United States announced early Friday that it had killed Qasem Soleimani, the com-mander of the Iranian Quds Force, in a strike on Baghdad’s international airport.

Demonstrators attending a protest against the assassination of the Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis who were killed in an air strike in Baghdad airport, in Tehran, Iran, yesterday. RIGHt: A destroyed vehicle on fire following the US strike on Iranian commander.

Iran: Assassination an act of terrorismAP & REUTERS — DUBAI/PARIS

The killing of Iranian Quds force chief Qassem Soleimani by the United States in Iraq was an act of “international terrorism,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said yesterday.

“It was an extremely dan-gerous, foolish escalation ... He was the most effective force fighting against Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda terrorists,” Zarif said.

Global powers warned yes-terday that the US airstrike that killed Iran’s top general created a more dangerous world and that continued escalation could set the whole Mideast on fire. Britain, Germany and Canada also suggested that Iran shared some blame in provoking the attack, which prompted imme-diate cries for revenge from Tehran.

The airstrike early yes-terday that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani and associates was quickly followed by a chorus of appeals for reduced tensions between Iran and the United States. As US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo worked the phones, calling world capitals to defend the killings, diplomats in other countries scrambled to try to chart a way forward.

“A further escalation that sets the whole region on fire needs to be prevented,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. He said he told Pompeo that the strike “hasn’t made it easier to reduce tensions.” But Maas also noted that it “fol-lowed a series of dangerous Iranian provocations.”

The White House justified the killings with a tweet alleging that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” The 62-year-old led Iran’s elite Quds Force, responsible for the country’s foreign campaigns.

Iranian state TV reported that 10 people were killed in the air-strike near Baghdad’s airport.

“He should have been taken out many years ago!” US Pres-ident Donald Trump tweeted.

Oil prices surged as investors fretted about Mideast stability and Iran promised vengeance. Saudi Arabia urged restraint and called on the inter-national community “to ensure the stability of such a vital region to the entire world.”

Social media flooded with alarm. Twitter users morbidly turned “WWIII” into the top trending term worldwide.

“We are waking up in a more dangerous world. Military escalation is always dangerous,” France’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, told RTL radio. “When such actions, such oper-ations, take place, we see that escalation is underway.”

R u s s i a l i k e w i s e

characterized the killings as “fraught with serious conse-quences.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that Trump ordered the strike with one eye on his re-election campaign.

“The US military were acting on orders of U.S. politi-cians. Everyone should remember and understand that US politicians have their interests, considering that this year is an election year,”

Zakharova said in a TV interview. His election oppo-nents characterised Trump as reckless, with Democratic pres-idential candidate Joe Biden saying the US president “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”

China described itself as “highly concerned” and urged “all parties concerned, espe-cially the United States, to maintain calm and restraint and avoid further escalation of

tensions.” German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer described the US strike as “a reaction to a whole series of military provocations for which Iran bears responsibility,” pointing to attacks on tankers and a Saudi oil facility, among other events. “We are at a dan-gerous escalation point,” she said.

The British foreign sec-retary, Dominic Raab, said “we have always recognised the aggressive threat posed by the

Iranian Quds force led by Qasem Soleimani.”

“Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate,” he said. “Further conflict is in none of our interests.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Soleimani’s “aggressive actions have had a destabilising effect in the region and beyond.”

There were warnings the killing could set back efforts to stamp out remnants of the Islamic State group.

A top European Union official, Charles Michel, said “the risk is a generalised flare - up of violence in the whole region and the rise of obscure forces of terrorism that thrive at times of religious and nation-alist tensions.”

Italy also warned that increased tensions “risk being fertile terrain for terrorism and violent extremism.”

UN chief: World can't afford’ another Gulf war

Flights suspended in Libya’s capital due to shellingREUTERS — TRIPOLI

Flights were suspended at the only functioning airport in Libya’s capital Tripoli yesterday due to rocket fire and shelling, as protesters in the east of the country demonstrated against Turkish military support for their rivals.

Turkey’s parliament voted on Thursday to allow troops to be sent to support the interna-tionally-recognised Gov-ernment of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, deepening fears of an escalation of fighting in the North African country.

The GNA has sought Turkish support as it fends off an offensive by General Khalifa Haftar’s forces, which control the east and swept through southern Libya in early 2019. Haftar’s forces said yesterday they had carried out air strikes in several locations, including south of the city of Sirte and in Tripoli.

Sirte lies in the centre of Libya’s coastline, on the dividing line between the warring factions.

Haftar’s Tripoli offensive quickly stalled in the outskirts of the capital, but led to increased international involvement in the conflict. Turkey has backed the GNA while Haftar has received support from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan.

Russian military contractors

have also been deployed with Haftar’s Libyan National Army for several months, diplomats and analysts say. There were protests in several cities and towns in eastern Libya against the Turkish parliament’s decision. Three subsidiaries of Libya’s National Oil Corpo-ration (NOC) which operate in areas under Haftar’s control -- Ras Lanuf Oil and Gas Company, Sirte Oil Co and Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) — issued statements saying they would boycott Turkish companies.

An engineer from Ras Lanuf said one Turkish company had been carrying out contracting work at Ras Lanuf port since 2017, but it was unclear what immediate impact the state-ments would have.

Mitiga Airport has been repeatedly closed and reo-pened in recent years because of risks from shelling and air strikes, reopening most recently on December 12 after a closure of nearly 3-1/2 months. It closed early yesterday because of rocket fire nearby, before reo-pening briefly and then shutting again due to shelling, airport and airline officials said. Tripoli’s main international airport was closed and partially destroyed in an earlier round of fighting in 2014, when Libya split into rival political and military alliances based in the capital and the east.

Rival Shia leaders call for US troop expulsion in show of unityREUTERS — BAGHDAD

Rival Shiia political leaders yesterday called for American troops to be expelled from Iraq after a US air strike in Baghdad killed a senior Iranian general, in an unusual show of unity among factions that have squabbled for months.

“We call on all national forces to unify their stance in order to expel foreign troops whose presence has become pointless in Iraq,” said Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the powerful Badr Organisation militia.

Despite decades of enmity between Iran and the United States, Iran-backed

militias and US troops fought side-by-side during Iraq’s 2014-2017 war against Islamic State militants.

With their help Iraq eventually suc-ceeded in recapturing territory from jihadis who had overrun a third of the country.

Around 5,000 US troops remain in Iraq, most of them in an advisory capacity. The militias were incorporated into government forces under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilisation Forces which Muhandis led.

A US troop withdrawal could seri-ously affect the ability of Iraqi armed forces to fight remnants of Islamic State,

which has launched an insurgency since its 2017 territorial defeat.

It could also mean losing access to US military hardware, as well as vital air support. Amiri leads a political bloc rep-resenting militia groups that has the second-largest number of seats in parliament.

Populist Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who casts himself as a nationalist rejecting both US and Iranian inter-ference in Iraq and leads the assembly’s largest bloc, mourned Soleimani and called on all sides to behave with “wisdom and shrewdness.”

But he also ordered followers to be

ready to protect Iraq, days after declaring his willingness to work with political rivals to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq through political and legal means.

Together the two men could muster enough seats to pass legislation in par-liament, although that outcome is not certain and would depend on garnering support from other parties.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who leads a fragile coalition government installed by Sadr and Amiri, called for an extraordinary session of parliament to “take legislative steps and necessary provisions to safeguard Iraq’s dignity, security and sovereignty.”

AP — JUBA

A lawyer says a prominent South Sudan activist and econ-omist has not been freed from prison despite being pardoned in a presidential decree.

Ajak Mayol Bior said yes-terday that the decree issued Thursday evening must be implemented so Peter Biar Ajak can walk free.

Human rights groups and others had protested Ajak’s arrest in 2018 without gov-ernment explanation. He was sentenced to two years in prison last year after being accused of inciting an uprising behind bars. South Susan’s justice and interior ministries were processing the presi-dential order pardoning some 30 inmates. A relative of another pardoned inmate, busi-nessman and philanthropist Kerbino Agok Wol, said family members had prepared to go to the prison to welcome him but waited in vain.

Sudanese military plane crashes, 16 killed

Prominent South Sudan activist pardoned but not yet freed

AP — CAIRO

A Sudanese military plane crashed in the western Darfur region, killing all 16 people on board including two women and two children, the military said. A Sudanese employee of the World Food Program and his family were among the casualties.

Several officers were also among those killed when the plane went down Thursday evening in the restive region of West Darfur, which has recently

witnessed deadly ethnic clashes.

Abeer Atefa, the WFP spokeswoman for the Mideast and North Africa, said that one of the organization’s Sudanese employees who was on board with his wife and two children, was killed in the crash. The WFP could not release the staff member’s name or or provide details, pending notification of next-of-kin.

The plane, a Russian Antonov An-12, crashed five minutes after taking off from

the airport in the town of Genena, according to an army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Amer Mohammed Al Hassan, who posted a statement late Thursday on the official Facebook page of the Sudanese armed forces.

An investigation was underway to determine the cause of the crash, though there were no immediate reports of foul play. Al-Hassan said the casualties included seven troops, three judges and six civilians.

Algerian women standing on a balcony cheer and wave national flags as Algerian protesters taking part in an anti-government demonstration in the capital Algiers, yesterday.

Gunmen kill 19 in Nigeria attackAFP — ABUJA

Armed assailants killed 19 people in a night-time raid on a rural community in central Nigeria, police said.

The gunmen torched houses and other buildings after launching the attack against the Tawari community in Kogi state, 100km south of the capital Abuja, at midnight.

“They burnt some houses, a school, a church and the palace of the local ruler,” regional police spokesman William Aya said. “Nineteen people were killed.”

A local security source said that the killings were sus-pected to be a reprisal attack linked to clashes with a rival community in the area, but there was no official confirmation.

Dumping yard

05SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020 ASIA

Muslim protesters holding placards and waving flags during a protest rally against India’s new citizenship law, in Bengaluru yesterday.

Giant new rallies slam Indian govt’s citizenship lawAFP — BENGALURU

Tens of thousands of people protested across India yesterday against a citizenship law passed by the Hindu nationalist government that critics say discriminates against Muslims.

Some 30,000 marched in the southern city of Bengaluru, more than 20,000 in Siliguri and thousands in Chennai, while big rallies were also held in New Delhi, Guwahati and other cities.

Demonstrators shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Protests have rocked India since legislation was passed in December that eases the way for religious minorities from three Muslim-majority neighbouring nations to gain Indian citi-zenship, but not if they are Muslim.

Critics say the law is a pre-cursor to a national register of citizens that many among India’s 200 million Muslims fear will leave them stateless. Many poor Indians do not have docu-ments to prove their nationality.

At least 27 people have died

in the protests in recent weeks and hundreds more have been injured in clashes with police, fuelling public anger.

Nineteen of the deaths have been reported in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where police have been accused of

Delhi CM promises free bus rides for studentsIANS — NEW DELHI

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he will ensure free bus rides for students after winning the 2020 Assembly elections in the national capital, similar to the way his government has made the public transport free for women in the city.

“Bus rides will be free for students too after we return to power,” Kejriwal said while addressing a Townhall meeting in Vasundhara Enclave here.

While responding to a request raised by one of the audience members, he said the government has enough funds to make bus rides free for students.

“There is a Chief Minister (of another state) who brought a private plane for his personal use like we buy cars. That cost the government Rs 190 crore. We only spend Rs 140 crore for free travel for women. So, I haven’t brought an aeroplane for myself but ensure women in Delhi get free rides.”

He said the governments do not lack in terms of funds but intention. On October 29, 2019, Kejriwal had made the travel free for women in all DTC and cluster buses. When a woman boards a bus, she can buy a ticket, if she wishes to. Otherwise, the conductor gives a pink ticket to her free of cost.

The Chief Minister said his government is constantly working to improve the public transport in the city and new buses are being added in the fleet.

Kejriwal also said that the city will have some luxury buses with air conditioning and screens for playing videos so that those travelling in cars can enjoy the same luxury in public transport.

“Those buses will be costlier and we are in touch with private players for the same.”

Hindu leader calls for removing ‘secular’ from constitution preambleIANS — NEW DELHI

“Sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic” is how India is referred to in the preamble of the Constitution. However, J. Nandakumar, a key Hindu RSS leader and All India Convenor Prajna Pravah, a Sangh offshoot, wants India to reconsider the inclusion of the word “secular”, claiming secularism is a “western, Semitic concept”.

In an interview, Nanda-kumar said: “Secularism is a western, Semitic concept. It came into existence in the West.

It was actually against Papal dominance.”

He argued that India does not need a secular ethos as the nation has moved “way beyond secularism” since it believes in universal acceptance as against the western concept of tol-erance. The RSS functionary on Thursday released a book here named “Hindutva in the changing times”. The book launch event was also attended by senior RSS functionary Krishna Gopal.

Nandakumar, who has attacked the Mamata Banerjee government in his book for alleged “Islamisation of West

Bengal”, said: “We have to see whether we need to put up a board of being secular, or that whether we should prove this through our behavior, actions and roles.”

It is for society to take a call on this, rather than by any political class, on whether the preamble to the Indian Consti-tution should continue to have the word “secular” in it or not, he added.

In between signing his books and obliging wannabe Hindutva cadres with selfies, Nandakumar said that the very existence of the word “secular”

in the preamble was not nec-essary and how the constitution founders too were against it. “Baba saheb Ambedkar, Ladi KrishnaSwamy Aiyaar — all debated against it and said it (secular) wasn’t necessary to be included in the preamble. That time it was demanded, dis-cussed and decided not to include it,” he said.

Ambedkar’s opinion was, however, disregarded when Indira Gandhi “bulldozed” the word “secular”, in 1976, said the head of the Prajna Pravah, an umbrella body of several right wing think-tanks. As

Nandakumar prepared to return to his base in Kerala, where, he emphasises, the RSS has its work cut out in the “fight against the Kunnor model”, he said that the inclusion of “secular” was done with the intent to damage the concept of Hindutva. “It was to demolish, destroy the overarching prin-ciple of Hindutva that binds us together”, he said.

Asked whether the Sangh would try to prevail on the BJP, which has 303 seats in the Lok Sabha, to omit “secular” from the Constitution preamble, Nandakumar declined to reply.

using disproportionate force against protesters.

Many prominent activists, including a television actress, have been detained.

At the Bangalore protest, businessman Nazir Ahmed said that “Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are gathering everywhere to protest and we shall continue to protest until this law is cancelled.”

In New Delhi, protesters vowed to continue their “resistance just like Hong Kong”, where a pro-democracy

campaign has raged for nearly seven months.

“Police are trying to curb the protests in the most brutal way possible in a democracy but we won’t back down,” said Shristi, a 19-year-old student who gave only one name.

“In our own ways we will try to keep this movement alive till this law is revoked,” she said. Nabiya, a 24-year-old student, said protesters were inspired by other movements such as in Hong Kong and Chile.

“We are not asking for a

favour. The government has to revoke the law. It’s our right that we are asserting,” she said as she prepared to recite a “protest poem” in Urdu.

Home Minister Amit Shah insisted yesterday that the law was not discriminatory, as he launched a campaign to dispel “misinformation” that he said was being spread by opposition parties.

Workers from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party would go door-to-door to explain the new law, Shah said.

ED questions Chidambaramin Air India deal caseIANS — NEW DELHI

In more troubles for the former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P . C h i d a m b a r a m , t h e Enforcement Directorate (ED) yesterday questioned him for over six hours in its probe into the Air India aircraft deal case, first time since his release from Tihar jail almost a month ago.

A senior ED official said: “We questioned Chidambaram for over six hours today in the ongoing probe into the Air India deal with Airbus.”

According to financial probe agency officials, Air India had planned to buy over 111 air-craft from Airbus and Boeing during the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance (UPA) gov-ernment in 2009.

This is the first time the ED has questioned the senior Con-gress leader in the Air India deal case.The questioning of Chidambaram came for the first time since his release from the Tihar jail where he spent 106 days in connection with the INX media money laundering case. He was released from Tihar on December 4 last year after he was granted bail by the Supreme Court. The former finance minister is also being

investigated by the ED in a sep-arate money-laundering cases of Aircel-Maxis deal.

An ED official said the con-tract to buy 43 aircraft from Airbus was finalised by a panel of ministers headed by Chidambaram in 2009.

According to the ED, when the proposal to buy 43 aircraft from Airbus was sent to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), there was a condition that the aircraft manufacturer would have to build training facilities and MRO (Mainte-nance, Repair and Overhaul) centres at a cost of Rs 70,000 crore. But later, when the pur-chase order was placed, the clause was removed.

The name of another UPA minister, Praful Patel, had also come up in the alleged scam in a chargesheet filed by the ED against corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar on March 30 last year. Talwar was arrested last year by the ED after he was deported from the UAE.

The ED is probing the Air India-Indian Airlines merger; purchase of 111 aircraft from Boeing and Airbus at Rs 70,000 crore; ceding profitable routes and schedules to private airlines, and opening of training institutes with foreign investment.

Workers dump waste in the bank of Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday.

445 cross into Bangladesh from India in past two monthsANATOLIA — DHAKA

Illegal border crossings from India to Bangladesh have risen in recent months amid ongoing citizenship crisis in India, official data from Dhaka showed.

Bangladesh border security forces have detained 455 people for crossing its border with India in the last two months, while the number of illegal intruders were 557 in the first 10 months, according to Maj. Gen. Md Shafeenul Islam, director general of the country’s Border Guards.

Speaking at a news con-ference, he said a total of 1,002 people were detained in 2019, as he termed it as part of routine duty of the border guards.

Among the detainees, 606 were male, 258 women, 135 children and three were human traffickers, all of whom were

found to be Bangladeshi nationals following the nation-ality verification process, Islam noted.

Although he rejected to link the recent rise of illegal border crossings with the incidents across India, at least 445 people entered into Bangladesh from India in November and December last year.

The Indian state of Assam has been facing mass demon-strations since August 2019 when the state authorities pub-lished the National Register of Citizenship, a list of legal cit-izens that excluded 1.9 million people.

The move was seen as a drive to identify and throw out “illegal Bangladeshis” from the state, causing widespread misery, anxiety and desper-ation among the people in the region.

Since December 4, 2019, the

protests spread across the country after the Citizenship Amendment Bill, granting citi-zenship to six minorities — excluding Muslims — from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, was introduced in the Indian parliament. At least 24 people were killed and more than 150 were injured in the violent protests across the country.

Islam added that the border security forces of both countries held a high level meeting last week, discussing the measures to be taken to improve the security condition across the 4,156km long land border between the two nations. But the citizenship issues were not on the agenda, he noted.

He said both sides also agreed to reduce unexpected killings across the border as 35 people were killed last year, the highest number since 2015.

Nepal elephant festival scrutinised for beauty and bruises

AFP — SAURAHA, NEPAL

Hundreds cheered as the three beauty contest finalists strolled out into the middle of the grounds and raised their painted trunks to the judges — symbols of all that is admired and denounced at Nepal’s annual elephant festival.

With her toe nails painted red and a lotus on her trunk, 35-year-old Buffkali took the trophy at the end of the nine-day festival that ended Friday.

But while elephants were judged on how well they were decorated and groomed, offi-cials were also meant to check their heads and ears for signs of beatings.

Many outsiders were also looking for signs of abuse at the festival, which has been held in the Chitwan district, home to Nepal’s most important conservation area and a lucrative tourist desti-nation, since 2004.

Elephants are worshipped as the Hindu god Ganesh in Nepal and big crowds attended the festival — where over 25 of the creatures took part in football, polo and races, as well as the beauty pageant and a picnic where they were served bananas and sugarcane.

Deepak Bhattarai , chairman of the local hotel association that organises the festival, told AFP the event aims to highlight elephants’ “relationship with humans” and to become more “elephant friendly” every year.

“It is exciting. I brought my son here to watch the ele-phants, you don’t get to see them like this every day,” said one visitor Sheetal Karki.

But the festival has also come under fire for abuse, with mahouts using sticks or bullhooks to force the ele-phants to play.

Andhra CM directed to appear in CBI court in DA caseIANS — HYDERABAD

In a big setback to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, a CBI special court directed him to appear personally in the court on January 10 in the disproportionate assets case.

If Jagan Mohan Reddy appears personally next week, this would be his first appearance in the court as the chief minister in the case registered against him in 2011. He, however, has the option of challenging the order in High Court.

Jagan, who took over as the chief minister in May last year, has been seeking exemptions from personal appearance every Friday. However, the special court, hearing Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases, took exception to the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) chief seeking exemptions every week.

The CBI court judge, who held in-camera hearing, noted that Jagan has already availed 10 exemptions.

Some 30,000 marched in the southern city of Bengaluru, more than 20,000 in Siliguri and thousands in Chennai, while big rallies were also held in New Delhi, Guwahati and other cities. In New Delhi, protesters vowed to continue their “resistance just like Hong Kong”, where a pro-democracy campaign has raged for nearly seven months.

06 SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020ASIA

Pakistan government introduces bill to extend army chief’s tenureINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

Pakistan Federal Minister for Defence Pervez Khattak yesterday tabled the Army Act Amendments Bill, 2020, in the National Assembly for approval after winning the backing of the opposition parties for the legis-lation.

While Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N has decided to ‘unconditionally support’ the bill, Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party said that ‘democratic legislative process’ must be followed as the bill is approved.

The amendment seeks to make future extensions of Pakistan Army chiefs airtight as the bill states categorically that it “shall not be called into question before any court on any ground whatsoever”.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq, while speaking about the army amendment bill, said that shortcomings in the law are being corrected through the “people’s elected parliament”. She was talking to reporters outside the National Assembly. Awan said the matter is “a con-stitutional and legal issue and should not be politicised. Defence committee representatives will

take decision in country’s interest,” hoped Awan.

According to a copy of the bill, an extension in the tenure of an army chief will not be chal-lengeable in any court of law in the future if the bill is approved by both the houses of the parliament.

Under the clause 8B of the bill, the president, on the advice of the prime minister, may “reappoint the Chief of the Army Staff for additional tenure of three (03) years, on such terms and conditions, as may be deter-mined by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister, in the national security interest or exigencies, from time to time”.

“Notwithstanding anything con-tained in this Act or any other law, or any order or judgement of any Court, the appointment, reappointment or extension of the Chief of the Army Staff, or the exercise of discretion by the appointing authority in this regard, shall not be called into question before any court on any ground whatsoever,’ the bill states.

The federal cabinet, in an emergency meeting on Wednesday, had accorded its approval to amendments in the Army Act under which the prime minister will be empowered to extend the tenure of all services chiefs, including the army, air force and naval heads. Earlier, on Wednesday, President Dr Arif Alvi had convened a session of the Parliament’s upper and lower houses on a 24-hour notice. The move was unexpected as the upper house of the legislature had not met for 124 days apart from a requisitioned session. Back in November, the apex court had asked the government to legislate on an extension in the army chief’s services within six months, allowing General Qamar Bajwa to stay in office until then, after briefly suspending the noti-fication of the extension in his tenure.

Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration, following a US airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, in Lahore yesterday.

Pakistan: Soleimani’s death threatens peaceANATOLIA — ISLAMABAD

Pakistan yesterday expressed “deep concern” over the killing of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike in Iraq.

In a statement issued in Islamabad, Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the development in the Middle East has “seriously threatened peace and stability in the region.” Pakistan also called on all concerned parties “to exercise maximum restraint, engage constructively to dees-calate the situation.” “Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity are the fundamental

principles of the UN Charter, which should be adhered to. It is also important to avoid uni-lateral actions and use of force,” said Aisha Farooqui, spokes-person of the foreign ministry.

She also urged all parties to “resolve issues through diplo-matic means, following the UN Charter and international law.” Pakistan’s Human Rights Min-ister Shireen Mazari also urged the UN to defuse the situation, adding that the killing has esca-lated tensions in the region. The minister further said that it was in no one’s interest to have a war in an already volatile region. Soleimani was

commander of elite Quds Force, the central column of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRG), designated as a terror group by the US in 2007. The force is estimated to have 20,000 fighters.

The US strike near Baghdad International Airport also killed Abu Mahdi A -Muhandis, Vice-President of the Hashd Al Shaabi group, or Popular Mobi-lization Units (PMU) that fought ISIS also knows as Daesh in Iraq, local media reported.

The attack came amid heightened tensions after thou-sands of Iran-backed protesters stormed the US Embassy com-pound in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Imran inaugurates first shelter home in FaisalabadINTERNEWS — FAISALABAD

Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday inaugurated the first shelter home in Faisalabad, the country’s third largest city, as part of the government’s Panahgah [shelter home] initi-ative.

He was accompanied by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. The premier toured the shelter home to review the facil-ities being provided by the gov-ernment to homeless people and received a briefing by the admin-istration. He also ate lunch at the shelter home. Imran last week

had directed the chief ministers of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces to take steps to provide temporary shelters and food to every person in their respective province in the wake of extreme and harsh cold weather. “Given the extremely cold weather conditions, I have

asked CMs of Punjab and KP to ensure that no person is left out without a shelter; and their administrations must take immediate action to provide temporary shelters plus food for those who cannot be accommo-dated in existing Panahgahs,” wrote the prime minister on his

official Twitter account. The premier, during his visit to Fais-alabad, also performed the groundbreaking ceremony of the state-of-the-art Allama Iqbal Industrial City to house foreign and local investors besides giving impetus to economic activities in the country.

Rescue workers inspect the wreckage of a Sri Lankan Air Force plane that crashed in Haputale, yesterday, which led to the death of all four on board.

Rajapaksa urges limit on minority political powerAP — COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s new president yesterday endorsed amending the constitution to reduce the power of minority political parties, saying the country wasn’t suited to a system that creates unstable governments “constantly under the influence of extremism.”

In a policy speech after he presided over the opening of a new Parliament session, Pres-ident Gotabaya Rajapaksa said a majority of the voters who elected him in last November’s presidential election rejected “political agendas founded on race” and proved “it is no longer possible for anyone to manip-ulate and control the politics of this country by playing the role of kingmaker.

“Even though elections can be won through numbers, an unstable Parliament that cannot take clear decisions and remains constantly under the influence of extremism is not one that suits the country.”

Voting patterns during the election showed a clear divide between Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhist Sinhalese and minority Tamils and Muslims. A vast majority of Sinhalese voted for Rajapaksa, while minorities

overwhelmingly voted for his main opponent, Sajith Premadasa.

Rajapaksa in his speech pledged to respect the aspira-tions of the majority by pro-tecting the unity of the country and Buddhism while ensuring people had the right to practice the religion of their choice.

Sri Lanka has a proportional representative electoral system where parties with a smaller support base could also return lawmakers with a minimum vote percentage. Minority pol-iticians say the system had given them reasonable representation and help stem any anti-minority move in Parliament, which has a permanent majority of Sinhala Buddhist lawmakers.

Sinhala nationalists say minority politicians hold the governments to ransom to promote their racial agendas, undermining the status of the Sinhalese.

Sri Lanka’s ethnic polari-sation led to a 26-year civil war between the government and Tamil rebels in which at least 100,000 people were killed, according to conservative United Nations’ estimates. Rajapaksa was a military officer during the war, which ended with the Tamils’ defeat in 2009.

Sri Lankan Air Force plane crashes on tea estate; all four on board dead AP — COLOMBO

A Sri Lankan Air Force plane crashed on a tea estate in the island’s mountains yesterday, killing the four crew members on board and injuring a civilian on the ground.

The crash occurred in Haputale district about 200

kilometres east of the capital Colombo, said Air Force Spokesman, Capt. Gihan Seneviratne. Two pilots and two other crew members were on the Chinese-built Y-12 aircraft, which was on an observation mission, Sene-viratne said.

The Derana television

channel reported a woman at the scene where the aircraft crashed sustained injuries and was receiving treatment at a hospital.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash.

Seneviratne said investi-gators had been sent to inspect the crash site.

Nawaz Sharif to go through cardiac procedure in LondonINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be admitted to hospital soon for a heart procedure, it has been learned.

A source at the Royal Brompton Hospital has said that cardiologists have told Nawaz Sharif that he must be admitted to the hospital for his heart procedure.

The source said that Nawaz Sharif has been advised that it will be deter-mined within a week whether he will need a heart

operat ion, bypass , or insertion of stent. The source said that for about two months, Nawaz Sharif has been in London for the man-agement of his blood platelets, which remains unresolved and platelets remain unstable.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Adnan Khan had said that doctors are going through the whole medical history of Nawaz Sharif and have recom-mended cardiac intervention for Nawaz Sharif.

Last month, Professor Redwood had said that Nawaz

Sharif should be admitted to the hospital for heart pro-cedure. It is understood that the real cause of low platelet count of Nawaz Sharif is still not determined.

Last week, doctors at the Royal Brompton Hospital had told Nawaz Sharif that his cardiac PET scan is suggestive of ischemic myocardium and blood supply to heart is defi-cient which is a risk for a heart attack and the cause of his ongoing angina.

Dr. Adnan Khan was not available to comment about Nawaz Sharif’s possible

admission but he issued statements on his Twitter account.

Dr. Adnan Khan wrote: “Nawaz Sharif was scheduled for comprehensive cardio-vascular review at Royal Brompton and Harefield Hos-pital, London by a Cardiac Interventionist.

In previous weeks, he had Echocardiogram, Holter Analysis and radioisotope Rubidium Cardiac PET/CT scan.

Former PM Nawaz Sharif’s non-invasive cardiovascular investigations are suggestive

of significant severe coronary artery disease, extensive impaired perfusion and com-promised heart function.

There’s absolute need of an intervention, PCI, which will be of high risk in his case. Any invasive procedure, as coronary intervent ion, requires normal platelet count and stable coagulation profile. Sharif’s platelet count remains unstable and var-iable on optimal therapy.

He would require to be stabilised first to opt for PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention).”

Renowned Pashto singer hospitalised with heart problems

INTERNEWS — PESHAWAR

Popular Pashto singer Mahjabeen Qazalbash was admitted to a hospital in Peshawar after suffering a cardiac arrest on Tuesday night.

Mahjabeen – whose real name is Suriyya Khanum — is in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) where medics said her condition was critical.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai visited the hospital on Wednesday night to enquire after the health of the famous artist. Cricket star Shaheen Afridi and famous Pashto poet Abaseen Yousafzai also accompanied the pro-vincial minister.

Yousafzai directed the hos-pital administration to ensure best possible treatment for Mahjabeen who he called a “living legend”. “Her contri-bution to Pashto music will always be remembered,” he added.

The minister also appealed to people to pray for her early recovery.

Born in 1965, Mahjabeen grew up in Peshawar, though her family hailed from Herat province of Afghanistan. Her grandfather had relocated from Qandahar to Herat while her father migrated from Herat to Peshawar.

Bus crash leaves 19 dead on Myanmar borderAFP — YANGON

A head-on collision between a bus and a car in mountains on the Myanmar-Thai border killed 19 and left more than 30 injured yesterday.

Images posted by local media showed the bus upside down after it span off the road and plummeted down a steep bank at a spot notorious for traffic accidents.

Myanmar Social Rescue Group Vice-Chairman Aung Myint said the express bus had been travelling from Yangon yesterday morning when it careered into an oncoming car after its brakes failed. “The bus plunged off the mountain, killing 18 and injuring 33 out-right,” he said by phone.

While Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N has decided to ‘unconditionally support’ the bill, Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party said that ‘democratic legislative process’ must be followed as the bill is approved.

The crisis continued to touch cities like Sydney and Melbourne, where thick smoke has become the norm and fires have licked at suburban areas.

07SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020 ASIA

Renewed fire threat sparks exodus to Australian citiesAFP — NOWRA, AUSTRALIA

Beleaguered Australian com-munities braced for yet more catastrophic bushfire conditions expected today, as Australia’s navy evacuated around one thousand people from a south-eastern town.

In the town of Mallacoota, residents and tourists hemmed to the foreshore since New Year’s Eve fires clambered aboard landing craft with family, pets and a few belongings. By late yesterday, around 1,000 had been taken to the HMAS Choules and the MV Sycamore, which were to sail down the coast to safety.

The scale of Australia’s unprecedented months-long bushfire crisis has shocked the country and the world. Since late September, at least 20 people have died, dozens have gone missing, more than 1,300 homes have been damaged and an area roughly double the size of Belgium or Hawaii has burned.

But experts predict today could bring even more devas-tating conditions with temper-atures expected to rise well above 40 degrees Celsius (104

Fahrenheit). A state of emer-gency has been declared across much of Australia’s heavily pop-ulated southeast and more than 100,000 people have been told to leave their homes across three states.

“There is still a window for people to leave,” said New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian. “If you don’t need to be in the area, you need to leave.” Thousands of tourists, heeding that warning, aban-doned their summer holidays on a popular 300km length of the southeastern coastline, prompting queues of cars stretching toward Sydney and Canberra.

On the road north of Nowra, families sat amid the haze in cars loaded with dogs,

surfboards and bicycles, with traffic at a virtual standstill. Eloise Givney, 26, escaped from the blazes with a police escort after she and a large group of family members spent four days isolated without power, phones or Internet.

“The fire came within about 50 metres of us and we drove through fire, because there’s only one road in and one road out,” she said, adding the flames soared 15 metres high on either side of the road. “We’ve been stuck without power for four days now. We haven’t been able to feed the kids — we’ve got five kids with us — and we ran out of food about a day ago.” New South Wales Transport Minister Andrew Constance called it the “largest evacuation of people out of the region ever”.

The Bureau of Meteorol-ogy’s Jonathan How said today's “conditions are set to mirror or even deteriorate beyond what we saw on New Year’s Eve". “Strong, dry westerly winds will cause ongoing fires to flare up yet again threatening commu-nities that have already expe-rienced widespread devas-tation.” That front arrived in

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison tours the Wildflower farm owned by Paul and Melissa Churchman in Sarsfield, Victoria, Australia, yesterday.

South Australia yesterday, prompting an emergency warning on Kangaroo Island where it threatens to consume an entire national park.

Facing vast fire fronts, vol-unteer firefighters have been struggling to cope. Adam Harris, captain of the Rural Fire Service in Sussex Inlet — which was hit by the New Year’s Eve blazes and remained under threat — said there were not enough fire crews on the ground.

“Every resource is being used, that’s the thing. There’s so much fire on the ground that you’ve got to use every resource. We don’t have enough trucks to be everywhere.”

Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison — who was pil-loried for holidaying in Hawaii as the country was ablaze and resisting calls to pay exhausted firefighters — has come under renewed criticism for his han-dling of the crisis.

Visiting the hard-hit town of Cobargo, Morrison encoun-tered a tearful young mother and a volunteer firefighter who both refused to shake his hand.

“I understand how people are feeling and however they wish to respond is a matter for them,” he said. “I don’t take it personally.” With no sign of a let-up in the fires, Morrison has cancelled a visit to India

planned for January 13.He had a telephone conver-

sation yesterday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who conveyed his condolences and said he looked forward to welcoming Morrison to India “at a mutually convenient time later in the year,” the Indian foreign ministry said.

The crisis continued to touch cities like Sydney and Melbourne, where thick smoke has become the norm and fires have licked at suburban areas. The blazes yes-terday again shrouded Mel-bourne and Australia’s capital in smoke, forcing the Canberra International tennis tournament to be relocated.

Black box of crashed Taiwan military helicopter locatedAFP — TAIPEI

The black box from a Taiwanese helicopter that crashed killing its military chief has been recovered, the defence ministry said yesterday.

The island is in mourning after the Black Hawk carrying the chief of general staff Shen Yi-ming and seven senior officers smashed into the mountains near Taipei on Thursday, just days ahead of national elections. The general and his entourage were on a routine mission to visit soldiers in the northeast for the upcoming Lunar New Year.

Investigators located the military helicopter’s flight data recorder yesterday and it will be analysed to help determine the cause of the crash, the defence ministry said.

Shen, 62, was the highest-ranking Taiwanese military official to die while on duty. Flags at all military

units have been at half mast since Thursday. The UH-60M helicopter was carrying 13 people in total, with five sur-viving the crash. It disap-peared from radar less than 15 minutes after taking off, and did not send a distress call before it perished.

Taiwan has grounded more than 50 Black Hawks in mil-itary and government service for safety checks. The crash comes ahead of January 11 polls, when the island will elect a new president and parliament.

China claims the self-ruling, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory, to be taken by force if necessary.

Beijing-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen is seeking a second term, looking to fight off a challenge from Han Kuo-yu, who favours warmer relations with China.

Both camps have sus-pended campaigning for two to three days after the crash.

The giant Rafflesia tuan-mudae at the Maninjau nature preserve in Agam, West Sumatra.

Biggest bloom: ‘World’s largest’ flower spotted in IndonesiaAFP — PADANG, INDONESIA

Indonesian conservationists say they’ve spotted the biggest specimen ever of what’s already been billed as one of the world’s largest flowers. The giant Rafflesia tuan-mudae — a fleshy red flower with white blister-like spots on its enormous petals — came in at a whopping 111 centimetres (3.6 foot) in diameter.

That’s bigger than the previous record of 107 centimetres on a bloom also found in the jungles of West Sumatra several years ago. “This is the largest Rafflesia tuan-mudae that has ever been documented,” said Ade Putra at the Agam Conservation Agency in Sumatra. The flower’s bloom will only last about one week before it will wither and rot, he added.

It was named Rafflesia after British colonialist Sir Stamford Raffles who spotted one in Indonesia in the early 19th Century. The species grows in several Southeast Asian countries. The par-asitic bloom, sometimes referred to as corpse flower, mimics the stench of rotting meat to attract insects.

China confirms more cases of mystery viral pneumoniaAFP — BEIJING

China yesterday confirmed more cases of a mystery viral pneumonia that has sparked fears about a resurgence of SARS, the flu-like virus that killed hundreds of people more than a decade ago.

The 44 cases, up from the initial 27 announced on Tuesday, include 11 “severe cases,” health authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said. “The vital signs of the other patients are generally stable,” the statement said.

The authorities are still in the process of identifying the cause of the infection, but “influenza, avian influenza, adenovirus infection and other common respiratory diseases have been excluded,” the Wuhan health commission said yesterday, without men-tioning SARS, which is caused by a coronavirus.

News of the mystery pneu-monia outbreak earlier this week led to speculation online that it might be linked to Severe Acute Respiratory Syn-drome, a highly contagious respiratory disease.

Wuhan police on Wednesday said that they had punished eight people for “pub-lishing or forwarding false information on the internet without verification.” The health commission said all patients have received treatment in iso-lation and the city was tracking people who had come into close contact with the patients.

Some of those being treated work in a seafood market in the city, and “no obvious evidence of human to human trans-mission” has been found so far, the commission said. The World Health Organization criticised China for under-reporting the number of SARS cases fol-lowing the outbreak in 2003.

Thai shoppers get creative after plastic bag banAFP — BANGKOK

Thai shoppers grabbed baskets, buckets and even a wheel-barrow to skirt a new ban on single-use plastic bags at big retailers, with many posting images of their efforts online.

The restriction, introduced at the start of the new year by several major mall operators and the ubiquitous 7-Eleven convenience stores, was a victory for environmental

campaigners in a country where individuals use an average of eight plastic bags a day.

Customers can now pay a small fee for reusables but budget-conscious shoppers saved money by grabbing any-thing available and celebrating the different choices on social media. Make-up artist Acharin Prahausri borrowed food-storage netting from his mother that she normally dries fish with, tossing snacks, milk and

juice and posing for a photo at a 7-Eleven in eastern Thailand.

“It’s normally used to protect from flies,” he said, as his post racked up more than 1,600 likes. In other posts, one man grinned at the camera as he held a wheelbarrow laden with bottles of water, paper towels and soap. Another two women clutched each side of a pink laundry basket heaving with goods.

Experts say Thailand is one

of the largest contributors to ocean pollution. But awareness about the problem has spread over the last year as images of dead turtles, whales and dugongs with pieces of plastic bags clogging their stomachs went viral.

A government campaign to eliminate their use by 2022 has even seen television channels pixelating plastic bags onscreen — alongside other no-gos such as beverage and smoking.

Rescuers help a sick woman cross the river to get medical assistance at the Sukarame village in Lebak, Banten province, yesterday.

Indonesia flood rescuers hunt for missing after 43 deadAFP — JAKARTA

Indonesian rescuers mounted a desperate search yesterday for those missing after tor-rential rains unleashed flash floods and landslides, killing at least 43 people across the Jakarta region as authorities raced to prevent disease outbreaks.

Around a dozen people were still unaccounted for after record rains that started on New Year’s Eve pounded the capital and left swathes of the megalopolis — home to some 30 million — under water and thousands homeless.

Around 192,000 residents have been evacuated to tem-porary shelters, according to authorities, with many unable to return to waterlogged homes in neighbourhoods that have been turned into wastelands.

“We’re encouraging people whose houses are still inun-dated to go to a safer place,”

said National Disaster Miti-gation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo. The agency said 43 people had been confirmed dead in Greater Jakarta and neighbouring Lebak regency in the south of Java island.

Waters had receded in many areas and power was being restored after being cut off in many districts.

In hard-hit Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, swampy streets were littered with debris and crushed cars lying on top of each other — with waterline marks reaching as high as the second floors of buildings. The government said yesterday it would start cloud seeding to the west of the capital — inducing rain using chemicals sprayed from planes — to prevent approaching rainfall from pounding the region.

Using inflatable boats to evacuate residents trapped in their homes, including children and seniors, rescuers said they

were targeting the hardest-hit areas of the Muslim-majority nation’s capital yesterday.

Shelters filled up with ref-ugees, including infants, resting on thin mats as food and drinking water ran low. “It’s impossible for me to go back to my home,” said 72-year-old Lumongga Siregar.

“We have no clean water right now... and we’re hoping for more food because there isn’t much.” Mother Dewi Pus-pitasari worried about her one-year-old daughter’s health.

“The blanket and mat I’ve got here aren’t thick enough for her and we’re scared she will get sick,” she said.

As Indonesians gathered for Friday prayers, a call went out for city mosques to take in and help desperate refugees. “Mosques also have a social function in addition to religious activities,” said Indonesian Mosque Council secretary general Imam Addaruquthni.

Soleimani’s growing authority within Iran’s military establishment was apparent in 2019 when Khamenei awarded him the Order of Zolfiqar medal, Iran’s highest military honour.

08 SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

LIKE Qatar has accomplished numerous achieve-ments in many spheres from economy to education, the country has also done tremendous job to promote art and culture through dozens of enteritis, venues and the initiatives launched by such centers.

Among many other organizations serving the pro-motion of art and culture in Qatar, the Cultural Village Foundation Katara through a number of programmes and initiatives has kept country’s valuable cultural heritage alive as well as provides a healthy enter-tainment space to Qatar’s citizens/residents.

The Cultural Village Foundation (Katara) has emerged as one of the popular destinations in Qatar. According to recent statistics, the number of visitors coming to Katara saw a significant rise of 27 percent in 2019. According to Cultural Index 2019, over 10.03 million people visited Katara last year, compared to 7.9 million in 2018. Over 80,464 tourists visited Katara in 2019, compared to 76,058 tourists in 2018, reflecting a rise of around six percent.

World-class and highly entertaining activities organised throughout the year played a crucial role pulling the crowd. The number of events and activ-ities organised during the year reached 1,518 during the last year compared to 1,140 activities held in 2018.

Recently, Katara launched a fresh initiative aimed at enriching Qatar’s art scene, discovering talents and gifted artists, and promoting innovation in the art com-munity. Katara has launched the Katara Art Labo-ratory – a new programme offering training courses and workshops which begin today.

In 2019, Katara hosted 31 cultural and heritage festival, including the Katara Traditional Dhow Fes-tival, the Halal Qatar Festival, Senyar Festival, and Katara International Hunting and Falcons Exhibition. Katara hosted and organised 31 festivals, and 178 art exhibitions that showcased 6,965 artworks by 1,007 artists. It screened 146 movies, hosted 70 concerts and 117 ceremonies and gatherings.

It also hosted 84 lectures and 54 Islamic activities, organised 58 competitions, played host and organiser to 25 sports activities, presented 190 workshops with 607 sessions, and conducted 10 auctions and 41 bazaars.

Qatar Chamber (QC) and Katara also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to boost ties and cooperation in the cultural field. The MoU aims to enhance cooperation between both sides in attracting and encouraging commercial companies and institutions in the cultural fields. It also seeks to join hands in advancing the cultural movement in Katara to be a centre and a forum that brings together creative and educated people.

Enriching cultural landscape

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Quote of the day

This is a moment in which leaders must exercise maximum restraint. The world cannot afford another war in the Gulf.

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General

An Iranian man holding a poster of slain Iranian Revolutionary Guards Major General Qasem Soleimani during a prayer in Tehran, yesterday.

Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, the top commander of the elite Quds Force of the Revo-lutionary Guards, helped Iran fight proxy wars across the Middle East by inspiring militias on the battlefield and negotiating with political leaders.

His death yesterday in a US air strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport marked the end of a man who was a celebrity at home and closely watched by the United States, Israel and Tehran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon said the strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.

Soleimani was responsible for clandestine overseas operations and was often seen on battlefields guiding Iraqi Shi’ite groups in the war against Islamic State.

He was killed along with top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Both men were seen as heroes in Iran’s fight against its enemies and state television heaped them with praise shortly after their deaths were announced.

The television showed footage of him with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and in war zones in military garb, including as a young high-school graduate commanding a unit in Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s.

After that, he rose rapidly

through the ranks of Iran’s Revo-lutionary Guards to become chief of the Quds Force, a post in which he helped Iran form alli-ances in the Middle East as it came under pressure from US sanctions that have devastated the Islamic Republic’s economy.

The United States designated the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization in 2019, part of a campaign of maximum pressure to force Iran to negotiate on its ballistic missile program and nuclear policy.

Soleimani had a pointed reply: any negotiation with the US would be “complete sur-render.” Soleimani’s Quds Force shored up support for Syrian President Bashir Al Assad when he looked close to defeat in the civil war raging since 2011 and also helped militiamen defeat Islamic State in Iraq.

Its successes have made Sole-imani instrumental to the steady spreading of Iran’s clout in the Middle East, which the United States and Tehran’s regional foes Saudi Arabia and Israel have struggled to keep in check.

Khamenei made Soleimani head of the Quds Force in 1998, a position in which he kept a low profile for years while he strengthened Iran’s ties with Hez-bollah in Lebanon, Assad’s gov-ernment, and Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq. In the past few years, he has acquired a more public standing, with fighters and com-manders in Iraq and Syria posting images on social media of him on the battlefield, his beard and hair always impeccably trimmed.

Soleimani’s growing authority within Iran’s military establishment was apparent in 2019 when Khamenei awarded him the Order of Zolfiqar medal,

Iran’s highest military honour. It was the first time any com-mander had received the medal since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.

In a statement after Soleim-ani’s death, Khamenei said harsh revenge awaited the “criminals” who killed him. His death, though bitter, would double the motivation of the resistance against the United States and Israel, the Iranian leader said.

“Soleimani is ... not a man working in an office. He goes to the front to inspect the troops and see the fighting,” a former senior Iraqi official, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview in 2014.

“His chain of command is only the Supreme Leader. He needs money, gets money. Needs munitions, gets munitions. Needs material, gets material,” the former Iraqi official said.

Soleimani was also in charge of intelligence gathering and covert military operations carried out by the Quds Force and in 2018 he publicly challenged US Pres-ident Donald Trump. Softly-spoken, Soleimani came from humble beginnings, born into an agricultural family in the town of Rabor in southeast Iran on March 11, 1957. At 13, he travelled to the town of Kerman and got a con-struction job to help his father pay back loans, according to a first person account from Soleimani posted by Defa Press, a site focused on the history of Iran’s eight year war with Iraq.

When the revolution to oust the Shah began in 1978, Sole-imani was working for the municipal water department in Kerman and organised demon-strations against the monarch. He volunteered for the

ELISA MARTINUZZI BLOOMBERG

Europe’s reputation on financial crime took another battering in 2019. Several of the region’s biggest lenders, including ABN Amro Bank NV and Swedbank AB, were tarred by allegations that they let criminals move around their cash unhindered, a reminder that Danske Bank A/S’s mammoth money-laun-dering failings weren’t isolated.

At least the scale of the problem isn’t going unno-ticed. Politicians and bank executives have been spurred to action finally. But, as the Dutch finance minister Wopke Hoekstra said recently, anyone who thinks lenders and regulators are gaining the upper hand is in for a “rude awakening.”

A dangerous mix of frag-mented supervision and weak oversight from watchdogs and bank boards has made Europe extremely vulnerable to dirty cash. Banks have focused too often on profit at the expense of vetting cus-tomers and transactions properly. Fixing these lapses will take a long time.

The European Union is responding at last, but its effectiveness in this fight remains questionable. Last month the bloc’s finance min-isters endorsed a plan to create a regional agency to fight money laundering and terror financing. There are 58 authorities responsible cur-rently for supervising this stuff in the EU and European Economic Area. No wonder bad practices have flourished in the cracks.

Much like the Single

Supervisory Mechanism - the European Central Bank’s reg-ulatory arm - the new EU watchdog will have direct authority over the continent’s lenders. As the Brussels think tank Bruegel points out, it won’t just police the biggest banks. It will look at smaller lenders too, which are more vulnerable to money launderers.

Yet Europe will still be hamstrung by a multitude of national laws and data requirements that will take years to harmonize. It won’t be easy to create a framework for the new EU agency to work with national prosecutors, police and financial intelli-gence units. And unless the new body is funded ade-quately it may be another blunt instrument. The best talent doesn’t tend to gravitate toward lower-paying

regulatory roles and if the European Banking Authority’s experiences are instructive - that regulatory agency got an additional headcount of 10 to tackle money-laundering - the new supervisor will struggle to make much difference.

In the meantime, crim-inals are free to exploit all those gaps in regulatory over-sight and banks’ internal con-trols. “We have only started to see the beginning” of the problem, Hoekstra said last month. It’s not a phenomenon linked to just a few banks in certain jurisdictions, he noted.

Blind spots clearly persist at the state level. For example, the Financial Action Task Force found Denmark (though improving) to be fully compliant on just six of its 40 recommendations, and either largely or partially compliant on the remaining 34.

Soleimani was Iran’s celebrity soldier, spearhead in Middle East

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The EU is no match for the financial crime gangs

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BABAK DEHGHANPISHEH THE WASHINGTON POST

Revolutionary Guards and, after war with Iraq broke out in 1980, quickly rose through the ranks and went on to battle drug smug-glers on the border with Afghanistan.

“Soleimani is a great listener. He does not impose himself. But he always gets what he wants,” said another Iraqi official, adding that he can be intimidating.

Soleimani played such a pivotal role in Iraq’s security through various militia groups that General David Petraeus, the overall head of US forces in Iraq at the time, sent messages to him through Iraqi officials, according to diplo-matic cables published by Wikileaks.

09SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020 OPINION

For a paper based in the nation’s capital that approach made a certain amount of sense - the Post was arguably serving its readers. But as most of the rest of the news media, especially at the national level, followed a similar path of credentialization, professionalization and cozying up to power, it left a lot of its audience behind.

Pillars of fire and smoke from bushfires are tarnishing Australia's reputation for pristine vistas abounding in wildlife and wreaking havoc on tourism, operators say, as authorities are forced to cancel concerts, close parks and evacuate towns.

The smoke has shrouded entire cities and driven air quality to unhealthy levels, with at least 10 people dying in the fires in the past week, while colonies of animals such as koalas and flying foxes have been destroyed.

"Seeing all the images of fires on television and social media is not going to help, it puts a dent in Australia's rep-utation as a safe tourist desti-nation," said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital.

"It's come at a time when the economy was already fragile," he added, ranking tourism as Australia's fourth biggest export whose strength officials had been counting on to help offset a domestic reluctance to spend.

Bushfires burning for weeks near the world her-itage site of the Blue Moun-tains west of Sydney in the southeastern state of New

South Wales have driven away tourists.

As visitors take to social media to warn others to steer clear, the number of busloads of tourists each day has fallen to about four from 15 or 20, said Stacey Reynolds, a receptionist at the Blue Mountains Backpacker Hostel in Katoomba.

"They told people not to come in and it's affected eve-rything, from restaurants to motels to backpackers to cafes," she added. "The streets are empty."

Although there is no pub-lished nationwide data on tourism since the fires took hold in late spring, Australia attracted 2.71 million holiday makers last summer, up 3.2% from the previous year, as many fled the northern hem-isphere winter.

Hotels in the largest city of Sydney saw a fall of 10% in guest numbers in December, the Accommodation Associ-ation of Australia said.

"The fires and the smoke have had a real brand and reputational damage in Sydney," added its chief executive, Dean Long.

The train and cable network of Scenic World in the Blue Mountains had 50,000 fewer visitors in December, down 50 per cent from last year, Chief Exec-

utive Amanda Byrne said."The tracks are open, but

we are having more cancel-lations than bookings."

Government agency Tourism Australia, which released a new adver-tisement last month to lure Britons to beautiful beaches and stunning scenery, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The scorching tempera-tures and bushfires, which have also burnt vineyards in South Australia and warmed

the usually cool island state of Tasmania, will hit the sector hard, said Judith Mair, who studies tourism, envi-ronment and consumer behaviour.

"It will be in stages - immediately with evacua-tions, dislocations and can-cellations, but also in the longer term, because tourists buy holidays based on the image of a desti-nation and Australia's is being badly affected," said Mair, a professor at the Uni-versity of Queensland Business School.

Hundreds of national parks in the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, thronged by 100 million visitors a year, have closed.

With fires burning nearby, Christopher Warren, co-proprietor of a bed and breakfast in Kangaroo Valley in New South Wales, said he had to evacuate his guests.

"The worst-case scenario is that we would be hit by a fire and our business would be destroyed," said Warren, who saw the best case as a loss of income exceeding A$80,000 ($56,048), through the disruption of three of his busiest months.

Paul Mackie, who uses AirBnB to rent out an apartment on Sydney's Bondi Beach to British and European tourists in the peak summer holiday period was hit by last-minute cancellations.

"I had bookings for the whole of this period going for the next couple of months, but a lot have cancelled because they said they saw the news of the fires," Mackie added.

AirBnB declined to comment.

A Sydney airport spokesman said it did not have recent statistics on whether the fires were hitting arrival. A Qantas spokes-woman declined to comment on whether the wildfires had hurt bookings.

The fires have spot-lighted Australia's envi-ronment policies, criticised most recently at a UN summit in Madrid, said Susanne Becken, a professor of sustainable tourism at Griffith University in Queensland. "The govern-ment's response to the

climate crisis does not bode well...and this is not good for tourism," Becken said.

Australia’s reliance on a large volunteer firefighting force has been tested during this fire season that still potentially has months to run through the southern hemi-sphere summer.

While conservative Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison previously said com-pensation for volunteers was not a priority, he said on Tuesday that government workers could receive addi-tional paid leave for volun-teering. A senior gov-ernment minister said on Friday the government was now looking into providing wider relief.

“The prime minister is looking at this issue further on how we can provide tar-geted support in these extreme circumstances so that our volunteers get the support they need to keep volunteering,” Defence Min-ister Linda Reynolds told media in Perth.

While there are different rules across Australia’s states, volunteers tend to negotiate time off directly with their employer.

Australia's bushfires ravage tourism industry

In the mid-1950s, William Greider worked for a couple of summers as a reporter at the Cincinnati Post, an afternoon newspaper that was the flagship of the scrappy Scripps-Howard chain.

Greider came from an affluent, Republican Cincinnati suburb, and was spending the non-summer months as a student at Prin-ceton University, from which he graduated in 1958. The other reporters at the Post didn’t have backgrounds like that. They had generally grown up in the city proper or in grittier surrounding areas, and started out at the paper as copy boys right after high school. They were pro-union, pro-police and anti-politician. None was black, few were women, and the paper they produced was relentlessly parochial. But it did, Greider recalled decades later, “cast itself as a repre-sentative voice” of “the people who were least likely to be heard on political issues.”

By the 1970s, Greider was working at another Post, the one in Washington. Virtually all the reporters there had college degrees, many from

fancy places like Princeton. The newspaper they pro-duced was sophisticated and at times brilliant, and some of its journalists were disre-spectful enough of authority to help topple a president. But by burnishing the paper’s reputation and authority, Watergate may actually have accelerated its transition to pillar of the Washington establishment, a represent-ative voice not so much of the people as of those who governed them.

For a paper based in the nation’s capital that approach made a certain amount of sense - the Post was arguably serving its readers. But as most of the rest of the news media, especially at the national level, followed a similar path of credentiali-zation, professionalization and cozying up to power, it left a lot of its audience behind, Greider argued:

I have always thought [this] is a central element feeding the collective public resentment that surrounds the news media. People sense the difference, even if they cannot identify it. Conserv-ative critics usually call it a “liberal bias” in the press, but I think it may be more accu-rately understood as social distance.

This is all from Greider’s 1992 book, “Who Will Tell the People.” It is far from his best work, but good enough that, weeks before the sad news that he had died last Wednesday at 83, I had pulled it off the shelf to

reread the parts on the news media.

The instigation was another book, historian Brian Rosenwald’s recently pub-lished “Talk Radio’s America.” In Rosenwald’s telling, conservative talk radio rose to prominence not as the result of some vast right-wing conspiracy but “because it made better business sense than the alter-natives.” Lots of Americans were hungry for something other than what the increas-ingly elitist mainstream media was offering, and radio talkers such as Rush Limbaugh were able to deliver it on a cost-effective basis.

Limbaugh and a few others of course soon became so successful that they formed a new elite; the sub-title of Rosenwald’s book is “How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States.” And the overall evolution of the news media since the early 1990s - with the rise of not just talk radio but also cable TV news, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other new-media phenomena, along with the precipitous decline of regional and local news-papers - is I think the single best explanation for why U.S. politics have become so frac-tured and dysfunctional. Most Americans’ policy views don’t divide neatly along partisan lines, the cultural distance between different groups in the U.S. has grown modestly if at all, and it appears that

those who follow the news most closely have the most distorted picture of what fol-lowers of the other political party believe. The changes in how we communicate have been much bigger than those in how we think and act.

Before one starts waxing nostalgic, though, it’s useful to return to Greider’s clear-eyed view of the state of affairs in 1992. Among other things, he described how what had once been a great variety of daily newspapers aiming to serve very different groups of readers had con-solidated into a smaller number of publications “with an angle of vision that pre-sumes an idyllic class-free community - a city where everyone has more or less the same view on things.”

This is a variant of what media critic Jay Rosen later dubbed “the view from nowhere,” and it seems like a recipe for eventual irrele-vance. Greider chose to break from it, leaving the Wash-ington Post in 1982 to become national editor of Rolling Stone and later writing for the leftist Nation. He applauded those who did the same, even if their views didn’t coincide with his own. In reporting “Who Will Tell the People,” he spent time with left-libertarian Los Angeles talk radio host Tom Leykis and took notice of rising national star Lim-baugh, whose syndicated show aired on the same station. “Despite their differ-ences,” he wrote, “Leykis and

Limbaugh are essentially delivering the same message - flipping the bird at power - and they are speaking to the same audience, the vast sea of disaffected and impotent citizens.” (Greider didn’t mention this, but Leykis and Limbaugh were also both college dropouts.)

The rise of “personal computer networks” would offer yet more such opportu-nities to “empower ordinary citizens,” Greider predicted on the same page, but allowed that he wasn’t sure “whether the new culture created by modern commu-nications will someday lead to revitalized democracy or simply debase the imperfect politics that already existed.”

These days, of course, it can sometimes seem like it’s been debasement all the way. Greider remained an optimist nonetheless, and I’m all for clinging to hope too. I ended up an economics journalist in part because of a class I took with him - at, yeah, Princeton - as he was finishing up his masterfully subversive history of the Federal Reserve, “Secrets of the Temple.” In that field, at least, my impression is that the quality of coverage and diversity of viewpoints rep-resented are both greater now than in the 1990s. The audience for most of it remains pretty rarefied, though. Working-class jour-nalism on the model of the old Cincinnati Post is some-thing that hasn’t quite been reinvented yet.

Don’t get too nostalgic about old media

PAULINA DURAN REUTERS

JUSTIN FOX BLOOMBERG

As visitors take to social media to warn others to steer clear, the number of busloads of tourists each day has fallen to about four from 15 or 20, said Stacey Reynolds, a receptionist at the Blue Mountains Backpacker Hostel in Katoomba.

A Sydney airport spokesman said it did not have recent statistics on whether the fires were hitting arrival. A Qantas spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the wildfires had hurt bookings. The fires have spotlighted Australia's environment policies, criticised most recently at a UN summit in Madrid, said Susanne Becken, a professor of sustainable tourism at Griffith University in Queensland.

The smoke has shrouded entire cities and driven air quality to unhealthy levels, with at least 10 people dying in the fires in the past week, while colonies of animals such as koalas and flying foxes have been destroyed.

A helicopter drops water on a bushfire just outside Batemans Bay in New South Wales, yesterday. Australia authorised the forced evacuation of residents amid a mass exodus of tourists from fire-ravaged coastal communities.

10 SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020EUROPE

Man shot dead near Paris after stabbing incidentREUTERS — VILLEJUIF

French police shot dead a man near Paris yesterday after he went on the rampage with a knife in a park, killing one person and seriously wounding two more, a French broadcaster reported.

The attack happened in the town of Villejuif, about 8km south of central Paris. Police cordoned off the area around the park, and the deputy head of the French interior ministry

was at the scene talking to police officers.

Two of the victims are in grave condition in hospital, BFM TV quoted sources close to the investigation as saying.

There was no immediate word on the identity of the assailant, or his motive.

Ambulances and police vehicles lined a road approaching the park, according to a Reuters jour-nalist at the scene.

In the past four years, the

French capital has been rocked by major attacks resulting in mass casualties.

In October last year, four people were stabbed to death at the Paris police headquarters by Mickael Harpon, an IT spe-cialist working for the police.

Coordinated bombings and shootings by militants in November 2015 at the Bataclan theatre and other locations around Paris killed 130 people in the deadliest attacks in France since World War Two.

Police and firefighters gather where police shot dead a knife-wielding man who killed one person and injured at least two others in a nearby park in L’Hay-les-Roses of the south of Paris’ suburban city of Villejuif, yesterday.

Montenegro denounces 'aggression' againstits embassy in SerbiaAP — BELGRADE

Montenegro yesterday strongly denounced aggression against its embassy in Serbia during a protest by thousands of ultra-nationalists, saying the actions of soccer hooligans who threw flares and chanted “Set it on fire” represented an attack on the country’s independence.

The crowd targeted the unguarded embassy in Belgrade and tried to burn the Mon-tenegrin flag during the Thursday night protest of a religion rights law adopted by Montenegro’s parliament last month. Serbs say the law dis-criminates against the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic tweeted that the embassy attack was an “uncivilised” act and another challenge to his small country’s independence and freedom.

He said it was “stunning” Serbian police did not protect the embassy on Thursday or during other recent protests.

“We will save our Mon-tenegro despite the hatred that is coming from the same actors inside and outside the country,” Markovic said.

Montenegro split from much larger Serbia following a 2006 referendum. About one-third of

the small Balkan country’s 620,000 citizens declare them-selves as Serbs and want close ties with Belgrade.

Led by the Serbian Orthodox Church and backed by Serbia’s state propaganda, pro-Serb Montenegrins have been holding daily protest marches against the new religion rights law.

They say the law will allow the Montenegrin state to impound Serbian Orthodox Church property, including monasteries, churches and other assets. The Montenegrin government has repeatedly denied those claims.

Adding fuel to the fire in what appears to be the lowest point in relations between the former Balkan allies, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterady announced a “private visit” with Montenegrin Serbs for Orthodox Christmas, which

is celebrated on January 7.He accused Montenegro’s

prime minister of a “notorious lie” — that the embassy in Bel-grade was not protected during the rioting. “We are not threat-ening Montenegro’s inde-pendence, you are threatening sacred monuments that don’t belong to you".

Montenegro’s Foreign Min-istry summoned the Serbian ambassador yesterday to protest what it said was “an unhindered nationalist spree” against the flag and embassy.

Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said the ambassador rejected the note, because it is an attempt by Montenegro to shift the blame for the crisis between the two countries solely onto Belgrade.

He said the attempt to burn the Montenegrin flag is “counter productive” and “serves the interests of the enemies of the Serbian people.”

US Ambassador to Mon-tenegro Judy Rising Reinke also commented. “Shocked at the image of the desecrated #Mon-tenegro flag at the country’s Bel-grade Embassy,” she said. “Attack on a diplomatic mission is absolutely unacceptable. Dif-ference of opinions must be resolved through dialogue, not violence or acts of vandalism.”

We will save our Montenegro despite the hatred that is coming from the same actors inside and outside the country: Montenegro Prime Minister

Spate of letter bombs puzzles Dutch policeAFP — THE HAGUE

Dutch police were puzzled yesterday by a spate of letter bombs sent to seemingly random targets in three of the Netherlands’ main cities as it warned the public to be on the lookout.

The latest incident happened early yesterday when staff at Amsterdam’s Okura hotel alerted police after they received a suspect parcel bearing the hall-marks of a letter bomb.

Explosive experts rushed to the luxury hotel and police later tweeted: “The letter is the same as the other ones.”

“The hotel does not have to be evacuated, but the military’s explosives clearing team is on the scene.”

The letter is one of at least seven that have been sent to

various addresses in the three cities in the past week, including two hotels, two service stations, an estate agency, a car deal-ership and the central debt col-lecting agency.

The director of the car deal-ership in Rotterdam told NOS public news a receptionist on Thursday opened the letter and saw “something that looked like a battery” before calling the police.

So far, the letters “caused no damage, because they didn’t explode, but if they did, could have caused serious injury,” police said in a statement.

The letters — all a bit thicker than usual — carried a sticker with the address and logo of the country’s central debt agency as sender.

Usually the information is on a printed envelope.

Police, who believed the letters “originated from one single sender” have launched an intensive investigation

involving detectives and explo-sives experts.

“Be alert! If you receive a thick letter with two stickers

bearing the name and logo of the central debt agency, then don’t open it — phone the police at once,” they said.

Firefighters cordon off the area after a bomb letter was delivered to the Okura Hotel in the Ferdinand Bolstraat, in Amsterdam, yesterday.

Austria’s Kurz optimistic new coalition will last full termAP — BERLIN

Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz (pictured) said he’s optimistic that his new coalition government with the environmentalist Greens will last a full five-year term — something that the country’s last two elected administrations failed to do.

Kurz’s People’s Party and the Greens agreed on Wednesday to form a coalition of once-unlikely political allies. If a Green party convention today approves the deal, the

33-year-old Kurz will return to power seven months after his previous alliance with the

far-right Freedom Party collapsed.

The agreement combines pledges of action against climate change and of improved government and administrative transparency — Green priorities — with moves to cut Austrians’ tax burden and keep the tough line on migration that Kurz has made a hallmark of his party. Kurz says the deal allows both sides to keep their central election promises, but both had to make painful compromises.

Kurz told ORF television Thursday night he is “very

optimistic that this government cooperation will last for five years, and I will try to con-tribute everything to making that possible.”

Kurz himself had a hand in ending the two previous governments.

In 2017, he helped end a year early a bad-tempered gov-ernment led by the center-left Social Democrats in which he was foreign minister. He told ORF it was right to end such a “standstill.”

Kurz then became chan-cellor of a coalition government

with the Freedom Party. He pulled the plug after 17 months following the release of a video showing then-Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache offering favors to a purported Russian investor.

Parliament then ousted Kurz in a no-confidence vote. Austria has since been run by a non-partisan interim gov-ernment under Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein.

The People’s Party and Greens were the big winners of Austria’s general election in September.

Russia halts oil supplies to Belarus in push for closer tiesAP — MINSK

Russia has halted oil supplies to Belarus as talks on strength-ening economic ties remained stalled over concerns that Russia could effectively swallow up its neighbour.

Belarus’ state-owned oil company said yesterday that Moscow has stopped supplying crude until contracts for this year are drawn up. Belarus’ two main refineries were operating at low capacity, running on reserves.

Russian oil company Tran-sneft confirmed the suspension, which does not affect oil transit to Europe or the supply of natural gas.

Belarus relies on Russia for more than 80% of its overall

energy needs, including gas. Over 90% of its crude oil imports come from Russia. And it has been has been relying on discounted prices and loans from Russia for more than a quarter century.

But it has one point of lev-erage: Russia depends on Belarus to ship oil to wealthier markets in the rest of Europe. About 10% of Western Europe’s oil supplies come from Russia, via a pipeline transiting Belarus.

The Kremlin has recently increased pressure on its ally, raising energy prices and cutting subsidies. It argues that Belarus should accept closer economic integration if it wants to con-tinue receiving energy resources at Russia’s domestic prices.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held two rounds of talks in December, but failed to reach an agreement on deeper integration and on oil and gas prices.

Putin said Russia was not ready to “subsidise” energy supplies without a closer eco-nomic integration with Belarus, and Lukashenko insisted he would not sign off on the inte-gration until the issues with oil and gas supplies were resolved.

In late December, Lukashenko ordered his gov-ernment to look for alternative oil suppliers, though in practice that will be difficult considering the country’s near-total reliance on Russia.

There are concerns in Belarus that the economic dis-cussions are a plot by Russia to swallow up Belarus.

Before relations soured completely with Ukraine, Russia had likewise used energy supplies as political leverage to keep the country in its eco-nomic orbit and from devel-oping closer ties with Europe.

There also has been specu-lation that Putin could contem-plate a merger with Belarus as a way to stay at the helm of the new union state of Russia and Belarus after his current Russian presidential term expires in 2024. Lukashenko repeatedly rejected the idea, vowing that his country would never become part of Russia.

Norway suspends sea search for missing sailorsREUTERS — SOFIA

The Norwegian authorities on Thursday suspended wider search and rescue operations for two Bulgarian sailors who officials say fell overboard from a cargo ship in the Norwegian Sea, the Bulgarian foreign ministry said yesterday.

The two-helicopter rescue operation began around 400km southwest of the town of Bodo in the early afternoon on Thursday, but activities were severely hampered by bad weather — high winds and eight-meter-high waves, the ministry said.

“According to the Nor-wegian Joint Rescue Coordi-nation Center, under the current climatic conditions there is no chance for those who have fallen into the water to survive for such a long time,” the ministry said in a statement.

The crew of the Stara Planina cargo ship consists of 19 people – 18 Bulgarian cit-izens and one Ukraine citizen.

The ministry said the oper-ation, which began after the incident was reported to the Norwegian authorities by the Stara Planina’s captain, would not be resumed while the Nor-wegian police were investi-gating the case.

The Stara Planina ship was taking a regular course when a 9-metre wave pushed the two sailors overboard. The incident occurred in extremely severe weather conditions.

Bird flu outbreak in Polandspreads with 4 more casesREUTERS — WARSAW

Four more outbreaks of bird flu have been reported across Poland, authorities said yesterday, bringing the total number of incidents in Europe’s largest poultry producer to six this week.

Outbreaks were confirmed in Wolka Orlowska and Olchowiec Kolonia, both in the Lubelskie region of Poland, a spokesman for the governor of the Lubelskie region said on Twitter.

Another outbreak of the H5N8 strain reported yes-terday was in the eastern Lubelskie region at a farm

about 500 metres from where two cases in turkeys were con-firmed this week.

Until then Poland had not had an outbreak of bird flu since 2017.

An outbreak of the H5N8 strain was also confirmed on a chicken farm in Przygodzice, in the western Wielkopolskie region, Poland’s General Vet-erinary Inspectorate said in a statement.

Around 60,000 birds are expected to be gassed in Lubelskie region, regional vet-erinary officer Pawel Pio-trowski said yesterday. 40,000 have already died as a result of the flu, he added.

11SATURDAY 4 JANUARY 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

North Macedonia PM resigns; transitional govt takes overREUTERS, AP — SKOPJE

North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev resigned yesterday to allow a transitional government to take over ahead of a snap parliamentary election in April, called after the European Union refused to set a date for accession talks with the country.

Under the former Yugoslav republic’s constitution a tran-sitional government, in which the opposition parties are granted several ministerial posts, should take over 100 days before the April 12 vote to ensure conditions for free and fair elections are met.

“This morning I signed the resignation…I believe it will be delivered to parliament,” Zaev

said in an interview.The Parliament is set to

convene to approve the interim government in which current interior minister Oliver Spas-ovski will hold the post of prime minister — a move already agreed by all political parties.

Zaev’s Social Democrat-led

government took office in 2017.Zaev had staked his political

future on the 2018 agreement with Greece that changed the country’s name from

Macedonia, settling a decades-long dispute.

Greece considered that the name “Macedonia” was an attempt to steal its own

Macedonian heritage and might imply territorial designs on its northern province of Mace-donia. Included in the accord was a statement that the current state of Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Mac-edonia are unrelated.

The agreement was ratified despite heavy criticism by opposition parties and hardline nationalists in both countries.

The April election is seen as a major test for the pro-EU pol-icies of Zaev’s Social Democrats after French President Emmanuel Macron in October refused to let North Macedonia start talks on joining the bloc, despite concerns over increasing Chinese and Russian influence in the Balkans.

Skopje had expected to be

granted a date to start accession talks after agreeing to end a dispute with Greece by changing the country’s name to North Macedonia from Macedonia.

Macron also led a group of EU leaders who ruled out opening talks with Albania.

Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia also aspire to join the EU but the enlargement process has largely stalled amid increased public concerns in western Europe about immi-gration and the strains of dealing with Britain’s exit from the bloc.

North Macedonia is expected to become the 30th member of Nato early this year, once its accession has been rat-ified by all the member states of the US-led alliance.

France, the Netherlands issue warnings to citizens in MideastAGENCIES — PARIS France urged its citizens in Iran yesterday to stay away from public gatherings and the Neth-erlands told Dutch nationals to leave Baghdad after the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

Washington had earlier told US citizens to leave Iraq, after Tehran threatened retaliation for the US strike that killed Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force and architect of Iran’s spreading military influence in the Middle East.

“Three days of mourning have been declared after the death of General Soleimani. In this context, we recommend French citizens to stay away from any gatherings and to behave with prudence and dis-cretion and abstain from taking pictures in public spaces,” France’s embassy in Tehran said on Twitter.

A US air strike killed Sole-imani and an Iraqi militia com-mander at Baghdad airport.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry told Dutch citizens to leave Baghdad “if that is possible in a safe manner.”

“Unrest and violence have increased in Baghdad, and around the airport. The situation is unpredictable,” the Dutch ministry said in a statement.

Also yesterday, Germany urged restraint and de-esca-lation after the killing top Iranian commander.

“We are at a dangerous point of escalation. It is now important through prudence and restraint to contribute to de-escalation,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer.

“We, too, view Iran’s activ-ities in the region with great concern,” she said, but warned that any conflicts can only be resolved through “diplomatic paths”. “It is particularly important to prevent Iran from being dragged deeper into a conflict, because everyone has an interest in the continuing battle against IS,” she added.

Bolsonaro says he is suffering from herniaAFP — BRASÍLIA

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro says he is suffering from a hernia, apparently as a result of being stabbed in the stomach in 2018, local media reported yesterday.

“I’m pregnant,” the far-right leader joked with jour-nalists at a hospital in Brasilia on Thursday night. “There’s a protraction, and maybe in February I’ll have a health check.”

Bolsonaro was stabbed in the stomach by a suspected radical leftist during a cam-paign rally in September 2018, before he was elected president.

He underwent four oper-ations on his stomach, the most recent last September.

Economics newspaper Valor said Bolsonaro would undergo medical checks after returning from a trip to India — he’s been invited to the Asian country’s January 26 Republic Day celebrations.

Bolsonaro was visiting his 37-year-old wife Michelle at the hospital, where she was under-going cosmetic surgery, weekly news magazine Istoe said.

“It’s the age. I’m 64, there were four operations in which they opened up the whole abdomen. Twice, they took out everything (his intestines). It was extremely serious.”

Surgeon Regis Ramos, who operated on the first lady, said Bolsonaro had suffered a lateral hernia that caused “occasional discomfort.”

The president has had several health issues since assuming office

Six Spanish police officers leave Bolivia after diplomatic spatAFP — LA PAZ

Six members of Spain’s national police left Bolivia yesterday after being accused of trying to sneak a wanted man out of the Mexican ambassador’s residence in La Paz, the government said.

National Migration director Marcel Rivas, speaking to a local television channel, said the six men were members of “a special group of the Spanish Civil Guard.”

They allegedly tried to enter

the Mexican ambassador’s res-idence in La Paz to whisk out wanted former interior minister Juan Ramon Quintana.

Quintana, along with up to nine other Morales officials, took refuge in the embassy after Morales resigned and fled to Mexico on November 10.

Quintana and the other former officials have been charged with terrorism and sedition offenses linked to a spate of post-election violence in the South American country

The incident has sparked a diplomatic row between Bolivia and both Mexico and Spain.

Bolivia expelled the Mexican ambassador, Maria Teresa Mercado, and two Spanish diplomats, while Madrid responded by kicking out three Bolivian diplomats.

Mexico has described the ambassador’s expulsion as a political decision and vowed to maintain diplomatic relations with Bolivia.

Bolivian media said the

Spanish police entered the country under false identities.

They were filmed last Friday with their faces covered near the Mexican ambassador’s res-idence in La Paz while Spanish diplomats Cristina Borreguero and Alvaro Fernandez were visiting.

Spain denies trying to help Quintana escape.

Morales, who has also been accused of terrorism and sedition by the interim gov-ernment, fled to Mexico before

later accepting asylum in neigh-boring Argentina.

Mexico’s left-wing gov-ernment was closely allied to that of Morales, but relations with Bolivia’s right-wing interim Pres-ident Jeanine Anez have soured.

Bolivia has demanded that Mexico hand over the wanted former officials and previously accused the North American country of failing to prevent Morales from interfering in Bolivia’s politics during his asylum there.

Bannon's protege loses case against Polish newspaperAP — WARSAW

An American conservative activist and Steve Bannon protege lost a defamation case yesterday against a Polish jour-nalist who described him as “Trump’s man” and part of a global war against democracy by the political right.

Matthew Tyrmand, a 38-year-old American with Polish roots, has written for Breitbart and is a board member of the organisation Project Veritas, which carries out undercover stings against liberal and mainstream media.

He sued journalist Tomasz Piątek and Agora, publisher of the liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, over a 2016 article that described Tyrmand as “part of the global war by the right wing against democracy.”

Tyrmand objected to several points in the article, including the description of him as “Trump’s man” and of Trump as being sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also objected to Piątek writing that Project Veritas wages “informational warfare.”

In testimony last year, Tyrmand argued that the article connected him “in this tenuous guilt-by-association to Vladimir Putin.” He called it the “biggest slander and slur” pos-sible in a part of Europe that

had “achieved independence from the Soviet tyranny.” Tyrmand was not in court yes-terday and could not be imme-diately reached for comment.

Judge Jacek Tyszka rejected Tyrmand’s argument that he had been defamed and ordered Tyrmand to pay $1,050 to the reporter and the same amount to Agora. Tyszka argued that it was not defamatory to describe Tyrmand as part of Trump’s circle when he has written for Breitbart and been associated with other pro-Trump players.

Tyszka also said the description of Project Veritas was acceptable , given that the group is partisan and limits its sting operations to exposing wrongdoing by liberals to help conservatives.

Tyrmand had demanded an apology and $13,200 for charity.

Tyrmand is the son of the late Leopold Tyrmand, a prom-inent Polish-Jewish com-munist-era dissident and writer who survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the United States in the 1960s. During the 2016 US presidential campaign Matthew Tyrmand distributed the film “Clinton Cash” — which portrayed Democratic can-didate Hillary Clinton as captive to wealthy foreign interests — in Poland.

Piątek and the newspaper welcomed yesterday’s ruling.

Thunberg celebrates birthday by attending strikeREUTERS — STOCKHOLM

“I’m not the kind of person who celebrates birthdays,” Greta Thunberg said as she turned 17 yesterday, marking the occasion in inimitable style — with a seven-hour hour protest outside the Swedish parliament.

The climate activist braved winter conditions in her native Stockholm to continue the weekly Friday School Strike for the Climate campaign that

helped catapult her to interna-tional fame.

“I stand here striking from 8am until 3pm as usual ... then I’ll go home,” Thunberg, Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019, said.

“I won’t have a birthday cake but we’ll have a dinner.”

It’s been a busy 12 months for Thunberg, who crisscrossed the globe by car, train and boat — but not plane — to demand action on climate change.

“It has been a strange and

busy year, but also a great one because I have found some-thing I want to do with my life and what I am doing is having an impact,” she said.

When she was 15, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament to push her government to curb carbon emissions.

Her campaign gave rise to a grassroots movement that has gone global, inspiring millions of people to take action.

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg poses for pictures as she takes part in the weekly “Fridays For Future” climate strike outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, yesterday.

Another inmate dead in new Mexico jail riotAP — MEXICO CITY

Another inmate was killed yesterday at a prison in northern Mexico where 16 inmates died during a riot on New Year’s Eve.

Security officials in Zacatecas state said four other prisoners were injured in the latest riot at the Cieneguillas prison, where 16 prisoners died on Tuesday.

According to the Public Safety Department, the prison had been brought back under control. Zacatecas state security secretary Ismael Camberos Hernández said that inmates angry over the Tuesday riot had attacked prisoners they accused of betraying them that day.

He added that prisoner had been battered to death by fellow prisoners who detached a metal cell door and bashed him with it.

But in Tuesday’s riot, authorities confiscated four guns that they believe were smuggled in during visiting hours. Prison guards were placed under investigation after the riot.

Not all of the victims in Tuesday’s riot died from gunshot wounds. Some were stabbed and others beaten with objects. No guards or police were wounded.

War of Independence ceasefire anniversaryA girl gathers next to AS-90 armoured self-propelled artillery weapon of the British troops of Nato enhanced Forward Presence battle group during commemoration for the centennial of the War of Independence ceasefire near the border crossing point with Russia in Narva, Estonia, yesterday.

Zoran Zaev (left) and Oliver Spasovski

Parliament is set to convene to approve the interim government in which current interior minister Oliver Spasovski will hold the post of prime minister.

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US sending more troops to Mideast as reinforcementsAP — WASHINGTON

The United States is sending nearly 3,000 more Army troops to the Mideast as reinforce-ments in the volatile aftermath of the killing of an Iranian general in a strike ordered by President Donald Trump, defence officials said yesterday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision not yet announced by the Pentagon, said the troops are from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They are in addition to about 700 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne who deployed to Kuwait earlier this

week after the storming of the US Embassy compound in Baghdad by Iran-backed mili-tiamen and their supporters.

The dispatching of extra troops reflects concern about potential Iranian retaliatory action for the killing on Thursday of Gen Qassem Sole-imani, commander of Iran’s

Quds Force. But it also runs counter to Trump’s repeated push to extract the United States from Middle East conflicts. Prior to this week’s troop deploy-ments, the administration had sent 14,000 additional troops to the Mideast since May, when it first publicly claimed Iran was planning attacks on US interests.

The reinforcements took shape as Trump gave his first comments on the strike, declaring that he ordered the killing of Iranian Gen Qassem Soleimani because he had killed and wounded many Americans over the years and was plotting to kill many more. “He should have been taken out many years ago”.

The strike marked a major escalation in the conflict between Washington and Iran, as Iran vowed “harsh retali-ation” for the killing of the senior military leader. The two nations have faced repeated crises since Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed crippling sanctions.

The US urged its citizens to leave Iraq “immediately” as fears mounted that the strike and any retaliation by Iran could ignite a conflict that engulfs the region.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the strike as “wholly lawful,” saying that Soleimani posed an “imminent” threat against the US and its

interests in the region.“There was an imminent

attack,” Pompeo told Fox News. “The orchestrator, the primary motivator for the attack, was Qassem Soleimani.”

The White House did not inform lawmakers before the strike. It was expected to give classified briefings to members of Congress and staff in the afternoon. Defense Secretary Mark Esper notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the strike shortly before the Pen-tagon confirmed it publicly.

Pompeo called world leaders Friday to explain and defend Trump’s decision to order the airstrike that has

sparked fears of an explosion of anti-American protests as well as more violence in the already unstable Middle East.

The State Department said Pompeo had spoken yesterday with top officials in Afghanistan, Britain, China, France, Germany and Pakistan.

In his calls with the British and German foreign ministers as well as China’s state coun-cilor, Pompeo stressed that Trump acted to counter an imminent threat to US lives in the region but also that the US is committed to “de-escalation” of tensions, according to the department’s summaries of the conversations.

Mike Pompeo defended the strike as “wholly lawful”, saying that Soleimani posed an “imminent” threat against the US.

One dead, three injured in Austin ‘stabbing incident’AP — AUSTIN

One person was killed, three others hurt and a suspect was in custody following a “stabbing incident” yesterday morning in downtown Austin, police and emergency officials said.

Austin-Travis County EMS said a man in his 20s was pronounced dead and a man in his 50s was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. Two others were being treated on the scene on South Congress Avenue.

Austin police said a suspect was in custody and that “no other known suspects are outstanding” but they did not immediately say whether the suspect was among the injured or what led to the stabbings.

Stacy Romine said she witnessed the attack while out to get her morning coffee and then saw the attacker leap head-first from the roof of a nearby building.

“There was nothing that provoked it,” Romine, 33, said. “This guy was not OK.”

Romine added that the man was “obviously under the influence of something” when he hit an elderly man at a coffee shop off a retail plaza near the heart of the popular South Congress shopping corridor, about a mile south of the Texas Capitol.

A group of people tried to stop the attacker, and he struggled with them before eventually breaking free and running out of the building, Romine said. She said she never saw a knife.

After he ran out, Romine said she saw the attacker jump from the roof of a nearby building. He did not move after hitting the ground, she said.

US sanctions Cuban minister over support for MaduroREUTERS — WASHINGTON

The United States imposed sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister, accusing him of human rights viola-tions and supporting socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Washington blacklisted Leopoldo Cintra Frias (pictured), minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (MINFAR), and his children, Deborah Cintra Gonzalez and Leopoldo Cintra Gonzalez, in its latest action targeting Havana for its support of Maduro.

Pompeo said MINFAR had been involved in the torture of Venezuelans and subjected them to “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment for their anti-Maduro stances” alongside Maduro’s military and intelligence officers.

The designation bars Cintra, a career military officer who joined Fidel Castro’s rebel army in 1957, and his children from entering the United States.

“As Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, Cintra Frias bears responsibility for Cuba’s actions to prop up the former Maduro regime in Venezuela,” Pompeo said.

“Dismantling Venezuela’s democracy by ter-rifying Venezuelans into submission is the goal of MINFAR and the Cuban regime,” Pompeo added.

It’s the Senate’s turn now, McConnell says on impeachmentAP — WASHINGTON

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated yesterday he has little interest in agreeing to Democrats’ demands for new witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and instead will work swiftly to acquit the president of the charges.

“Their turn is over,” McCo-nnell said about the Demo-cratic-led House. “It’s the Sen-ate’s turn now.”

Congress convened for the new year with Trump’s impeachment trial deeply in flux and the crisis in the Middle East only adding to the uncer-tainty about how lawmakers will proceed.

McConnell criticised House Democrats as having engi-neered a “slapdash”

impeachment that is the “most rushed, least fair” in history. The House last month approved charges that Trump abused his power in dealings with Ukraine and then obstructed Congress.

The GOP leader invoked the Founding Fathers’ vision of the slower-moving Senate as “an institution that could stop momentary hysteria and par-tisan passions.”

Trump, only the third pres-ident in US history to be impeached, wants not only acquittal in the trial but also vindication from his GOP allies.

While McConnell is hoping for a speedy acquittal, the Senate trial cannot begin until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivers the articles of impeachment, which she is refusing to do until he provides

details on whether Democrats will be able to call more witnesses.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “We need the whole truth.”

McConnell has said the trial should start and then senators can decide the scope.

He indicated the Senate will carry on with its other business while it waits for the House to act. “We can’t hold a trial without the articles,” he said. “So for now, we are content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate while House Dem-ocrats continue to flounder.”

Schumer is pressing for at least four new witnesses, all of whom refused to appear in the House proceedings before the House voted to impeach Trump last month. They are Trump’s

former national security adviser John Bolton, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and two other officials who were directly involved with Trump’s decision to withhold nearly $400 million in in military aide for Ukraine, which the ally depends on to counter Russia, until President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to publicly announce an investi-gation into Trump rival Joe Biden.

“Why won’t Trump & McCo-nnell allow a fair trial?” Pelosi tweeted this week.

The Constitution requires that the House and Senate convene yesterday, but few lawmakers were in town for the perfunctory session. But the Senate leaders’ remarks are being closely watched for signs of next steps.

US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell making his way to the Senate Chamber at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, yesterday.