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Record-manRonaldo puts Portugal into last 16

BUSINESS | 17 SPORT | 21

Saudi may return to oil market balancing

role: Minister

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met with the Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs of the Sultanate of Oman, Yousef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, and his accompanying delegation, last evening at Al Bahr Palace, on the occasion of his visit to Qatar. Talks dealt with bilateral ties.

Emir meets Oman Minister

THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016 • 18 RAMADAN 1437 • Volume 21 • Number 6836 thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar

>PAGE 15

RAMADAN

TIMING

Today’s Iftar 6 : 30 pmTomorrow’s Imsak 3 : 05 am

Clampdown on erring recruitment firmsThe Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Administra-tive Development, Labour and Social Affairs has started a crackdown on manpower agencies violating recruit-ment rules.

The Recruitment Department at the Ministry has permanently can-celled the licences of two recruitment agencies. The aim of the inspection campaign is to improve the per-formance, follow-up and control of

recruitment agencies, and to ensure that manpower agencies comply with recruitment law. The law says that licence of manpower agencies can be permanently or temporarily revoked by a ministerial decision for repeated violation of the recruitment contract signed by employer and the agency.

The Department said in a state-ment yesterday that the two agencies violated the fourth paragraph of Arti-cle (14) of the Ministerial Decree No (8) of 2005 regulating the condi-tions and procedures for licensing

recruiting workers from abroad for others.

The Department had already warned the two agencies to bring them to adhere to the contracts signed with employers to recruit domestic workers.

The department urged peo-ple having financial claims against these agencies to appear before it with needed documents within three months.

→ Continued on page 3

New company to sell petroleum products abroad

The Peninsula

DOHA: The State Cabinet, in its weekly session yesterday, endorsed a draft law for setting up a Qatari shareholding company for selling petroleum products in the interna-tional market.

The Cabinet endorsed a draft law amending some provisions of Decree Law No 15 of 2007 on the regulation of the marketing and sale outside Qatar of products under govern-ment regulation, and referred it to the Advisory Council.

According to the provisions of the draft law, a Qatari shareholding company, wholly owned by Qatar, shall be established and will be rep-resented by Qatar Petroleum. The company, with the name “Qatar Petroleum for selling petroleum products” LLTD, will sell petroleum products that fall under government regulation and indicated in the law.

The text of Article two of the Decree added amendment saying “the company shall delegate Qatar Petroleum as a representative to

market and sell government-regu-lated products on its behalf”.

The session also approved two draft laws on the regulation of car and limousine rent and its executive statute. The bill included provisions related to conditions of licensing, conditions of the facility, and waiv-ing and abolishing the licence. The facility is to write contracts with the tenants according to the model prepared for this purpose by the ministry.

The draft executive statute included provisions indicating the activity and the license, conditions of the facility, the license’s type, dura-tion, expiry, suspension, cancellation and waiving and commitments of the licensee.

One of the items on the agenda was about a draft decision to estab-lish a committee in line with the provisions of law regulating tenders and leases. The committee should be chaired by the judge who is at the rank of the head of the Court of First Instance.

The judge should be chosen by the Supreme Judiciary Council.

The committee should also have two other experienced member specialized in giving quick deci-sions attached with the reasons on all administrative dispute that pre-ceded signing a contract.

→ Continued on page 3

Brexit or not: UK

to hold key EU

referendum today

Reuters

LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron and his euroscep-tic opponents made final pitches for wavering voters yesterday on the eve of a defining referendum on European Union membership with the outcome still too close to call.

The vote, which echoes the rise of populism elsewhere in Europe and the United States, will shape the continent’s future. A victory for “out” could unleash turmoil on financial markets and for-eign exchange bureaux reported a surge in demand for foreign cur-rency from Britons wary sterling may fall. “It’s very close; nobody knows what’s going to happen,” Cameron told yesterday’s Financial Times, with opinion polls show-ing the rival camps neck and neck.

→ See also page 13

Cabinet endorses draft law and sends it to Advisory Council.

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with Minister of Defence of the French Republic Jean-Yves Le Drian. Talks covered mutual cooperation between two countries as well as a number of regional and international issues of common concern.

PM meets French Defence Minister

HOME02 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

By Fazeena Saleem

The Peninsula

DOHA: The annual Eid and Summer festivals have become major events in promoting Qatar as a unique holi-day destination, said a Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) spokesperson.

“For most sectors in Qatar this period is the beginning of a lull in

activities, but for ours it is the peak in our calendars, especially with the arrival of the Eid Festival and Qatar Summer Festival 2016,” said Saif Al Kuwari, Director of PR and Commu-nication at QTA.

He addressed the QTA’s third Annual Tourism Industry Ram-adan Ghabga, on behalf of Hassan Al Ibrahim, Chief Tourism Develop-ment Officer, QTA. The event brought together QTA’s partners in the public and private sector and others at the Kempinski Marsa Malaz – The Pearl.

The Annual Tourism Industry Ghabga is one of many platforms for the members of the tourism sector to connect, exchange ideas and find new and innovative ways to develop the sector through partnerships.

The Eid Festival and Qatar Sum-mer Festival expects to drive up regional tourism numbers with a range of new attractions, cultural events and brand promotions lined up every year.

The annual festivals aim to increase the number of inbound tourists in the long-term by build-ing sustainable events into Qatar’s calendar, is building on the success

of past years through events organ-ised in collaboration with public and private sector partners to reinforce Qatar’s position as a preferred fam-ily tourist destination within the GCC.

“We have a lot of work coming up through the Eid and Summer festi-vals and I want to thank everyone for coming together to prepare for these two nation-wide events and show our visitors that Qatar is a world –Class hub with deep cultural roots,” said Al Kuwari. The month long Summer Festival targets visitors from the GCC with entertainment activities for fam-ilies in a festive, safe environment that reflect their heritage. In 2015 the fes-tival featured shows to suit different age groups and tastes — from open-air public displays, theatre and classical concerts to comedy, films and popular Eastern and Western musical perform-ances. Qatar’s hospitality and retail sectors were engaged in ensuring the success of festivities.

Eid Al Fitr celebrations will be extend to all parts of the country as tourism hotspots presented a number of exciting shows, performances and activities throughout the Festival to visitors and residents alike.

QTA eyes more tourists at Eid and Summer festivals

QTA officials and partners during the third Annual Tourism Industry Ramadan Ghabga.

The Eid Festival and Qatar Summer Festival expects to drive up regional tourism numbers with a range of new attractions, cultural events and brand promotions lined up every year.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Economy and Commerce has detected 19 violation out of 1,400 outlets targeted in raids during the third week of Ramadan.

The campaign is part of Ram-adan initiatives under the theme “#Aqal_Min_Al_Wajeb,” the Arabic for “# the_least_we_can _do” tar-geted garment stores, vegetable and fruit shops, beauty salons, barbers, food warehouses in different part of the country.

The ministry has intensified inspection campaigns ahead of and during Ramadan in a bid to moni-tor markets, commercial activities, suppliers in order to crack down on violation of the law number (8) of 2008 on consumer protection and price manipulation.

Violations included increasing

prices without permission from the competent authority, selling expired products and missing descriptive labels on products in violation of arti-cle (6) of law number (8) of 2008 on consumer protection.

The law prohibits the sale, dis-play or promotion of fraudulent or corrupt products. A product is con-sidered fraudulent if it is expired or fails to meet standards. The ministry urges all consumers to report viola-tions to the Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud department.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment has conducted eight inspection drives including 29 hotels located in dif-ferent areas in the country.

Hotels under four and five stars category are located in areas such as Old Salata, West Bay, Dafna, Najma, Legtaifiya, The Pearl, the Diplomatic District, Ras Abu Aboud, and others.

The first inspection drive began

on June 14 , included five hotels, and caught violations related to non-com-pliance with health requirements such as hygiene, storage and lack of maintenance of sanitation.

Some other violations were related to setting up a tent and room without seeking a permit from the Ministry, and having expired food, in addition to violations related to handlers. The second inspection drive was on June 15 and included four hotels, among them two were caught for violations related to cleaning cooling fans, and mainte-nance of refrigerators.

Inspectors have also caught some expired cheese in two Hotels in Old Salata, some employees working without health certificates, and the violation was repeated in number of hotels. Majority of violations in the hotels were related to expired food, hygiene, and the need to separate vegetables and fruit from the area where meat and poultry is stored.

Ministries intensify raids on commercial outlets and hotels

Clouds covering skies in West Bay, yesterday. Pic: Baher A / The Peninsula

Cloudy sky

HOME 03 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Sheikh Thani Bin Abdul-lah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF) has collected QR4m in donations through a single call-in radio programme to rescue seven Qatari citizens for defaulting on loan payments.

RAF has contributed QR1m and remaining one was donated by philanthropists in Qatar. The loan amounts of the defaulters ranges between QR100,000 to QR600,000.

A 45-minutes programme ‘Abwab Al Rahma’ (Doors for Mercy) was organised by RAF in collaboration with the Radio for the Holy Quran to collect donations for the campaign on

Sunday night. Famous Islamic Scholar Dr Muhammad Al Awdi and Sheikh Abdullah Al Nima attended the pro-gramme as Chief Guests to encourage citizens and expatriates to support the cause.

The programme was held under a campaign entitled “Khairana Lahl-ina” (our fortunes for our people) launched by RAF to collect dona-tions to repay the loans of defaulting citizens. “RAF is still weighing cam-paign to collect donations to release some more defaulters from jail on urgency basis on social ground”, said

Husain Aman Al Ali, In-Charge of the campaign. A Qatari youth is among them. He is in jail after failing to repay QR400,000 due to loss in business. RAF has included him in the case of urgency as he was only breadwinner for an old widow mother at home. The ill-fatter mother running from pillar to post for the release of her son approached to RAF for help, said Al Ali.

So far, RAF has collected QR100,000 for this case. And it is still needed QR300,000 for repay-ment to help him release from jail for the sake of old mother, said Al Ali.

QR4m raised to free seven loan defaultersRAF has contributed QR1m and remaining was donated by philanthropists in Qatar. The loan amounts of the defaulters ranges between QR100,000 to QR600,000.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Dana Alfardan (pictured), a distinguished Qatari composer and songwriter, was recently recognised at the HIA Airport Stakehold-ers Appreciation Dinner, held at The St Regis Doha, with the announcement that her song, ‘The Beginning’, will be Hamad International Airport’s (HIA) offi-cial theme music. The event, also titled ‘The Beginning’, highlighted HIA’s jour-ney over the years, including its official inauguration as well as the launch of the official music theme.

The music for ‘The Beginning’ was composed by Dana Alfardan, founder of DNA Records, Qatar’s first home grown record label that is based in both Doha and London, with the musical piece performed by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) in front of the iconic Lamp Bear at HIA as well as next to the airport’s runway.

During the event, a special video was also shown with footage of QPO performing ‘The Beginning’ at various locations around HIA. Dana Alfardan has confirmed that through this exclusive partnership with HIA, ‘The Beginning’ will played around the whole airport including its lounges, lifts and the special video will

also be shown on board as part of the in-flight entertain-ment on Qatar Airways flights. Commenting during the event, Dana Alfardan said: “I am beyond privileged and honoured for my song ‘The Beginning’ to be HIA’s theme music, and this is truly a dream come true. As an artist,

it is always rewarding to have your work recognised and I am humbled that my song will now have HIA as its platform. HIA is a symbolic location for Qatar both within Qatar and the region, and I look forward to a lengthy and fruit-ful partnership with them.”

This is an exciting time for both Dana Alfardan and also for her record label, with the debut of her latest album, Sandstorm, a classic cross over album featuring a number of collaborations with other artists including MAias Alya-mani, esteemed solo violinist which is now available on iTunes. Dana’s latest album, Sandstorm, an impressive musi-cal showcase, that was two years in the making, features eleven tracks, all com-posed by Dana herself, and with a wide range of musical influences covering genres including Latino, Baroque and Swing. Standout tracks on the album include Pride of a Nation, a musical trib-ute to Qatar which is a great source of pride for Dana; Layla, Dana Alfardan’s musical ode to her daughter, who she says is her greatest inspiration; will these

songs in particular being key pieces on her latest album.

Dana Alfardan’s The Beginning will be HIA’s official theme song

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has designated 136 mosques for I’tikāf throughout the country.

I’tikaf is an Islamic prac-tice about staying last ten days in Mosques during Holy month of Ramadan, devoting oneself to ibadah (worship of Allah) during these days and staying away from worldly affairs.

I’tikaf will be performed only designated mosques, said a statement. The age of Mutakif (individual performing I’tikaf) should not be less than 15 years. Those below 15 years should be accompanied with their guard-ians. Children below eight years are not allowed to perform I’tikaf.

The Ministry asked those plan-ning to perform I’takaf should maintain personal hygienic, pro-tect the belongings of mosques and avoid disturbing other worshipers.

They were also asked not to hang clothes on walls and pillars of mosques and sleep and eat only at designated places.

Ministry of Awqaf designates 136 mosques for I’tikaf

→ Continued from page 1

The Department carries out periodic and surprise inspections of agencies recruiting domestic workers. The Recruitment Department is responsible for super-vising manpower recruitment agency’s licences, their activities, complaints against them and resolving the issues between agencies and their customers.

The Department urged employers, who have signed contracts with these manpower agencies to ratify the recruitment contract of the domestic workers by Recruitment Department of the Ministry.

Earlier the meeting of committee regulating man-power agencies recommended to establish committee including representatives of the manpower agencies to set up mechanism to help to ease recruitment of domes-tic workers from abroad.

In a meeting with businessmen in a seminar organised recently by Qatar Chamber, Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs H E Dr Issa bin Saad Al Jafali Al Nuaimi said the min-istry has proposed to have an agreement with major labour exporting countries to provide the list of author-ised manpower agencies.

The committee regulating manpower agencies at Qatar Chamber also discussed the possibility of ratify-ing work contract of the worker in their home country to avoid change in contracts.

Domestic workers’ contract

Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF), in collaboration with the Radio for the Holy Quran collected donations for the campaign.

→ Continued from page 1

The Cabinet also approved establishing a committee that coordinates between all parties working in Hamad International Airport. The committee should be chaired by the head of the Civil Aviation Authority and two other members from the parties involved. The committee is charged with coordinating work in the airport to facili-tate aerial transport activities.

The Cabinet approved a draft law on the State Audit Bureau and referred it to the Advisory Council. The bill stipulates that the State Audit Bureau is an independent regulatory authority that has a legal personality, directly follows the Emir, has a budget annexed to that of the Emiri Diwan, and aims to oversee funds of the state as well as other entities under its jurisdiction.

The bill included provisions related to entities under the oversight jurisdiction of the State Audit Bureau, the types of oversight the bureau handles and means of exer-cising them, review reports, investigation into financial irregularities, and the formation of the bureau and its staff system. The Cabinet also discussed a recommen-dation by the Advisory Council on doing business and commerce in Qatar through online stores. The cabinet agreed to refer the recommendation to the specialised authorities to examine it further.

Draft law on State Audit Bureau referred to Advisory Council

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Cabinet under the Prime Minister and Interior Minis-ter H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday took the necessary measures to issue a draft law on civilian honours, after reviewing the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the draft law.

According to provisions of the bill, civilian honours are awarded via an Emiri decision and come in the order of Sword of the Founder Sheikh Jas-sim bin Mohamed bin Thani, Sash of the Father Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and Order of Al Wajba. An Emiri decision shall create other honours and specify their order.

Whoever is awarded a civilian honour receives a patent signed by the Emir and the granting decision

is published in the official gazette. The Emiri Protocol Department at the Emiri Diwan is responsible for all the execu-tive powers related to the preparation of orders, their patents, keeping them and following up on them.

The cabinet also took the neces-sary procedures to issue a draft law on protecting the privacy of personal data, after reviewing the Advisory Council’s recommendation on the draft law.

Cabinet discusses draft law on civilian honours

4 Palestinians

sentenced to

life for murderJERUSALEM: Four Pales-tinians were yesterday handed life sentences for the killing of an Israeli couple as they drove in the West Bank with their children last year, the army said.

“The military court in Samaria handed two life sentences and another 30 years to each of the four members of the Hamas cell that carried out the attack in which Eitam and Naama Henkin were mur-dered in front of their children,” a statement read. The Palestinian assailants were named as Yahya Haj Hamed, Amjad Aliwi, Samir Kusa and Kerem Razek.

Israel to curb

use of Facebook

for ‘terror’JERUSALEM: Israel’s justice and internal secu-rity ministers yesterday announced plans to pro-pose legislation banning the use of Facebook to advance “terror” and out-lawing incitement from the Internet.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Internal Secu-rity Minister Gilad Erdan said in a joint statement they had met earlier in the day with senior Face-book executives who were informed of their intention.

Shaked and Erdan said the legislation would aim to make it illegal to pub-lish “offensive content” such as “encouraging ter-ror attacks, shaming, insulting public officials and slandering”.

US to host Iraq

donors amid

Fallujah crisisWASHINGTON: The United States and key allies will host a donors confer-ence next month to raise funds for Iraqi civilians driven from their homes by fighting.

The announcement came yesterday even as Iraqi forces battled IS fighters to secure control of Fallujah.

The US State Depart-ment, which had already pledged $20m in extra funding for the UNHCR this week, said the con-ference will be held in Washington on July 20.

MIDDLE EAST04 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

AFP

BEIRUT: Warplanes bombed the Islamic State group’s de facto Syr-ian capital Raqa, killing at least 25 civilians, after the jihadists drove pro-government forces out of their bastion in northern province.

Twin offensives aimed at sev-ering the jihadists’ supply line from the Turkish border to Raqa city appear to have largely stalled as IS mounts a fierce defence using sui-cide bombers.

Six children were among the 25 civilians killed in bombing raids on Raqa city on Tuesday, said the Syr-ian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Dozens more were wounded, some of them critically,” said the British-based monitor, adding they were likely carried out by regime

ally Russia. The Syrian government, Russia and a US-led coalition have all carried out air strikes against IS in Raqa. The Observatory said fresh raids, apparently by the coalition, also hit the city Wednesday.

Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) -- an anti-IS activist group which gathers news on atroc-ities in the city -- posted photos of what it said were the aftermath of Tuesday’s strikes.

They show a concrete balcony hanging off the damaged facade of a residential building as a large fire engulfs a white minivan.

The group has accused IS of preventing civilians from leav-ing the city in order to use them as human shields. mRBSS activist Abu Mohammad told AFP that Tues-day’s wounded were struggling to get proper medical treatment as IS has recruited most doctors in the city to treat its own fighters.

Raqa city was seized by IS in early 2014 and regime forces were expelled from the entire prov-ince that year. Backed by Russian warplanes, government forces re-entered the province this month as part of an offensive to retake Tabqa, a key town on IS’s supply route from Turkey to Raqa city.

But after advancing to within seven kilometres (four miles) of

Tabqa airbase, they were driven back late Monday in a jihadist attack that killed 40 loyalists. A tribal militant who had fought alongside govern-ment forces recounted how the army had first been slowed down by mines planted by IS.

“Then Daesh used a huge number

of rockets and other explosives to attack the army,” which was forced to withdraw from its main outposts, he told AFP, using the Arabic acro-nym for IS. Pro-government website Al-Masdar said the IS offensive had led to a “disastrous turn of events” and “a disorganised retreat that left behind

weapons and several soldiers”.Washington-based analyst Fab-

rice Balanche said the pullback could be attributed to a lack of “elite forces” engaged in the battle. “At the first sui-cide attacks, they retreated,” he said. “The Syrian forces were spread too thin to be defendable.”

AFP

CAIRO: Egypt’s government said yes-terday it had lodged an appeal against a court decision to block the contro-versial handover of two uninhabited Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

“The government will present all the documents it has to demonstrate

the integrity and strength of the case it presented to the Supreme Admin-istrative Court which has the right to rule on the case,” the prime min-ister’s office said in a statement. “It will also present a dossier containing documents and maps that will assist in resolving the case.”

The government argues that the islands -- which can be used to

control access to the Israeli port of Eilat -- have always been Saudi terri-tory but were leased to Cairo in 1950 following a request by Riyadh.

It says the deal to transfer them was based on a decree by since-ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Cairo says Mubarak had even informed the United Nations about the matter in 1990.

Reuters

UNITED NATIONS: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday met Saudi Arabia’s pow-erful Deputy Crown Prince, who remarked that he was not angry with the UN chief for briefly blacklisting a Saudi-led coalition for killing chil-dren in Yemen.

Mohammed bin Salman is in New York this week, mainly for meetings with business leaders, after a visit to Washington and the US West Coast.

Earlier this month the Saudis threatened the United Nations with retaliation, including massive fund-ing cuts for Palestinian aid and other programs, if it did not remove the Saudi-led Yemen coalition from a list of countries that maim and kill children during armed conflicts, UN officials said.

Ban then withdrew the Saudis from the list pending a review of cases the UN had analysed, though he publicly criticised the Saudi pres-sure on him.

On his way into the meeting, Sal-man was asked if he was still angry with Ban over the blacklisting.

“I’m not angry,” he said.Salman, who is also the king-

dom’s defence minister, did not answer questions when he left the meeting. It was not clear what was said, though one diplomatic source

said without any detail that the meeting “went well.”

Salman kept Ban waiting for 45 minutes before arriving with his advisers and security detail. Also scheduled to attend the meeting was Leila Zerrougui, the UN special rep-resentative on children and armed conflict who originally decided to blacklist the Saudi-led coalition.

Zerrougui had vehemently opposed Ban’s decision to remove the Saudis from the blacklist, despite Saudi threats that the United Nations could face a fatwa declaring it anti-Muslim, UN diplomatic sources said.

A fatwa is a legal opinion used in Sharia, or Islamic law. In Saudi Ara-bia fatwas can only be issued by the group of top, government-appointed clerics and are sometimes commis-sioned by the ruling family to back up its political positions.

The Saudis have denied pres-suring Ban, though they said the UN report was inaccurate.

The UN report on children and armed conflict said the coalition, which began an air campaign in March 2015 to defeat Iran-allied Houthi rebels, was responsible for killing 510 children and wounding 667, or 60 percent of such deaths and injuries in the conflict last year.

The coalition’s removal from the blacklist prompted angry reactions from human rights groups, which said that Ban, in the final year of his second term, risked harming his leg-acy as UN chief.

GNA fighters taking part in an operation against IS jihadists in the city of Sirte, yesterday. At least 36 unity government troops were killed in clashes with Daesh militants in Sirte.

36 dead in Sirte fight

25 civilians dead in IS stronghold in Syria

Fighters of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) stand inside a building near Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria, yesterday.

Egypt govt appeals on island deal ‘I’m not angry’ with Ban

over remarks: Saudi

Deputy Crown Prince

Six children were among the 25 civilians killed in bombing raids on Raqa city.

MIDEAST 05THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

AFP

BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces hunted jihadist fighters in their last Fallujah redoubts yesterday as tens of thou-sands of displaced civilians massed in overcrowded camps around the city.

A month exactly after the offen-sive against the Islamic State group’s bastion was launched, progress on the military front exceeded expec-tations but so did the scope of the ensuing humanitarian crisis.

“The northern and central parts of Fallujah have almost been cleared of Daesh,” Lieutenant General Abdul-wahab Al Saadi said.

“There are few IS fighters left, only in the Al-Muallemin and Jolan neighbourhoods in the north of the city,” said Saadi, the overall com-mander of the Fallujah offensive.

“The militants in Jolan are offer-ing some resistance but we’re pushing back and we’ve killed a number of them,” he said. Operations against IS in northern Fallujah were being con-ducted by the elite counter-terrorism service and forces from the federal and provincial police.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi launched the offensive against the jihadist stronghold, 50km west of

Displaced Iraqis from the Fallujah area rest in the shade at a camp near Amiriyiah in Fallujah yesterday.

Fallujah nearly cleared but aid effort flounders

Baghdad, a month ago. After an initial phase of staging operations to encircle Fallujah, elite federal forces stormed the city centre and were able to gain the upper hand relatively quickly.

Abadi declared victory on June 17, saying only small pockets of IS fight-ers remained after Iraqi forces raised the national flag over the main gov-ernment compound in the city centre.

Saadi and other Iraqi command-ers have said government forces controlled at least three-quarters of the city. Christopher Garver, the spokesman of the US-led coalition assisting Iraqi forces, said Tuesday that by the US military’s definition, only a third of the city had been cleared. US forces battling one of IS’s previous incarnations in 2004 suf-fered some of their worst losses since

the Vietnam War in Fallujah, despite huge numerical and technological superiority.

Iraqi forces who have been recon-quering swathes of territory lost to IS two years ago had been expected to face their toughest battle yet and IS fighters to defend their emblematic bastion to the death.

After breaching the jihadists’ defences in the south of the city, Iraqi forces moved relatively rapidly and despite persistent violence in north-ern neighbourhoods the outcome of the battle appears in no doubt.

Tens of thousands of starving civilians, who had been living vir-tually besieged under IS rule in and around Fallujah, fled their homes and filled hastily expanded displacement camps.

The northern and central parts of Fallujah have almost been cleared of Daesh. There are few IS fighters left, only in the Al Muallemin and Jolan areas: Al Saadi

THURSDAY 23 JUNE 201606

RamadanRamadanThoughts Thoughts

BY Sheikh Salman Al Oadah

T here is great wisdom in why fast-ing has been prescribed for us. We might only be able to appreciate a fraction of this wisdom, the rest of

it being beyond the scope of our knowledge.

Fasting strengthens our devotion to Allah Fasting brings to fore the reality of our

subservience to Allah and it helps in our submission to Him. This is why fasting has been made one of the pillars of Islam, so that Islam itself is incomplete without it. Fasting conditions the worshipper upon obedience and upon carrying out his reli-

gious duties. It also reminds him that he is the servant of Allah Almighty and of no one else.

We see that Allah orders His servants to eat at certain times, so that if they were to fast at those times, they would be sin-ning. This is the case for the two `Id celebrations. This is also the case for some-one who fasts c o n s e c u t i v e days without breaking his fast at night. At other times, by contrast, the w o r s h i p p e r s are ordered to fast, so that if they were to eat at those times, they would be

sinning. We see the same thing when a pilgrim

enters into the sacred state of ihrâm. While he is in that state, he is prohibited from certain things that he is commanded to do at other times. In this and many other ways, the worshipper continually reminds himself that he is the servant of Allah who complies with his Lord’s command and who keeps to the limits set by his Lord.

This is a concept of great significance

that if people would only realize it in their worship, their devotions would then have a far greater impact upon them. The state of a believer should be that of a dutiful sen-tinel standing at attention, whose hand is ever poised to action and who is ready to advance and go forth whenever he is com-manded to do so. The importance of our worshipping Allah is one of the greatest objectives behind our fasting and behind all of our acts of devotion. Unfortunately, many Muslims fall short in their apprecia-tion of this fact. Though they adhere to the performance of these acts of worship, their devotions are bereft of spiritual meaning and consequently fail to have the desired effect of bringing about true devotion and subservience to Allah.

Fasting strengthens our fear of Allah and gives us self restraint

Fasting conditions us upon the fear of Allah. This is why Allah says: “O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard against evil.” [Sûrah Al Baqarah: 183]

When a person fasts, whether it be a voluntary fast or an obligatory one, he is constantly reminding himself not to eat or

drink This is in spite of the fact that eating and drinking

are perfectly lawful for him at other times. He abstains from these otherwise lawful acts on account of Allah’s promise, in hopes of attaining Allah’s reward. It naturally fol-lows that he will abstain from sin, from those acts that are prohibited to him at all times. A Muslim needs to understand that this is the whole idea behind fasting. How can a person abstain from food and drink – though they are lawful to him at other times – and then go on to backbite people, spread rumours, tell lies, and engage in all sorts of other sins?

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Whoever does not leave off false speech and evil deeds, then Allah has no need of his leaving off his food and drink.” [Sahîh Al Bukhârî (1903)]

We know that Allah has no need for us to leave off eating and drinking in any case, even when we abstain from false words and false deeds. What this means is that fasting has not been prescribed because Allah needs us to do so, it has only been prescribed to assist us in restraining our-selves from false words and evil deeds. Therefore, if we do not abandon these things, then to what avail is our fasting?

If fasting does not awaken in us this consciousness, then it is to no purpose. We must work to cultivate this conscious-ness. Fasting needs to bring us to the point where we can easily give up sinful deeds like backbiting, spreading rumors, slander,

licentiousness, and all ignoble, destruc-tive traits.

Fasting builds character Another benefit of fasting is that it

develops our character by strengthening our willpower and bolstering our patience. This is why fasting is sometimes referred to as patience and Ramadan is sometimes called “the month of patience”.

Allah says: “Seek help in patience and in prayer.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 45]

Some commentators of the Qur’ân have said: “The word ‘patience’ here refers to fasting. It means ‘Seek help in fasting and prayer’.”

This is because fasting forces us to exercise our willpower and practice patience. Many of us need to constantly exercise our willpower to keep it strong.

There is a psychological benefit in operation here. Researchers into the causes of success say that success requires three ingredients:

1. Desire: All people wish to be strong, successful, and financially well of. Desires like these exist for everyone.

2. Strength or ability: Most people have the mental and physical wherewithal and the skills that they need to succeed if they properly put their minds to it.

3. Willpower: Strong willpower is one of the greatest reasons for success in both this world and the next. Fasting strengthens

the will and conditions a person to cope with difficulties in all aspects of his life. It helps to develop the very quality that only successful people possess, the quality of those people who can turn their desires into a reality by using skills and abilities that they have.

Fasting puts our passions and our vain desires in check

This is why the Prophet gave the fol-lowing advice: “O assembly of young people, whosoever among you has the wherewithal to marry should do so, as it will help him to lower his gaze and safe-guard his chastity. And whoever is unable to do so should fast, because it diminishes sexual desire.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (5066) and Sahîh Muslim (1400)]

The Prophet (peace be upon him) points out that fasting withholds a person from responding to his passions.

Some scholars have discussed this hadîth in conjunction with another, where the Prophet (peace be upon him) says: “Indeed, Satan circulates through the descendant of Adam as blood circulates through the body.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (2039) and Sahîh Muslim (2174)]

Even though the phrase “…so restrict his circulatory paths by fasting” that is sometimes quoted along with this hadîth is baseless, the fact remains that fasting does put our passions in check, and it is quite possible that one way in which it does so is by restricting Satan’s ability to circu-late within our persons, as stated by some scholars. What is more likely is that fasting keeps our compulsions in check by keep-ing us involved in a specific act of worship. This continuous connection with an act of worship helps us to refrain from unlawful acts, including those acts, like the forbid-den gaze, that incite our desires.

Fasting provides numerous and varied spiritual and physical benefits

Doctors have discussed the health ben-efits of fasting and how it can help us in learning to manage our diets. At times, doctors even prescribe fasting for vari-ous reasons. Without a doubt, these are at most secondary benefits of fasting. The same can be said for the physical benefits of prayer, pilgrimage, and other aspects of formal worship. Still, the real reason that a Muslim does any of these things is for the sake of worshipping and obeying Allah. He would do so even if there were no health benefits. Indeed, were it proven to be injurious to his health, he would still do so. However, Allah never commands us to do anything that would harm us in the least except when the benefits of doing so far outweigh the harm.

The wisdom and benefits of fasting

How can a person abstain from food and drink – though they are lawful to him at other times – and then go on to backbite people, spread rumours, tell lies, and en-gage in all sorts of other sins?

What the Prophet said

“The best of those

among you is the one who learns the Quran and then teaches it to others.”

“Nothing is harder for

Satan to bear than a person who recites the Quran.”

“The most honour-

able and noble from among my Ummah are the memorisers of the Holy Quran and those who stay awake for worshipping.

ASIA / PHILIPPINES 07THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

China uses fishing militia to expand sea claims: US

AFP

MANILA: China is using its fishing fleets with armed escorts to bolster maritime claims in disputed territory, a senior US State Department official warned yesterday, calling China’s behaviour “disturbing”.

The comments came after Indo-nesian warships fired warning shots and detained a Chinese-flagged fish-ing boat and seven crew near the

Natuna Islands in the South China Sea last week, in actions slammed by Beijing.

“I think it’s a disturbing trend to see Chinese fishing vessels accompa-nied by coast guard vessels, used in a way that appears to be an attempt to exert a claim that may not be legiti-mate,” said the US official.

“I do think that it does point to an expanding presence of Chinese -- sort of military and paramilitary forces -- and used in a way that is provocative and potentially destabilising,” the US official added.

Unlike several other countries in the region, Indonesia has no over-lapping claims with China to islets or reefs in the sea, but Beijing’s claim to fishing rights near the Natunas appears to overlap with Jakarta’s exclusive economic zone.

Last week’s incident was only the latest in a series of skirmishes

between the two countries since Jakarta launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2014.

In March, Chinese coastguards rammed a Chinese boat detained near the Natunas and helped it escape as the Indonesians towed the vessel to shore.

And last month, the Indonesian navy opened fire on a Chinese trawler near the islands and seized the vessel.

Following last week’s con-frontation, the commander of the Indonesian navy’s western fleet said the fishing vessel incursions were “structured”, indicating Beijing had “given its blessing”.

“China protested because it thinks this area is theirs,” commander Ach-mad Taufiqoerrochman said.

China has undertaken land-rec-lamation works in the Spratly Islands, one of the South China Sea’s main archipelagoes which are also claimed

by the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan.

The US State Department official said Washington hoped a pending ruling by a United Nations-backed tri-bunal on South China Sea maritime

entitlements will push rival claimants into talks.

The case was lodged by the Phil-ippines against China in 2013 to challenge Beijing’s “nine-dash line” map through which it claims to

control nearly all of the strategic and reputedly resources-rich waters.

“It is in China’s interest not to take any action that would be provocative and directly in contradiction to the ruling,” the US official said.

A crew member of a reef-fishing vessel walking along the bow as it is achored at the port of Masinloc in Zambales province, after fishing near the Scarborough Shoal.

29 rescued from trafficking in MalaysiaAFP

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police have rescued 29 Filipinas who had been trafficked into work in bars, the Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur said yesterday.

The women were rescued from two bars in the town of Bintulu in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on June 9 after the embassy brought reports of trafficked women to Malaysian police, a statement by the embassy said.

Also arrested during the raid were three Filipinos who served as

agents and caretakers of the women, it said.

It gave no further details on the case of the 29 women.

But it said some individuals and agencies were allegedly offering work in Malaysia to people who enter as tourists, promising to convert them to employment visas in exchange for payment.

“The embassy reminds Filipinos to be vigilant and not to deal with unlicensed individuals or purported placement agencies, especially online, as they could end up being trafficked,” it said.

Malaysia’s relatively developed

economy is a magnet for migrants -- many of them illegal -- from around Southeast Asia, including large num-bers of Filipinos.

Human trafficking generated an estimated $7 billion to $9.5 billion per annum as of 2004.

Human trafficking is thought to be one of the fastest-growing activ-ities of trans-national criminal organisations.

It is condemned as a violation of human rights by international conventions.

In addition, human trafficking is subject to a directive in the Euro-pean Union.

AFP

SYDNEY: Australia has intercepted a boat of Vietnamese asylum-seek-ers, officials said yesterday, as the government accused people-smug-glers of using the upcoming election to drum up new business.

Rhetoric around Canberra’s con-troversial immigration policy has ramped up ahead of July 2 polls, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has denounced a Labour opposition pledge to allow illegal migrants already in Australia to stay permanently.

The Vietnamese boat was dis-covered north of Australia this month, with the 21 men, women and children on baoard processed at sea and then flown home, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said.

“They claimed that they were wanting protection. It was found that they weren’t owed protection and they were returned back to Viet-nam,” he said.

Under Canberra’s tough meas-ures, asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia by boat are either sent back to where they departed or to remote Pacific island camps, where living conditions have been criticised.

While Labour backs the policy of turning back illegal boat arrivals, it

has said it would permanently set-tle the bulk of the 30,000 boatpeople who came ashore under the previous Labour governments of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, most of which are still waiting to be processed.

“This will send an absolutely unequivocal signal to the people-smugglers that under a Labour government, anyone who manages to get to Australia on a boat will be able to stay here permanently,” Turn-bull said.

“The people-smugglers are starting to market again and we know... they are marketing that there will be, or could be, a change of gov-ernment in Australia and the way the opportunities to smuggle peo-ple to Australia will be open again.”

Since the start of its “Operation Sovereign Borders” in September 2013, the government has managed to halt the flood of boat arrivals, and drownings, that characterised previ-ous Labour administrations.

Turnbull said since the con-servatives came to power, 28 boats carrying 734 people have been turned back with no successful arrival in almost 700 days.

Australia is the only country in the world to mandate the strict enforcement of the detention of asylum-seekers.

Australia sends back Vietnamese migrants

Giant panda gives birth to twins in China

AFP

BEIJING: A giant panda in China has given birth to two cubs, conservation authori-ties said, the first twins of the critically endangered species this year even though multi-ple births are common.

Six-year-old Ya Li had the twin sisters last month at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in the southwestern province of Sichuan, it said in a statement.

They weighed 144 grammes and 113 grammes each, said the statement on Monday. Ya Li was a twin herself, it added. China had 1,864 giant pandas in the wild, mainly in Sichuan, by the end of 2013, accord-ing to a government survey released last year.

The country had 422 giant pandas in captivity at the end of 2015 and aims to bring the number up to 500 by 2020 in order to ensure sufficient genetic diversity among captive pandas, the official Xinhua news agency reported in January. Giant pandas have notoriously low libidos, frustrating efforts to boost their numbers.

Hong Kong activist

denies chance to

stand for electionAFP

HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong denied yesterday the chance to stand for election after a court threw out his bid to lower the can-didate age limit from 21, as fears mount over China’s influence on the city.

The 19-year-old, who became the face of Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Movement” for his role in the 2014 pro-democracy protests which brought parts of the city to a stand-still, had expressed interest in running for office amid concerns Beijing is tightening its grip.

Residents of the semi-autono-mous city can vote from the age of 18, but can only stand for election from 21 -- something that Wong has said is unconstitutional.

A Hong Kong court yesterday said the issue should be dealt with by lawmakers. “What should be the proper choice of the minimum age of candidature is obviously a matter of political judgment for the legislature, but not one for the court to make in the name of remedial interpretation,” Judge Thomas Au said in his judgement.

Wong was acquitted earlier this month in another protest-related case.

Beijing employed its fishermen to help in securing its territorial waters in the South China Sea.

ASIA / AFRICA08 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

North Korea missile launch ‘a serious threat’

Reuters

SEOUL: North Korea launched what appeared to be an interme-diate-range missile yesterday to a high altitude in the direction of Japan before it plunged into the sea, mil-itary officials said, a technological advance for the isolated state after several test failures.

The launch came about two hours after a similar test failed, South Korea’s military said, and covered 400km, more than halfway towards the southwest coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu.

The launches and earlier nuclear tests show continued defiance of international warnings and a series of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions, which North Korea rejects as an infringement of its sovereignty.

Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said the second missile reached an altitude of 1,000km, indicating North Korea had made progress.

“We don’t know whether it counts as a success, but North Korea has shown some capability with IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic mis-siles),” he said. “The threat to Japan is intensifying.”

Reclusive North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 con-flict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy the Japan, South Korea and the South’s main ally, the US. South Korean President Park Geun-hye denounced the test.

“The North Korean regime must realise that complete isolation and self-destruction await at the end of reckless provocation,” she said.

Nato Secretary General Jens

Stoltenberg also decried North Korea’s “provocative actions”.

“I strongly condemn the launch by North Korea of two ballistic mis-siles,” Stoltenberg said in a statement.

“These repeated provocative actions ... undermine international security and dialogue,” he said, calling for North Korea to “fully comply with its obligations under international law, not to threaten with or conduct any launches using ballistic missile tech-nology and to refrain from any further provocative actions”.

The first missile was launched from the east coast city of Wonsan, a South Korean official said, the same area where previous tests of interme-diate-range missiles were conducted, possibly using mobile launchers.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, quoting a government official, said the first missile dis-integrated mid-air after a flight of about 150km. Yesterday’s first launch was the fifth straight unsuccessful attempt in the past two months to launch a missile that is designed to fly more than 3,000km and could theo-retically reach any part of Japan and the US territory of Guam.

Reuters

KINSHASA: Democratic Republic of Congo has almost run out of yellow fever vaccine in Kinshasa, in the same week that the government declared an epidemic of the disease in the packed capital and two other provinces. Some local people have complained they were denied immunisa-tion due to the shortage, despite queueing for a shot.

More supplies have been promised, but health officials in the impoverished coun-try say they have to choose between the high cost of flying them in, or a long wait for shipment by sea.

The mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people which has poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stag-nant water where they can breed owing to pour drainage.

Health minister Felix Kabange said on Monday that 67 cases had been confirmed in Kinshasa, Kongo Central and Kwango provinces and that over 1,000 more sus-pected cases are being monitored. Five people have died from the disease.

The government and international health organisations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them

in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4.But there is no more vaccine left,

aside from a small number of doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa’s central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighbouring Congo Republic, health officials said.

The agency is charging $35 for the doses it administers, a hefty sum in a country whose gross national income per person is estimated by the World Bank at $380 a year.

Eugene Kabambi, the World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman in Congo, said that the International Coordinating Group on vaccine provision has promised Congo more than a million more doses.

“That requires either a cargo flight, in which case it would come very quickly but cost a lot, or if it’s by boat, it could take a few weeks,” he said.

The Coordinating Group brings together the WHO and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with the Inter-national Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies plus the medical char-ity Médecins sans Frontières.

The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunise people in Angola,

Almost 18 million doses have been distributed for emergency vaccination campaigns in the three African countries.

AFP

JOHANNESBURG: Two people have been killed and more than 40 arrested in pre-election vio-lence in townships around South Africa’s capital Pretoria, police said yesterday.

Police spokeswoman Nox-olo Kweza said two people were killed on Tuesday night after shops were looted in Mamelodi township in the wake of internal ANC pro-tests linked to upcoming municipal elections.

Factional violence broke out late Monday over the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s choice of a mayoral candidate in Pretoria for the hotly-contested vote on August 3.

“We have arrested more than 40 people since yesterday and this morning for different crimes related to the protests,” Kweza said adding that peace had been restored yesterday morning.

No details were released on how the two victims died. Police said those arrested had been charged with violence, theft and possession of stolen property.

At least 20 buses were torched in Mamelodi on Monday dur-ing protests sparked by the ANC’s choice of Thoko Didiza as mayoral candidate.

Didiza, a former minister under the late president Nelson Mandela, was nominated by the ANC amid deep local divisions over the pro-posed candidates for Tshwane mayor, the municipality that includes Pretoria.

Some protesters complained that although she lives in Pretoria

she is an outsider as she hails from Durban, a port city in the east of the country.

Senior ANC figures condemned the violence, with party secretary general Gwede Mantashe blam-ing the destruction of property on “thuggery”.

Several deaths attributed to tension between rival factions within the ANC have been reported around the country in the run-up to the August elections.

The party, which led the strug-gle against apartheid and has ruled since 1994, could be dealt an electoral blow due to record

unemployment and the dire con-ditions in which many black people still live.

“While the ANC is still popular in rural communities... the party has lost significant support in the largest cities,” Robert Besseling, of risk advisers EXX Africa, said in an email.

“Socio-economic grievances will intensify ongoing political unrest.”

South Africa has been dubbed “the protest capital of the world”, with one of the highest rates of public protests in the world.

It is often argued that the

rate of protests has been escalat-ing since 2004, However, Steven Friedman argues that the current wave of protests stretches back to the 1970s.

The rate of protests “rose dra-matically in the first eight months of 2012” and it was reported that there 540 protests in the province of Gauteng between 1 April and 10 May 2013.

In February 2014 it was reported that there had been “nearly 3,000 protest actions in the last 90 days – more than 30 a day– involving more than a mil-lion people”.

A television screen broadcasts news coverage of a North Korean rocket launch, at Seoul station, yesterday.

Nato official condemns the provocative action of Pyongyang, which undermine international security and dialogue.

Yellow fever vaccine shortage

as outbreak spreads in CongoTwo die in S Africa pre-election unrest

People from Mamelodi scavenge parts from the charred remains of a bus that was burnt during the 3-day long protest in Mamelodi yesterday.

Two tankers

crash in Lagos

amid rains

AFP

LAGOS: Motorists were stranded for hours on a main highway linking Nigeria’s economic hub, Lagos, with the rest of the country yesterday after two petrol tankers crashed dur-ing heavy rains.

The busy dual car-riageway between the southwestern city and the capital of Oyo state, Ibadan, 130km away, was blocked both ways at Mowe, on the outskirts of Lagos. “The tankers and three cars were burnt following the incident,” Abiodun Baba-tunde, of the Ogun State Fire Service said.

“There is no movement of vehicles coming in and going out of Lagos at the moment,” he said.

PAKISTAN 09THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

Popular Sufi singer shot dead in Karachi

AFP

KARACHI: One of Pakistan’s best known Sufi musicians was shot dead by unknown assailants riding a motorcycle in Karachi yesterday, triggering an outpouring of grief over what police described as an “act of terror”.

Amjad Sabri, aged around 45, was travelling by car from his home in the city’s eastern Korangi area to a television studio, when a motorcy-cle pulled up alongside the vehicle and the attackers opened fire, Farooq

Sanjarani, a police officer said.Sabri was hit by five bullets and

was declared dead at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital while a companion, named as a relative, Saleem Sabri, was in critical condition, a hospital source added.

“It was a targeted killing and an act of terrorism,” Muqaddas Haider, a senior police officer said, without naming possible suspects.

Grisly mobile phone footage of the scene of the crime shot by an onlooker showed the singer’s head slumped on his right shoulder and a pool of blood on the ground by the driver’s side where he sat.

Sabri was a ‘Qawwal’, or singer of ‘Qawwali’, which is a traditional form of Islamic devotional music that is popular across South Asia with roots tracing back to the 13th century.

The music is closely associated with Sufism, a mystical sect of Islam that is viewed as heretical by hardline groups such as the Taliban.

The Taliban and other Islamist

groups have carried out major attacks on Sufi mosques and shrines in recent years, including the 2010 bombing of the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore that killed more than 40 people.

Sabri, the son of another legen-dary Qawwali singer, Ghulam Farid Sabri who died in 1994, was a fixture on national television and regularly performed on a morning show during the ongoing Holy Month of Ramadan.

In May 2014 he was asked by a court to respond to blasphemy charges following the broadcast of a controversial song-and-dance rou-tine that was set to a Qawwali piece about the wedding of the Prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH) daughter to his cousin.

His killing was met with shock and condemnation. Neighbours con-gregated outside the singer’s home to offer condolences to his relatives, while TV channels broadcast record-ings of his music in tribute.

Karachi is frequently hit by reli-gious, political and ethnic violence.

Pakistani security officials gather around the bullet-riddled car of Sufi musician Amjad Sabri who was killed in an attack by unknown gunmen in Karachi yesterday.

Girls grab top positions in Peshawar secondary examInternews

PESHAWAR: Girl students of different private schools have clinched the top three positions in the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) annual examinations of the Board of Intermediate and Second-ary Education, in Pakistan’s northwest district of Peshawar.

The results were announced yes-terday at the board offices. All the top three position holders are from the sci-ence group. The top 10 positions were achieved by 14 students, among them only one boy.

Ali Shah GulalaiAmjad, a student of Frontier Youth Academy, Hayatabad, Peshawar, got the first position with 1,042 marks out of the total 1,100. Two students of the Peshawar Model School, Charsadda, Aleeza Gul and Maria Maq-sood stood second and third by securing 1,039 and 1,038 marks, respectively.

The humanities group was topped by Abdul Basit, a student of Usmania Children Academy, NauthiaJadeed, Peshawar, with 952 marks.

Nadia Khan, a student of Agriculture University Public School and College, Peshawar, who got 938 marks was declared second. MahnoorKhurshid of

Forward Public School (Girls), Hayata-bad, secured 936 marks to grab third position.

A total of 70,339 students appeared at the examinations, of which 56,247 were declared successful with a pass percentage of 79.97 per cent.

The results were declared at a cere-mony at the BISE, Peshawar, which was attended by the position holders and their relatives. Board chairman Moham-mad Shafi Afridi was the chief guest.

Shafi Afridi said on the occasion that several reforms had been introduced in the examination system and checking of papers during the last few years. He said that efforts were afoot to introduce the best examination system to minimise chances of cheating.

He said that the Peshawar board had started multiple choice questions check-ing through optical marks recognition machines, which would help in early declaration of results.

In Bannu, the students of science group of different private schools clinched top three positions in the annual SSC examinations as the BISE, Bannu, announced the results yesterday .

Mohammad Ibrar, a student of Faiz Model High School, LakkiMarwat, got the first position with 1,036 marks.

AFP

KANDAHAR: The Taliban have released more than two dozen hostages pulled from their vehicles on a highway in southern Afghanistan, officials said yesterday, a day after they were abducted by the militants.

The passengers were kidnapped in Washer district of volatile Helmand province as they were travelling on a bus and two trucks from southern Kandahar to western Herat province on Tuesday.

“There were 25 people taken by Taliban, all of them are released and will be sent to their homes,” Aqa Noor Kentoz police chief of Helmand told AFP.

“The five last hostages were released this morning after tribal elders intervened,” he said.

The majority of the hostages had been released Tues-day evening, Omar Zwak, spokesman for the governor of Helmand, told AFP earlier, with an army statement saying they were freed in an operation in Marja district.

But the Taliban denied the claim, with spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi telling AFP they decided to free the hostages after they were found to be “innocent”.

The insurgents had earlier said they were targeting Afghan government officials aboard the vehicles.

Afghanistan risks spike in violence: UNReuters

KABUL: Afghanistan faces the risk of a new spi-ral in violence following a series of attacks on civilians in the last few months but on the bat-tlefield, security forces have been holding their ground, the top UN official in the country said.

The assessment by Nicholas Haysom, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, painted a mixed picture of the secu-rity situation some 18 months after international forces ended their main combat operations.

While the bomb attacks that killed at least 22 people in Kabul and the northern province of Badakhshan on Monday underlined how danger-ous Afghanistan remains, fears that the Taliban would overwhelm security forces have not been realised.

However, Haysom said he was deeply con-cerned about violence against civilians, with attacks continuing during Ramadan.

As well as suicide attacks on targets rang-ing from government officials and members of the judicial system to foreign security contrac-tors, at least 200 people have been abducted on highways since the end of May.

“There is a risk, in my view, that the conflict may enter a new phase, which could see retalia-tory acts of vengeance and an escalating spiral of violence,” said Haysom, who is stepping down from his post after four years in Afghanistan.

He also pointed to progress in several areas, including public finances, as well as the launch

of potentially vital strategic infrastructure projects and said political stability was vital for the progress to continue.

The Taliban, whose former leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a US drone strike last month, control more territory than at any time since they were ousted in 2001, including

large areas of the strategic southern province of Helmand.

But they have not so far been able to take control of a province or major provincial centre and Afghan security forces, which faced severe pressure and heavy casualties last year, appear to have strengthened their performance.

Killing described as act of terror by police likely for religious reasons.

Nepalese relatives of 12 victims of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul grieve over their coffins in Kathmandu yesterday. The Nepali security guards were among 25 people killed in bombings across Afghanistan Monday.

Taliban free abducted bus passengers

Two dead in bomb explosionAP

KABUL: An Afghan official says a roadside bombing in the country’s east has killed a traffic policeman and a civilian.

Deputy police chief of Nangarhar province, Abass Sadat, says the explosion took place in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, yesterday. He says the explosion also wounded two civilians. Sadat also says that the bomb was likely detonated by remote control and that it went off near a police checkpoint.

VIEWS10 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch is another brazen and provocative act by the reclusive communist state that should not go unpunished. Pyongyang launched an intermediate-range missile yesterday to a high altitude in the direction of Japan

before it plunged into the sea about two hours after a similar test failed. The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the test a “brazen and irresponsible act’. “The continued pursuit by the DPRK of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles will only undermine its security and fail to improve the lives of its citizens,” Ban’s spokesman said. The US too condemned the action. A White House spokesman said ‘the impact of these provocations will be to strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Korea’s behaviour’. A Security Council meeting is likely to discuss the issue after the US and Japan requested a meeting.

There is no doubt that the missile launch will ratchet up tension in a region that is already tense. But despite the condemnations from

neighbours and the world powers, North Korea will prove too tough a truant to be disciplined. The impoverished country has been under UN sanctions since 2006. In March, the Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country after a string of provocative nuclear and missile tests. A country that is living in isolation and has scant regard for international laws is unlikely to be disturbed by more sanctions. And that leaves the international community, especially the UN, groping in the dark and with little options to make Kim Jong-un see reason.

The latest tests show that North Korea’s missile programme could be advancing, a fact acknowledged by the US, despite previous doubts that the government in Pyongyang could be exaggerating about its nuclear capabilities. According to a US intelligence official, the last missile flew 250 miles or roughly a third of the way between North Korea and Japan. That’s a dangerous level of success, and the regime could try more until it achieves its targets. Pyongyang started a string of demonstrations of its military might in January with its fourth nuclear test and included the launch of a long-range rocket in February.

Since sanctions have failed to produce the desired results, the UN and the international community will have to devise a new strategy to address North Korean threats. Kim Jong-un is investing heavily in nuclear programmes, which he finds as the best solution to silence his enemies. China, which is Pyongyang’s strongest ally, has been cooperative in addressing Pyongyang’s nuclear threat, but at the same time has been reluctant to antagonize the regime of Kim Jong-un. Beijing needs to take a tougher stance on its neighbour.

Pyongyang’s provocation

The international community will have to come up with a new strategy as North Korea tests another ballistic missile.

Quote of the day

There would be no re-negotiation of a package of measures that EU governments agreed with London in February aimed at keeping Britain in the 28-nation bloc.

Jean-Claude Juncker European Commission President

E S TA B L I S H E D I N 1996

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When Israel joined the United Nations on 11 May 1949 its membership was

conditional on it fulfilling several requirements. Apart from being obliged to abide by the UN Charter, it had to declare its borders publicly and allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. Sixty-seven years on, none of these obligations has been carried out. Despite such glaring and ongoing contempt for the international community wor-thy of the rogue state that it has become, the UN has succumbed to pressure from the Western Euro-pean and Others Group (WEOG) and elected Israel to chair one of its six permanent committees.

As predicted, the move has pro-voked widespread criticism, not only from the Palestinian Authority but also from international non-governmental organisations, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooper-ation. Israel’s election to chair the UN’s legal committee, they argue, is an affront to the rule of law and a scandalous perversion of the world body’s founding principles.

In London, a statement from the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK insisted that such condemnation was justified because Israel remains, after sev-eral decades, the illegal occupier of Palestinian and Arab lands and commits heinous crimes regularly, including the extra-judicial killing of Palestinians in the occupied ter-ritories and possibly war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not only that, but Israel also arrests Pales-tinians arbitrarily; constructs illegal settlements on occupied territory; engages in land theft; displaces the Palestinians forcibly; and refuses to allow the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-deter-mination despite repeated calls from the UN Special Political and Decolonisation Committee.

Though largely symbolic, the election of Israel to the UN legal

committee will raise its pro-file within the organisation and allow it to influence decisions on issues relating to international law. Danny Danon, the country’s UN ambassador, was understandably elated after the election and had the audacity to claim that, “Israel is a world leader in international law and in fighting terrorism.”

Without the support of the regional Western European and Others Group (WEOG) Israel’s can-didacy to chair the legal committee stood very little chance of succeed-ing. In recent years, the EU and a number of its member countries acting individually have attempted, under the guise of combatting anti-Semitism, to censure debate and criticism of Israel. It now remains to be seen whether Israel will use its chairmanship of the UN’s legal committee to promote similar rules aimed at suppressing international criticism and censure of its illegal policies and practices.

While Israeli officials have never attached any significance to the scores of UN resolutions that condemn its actions, they have never concealed their fear of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Its success in the West has led countries like France and Britain to criminal-ise calls for the boycott of Israel. In October last year, France’s highest court of appeal upheld the con-viction of 12 Palestinian solidarity activists for calling for the boycott of Israeli goods.

In Britain, the pro-Israel Con-servative government recently unveiled plans to ban local coun-cils, public bodies and even some university student unions from boy-cotting companies that operate in Israel’s illegal colony-settlements. A spokesman for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn described

the government’s decision as an “attack on local democracy.”

With its privileged chairman-ship of the UN’s legal committee, Israel now has an opportunity to deal once and for all with yet another long standing concern; its so-called “delegitimisation” by pro-Palestine campaigners. The central pillar of this strategy is to delegit-imise in turn those who dare to criticise its policies. Hence, from now on we can expect no short-age of debates on how to sanitise the occupation, redefine Zionism and make any and every criticism of Israel an act of “anti-Semitism”.

If the UN allows itself to be hijacked for these purposes it might as well bid farewell to whatever credibility and respect it has left

within the international commu-nity. That Israel should be elected to monitor the application of inter-national law is as preposterous as appointing a career criminal to guard the crown jewels. Under no circumstances can the UN expect the rule of humanitarian law to apply in Palestine when Israel does not acknowledge that its occupation is illegal, and recognise the relevance of the Geneva Convention over the occupied Palestinian territories.

In the circumstances, no one should blame the Israelis for rel-ishing what is clearly a diplomatic triumph. Not since it was admitted to the UN in 1949 has it ever headed any of the six permanent commit-tees of the world body. Likewise, no one should blame the Palestinians, the victims of Israeli occupation, for losing trust in the UN. After all, Israel was, and will always remain a creation of the United Nations, created as it was by UN resolution 181 in the first place.

More than anything else, this week’s election of Israel to head the UN’s legal committee has under-lined the futility of relying entirely on the organisation and its agencies. It is, in addition, a stark reminder of the need to preserve the gains secured by direct civil action such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanc-tions. Yes, it may take time to gather momentum, but rest assured that when it does, BDS will be a force that is irreversible and unstop-pable. Israel knows that to be the case, which is why it is expending so much time, energy and resources on trying to block the global move-ment. It may have a fig leaf of UN respectability now, but it still fears the peaceful BDS campaign more than anything else in the world.

The writer is the Director of Mid-dle East Monitor (Memo).

Israel may have a fig leaf of UN

respectability but it still fears BDS

By Dr Daud Abdullah

Without the support of the regional Western European and Others Group (WEOG) Israel’s candidacy to chair the legal committee stood very little chance of succeeding. In recent years, the EU and a number of its member countries acting individually have attempted, under the guise of combatting anti-Semitism, to censure debate and criticism of Israel.

A file photo shows a banner during protest near Karmi Tzor Israeli settlement.

OPINION 11THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

How fake democracies damage real ones

By Brian Klaas

The Washington Post

In 1991, Madagascar - a large island off the coast of southeast Africa known more for its lovable lemurs than the fate of its 27 million deeply impoverished

people - held its first multi-party elections. The way it came to do so was somewhat unusual: a brash general effectively kid-napped the country’s leading politicians, locked them in the Panorama Hotel, and proclaimed that they could leave only after they agreed to allow political competition. Two days later, the Panorama Convention was signed. The elections took place as planned - and what’s more, the incum-bent lost and left power. It seemed like a new dawn for a country that had suffered for decades under the rule of a failed mil-itary strongman.

Shortly thereafter, Madagascar was duly declared a full-fledged democracy - receiving the same score as France - in an index that many political scientists con-sider to be the most accurate yardstick of regimes. Politicians, diplomats, and scholars all welcomed the country into the democratic world. In 2006, the Ameri-can ambassador to the island declared that Washington believed that “Madagascar deserves its position among the community of democracies in the world.” Indeed, even in 2014 and 2015, in the wake of seriously flawed elections, the U.S. State Department continued to herald Madagascar’s alleged “return to democracy” after a coup d’état.

There’s just one problem: Madagascar

is not and has never been a democracy. Regular elections are held, but they are manipulated and riddled by vote-buying. A national assembly exists, but it is deeply corrupt and unresponsive to the people. A democratic constitution is on the books, but those with informal power routinely ignore it. As in so other many places around the globe, real power in Madagascar belongs to a small cadre of elites that rely on infor-mal personal networks to wield it.

There is more to democracy than elec-tions. True democracy requires the rule of law, a free press, and accountability for elected officials, no matter how pow-erful they may be. Madagascar has none of the above. But far too often, we allow counterfeit democracies like it to pass as the real thing.

That’s because the international com-munity treats democracy like a light switch: a regime is either elected democrati-cally (on), or it is “elected” in a blatantly undemocratic sham contest (off). Elections themselves are also frequently judged in a binary way - they’re either completely free and fair or they are not. The problem is that most regimes in the world, like Madagas-car, lie somewhere in between. Many may emit some democratic light - particularly

during elections - but remain depressingly dim for the thousands of days in-between. The current system gives them little incen-tive to get brighter because the West calls them “democracies” too easily. That, in turn, degrades the value of democracy itself.

There are two dynamics at play here. First, the inevitably low bar created by the on/off mentality creates an effect that I’ve previously called “the curse of low expectations.” When undemocratic rulers get a diplomatic high-five just for hold-ing a passable election, it creates a strong incentive to continue doing only the bare minimum. The European Union called Madagascar’s 2013 election “free, fair, and democratic,” even though millions were left off the voter rolls, illicit cam-paign funding was used, and vote buying was rampant (a finding that the European Union even acknowledged openly in its final report). After the election observ-ers packed up and left, the international community took far less of an interest in the island. So long as the West sets an absurdly low bar for what constitutes democratic elections and views those as the endpoint of establishing democ-racy rather than its beginning, the light of democracy around the globe will con-tinue to flicker.

Second, when a country’s citizens live in a “democracy” that holds elections but doesn’t really give them a voice, the result is governance that doesn’t deliver. Even the best election doesn’t put food on the table, provide security, or ensure basic health care. If elections are all people have, but genuine democracy doesn’t take root, they soon begin to resent the concept of democracy itself.

Perhaps for that reason, even the coun-terfeit democracy introduced in Madagascar in the early 1990s didn’t prove especially durable. In 2009, in one of the more bizarre episodes in modern international poli-tics, the country’s sitting president Marc Ravalomanana - a rags-to-riches yogurt kingpin - was overthrown in a coup d’état by Andry Rajoelina, a 34-year-old former radio disc jockey. The toppling of an elected leader was, finally, enough for the diplo-matic community to flip the switch and acknowledge that the country had lost its status as a democracy. International aid

dried up. Madagascar became an inter-national pariah.

But it didn’t take much to turn the switch back on. Four years later, Madagascar held elections again. The country was quickly reinstated in a preferential U.S. trade pro-gram, a decision prompted by “the nation’s return to democratic rule.” Crucial foreign aid flowed back in. But day-to-day interna-tional interest in the country plummeted. Madagascar had done the bare minimum to be seen as a “democratically elected” government, and that seemed to be good enough.

The elected government does not actu-ally rule democratically, but its violations of democratic principles are not considered “bad enough” to elicit international conse-quences. As a result, elites in Madagascar and countries like it can have their cake and eat it too - ensuring that their infor-mal power networks remain king while basking in international praise for a post-election “return to democracy.”

In April, Madagascar’s president announced that the prime minister had resigned, only for the startled prime min-ister to inform the press that he had done no such thing. His unconstitutional and unwilling departure ushered in the island’s third prime minister in as many years. At the same time, credible allegations arose that several ministers had paid bribes to secure their spots in the president’s cabi-net. In May, the Minister of Public Service and Government Reform was discovered with 1,000 kilograms of drugs in his per-sonal vehicle - rather a lot for recreational use. He has not been arrested, nor has he resigned.

These repeated embarrassment have prompted the general who originally ush-ered in multi-party elections 25 years ago to speak out. General Desiré-Philippe Ram-akavélo, a distinguished elder statesman who has taken up writing political poetry in his retirement, laments that the country’s elites tend to act like royalty once attain-ing office, rather than as public servants constrained by democratic rules. During my last meeting with him at his home in Antananarivo, he shared his latest stanzas with me. The title of the poem he read, La loi, c’est moi (“The law, it’s me”) is a refer-ence to the quip L’état, c’est moi (“the state,

it’s me”) famously attributed to the French King Louis XIV, who embodied absolutist rule. In the poem, Ramakavelo bemoans the degree to which his country has imper-sonated Versailles by allowing powerful kingpins and kingmakers to rule with-out regard for the formal trappings of democracy.

Before I left, the general asked me to send him anything I wrote about him. In a vivid demonstration of the continued dominance of personality as power in Mada-gascar, the mailing address he provided to me read in full: “General Desiré-Philippe Ramakavélo, Madagascar.”

The problem with informal rule is simple: it allows bad governance. Mada-gascar is one of the poorest countries in the world not least because its corrupt - albeit elected - politicians serve themselves rather than their people. Though it has tremendous mineral wealth and one the most tourist-enticing landscapes on the planet, its GDP per capita is stuck below $500. A third of the population is illiter-ate. And it’s the only place on earth where outbreaks of the bubonic plague are a reg-ular occurrence. It is, unquestionably, one of the worst tickets you can be dealt in the global lottery of birth.

Labeling such a country a “democracy” is not just ridiculous - it’s downright dan-gerous. Lowering the bar for what deserves to be called a democracy degrades public support for the concept. After all, if Mada-gascar really represented what a democracy looks like, nobody would want to live in one. Over time, this only makes the false prophets of authoritarian strongmen or military rule more appealing.

Madagascar may be an island, but it is not alone in this risk. When tens of thou-sands of Africans living in similarly sham democracies were asked whether they were satisfied with democracy in their country, only 965 out of more than 50,000 respond-ents replied that their countries were not, in fact, democracies. Most accepted the premise that they lived in a democratic country, but lamented that fact: Four in ten said that they were “not at all satis-fied” or “not very satisfied” with this form of governance.

This erosion of support for democracy has a knock-on effect. Calling countries like

Madagascar democratic provides powerful rhetorical ammunition to despots in other countries, helping them make their case for continuing to resist reform. After all, if coups and corruption and drug-running ministers are the hallmarks of so-called democracies, maybe authoritarianism isn’t so bad.

In other words, mislabeling countries as democratic can cause people to lose faith in the concept while amplifying the voice of unresponsive leaders eager to spread an undemocratic gospel. This one-two punch may help explain why the world has become modestly, but steadily, less democratic since 2006.

The solution is not simply to condemn Madagascar and countries like it as pariah states. Madagascar’s president is no dicta-tor, and some minor and modest progress toward democracy has been made since the 2013 elections.

Instead, there needs to be a higher bar for what warrants the label of democracy. For countries like Madagascar that do not deserve the label, aid and international acceptance should be tied to steady progress towards genuine democratic governance rather than being conditioned on hold-ing passable elections every few years. If no progress is made, it should not take something so drastic as a coup d’état to hammer home the lesson that undemo-cratic governance between elections has diplomatic consequences.

Today, Madagascar’s people are mired in poverty and political dysfunction two and a half years after the last elections, and with two and a half years to go until the next ones. Amid the country’s eco-nomic and political stagnation, there are persistent whispers of nefarious attempts to instigate a constitutional crisis in order to force an early vote.

Earlier this month, Senator Rene de Roland Lylison - a colonel who previ-ously headed a paramilitary group - was arrested amidst rumors that he was plot-ting another coup d’état. Unfortunately, because Madagascar’s people have been told that they have democracy but believe it has failed them, some would welcome a military takeover. That is the peril and the price of a system that conflates the act of voting with genuine democracy.

The elections took place as planned — and what’s more, the incumbent lost and left power.

The EU’s chief observer of Madagascar’s 2013 election, Maria Muniz de Urquiza, speaks to the press outside a polling station in Antananarivo on October 25, 2013.

Losing a nuclear weapon against climate changeBloomberg

Some environmentalists are thrilled at Tuesday’s announcement of the planned closing of Califor-

nia’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. They might want to reconsider: Fighting climate change requires more nuclear power, not less.

The losers in this plan, which is pending regulatory approval, are all those who will suffer the

consequences of climate change. That Diablo Canyon’s two reactors could be allowed to shut down is alarm-ing evidence that too little effort is being made to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The climate-friendly electricity that the Diablo Canyon plant generates, which amounts to about 9 percent of California’s power, would be lost.

Yes, a deal reached among the plant’s operator, labor unions and a few environmental groups stipulates

that greater energy efficiency and more renewable power -- solar, wind and the like -- will pick up the slack. But to the extent that these strate-gies are used to replace clean nuclear power, they make zero progress toward lowering carbon emissions. Diablo Canyon prevents the emission of 6.8 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

It’s true that Diablo Canyon stands close to a geological fault line. But the plant has operated safely since it

opened in the mid-1980s. And it has been built to withstand an earthquake much stronger than anything that fault could be expected to unleash.

Diablo Canyon now joins the list, already too long, of nuclear plants across the country that are slated to close (or already have) because they can’t compete with record-low nat-ural gas prices. Nuclear power is also expensive because reactors require a relatively large work force.

The plants should be given full

credit for the climate protection they provide -- via a carbon tax or through inclusion in state energy portfolio standards -- so that they can keep generating clean power for many more decades.

Once the plants shut down, reli-censing and restarting them will be prohibitively difficult. Allowing them simply to close may be satisfying to some environmentalists. But it is a wrong turn in the fight against cli-mate change.

Once the plants shut down, relicensing and restarting them will be prohibitively difficult. Allowing them simply to close may be satisfying to some environmentalists.

All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers, not of the newspaper.All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should be mailed to the Editor-in-Chief.

INDIA12 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

94 dead in

lightning strikes

in four states NEW DELHI: Lightning strikes and storm-related incidents in northern and eastern India have killed 94 people, officials said yesterday.

The deaths were reported from the four states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh since Tuesday at the start of the monsoon season in the region. Fifty-three people, mostly farmers, homeless people and those out-doors, were killed after being struck by lightning in Bihar, disaster manage-ment official said.

Most of the deaths were reported from in and around state capital Patna, as well as districts like Aurangabad, Rohtas and Nalanda.

In Bihar, 22 people sustained serious burn injuries. Fifteen more were people died in lightning and house col-lapses during squalls in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh while 10 people died in Jharkhand state. Sixteen deaths were also reported from the Madhya Pradesh state, officials said.

ACB Court

grants bail

to BhujbalMUMBAI: A Special Anti-Corruption Bureau Court yesterday granted bail to former Maharash-tra Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer Bhu-jbal in various land scam cases. However, the two accused will remain in judicial custody in con-nection with a multi-crore money laundering case filed against them by the Enforcement Directorate.

“They were produced before the court and granted bail on a surety of Rs 50,000 each,” Special Public Prosecu-tor Pradeep Gharat told mediapersons.

Jaitley to visit

China for

AIIB meetNEW DELHI: Finance Min-ister Arun Jaitley will leave today on a five-day official visit to China to attend the Asia Infrastructure Invest-ment Bank (AIIB) meeting and seek investment into India, the government announced yesterday.

The finance ministry said in a statement that Jaitley would participate in the first annual meeting of the board of governors of AIIB on June 25-26.

New train

service in Bihar

inaugurated NEW DELHI: Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday inaugurated a new train service via video conferencing from Dana-pur to Saharsa in Bihar.

The new train will cover a distance of 241 kilometre in six hours five minutes. Prabhu said that the new train will improve the socio-economic con-ditions of the region. Apart from flagging off the new train, services on three other lines in Bihar were also extended.

AFP

SRIHARIKOTA: India successfully launched a rocket carrying 20 satel-lites yesterday, setting a new national record as its famously frugal space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space mar-ket. The rocket blasted off from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota car-rying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia, the most in a single Indian mission.

Most of the satellites are intended to observe and measure the Earth’s

atmosphere, while another aims to provide services for amateur radio operators.

“Each of these small objects that you are putting into space will carry out their own activity, which is inde-pendent of the other, and each of them will live a wonderful life for a finite period,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman A.S Kiran Kumar told the NDTV news network.

The business of putting com-mercial satellites into space for a fee is growing as phone, Internet and other companies as well as coun-tries seek greater and more high-tech communications.

India is competing with other international players for a greater share of that launch market, and is known for its low-cost space pro-gramme. Among the 20 satellites launched on Wednesday were 13 from the US including one from a Google-owned company and two from Indian universities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the launch was a “monumental accomplishment”, although it trails Russia’s 33 record launched in 2014 and NASA’s haul of 29 the year before.

“Our space programme has time and again shown the transformative potential of science & technology in

Bystanders watch as Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) satellite CARTOSAT-2, along with 20 other satellites, is launched from Sriharikota, yesterday.

20 satellites launched at one go

people’s lives,” Modi tweeted.Expert Ajay Lele said the lat-

est test was a “quantum jump” for India which has “made its presence felt even more now by displaying its promising market potential”.

“India is attracting key foreign players, most importantly the US, in the space market thanks to its cost-effectiveness and credibility,”

said Lele, a senior fellow at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. Lele said he expected ISRO to form a public-private partnership to outsource its growing commercial activity in another three to four years. Last month India successfully launched its first mini space shuttle as it joined the global race to make reusable rockets.

In 2013 India sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars at a cost of just $73 million compared with NASA’s Maven Mars mission which had a $671 million price tag.

The successful mission was a source of immense pride in India, which beat rival China in becoming the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet.

The rocket blasted off from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota carrying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia, the most in a single Indian mission.

Boys shelter from rain as they travel on a cycle rickshaw in Allahabad, yesterday.

Moving in the rain

AFP

NEW DELHI: The government of Indian Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi yesterday approved a mega auction of mobile phone radio waves, hoping to scoop about $85bn from the sale of licenses in the world’s second-largest market.

The new mobile radio wave spectrums on auction are seen as crucial for companies competing in the lucrative but cut-throat Indian market.

“This may be the largest ever auction in the history of the country,” said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. More than 2,300mhz of spectrum would be available for auction across seven bandwidths and based on their reserve price, the government is looking to mop up $85bn against the $17.6bn received last year.

But a decision on spectrum usage charges, which has divided

stakeholders, was deferred with the matter being referred to the telecom watchdog.

Telecom bodies have expressed concerns over a possible move to collect licence fee and spectrum usage charges on revenues earned from trading airwaves, saying it would amount to double taxation.

The battle for spectrum among India’s top eight mobile phone car-riers, including market leaders Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Idea, has been fierce with each vying to roll out high-speed broadband services.

The auction will hand the right-wing government much-needed revenue as it attempts to reform the economy. India is the world’s sec-ond-largest mobile phone market by users after China. The government also said Wednesday it had put in place a special financial package for the textile and apparel sector, a move aimed at helping to reboot an economy beset by legal barriers and regulatory excesses.

IANS

NEW DELHI: After his no-holds barred attack on the RBI Gover-nor, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy yesterday picked on a new tar-get -- demanding the removal of Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian. However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley came out in strong defence of the noted econ-omist while the BJP distanced itself from Swamy’s remarks. The Congress termed Swamy the ‘undeclared spokesperson’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and noted that Jaitley was the real target

of Swamy as he wanted to be Finance Minister.

Swamy had publicly attacked RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, say-ing he was “mentally not fully Indian” and also written to the Prime Min-ister demanding that he be denied an extension. Last week, Rajan announced that he was not taking a second term. Yesterday, Swamy created a flutter with his tweets demanding sacking of Subrama-nian. “Who said to US Cong on 13/3/13 the US should act against India to defend US Pharmaceuticals interests? Arvind Subramanian MoF (Ministry of Finance)!! Sack him!”

“Guess who encouraged Con-gress to become rigid on GST clauses?

Jaitley’s economic adviser Arvind Subramanian of Washington DC.”

He also wondered why the core economic sectors could not perform in the two years rule of the Narendra Modi government and said: “Now PTs (Patriotic Tweeples) can understand why our core economic sectors could not perform last two years. Trojan horses galore in MoF/ Finance Institu-tions.” “Was AS (Arvind Subramanian) deposing before US Congress Com-mittee against India as a US citizen or Indian? Does any PT know?”

Subramanian had taken charge as chief economic advisor to finance ministry in October 2014 succeeding Raghuram Rajan.

Both the BJP and Jaitley sought to

end any speculation over Swamy’s fresh attack.

“The government has full con-fidence in Arvind Subramanian,” Jaitley said answering a query at a media briefing. “Arvind Subramani-an’s advice to the government from time to time has been of great value. In fact, the presentation made on textile and garment sector is also prepared in active consultation with him,” Jaitley said.

Jaitley went a step further and asked if politicians should attack officials who cannot respond to alle-gations. “The party has said it doesn’t share Swamy’s view. I will also add one more fact from the point of view of discipline of Indian politicians... to

what extent should we attack those, the discipline and constraint of whose offices prevent them from respond-ing and this has happened more than once,” he said.

Asked why the government did not defend the RBI governor when Swamy attacked him, Jaitley said: “The party (BJP) had distanced itself from the remark at that time as well.”

Jaitley, in response to another question, said it was for the BJP to decide if there should be any action against Swamy. BJP national secre-tary Shrikant Sharma said the party does not agree with Swamy. “It is his personal opinion and BJP doesn’t have anything to do with this. We don’t agree with it,” Sharma said.

IANS

ANANTNAG: Polling in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag assembly con-stituency yesterday ended peacefully and nearly 34 percent voter turned out was recorded as both men and women of the area came out to exer-cise their franchise.

“Polling ended peacefully in Anantnag assembly constituency today where 33.84 per cent voter

turnout was recorded against 40 per cent during the 2014 general elections,” the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Shantmanu said here.

He said 117 polling stations had been set up in the constituency while 13 polling stations were installed out-side the constituency for migrant voters. “Counting of votes will start at 8am at Degree College Anantnag on June 25”, Shantmanu told reporters.

When voting started at 7am, fewer people lined up outside poll-ing stations. A mere four per cent

turnout was recorded during the first one hour.

But the morning’s shy trickle of voters gradually changed into small queues in rural areas even as the turnout in urban areas was still very low. Peace prevailed in the town and adjoining areas though militants and separatists had asked people not to vote.“Voting continued at all the polling stations smoothly through the day and there has been no mil-itancy related incident anywhere,” the official said.

Cabinet approves mobile

radio waves auction

34% turn out as polling ends peacefully in Anantnag

Now Swamy seeks Subramanian’s removal

IANS

GUWAHATI: Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal yesterday asked the Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police to take all pos-sible measures to protect the one-horned rhinos. The Chief Minister held a high-level meeting with the Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police of Jorhat, Golaghat and Nagaon districts that encircle the National Park at Kaziranga, and asked them to make every effort to protect the rhinos.

“Whatever measures need to be undertaken will be adopted for pro-tecting the rhinos and Kaziranga National Park, the World Heritage site. We will take advice from international experts on protection of rhinos,” Sonowal said, appealing to everyone to protect the rhinos. “To save the pride of Assam, we will extend all possible support to you to stop it from extinc-tion,” he told the officials.

Call to protect rhinos

EUROPE 13THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

A woman reads a newspaper at the underground station in London with a ‘vote remain’ advert for the BREXIT referendum, yesterday.

In current affairs

The stakes are high as the vote is final— unlike an election in which the results can be reversed in the next term.

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin yesterday slammed Nato for ratch-eting up its rhetoric and aggression close to Rus-sia’s border and warned that Moscow was being forced to increase its mili-tary capacity.

“Nato is stepping up its aggressive rhetoric and its aggressive actions close to our borders,” Putin told lawmakers. “In these conditions we are obliged to dedicate spe-cial attention to resolving tasks connected with heightening the defence capabilities of our country.”

Spanish minister

faces calls to

resign over leak

MADRID: Spain’s inte-rior minister faced calls to resign yesterday over a conversation leaked four days before elections in which he and an anti-fraud official appear to discuss ways to incrimi-nate his political rivals.

In the conversation published by daily Pub-lico, Jorge Fernandez Diaz and the head of Catalo-nia’s anti-fraud office go through potential leads or probes that could be launched against pro-independence politicians.

French govt

gives go ahead

to Paris march

PARIS: France’s Social-ist government yesterday gave the go-ahead for a Paris march against its hotly-contested labour reforms, reversing a ban announced just hours earlier.

“After tough talks with the interior minister, the union and student organi-sations obtained the right to demonstrate,” Philippe Martinez of the far-left CGT union told a news conference.

He called the U-turn a “victory for the unions and for democracy”. The government had earlier cited security concerns in denying permission for the march scheduled for today, drawing fire from across the political spectrum.

Putin slams Nato

for ‘aggressive’

activities

AP

LONDON: Campaigners on both sides of the crucial vote over whether Brit-ain should remain in the European Union crisscrossed the country yes-terday, their last day to win support from the undecided.

Prime Minister David Cam-eron outlined his vision for a future with Britain retaining its place in the 28-nation bloc, bristling at the notion that the country would be headed in the wrong direction if it stayed in. He flatly rejected the charge that the institution is moribund.

“We are not shackled to a corpse,” Cameron told the BBC. “You can see the European economy’s recovery. It’s the largest single market in the world.”

The most notable figure in the “leave” campaign, former London Mayor Boris Johnson, kicked off a

whirlwind tour of England as he pushed for a British exit — or Brexit. Touring the Billingsgate Fish Market, Johnson mugged for the cameras with fish in hand — a not-so-subtle reminder that this is an island nation — and one very proud of its independ-ence and self-assurance.

“It’s time to have a totally new relationship with our friends and

partners across the Channel,” John-son said. “It’s time to speak up for democracy, and hundreds of millions of people around Europe agree with us. It’s time to break away from the failing and dysfunctional EU system.”

Voters go to the polls today after a campaign that has been unusually heated, even by the lively standards of British politics.

Nigel Farage, a “leave” cam-paigner and leader of the UK Independence Party, resisted fresh calls to apologise for a poster show-ing hundreds of migrants making their way across Europe along with the words “Breaking Point.”

The poster, labeled racist and mis-leading by opponents, was unveiled hours before Labour lawmaker Jo

Cox was killed outside a library in her Yorkshire constituency last week. She had been an outspoken supporter of migrants. Friends and family planned to hold a celebration of Cox’s life in cities around the world yesterday, which would have been her 42nd birthday.

“I apologise for the timing and I apologise for the fact that it was able to be used by those who wish us harm,” said Farage. “But I can’t apol-ogise for the truth.”

“This was a photograph that all newspapers carried, it is an example of what is wrong inside the European Union,” he said.

The reach of EU into every aspect of life has made the issues at stake more complex than in a general election and prompted all sorts of groups, from scientists to CEOs, to register their opin-ions on whether to stay or go.

The stakes are high as the vote is final— unlike an election in which the results can be reversed in the next term. However, the vote is not legally binding, and Parliament would have to vote to repeal the law that brought Britain into the EU in the first place.

A vote to leave would invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which allows a member state to withdraw. The article has never been invoked and it would trigger a period of uncertainty during years of negotiations on the relationship between the EU and the UK.

Reuters

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande yesterday warned that if Britons voted to leave the European Union it would be an irreversible decision that could seriously jeop-ardize Britain’s prized access to the bloc’s single market.

Amid a flurry of contacts between EU capitals to prepare for the con-sequences of today’s referendum, Hollande said he would visit Berlin next week to prepare joint initiatives to relaunch Europe, whatever the out-come of the British vote.

“If the choice is to leave the EU ... that would be irreversible,” Hollande said. “No is no, there is no middle ground and we’ll have to draw all the consequences.”

The economic consequences of the vote are key to the outcome of the referendum, with access to the bloc’s

single market for trade in goods and services a major issue.

Hollande, in his starkest warn-ing to date on the consequences of Brexit, said: “There would be a very serious risk of Britain losing its access to the single market and everything that goes with the European eco-nomic area. Everyone needs to be well aware of this.”

While Norway is part of the single market via a trade deal it has with the EU, fellow non-EU member Switzer-land only has access to parts of the single market.

European Commission Presi-dent Jean-Claude Juncker added his own warning, saying there would be no re-negotiation of a package of measures that EU governments agreed with London in February aimed at keeping Britain in the 28-nation bloc.

Hollande’s call to relaunch Europe, Brexit or no, was echoed by both Slovak Prime Minister Robert

Fico, who met the French leader in Paris yesterday, and by Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo during a visit to Berlin.

“We hope very much that the British want to remain in the EU. But irrespective of the result, our position is clear: the European Union should develop further,” Szydlo told a joint news conference with German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

Hollande, who also met Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven yes-terday and spoke over phone with European Council President Don-ald Tusk and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, said there would prob-ably be more summits of EU leaders than the one already scheduled for June 28.

“We’ll have to take initiatives to bring hope back for European people. Today, doubts are creeping in eve-rywhere, populism, nationalism are taking over,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told parliament.

Reuters

LONDON: Britons have flocked to swap their pounds for euros and US dollars in the days running up to the European Union referen-dum, according to foreign exchange bureau companies yesterday.

Most forecasters expect the pound will fall sharply if there is a vote to leave the EU today, which would weaken the spending power of British holidaymakers abroad.

Sterling’s value has fluctuated wildly based on results of opinion polls, which suggest the referendum result is too close to call.

Britain’s Post Office said overall currency sales in its branches and online were up 74 percent year-on-year since the weekend, while Travelex said online currency orders increased 30 percent from June 14 to June 21.

Separately, money transfer com-pany Azimo said it would suspend operations on the day of the refer-endum until the currency market settles down tomorrow.

“While we can’t say for sure, it’s highly possible that this surge (in demand for foreign currency) is due to the uncertainty being fuelled (by) tomorrow’s vote,” said David Swann, Travelex head of pricing for the UK, Europe and the US

The Post Office and Travelex said Britons’ demand for foreign currency

was split fairly evenly between euros and dollars. For Tuesday alone, cur-rency sales in Post Office branches were up 49 percent from a year ago, and 381 percent higher online.

“Despite the surge in demand, the Post Office confirms that it has ready availability of euros for pur-chase in its branches and online,” it said in a statement. It did not specify the reason for the surge in demand.

Marks and Spencer Bank, which offers foreign exchange services in M&S department stores and online, said its foreign currency sales were about normal for the time of year.

Shifts in value of sterling in the run-up to referendum have caused a headache for British companies that trade in other countries, but espe-cially for money transfer companies.

Azimo also said its Thursday sus-pension of operations was because uncertainty around the vote made it impossible to guarantee the safety of customers’ money.

Azimo, Transferwise and other money transfer companies have halved the 5-6 percent in spread that banks charge for purchases of euros or other major currencies, leaving them exposed should ster-ling weaken 10 percent or more, as many bankers have predicted it will on a vote to leave the EU.

Sterling rose yesterday, hovering below a five-and-a-half month high against the dollar, as investors made fewer bets against the pound just a day before the referendum.

‘Out’ campaign 1

point ahead on

eve of EU vote

Reuters

LONDON: The campaign for Brit-ain to leave European Union holds a one-point lead over the “In” camp ahead of today’s member-ship referendum, according to a survey published by polling firm Opinium on yesterday.

Opinium said the campaigns were effectively running neck and neck as the online poll put sup-port for “Leave” at 45 percent and “Remain” at 44 percent, with the remaining 9 percent of respond-ents still undecided.

“This puts the two campaigns in a statistical dead heat with each side being within the margin of error of the other despite a larger than usual sample,” Opinium said on its website.

The poll was based on 3,011 interviews conducted between June 20 and 22.

Opinium’s previous poll, pub-lished on Saturday, had put the two camps level at 44 percent, based on polling between June 14 and 17.

Prime Minister David Cameron and his eurosceptic opponents made final pitches for wavering voters yesterday on the referen-dum, with the outcome still too close to call.

Anatolia

LONDON: People in Ireland will be watching outcome of Britain’s EU referendum far closer than most international observers. Despite sep-arating from the UK nearly a century ago, the Republic of Ireland remains closely intertwined with its nearest geographical neighbour.

The two countries share a vast trading relationship, exchanging over €1bn ($1.13bn) worth of goods and services every week, according to Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

There is also a strong social connection. Tens of thousands of families are separated by the open, unmarked land border that runs between the Republic and North-ern Ireland. Thousands more live across the Irish Sea in Great Britain.

That close bond between the two countries is reflected in a 1923 agreement—predating EU by dec-ades — that allows British and Irish citizens to live, work and vote in each other’s countries.

But with Republic of Ireland remaining an EU member irrespec-tive of referendum result, many have expressed concern that Brexit would

tear up this longstanding British-Irish arrangement.

No-one knows precisely how many people regularly travel across the Irish land border to work and study. The Dublin-based Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) estimates there are at least 30,000 daily commuters, but the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce says the figure is at least 60,000.

A Brexit would turn Irish land border into a frontier with a non-EU member state, possibly requiring passport controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

These concerns were voiced by UK Prime Minister David Cameron. “If we vote to stay in we know what situation is. We know that Common Travel Area works; we know it can continue and everyone can have con-fidence in that. “If we were to leave and, as the Leave campaigners want make a big issue about our borders, then you’ve got a land border between Britain outside the EU and the Repub-lic of Ireland inside the EU.

“Therefore you can only either have new border controls between the Republic and Northern Ireland or, you’d have to have some sort of checks on people as they left Belfast or other parts of Northern Ireland to come to the rest of UK.”

Politicians make final appeals to voters

(FROM LEFT) Carwyn Jones, First Minister for Wales; Kezia Dugdale, leader of Scottish Labour Party;Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Labour party; and London Mayor Sadiq Khan pose after a final rally in favour of remaining in the EU, in Central London, yesterday.

Hollande warns Brexit would be irreversible decision

Britons dash to swap

pound before EU vote

People in Ireland wait and watch

Family and friends of Jovan Galan Mendoza, who died in a shootout involving Federal Police officers during a demonstration of teachers, mourn him during his wake in Oaxaca, Mexico, yesterday.

Irreparable loss

AMERICAS14 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

After more than three years of fraught negotiations, the agreement at peace talks in Havana marks the penultimate step to ending a war.

Reuters

BOGOTA/HAVANA: Colombia’s gov-ernment and leftist FARC rebels said yesterday they had reached agree-ment on a definitive ceasefire that would end hostilities in the long-est-running conflict in the Western Hemisphere.

After more than three years of sometimes fraught negotiations, the agreement at peace talks in Havana marks the penultimate step to ending

a war that has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced mil-lions of others.

“We have arrived with success at an agreement on the bilateral and definitive ceasefire and end to hos-tilities,” both sides said in a statement read to media in the Cuban capital.

The accord will be signed today in Havana by President Juan Manuel San-tos and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rebel leader Rod-rigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will attend the ceremony, the two sides said.

Santos said this week the gov-ernment and the rebels will complete negotiations by July 20. The ceasefire, which includes terms for the FARC’s demobilisation and laying down of arms, does not begin until the final deal is signed.

Half-way through his second term and staking his legacy on a peace deal, the 64-year-old president has said it would add as much as two percentage points annually to economic growth.

But analysts say security improve-ments over the last dozen years mean Colombia has already reaped the ben-efits of the so-called ‘peace dividend’. Bancolombia said in a recent report a formal deal will likely only add 0.3 percent growth annually.

Agreement on virtually all of the items of the peace talks agenda in Cuba has already been reached, including such thorny issues such as land reform and participation by former rebels in Colombia’s political life. The two sides have not yet agreed on terms for overall implementation of a peace accord and how a national referendum on the deal will be organ-ized, however.

Santos has promised that any final accord would be put to the Colombian people in a plebiscite. He has come under fire in the past week for com-ments about what he says will be the consequences if country returns to war.

The FARC called a unilateral ceasefire nearly a year ago and the government responded by halting air strikes on rebel camps.

Negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline for signing the final accord in March.

The group of about 8,000 combat-ants, down from 17,000 in its heyday, is considered a terrorist group by the

United States and European Union.The FARC that grew out

of a 1960s peasant movement

demanding land reform has been fighting with the successive gov-ernments ever since.

AFP

NEW YORK: Donald Trump went on a blistering offensive against Hil-lary Clinton yesterday, calling her a “world-class liar” who is unfit to run for president and savaging her record on trade, foreign policy and immigration.

The Republican White House hopeful, who has denounced Clinton’s $42m war chest as “blood money,” launched his assault on the polariz-ing presumptive Democratic nominee after weeks of disastrous headlines have fueled speculation that his con-troversial campaign is unravelling.

“Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the pres-idency,” he said in a speech at Trump SoHo, his five-star hotel in Manhattan to shouts of “Trump, Trump, Trump” from supporters.

His attack came one day after

Clinton launched her own assault on the Republican, calling him a “dan-gerous” businessman whose lack of plan to bring back jobs threatened to return America into recession.

Trump’s speech, which he read from a teleprompter, signalled a new tone in his battle to win the election in November, toning done his offen-sive remarks against Muslims and reaching out to independent voters.

He said the stakes could not be higher, painting himself as an inno-vative thinker who would protect working Americans from a system rigged against them by career pol-iticians, such as Clinton.

Trump attacked Clinton as a “world-class liar” who “perfected the politics of personal profit and theft” and who lacked the judg-ment to be America’s first woman commander-in-chief.

“She ran the State Depart-ment like her own personal hedge

fund—doing favours for repres-sive regimes, and many others, in exchange for cash,” he alleged of her tenure as America’s top diplomat.

Trump claimed that her “dis-graceful” foreign policy had cost America “thousands of lives and trillions and trillions of dollars” in reference to her support for the inva-sions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

“In just four years, secretary Clinton managed to almost sin-gle-handedly destabilise the entire Middle East,” he added, calling the Islamic State extremist group a threat because of her decisions.

He alleged that the US ambassa-dor to Libya, Chris Stevens, who died in an attack on the consulate in Beng-hazi in 2012, was one of the victims of her decisions. “He was left help-less to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed,” he said. “Her deci-sions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere.”

Rubio seeks

re-election

to Senate

Reuters

WASHINGTON: Former Republi-can presidential candidate Marco Rubio said yesterday he would seek re-election to his US Senate seat, reversing a pledge not to run and saying the prospect of a Don-ald Trump presidency worries him.

The first-term Florida senator said the Senate can be frustrating but said it is also a place where policy advances can be made and one that can act to counteract the power of the White House.

“But as we begin the next chapter in history of our nation, there’s another role for the Senate that could end up being its most important in years to come: The Constitutional power to act as a check and balance on the excesses of a president,” Rubio said.

AP

LOS ANGELES: Cooler, wetter weather gave at least some tempo-rary help yesterday to crews battling dangerous wildfires in Southern Cal-ifornia, while other blazes across the West were on the move.

Improved weather in the after-math of a severe heat wave allowed firefighters to make progress against two fires in the steep San Gabriel Mountains 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Some evacuations below in the foothill city of Duarte were being lifted, but the calm was not expected to last.

“We will have stronger winds, so it could push the fire,” incident com-mander Mike Wakoski said.

He expected gusts of up to 25 mph in the afternoon and evening, posing additional problems for hun-dreds of firefighters attacking the flames. A fleet of helicopters and air tankers and other resources are helping fight the fires totaling about seven-and-a-half square miles.

“They’re starting to make good progress, but there’s a lot of line to put in, and it’s in a real inaccessi-ble area,” Wakoski said. “It’s very hard for the firefighters to engage the fire safely, but they are out there doing so.”

No homes have been lost, though flames have come close at times. More than 700 homes were ordered evacuated earlier this week, but it was not immediately clear how many were cleared for return yesterday.

Near the Mexican border, a wild-fire that forced the evacuation of some 600 homes about 40 miles southeast of San Diego grew to just over 10 square miles and was only partially contained.

Falling temperatures, ris-ing humidity and cloud cover has helped, said Captain Kendal Bor-tisser of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But firefighters still must deal with rough

terrain and vegetation that has not burned in decades, he said.

Weather also helped on the rug-ged coast west of Santa Barbara. Fog moved into the area scorched by a blaze that began more than a week ago, and most mandatory evacua-tions were called off. With the more than 12-square-mile fire almost fully surrounded, firefighters shifted focus to battling hot spots within contain-ment lines.

Elsewhere in the West, firefight-ers were bringing in more help after a forest fire near the Colorado-Wyo-ming line exploded in size and forced campers to evacuate.

The blaze grew to about 5 square miles overnight from about 1 square mile, fire spokesman Chris Barth said. It was reported on late Sunday in a heavily forested area with no permanent residents. Trees killed by a beetle infestation were fueling the flames north of Denver.

Campers and those staying in cabins were told to evacuate because of heavy smoke, high winds and spreading fire. It was not clear how many people fled.

In southwest Utah, officials evacuated about 100 people on Tuesday as a wildfire moved down a rocky slope toward the mountain town of Pine Valley. The blaze was about a square mile but moving dan-gerously close to homes in difficult terrain, officials said.

In eastern Arizona, firefighters expected to keep a wildfire spanning some 67 square miles from mov-ing any closer to a rural town. The flames threatening the community of Cedar Creek made no signifi-cant movement in the last 24 hours thanks to sparse vegetation.

Residents of Cedar Creek, two mountain communities and sur-rounding areas have been told to prepare to evacuate. Gov. Doug Ducey declared a state of emergency to free up state funds to help.

In central New Mexico, more evacuees were expected to return home as firefighters inch closer to snuffing out a massive wildfire.

Pennsylvania

Congressman

convicted in

racketeering case

AP

PHILADELPHIA: A veteran Pennsylvania Congressman was convicted in a racketeering case that largely centered on vari-ous efforts to repay an illegal $1m campaign loan related to his unsuccessful 2007 mayoral bid.

US Representative Chaka Fattah was found guilty of all counts against him, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering. His lawyers argued that the schemes were engineered without Fattah’s knowledge by two political consultants who pleaded guilty in the case.

The Democrat had been in Congress since 1995 and served powerful House Appropriations Committee. But lost the April pri-mary and bid for his 12th term. His current term ends on January. 2.

Fattah had little reaction to the verdict, but he kept a smile on his face as he conferred with his law-yers afterward. He will remain free on bail. A judge set sentencing for October 4. Fattah told reporters: “Well, it’s a tough day, but I do want to thank the jurors for their serv-ice.” He said he will confer with his lawyers on the next step.

Prosecutors said Fattah routed federal grant money and nonprofit funds through his consultants to pay back the illegal loan. His wife, Philadelphia TV news anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah, took a leave after her husband’s indict-ment and then quit in February.

Reuters

WASHINGTON: The US Senate yesterday voted down a Republi-can-backed proposal to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) secretive surveillance powers after shooting at an Orlando club last week.

The measure followed the Senate’s rejection on Monday of four meas-ures that would have restricted gun sales. During yesterday’s vote, Senate Republican leader Mitch McCon-nell switched his vote to ‘no,’ giving

himself the opportunity to bring the measure up for consideration again as soon as later this week.

The legislation would broaden type of telephone and internet records FBI could request from companies such as the Google unit of Alphabet Inc and Verizon Communications Inc without a warrant. Opponents, including some major technol-ogy companies, have said it would threaten civil liberties and do little to improve national security.

The legislation before the Senate, filed as an amendment to a crimi-nal justice funding bill, would widen

the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters, which do not require a warrant and whose very existence is usually a secret.

Such letters can compel a com-pany to hand over a user’s phone billing records. Under the Senate’s change, FBI would be able to demand electronic communications transac-tion records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients, in addition to some infor-mation about websites a person visits and social media log-in data.

It would not enable the FBI to use national security letters to

obtain the actual content of elec-tronic communications.

The legislation would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that lets the intelligence community conduct surveillance on “lone wolf” suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign ter-rorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, expires in Decem-ber 2019.

The bill had been expected to nar-rowly pass but it fell two votes short of the required 60.

Representatives was also

uncertain, given its alliance between libertarian-leaning Republicans and tech-friendly Democrats that has blocked past efforts to expand surveillance.

Privacy groups and civil liber-ties advocates accused Republicans this week of exploiting the Orlando shooting to build support for unre-lated legislation.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized Senate Repub-licans for “pushing fake, knee-jerk solutions that will do nothing to prevent mass shootings or terrorist attacks.”

Weather helps crew battle wildfires

Colombia and FARC rebels reach ceasefire deal

The spokewoman of the Colombian delegation for the peace talks with the FARC guerrillas, Marcela Duran (left) reads a statement at the Convention Palace in Havana, yesterday.

Trump calls Hillary ‘world-class liar’ in latest attack

US Senate votes down proposal to expand FBI powers

Minimum: 33o C Maximum: 40o C

HIGH TIDE 05:45 - 19:30LOW TIDE 02:15 - 11:45

Hazy at places at first becomes hot daytime

with slight dust and some clouds, relatively

humid by night.

WEATHER

MORNING BREAK16 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

FAJR

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Russian warplanes attack Aleppo areas with chemicals

36 Libyan troops killed in Sirte clashes with Islamic State

25 civilians killed in raids on Syria IS bastion Raqa: monitor

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Reuters

DARMSTADT: Dreaming of a trip to Mars? You’ll have to wait at least 15 years for the technology to be devel-oped, the head of the European Space Ageancy (ESA) said, putting doubt on claims that the journey could happen sooner.

“If there was enough money then we could possibly do it earlier but there

is not as much now as the Apollo pro-gramme had,” ESA Director-General Jan Woerner said, referring to the US project which landed the first people on the moon.

Woerner says a permanent human settlement on the moon, where 3D printers could be used to turn moon rock into essential items needed for the two-year trip to Mars, would be a major step toward the red planet.

US space agency Nasa hopes to send

astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s and businessman Elon Musk, head of electric car maker Tesla Motors, says he plans to put unmanned spacecraft on Mars from as early as 2018 and have humans there by 2030.

The ESA’s Woerner said it would take longer. A spacecraft sent to Mars would need rockets and fuel powerful enough to lift back off for the return trip and the humans would need pro-tection from unprecedented physical

and mental challenges as well as deep-space radiation. Woerner would like to see a cluster of research laboratories on the moon, at what he calls a “moon vil-lage”, to replace the International Space Station when its lifetime ends and to test technologies needed to make the trip to Mars. That could be funded and operated by a collection of private and public bodies from around the world, he said in an interview at the ESA’s Oper-ations Centre.

British actor Sir Ian McKellen near a statue of writer Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in front of the British Embassy in Moscow, Russia, yesterday.

Elementary, Sir Ian!

AFP

NETHERLANDS: The Dutch inventor of a ground-breaking project to remove mil-lions of tonnes of plastics floating in “great garbage patches” in the oceans yesterday unveiled his first prototype to help clean up the seas.

Boyan Slat’s innovative idea -- first drawn on a paper napkin when he was still in high school -- seeks to use ocean currents to gather up the mass of bottles, plas-tic crates and other detritus sullying the planet’s waters, instead of going out on an army of boats to haul it in. “All those plastic objects, big things like bottles, crates, etc will be cut down to micro pieces over the next few decades if we don’t do any-thing about it,” he said. Eight million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans every year, much of which has accumulated in five garbage patches, with the largest in the Pacific between California and Hawaii.

His idea is a 100km long V-shaped barrier made up of large buoys which floats on the ocean, trailing a three-metre (nine-foot) long curtain from its arms into the water. The aim is to stop the plastic as it bobs along, gathering into one place so it can then be gathered up into a container and taken for recycling. A smaller 100-metre prototype unveiled yesterday will be taken out into the North Sea today.

Plans to harness waves

to clean up the seas

Human flights to Mars at least 15 years off

Stocks and British currency gain on eve of referendum

PAGE | 18 PAGE | 19

VW chief tells shareholders sorry for

emissions scandal

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THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016 • 18 RAMADAN 1437 @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

Reuters

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, may return to its role of balancing oil supply and demand after the recovery of the

global market, the country’s energy minister indicated in comments pub-lished yesterday.

“Despite the surplus in global oil production and lower prices, the focus of attention remains on countries such as Saudi Arabia which, due to its stra-tegic importance, will be expected to balance supply and demand once market conditions recover,” Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih (pictured) was quoted as saying by state oil com-pany Saudi Aramco.

“The Kingdom’s oil policies are rooted in responsibility, and Saudi Arabia is seeking to maintain that balance while also giving heed to moderate prices for producers and consumers,” Falih said in the state-ment on Aramco’s website. He made the comments in the United States where he is accompanying Saudi

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de-facto leader, effectively abandoned its swing producer role in 2014 when it led Opec’s policy shift by refusing to

cut production to support oil prices and allow the market to balance itself without interference.

Oil has risen to $50 a barrel, up 85 percent from a 12-year low reached in January as supply outages in Nigeria and Canada reduced the need to prop up prices.

At its most recent meeting, in June, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) made no change to its pump-at-will out-put policy.

Yesterday, the Houston Chronicle newspaper quoted Falih as saying the global supply glut “has disappeared”.

“The question now is how fast you will work off the global inven-tory overhang,” Falih told the newspaper.

“That will remain to put a cap on the rate at which oil prices recover.

We just have to wait for the sec-ond half of the year and next year to see how that works out,” he added, according to the newspaper.

Meanwhile, oil prices fell back beneath $50 yesterday after official data showed US crude stockpiles had fallen by a smaller amount than expected, traders said.

Around 1630 GMT, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in August was down 75 cents at $49.87 a barrel, wip-ing out earlier modest gains.

US benchmark West Texas Inter-mediate for August delivery slid 62 cents to $49.23 compared with Tues-day’s close.

The US Department of Energy said the country’s commercial crude stockpiles last week dropped by 900,000 barrels, less than the 1.5 million forecast by analysts.

A smaller-than-expected drop for the US, the world’s biggest consumer of crude, adds to market concerns about a global oil supply glut.

Oil prices had risen earlier yester-day as traders reacted to expectations of a drop in stockpiles -- in addition to a weaker dollar, unrest in Africa’s biggest crude producer Nigeria and uncertainty over Britain’s EU refer-endum result.

The greenback was down against its main rivals in trading Wednes-day, making dollar-denominated oil cheaper for holders of other currencies.

The dollar faced renewed pres-sure after Federal Reserve boss Janet Yellen again warned of the economic dangers of Britain voting to leave the European Union in Thursday’s referendum.

Saudi may return to oil market balancing role: Minister The Kingdom’s oil policies are rooted in responsibility, and Saudi Arabia is seeking to maintain that balance while also giving heed to moderate prices.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), Qatar’s leading Islamic Bank, announced yesterday that it has entered a strategic partnership with Jaidah Equipment. Under the terms of the deal, QIB will be the preferred financing partner for the Qatar-based equipment dealer. Senior executives from both organisations gathered at the Bank’s corporate headquarters in Doha for the official signing, with Tarek Fawzi, General Manager of Wholesale Banking representing QIB and Manag-ing Director Ayman Ahmed signing on behalf of Jaidah Equipment.

Under the agreement, custom-ers of Jaidah Equipment who would like to purchase new equipment are entitled to use the Bank’s attrac-tive Fleet and Heavy Equipment financing scheme. QIB’s Fleet and Heavy Equipment Financing pack-age was introduced last year as part of the Bank’s Aamaly programme, a

collection of products and services designed specifically for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Through its Aamaly programme, QIB aims to foster the growth of SMEs, thus helping to diversify the country’s economy in line with Qatar National Vision 2030.

“We are pleased to be partner-ing with Jaidah Equipment. This new relationship enhances the value of QIB’s Aamaly programme and makes it easier for SMEs to expand their businesses in the growing Qatar market,” said Tarek Fawzi – General Manager of Wholesale Banking, QIB.

The Fleet and Heavy Equipment Financing proposition, which fea-tures competitive rates, offers SMEs a convenient way to finance the pur-chase of vehicles for commercial use. The programme features quick turn-around, flexible down payments, and variable instalment options on financing of up to 48 months.

Financing is also available to legally-registered companies in Qatar

whose primary activities include transportation, construction, con-tracting, Rentals, trading, service, logistics, or manufacturing.

Commenting on the agreement, Ayman Ahmed, Managing Director of Jaidah Equipment, said: “Our part-nership with QIB will simplify the process for acquiring and financing new commercial vehicles, trucks, cranes, concrete pumps and heavy equipment, making it more conven-ient than ever for our customers to obtain the equipment they need.”

Jaidah Heavy Equipment is a divi-sion of locally-based Jaidah Group, one of Qatar’s oldest companies. The largest equipment supplier in Qatar, the company provides equipment and support to clients in construction, infrastructure, logistics and ware-housing, power generation, transport and municipal applications. Jaidah Equipment offers a complete range of equipment from the world’s leading brands, including Komatsu, Bobcat, UD Trucks and Isuzu.

Qatar Islamic Bank partners with Jaidah Equipment

QFB and Novus Aviation Capital partner in aircraft lease dealThe Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar First Bank (QFB) and Novus Aviation Capital, one of the world’s long standing and fastest growing aircraft leasing platforms, have invested in the global aircraft leasing industry through the indirect acquisition and lease of two 2011 vin-tage Boeing 737-900ER single-aisle aircraft to Indonesia’s Lion Air.

The transaction will pay for the Investment in two B737-900ERs, the largest variant of Boeing’s hugely suc-cessful Next Generation (“NG”) series which is the current production fam-ily for the B737.

Ziad Makkawi (pictured), CEO of QFB, said: “We are delighted to have provided our clients, who have shown a strong interest, with this attractive investment. The transaction is in line with our strategy to diversify QFB’s revenue sources. We see opportuni-ties in the aviation industry as it has historically generated relatively pre-dictable returns over the medium to long term, something the market is in search off.”

“The outlook for the leased air-craft type, the B737-900ER, is very favorable which has positive impli-cations for the preservation of its market value, and more importantly

will provide strategic investors with recurring and sustained income streams.” Makkawi added.

Makkawi continued: “Our focus since the listing of the bank’s shares on the QSE was on generating steady income and offering shari’ah compliant structured products. This attractive investment fulfils these objectives as the aviation indus-try has maintained a stable and sustainable growth path in com-parison with alternative investment benchmarks.”

The lease agreement will be managed by Dubai-based Novus Aviation Capital, a specialist in air-craft sourcing, trading, leasing and other related services. With a cur-rent portfolio of around $3bn, Novus

Aviation Capital has closed over 400 lease and financing agreements val-ued at $8bn and has executed aircraft transactions with over 40 major air-line companies.

Commenting on the transac-tion, Safwan Kuzbari, President and CEO of Novus Aviation Capital, said: “We are very pleased to be partner-ing with Qatar First Bank on another landmark aircraft transaction and look forward to further developing our relationship on other attractive yielding aircraft assets.”

Novus Aviation Capital acted as sole arranger for both the finan-ciering and leasing elements of the deal, with QFB exclusively involved in the Islamic financing part of the transaction.

Earlier in May, QFB announced the development of a pioneering open architecture private bank-ing platform, which is set to offer Shari’ah-compliant products including financing, private bank-ing services, innovative investment solutions, as well as family office services covering trusts, foundations, advisory, real estate planning, and statement consolidation. This is in line with QFB’s commitment to offer shareholders and clients the chance to grow, manage and protect their wealth and assets.

Qatar Islamic Bank and Jaidah Equipment officials after signing the agreement.

Saudis to let foreigners buy listed debt instrumentsReuters

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia plans to let foreign institutional investors buy exchange-listed debt instruments as part of reforms intended to draw more foreign money into its markets, the Capital Market Authority (CMA) said yesterday.

After opening its equity market to

direct investment by foreign institu-tions in June 2015, Riyadh last month announced steps including the abo-lition or easing of ceilings on foreign buying of stocks and a reduction in the minimum amount of assets which institutions must have under management.

Yesterday, the CMA confirmed that amendments to its regulations it had proposed on Monday would allow

investment in debt, as it changed ref-erences to “shares” in the rules into “securities”. Access to debt instru-ments could increase the interest of foreign asset managers in Riyadh’s securities exchange. It only had about half a dozen listed bonds and sukuk at the end of last year, exchange data shows, but authorities have said they will encourage more issuance and trading of Saudi corporate debt.

QE 9,919.41 +0.09 PTS

DOW 17,798.41 -31.32 PTS

FTSE100 6,261.19 +34.64 PTS

BRENT $48.77 -$1.08

BUSINESS18 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

AFP

HANOVER, GERMANY: The boss of embattled German auto giant Volkswagen yesterday issued an apol-ogy to angry shareholders over the emissions cheating scandal that has plunged the group into an unprece-dented crisis.

Facing an annual general meet-ing for the first time since the scandal erupted in September, Matthias Muel-ler said: “On behalf of the Volkswagen Group and everyone who works here, I apologise to you shareholders for your trust in Volkswagen being betrayed.

“This misconduct goes against everything that Volkswagen stands for,” he added nine months after the start of the “Dieselgate” affair, when it

emerged VW had installed emissions-cheating software into 11 million diesel engines worldwide.

Volkswagen is still far from draw-ing a line under the scandal, with the costs of the affair still incalculable while it remains unclear if VW’s own internal investigation will pinpoint the major culprits behind the scam.

And the auto giant, which owns 12 brands ranging from Volkswagen and Porsche to Audi and SEAT, still faces a myriad of regulatory fines and lawsuits from customers and shareholders.

Shareholders are expected to use the AGM in the northern city of Hanover to let off steam at the way management has handled the affair.

Two days ahead of the meeting, prosecutors provided more fodder to the irate shareholders when they said they were investigating former VW boss Martin Winterkorn for having allegedly manipulated the market by holding back informa-tion about emissions cheating at the car giant.

A second former member of the board was also under probe, pros-ecutors said, without giving the individual’s name, but a Volkswagen spokesman told AFP that the suspect

was Herbert Diess -- who is in charge of the VW brand.

Listed companies are required to disclose information that could affect market prices immediately.

But VW complied with its disclo-sure obligation only on September 22, 2015, prosecutors said, four days after US regulators went public that they were charging the company for emis-sions cheating.

The allegations struck at the heart of shareholders’ misgivings, as they have since early on in the scandal also accused management of dragging their feet in informing them about the scam, which led to a stunning 40-per-cent drop in the company’s share price last autumn.

The stock has since recovered somewhat, but is still 26 percent below the levels before the scandal broke last September, and the com-pany’s finances also remain weak.

After it was forced to set aside 16 billion euros ($18 billion) in provisions to cover the costs of the affair so far, it sank to a net loss of 1.6 billion euros, its first loss in two decades.

Giving an update of the company’s internal investigation into the affair, chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said some 550 interviews had been carried

out by the US consultants charged with the probe, Jones Day.

Nevertheless, a number of share-holder lobby groups are demanding special enquiries into who should be held responsible for the affair, argu-ing that Jones Day is not sufficiently independent.

Seeking to reassure sharehold-ers of management’s commitment

to regain their trust, Mueller said the crisis could eventually prove to be “beneficial”.

“The crisis has also opened doors. It forced us to strengthen and speed up overdue changes, and to set new priorities. To turn this crisis into an opportunity has been my goal from the beginning,” he said.

Mueller hinted in a newspaper

interview on Tuesday that the car giant could abandon diesel engine technology in the wake of the scandal.

“We have to ask ourselves whether... we want to spend more money on the further development of diesel,” Mueller told the business daily Handelsblatt, promising that VW would take a “fundamental” look at the issue.

AFP

PARIS: Mobile phones and rising con-nectivity in Africa will give rise to a new market in mobile financial serv-ices, creating explosive opportunities for business on the continent, research has found.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimated that in three years, 250 million Africans without access to traditional banking services “will have mobile phones and a monthly income of at least $500”.

That could translate to projected revenues of $1.5 billion (1.3 billion euros) from mobile financial services, the group said in a report released on Tuesday.

That’s key for a continent where the banking system is as yet hugely underdeveloped, but where strides have already been made in mobile banking.

In Kenya, for example, the mobile money system has nearly 18 million users thanks to the M-Pesa service run by British telecom giant Voda-fone’s subsidiary Safaricom.

In Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and one of its fastest growing economies, mobile phones are now being used to push an elec-tronic payment service by phone called M-Birr.

This is all good news for Africa, where a mere 25 percent of Africans have a regular bank account because “financial service providers haven’t made the continent a priority,” the

group’s report said.The “high cost to serve and low

margins of traditional bank accounts in Africa” are the main reasons for the oversight.

However, sub-Saharan Africa leads the world in mobile money accounts, according to the World Bank.

“While just 2 percent of adults worldwide have a mobile money account, 12 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa have one,” the Bank said in a separate study based on 2015 data.

That number is projected to grow now that more than 50 percent of Africans over the age of 15 own a mobile phone and since mobiles are a low-cost way to reach a huge market.

“For most of these consumers,”

said the BCG report, “mobile bank-ing will be their first experience with financial services.”

Most Africans currently use mobile phones to transfer money but also to prepay utilities and purchase small items, as well as make debit-card transactions, BCG said.

The survey of 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa found that four in 10 Africans access the Internet using a smart phone, while three-quarters use a computer to get on the web.

Since 2013, the number of Afri-cans with access to the internet has grown by 8 percent.

In Ivory Coast, access to the Inter-net has gone from 200,000 in 2008 to 8 million in 2016 thanks to 3G.

This connectivity, coupled with

rising consumer classes and Africans’ increasingly optimistic outlook, will translate to over 1.1 billion consum-ers by 2020, the group said -- “more than the populations of Europe and North America combined”.

“The concept of a middle class is taken from the Western society model and has led to confusions when we talk of Africa,” said Lisa Ivers, direc-tor of the BCG bureau in Casablanca.

“The African socioeconomic real-ity is vastly different across African countries and from more established markets,” she said.

“But that absolutely doesn’t lessen our confidence over the potential of the African domestic consumption.”

The group projected that by 2020, Africa will be home to twice as many

affluent consumers as the UK -- and they “are very optimistic and eager to spend”.

Of the more than 11,000 peo-ple surveyed between February and March 2015, 88 percent said they were optimistic about the future.

In Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria, more than 90 percent said they were optimistic. According to the survey, 85 percent also agreed with the state-ment “It seems like every year there are more things I want to buy”.

Domestic companies have started to tap into this by merging consumer demand and web access.

Jumia, Africa’s version of Ama-zon.com, sells a wide range of products and offers a mobile pur-chasing app.

Emissions scandal: VW chief says sorry to shareholders

Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller addresses shareholders during the German carmaker Volkswagen shareholders’ annual general meeting in Hanover yesterday.

Mobile money to power Africa’s financial growth: Study

Barwa Bank names winners of Thara’a savings drawThe Peninsula

DOHA: Barwa Bank announced the names of the 9th round of draw winners for Thara’a, its Shari’ah compliant savings account, at the Bank’s headquarters. Wadha Mohamed A F Alnoaimi, Kadi Salem S A Almarri, and Abdulaziz Abdo A H Al Amari, each won a cash prize of QR10,000.

Also, a cash prize worth QR5,000 was awarded to Moham-med Humaid S Albadi, Noora Rashid E S Al Enazi, Alawi Abdulkadir Alju-neid, Muna Hammamm M Al Fahad, Ali Hilal E Al Sharim, SamerAlabdul-razzak, and Mohammad Sayab Khan Ferozuddin Khan. The draw was conducted under the supervision of a representative of the qualitative license and market control depart-ment at the Ministry of Economy and Commerce. Thara’a offers account holders the chance to benefit from cash rewards up to QR1m, a first for Islamic banks in Qatar.

Totalling QR3m, Thara’a cash rewards are distributed on both monthly and biannual basis to cus-tomers holding a minimum balance of QR10,000. On a monthly basis, there are 7 winners per draw for the cash prize of QR5,000, as well as four winners per draw for the cash prize of QR10,000. Additionally, twice-a-year there are four win-ners per draw for the cash prize of QR25,000 prize, 2 winners per draw for the cash prize of QR50,000 and one winner per draw for the grand prize of QR1m. Rewarding 102 win-ners in total with cash prizes up to QR3m.

An employee introduces Sharp Corp’s RoBoHon, a humanoid communication robot-shaped mobile phone, at a Sharp showroom in New Taipei City, Taiwan, yesterday.

Reuters

MUNICH: Global industrial robot sales growth slowed to 12 percent in 2015 weighed by a sharp fall in top buyer China, data from the Interna-tional Federation of Robotics (IFR) showed yesterday.

The figure was less than half the 29 percent advance seen in 2014 but revised up from a previous IFR esti-mate of 8 percent due to more data from national associations.

Growth in robot sales in China slowed to 17 percent from 56 percent but the country, hungry to automate production as wages rise and still lag-ging in its robot-worker ratio, still

accounted for more than a quarter of the 248,000 robots sold.

“The positive sales figures are being driven by highly automated emerging countries, and by regions that are already highly developed economically,” the IFR said.

Robot sales more than doubled in Mexico, where the global automotive industry has made large investments in plants to make cars for export to the United States and South America.

The Chinese market is still dom-inated by foreign robot makers but the IFR said domestic robot makers were making inroads, increasing their market share to 31 percent from 25 percent in 2013.

Chinese producers still largely make low- to mid-range industrial

robots but are keen to develop their capabilities.

Chinese home appliances maker Midea launched a bid last week for German industrial robot maker Kuka.

European industrial robot sales rose 10 percent, led by Germany, the IFR said. Sales rose 15 percent in the Americas, although just by 3 per-cent in the US. In Asia they rose by 16 percent.

South Korea was the world’s sec-ond-biggest robot market, followed by Japan, the United States and Germany. The five accounted for three-quarters of all sales of industrial robots.

The automotive industry was still the biggest buyer of robots, account-ing for more than a third of sales. But growth was just 1 percent.

Industrial robot sales growth plunges

Volkswagen is still far from drawing a line under the scandal, with the costs of the affair still incalculable.

Low mortgage rates boost US home sales to nine-year highReuters

WASHINGTON: US home resales rose in May to a more than nine-year high amid low mortgage rates, pointing to sustained housing market strength that should keep the econ-omy on solid ground.

The fairly strong existing home sales report on Wednesday added to retail sales and international trade data in painting an upbeat picture of the economy in the second quar-ter. A sharp slowdown in job growth in May had cast doubts on whether growth was picking up after almost stalling in the first quarter.

“The housing market recovery is truly back on track ..., which should reinforce confidence that the eco-nomic recovery is moving in the right direction,” said Millan Mul-raine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York.

The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales gained 1.8 percent to an annual rate of 5.53 million units last month, the highest level since February 2007.

April’s sales pace was revised down to 5.43 million units from the previously reported 5.45 million units. Economists had forecast sales rising 1.1 percent to a 5.54 million-unit pace in May. Sales were up 4.5 percent from a year ago.

US financial markets were lit-tle moved by the report as investors nervously awaited the outcome of

Britain’s referendumon European Union membership on Thursday.

But the PHLX housing index rose 0.55 percent. Shares in the nation’s largest homebuilder, D.R. Horton Inc, gained 0.29 percent while Lennar Corp rose 0.93 percent.

Despite rising for three straight months, existing home sales remain constrained by a shortage of homes available for sale.

The dearth of properties is keeping home prices elevated, sidelining some first-time buyers. The median house price soared 4.7 percent from a year ago to a record $239,700 last month. The rate of increase has, however, slowed from last year’s brisk pace.

Demand for housing is being driven by historically low mortgage rates, improving household formation as some young adults find employ-ment and older Americans move into smaller and cheaper homes.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 3.60 percent in May, the lowest level since May 2013, accord-ing to mortgage finance firm Freddie Mac. Home resales are likely to increase in June. A separate report from the Mortgage Bankers Associ-ation showed mortgage applications increased 2.9 percent last week.

“The extended run of extraor-dinarily low mortgage rates is clearly bringing trade-up buyers back into the market,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Reuters

NEW YORK: Stocks and sterling rose while safe-haven assets gold and bonds slipped yesterday, as

investors grew more optimistic Britain would vote to remain in the European Union in its refer-endum today.

Riskier markets also drew support from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s comments on the US economy on Tuesday, when she virtually ruled out a July interest rate hike.

Wall Street stocks gained 1 percent so far this week although the mood was cautious, with the potential for new opinion polls to swing markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 20.48 points, or 0.11 percent, to 17,850.21, the S&P 500 gained 5.04 points, or 0.24 per-cent, to 2,093.94 and the Nasdaq Composite added 19.69 points, or 0.41 percent, to 4,863.46.

The MSCI’s all-country world stock index rose 0.6 percent for a 2.6-percent gain so far this week.

Betting patterns with book-makers have shown a re-opening of the gap in favor of “Remain” after the murder last week of a pro-EU lawmaker appeared to derail the “Leave” campaign.

Stock market gains were more

pronounced in Europe. Europe’s FTSEuroFirst index of 300 leading shares was up 0.8 percent , Ger-many’s DAX was up 1.1 percent, France’s CAC 40 up 0.9 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 up 1.1 percent. Sterling rose around 0.4 percent against the dollar, climb-ing above $1.47 and edging back towards Tuesday’s $1.4781. The pound has risen 5 percent since dropping to a three-month low of $1.4010 today.

“Part of it is gradually more and more the risk from Brexit being removed, something that started last week when we saw the polls changing around,” said Charles St-Arnaud, (pictured) senior strategist and economist at Nomura Securities Interna-tional in London.

The dollar slipped 0.1 per-cent against the yen to 104.66 yen, and the euro rose 0.6 per-cent to $1.1306.

For the latest Reuters news on the referendum including full multimedia coverage, click.

Fed chief Janet Yellen said on Tuesday the risk of Brexit was something that needed watching “very carefully”, but she added that the central bank’s ability to raise interest rates this year may hinge on a rebound in hiring.

Yellen continued her testi-mony in front of the USHouse Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, with investors lis-tening for clues about the central bank’s thinking on the state of the economy and the timing of inter-est rate hikes.

BUSINESS 19THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

QE Index 9,919.41 0.00 %

QE Total Return Index 16,048.95 0.00 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,860.13 0.09 %

QE All Share Index 2,759.27 0.16 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial Services 2,664.24 0.26 %

QE All Share Industrials 3,064.13 0.32 %

QE All Share Transportation 2,469.86 0.39 %

QE All Share Real Estate 2,520.76 0.78 %

QE All Share Insurance 3,980.19 1.09 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,099.55 0.40 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods & Services 6,395.83 0.50 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON

GOLD AND SILVER

WORLD STOCK INDICES

22-06-2016 Today 21-06-2016 Previous dayIndex 9,919.41 9,919.32

Change 0.09 94.07

% 0.00 0.96

YTD% 4.89 4.89

Volume 3,135,188 4,631,131

Value (QAR) 108,731,444.72 174,772,435.80

Trades 2,148 2,354

Up 14 | Down 26| Unchanged 03

GOLD QR148.6747 per grammeSILVER QR2.0233 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year LowAll Ordinaries 5349.529 -3.724 -0.07 5489.8 4762.1

Cac 40 Index/D 4395.73 28.49 0.65 4607.69 3892.46

Dj Indu Average 17829.73 24.86 0.14 18188.8 15370.3

Hang Seng Inde/D 20795.12 126.68 0.61 21794.84 18278.8

Iseq Overall/D 6284.75 30.95 0.49 6791.68 5611.89

Karachi 100 In/D 38149.26 -266.05 -0.69 39039.67 29785

Nikkei 225 Index 16065.72 -103.39 -0.64 18951.12 14865.77

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 2132.82 1810.1

EXCHANGE RATECurrency Buying Selling

US$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 5.3167 QR 5.3920

Euro QR 4.0844 QR 4.1427

CA$ QR 2.8249 QR 2.8809

Swiss Fr QR 3.7724 QR 3.8261

Yen QR 0.0345 QR 0.0352

Aus$ QR 2.7053 QR 2.7596

Ind Re QR 0.0535 QR 0.0545

Pak Re QR 0.0345 QR 0.0352

Peso QR 0.0776 QR 0.0791

SL Re QR 0.0245 QR 0.0250

Taka QR 0.0460 QR 0.0469

Nep Re QR 0.0334 QR 0.0341

SA Rand QR 0.2456 QR 0.2504

Reuters

DUBAI: Gulf stock markets were mixed in narrow ranges and moderate volumes yesterday, with investors cautious before Britain’s European Union referendum. Egypt resumed sliding after it broke major technical support earlier this week.

Saudi Arabia’s index dropped 0.3 percent. Some banks were weak, with Saudi Hollandi Bank down 2.8 percent. Saudi Basic Industries, the Gulf’s larg-est listed petrochemical producer, added 0.3 percent as oil prices rose.

Arabian Pipes jumped its 10 percent daily limit for a second straight day in its heaviest trading since early 2005.

In Abu Dhabi, Union National Bank jumped 4.4 percent in a second day of strong gains, after Arqaam Capital said in a note on Tuesday that following the proposed merger between National Bank of Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank, “we expect UNB to be next”.

It said Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank might offer a substantial premium to UNB shareholders in a merger; ADCB shares rose 2.8 percent on Wednesday. NBAD, which soared earlier this week, rose a further 1.7 per-cent while FGB fell 1.6 percent. The main Abu Dhabi index edged down 0.1 percent.

Dubai’s index climbed 1.0 percent with Dubai Parks and Resorts, the most heavily traded stock, surging 4.1 percent to 1.54 dirhams.

The company is in an uptrend before the opening of its first theme parks later this year in Dubai, but the stock now exceeds the 1.47-dirham median target price of three analysts surveyed by Reuters.

Qatar’s index was flat, although Qatar International Islamic Bank added 2.3 percent in unusually heavy trade.

Cairo’s main stock index dropped 1.3 percent to7,156 points. It has been technically bearish since it

broke earlier this week below its April and May lows, triggering a head & shoulders pattern pointing down to the 6,700 point area.

Asec Company for Mining sank 2.8 percent after reporting that it swung to a consolidated loss in the first quarter from a year-earlier profit. Its parent company Qalaa Holdings sank 6.3 percent.

Gulf mixed before Brexit vote; Egypt resumes downtrend

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

A C C-A/D 1567.1 10.85 13866

Aban Offs-A/D 211.3 -3.65 218501

Ador Welding-B/D 274.25 -3.4 1993

Aegis Logis-B/D 121.6 -0.45 76041

Alembic-B/D 37 -0.25 40306

Alkyl Amines-B/D 346.1 5.7 4141

Alok Indus-A/D 4.61 0.07 8145612

Apollo Tyre-A/D 148.45 -0.35 92321

Asahi I Glass-/D 150.6 -2.9 11404

Ashok Leyland-/D 99.8 -2.35 866452

Ballarpur In-B/D 15.7 -0.1 206921

Bata India-A/D 531.3 -6.3 165048

Beml Ltd-A/D 846.85 -11.3 28466

Bh Electronic-/D 1263.5 -21.2 28277

Bhansali Eng-T/D 19.9 -0.1 14635

Bharat Bijle-B/D 923 11.05 9176

Bharatgears-B/D 81 3.4 2340

Bhartiya Int-B/D 501 -17.5 8061

Bhel-A/D 122.6 0.75 409383

Bom.Burmah-B/D 403 4.9 17490

Bombay Dyeing-/D 46.3 -1.9 2019393

Camph.& All-B/D 521 1 1623

Canfin Homes-B/D 1124.85 -23.25 2421

Caprihans-Xc/D 80 -0.1 6520

Castrol India-/D 374.95 -1.6 45799

Century Enka-B/D 228.3 -2.2 67333

Century Text-A/D 636.8 -15 390296

Chambal Fert-B/D 68.8 -0.75 87427

Chola Invest-A/D 933.5 -5.5 1207

Chowgule St-T/D 15.4 -0.55 3875

Cimmco-B/D 74 -1.2 9028

Cipla-A/D 483.5 0.65 365944

City Union Bk-/D 110.2 2.2 39342

Colgate-A/D 883.5 0.75 28837

Container Cor-/D 1340 7.9 4409

Dai-Tichi Kar-/D 375 -5.9 1020

Dcm Shram Ind-/D 146.8 -9.4 17760

Dhampur Sugar-/D 104.5 -2.6 142491

Dr. Reddy-A/D 3103.1 53.6 43015

E I H-B/D 110 -1.7 1320

E.I.D Parry-A/D 227 -5.1 114643

Eicher Motor-A/D 18771.5 41 2081

Electrosteel-B/D 18.5 -0.3 48586

Emco-B/D 26.05 -0.7 9198

Escorts Fin-B/D 4.94 0.54 225095

Escorts-A/D 207.45 25.25 3963443

Eveready Indu-/D 257 -0.5 9318

F D C-B/D 175.6 -2.95 3452

Federal Bank-A/D 55.5 -1.2 437941

Ferro Alloys-B/D 4.65 -0.05 35890

Finolex-A/D 416.3 2.15 4360

Gail-A/D 374.9 -7.2 97785

Galada Power-B/D 16 0.01 1416

Gammon India-T/D 16.09 -1.77 771055

Garden P -B/D 39.2 3.55 593306

Godfrey Phil-B/D 848.65 -9.25 6237

Goodricke-B/D 164.15 3.35 91968

Goodyear I -B/D 517 -4.3 4054

Hcl Infosys-B/D 38.9 -1.15 253269

Him.Fut.Comm-T/D 18.25 0.35 1664388

Himat Seide-B/D 235.2 3.75 144219

Hind Motors-T/D 4.82 0.08 49634

Hind Org Chem-/D 16.6 -0.3 14803

Hind Unilever-/D 859.6 -12.5 45936

Hind.Petrol-A/D 925 -5.9 30026

Hindalco-A/D 122 -1.25 1162332

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1238.2 0.45 174373

I F C I-A/D 25.35 -0.3 482525

Idbi-A/D 69.85 -0.9 656453

India Cement-A/D 102.45 -1.25 171674

India Glycol-B/D 96.95 -5.8 77475

Indian Card-B/D 257.15 -6.25 14808

Indian Hotel-A/D 129.9 -0.5 100179

Indo-Tcount-T/D 947.25 -12.2 24258

Indusind-A/D 1089.05 -1.85 26026

J.B.Chemical-B/D 237.75 -2.2 18387

Jagatjit Ind-X/D 80 -0.5 7663

Jagson Phar-B/D 38.95 -0.8 10543

Jamnaauto-B/D 172.35 3.25 154099

Jbf Indu-B/D 210.9 1.05 51105

Jct Ltd-B/D 4.94 -0.13 2415037

Jenson&Nich.-B/D 7.67 -0.13 6263

Jik Indust-B/D 0.68 -0.03 10001

Jindal Drill-B/D 179.75 -5.1 12777

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 86.95 -1.55 97517

Kabra Extr-B/D 103.35 0.6 1831

Kajaria Cer-A/D 1163 -18.5 1708

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 417.5 -9.1 48629

Kalpat Power-B/D 249.3 -3.6 7885

Kalyani Stel-T/D 185.8 -5.95 42631

Kanoria Chem-B/D 65.2 -2.5 30610

Kg Denim-B/D 79.95 -3.55 65568

Kopran-B/D 51.05 -0.85 23857

Lakshmi Elec-B/D 409.55 17.15 10334

Lloyd Metal-B/D 27.3 0 8841

Lok.Hous&Con-T/D 4.95 0.09 73892

Lumax Ind-B/D 702.15 -10.25 16833

Lupin-A/D 1464.6 15.1 60824

Mangalam Cem-B/D 286.9 1.75 4334

Maral Overs-B/D 28.85 -0.2 24294

Mastek-B/D 144 -0.35 16024

Max Financial-/D 503 -1.05 179802

Mrpl-A/D 65.55 -0.15 54866

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COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME

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LONDON

Part of it is gradually more and more the risk from Brexit being removed, something that started last week when we saw the polls changing around.

Stocks and British currency gain on eve of referendum

Investors cheer Nigeria currency float but won’t rush back yetBy Karin Strohecker

Reuters

Nigeria’s swift one-step move to a float-ing currency has been welcomed by investors but most nonetheless will

stay away until Africa’s biggest economy shows signs of recovering from damage inflicted by the 16-month old exchange rate peg. Nigeria this week finally ditched the peg that had throttled foreign exchange markets, led to widespread capital flight and caused its first quarterly economic contraction since the 1990s.

Investors, local businesses and interna-tional lenders had called for a devaluation for months as the government burned through hard currency reserves to preserve the naira after a steep oil price tumble tore apart its finances. But while investors welcomed the float as the right first step, most plan to watch Nigeria from the sidelines anticipating more pain in store.

“It is positive, it is a more credible and flexible exchange rate regime in the long-run, you will see an external rebalancing of

the economy, a fiscal adjustment and so on,” said Jonas David, emerging market specialist at UBS Wealth Management in Zurich.

“But in the near term, things will get worse before they get better.” A slide into recession after the economy shrank in the first quarter of the year and a fresh spike in inflation are among issues investors will want to wait out, said David, together with confir-mation that the new regime is functioning properly.

Once that happens, focus will shift to fun-damentals such as returning the economy to growth — key for a country of 180 mil-lion where some 46 percent live in poverty.

Inflation too is running at the highest in more than six years — it hit 15.6 percent in May — already above the central bank’s 12 percent interest rate.

The currency devaluation is likely to push inflation north of 20 percent in the second half of the year, meaning authorities will need to ramp up interest rates if they want to lure back foreign money to bond markets.

“Right now you have negative real interest rates, so investors will not be enamoured with buying Nigerian bonds given where inflation is or where it is headed,” said Kevin Daly at

Aberdeen Asset Management. “You need (a yield) somewhere between 15-20 percent to make this attractive.”

Foreigners held $5.4bn of Nigerian bonds in September 2013 but dumped most of them after the country was ejected last year from JPMorgan’s GBI-EM index - the most widely used emerging debt benchmark. A country cut from the index needs to wait at least 12 months before re-inclusion.

But the bond market’s size, liquidity and turnover all made it attractive to foreign investors, said Samir Gadio, Head of Africa Strategy FICC Research at Standard Char-tered Bank, noting that Lagos’ $150m daily turnover was next only to South Africa’s on the continent.

Nigeria’s bourse has avoided the same fate, as index provider MSCI has retained it in its frontier equity indexes with a sizeable 12.4 percent weight. But local stock exchange data shows foreigners’ share dealings are down 66 percent from a year earlier.

While the market has surged about 8 per-cent this month in anticipation of foreigners’ return, fund managers, eyeing an ominous combination of rampant inflation and slow-ing growth, may not rush back.

Africa’s biggest oil exporter saw its economy shrink by 0.36 percent — its worst performance in a quarter of a century - and economists predict the contraction deep-ened in the second quarter due to fuel and FX shortages.

“It will be at least 12 months before we see any green shoots,” said Yvonne Mhango, Sub-Saharan Africa Economist at Renais-sance Capital in Johannesburg. “The pain has to cut in full through the economy.”

An average naira rate of 270 per dol-lar this year implies a fall in Nigeria’s dollar GDP to $400bn from $481bn in 2015, Ren-aissance Capital estimates. All this is set to hit the local population and firms hard, but foreign companies operating in Nigeria have also suffered. “(Naira devaluation) will lead to a consumer recession, a collapse in prof-its in companies,” said Robert Marshall-Lee, investment director at Newton Investment Management.

While Marshall-Lee predicts an “ugly market” for the next couple of years, he says stronger companies such as Guinness Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries or lenders Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank will probably weather the storm.

By Matthias Sobolewski

Reuters

German banks exploited a legal loophole that allowed two parties to claim ownership of the

same shares, the financial watch-dog will tell lawmakers this week, in schemes that could have cost the state billions of euros in tax over many years.

This double ownership allowed both parties to claim tax rebates. It has provoked public anger in Ger-many and is an embarrassment for the Berlin government, which has campaigned for years to root out tax evasion around the world.

The loophole was closed in 2012, with the means of claiming double ownership banned. But an analysis of documents related to a lawmakers’ investigation - seen by Reuters but not publicly availa-ble - suggests the finance ministry may have missed a chance to end the practice several years earlier, instead accepting a banking lobby proposal that allowed it to continue.

The finance ministry told Reu-ters that it had done all it could to end what it regarded as a crimi-nal practice.

Such schemes centred around “short sales” — the sale of borrowed shares. A bank would loan out the stock in a way that made both the bank and the eventual buyer appear briefly to be simultaneous owners of the shares. This allowed both parties to receive a dividend tax rebate.

The financial watchdog BaFin estimates “a small double-digit number” of German banks were involved in such schemes, but has not named them. Many Germans have been particularly angered that Commerzbank — bailed out in the financial crash and still partly state-owned — has said it used the arrangement.

Commerzbank said there had been “some violations” but said it had not been involved in “system-atic participation in such business”.

The debate over the so-called “Cum Ex” trades has gained fresh momentum following a German regional court ruling in February that found there was no legal basis for the double claiming of rebates, even before it was banned in 2012.

Public prosecutors have embarked on more than a dozen investigations in Frankfurt, Munich and Cologne to

pursue banks for any rebates received through this loophole.

Lawmakers on a special par-liamentary committee convened in February are investigating the practice and whether the govern-ment responded quickly enough to close the loophole. Industry experts say the practice had been going on for decades and had cost the state billions of euros.

Officials from the regulator will appear before the commit-tee on Thursday. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and three predecessors dating back to 1998 will appear in the coming months and will likely face questions on who profited from Cum Ex deals and why the authorities let them continue until 2012.

“Cum Ex” deals were known by state officials to be problem-atic more than a decade ago but the finance ministry accepted a banking industry plan to change the law — a plan which opened another loophole, documents seen by Reuters show. The docu-ments, which track the conception in 1997 of the rule changes, through the drafting process, to a final law passed in 2007, show the ministry picked up and eventually imple-mented the proposal.

A document has been presented to the parliamentary committee, dated May 21, 1997, from Deutsche Bank’s tax department to industry lobby group, the Federal Associa-tion of German Banks (BdB). In it, Deutsche proposes an extra levy to make up for any tax shortfall cre-ated by such Cum Ex transactions, but with one significant exception: foreign banks and clients would not be included.

Deutsche said this week that it had not participated in an organ-ised Cum Ex market but could not rule out that its clients had engaged in such transactions.

The Deutsche Bank proposal was taken up by the lobby group.

The German federal finance office wrote to its superiors at the finance ministry on October 6, 2005, saying: “The legislation pro-posed by the Federal Association of German Banks is ... fully suita-ble for governing the problematic cases of short-selling”.

In 2007, the amendment pro-posed by the lobbyists became law. This allowed banks to con-tinue using such trades for another five years, so long as their clients involved were foreign — for exam-ple a hedge fund in London or Paris.

Dividend tax scandal:

How bank majors

short-changed Germany

Gazprom prepares cold reception for US super-cooled gas

By Oleg Vukmanovic , Nina Chestney

and Dmitry Zhdannikov

Reuters

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States is set to do battle in Europe but Russia’s Gazprom is setting the stage, preparing a cold reception for the super-cooled gas

set to cross the Atlantic.A weakened rouble has lowered

Gazprom’s production costs by a fifth while its profits on dollar-denominated gas sales to Europe last year doubled in rouble terms.

Gazprom has managed to increase sales despite a push by the European Union to curb Russian energy imports, using discounts, renegotiation of unpopular oil-linked contracts and gas sales via auctions.

Spurring Gazprom’s charm offensive is a looming showdown as a wave of US gas is set to reach Europe’s shores beginning next year. US exporters led by Cheniere Energy are expected to have 83 bil-lion cubic metres (bcm) of gas ready for sale by 2019. That’s about 20 percent of Europe’s cur-rent annual gas needs.

That threatens to exacerbate already significant global gas oversupply, with new producers squaring up against established play-ers for market share and driving prices lower.

“We are at the start of a new chapter in

European gas markets,” Fatih Birol, exec-utive director at the International Energy Agency said recently, as US and other sup-plies fight to gain access.

But Gazprom, for now, appears confident it can see off the challenge and even raise its European market share, which stood at 31 percent in 2015, helped by declining out-put in Europe, primarily in the Netherlands and Britain.

As US producers crank up exports, more than a dozen LNG cargoes have been exported, yet so far just one has reached Europe as other markets offer better returns.

“Longer term, Asia will remain more attractive for US gas. No US businessman in the right state of mind - being already heav-ily indebted and having put all his assets as collateral with banks - will deliver gas to Europe at a loss,” Gazprom’s Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev told Reu-ters last week.

However, Gazprom has been wrong before. A few years ago it was similarly scep-tical about the threat posed by the rise of US shale gas and oil. Chief Executive Alexei Miller at the time said unconventional gas was expensive to produce and would not be a game changer in the global energy market.

That was a serious miscalculation and proved costly as Gazprom was forced to shelve development of one of the world’s largest gas fields, Shtokman, as shale rapidly wiped out US needs for gas imports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sub-sequently urged Gazprom to rethink its long-term export policy to take advantage of rising demand in Asian markets.

But as the company’s pivot to Asia drags, Gazprom has looked to bolster demand in Europe through discounting and renegotiat-ing its 25-year, oil-linked supply deals. After years of tough negotiations, it has reached deals with long-term buyers including

France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper, a unit of E.ON.

Cheaper oil prices have helped lower Russian gas prices, and that has spurred demand, with Gazprom deliveries to Europe and Turkey up 20 percent in the first quarter.

“Russian gas is low cost and will remain below U.S. gas prices,” said Claudio Descalzi, chief executive of Italy’s Eni , the biggest buyer of Russian gas in Europe.

And Gazprom seems willing to fight for greater share of the EU market given dwin-dling sales in former Soviet states and still distant prospects of piping gas to China, according to Poland’s Centre for Eastern Studies.

European gas hub prices stand at around 35 pence/therm currently. A fall to 21 pence would hurt Gazprom’s margins but more critically would make it unprofitable for US supplies to cross the Atlantic.

As much as half the production capacity of US LNG players could be shut-in during the summer and at other times if Gazprom simply keeps flowing gas to Europe at cur-rent rates, said analyst Stephen O’Rourke at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Gazprom has 100 bcm per year of spare production capacity at its disposal, or roughly a quarter of Europe’s annual needs, according to the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies. And like Saudi Arabia has done in oil, Gazprom has shown it can use its mar-ket dominance to squeeze its competitors.

After Lithuania opened its Independence LNG import terminal at the end of 2014, for example, Gazprom cut prices to Lithuania and has held an auction for the Baltic states in a bid to boost consumption.

Estonia also took more gas from Rus-sia earlier this year, taking advantage of Gazprom prices that were down by some 45 percent, data from grid operator Eler-ing showed.

A weakened rouble has lowered Gazprom’s production costs by a fifth while its profits on dollar-denominated gas sales to Europe last year doubled in rouble terms.

Investors, local businesses and international lenders had called for a devaluation for months as the government burned through hard currency reserves to preserve the naira after a steep oil price tumble tore apart its finances.

BUSINESS VIEWS20 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

People in front of the Gazprom company building in Moscow, yesterday

Messi fires Argentina into Copa final

PAGE | 00 PAGE | 23

Nobody is scared of England,

says Shearer

THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016 • 18 RAMADAN 1437

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

@peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

Record-man Ronaldo putsPortugal into last 16

AF P

LYON: Cristiano Ronaldo scored two trade-mark brilliant goals yesterday to go into European Championship history and res-cue Portugal in a 3-3 draw with Hungary that took them into the last 16.

The 31-year-old opened his account in style with a deft backheel flick on 50 minutes, then a bullet header 12 minutes later to twice equalise at the Stade de Lyon.

The result left Hungary on top of Group F. Portugal squeezed through as one of the best third-place finishers but now face a tough match against Croatia.

The Real Madrid ace became the first player to score at four European champi-onship finals and his 17th match in a Euro tournament was also a record.

It was his 128th appearance for Portu-gal, further extending the record he set last Saturday, as he made a record 17th appear-ance at Euro finals.

Following their draws with Iceland and Austria, Portugal’s captain had been feel-ing the pressure.

He threw a TV reporter’s microphone in a lake on the morning of the game in Lyon.

But he delivered when it mattered as Portugal equalised three times in a topsy-turvy match -- not one for the faint-hearted.

Hungary captain Balazs Dzsudzsak matched Ronaldo by netting two second-half goals as the Mighty Magyars took first place in Group F winners.

With three draws, Portugal advance as third behind Iceland.

Hungary took the lead in sweltering conditions at the Stade de Lyon when vet-eran midfielder Zoltan Gera unleashed a thunderbolt. There was nothing on when

Portugal fail to clear a corner. But the 37-year-old Gera belted a low left-footed drive into the bottom-right corner which gave Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patricio no chance on 19 minutes.

At the other end, a save from Hungary goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly, who has made grey sweatpants the must-have fashion back home, saved a swirling Ronaldo free-kick on 29 minutes.

Nani had the ball in the Hungary net five minutes from the break, but his effort was ruled offside.

The Fenerbahce forward was not to be denied and his crisp finish, after a lovely

pass in from Ronaldo, put Portugal level on 42 minutes.

The game burst into life with four goals in the opening 20 minutes of the second-half.

Hungary regained the lead just two minutes after the break when Dzsudzsak’s well-struck free-kick took a slight deflec-tion off the Portugal wall on 47 minutes.

The stage was set for Ronaldo.The Real superstar made sure he would

leave the Stade de Lyon with two records when he flicked his shot past Kiraly on 50 minutes to make it 2-2.

But Portugal’s second equaliser only

served to galvanise Hungary’s resolve.Dzsudzsak drilled a free-kick off the

wall, but pounced on the rebound and his left-footed shot deflected off Nani, past Rui Patricio, into the far corner on 55 minutes for a 3-2 lead.

There was, however, no denying Ronaldo.

Just moments after coming on, Ricardo Queresma fired in a corner and Ronaldo drove his header past Kiraly on 62 minutes.

By now it was end-to-end stuff as Hun-gary’s attacking midfielder Akos Elek hit the woodwork on 64 minutes as it stayed 3-3 at the final whistle.

Iceland beat Austria 2-1 to set up England clash AP

PARIS: Iceland, the smallest nation at the European Champi-onship, delivered the feel-good story of the tournament by beat-ing Austria 2-1 yesterday.

Iceland’s victory, which came with virtually the last kick of the game, means the team has qualified for the round of 16. There it will meet England in Nice on Monday, a prospect described as a “dream” by cap-tain Aron Gunnarsson.

Arnor Ingvi Traustason sealed the win in the fourth minute of injury time. Having drawn its first two matches at Euro 2016, the victory secured Iceland second place in Group F behind Hungary.

Iceland took the lead through Jon Dadi Bodvarsson in the 18th minute at Stade de France.

It was fortunate to see Austria defender Aleksandar Dragovic miss a penalty in the 37th and was then forced to defend for most of the second half.

Austria equalized in the 60th through substitute Ales-sandro Schoepf and dominated the final stages, only to be hit by a classic counter-attack in the last seconds as almost the entire team piled forward.

Traustason slid in at the far post to bundle the ball into the net, and was buried by a heap of Iceland players, substitutes and officials.

The whole squad cele-brated in front of their fans in joyous scenes after the final whistle.

The Austrians arrived at the Euros as potential dark horses after going unbeaten in qualifying, and failed to live up to their billing.

Cristiano Ronaldo scores the third goal for Portugal during their Euro 2016 Group F match against Hungary at Stade de Lyon in Lyon, France yesterday.

Star forward nets a double to rescue his country in his 17th game at Euro finals

Nob

Iceland’s forward Jon Dadi Bodvarsson (left) celebrates with team-mates after scoring the first goal of the match during their Euro 2016 group F match against Austria at the Stade de France Stadium in Saint-Denis, near Paris yesterday.

SPORT22 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

Qatar to fly to Switzerland for training camp in August

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Football Associa-tion (QFA) yesterday confirmed the national team’s final training camp will be held in August ahead of the next phase of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches.

The training camp will be held in Zurich from August 10 to 20.

Fareed Mahboob, the national team manager, said: “The dates of the next training camp have been finalised. All arrangements are in place. We are now approaching a very important phase of our preparations.”

Mahboob said the ‘Al Annabi’ will play four friendlies in August. Qatar have listed a friendly against Iraq on August 8 followed by the training camp in Zurich.

Qatar will also play a friendly during their training camp in Switzer-land The game will be played against Spanish side Real Betis as part of their La Liga Challenge .

Al Anabi will play another friendly against Jordan on August 18 followed by a match against Thailand

on the 24th of the same month.The aforementioned games will

be played before Qatar flies out to Tehran for their 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying game against Iran on Sep-tember 1.

Qatar have Iran, South Korea, China, Uzbekistan and Syria in their Group. The team is being coached by Daniel Careno since May last year.

Meanwhile, QFAPresident Sheikh Hamad bin

Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Thani said that Regional development will be at the heart of future plans.

The QFA President urged GCC football bodies to work on grass-roots level to ensure that Asian game moves forward. “Harnessing the talent in GCC is the way forward,” Sheikh Hamad said in a statement. “I have underlined this point a few times in the past,” he said. “We are considering the possibility of adding

a slot on club rosters reserve for GCC players, we have to discuss such points at the highest level of the game in the region. We must follow the way Asian and global football has devel-oped,” he said.

“I will be making more proposals when we sit down for key meetings of the Gulf Football Federation,” he said.

“It is in the interest of all bodies that we develop regional football with serious intent,” he said.

World Cup Qualifying: ‘Al Annabi’ to also play four friendlies ahead of their tie against Iran

Qatar will hold the final training camp in August in Zurich, Switzerland.

We will give our best, says Al Rayyan’s MohsenThe Peninsula

DOHA: Al Rayyan’s Amr Mohsen yes-terday pledged to give his best for a positive result in the opening game of the Futsal Intercontinental Cup that kicks off tomorrow.

Qatar’s Al Rayyan are one of eight teams in the tournament. Al Rayyan launch their campaign against Spain’s

Inter Movistar. The Spanish giants are one of the top sides in the world, having dominated the game for sometime.

“We will give our best. It is a high profile event and we have been preparing with a great deal of con-centration,” Mohsen said.

Qatar’s goalkeeping coach Tarek Hilmi said: “I thank the coach for giving me this opportunity to play for Al Rayyan. Everyone has been

committed to give their best.” Al Rayyan will wait for the final day before announcing their squad for the five-day tournament.

Al Rayyan’s first game will be played at Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiyah Arena.

The June 24n to 29 event brings together eight of the world’s best fut-sal teams who will do battle for top honours at two venues – the Aspire Ladies Sports Hall and the Ali bin

Hamad Al Attiyah Arena. Qatar will be represented by Al Rayyan.

Other teams in the event include Inter Movistar, FC Barcelona Lassa, Carlos Barbosa, Magnus Futsal, Tasi-sat Daryaei, Dynamo Moscow and Benfica.

Save the Dream takes children to Copa game The Peninsula

LOS ANGELES, US: Save the Dream has given children from underpriv-ileged communities in Los Angeles, California, the chance to play soccer and experience the thrill of attend-ing a Copa America match.

In partnership with the Southern California Youth Soccer Organi-zation (SCYSO) and the Villa Park Community Center, Save the Dream hosted a soccer clinic, including inspirational sessions, for 100 Lat-ino boys and girls from 8-12 years of age.

The following day, the children attended a Copa America match, which saw Mexico defeat Jamaica 2-0, cheering for positive values of sport.

Recent articles have emphasised that many children in Southern Cal-ifornia, and elsewhere in the US, are unable to participate in organised soccer, due to the financial cost.

Speaking about the initiative, Massimiliano Montanari, Exec-utive Director of Save the Dream noted that:

“For more than two years, Save the Dream has fully committed itself to take a ball, and with it, educa-tional opportunities, to the outskirts of the world. These outskirts are

everywhere, often very close to us. “The clinic in Pasadena had an

important symbolic value for us and for the families of the children who attended. It was for us an oppor-tunity to understand how we can provide long-term help, in terms of empowering and supporting the work of local NGOs, youth organisa-tions and other expressions of local civil society,” he said.

Joe Supe, Executive Director of Southern California Youth Soccer Organisation (SCYSO) said:

“We were delighted to cooperate with Save the Dream and help reach many children from underprivileged communities. These kids can learn a lot from sport, strengthen self-esteem and respect for the others. We trust this clinic is just the begin-ning of a solid future cooperation for the good of our kids in Los Angeles and many other cities.”

To coincide with the activities, representatives of Save the Dream held bilateral meetings with the LA Galaxy Foundation, the LAFC Foundation and several NGOs that assist children through sport and education.

Save the Dream is a joint ini-tiative of the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) with the support of Ooredoo, the technology partner.

Children pose for a group photo after attending a soccer clinic in Los Angeles hosted by Save the Dream in association with Southern California Youth Soccer Organization (SCYSO) and the Villa Park Community Center, recently.

QSL: Congo striker Pukkila

joins Al Kharaitiyat

The Peninsula

DOHA: Nasser Al Saadi, Deputy Head of football at Al Kharaitiyat Sports Club confirmed that the club has signed the Congolese striker Jer-emy Pukkila.

He joins the team in the 2016/2017 season from Chinese club Guangzhou as a replacement for Burkana Yahia Kebe, who left the team after the completion of the last season.

Al Saadi in a statement to the QSL site stated that the contract with the Congolese striker comes in coor-dination with the coach Amar Osim, who chose from among several of the attackers who were candidates to join the team. After watching the player with his former team the

coach came to his decision, he is an outstanding player and has great technical capabilities.

Saadi added that the new player will be a strong addition to the rest of the squad, and that the the team needs further improvement in prep-aration for the new season, which will be more difficult and tougher.

Al Saadi pointed out that three local players have joined Al Kharaiti-yat from Lekhwiya.

“These players are Khalid Rad-wan and Lacina Diaby and Adel Badr. There are some players who are candidates to join the team, but yet again nothing is confirmed.

“In the coming days will we will resolve all pending proce-dures, including engagements before traveling to the foreign training camp in Slovenia which will be held from 13th to 30th August,” he said.

RSF: Soul Riders clinch volleyball title as junior futsal starts The Peninsula

DOHA: The Men’s Volleyball tournament in Aspire Zone’s Ramadan Sports Festival (RSF) concluded on Tuesday, as team Soul Riders took home the tournament title, followed by W League in second place and Qatar University in third.

On the other hand, the jun-ior futsal and ladies’ volleyball tournaments got off to high scoring starts as both compe-titions welcomed some amazing opening fixtures at the Aspire Dome.

The two tournaments form part of Aspire Zone Founda-tion’s (AZF) Ramadan Sports Festival (RSF) and will see a combined 24 teams go head-to-head from Monday 29 June to Friday 24 June when the win-ners of each tournament will be crowned champions at Aspire Dome.

The junior futsal tourna-ment got under way with a stunning 29 goals from the eight teams competing in the first four matches of the com-petition. In the first match of the evening, team Brazil won against team Samba with a score of 3-2, while Al Asateer

beat the Legends 3-0. The sec-ond day also witnessed strong performances, as team Brazil trumped Back Street Boys with a 10-3 win, while Al Assateer lost a closely fought match with Black Star that ended with a 4-2 win for the latter. Team Golden also put on a solid performance, winning its game against team Immortal with a score of 12-3, while Barcelona beat Al Aziz-iya with a score of 8-2.

The RSF also witnessed the launch of the ladies’ Volleyball tournament, which opened with a one-sided match between Hyper Spikers and Charms that resulted in a 25-12 win for

the former. The evening hosted three more matches that led to a 25-22 win for QPM in its match against Ladies Stallions Busters, while Carrefour B emerged vic-torious in their match against Carrefour A with a 25-20 win. In the final match of the evening, TWS passed their com-petitor Aspetar Active Girls with ease, achieving a 25-4 win.

The second day of the tour-nament hosted a 25-15 win for TWS in its match against Qatar Aces, a 25-8 win for QVIB in its match against Carrefour A, a 25-3 win for Aktor its in match against QPM and a 25-11 win for Hyper Spikers against Zyrens.

Action from the men’s volleyball event at Aspire

Zone’s Ramadan Sports Festival.

FUTSAL INTERCONTINENTAL CUP

Scenes from Al Rayyan’s practice session ahead of the Futsal Intercontinental Cup at Ali bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena, yesterday. Photos: Kammutty VP/The Peninsula

SPORT 23THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

Record-breaker Messi fires Argentina into Copa final

AFP

HOUSTON: Lionel Messi became Argentina’s all-time record goal scorer as the two-time world cham-pions outclassed the United States 4-0 to reach the Copa America Centenario final here on Tuesday.

Messi curled in a magnificent 32nd-minute free-kick to take his total to 55 goals as the United States’ campaign ended with an emphatic defeat in front of a 70,858 crowd at Houston’s NRG Stadium.

The five-time World-Player-of-the-Year now has five goals in this Copa America as he aims to lead Argentina to their first major title in 23 years.

The Barcelona superstar also created Argentina’s opening goal for Ezequiel Lavezzi and was involved in the build-up for their third, scored by Gonzalo Higuain in the 50th minute. Messi then laid on the pass for Higuain’s second four minutes from time.

“We’ve been playing well from day one and we deserve to be in the final,” said a delighted Messi, dedi-cating his goals tally to the work of his team-mates.

“I’m happy to have the record, and I’m happy to play with the teammates that have made it possible. I owe it to them,” said Messi, who is now one

clear of Gabriel Batistuta’s mark of 54 goals.

US coach Jurgen Klinsmann, meanwhile, said his team had showed Argentina “too much respect” after a display which saw them finish with zero shots on or off target.

“I think in general we had too much respect,” Klinsmann said while hailing Argentina as the “number one team in the world.”

“I told the guys there’s nothing to be ashamed of. We have to learn and move forward,” Klinsman said. “We have to keep our heads up and swallow it. But Argentina are a spe-cial team.”

Argentina will now face either Chile or Colombia in Sunday’s final at East Rutherford, New Jersey -- their third major final in three years after reaching the finals of the 2015 Copa America and 2014 World Cup.

A disastrous start for the United States saw the hosts fall behind after only three minutes when they gifted possession to Messi on the edge of the area.

The Argentina captain instantly spotted that Lavezzi was unmarked and lofted a first time pass through to the China-based midfielder to head home.

Argentina might have doubled their lead five minutes later, when Ever Banega backheeled to pick out Marcos Rojo, who crossed for Messi, only for the Albiceleste skipper to shoot over.

Messi was again on the prowl in the 14th minute, seizing upon another American mistake to burst clear from near halfway before firing a shot which Brad Guzan managed to gather safely.

With Argentina monopolizing possession, it was only a matter of time before the South Americans

scored again. The second goal almost came on 22 minutes when Messi released Higuain with a quick free-kick into the penalty area, only for Geoff Cameron to snuff out the dan-ger with a desperate tackle.

But just after the half-hour mark the US defense buckled, Messi causing panic on another foray before being bundled over with a crude challenge by Chris Wondolowski, who was promptly booked.

From the ensuing free-kick, Messi stepped up to curl in his magnificent

record-equalling effort and Argen-tina were 2-0 up.

Klinsmann introduced Borussia Dortmund teenager Christian Pulisic at half-time for the ineffective Wond-olowski but within five minutes it was 3-0. Once again, the US coughed up possession in midfield and from the left flank Lavezzi picked out Higuain in the penalty area. Higuain’s first shot was saved by Guzan, but the Napoli striker was on hand to tap in the sim-plest of rebounds.

With hope ebbing away, the

remaining 40 minutes became an exercise in damage limitation for the Americans. The hosts earned a brief respite from the onslaught when play was held up after Lavezzi injured himself falling over a hoard-ing, but Argentina were quickly back in control.

The only surprise was that it took until 86 minutes for Argentina to grab their fourth, Messi pouncing on yet another US mistake to burst into the box before squaring for Higuain to finish with aplomb.

Lionel Messi (left) of Argentina interacts with a fan who ran onto the field prior to the start of the second half during a 2016 Copa America Centenario semi-final match against the United States at NRG Stadium on Tuesday.

Captain scores a magical goal to take his tally to 55 goals for his country in 4-0 rout over the US

Doha set to

open first NBA

store in the ME

AFP

NEW YORK: The NBA and a Qatari fashion company said yesterday they will partner in opening the first NBA Stores in the Middle East during the 2016-17 league season.

The initial two stores will be located in Doha, Qatar with additional ones to follow later in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The shops will bring bas-ketball fans in the region access to the widest range of league souvenirs ever available in the Middle East, including shoes and jerseys.

“This long-term project cements the NBA’s commitment to grow our footprint across the Middle East,” said NBA vice president of global merchan-dising Vandana Balachandar in an interview.

“As the demand for the NBA continues to grow in the Middle East, our partnership with Al Mana Fashion Group will allow us to provide a comprehensive assortment of NBA merchan-dise while bringing the official NBA shopping experience to our fans in the region.”

More than 400 NBA-branded retail locations worldwide include a new flag-ship shop in New York, three other stores in Manila and another set to open in Cebu, Philippines in August.

McIlroy withdraws

from Rio Games

over Zika fears

AFP

LONDON: Golfing great Rory McIlroy (pictured) delivered a blow to Ireland’s hopes of an Olympic medal yesterday when he said he would not be going to the Rio Games over fears of the Zika virus.

“After much thought and deliberation, I have decided to withdraw my name from con-sideration for this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro,” the 27-year-old four-time major champion said in a statement.

“After speaking with those closest to me, I’ve come to real-ise that my health and my family’s health come before anything else.

“Even though the risk of infection from the Zika virus is considered low, it is a risk none-theless and a risk I am unwilling to take.

“I trust the Irish people will understand my decision. The unwavering support I receive every time I compete in a golf tour-nament at home or abroad means the world to me,” added McIlroy, who was present at the Euro 2016 match between his native North-ern Ireland and Germany in Paris on Tuesday.

The decision by McIlroy – the latest of several major winners to announce they would not go to the Games despite it returning to the quadrennial sports extravaganza for the first time since 1904 – left the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) dejected.

“The OCI is extremely dis-appointed not to be taking Rory with us to Rio,” read a statement from the Council. Replacing McIl-roy will probably be his Ryder Cup team-mate and fellow North-ern Irishman Graham McDowell alongside the higher-ranked Shane Lowry, who led the US Open going into the final round last Sunday.

INDIAK L Rahul b Madziva 22

M Singh c Maruma b Tiripano 4

A Rayudu c Chigumbura b Cremer 20

M Pandey (run out) 0

K Jadhav c Chigumbura b Tiripano 58

M S Dhoni b Tiripano 9

A Patel (not out) 20

D Kulkarni (not out) 1

Extras (LB-1, W-3) 4

Total (fpr 6 wkts in 20 overs) 138Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-27, 3-27, 4-76,

5-93, 6-122.

Bowling: Chatara 4-1-34-0; Tiripano

4-0-20-3; Madziva 4-0-32-1; Chibhabha

4-0-19-0; Cremer 4-0-32-1.

ZIMBABWEC Chibhabha c Chahal b Sran 5

H Masakadza lbw Patel 15

V Sibanda lbw Kulkarni 28

P Moor c Mandeep Singh b Chahal 26

M Waller c Bumrah b Kulkarni 10

E Chigumbura c Chahal b Sran 16

T Maruma (not out) 23

Extras (LB-8, W-3, NB-1) 12

Total (for 6 wkts in 20 overs) 135Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-57, 3-60, 4-86,

5-104, 6-135.

Bowling: Sran 4-1-31-2; Kulkarni 4-0-23-

2; Bumrah 4-0-23-0; Patel 4-0-18-1;

Chahal 4-0-32-1.

SCOREBOARD Jadhav leads India to series

victory over Zimbabwe

AFP

HARARE: Kedar Jadhav’s brisk half-century proved the difference as India held off a spirited Zimbabwe in the third Twenty20 international at Harare Sports Club yesterday to clinch the series 2-1.

In a low-scoring game that went down to the final ball, the value of Jadhav’s 58 from 42 balls on a slow pitch was clear when none of the Zimbabweans managed more than 28 and India shaded the game by just three runs.

Jadhav arrived at the crease with the tourists struggling on 27 for three after they had lost the toss and been asked to bat for the first time on the tour. Zimbabwe had blown hot and cold throughout the series, winning the first game in thrilling fashion before losing the second by 10 wickets, but it was soon appar-ent that they were up for the decider.

However, Jadhav added 49 for the fourth wicket with Ambati Ray-udu, who made 20, and went on to reach his fifty in just 38 balls. Donald

Tiripano struck back for Zimbabwe at the death as he removed Jadhav and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to fin-ish with impressive figures of 3 for 20 from four overs, but Axar Patel’s 20 not out from 11 balls gave India a final tally of 138 for six.

Vusi Sibanda marked his return from injury with a boundary-laden 28, and with Zimbabwe’s middle order all chipping in the hosts took the game down to the last over.

Seamer Barinder Sran was tasked with defending 21 runs from the final six balls, and looked to have bottled it when Timycen Maruma hit him for six and then four, with the second boundary coming off a no-ball.

However Sran allowed only a single from the next three deliveries, leaving Elton Chigumbura needing eight runs from the final two balls.

The Zimbabwe allrounder struck the first ball for four, but could not repeat the feat off the final delivery and so Zimbabwe finished on 135 for six. India had left more than a dozen of their first-choice players at home, which offered an opportunity for less experienced players to impress.

WEST INDIESJ Charles c Smith b Starc 0

A Fletcher c Marsh b Starc 9

D Bravo c Smith b Hazlewood 15

S Samuels c Marsh b Faulkner 125

D Ramdin b Starc 91

K Pollard c Marsh b Boland 20

C Brathwaite b Boland 7

J Holder c Marsh b Faulkner 1

S Narine (not out) 1

Extras (LB-4, W-9) 13

Total (for 8 wkts in 50 overs) 282Fall of wickets: 0-1, 2-29, 3-31, 4-223, 5-247,

6-269, 7-274, 8-282.

Bowling: M Starc; 10-1-51-3; (3w); J Hazle-

wood; 10-3-40-1; J Faulkner; 10-0-56-2; S

Boland; 10-0-69-2; (3w); M Marsh; 5-0-36-0;

(1w); A Finch; 3-0-16-0; G Maxwell; 2-0-10-0;

(2w).

AUSTRALIAU Khawaja c wkpr Ramdin b Gabriel 17

A Finch c Samuels b Brathwaite 16

S Smith (run out) 78

G Bailey c Pollard b Benn 34

M Marsh (not out) 79

G Maxwell (not out) 46

Extras (B-3, LB-4, W-6) 13

Total (for 4 wkts in 48.4 overs) 283Fall of wickets: 1-35, 2-35, 3-99, 4-221.

Did not bat: M Wade, J Faulkner, M Starc, S

Boland, J Hazlewood.

Bowling: J Holder; 2-0-20-0; S Gabriel; 9-1-

43-1; C Brathwaite; 9-0-62-1; S Benn; 10-0-

47-1; S Narine; 10-0-49-0; (3w); K Pollard;

5.4-0-42-0; (3w); A Fletcher; 3-0-13-0.

Result: Australia won by six wickets

Next match: June 24: West Indies vs South

Africa (Kensington Oval, Barbados)

SCOREBOARD

Australia down WI to reach Tri-Series final AFP

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: Aus-tralia displayed the composure and assurance of world champi-ons to chase down a target of 283 and advance to the final with a six-wicket victory over the West Indies in the seventh match of the Tri-Series One-Day International Series at Kensington Oval in Barbados on Tuesday.

Marlon Samuels’ first-ever hundred against Australia and a record-breaking partnership with Denesh Ramdin lifted the West Indies to a competitive 282 for eight batting first.

But half-centuries by captain Steven Smith and all-rounder Mitch-ell Marsh, together with a quickfire unbeaten 46 from Glenn Maxwell ensured that the target was reached with eight balls to spare.

West Indies and South Africa will now meet in the last preliminary

match tomorrow with the winners to face the Aussies in Sunday’s final.

Smith and Marsh steadied Aus-tralia’s effort following the loss of three early wickets with a 122-run fourth-wicket partnership that set the World Cup-holders back on course.

However, when Smith was run out for 78 in the 42nd over, any hopes the West Indies had of claiming the victory that would have eliminated Australia were extinguished by Maxwell.

Displaying his full range of unor-thodox shots, he crashed five fours and two sixes off just 26 balls to ban-ish any lingering anxiety among his teammates in the dressing room. Marsh was left unbeaten on 79, his mature knock going a long way towards fulfilling a lot of the prom-ise that has been expected of him in Australia’s middle-order.

“We knew it was challenging tar-get but we always backed ourselves to get home,” said a delighted Smith after the match.

Konta topples Kvitova in EastbourneBritain’s Johanna

Konta returns against Czech

Republic’s Petra Kvitova during their

women’s singles third round match at the WTA Eastbourne

International tournament in Eastbourne,

yesterday. Konta won 5-7, 6-4,

6-0 to reach the quarter-finals.

24 THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

Nobody is scared of England: ShearerReuters

PARIS: England’s per-formances at Euro 2016 so far will leave none of their opponents scared at the prospect of a knockout clash with the country, according to former striker Alan Shearer (pictured).

After a goalless draw with Slovakia on Mon-day, England finished second behind Wales in Group B and will now face the second-placed team from Group F, comprising Hungary, Iceland, Portugal and Austria, in the last 16 in Nice on Monday.

Shearer, who captained England, believes the changes which manager Roy Hodgson has been making to his line-ups in the group stages are a major problem.

“Hodgson says he does not fear anyone in the knock-out stages, which is fair enough, but I do not see any teams being scared of playing us either,” Shearer told the BBC.

“I don’t think Roy knows his best XI, or his best sys-tem, and that is where we are struggling. Whoever we are up against, we are going to have to improve... we are going to have to click in front of goal pretty soon or the worst will happen.”

England are still unbeaten, having won one and drawn two of their games so far, but they have scored just three goals.

They are now in the toughest half of the draw with the likes of hosts France and World Cup winners Ger-many, although they could first face a less glamorous team in the last 16.

“The standard at this expanded finals is not very high and some of the weaker teams will make it. A lot of them are defensive-minded,” Shearer said.

Trouble in stadium at Czech-Turkey match AFP

LENS: Turkish fans threw flares on the pitch during their country’s win over Czech Republic at Euro 2016 on Tuesday, putting the side at risk of new UEFA sanctions.

At least three flares landed on the pitch following the second goal in the 65th minute of the 2-0 win. Tur-key were punished after their fans set off flares during their Group D defeat by Spain last Friday.

At the end of the first half there was trouble between Turkish fans and stadium stewards after a firecracker exploded in the Turkish section of the crowd and stew-ards move in to find the fan responsible.

Brady heroics take Ireland into Euro knockouts

AFP

LILLE: Robbie Brady struck with just five minutes remaining as the Republic of Ire-land claimed a dramatic 1-0 win over Italy in Lille yesterday to reach the knockout phase of Euro 2016.

Brady’s goal arrived just when it looked as if Ireland were heading out due to a combination of Italy goalkeeper Salva-tore Sirigu and Romanian referee Ovidiu Hategan.

Ireland had to win the match at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy against an Italian side already assured of first place in Group E and got the win they needed to set up a last-16 tie against hosts France.

Before Brady struck, Sirigu, standing in for Gianluigi Buffon in the Italian goal, made a superb save to deny Daryl Mur-phy while Hategan twice waved away Irish penalty appeals in the first half.

Coach Martin O’Neill made four changes to the side that lost 3-0 to Belgium last weekend in Bordeaux as Ireland looked for their first win over Italy in a competi-tive match since the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

James McClean and Daryl Murphy started while it was all change in central defence with Richard Keogh and Shane Duffy chosen to partner one another.

With top spot in the group sewn up and with one eye on their last-16 tie against

Spain next Monday, Italy coach Antonio Conte made eight changes to his side.

The roof was closed at the stadium, a decision which had the effect of raising the noise levels but also helped to protect a shocking pitch from further deteriorat-ing before it is replaced for the knockout rounds.

The surface may not have lent itself to flowing football but Jeff Hendrick showed great technique to fashion a shooting opportunity on his left foot that flew inches wide from 20 metres out early on.

Murphy, who had never scored for Ire-land in 21 previous appearances stretching back nine years, came closest to breaking the deadlock in the first half with a header from Brady’s 21st-minute corner that was tipped over by Sirigu.

Italy threatened as Ciro Immobile shot narrowly past from 25 yards.

It had taken 43 minutes for the Azzurri

to worry Darren Randolph but they needed only eight minutes of the second half to come close again.

This time the AC Milan wing-back Mattia De Sciglio crossed from the left and Juventus striker Simone Zaza, with his back to goal, hooked his shot just over.

The momentum began to slip away from Ireland after Sirigu turned away a Murphy strike from a difficult angle and captain for the night Seamus Coleman’s follow-up effort was blocked.

Italy substitute Lorenzo Insigne then curled a shot against the post and the last 16 looked to be slipping away from Ireland as Wes Hoolahan was denied by Sirigu when left with just the goalkeeper to beat on 84 minutes.

But Hoolahan was the source of the winning goal only a minute later as his cross from the right found Brady steam-ing in to head home.

Belgium qualify as Ibrahimovic bows outReuters

NICE: Belgium went through to the last-16 at Euro 2016 yester-day when Radja Nainggolan’s late strike gave them a 1-0 win over Sweden, who were knocked out after scoring only once in three games.

Sweden’s elimination meant the end of forward Zlatan Ibrahi-movic’s international career as he had announced the day before that he would stop playing for his coun-try once the tournament was over.

Ibrahimovic hooked the ball into the net in the 63rd minute but the goal was disallowed. Their hopes of qualifying ended when Nainggolan scored with a majes-tic strike from outside the area in the 84th minute.

Belgium finished second in Group E with six points, behind winners Italy, and will face Hun-gary in their last-16 match, while Sweden finished bottom with one point. Ireland finished with four points and qualified as one of the best third-placed teams, by beat-ing Italy 1-0. Sweden’s goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson dives unsuccessfully to avoid a goal scored by Belgium’s Radja Nainggolan during their

Euro 2016 group E match played at the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice yesterday.

Sweden’s forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic acknowledges the crowd.

The 85th minute stunner sets up a last-16 tie against hosts France

Ireland’s Robbie Brady (centre) scores the winning goal against Italy during their Euro 2016 Group E match played at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille, France yesterday.