1 mar 2013

Promoting recycling in Kuwait

FR EE

4

www.kuwaittimes.net

Benedict quits with promise to obey successor

15

Benitez blasts Chelsea fans, confirms exit

47 Max 28º Min 17º

NO: 15734- Friday, March 1, 2013

Ghosts of the past haunt Bangladesh See Page 10

DHAKA: Bangladeshi activists participate in a rally yesterday demanding the execution of Delwar Hossain Sayedee, one of the top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, and others convicted of war crimes. — AP

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

@ sherrondsouza

@ sherro

ndsouza

@ sunnylara

@ s_cyra

@ s_cyra

@ sunnyla

ra

za

ondsou

@ sherr

W

SEND US YOUR INSTAGRAM PICS

hat’s more fun than clicking a beautiful picture? Sharing it with others! Let other people see the way you see Kuwait - through your lens. Friday Times will feature snapshots of Kuwait through Instagram feeds. If you want to share your Instagram photos, email us at instagram@kuwaittimes.net

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Conspiracy Theories

Communication lost

Kuwait’s my business

Kuwait gets what Kuwait rewards

By John P Hayes

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

I

noticed lately that along with the advent of more and better media, people are increasingly communicating less and less, and ironically so. The more advanced the various channels of communication, the easier the availability of gadgets and the more pervasive the media, the lesser the contact among the people. I thought I was the only one who noticed that, but the minute I broached the topic in the office, I could not stop people from sharing with me innumerable stories of their own in this context.

Many of them said, “We go home and expect to sit with our family and children chatting about various topics, sharing how each one of us spent his or her day and talk about mundane stuff because that is how one teaches the children. When we communicate, we come to understand our life and our problems better.

The elderly advise the younger and we become more aware of many things and perspectives about life. This helps younger people become more aware just as we did 20 years ago.

“But that’s not what happens. Today, when you sit with your family, you find that one member is on his or her iPod, the second one is using Instagram and the third child is peering into his mobile, chatting on the BBM. I look around and see only the fingers punching feverishly. Whatever happened to the idea of quality time with the family?”

That is so true. Even when we sit around the same table, some people have their headphones on and cannot even hear you as you pass on a dish. At the same time, the elderly, too, will be watching their favourite soap operas.

The situation is hardly different when you meet your friends outside office.

The minute you pull a chair and sit around a table at a coffee shop with your friends, everyone fishes out their phones, sometimes more than one, or their hands are searching inside their pockets to whip out the latest gadget. They immediately start chatting or browsing the internet. The only time someone raises his or her head is when we have to place an order and want to call the waiter. I bet many of us do not even look at the waiter’s face and will not recognize him. So busy are we with our gadgets that we will not know if the same waiter is serving us a second round of coffee. The funniest part is that often we start messaging each other on whatsapp, an inter-personal connecting application.

“Why couldn’t you talk to me? I was with you until now? Couldn’t we talk then?”

My guess is that the problem is not peculiar to Kuwait; that’s how the world is behaving as far as communication is concerned.

My friend told me a nice anecdote which could be fairly instructive. One of his friends has a family where the grandmother has a special rule in her house for the children. When they come to visit her, the children have to leave their phones and gadgets in a basket placed at the entrance of the house. They can collect these at the end of the visit. I really appreciate that. I think families should start adopting such an approach to once again learn how to communicate with their beloved ones. Do you think the art of communication is a lost art in your part of the world, too? Folks, you must enlighten me.

local@kuwaittimes.net

T

he old management principle that says, “You get the results that you reward,” is also a powerful fact of life. It’s as simple as what goes up must come down, and as plain as what goes around comes around - and there’s nothing you or I can do about any of it. When we reward people for the behaviors that we want most, we get more of those behaviors. This principle can be applied to raising children, teaching students, managing people, and even influencing a nation’s citizens.

Now here’s the scary part: When we reward people for the behaviors that we do not want, we get more of those behaviors.

Often times we (parents, teachers, managers, socio-political leaders) reward behaviors without meaning to, and especially without thinking about the consequences. We see the consequences almost everywhere, including Kuwait. For example, when motorists are permitted to drive dangerously, what happens? “Kuwait Breaks World Record for Death on Highways,” as we learned several months ago from Bader Al-Matar, Kuwait’s Chairperson of Traffic Safety Society.

Why does Kuwait own that dreadful accomplishment? It’s mostly because Kuwait gets what Kuwait rewards. Permission is itself a reward.

It won’t surprise me if you say you disagree because that’s what people tell me every time I make this point. No one wants Kuwait to lead the world in traffic deaths, but some people want to argue that Kuwait didn’t earn that record by rewarding bad behaviors.

“It’s more complicated than that,” a student assured me last month at the Kuwait Leadership Mastery. “It’s impossible to stop these deaths,” another student told me the next night at the Model United Nations.

Complicated? Impossible? Mothers and fathers are losing their children in these fatalities! There’s an average 206 accidents and 1.3

deaths per day in Kuwait! Are we willing to allow words to destroy lives?

Other countries, and other people, have taught us that death on the highways isn’t a “complicated” or “impossible” problem. To wit: At about the same time that Kuwait broke the record for highway deaths, we learned that highway deaths fell to an all-time low in the USA. It’s not complicated or impossible to stop traffic fatalities in America. Why? Simple answer: The USA gets what the USA rewards . . . at least on its highways. The USA doesn’t always reward the right behaviors, but on the nation’s highways, look out!

Now comes news that a country closer to home - Dubai - is embracing that old management principle for the purpose of reducing highway accidents. Earlier this week, Dubai Police announced that 700 motorists - 393 men and 303 women - will receive prizes for their perfect driving records in the past year. The prizes include home furnishings, reservations in Dubai hotels, gifts from Paris, coupons for rental cars, free restaurant dining, and more. Good drivers also earn points that they can use to reduce future penalties. Emiratis head the list of winners, but drivers from 55 nationalities are taking away prizes. Names of all winners will be entered into a raffle for a free automobile.

Some people will argue that prizes won’t deter bad driving habits, but there’s no proof of that claim. However, we have historical proof that we get what we reward. Prizes may not influence all the bad drivers, but there’s another old saying: “Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” Giving away prizes may not seem like the logical solution to unsafe driving and death on Kuwait’s highways, but it is a step in that direction. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” The first step is neither complicated nor impossible. In fact, it’s so simple and possible that we can only hope that Kuwait will give it a try because of this we can be certain: Kuwait will continue to get what Kuwait rewards.

Dr. John P. Hayes is the head of Business Administration at GUST where he teaches marketing and directs the Kuwait Leadership Mastery, funded by the Middle East Partnership Initiative. Contact him at questions@hayesworldwide.com, or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

Local Spotlight

Well done, KTV 2

By Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net

W

hen I first received a call a few days before the national holidays from KTV 2, I was a little doubtful about how the interview will be conducted and how it will be received by the public, considering that a majority of people, particularly Kuwaiti citizens, would be out of town or not watching KTV 2 since their proficiency in the English language leaves much to be desired.

However, I have to confess that I was wrong on those counts.

In fact, I was amazed by the number of calls and emails that followed the program and the many enquiries the expatriates had about Kuwait, trying to know every tiny detail about it.

On the 25th of February, I was still not very sure about what this interview will entail and what expats needed to hear. I thought it could contain tips about how to avoid the typical showers of foam that usually spoil the day. First, I spoke about how we need to read history with an open eye and an embracing heart. The 1899 agreement between Kuwait and Britain clearly delineated that Kuwait was an independent country under British protection. So, we were not under any aggressive occupation as we later experienced under the Iraqis. Britain did not interfere in the Kuwaitis’ decision to open itself to the American oil companies or in the development of education. I was asked many questions. I thought the National Day was the best time to recall Kuwait’s achievements. That is how you measure development in any country and learn from the lessons that history has taught us.

After the interview I was swamped with the number of SMSs and missed calls. I did not expect so many Kuwaitis and expatriates to be following KTV 2.

So, well done, KTV 2. I will try to peruse your shows henceforth. You are surely doing a great job.

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

By Nawara Fattahova

M Photos show some of the products made out of recycled materials by Mohammed Dashti.

ore and more Kuwaitis are interested in recycling and are trying to promote this culture. Mohammed Dashti, 26, is trying to make useful items from waste and is even making some profit from the venture. He came up with several amazing ideas which he showcased at some exhibitions and later launched an online store where he is selling his handmade products made from waste.

He started with the idea in 2010 but people saw the products he made only in 2011 for the first time. As it takes a lot of time to make these items, and he only has limited stocks. So when he launched the online store, he also added certain products that were not handmade by him but were nevertheless eco-friendly and that helped save the environment.

“A majority of the displayed products are designed and handmade by me. Rarely, when I needed some more items, my mother and siblings helped me. My Kuwaiti project presents a unique shopping experience in designing as I use recycled materials to come up with environment-friendly items. Most of my products take months of work as I am doing it alone and have no employees to help me,” Mohammed Dashti told the Friday Times.

His products are made from different materials. “For instance, in one of my artworks, I used 600 to 800 bottle caps from Coca Cola to design the old Kuwait flag in red and white colors. Besides me and my family collecting these bottle caps, my neighbors also chipped in, gathering these caps for me. Restaurants turned out to be my major source for the caps and I placed baskets in several restaurants and cafes to collect these. Some of these restaurants also asked me to design their establishment’s logo using these caps,” Dashti said proudly.

“I used newspapers and magazines to make products such as frames and coasters which are already sold out as these are very fast-moving items and very much in demand. I also used paper waste for gift-wrapping material, an idea that our maid came up with. Then I used the motherboard from a computer to make products such as notebooks, coasters, key chains, and mousepads. In addition, I used a discarded film from a photography shop. Instead of throwing it away, I used it to write short messages on it and incorporating it items like gift cards,” he added.

Several other kinds of materials found used in Dashti’s products. “I used vintage CDs that were already scratched to produce

a cake-stand. I also had many spent bullets which I used to make accessories such as bracelets. Furthermore, I used small cloth pieces gathered from upholstery shops to make patch cushions. I was keen to use traditional designs and colors to keep our identity. Also, I used old skateboards that I received from the young guys in Marina to make stools,” Dashti further said.

To widen his range, he added some readymade but ecofriendly products that he imported. “For instance, I am displaying bags suitable for shopping for grocery or other purposes instead of the regular plastic bags that are meant for single time use.

These bags can be used repeatedly and can also be washed.

Then, I also added some outfits such as pants and shorts. These outfits are eco-friendly in the sense that they are made from reversible cloth. So instead of having two pants or shorts in two different colors, you can have one that can be worn on either side, and will result in lesser waste when discarded,” he explained.

He will be participating in the ‘Proud 2B Kuwaiti’ exhibition that will be held this month at the National Fair Ground in Mishrif.

“I worked on the artworks for more than a year that I will be showcasing in this fair. I am also participating in an exhibition for young Kuwaiti talents at the 360 Mall, where I am displaying an artwork made from 1,800 bottle caps in three colors reminding us of Kuwait’s traditional Sadu colors,” he stated.

Dashti believes that the recycling culture is not very common in our society so far but he is trying to spread it further, especially in the foreign schools. “Although I studied in local schools, and I am a graduate of the Kuwait University, still I believe in recycling and I am trying to propagate this culture. I hope more people will care about protecting our environment through recycling, and, in fact, I have noticed that people have improved in this matter,” he concluded.

You can find me on Instagram: @ mycyclekuwait website: www.mycycle-kw.com

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

By Ben Garcia

H

e is a businessman, a certified public accountant, a pastor but most of all an ardent advocate of a slogan he himself coined - ‘Everyone can save.’

Meet Guillermo S Bantugan, fondly named by many Filipinos in Kuwait as Pastor Gil. ‘Everyone can save’ advocacy started in Bahrain when he was in the kingdom in early 1990s when he assumed the presidency of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountant (PICPA-Bahrain Chapter).

Now, that he is in Kuwait, he has been very visible in the community, extending help and dispensing free financial advice/guidance to Filipinos from all walks of life.

Pastor Gil encourages everyone in the community to try and save money and be a channel of blessings to people around them.

He is a consultant for a local firm in Kuwait, giving advice and spreading words to the effect that a small income can always make a difference, just like a big one.

“It is not that just because you are earning peanuts, you cannot save anything. You can always save if you follow my advice,” he said.

“If you are sharing education, you are giving a benefit of lifetime. That also not just for a single person but for the entire family and the country as a whole,” he opined.

There are about 180,000 Filipinos in Kuwait, and a majority of them are working as housemaids. He said the culture of Filipinos to be the provider and savior of every member of the family should change. “We can help every member of the family, yes, but bear in mind it is not our responsibility to do that. The culture of Filipinos that we have to help every member of the family including relatives and friends is just wrong. We should help them by giving them a fishnet, not the fish itself. I am not against helping loved ones, but it must be in some proper context. We must learn how and when is the right time to help or to give.

Many of our countrymen here are sending money to their loved ones back in the Philippines but their families do not value their hard earned money at all; they spend it on vices and useless things, leaving the Filipinos in Kuwait at the end of their contract without any money. I have met many such Filipinos and I want to help them in dealing with their dilemma. My advocacy aims to help and improve their chances,” he said.

Pastor Gil’s ‘Everyone can save’ advocacy has received several positive reviews from both community leaders and people who attended his seminars. Pastor Gil conducts a series of seminars and workshops to teach his people on how to spend their hard earn money wisely.

In 2010, Pastor Gil successfully conducted a free seminar on how to save. It was attended by several community members including the Philippines’ Ambassador to Kuwait, Shulan Primavera. In December, he hosted a group of Filipinos at a free seminar held in Kuwait City. He also uses various forms of

media outlets to take his message to the community. In fact, he has a regular column in the Kuwait Times under the title ‘Filipino Panorama,’ a Filipino edition which caters to thousands every Sunday.

“I use this column to bring the message of hope that no matter how small your salary is, you can still save,” Pastor Gil beamed. “The people who are earning lots have the same problems as those who are earning very minimal amounts. The problem with us (Filipinos) is that we show-off. Just imagine that a person who earns KD150 or even KD90 has the latest gadgets which cost triple his salary.

Take my advice - stop spending more than you earn,” he quipped.

Pastor Gil also expounded on his advice to Filipino workers in Kuwait by proposing three simple ways to save money - 1) reduce your expense, 2) increase your income and 3) most importantly; try to combine both 1 and 2.

“Reducing expenses can help you pull out of poverty and loans. If you can survive with just one type of food in one meal, then it is one way of reducing your expenditure. If you can survive by bringing food from home and not indulge yourself at expensive restaurants, then it is another way of reducing your expenditure. Try to save by not calling from your mobile phone but from an available landline; reduce your internet usage. There are many ways to help you reduce expenses,” he said.

As about increasing income, Pastor Gil advises everyone to use their potential. “There are thousands of ways to increase income, maybe even double or triple your income. Try and learn new skills; any new skills can open new vistas for income for you. Learn more of these. There are many decent networking companies that are open to everyone. Learn a business and be part of it, and the next thing you know you will be a millionaire.” Pastor Gil is the founding president of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA - KUWAIT Chapter) and Advocate for Free Seminar on “Anyone Can Save: Managing Your Personal Finance”.

For comments please email : gilbantugan@hotmail.com

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Four killed in car crash

Al-Haifi meets Kuwaiti kids in UK hospitals

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Two people were killed and four injured in a car crash on Salmi Road yesterday.

Two people, a Pakistani and an Indian, died and three expats were injured in a car accident at Subbiya Road.

Among the injured was an Egyptian who suffered a fracture in his neck, a Filipino who complained of pain in the back, and a 33-year-old Indian who suffered fractures in his backbone, hand and leg. The bodies were referred to the coroner and the injured were rushed to the Jahra Hospital.

A 27-year-old woman police lance corporal was run over by a vehicle while riding an all terrain vehicle. She was taken to Farwaniya Hospital.

A citizen and a bedoon were killed in a car accident in Kabd area. The driver of the other car was injured and taken to Farwaniya Hospital.

A 46-year-old citizen hit by an unknown vehicle in Wafra area. He was rushed to Adan Hospital.

Three Saudi were injured in a car accident on Salmy road on Wednesday. They were taken to the Jahra Hospital.

An eight-year-old Egyptian boy who was hit by a car in Fintas area was taken to the Adan Hospital.

A 44-year-old Kuwaiti sustained multiple injuries in a fight near the Sabah Hospital.

A 53-year-old Egyptian suffered a deep head injury during a fight in Salmiya. He was taken to the Mubarak Hospital.

A 28-year-old Kuwaiti motorcycle rider was admitted to the Mubarak Hospital’s ICU after he met with an accident on the Gulf Road.

Children celebrate National Days in medical wards LONDON: Kuwait’s Minister of Health Dr Mohammad Al-Haifi visited a number of Kuwaiti patients, including children suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment in British hospitals. He expressed keenness in providing them with all needed facilities and willingness to solve any problems they might face.

Dr Al-Haifi said he visited Great Ormond Street Hospital, which hosts one of the top centers for treatment of pediatric cancer in the world and Wellington

LONDON: Kuwait’s Minister of Health Dr Mohammad Al-Haifi with a Kuwaiti child at a hospital during the National celebrations. — KUNA

A Kuwaiti child patient at a hospital in London Hospital in London, one of the largest independent hospitals in the United Kingdom. It has an international reputation for outstanding care in areas of medicine including cardiac services, neurosurgery and liver and many others.

The minister said he listened to relatives accompanying the patients regarding drawbacks in services. The minister assured the state’s keenness in following up on the conditions of the citizens receiving medical treatment in the UK and other countries.

At Ormond hospital, Dr Al-Haifi

inspected condition of 12 Kuwaiti children undergoing treatment. He was briefed by nurses about the condition of the Kuwaiti patients, who despite their health condition decorated their rooms and corridors of the hospital with the Kuwaiti flags in celebration of the National Days.

Dr Al-Haifi, who was given a memento by the management of the hospital, said he instructed the Kuwaiti health center to provide the ill children with all their needs.

In a statement to KUNA after visiting the health center late on Wednesday, Dr Al-Haifi pointed out that the Kuwaiti authorities have been sending a number of patients abroad due to lack of requirements to ensure proper treatment for them at home. He however expressed satisfaction at the level of the services provided at the Kuwaiti hospitals and medical centers.

The Kuwaiti hospitals, he said, have made strides “in conducting complex

Kuwaiti volunteers host fashion show in Dubai

Citizen, expat held for drug-pushing

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Drug enforcement agents arrested a Kuwaiti citizen and a Gulf expat for being in possession of illicit substances and weapons.

Information that was gathered showed that one of the suspects possessed drugs that he intended to sell as well as use himself. Besides, he also possessed a firearm. The suspect violently resisted arrest and was under the influence of drugs but was eventually overpowered.

Agents recovered Ice, hashish and money from him. He told officers about a citizen who used to supply him with drugs. Two pistols besides 11 hashish sticks, Ice and psychotropic drugs were recovered from him. Both were sent to the concerned authorities.

DUBAI: Under the patronage of Kuwait’s ConsulGeneral for Dubai and the northern Emirates Tariq Al-Hamad, a fashion exhibition was opened in Dubai as part of Kuwait’s national celebrations.

The event was attended by many diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, China and South Africa. Anwar Al-Awadi, a diplomat at the Kuwait Consulate, expressed her delight on the opening of the fashion expo which was organized by a host of Kuwaiti male and female volunteers.

The diplomat seized this opportunity to extend her greetings of the occasion to the Kuwaiti leadership and the people. Head of the exhibition Nora Al-Mehanna said that the event seeks to deliver a message of love, peace and cooperation from the Kuwaiti people.

She pointed out that the choice to host the fair fell on Dubai due to procedural simplicity offered by the government in organizing the event as well as it is considered the leading tourist destination in the Gulf region. —KUNA

operations,” calling on citizens to change the common concept of favoring medical treatment abroad. “We have some of the best Kuwaiti medical cadres and doctors of great skills in various specialties.

However there are some diseases that need to be treated abroad due to difficulties of treating them locally as well as due to the need for some specialists.”

In answer to a question about errors that take place at government hospitals in Kuwait, the minister noted that such mistakes happen not only in Kuwait but also in some of the most advanced nations. According to official reports, number of such cases in Britain increased from more than 36,000 in 2005 to 86,000 in 2007.

Dr Al-Haifi stressed that those responsible for medical negligence should be held accountable, but indicated that the number of such cases in Kuwait is small compared to such occurrences in other internationally renowned hospitals. — KUNA

Nepali wounded in parlor rape

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti citizen who visited a massage parlor forced a Nepalese masseur to strip and then sodomized him before escaping. The expat said he was taken by surprise when the customer got up during the massage, locked the door, forced him to take off his clothes and unleashed a savage sexual assault. The masseur, who bled as a result, told the police that the citizen in his forties also beat him up. The Kuwaiti man escaped but was identified by the detectives who are now on the lookout for him.

Pakistani assaulted Four people, including a Kuwaiti citizen, brutally assaulted a Pakistani man, who suffered multiple fractures as a result of the scuffle in Abu Halaifa area. The Kuwaiti’s accomplices included a

Somali, a Syrian and an Egyptian expat. The victim, who was armed with a medical report from the Adan Hospital, told the police that he had a previous dispute with the Kuwaiti man. Detectives are now trying to arrest the culprits.

Girl molested A Jordanian expat reported to Salmiya police that his 10-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant.

According to him, the assailant, who spotted the girl standing alone in front of the building where she lived, got her into the elevator and sexually abused her.

According to security, the girl failed to resist him by calling for help due to her young age and being physically controlled by the criminal. The father said that his daughter came to the apartment following the sexual assault. A case was registered.

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

China lauds strong bonds with Kuwait Beijing seeks to expand ties into new fields Municipality participates in workshop on environment

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality participated in the “Environment Hour” workshop, which was organized by Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) in cooperation with municipality’s Environment Affairs Department (MEW) and the environmental center. This year’s slogan is “recycling garbage”.

Dr Noura Al-Jandal at KISR said February 27 was marked as the day to protect the environment as Feb 25 and Feb 26 were days to celebrate National and Liberation days. She said 12 tons of garbage were recycled in an environment-friendly method. Al-Jandal urged citizens and expats to follow the modern methods in getting rid of garbage to avoid usual problems. The workshop was attended by EPA’s Dr Salah AlMudhi, Yarmouk Mayor Abdelaziz Al-Mushari and Engineer Laila Al-Yatame from the municipality.

News

in brief

Premier receives KU industrial engineers KUWAIT: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber AlMubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah received at Sief Palace yesterday members of the Industrial Engineers Society at Kuwait University who presented the premier with a gift on the country’s national celebrations. The Prime Minister lauded the male and female Kuwaiti students who have contributed to the development of the nation. He encouraged them to persevere and to direct their energy and creativity to what is beneficial to their homeland. He also expressed his support to all entrepreneurs in their various endeavors.

UN chief lauds Syria donors’ conference KUWAIT: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed appreciation to the efforts made by Chairman of International Islamic Charity Organization and UN Humanitarian Envoy Abdullah Al-Matouq in successfully organizing a conference of donors of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Kuwait for the relief of the Syrian people. The NGOs donors’ conference was held prior to Kuwait’s UN-sponsored international humanitarian donor conference for Syria. “I appreciate all efforts made by the state of Kuwait in supporting this humanitarian cause. The donors’ conference hosted by the Gulf country raised $1.5 billion of pledges to help the displaced Syrians,” the UN chief expressed in a cable to Al-Matouq. He stressed that the UN would not hesitate to set up projects and programs to help the distressed Syrians.

BEIJING: China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Ming lauded yesterday the special friendship bonds that link the Chinese and Kuwaiti governments and peoples. “Relations with Kuwait are deeply-rooted and ever-growing and developing,” the Chinese official said during the reception of visiting Kuwaiti Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs and Minister of State for Planning and Development Rola Dashti and her accompanying delegation.

He pointed out that the two countries will shortly mark the 42nd anniversary of the start of diplomatic relations between the two Asian nations. Ming applauded the recently held Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Kuwait as well as His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s initiative to donate $300 million for a special fund to finance development projects in Asia. He noted that there is an economic integration between China and Kuwait.

China’s imports of Kuwait crude oil have amounted to 10 million tons and the value of trade exchange between both countries reached $12 billion.

He revealed that China seeks to expand bilateral cooperation with Kuwait into new fields such as culture, health, sports and media. Ming also extolled Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development’s support to the develop-

BEIJING: Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs and Minister of State for Planning and Development Rola Dashti presents a memento to China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Ming yesterday in Beijing. — KUNA ment projects in China. He stated that the Chinese government is encouraging national companies to take part in the development projects in Kuwait, adding that at the same time, China welcomes the flow of Kuwaiti investments into its market. For her part, Minister Dashti conveyed HH the Amir’s greetings to Chinese leadership and people on the advent of

Fire dept employees attend exhibition

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: The fire department participated in Independence Day exhibition 52 which was held at the Fair Grounds in Mishref. Personnel from the fire protection, marine rescue, technical rescue, dangerous materials fire center and public relations represented the fire department in this exhibition.

Various kinds of fire-fighting equipment were exhibited and people were educated about how these were used. Also, the people were educated about the importance of preventing fires by using smoke detectors and fire extinguishers etc. Some brochures were also distributed which contained useful information for the public.

Deputy PM and Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali inaugurated the exhibition and visited the fire department’s stall accompanied by public relations director Lt Col Khalil Al Amir and Majid Al-Otaibi.

Kuwait to hold program for youth employment KUWAIT: The Second phase of the national media project for changing work values is due to be launched in March, under theme “the challenge pursues,” said the head of the program yesterday.

Ali Al-Enezi, the head of the information program for changing concepts and work values in the private sector, named ‘Al-Tahaddi,’ carried out as part of the Labor Restructuring Program, said the second phase of the activity would include presentation of successful samples of employment of Kuwaiti youth in the private sector and experience of a number of young citizens who launched small enterprises. First stage of the program, “Ana Al-Tahaddi” launched early this year, included various activities, as part of the intensive media campaign.

The overall project, Al-Enezi said, is a five-year program aimed at changing “work culture of the society and addressing all its segments particularly the youth.” “It is designed to back up, secure care for the young citizens, guide them to work in the private sector and launch their small businesses.”

This strategy, he pointed out further, seeks to create a spirit of challenge among the young, change the prevailing concept of seeking employment in the public sector “which no long meets aspirations of the youth.” —KUNA

the new Chinese year. “Kuwait is eyeing a strategic partnership with China in all domains,” she said. Dashti recalled and expressed gratitude for China’s supportive stances to Kuwait, particularly during the liberation war in the early 1990s. She invited all Chinese companies to consider investing in development projects in Kuwait. — KUNA

Indian business delegation due NEW DELHI: A 12-member Indian business delegation will visit Kuwait form March 1 to March 4. The visit has been organized and hosted by the Embassy of India in Kuwait in association with Chemical and Allied Products Export Promotion Council (CAPEXIL), an apex organization set up by India’s Ministry of Commerce to promote export of chemical and allied products from India.

The Indian delegation will interact with the senior officials of Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and businessmen on March 3 on the KCCI premises.

Besides, a Buyer-Seller Meet (BSM) is also being organized at the KCCI on the same day.

The Buyer-Seller Meet will be inaugurated jointly by the head of the KCCI delegation Fahad Yacoub Al-Jouaan, Board Member of KCCI and the Indian Ambassador Satish C Mehta soon after the business meeting at KCCI. The delegation is led by CAPEXIL MemberSecretary L Rajamannar. According to an Indian Embassy press release, the BSM would provide an excellent opportunity to meet Indian manufacturers and exporters of sawn timber, commercial ply-woods, marine plywoods, flush doors, film-faced BWP plywood, garnet sand, ilmentite, rutile, marble, granite, sandstone, limestone, slates, polished granite slabs and tiles, other granite products, calendars, computer stationery, printed books, school notebooks and paper, paper products, paper cups, tissue paper product for corporates, hotels, restaurants, households, etc who can enter into mutually beneficial trade relations. — KUNA

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Swiss woman held in Yemen freed

12

Pope Benedict pledges obedience to new pope

15

Malaysia to host Thai peace talks in two weeks

17

DHAKA: Bangladeshis celebrate the death sentence awarded to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee in Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday. A special war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh yesterday sentenced Sayedee, the leader of an Islamic political party to death for crimes stemming from the nation’s 1971 fight for independence, a politically charged decision that sparked violent protests. — AP

30 dead over death sentence Bangladesh Islamist’s death sentence sparks deadly riots DHAKA: At least 30 people were killed in Bangladesh in a wave of violence yesterday as Islamists reacted furiously to a ruling that one of their leaders must hang for war crimes during the 1971 independence conflict.

At least 22 of them were shot in clashes between police and protesters that erupted after Delwar Hossain Sayedee, the Jamaat-eIslami party’s vice president, was found guilty of war crimes, including murder, arson and rape. Sayedee is the third person to be convicted by the controversial domestic tribunal whose previous verdicts have also been met with outrage from Islamists who say the process is more about score settling than delivering justice. Thursday’s death toll was compiled by AFP after talking to police in the 13 districts where protests turned deadly.

The latest clashes brought the overall death toll to 46 since the first verdict was delivered on January 21. Among yesterday’s dead were four policemen, two of whom were beaten to

death after thousands of protestors hurled small homemade bombs at a police station in Gaibandha in Bangladesh’s north and attacked it with sticks, local police chief Monjur Rahman told AFP. “At least 10,000 Jamaat supporters attacked us. We were forced to open fire,” Rahman said.

About 300 people, including scores of policemen, were also injured, doctors, police and local media said. Police also reported attacks on several Hindu homes and temples by Islamists in the southern Noakhali district.

Security forces had been braced for trouble ahead of the verdict against Sayedee, who reacted to the judgment by saying it had been influenced by “atheists” and pro-government protesters who have been demanding his execution. Sayedee, now best known in Bangladesh as a firebrand preacher, was convicted for setting ablaze 25 houses in a Hindu village and abetting the murders of two people including a Hindu man, according to a copy of

the verdict. He led a pro-Pakistani militia who abducted three Hindu sisters and raped them for three days at a Pakistani camp. He also forced at least 100 Hindus to convert to Islam and made them say Islamic prayers. His lawyer Tajul Islam described the verdict as “a gross miscarriage of justice”, adding that Sayedee did not live in the town at the time when the alleged crimes took place.

“It’s a case of mistaken identity. We’re stunned. We’re going to appeal the verdict,” he told AFP. Under a newly amended war crimes law, the appeal process must be completed within 90 days, meaning Sayedee would be hanged later this year if the country’s highest court upholds the verdict. Protesters at a central Dhaka intersection erupted in jubilation as news of Sayedee’s sentence filtered through.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for the last four decades,” a protester told Somoy TV. There was no immediate reaction from Jamaat to the verdict, but the party has enforced a

nationwide strike demanding a halt to the trials. The cases against eight more Jamaat leaders are still being heard. Earlier this month, the tribunal-a local court with no international oversight-sentenced Jamaat’s assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Molla to life imprisonment. While angering Jamaat supporters, that verdict also enraged secular protesters, tens of thousands of whom have since poured onto the Shahbag intersection in central Dhaka to demand the execution of Jamaat leaders. In January the tribunal handed down its first verdict when it sentenced fugitive Muslim TV preacher Maolana Abul Kalam Azad to death.

The tribunal has been tainted by controversies and allegations that it is targeting only the opposition with trumped-up charges. Rights groups say its legal procedures fall short of international standards. The government rejects the accusations, saying the trials are needed to heal the wounds of the war that it says killed three million people. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

British crash survivor leaped from Egypt balloon CAIRO: Egypt’s lead investigator said yesterday he is seeking to interview the only tourist who survived the crash of a hot air balloon in the southern city of Luxor, a British national who jumped from the balloon after it caught fire and before it plummeted to the ground, killing 19 others, including his wife.

The Briton, Michael Rennie, escaped with only minor injuries and no burns, a neurologist who is treating him at a Cairo hospital, Mahmoud El-Shennawy, told The Associated Press. The only other survivor the balloon’s Egyptian pilot, who also jumped out - suffered heavy burns.

The sightseeing balloon on a sunrise flight Tuesday over the ancient monuments of Luxor was carrying 20 tourists from Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, Belgium, Hungary and France. It was in the process of landing when a fuel line for the burner heating the air in the balloon broke,

sparking a fire, according to preliminary indications, investigators have said.

Rennie and the Egyptian pilot, Momin Murad, managed to escape the balloon’s gondola when it was still relatively close to the ground. The balloon then rose back up some 300 meters (1,000 feet) into the air. The fire spread to the balloon itself, which burst, sending it plummeting into a sugar cane field.

Witnesses have said some of the tourists still trapped in the burning balloon as it rose jumped to their deaths trying to escape. Amateur video taken from another balloon flying nearby shows it crashing it back to the earth like a fireball into a sugar cane field.

Rennie told his doctors that “he fell in a muddy area, and this helped him,” elShennawy said. “There are no fractures.

He only has minor bruises ... and scratches.” His wife was killed in the crash, the

Bombings kill 23 in Baghdad area BAGHDAD: Bombings in and around the Iraqi capital, including two car bombs near a football field, killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 60 yesterday, security and medical officials said.

With the latest violence, more than 200 people have been killed and over 550 wounded in attacks in February, according to an AFP toll based on security and medical sources.

An interior ministry official said one car bomb exploded near a football field in the Shuala area of Baghdad, followed by a second after security forces arrived at the scene.

The blasts killed at least 19 people and wounded at least 30, medical officials said. In Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, a militant detonated a hand grenade when people attempted to arrest him, and five bombs exploded nearby, killing at least two people and wounding at least seven, security and medical officials said. Two roadside bombs also exploded in the Shurta al-Rabea area of south Baghdad, killing one person and wounding seven, while a car bomb in Aziziyah, southeast of Baghdad, killed one person and wounded 17, officials said.

Violence in Iraq is down significantly from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but even 10 years after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country, attacks still occur almost every day.

Meanwhile, the United Nations must guarantee the safety of 3,000 Iranian opposition members in Iraq who have come under armed attack there, their leader said yesterday.

Maryam Radjavi, head of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, told a meeting organised by human rights campaigners at the UN’s Geneva offices that the world body had failed in its duty to her group. “If the United Nations had fulfilled its obligations, this could have been avoided,” Radjavi said, referring to a February 9 mortar and rocket attack which claimed seven lives and wounded dozens.

Radjavi said she had sent a string of letters to the UN’s envoy in Iraq, Martin Kobler, warning him repeatedly that the Mujahedeen were under threat. The group was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, and took up arms against Iran’s clerical rulers after the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarch.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave the group a save haven, but he was overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2003, and the group has since then faced antipathy from proIranian elements in Iraq.

Under a 2011 UN-brokered deal, the Mujahedeen were moved from their longstanding base at Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border to another site named Camp Liberty.

The goal of the transfer to Camp Liberty was to pave the way for the Mujahedeen to leave Iraq outright, with a view to resettling them in the United States and Europe.

“The only option is for all the residents to be transferred to the United States,” said Radjavi. “Otherwise, they should be returned to Ashraf until they can settle in a thrid country.”

The Mujahedeen argue that Camp Ashraf is safer for them because the site is larger and has concrete buildings, while those at Camp Liberty are wooden. —Agencies

doctor said. Rennie has also refused to speak to representatives from his own embassy, El-Shennawy said - apparently overwhelmed with grief over his wife’s death. Rennie has declined to speak to reporters, and an Associated Press reporter was not allowed access to his room. The head of the Civil Aviation Authority’s technical investigation into the accident, Walid El-Moqadem, said he has has asked to speak to Rennie, who Egyptian media said did speak with a separate, criminal prosecutor investigating the crash to rule out foul play.

Rennie told criminal investigators that most of those in the balloon squatted when the fire broke out, following the pilot’s instructions, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan.

Investigators have not yet spoken to the pilot because of his injuries. El-Moqadem said countries of some of the crash victims

have asked to join the probe. He said so far Hong Kong, Britain, Japan and Hungary will not be sending investigators, and will be granted an advisory role in the investigation in line with regulations.

He said for now countries of the victims will be appraised of progress through emails. Investigators are still looking into the causes of the crash and refused to give details, El-Moqadem said earlier.

Investigators speaking on condition of anonymity because the probe was still ongoing said initial results suggested a landing cable tore the fuel tube and that the pilot should have shut of a valve that would have prevented the fire from spreading.

El-Shennawy said Rennie is expected to be released Friday and will head straight to the airport. “Some psychiatrists, and myself, talked with him. He seems to be accepting the situation,” he said. — AP

US boosts aid to Syrian opposition, rebel fighters ‘No nation, people should live in fear of their leaders’ ROME: The Obama administration said yesterday that it will provide the Syrian opposition with an additional $60 million in assistance and - in a significant policy shift - will for the first time provide nonlethal aid like food and medical supplies directly to rebels battling to oust President Bashar Assad.

The move was announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry at an international conference on Syria in Rome, and several European nations are expected in the coming days to take similar steps in working with the military wing of the opposition in order to ramp up pressure on Assad to step down and pave the way for a democratic transition.

“We do this because we need to stand on the side of those in this fight who want to see Syria rise again and see democracy and human rights,” Kerry said. “The stakes are really high, and we can’t risk letting this country in the heart of the Middle East being destroyed by vicious autocrats or hijacked by the extremists.”

“No nation, no people should live in fear of their so-called leaders,” he said, adding that President Barack Obama’s “decision to take further steps now is the result of the brutality of superior armed force propped up by foreign fighters from Iran and Hezbollah.”

Kerry and senior officials from 11 countries most active in calling for Assad to leave said in a joint statement released by the Italian foreign ministry that they had agreed in Rome on “the need to change the balance of power on the ground.” It said the countries represented “will coordinate their efforts closely so as to best empower the Syrian people and support the Supreme Military Command of the Free Syrian Army in its efforts to help them exercise self-defense.”

Britain and France, two countries that Kerry visited before Italy on his first official trip as secretary of state, have signaled that they want to begin supplying the rebels with defensive military equipment such as combat body armor, armored vehicles, night vision goggles and training.

They are expected to make decisions on

ROME: Syrian National Coalition President Mouaz al-Khatib, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi and US Secretary of State John Kerry take place for a meeting of the “Friends of the Syrian People (FOSP) Ministerial” group yesterday in Rome. — AFP those items in the near future in line with new guidance from the European Union, which still bars the provision of weapons and ammunition to anyone in Syria.

“We must go above and beyond the efforts we are making now,” said Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, who hosted the conference. “We can no longer allow this massacre to continue.”

Appearing beside Terzi and Kerry, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, Mouaz Al-Khatib, delivered a forceful and emotional demand for Assad to stop the brutality of his forces that have in recent days launched scud missile attacks on the city of Aleppo that have been roundly condemned by much of the Western and Arab worlds “Bashar Assad, for once in your life, behave as a human being,” Khatib said. “Bashar Assad, you have to make at least one wise decision in your life for the future of your country.”

The opposition has been appealing for some time for the international community to boost its support and to provide its

military wing with lethal assistance, and while al-Khatib did not mention those requests, he pointedly made no reference to the new assistance that Kerry announced. Instead, he urged outside nations to support the creation of protected humanitarian corridors inside Syria, which the foreign ministers said they had “positively considered” by made no decisions. Kerry defended the limited US assistance, saying it was just part of what was being offered and that other countries would fill in any gaps. He said he was confident that the “totality” of the aid should be enough to prod Assad to start changing his calculations on remaining in power. “We’re doing this, but other countries are doing other things,” he replied, without going into specifics. “I am confident the totality of this effort is going to have an impact on the ability of the Syrian opposition to accomplish its goals.” Kerry said yesterday’s meeting in Rome marked the “beginning of a process that will in fact change his (Assad’s) calculation.” —AP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Tunisian president testifies in probe of politician’s murder TUNIS: Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki testified yesterday before a judge probing the murder of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, as police narrowed their hunt for his killer to an area near the border with Algeria.

The shooting of secular politician Belaid by a suspected Islamist radical on Feb. 6 provoked the biggest street protests in Tunisia since the overthrow of strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali two years ago.

Secular parties later withdrew their support for Islamist-backed Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, forcing the col-

lapse of his coalition government.

Marzouki, who leads one of Tunisia’s main secular parties, was called to testify because he had warned Belaid in January of a death threat against him and offered him police protection, local media reported.

Secularists had long complained that Jebali’s government was too tolerant of religious radicals emboldened by the fall of Ben Ali, whose government spent decades suppressing Islamists.

A swift arrest and trial of Belaid’s killer could calm the political turmoil that has stalled efforts to rebuild an economy hit

hard by the 2011 uprising.

“The investigating judge at ��the Court of Tunis heard yesterday morning President Moncef�� ��Marzouki as a witness in the case of Chokri Belaid’s�assassination,” the presidency said in a statement.

The interview took place at the Carthage Palace, the head of state’s official residence. It was the first time a Tunisian president had taken the witness stand in a judicial investigation. Police believe Belaid’s killer is a 34-year-old member of a radical Islamist Salafi group.

Interior Minister Ali Larayedh said on

Swiss woman held in Yemen freed Qatar’s role hailed in freeing woman DOHA: A Swiss woman held hostage in Yemen for nearly a year has been freed and has arrived in Qatar, the Swiss government and the official QNA news agency said yesterday. The hostage, who was “abducted last year in Yemen, arrived overnight at Doha airport after having been freed thanks to mediation by Qatar,” said the agency, without elaborating.

Gunmen abducted the woman on March 14, 2012 from her home in Hodeida, western Yemen, where she had been working there as a language teacher. Her abductors took her to the southeastern province of Shabwa where Al-Qaeda has a strong presence.

A Yemeni interior ministry spokesman said the kidnappers had called on the Sanaa government to free members of their tribe in exchange for her release.

Switzerland confirmed the woman was free and had arrived in Doha, with ATS news agency saying that Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter had already spoken to her by telephone. She was in good health, and was poised to return to her homeland, ATS reported. The ministry hailed Qatar’s role in freeing the 33-year-old woman, but gave no further details.

QNA quoted Qatar’s assistant foreign minister Ali bin Fahd Al-Hajiri as saying: “I take this opportunity to thank the Qatari negotiating team who has been working during the past few months silently, and with wisdom and patience until we got to this positive outcome.” In a video posted

DOHA: Swiss researcher Sylvia Abrahat, shakes hands with Ali bin Fahd alHajri, Qatar’s assistant foreign minister for foreign affairs, at the Doha International Airport in Qatar, yesterday. — AP on the Internet in May last year, the authorities are still trying to free two Finns woman had said she was in the hands of and an Austrian snatched from central Al-Qaeda, while in a second video, she Sanaa late last year.

The Austrian man and Finnish man implored Switzerland to help free her.

Most kidnappings of foreigners in the and woman were abducted on December impoverished Arabian Peninsula state are 21 as they prepared to travel to the southcarried out by members of the country’s ern port of Aden via Yemen’s second city powerful tribes who use them as bargain- Taez. Yemeni security officials had said ing chips in disputes with the central gov- the three were being held by Al-Qaedaernment. Less frequently, Al-Qaeda mili- linked tribesmen in the eastern province tants carry out such kidnappings. Yemeni of Marib. — AFP

Tuesday that police had arrested four other ultra-orthodox Salafis suspected of being accomplices.

“Chokri received many death threats by telephone in his final weeks,” said Belaid’s brother Abd Majid. Zied Lakdhar, a member of Belaid’s Popular Front party, also said Belaid had refused police protection.

Army and police forces backed by military aircraft were searching the regions of Wad Mliz and Ghar Dimaou near the border with Algeria on Thursday in an effort to catch Belaid’s killer, security sources said. — Reuters

Yemen releases separatist leaders to calm south ADEN: Yemeni authorities yesterday freed two separatist leaders in response to demands of southerners and an exiled figure returned from almost two decades abroad, activists and an AFP correspondent said.

Authorities freed Qassem Askar, a head of the hardline faction of the separatist Southern Movement, and southern cleric Hussein bin Shouaib “based on orders by the attorney general,” said activist Yasser Al-Yafie.

The two were arrested last week in the main southern city of Aden, ahead of violent protests which started on February 21 to mark one year since President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi came to power in a single-candidate election.

Clashes which continued until midday Tuesday left nine people dead, while Hadi has been in the south since Saturday pledging to take measures to end the unrest. “We met with Hadi yesterday (Wednesday) and he ordered the release of the two leaders to calm the street” in Aden, said Southern Movement activist Lutfi Shatara.

On Tuesday, southern separatists said they were suspending their campaign of “civil disobedience” but threatened an escalation if the authorities failed to meet their demands by March 1.

“If our demands are not met, there will be an overall escalation starting on Saturday across all southern provinces,” another Southern Movement activist, Nizar Haitham, told AFP. The activists are demanding the dismissal of Aden’s governor and its central security chief. They also want government compensation for families of the victims of the latest violence and the release of all political prisoners.

Another southern leader, Ahmed Bin Farid al-Suraimi, returned to Aden yesterday from exile in Oman where he had been living since 1994, according to an AFP correspondent. South Yemen broke away in 1994, sparking a civil war, before it was overrun by northern troops.

Suraimi, who contributed to the release in late 2011 of three French aid workers kidnapped by Al-Qaeda militants in Aden, met with Hadi upon his return, sources close to the southern Yemeni said.

Hardliners in the south have refused to take part in a national dialogue set to take place on March 18, insisting on a secession of the regions of the formerly independent south. —AFP

Palestinians in Israeli jail end hunger strike JERUSALEM: Two Palestinian prisoners held by Israel have ended their hunger strike of nearly three months and two other hunger strikers have been hospitalized, an Israeli official said yesterday.

The prisoners who ended their fast did so because an Israeli military prosecutor told them that he would not seek to extend their detention at a hearing next week, said their lawyer, Jawad Boulous.

The two prisoners, Tarek Qaadan and Jafar Ezzeldeen, are being held without charges or trial, in so-called

administrative detention. This means their detention can be extended repeatedly.

Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman for Israel’s prison service, said the two started eating on Wednesday, ending a fast that began Dec 3. Two other Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike were hospitalized to prevent their health from further deterioration, Weizman said.

The two who were hospitalized, Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawneh, were released in 2011, as part of a swap of hundreds of

Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been held by Hamas militants for more than five years.

Both were rearrested last year for violating the conditions of their release, and have staged lengthy hunger strikes since then. All four refused food, but received vitamins and other nutrients intravenously.

Palestinians have been protesting for days in support of the hunger strikers and have warned of a backlash if any of them died.

Also yesterday, Israel’s Health

Ministry issued an update on the autopsy of a Palestinian man who died in Israeli custody over the weekend, but said it could still not determine the cause of death.

The ministry quoted pathologists as saying that Arafat Jaradat suffered bruising and fractured ribs close to the time of death and that these signs are typical of someone undergoing resuscitation.

The ministry said medics and prison staff spent 50 minutes trying to revive him.Palestinian officials, citing the autopsy, have said the

bruising was a sign that he was tortured, but Israel has denied that claim.

The Israeli pathologists said no signs of other contusions were found, and that toxicology tests were also negative. Israeli officials initially said Jaradat apparently died of a heart attack.

However, the Israeli pathologists said there were no signs that Jaradat, who was 30, suffered from an illness. They said more tests were needed to determine the exact cause of his death. — AP

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Congo rebels clash near Goma after political chief sacked KINSHASA: Heavy fighting broke out between two factions of Congo’s M23 rebels near the eastern town of Goma yesterday after one side said it sent men to arrest a leader of the other who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The M23 military commander said earlier that the M23 political coordinator Jean-Marie Runiga had been sacked, underlining infighting likely to undermine regional efforts to end two decades of conflict in central Africa.

The M23 rebellion is the latest uprising in Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral rich eastern borderlands. Last year the group inflicted a series of defeats on government forces, culminating in the brief seizure of the major town of Goma.

The emerging power struggle within rebel ranks will further damage efforts to resuscitate peace talks hosted by Uganda and may spur the Kinshasa government to push for a military solution to recurring rebellions in the east. A Reuters witness in Goma said heavy weapons fire could be heard coming from the direction of rebel positions around Kibumba, some 25 km (14 miles) north of Goma.

“They attacked us so we reacted,” said Colonel Seraphin Mirindi, spokesman for the M23 rebel faction loyal to Runiga. Eight people were killed in clashes between M23 factions earlier this week.

Britain holds scandal-tarred special election LONDON: Sex, lies and scandal - not the usual ingredients of a parliamentary special election in Britain. But yesterday’s contest for the southern English constituency of Eastleigh has been overshadowed by the torrid trials of the centrist Liberal Democrats, including the criminal conviction of a former Cabinet minister and allegations of sexual harassment against a senior party official. The election was called to fill the seat vacated by ex-Energy Secretary Chris Huhne, who resigned earlier this month after admitting that, a decade ago, he had asked his wife to take a speeding ticket for him, even though he had been driving. He faces a possible jail term for perverting justice, and his high-flying political career is in ruins.

The Liberal Democrats’ efforts to hang onto the seat have been hampered by accusations that former chief executive Chris Rennard inappropriately touched and propositioned several women in incidents dating back a decade.

Scotland Yard detectives have been asked to investigate, and at least one former party worker says she will make an official complaint against Rennard, who stepped down in 2009. Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been accused of failing to act after admitting he had heard stories about Rennard’s behavior several years ago.

“There were some very serious mistakes and the women were not listened to and were let down,” Clegg said Wednesday. The troubles are the latest woes for Clegg’s party, which became the junior partner in Britain’s Conservative-led coalition government after the 2010 national election.

Since then the party’s popularity has sagged as the economy flagged and the Lib Dems abandoned several key election promises - most controversially, a vow to abolish university tuition fees. The Lib Dems backed a government decision to triple them instead, a move that sparked violent student protests. The party has been tarred further by the fall of Huhne, whose ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, is currently on trial for taking his speeding points and lying about it.

The other main parties may be enjoying the Liberal Democrats’ discomfiture, but they face troubles of their own.

The Conservatives hope to take the seat from their coalition junior partners, but their candidate, Maria Hutchings, has made several gaffes, including being quoted as saying that state high schools were not good enough to help her bright son become a surgeon. The Labour candidate, a well-known humorist, is under fire for remarking, in a 1998 book, that he felt a fleeting sense of disappointment that Margaret Thatcher had not been killed in a 1984 IRA bombing. Five people died in the attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton.—AP

In an earlier statement, the M23 military command said Runiga was ousted for stealing money and backing the rebel faction loyal to Bosco Ntaganda, a fighter wanted by the ICC on charges of killing civilians during a previous uprising. The statement, signed by military commander Sultani Makenga, said Makenga would become the group’s interim leader.

Runiga was unavailable for comment. He told Reuters on Wednesday there were no problems between himself and Makenga.

M23 spokesman and Makenga loyalist Colonel Vianney Kazarama said fighters had been dispatched to arrest Ntaganda, believed to be just 20 km (15 miles) north of Goma, yesterday. Mirindi, a proNtaganda member of the group, warned: “We have the right to defend ourselves.”

UN experts say Ntaganda has played a major command role within M23. This has been denied by the rebels. “We’ll see who emerges from this the winner,” Thierry Vircoulon, Central Africa project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, said of the power struggle. “I wouldn’t say there’s a good guy and a bad guy, but there’s one who is more manageable, and the other who is wanted by the ICC. It’s another argument for Kinshasa to perhaps go for the military option.”

Goma’s seizure in November embarrassed Congo’s government and UN peacekeepers deployed to support Kinshasa’s forces. UN experts accused neighbouring Rwanda of backing the rebels. Kigali, which has repeatedly intervened in chaotic Congo’s conflicts since Rwandan Hutu rebels sought refuge in the lawless east after the 1994 genocide, denied the charge.

Donors slashed millions of dollars in aid to Rwanda as a result. But there has been only slow progress since towards deploying a 4,000-strong international force to hunt down an array of rebel groups still operating in Congo. Hundreds of thousands of people fled last year’s violence, the latest in series of Tutsi-led rebellions whose roots can be traced to the aftermath of Rwanda’s genocide and a cross-border web of ethnic, business and political interests.

African leaders signed a UN-mediated deal on Sunday paving the way for the deployment of military brigades. But, having seen numerous other initiatives fail, there is scepticism whether the deal can remove the patchwork of rebel groups and pro-government militias that roam the east.

“The only situation that will make the government happy is the disappearance of politico-military movements like M23,” said Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende. — Reuters

S Africa probes death of man dragged behind police van Incident causes outrage across South Africa DAVEYTON: South Africa’s police watchdog yesterday opened a murder investigation into the death in custody of a Mozambican taxi driver who was filmed being dragged behind a police van. Video footage taken by a bystander shows 27-year-old Mido Macia tussling with half a dozen uniformed and police officers — some clad in stab vests and at least one brandishing a pistol.

It then shows Macia being handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged to the local police station, in front of a large crowd of shocked bystanders. “Hey! Hey! Why are you hitting him?” one person in the crowd can be heard shouting in Zulu. Macia was later taken into custody, where he was found dead less than two hours and 25 minutes later, according to investigators.

The cause of death was found to be head injuries with internal bleeding, investigators said. The Independent Police Investigative Directorate has now opened a murder investigation. “We are investigating an incident involving the death of man, allegedly at the hands of the police. We are shocked by the footage which has been released,” said Independent Police Investigative Directorate spokesman Moses Dlamini.

“The circumstances surrounding his death are still allegations... let’s find out what really happened,” he said. The police watchdog and witnesses said two officers a warrant officer and a constable had initially confronted Macia at around 18:50 (1650 GMT) for parking his Toyota Avanza taxi illegally.

Eyewitnesses said Macia had been trying to get his driving license back from the police when an altercation occurred. The witnesses denied police suggestions that he had tried to disarm one of the officers.

“He was just pushing them, not trying to take the gun,” said George Nxumalo, a 57year-old Daveyton resident. The taxi driver was found dead in his cell at around 21:15 (1915 GMT). The incident has caused outrage across South Africa. Daveyton residents

marched on the police station on Wednesday, but claimed they were dispersed with pepper spray. “They are criminals in uniform, we don’t want them, we want the law to take its course, otherwise we will take the law into our own hands,” said Bongani Hlela, a street trader based nearby.

“Just because he was Mozambican does not mean that he should be treated badly.

We are all African, we have rights,” he added.

Police commissioner Riah Phiyega expressed “deep concern” about the incident. “The matter is viewed by the National Commissioner in a very serious light and it is strongly condemned,” a statement said.

It is just the latest in a series of crises to hit the beleaguered police service, which was pilloried for the shooting dead of 34 miners on one August day and for its handling of the Oscar Pistorius case. “This appalling incident involving excessive force is the latest in an increasingly disturbing pattern of brutal

police conduct,” said Noel Kututwa, Amnesty International’s southern Africa director.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate received 720 new cases for investigation of suspicious deaths in custody or in other policing contexts from April 2011 to March 2012, according to Amnesty.

In 1998, film emerged of four officers setting their dogs on three Mozambicans which sparked a massive outcry. The opposition Democratic Alliance party called for a full investigation by South Africa’s human rights commission and for the officers involved to be suspended. “Macia paid for parking on the wrong side of the road with his life.

Instead of issuing him with a ticket, the police killed him,” said shadow police minister Dianne Kohler Barnard. “How much longer must South Africans live in fear of the very people who are supposed to protect them?”—AFP

DAVEYTON: A picture grabbed on an amateur video and released by the South African Daily Sun newspaper shows people looking at a Mozambican taxi driver handcuffed to the back of a police van in Daveyton yesterday. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Tiny town prepares for pope’s last goodbye CASTEL GANDOLFO: The tiny hilltop town of Castel Gandolfo near Rome was abuzz with preparations for the last goodbye of Pope Benedict XVI, who will wave from a balcony of the papal residence here yesterday before his papal powers expire and he begins retirement. A procession of local residents bearing torches and chanting prayers will mark Benedict’s last ever public appearance on the loggia overlooking the square in a mediaeval town which for centuries has hosted popes escaping the Roman summer.

“It means a huge amount to us that Benedict has chosen to say his final goodbyes here, it’s a very emotional day,” said Patrizia Gasperini, 40, who works in a gift shop next to the imposing wooden doors of the

Swiss shooting death toll rises BERLIN: A person wounded in a shooting at a wood-processing company in central Switzerland died yesterday, police said, raising the death toll to four including the suspected attacker - a 42-year-old Swiss man originally from Kosovo.

Lucerne police spokesman Urs Wigger said a further six people are still being treated for their injuries, and that he had no immediate information on their conditions.

The assailant entered the Kronospan wood-processing company, where he was a longtime employee, in the small town of Menznau at about 9 a.m. Wednesday and opened fire.

Wigger said the weapon used has been identified as a Sphinx AT 380 handgun, a compact pistol produced by a Swiss company. It was not a military weapon, and it wasn’t clear how the suspected assailant got hold of it or whether he was in possession of it legally.

Among the victims was Swiss athlete Benno Studer, 26, Wigger said. Studer was a successful wrestler in the traditional sport of Schwingen, also known as Swiss wrestling - considered one of the country’s national sports.

Wigger said he could not confirm media reports that the shooter killed himself. Swiss police did not release the name of the shooter, but in Kosovo authorities said the attacker was born there and that Swiss officials had been in touch with them about the case.

A Kosovo government official close to the contacts with Swiss authorities identified him as Viktor Berisha, an ethnic Albanian. The Kosovo official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details of the case since the shooter was a Swiss citizen.

In Berisha’s home village of Nec, relatives began pouring into the family house late Wednesday to express condolences.

Viktor’s father, Mark declined to meet with reporters because he was shocked by the news, said a distant cousin, Pal Binishi.

The Nec area borders Albania and is home to most of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians who are Roman Catholic. Many ethnic Albanians from Nec went to look for a better life in Switzerland during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s when Kosovo was brought into the strict control of Serbia’s security apparatus led by then-president Slobodan Milosevic. — AP

papal palace that will close at 1900 GMT, indicating the end of Benedict’s reign. “We’ve been privileged to see a different, more humane side to him over the years, and grown to love him,” she said, adding that her eight-year-old daughter, named Benedetta after Benedict, has written a goodbye letter to him along with her class.

“Thank you Benedict, we are all with you!” read huge inflatable silver letters strung next to the small parish church, where hordes of journalists were camped out and local officials were preparing tokens stamped with the pope’s smiling face.

Benedict — who will spend the first two months of retirement here — did not inspire the intense emotion or draw the crowds who came to

see his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II, locals said.

“John Paul was such a warm person, he really roused the young. Benedict was more reserved, and fewer pilgrims came here to see him,” said Simone Piloto. But the 85-year old’s shock decision to give up the papal seat after eight years changed the way the town saw him, and many said they thought he had refused to be sucked into scandals and a poisonous climate within a suffering Church.

“We’ve discovered that behind his cold facade lies an honest man. He spoke yesterday of the stormy waters of his papacy-and I think he should speak out now about what he knows,” said Veronica Radoi, 30, who runs a small trattoria.—AFP

Pope Benedict pledges obedience to new pope Pope urges Church to remain united VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict, with only hours left in his papacy, yesterday pledged unconditional obedience to whoever succeeds him to guide the Roman Catholic Church at one of the most crisis-ridden periods in its 2,000-year history.

Benedict, who was due to leave the Vatican later yesterday for temporary residence at the papal summer villa south of Rome, bade an emotional farewell to cardinals before he was to become the first pope in six centuries to step down.

“I will continue to be close to you in prayer, especially in the next few days, so that you are fully accepting of the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new pope,” he told cardinals in the Vatican’s frescoed Sala Clementina.

“May the Lord show you what he wants.

Among you there is the future pope, to whom I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience,” he said.

The pledge, made ahead of the closed doors conclave where cardinals will elect his successor, was significant because for the first time in history, there will be reigning pope and a former pope living side-by-side in the Vatican. Benedict appeared to be sending a strong message to the top echelons of the Church as well as the faithful to remain united behind his successor, whoever he is.

Some Church scholars worry that if the next pope undoes some of Benedict’s policies while his predecessor is still alive, Benedict could act as a lightening rod for conservatives and polarise the 1.2 billion-member Church.

With the election of the next pope taking place in the wake sexual abuse scandals, leaks of his private papers by his butler, falling membership and demands for a greater role for women, many in the Church believe it would benefit from a fresh face from a non-European country.

A number of cardinals from the developing world, including Ghanaian Peter Turkson and Antonio Tagle of the Philippines are two names often mentioned as leading candidates from the developing world who listen more.

“At the past two conclaves, the cardinals elected the smartest man in the room. Now, it may be time to choose a man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church,” said Father Tom Resse, a historian and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Benedict, wearing the white papal cassock and red cape he will shed after his resignation becomes official, urged the Church to strive to be “deeply united”.A lover of classical music, he compared the Church hierarchy to an orchestra with

many instruments which should always seek to be harmonious. “Let us remain united, dear brothers,” said Benedict, who alluded to the scandals and reports of infighting among his closest aides.

“In these past eight years we have lived with faith beautiful moments of radiant light in the path of the Church as well as moments when some clouds darkened the sky,” he said. The pope said he had “tried to serve Christ and his Church with deep and total love”.

Benedict was later to say farewell to Vatican staff and fly by helicopter to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat south of Rome, where he will stay until April when renovations are completed on a convent in the Vatican that will be his new home. At 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) the papacy will be officially vacant and two Swiss Guards that ceremoniously watch over the summer villa will march away and not return until the new pope takes possession of the hilltop residence.

Once the chair of St Peter is vacant, cardinals who have assembled from around the world will begin planning the conclave that will elect his successor.

One of the first questions facing these “princes of the Church” is when the 115 cardinal electors should enter the Sistine Chapel for the voting.

They will hold a first meeting on Friday but a deci-

sion may not come until next week.

The Vatican seems to be aiming for an election by mid-March so the new pope can be installed in office before Palm Sunday on March 24 and lead the Holy Week services that culminate in Easter on the following Sunday.

In the meantime, the cardinals will hold daily consultations at the Vatican at which they discuss issues facing the Church, get to know each other better and size up potential candidates for the 2,000-year-old post of pope.

There are no official candidates, no open campaigning and no clear front runner for the job.

Cardinals tipped as favourites by Vatican-watchers include Turkson, Tagle, Brazil’s Odilo Scherer, Canadian Marc Ouellet, Italy’s Angelo Scola and Timothy Dolan of the United States.

Benedict, a bookish man who did not seek the papacy and did not enjoy being in the global spotlight, proved an energetic teacher of Catholic doctrine but a poor manager of the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy that became mired in scandal. He leaves his successor a top secret report on rivalries and scandals within the Curia, prompted by leaks of internal files last year that documented the problems hidden behind the Vatican’s thick walls and the Church’s traditional secrecy. — Reuters

LíAQUILA: This file picture taken on April 28, 2009 shows Pope Benedict XVI (L) standing near the relic of Pope Celestine V after covering it with a stole during his papal visit at St Maria of Collemaggio church collapsed on April 6 after the earthquake in L’Aquila. Pope Benedict XVI will resign, while the last pope to have abdicated the papacy is Celestine V in 1294. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Bulgaria elections set for May 12 SOFIA: Outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov could again head the Bulgarian government despite his shock resignation last week, his party said yesterday as early elections were set for May 12.

“If GERB win the elections, the prime minister will be Boyko Borisov,” the deputy chief of Borisov’s ruling GERB party, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, told journalists.

The announcement came just hours after President Rosen Plevneliev set the date for snap elections in the European Union’s poorest member for mid-May. “In the current dead-end situation, it is most responsible and most honest to go for early elections... The vote will be held on the first

suitable date — May 12,” Plevneliev told parliament.

Borisov quit in a surprise move last week after two weeks of protests against high electricity prices, corruption, low salaries and rising unemployment, that turned violent at times. Three people set themselves on fire in what constituted the biggest nationwide protests in 16 years.

Borisov’s decision to throw in the towel has nevertheless failed to snuff out public anger, with protesters continuing to take to the streets, booing right-wingers and Socialists alike and denouncing the whole political establishment as “mafia”.

The right-wing Borisov, a burly former

bodyguard and police chief, was hugely popular when first elected in 2009, and his term had been due to run until July.

Hospitalised with severe hypertension earlier this week, he was discharged yesterday and his doctors have told him to avoid stress. Plevneliev was expected to dissolve parliament soon and appoint a caretaker government after both the GERB and the Socialists refused mandates to form a new cabinet. Turkish minority party MRF was expected to do the same today.

“It is hopelessness that has sent people out to the streets but the real problems stem from the failed promises of the politicians, the ineffective institutions and the

lack of trust in them,” the president said yesterday.

He added these problems had been piling up in the 23 years since the fall of communism. Plevneliev promised that the people’s demands would be heard and solutions offered, asking both protestors and political parties to remain calm in the meantime.

“It is not possible for all the problems to be solved at once as they have built up over a long time,” he said. “But it is necessary to undertake clear engagements on the concrete issues electricity and heating bills, monopolies, utility regulators, incomes, employment.” — AFP

US Congress set to OK bill renewing anti-violence law Indian women are victimized by domestic violence

AUCKLAND: Meg Strange, right, wife of Adam Strange is comforted by friend Simon Shephard, as people gather on Muriwai Beach near Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday, to say goodbye to Adam Strange. — AP

Loved ones salute NZ dad killed by shark WELLINGTON: About 150 friends and family of a man killed in a shark attack wrote messages to him in the sand yesterday and stepped into the water at a New Zealand beach to say goodbye.

Adam Strange, 46, was an award-winning television and short film director and the father of a 2-year-old girl. He was training for an endurance swim near popular Muriwai Beach on Wednesday when he was attacked by the shark that was possibly 14 feet (4 meters) long. Surf lifesavers say they are convinced it was a great white shark.

Police attempting to save Strange raced out in inflatable boats and fired gunshots at the enormous predator, which they say rolled away and disappeared. Police were able to recover Strange’s body, and lifeguards believe the shark is dead.

Muriwai will remain closed for swimming until Saturday after the fatal attack, one of only about a dozen in New Zealand in the past 180 years. Friend Adam Stevens said the Thursday beach service was run by indigenous Maori who removed the “tapu” or spiritual restriction at the beach. He said it was a “perfect tribute” to a man who spent much of his time swimming and surfing.

“He was a very robust, big, barrel-chested surfer,” Stevens said. “He was basically completely obsessed with the ocean, with paddle boards and body surfing, everything. His garage was like a museum of surf craft.”

According to Police Inspector Shawn Rutene, Strange was about 200 meters (650 feet) from the shore when he was attacked by a shark that police estimated was up to four meters (14 feet) long.

Stevens said his friend had planned to swim about 1 1/2 kilometers (one mile) Wednesday as he tested new goggles and trained for an annual endurance swim from Auckland to Rangitoto Island. — AP

WASHINGTON: House Republicans appeared resigned today to accepting an ambitious expansion of the Violence Against Women Act that would bring gays, lesbians, immigrants and Native Americans under its protective umbrella.

A House vote to approve the Senate’s version of legislation renewing the Violence Against Women Act would send the legislation to President Barack Obama for his signature and help burnish the GOP’s image with women.

Republicans generally agree the law is needed, but many in the GOP oppose a sweeping expansion. Before taking up the broad-ranging bill approved by the Senate two weeks ago, the House will vote on a more limited GOP version. But with Democrats solidly behind the Senate bill and Republicans split over their own alternative, that version was likely to be rejected.

In contrast to the partisan divide in the House, the Senate passed the measure on a 78-22 vote, with all Democrats, all women senators and 23 of 45 Republicans supporting it.

The Senate bill goes further than some Republicans like in significantly broadening the scope of the law’s coverage.

The GOP decision not to prolong the dispute over how best to extend the 1994 law came after the party’s poor showing among women in last fall’s election and Democratic success in framing the debate over the anti-violence law as Republican policy hostile to women.

President Barack Obama won 55 percent of the women’s vote last November. Republican presidential candidates haven’t won the women’s vote since 1984, when Ronald Reagan held a 12-point lead over Walter Mondale among women.

With House approval of the Senate bill, Obama will sign the reauthorization of the law that laid the foundation for federal efforts to better protect women, and some men, from

domestic abuse and better prosecute the abusers.

The law expired in 2011, and has been stuck in political limbo as the House, up to now, has resisted Senate efforts to enlarge the scope of the legislation.

The legislation appeared headed for another impasse at the end of last week when the House introduced its version, which omitted references to sexual orientation and weakened Senate provisions giving Indian courts greater jurisdiction to try non-Indians accused of acts of domestic violence on tribal lands.

But on Tuesday House GOP leaders, apparently not wanting to add a war on women to the ongoing war over the budget, gave ground, agreeing that the House will vote on the Senate version if it first defeats the House proposal. With every Democrat and several dozen Republicans supporting the Senate bill, it is expected to prevail.

Rep. Jon Runyan, said a letter he and 18 other House Republicans wrote to the GOP leadership, urging support of a bipartisan plan that would reach all victims of domestic

violence, may have been the catalyst in ending the stalemate. A strong supporter of the law, Runyan said the most important thing was compromising and moving the legislation forward. “A lot of people around here have a hard time understanding that.”

Another Republican backing the Senate approach was Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of only three House members of Indian heritage and a strong proponent of giving Indian courts the right to prosecute nonIndian domestic violence suspects. He said that while the latest House bill, crafted by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, had made strides in addressing the Indian court issue, “it falls short of giving tribes what they need to keep their citizens protected from the scourge of domestic violence.”

Indian women are victimized by domestic violence at rates more than double national averages, and federal prosecutors, lacking the resources to pursue cases on isolated reservations, prosecute only about half of the violent crimes. Opponents of the Senate bill say there are constitutional questions about Indian courts trying nonIndians. — AP

WASHINGTON: In this Jan. 23, 2013, file photo, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., holds a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, to discuss the reintroduction of the Violence Against Women Act. — AP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

HRW slams Indonesia for inaction on religious attacks JAKARTA: Human Rights Watch yesterday called on Indonesia’s president to adopt a “zero tolerance” approach to attacks on religious minorities, saying such violence in the country was “on the rise” In a 107-page report, the New York-based rights watchdog slammed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for responding “weakly to growing intolerance and acts of violence” against minorities in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation. “Religious intolerance and related violence is rising in Indonesia and one of the reasons why it’s rising is the government is failing to act

decisively to stop it,” HRW Asia Deputy Director Phelim Kine said at the report launch. “It has to take a zero tolerance approach, to prosecute the perpetrator, assist the victim and make clear the government won’t accept this type of abuse,” he said. Kine said the government was merely “shrugging their shoulders” at attacks and that the failure to act was “emboldening and encouraging Islamist militants”.

The report outlined attacks across the religious spectrum-on Christians, Buddhists and Muslims from the Ahmadiyah and minority sects. HRW recommended the revocation of dis-

criminatory regulations, including the country’s blasphemy law, ministerial decrees prohibiting certain houses of worship and a decree that prevents followers of Ahmadiyah from proselytising.

The report cited several cases where Islamists had carried out attacks with near impunity, calling on the government to ensure perpetrators are prosecuted. It also called on the international community to stop praising the country for its supposed tolerance, saying such statements have “generated a sense among Indonesia’s leaders that no significant changes in law, policy, or

practice are needed”. Ninety percent of Indonesia’s 240 million people identify themselves as Muslims, and the country is hailed as a bastion of moderate Islam. The Setara Institute of Peace and Democracy recorded 543 cases of religious intolerance in 2011, up from 491 cases in 2009.

More than 300 incidents were recorded in the first half of 2012.

Several churches on Sulawesi island were attacked with petrol bombs this month, while a congregation forced to pray on the street outside its church was attacked with rotten eggs on Christmas Day on Jakarta’s outskirts. — AFP

Malaysia to host Thai peace talks in two weeks Thailand ‘wished to see a lasting solution’

MANILA: This photo taken on tuesday shows nJamalul Kiram III, the 74-year-old “Sultan of Sulu”, listening to a question at a press conference in Manila. Jamalul Kiram III emerged from political obscurity this month after a few dozen of his armed followers sailed to neighbouring Malaysia to stake an ancestral territorial claim. — AFP

Philippine sultan infuriates two nations MANILA: From a dirty plastic chair in a rundown district of the Philippine capital, an ailing man claiming to be the head of an ancient Muslim dynasty whispers defiant decrees that infuriate a president.

Jamalul Kiram III, who insists he is the genuine “Sultan of Sulu”, emerged from political obscurity this month after a few dozen of his armed followers sailed to neighbouring Malaysia to stake an ancestral territorial claim.

The gunmen took control of a small coastal village in Sabah state on Borneo island, triggering a standoff with Malaysian security forces that has yet to be resolved and deeply embarrassing Philippine President Benigno Aquino.

Although he is weak from kidney disease that needs twice-weekly dialysis, Kiram, 74, insists he is willing to take on the Philippine and Malaysian governments to assert his family’s claim to resource-rich Sabah.

Speaking in a voice barely above a whisper, he tells reporters who gather daily at his modest two-storey home that his “royal army” will never abandon Sabah.

“If they have to die, then they will die. They are sacrificing (themselves) for whatever may happen,” he said this week after Aquino ordered Kiram to withdraw his men back to their southern Philippine island homes.

Kiram’s house in Manila is festooned with banners proclaiming the “Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo,” with a coat of arms showing two crossed swords, informing visitors on the pot-holed street that they are in royal territory.

Kiram speaks nostalgically of the Sulu sultanate’s glory days before European colonisation, when it ruled over Sabah and large parts of the southern Philippines.

The Kirams say they are descended from the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), through a Makkah-born Arab who travelled to Southeast Asia. The sultanate boasts that, in centuries past, it had active relations with other Asian kingdoms and even with China’s Ming dynasty, while dominating the Sulu Sea with a powerful navy. — AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: Thailand and one of several rebel groups in the country’s Muslim south will open talks in Kuala Lumpur in two weeks to try to end a bloody insurgency, Malaysia’s prime minister said yesterday.

Najib Razak disclosed the news after talks with visiting Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and following a deal signed earlier in the day by Thailand and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) rebel group to launch a peace process.

Yingluck said Thailand “wished to see a lasting solution in the southern border provinces”, where the nine-year revolt by a number of shadowy groups has claimed more than 5,500 lives. “We need to move forward as soon as possible,” she told a news conference in the Malaysian government headquarters of Putrajaya.

Yingluck is in neighbouring Muslimmajority Malaysia for annual talks with Najib on bilateral issues. They have centred this year on the stubborn insurgency along the two countries’ border.

Many residents of Thailand’s southernmost provinces are Muslim ethnic Malays who resent being governed by the Buddhist Thais. The region sees near-daily gun and bomb attacks by insurgents seeking greater autonomy, which Thailand rejects.

The agreement to launch peace talks was signed in Kuala Lumpur early Thursday by Lieutenant-General Paradorn Pattanathabutr, secretary general of Thailand’s National Security Council, and Hassan Taib, a representative of the BRN. However, analysts poured water on suggestions the news marked a breakthrough, noting the splintered nature of the insurgents, lack of concrete demands, and Thailand’s difficulty finding people who speak for fighters on the ground. The BRN, whose Malay name means “National Revolutionary Front”, is one of the larger groups blamed by Thailand for the violence, but it remains to be seen whether others will fall in line. Thailand is “willing to

engage in the process of inclusive dialogue with all relevant stakeholders and groups concerned to address root causes of the problem,” Yingluck said.

Neither leader gave a date for the talks. A Malaysian official said the meetings would deal initially with determining “terms of reference” for going forward, adding it was hoped other groups would join in later. “Let us all hope and pray that this series of dialogues that will begin in two weeks’ time in Kuala Lumpur will bring the desired results,” Najib said. Marc Askew, an expert on southern Thailand at the University of Melbourne, said there was little evidence that “self-appointed” representatives of various groups exercise control over militants waging the revolt. “The challenge remains the same as always-to connect with the fighting insurgents, not just the talkers,” he told AFP. Leeds University researcher Duncan McCargo said past back-channel talks have been held

between Thai authorities and various rebel representatives, with little coherence or progress. “Under the circumstances, the latest news needs to be viewed with considerable caution,” he said. Paradorn had acknowledged on Wednesday that Thailand was still working on identifying militant leaders to negotiate with.

Malaysia already hosts negotiations between the Philippines and Muslim separatists in the south of that country.

These resulted in October in a landmark agreement aimed at burying a decades-long insurgency there.

Thailand annexed its Muslim-majority border region in 1902. Since then, rebellion has flared sporadically, with the current phase nine years old.

Analysts say successive Thai governments have comprehensively failed to address the insurgency’s root causes.

Thailand says about 9,000 militants operate from highly autonomous village-level cells. — AFP

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak (R) shakes hands with Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (L) during a welcoming ceremony at the prime minister’s office in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya yesterday. Yingluck arrived for the 5th Annual Consultation between Malaysia and Thailand. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

British court blocks deportations of Tamils LONDON: Dozens of failed Tamil asylum seekers who were due to be sent back to Sri Lanka yesterday can stay in Britain after a court blocked their deportation over fears of torture, their lawyers said.

The High Court in London blocked the deportations at a last-minute hearing on Wednesday pending investigations into claims that the Tamils could face abuse if they were sent back to Sri Lanka.

Solicitor Kulasegaram Geetharthanan said the case involved some 40 Tamils, some of whom had links to the Tamil Tiger rebels who were finally crushed by Sri Lankan government forces in 2009 after more than three decades of civil war. “Their cases are now being reviewed,” he told AFP. “There is a lot of evidence that these people could face torture if they are sent

back.” The Sri Lankan government denies allegations that Tamils who have previously been sent home have been abused. The UK Border Agency said it was “disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal against it. “The ruling does not represent a blanket ban on returns to Sri Lanka,” a spokesman added.

Geetharthanan, who is representing five of the Tamil asylum seekers, said his clients were currently being held in immigration detention centres and would apply for bail in the next week.

This is believed to be the first time that a British court has blocked the deportation of a group of Tamils to Sri Lanka, although many individuals have won similar cases over the last two years.

An estimated 100,000 people were killed between

1972 and May 2009, when security forces declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels who were fighting for an independent homeland. The New York-based Human Rights Watch group alleged on Wednesday that Sri Lankan security forces continue to use rape and other forms of sexual violence to torture suspected Tamil rebels nearly four years after the end of the war.

Sri Lanka’s military dismissed the HRW report but said there had been five cases of sexual violence alleged to have been committed by seven soldiers between 2007 and May 2009, the height of fighting during the war. Sri Lanka’s military has routinely dismissed allegations of war crimes as an attempt to discredit them by remnants of the Tamil Tigers. — AFP

Terrorized ethnic group to form force in Pakistan Condemns govt for doing little to protect them

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s nuclear scientist-turned-politician Abdul Qadeer Khan, left, attends the All Parties Conference with Fazal-ur-Rehman, chief of Pakistan’s religious party Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam in Islamabad, Pakistan yesterday. The meeting convened to discuss the possibility of negotiating peace with Pakistani Taleban. — AP

Indian teenager pleads not guilty to gang rape, murder NEW DELHI: An Indian teenager pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges that he took part in the gang rape and murder of a trainee physiotherapist in New Delhi, a juvenile justice official said.

Police say the youth and five men on Dec. 16 lured the 23year-old wooman and her male friend on to a bus where they repeatedly raped her and beat her with a metal bar before tossing the bleeding couple on to a road.

The woman died of internal injuries two weeks later in Singapore in a case that sparked violent protests and turned a global spotlight on the treatment of women in India. The 17year-old defendant has been charged with the same 13 offences as his co-accused, including rape, murder and robbery, by the juvenile court. His trial begins next week.

“The court has framed charges against the boy under relevant sections,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He has pleaded not guilty and claimed trial in the case.”

The teenager will be tried separately from the other five, whose trial began earlier this month. A Juvenile Justice Board comprising a magistrate and two other members will start hearing the case on Wednesday.

If found guilty, he would face a maximum penalty of three years in juvenile detention, while his adult co-accused could face the death penalty. Last month, authorities accepted school records showing the juvenile, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, as having been born on June 4, 1995, making him under 18 at the time of the crime.

The panel’s decision on the youth’s age infuriated many Indians, including protesters, some police and political leaders, who called for the age at which people can be tried as adults to be lowered to 16 from 18. The government ruled out such a move on Wednesday. — Reuters

QUETTA: Inside the ruins of a market demolished by a powerful bomb, four tiny white candles — dwarfed by the scale of the destruction — flickered gently in the freezing rain as dazed Shiite Muslim Hazaras wept for the nearly 90 people killed in the blast.

Condemning the Pakistan government for doing little to protect them, the small ethnic group has vowed to set up their own defense force to deal with Sunni extremists they blame for the bombing and a series of other ferocious attacks that have killed nearly 400 ethnic Hazaras in the past 18 months, nearly half in the first two months of this year.

The bomb earlier this month in the Pakistani city of Quetta ripped a swath of devastation that flattened a three-story building and left the ruins of scores of single-room shops exposed to the rain.

Blood-soaked rugs were all that was left of a carpet store. “The ones who did this they are not human. They are animals,” said Surha, a young woman who goes by one name, a common tradition here. She spoke as she grieved at the site, more than a week after the bombing.

Shiite leaders blame inaction by Pakistan’s security service for the rising violence against them in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province. They told The Associated Press recently that they are petitioning the provincial administration of Baluchistan to approve a Hazara-led defense force to work with local police.

“Of course, I blame the government,” Surha said, her voice getting louder.

Wrapped in a large beige shawl to ward off the cold, she recounted how two of her young cousins died in the bombing after returning home from school to help their father in his used clothing shop.

Her face was wracked in pain. Her voice cracked. “The government is responsible for this situation because daily it is happening to us and nothing is done to stop it.”Many Hazaras, who are mostly Shiite Muslims, migrated from neighboring Afghanistan during the past century. They are easily recognized by their distinctive Central Asian facial features, which Hazara leaders say make them easy targets for militant Sunnis. “We can’t hide who we are. You can see it in our faces. I don’t see it getting better,” said Allama Muhammad Juma Asadi. His school, Jamia Imam Sadiq, is just a couple blocks from a massive bombing

QUETTA: This picture taken on Wednesday shows Pakistani Hazara residents walking on a street in the southwestern city of Quetta. — AFP that killed more than 100 people on Jan. 10.

Terrified students ran into the street. It was chaos, he said.

When a second explosion leveled the market on Feb. 16, Hazara leaders began to talk of self-protection and raising a security force of their own. “Very soon we will have our own people at the checkpoints,” Asadi said. “We have discussed setting up our own protection force with the administration.” Radicals have attacked non-Hazara Shiites elsewhere in the country, but some of the worst attacks have occurred in Baluchistan where most Hazaras live. A virulent anti-Shiite group, Lashkar-e-Janghvi, has taken responsibility for all the attacks.

The militant organization is made up of radical Sunni Muslims and reviles Shiites as heretics. About 20 million of Pakistan’s 180 million people are Shiites, who mostly live in harmony with the majority Sunni population. But militant groups from both sides have sprung up in Pakistan over the decades, often with suspected financial links to Saudi Arabia, which is ruled by a Sunni monarchy, and Iran, a Shiite powerhouse in the region.

“A crumbling state has failed to stop

slaughter after slaughter and to provide even basic security to its hapless citizens leaving them at the mercy of the murderers,” militant expert and author Zahid Hussain recently wrote in a local newspaper. The February explosion claimed the lives of 17 members of Bostan Kishtmand’s family, which owned more than 20 small shops in the area.

“I went a little out of my mind when I went to the hospital and saw all of my relatives, all dead,” Kishtmand said in broken English. “Something went wrong in my head.” After the January bombing, Baluchistan’s provincial administration was fired and responsibility for the region’s security came under the federal government. It ordered the paramilitary Frontier Corps to restore calm in Baluchistan, a sparsely populated province that was wracked by a bloody secessionist movement nearly two years ago. That gave way to the current round of brutal sectarian bloodletting.In the February attack, militants loaded a water tanker with about 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of explosives. It passed undetected through two checkpoints manned by Frontier Corps. —AP

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Kuwait measure climbs 0.3% to its highest close

British bank RBS logs huge loss PAGE 20

PAGE 21

NEW DELHI: Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram waves to the media outside the Finance Ministry as he leaves for Parliament to present the annual budget in New Delhi, India, yesterday. — AP

India budget surprises with spending surge Stocks, bond prices, rupee fall after budget NEW DELHI: India unveiled new taxes on the rich and large companies yesterday to fund higherthan-expected spending for the next fiscal year, in a budget that aimed to revive growth amid the country’s worst slowdown in a decade ahead of a 2014 election.

Stocks, bond prices and the rupee all fell despite Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s vow to cut next year’s fiscal deficit to 4.8 percent of GDP, which some watchers said counted on ambitious revenue assumptions given hefty spending targets. There had been widespread expectation, fuelled in part by comments by finance ministry officials, that Chidambaram would present an austere budget in line with the spending cuts he forced on government ministries in recent months. But the spending plan appeared to have been drawn up with a looming general election in mind, some economists said. “With a general election not much than a year away, political pressure from within the Congress Party may well have had an influence on the make-up of the Finance

Minister’s budget,” Credit Suisse said.

Chidambaram, a three-time finance minister seen as a candidate for prime minister in 2014, has staked his reputation on cutting swollen fiscal and current account deficits that have alarmed credit rating agencies and triggered warnings that India’s sovereign bonds could be downgraded to ‘junk’ status. There was no immediate comment from the agencies.

“Fiscal consolidation cannot be effective only by cutting expenditure,” Chidambaram said in his speech, seen as a balancing act to stave off a credit rating downgrade while meeting demands for populist spending heading into an election year.

Total budget expenditure will rise by an unexpectedly high 16 percent in the 2013/14 fiscal year that begins on April 1 to 16.65 trillion rupees ($309 billion). Next year’s fiscal deficit target is in line with expectations but assumes hefty revenue growth, including 558 billion rupees from the sale of government stakes in companies, or more than double the 240 billion rupee target for the current

year, which falls short of the initial target.

“From a macro perspective, the budget is disappointing in our opinion as it lacks any expenditure control,” Nomura analysts wrote.

The budget also assumes revenue of 408.5 billion rupees from telecoms sector fees, more than double what it will generate this year, with its next auction of mobile airwaves poised to flop after attracting just one bidder.

“The government may fall short of its tax and disinvestment targets and end up cutting spending closer to the end of the year to attain its fiscal deficit target,” said A Prasanna, economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership Ltd. Net market borrowing of 4.84 trillion rupees for the new fiscal year met investor hopes that the figure would not top 5 trillion rupees, but the gross figure exceeded expectations.

The budget included several measures to spur investment both in markets and by corporations, including an incentive on investments in plant and machinery exceeding 1 billion rupees and

extending tax breaks for small companies that grow larger, and an expansion of tax-free bonds for infrastructure. Chidambaram has focused on winning back foreign investors unnerved by proposals of his predecessor, Pranab Mukherjee, to tax merger deals retrospectively and clamp down on tax evasion. Since September, he has implemented a spate of investor-friendly reforms, including allowing entry of foreign supermarkets.

“India, at the present juncture, does not have the choice between welcoming and spurning foreign investment. If I may be frank, foreign investment is an imperative. What we can do is to encourage foreign investment that is consistent with our economic objectives,” he said.

While the added spending included capital investment that many have said is sorely needed, including a 29 percent increase in funding for infrastructure and development, it also included a 46 percent jump in funding for development programmes in rural areas, the core voter base of the ruling Congress party. —Reuters

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

White House, Republicans dig in ahead of budget talks WASHINGTON: Positions hardened on Wednesday between President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders over the budget crisis even as they arranged to hold last-ditch talks to prevent harsh automatic spending cuts beginning this week. Looking resigned to the $85-billion in “sequestration” cuts starting today, government agencies began reducing costs and spelling out to employees how furloughs will work.

Expectations were low that a White House meeting on Friday between Obama and congressional leaders, including Republican foes, would produce any deal to avoid the cuts. Public services across the country - from air traffic control to food safety inspections and education - might be disrupted if the cuts go ahead.

Put into law in 2011 as part of an earlier fiscal crisis, sequestration is unloved by both parties because of the economic pain it will cause, but the politicians cannot agree how to stop it. A deal in Congress on less drastic spending cuts, perhaps with tax increases too, is needed by today to halt the sequestration reductions which are split between social programs cherished by Democrats and defense spending championed by Republicans.

Obama stuck by his demand that Republicans accept tax increases in the form of eliminating tax loopholes enjoyed mostly by the wealthy as part of a balanced approach to avoiding sequestration.

“There is no alternative in the president’s mind to bal-

ance,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Obama wants to end tax breaks for oil and gas companies and the lower “carried interest” tax rate enjoyed by hedge funds.

But Republicans who reluctantly agreed to raise income tax rates on the rich to avert the “fiscal cliff” crisis in December are in no mood for that. “One thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

In one of the first concrete effects of the cuts, the administration took the unusual step of freeing several hundred detained illegal immigrants because of the cost of holding them. Republicans described that move by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a political stunt aimed at scaring them into agreeing to end the sequestration on Obama’s terms.

The issue looked like it might become more controversial on Wednesday when The Associated Press reported that the Homeland Security Department official in charge of immigration enforcement and removal had announced his resignation on Tuesday just after news of the immigrants’ releases came out.

But ICE said the report was “misleading.” The official, Gary Mead, told ICE weeks ago of his retirement in April after 40 years of federal service, a spokeswoman said.

Earlier, Carney denied the White House had ordered the

immigrants’ release. today’s White House meeting will include McConnell and the other key congressional leaders: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and House Speaker John Boehner, the top US Republican.

But the chances of success were not high. One congressional Republican aide criticized the White House for calling the meeting for the day the cuts were coming into effect. “Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a - belated - farce. They ought to at least pretend to try.”

Unlike during other fiscal fights in Congress, the stock market is taking the sequestration impasse calmly. US stocks rose, with major indexes posting their best daily gains since early January, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke remained steadfast in supporting the Fed’s stimulus policy and data pointed to economic improvement.

Obama chatted briefly with McConnell and other congressional leaders at the unveiling of a statute for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks on Capitol Hill.

Americans blame both Obama and congressional Republicans for this latest fiscal crisis, according to a Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Tuesday. Twenty-five percent of people said Republicans in Congress were responsible for sequestration, 23 percent blamed Obama and 5 percent pointed to congressional Democrats. Thirty percent said all of them were to blame. —Reuters

Dubai’s Arabtec tumbles on dilution worries Kuwait measure climbs 0.3% to its highest close

PALO ALTO: Eric Migicovsky, CEO of Pebble, displays his company’s smart watch in Palo Alto, on Feb 12, 2013. This new watch not only tells time, but also connects to smart phones within 10 meters. — AP

Abraaj Capital to sell Acibadem ISTANBUL: Abraaj Capital, the Middle East’s largest private equity firm, plans to sell its 50 percent stake in Turkish health insurer Acibadem Sigorta, three sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Acibadem Sigorta is a 50:50 joint venture between a holding company owned by Dubai-based Abraaj and Mehmet Ali Aydinlar, founder of Turkey’s Acibadem health group, and ranks third in the sector with a market share of just over 10 percent.

Turkey’s economy, the fastest growing in Europe in 2011, expanded by less than 3 percent last year but its young and growing population of 75 million is regarded as under-insured, with total premium income rising 12 percent to 19.8 billion Turkish liras ($11 billion).

Health insurance premiums were up 11.9 percent at 2.24 billion liras last year, with Ac? badem Sigorta’s premium income jumping 35.5 percent to 230.3 million liras, according to official data.

Three global insurers - Allianz, Dai-ichi Life , and Zurich - are already vying to buy Yapi Kredi Sigorta, a joint venture between Turkish group Koc Holding and Italian bank UniCredit, banking sources said this month.

“Strong demand is expected (for Acibadem Sigorta) as it is one of Turkey’s biggest health insurance firms,” one of the sources familiar with Abraaj’s plans told Reuters. Austria’s Raiffeisen Investment has been commissioned to advise on the sale by both shareholders, two of the sources said. —Reuters

DUBAI: Shares in Dubai’s Arabtec tumbled yesterday to a six-week low on fears of a significant shares dilution after company plans of raising $1.8 billion in capital. Gulf markets were mixed, while Egypt’s measure extended losses.

Arabtec will issue 3.2 billion shares at 1.5 dirhams per share, a near 50 percent discount to its current market price. The capital hike amounts to a more than 50 percent increase in its market capitalisation.

It’s shares slumped 9.8 percent to 2.67 dirhams, its lowest close since January 16. Trading was thin as the stock hit its maximum permitted daily decline early in the day - allowing no further sell orders to be processed.

“Potential support of the 200 daily exponential moving average is around 2.63 dirhams, which coordinates nicely with the 50 percent retracement at 2.625 of the uptrend begun at the beginning of this year,” said Bruce Powers, a technical analyst and corporate advisor at Orpheus Capital.

“Given the significant move down today it wouldn’t be surprising to see Arabtec drop below this potential support zone.” The contractor also replaced its chief executive as part of a shake-up driven by Abu Dhabi state investment fund Aabar, its largest shareholder, that is tightening its grip on the firm.

On Nasdaq Dubai, shares of Depa surged 11.4 percent after Cario-based EFG-Hermes said Arabtec is likely to use funds from the capital hike to take over the interiors contracting firm.

Arabtec, which acquired a 23.4 percent stake in Depa in Nov last year, will purchase the remaining 465 million shares in Depa that it does not currently own, analysts Jan Pawel Hasman and Shaza El Kady said in the note.

Dubai’s benchmark shed 0.6 percent, continuing its sideways trading as it struggles to break through the 2,000 key psychological level.

Elsewhere, Cairo’s measure fell 0.5 percent, down for its fifth consecutive losing session as weak earnings weighed on sentiment already downbeat on political concerns ahead of parliamentary elections.

Ezz Steel slipped 0.8 percent after the country’s largest steel producer swung to a loss in the third quarter.

Egypt Kuwait Holding fell 4.2 percent, extending declines after the company reported a 47 percent drop in 2012 profit from a year ago.

Meanwhile, Kuwait measure climbed 0.3 percent to its highest close since May 2012. Kuwait is up 8.9 percent year-to-date but recovering from an eight year trough it hit in November last year.

“We continue to be somewhat optimistic for the coming period of time in light of two primary factors - the anticipated favorable announcements and financial disclosures for many of the listed companies that have not yet announced and more importantly for the long overdue government mega projects announcements,” said Fouad Darwish, head of brokerage at Global Investment House.

Hopes of progress on development spending are driving optimism in the market amid a benign political backdrop. The Kuwaiti opposition boycotted the last elections and so cabinet members are seen as pro-government. Investors have been waiting for development projects to be announced and a fraction of these are beginning to trickle through.

Kuwait said on Thursday it plans to choose a winning bid in the first quarter of this year for a 900 million dinars ($3.2 billion) new airport, a key project in the country’s economic development plan.

THURSDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS DUBAI The index slipped 0.6 percent to 1,927 points.

ABU DHABI The index declined 0.4 percent to 3,045 points.

EGYPT The index retreated 0.5 percent to 5,489 points.

QATAR The index gained 0.4 percent to 8,529 points.

KUWAIT The index climbed 0.3 percent to 6,463 points.

OMAN The index slipped 0.1 percent to 5,976 points.

BAHRAIN The index declined 0.7 percent at 1,090 points.

— Reuters

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Britain’s Old Lady shows appetite for new thinking LONDON: There has been a sudden flowering of new ideas at the Bank of England over the past few days, with everything from negative interest rates to a long-term commitment to bond-buying said to be up for discussion.

Could it be that a new boss is coming? Or simply that things in Britain’s economy are getting decidedly worse?

Just a couple of weeks ago, most economists did not expect policy at the bank, nicknamed the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, to change this year - or at least not before Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney arrives in July to take over. Outgoing Governor Mervyn King had cast doubt on the ability of monetary policy to do much to revive Britain’s stagnant economy, and stubborn inflation appeared to have left officials in a quandary over pumping in more new money. But last week, the bank’s policy minutes unexpectedly showed that King and markets expert Paul Fisher had joined stalwart dove David Miles in a minority in favour of new asset purchases. And just as significantly, policymakers have since said they considered a range of other options to boost demand, ranging from charging banks to deposit money at the central bank to a scheme to finance firms’ dayto-day borrowing. It smacks of a break with what former policymaker Adam Posen described as a conservative culture which made him “furious” during his years at the bank. “They have in the past talked about other potential options,” said Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics. “But they seem to have come back to it ... partly because the economic recovery still is not getting going.”

Spain sees no need for more cuts, recession deepens MADRID: Spain said yesterday no new measures were needed to rein in its public deficit after official data showed its biting austerity measures in 2012 helped push the country deeper into recession. The eurozone’s fourth largest economy shrank by 1.4 percent year-on-year in 2012 as households slashed spending, the national statistics institute said. That was a slightly better performance than the decline of 1.5 percent forecast by the government.

But gross domestic product contracted 0.8 percent in the final quarter of 2012, the steepest decline since the second quarter of 2009 and more than double the 0.3 percent fall posted in the previous three-month period. The figures were slightly bleaker than preliminary data released last month by the statistics institute which saw the economy falling by 0.7 percent in the final quarter on a quarterly basis and by 1.37 percent for the entire year. Spain is grappling with a double-dip recession and 26 percent unemployment, prompted by the collapse of a decade-long property boom in 2008.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government forecasts the economy will return to growth in the second half of 2013. It predicts an economic contraction of 0.5 percent in 2013 followed by an expansion of 1.2 percent in 2014, a more optimistic forecast than those of most analysts and international organisations. Activity appeared to be cramped by spending cuts and tax rises, aimed at saving 150 billion euros ($194 billion) between 2012 and 2014, which have prompted mass street protests. The economic contraction in the fourth quarter was caused mainly by a fall in domestic demand, the national statistics institute said.

Consumer spending fell 1.9 percent while government expenditure dropped 0.3 percent. The government has vowed to lower the public deficit from the equivalent of 9.4 percent of gross domestic product last year to 2.8 percent in 2014.

Analysts say those targets will be hard to reach in a period of declining economic activity.

But Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro said Spain does not need new measures to rein in its spending shortfall in 2013 even though the country slightly missed its targets for the shortfall last year. “There is no need for new cutbacks,” he told a news conference. Spain’s overall public deficit reached 6.74 percent of GDP in 2012, compared with a target agreed with the European Commission of 6.3 percent, he said. —AFP

Britain is teetering on its third recession in four years, its main euro-zone trading partner is suffering, and the government is committed to more tight-spending austerity after a credit rating downgrade. The ideas-fest also comes at a time when the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan have embarked on other alternative strategies, whether by giving an open-ended commitment to bond purchases or targeting higher inflation.

Currency markets have already reacted. The yen has slid against the dollar and sterling is at a two-and-a-half year low - in part because Bank of England policymakers have said they are relaxed about the temporary inflation impact of depreciation needed to bring Britain’s trade deficit closer to balance.

The bank is said to be sensitive to the perception that it is too reliant on two or three tools - interest rates, bond purchases and a relatively new scheme to boost bank lending - at a time when the economy may need more.

“They are trying to make it clear, first of all that they want to loosen policy, and second that they have a range of options available. They have not run out of tools for stimulus - which was what it sounded like for a period,” said Michael Saunders, chief UK economist at Citi.

Policymakers have been clearer than previously, for example, that they believe bond purchases with newly created money - also known as quantitative easing - can still provide benefits, although some officials think other options may be better. And if asset purchases do restart,

they could have a different tempo to before. King, Miles and Fisher all backed a 25 billion pound ($39 billion) increase - less than previous rounds which have led to 375 billion pounds of purchases so far.

But Fisher said publicly late on Tuesday that this could be just the first in a longer series, coming closer than before to the US Federal Reserve’s style of ongoing purchases. Capital’s Redwood thinks a new boss may be behind some of the new thinking. “There has been a lot of talk about how Carney will improve things when he arrives, so they’d like to be seen to be doing those things already,” she said.

British lawmakers were much impressed when Carney - who has a reputation for having steered Canada clear of the worst of the financial crisis appeared before them earlier this month.

At the Bank of Canada he has championed explicit interest rate guidance - letting markets clearly know what to expect - something the Bank of England has avoided. He also flirted with modish ideas such as targeting not just inflation as the Bank of England does, but a mix of economic output and inflation known as nominal gross domestic product.

Carney steered clear of specifics when he spoke to British lawmakers. But this week Deputy Governor Paul Tucker - whom Carney beat to the top job - told the same parliamentary committee of two unusual policies the BoE had considered - negative interest rates and creating a tradeable instrument that banks could use to finance firms’ working capital. There is no guarantee

British bank RBS logs huge loss Boss still takes deferred bonus LONDON: Britain’s bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland yesterday posted its fifth straight annual loss for 2012, when it was hit by a string of scandals, but added that its boss would still take a deferred bonus.

Losses after tax ballooned to £5.97 billion ($9.05 billion, 6.89 billion euros) last year, compared with a shortfall of £1.997 billion in 2011, RBS revealed in a results statement.

The lender was hit hard last year by mis-selling compensation payouts, Libor rate-rigging fines and a vast accounting charge.

The Edinburgh-based bank yesterday said it had set aside another £450 million to cover compensation for mis-selling payment protection insurance, and £650 million for clients mis-sold interest rate hedging products. The bank also took a huge accounting charge of £4.65 billion against the improving value of the group’s own debt. That contrasted with a credit of £1.91 billion in 2011.

RBS had already revealed earlier this month that it would pay fines totalling $612 million (453 million euros) to US and British regulators to settle allegations of Libor interest rate-rigging.

Despite the scandal-tainted year, chief executive Stephen Hester revealed he would still pick up the second tranche of his deferred bonus for 2010 next week.

When asked if he would be taking £780,000 in RBS shares in March, Hester told the BBC: “Yes, I am. Other people decided to award it to me. As you know it’s the only bonus in four years I have taken.

“By the standards of other people doing this job that is something that the board clearly felt was merited.” RBS also paid bonuses to other staff, despite public outcry after it became the third bank to admit its

part in the Libor affair after Barclays and UBS. The lender did however cut its bonus pool to £607 million, from £789 million in 2011, after recouping cash to pay its recent fines to settle allegations of Libor rate-rigging. Bonuses at taxpayer-rescued lenders have long been a flashpoint for public outrage in Britain, with the economy on the cusp of its third recession since the 2008 global financial crisis that was rooted in the banking sector.

The government still owns 81 percent of RBS after it was bailed out at the height of the crisis with £45.5 billion of taxpayers’ cash, making it the world’s biggest banking bailout. Across in Brussels, the European Union has agreed to new rules that would cap bankers’ bonuses, blamed by critics for helping to drive the global financial crisis but also defended as crucial for the smooth working of the banking system.

The European Parliament and the EU’s current Irish presidency yesterday agreed how to implement Basel III, an internationally-agreed set of regulations which tighten capital requirements in the hope of preventing any repeat of the 2008 banking collapse.Back in London, RBS added that its underlying operating profit excluding exceptional charges almost doubled to £3.462 billion last year, aided by deep cost-cutting and falling impairment charges.

And the group noted that its five-year restructuring plan would be mostly complete by the end of 2013, predicting it would therefore become a “cleaner” and better performing bank next year. “RBS is four years into its recovery plan and good progress has been made. We are a much smaller, more focused and stronger bank. Our target is for 2013 to be the last big year of restructuring,” said Hester in the earnings release.—AP

LONDON: A sign at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) London headquarters is pictured yesterday. State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland said yesterday that net losses almost tripled to £5.97 billion in 2012, when it was hit by compensation payouts, Libor rate-rigging fines and a vast accounting charge. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

ADB president nominated to head Japan central bank TOKYO: Japan’s government has nominated Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda to head the country’s central bank, counting on his support for more aggressive monetary policy to help the world’s thirdbiggest economy escape recession and deflation.The current Bank of Japan governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, will step down on March 19, three weeks before his term was due to end. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe favored Kuroda, whose formal nomination was made to the parliament yesterday. A vote on the choice is due next month.

The nomination of Kuroda, 68, was widely expected. The Oxford-educated former vice minister of finance has criticized central bank policies in the past and backs Abe’s strategy for reviving Japan’s economy by fighting deflation through monetary easing and hefty

government spending.

Kuroda’s perceived alignment with Abe’s views on the economy has drawn criticism that the Bank of Japan’s independence could be undermined. Central bank autonomy, which aims to ensure monetary policy decisions aren’t captive to the short-term considerations of political leaders, is enshrined in law in many countries. However the deep economic malaise that followed the 2008 financial crisis has resulted in many central banks, the US Federal Reserve in particular, accommodating calls for unprecedented monetary easing.

Also as expected, the government proposed that Kikuo Iwata, a professor at Tokyo’s Gakushuin University, and Hiroshi Nakaso, an executive director at the BOJ, to become the bank’s top two deputy governors.

Kuroda is viewed as part of the global “currency mafia” in Japan. With his long experience and fluent English, he is accustomed to dealing with the world’s major central banks and other financial leaders. During his years as Japan’s top financial diplomat, he often decried the Japanese yen’s rise against the US dollar, saying it did not reflect the fundamentals of the economy.

Despite frequent central bank interventions in the currency markets, the yen continued its long-term ascent thanks to its status as a safe-haven, and low interest rates that encouraged an international “carry trade” of borrowing in yen and using the money to invest in the bonds of countries with higher interest rates.Abe’s support for a weaker yen, to help support Japanese export manufacturers, has lifted share prices and spurred a

Asian markets rise on Wall Street rally HONG KONG: Asian markets rose yesterday after the Dow on Wall Street hit a more than five-year high, while the head of the European Central Bank soothed concerns over the eurozone.

A strong bond sale in Italy also helped the euro despite uncertainty after weekend polls, while the yen resumed its downward trend after Japan’s government nominated a fan of aggressive easing as the new central bank governor.

Tokyo climbed 2.71 percent, or 305.39 points, to 11,559.36 as the yen sank on confirmation that Japan’s government had put forward Haruhiko Kuroda to take over at the Bank of Japan. Kuroda, the current Asian Development Bank chief, is known as an advocate of a looser monetary policy to overcome slow growth, in line with the views of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The dollar bought 92.36 yen, compared with 92.16 yen in New York late Wednesday. Sydney added 1.34 percent, or 67.5 points, to end at 5,104.1 and Seoul rose 1.12 percent, or 22.45 points, to 2,026.49.

Hong Kong shares advanced 1.96 percent, or 443.26 points, to 23,020.27 and Shanghai jumped 2.26 percent, or 52.37 points, to 2,365.59. ECB President Mario Draghi said Wednesday the bank would preserve the integrity of the eurozone, reasserting its commitment to buy up bonds of under-pressure countries.

“We are committed to preserving the integrity of our currency, in the interests of all people of the euro area,” he said. The announcement, which came after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said its own huge easing would stay in place, came as welcome relief to markets after Italy’s poll deadlock raised fears of a return to Europe’s debt crisis.

On forex markets the euro rebounded after being hammered in the wake of Sunday’s inconclusive poll, which saw voters shun austerity policies and leave the country with a hung parliament.

The euro sat at $1.3142 and 121.38 yen in Tokyo, from $1.3136 and 121.07 yen-and well up from the levels just above $1.30 and 119 yen seen earlier in the week.

The single currency was also given support from news that Rome had successfully sold 6.5 billion euros of treasury bonds, albeit at a higher price, providing evidence

TOKYO: A women walks past an electronic stock indicator in Tokyo, yesterday.

Asian stock markets rose yesterday as positive economic indicators and the nomination of a pro-stimulus Bank of Japan chief bolstered hopes for faster growth. — AP for now that it can borrow cash to pay its own bills. On Wall Street the Dow ended at its highest level since October 2007 after reports showed US pending home sales rebounded sharply in January to the highest level in almost three years.

In other positive news, durable goods orders in January-excluding volatile aircraft-surged 1.9 percent, with gains particularly strong in capital goods, suggesting business confidence in the economy in upcoming months.

The Dow jumped 1.26 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 1.27 percent and the Nasdaq added 1.04 percent. Oil prices rose, with New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, gained 76 cents to $93.52 a barrel in the afternoon and Brent North Sea crude for April delivery fell nine cents to $111.78.

Gold was at $1,591.00 at 1035 GMT compared with $1,608.32 late Wednesday.

In other markets: Wellington jumped 1.02 percent, or 43.69 points, to 4,320.01. Air New Zealand added 4.1 percent to NZ$1.40 and Auckland Airport was up 2.2 percent at NZ$2.83 while Telecom rose 2.1 percent to NZ$2.42.

Manila closed 1.59 percent higher, adding 105.18 points to 6,721.45. SM Investments rose 3.37 percent to 1,044 pesos while Bloomberry Resorts gained 2.64 percent to 14.78 pesos.

Singapore rose 0.27 percent, or 8.83 points, to close at 3,269.95. United Overseas Bank fell 0.63 percent to Sg$19.08 while Jardine Cycle and Carriage gained 0.86 percent to Sg$51.60.

Bangkok added 1.55 percent, or 23.53 points, to 1,541.58. Telecoms company True Corporation jumped 3.88 percent to 6.70 baht, while supermarket operator Siam Makro rose 6.61 percent to 484.00 baht.

Mumbai slid 1.52 percent, or 290.87 points, to 18,861.54 points. Top commercial bank State Bank of India fell 5.8 percent to 2,085.4 while mobile phone firm Reliance Communications fell 11.8 percent to 61.1 rupees.

Jakarta ended up 1.68 percent, or 79.37 points, at 4,795.79. Telekomunikasi Indonesia rose 5.91 percent to 10,750 rupiah, miner Aneka Tambang climbed 0.78 percent to 1,290 rupiah, and paper maker Pabrik Kertas Tjiwi Kimia dropped 1.12 percent to 2,200 rupiah. — AFP

decline in the value of the Japanese currency, which has weakened by about 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since last fall.

The yen was trading at about 92.32 yen to the dollar by midday yesterday, while the Nikkei 225 stock index had risen 1.9 percent to 11,462.63.

Once it became clear that the government intended to move ahead with its plan to nominate Kuroda, attention in Japan turned to who will replace him as head of the Manila, Philippines-based ADB, which is a regional development lender.

Local reports suggested that the current vice finance minister in charge of international affairs, Takehiko Nakao, be named to take his place. However Japan would need to win support from other ADB member countries for that choice. — AP

India to set up ‘women’s bank’ NEW DELHI: India’s government said yesterday it would set up a new public sector bank for women as part of efforts to address gender imbalances in a country still reeling from protests over a fatal gang-rape in New Delhi.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said 10 billion rupees ($186 million) had been set aside to capitalise the new bank that is to focus on lending to women and be managed and staffed by them. “I hope to obtain the necessary approvals and banking licence by October 2013 and invite all honourable members to the inauguration of the bank shortly there after,” he told parliament as he presented the 2013/14 budget. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India paved the way for the issuance of new bank licences in a push to expand financial services across the country where fewer than half of the country’s 1.2 billion people have a bank account.

Other examples of women-only banks exist in neighbouring Pakistan, which opened one in 1989, and in Tanzania in East Africa where a similar version became operational in 2009.

Separately, Chidambaram also announced the creation of a 10-billion-rupee fund aimed at improving the safety of women amid criticism of the government for failing to do more to tackle sex crime.

In December, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was raped and murdered on a New Delhi bus in a vicious attack that provoked street protests and a bout of deep introspection about India’s attitude to women.

“Recent incidents have cast a long, dark shadow on our liberal and progressive credentials,” Chidambaram said. “We stand in solidarity with our girl children and women. And we pledge to do everything possible to empower them and to keep them safe and secure,” he said to cheers from members of parliament. — AFP

Russian-made Sukhoi delivered to Indonesia JAKARTA: The first Russian-made Sukhoi passenger jet has been delivered in Indonesia, about nine months after the same type of plane crashed into a volcano during a demonstration flight meant to encourage buyers.

The Superjet 100, one of 12 aircraft ordered by private Indonesian carrier Sky Aviation, was delivered Wednesday. It will be used on domestic flights in eastern Indonesia, company head Krisman Tarigan said yesterday.

The 100-seat plane is the same type that crashed in Indonesia last May, killing all 45 people on board. Pilot error was partly to blame for the accident.

In November, Indonesia certified the Superjet, Russia’s first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago. The plane is intended to help resurrect Russia’s aerospace industry.

Another Indonesian company, Kartika Airlines, ordered 30 of the aircraft, but the fate of that deal is not clear following the crash. — AP

THEY ARE THE 99!

99 Mystical Noor Stones carry all that is left of the wisdom and knowledge of the lost civilization of Baghdad. But the Noor Stones lie scattered across the globe - now little more than a legend. One man has made it his life’s mission to seek out what was lost. His name is Dr. Ramzi Razem and he has searched fruitlessly for the Noor Stones all his life. Now, his luck is about to change - the first of the stones have been rediscovered and with them a special type of human who can unlock the gem’s mystical power. Ramzi brings these gem - bearers together to form a new force for good in the world. A force known as ... the 99!

THE FASCINATING STORY OF THE 99 When a dam in India threatens to collapse, Baeth, Mumita, and Mukit jump to the

The 99 ® and all related characters ® and © 2013, Teshkeel Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

rescue. But Mukit grows exhausted, so Dr. Ramzi sends Jabbar in to finish the job…

www.the99.org

Analysis FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Egypt army tiptoes through minefield

By Marwa Awad and Alexander Dziadosz

A

s cities along the Suez Canal erupted in violence in late January, the leader of Egypt’s armed forces feared for the future of the fledgling democracy. General Abdel Fattah Sisi told the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, that the situation was critical, according to Egyptian security sources familiar with the events. “The military leadership advised the president that national security was threatened following the chaos and vandalism that befell the cities of Suez and Port Said,” a security source with links to the military told Reuters. The two men discussed ways to contain the unrest along the Canal, which is vital to Egypt and global trade, agreeing the army could not stand by and let the turmoil spread. Early on Saturday Jan 26, troops deployed in the riot-torn cities; in Suez armoured vehicles arrived to protect government buildings. Morsi announced a night-time curfew in the towns.

It was a telling moment in Egypt’s struggle to establish a real democracy. When popular uprisings overthrew the former regime of Hosni Mubarak two years ago, the army, which had played a central role in the state for decades, determined to stand back as political parties vied for power.

Many analysts believe that after Morsi was elected in June 2012, he and the military came to an understanding: the new Islamist government would not interfere in the army’s interests, nor seek to change its long-standing vision of national security, while the military would give qualified support to Morsi and his backers in the Muslim Brotherhood.

But that deal has limits, as Egyptians are discovering. The army felt compelled to intervene to quell the January riots, according to security sources, though they were at pains to say it did not do so unilaterally. “The president and the national defence council made the decision to impose the state of emergency and a curfew until the situation stabilises,” said the security source with links to the military. Security and political sources told Reuters that Sisi, the defence minister, also privately urged political leaders to set aside their differences in the face of a social and financial crisis. Though the armed forces say they want to remain neutral, they believe they cannot ignore the situation on the streets. “We are not political, we don’t want to participate in the political situation because we suffered a lot because of this in the last six months,” Major General Sedki Sobhi, the army chief of staff, told Reuters at an industry event in Abu Dhabi. “But sometimes we can help in this problem, we can play this role if the situation became more complicated.”

As Egypt heads towards new parliamentary elections beginning on April 22, and as the Muslim Brotherhood and the military eye each other closely, Morsi finds himself caught in the middle. Essam Haddad, Morsi’s aide on foreign affairs, told Reuters that the relationship between the armed forces and the presidency had “been developing in a very positive direction”. Nevertheless, there has been recent speculation in Egyptian media and on social networking sites of tensions between Brotherhood members and the military.

Haddad blamed the Egyptian media for creating “a sort of a gap, an artificial gap, an artificial misunderstanding ... If you follow some of the Egyptian media, you will find some unprecedented claims of a military coup coming”.

Fatal Football An unfortunate confluence of events brought popular unrest to the boil in late January. As the country headed towards the second anniversary of its revolution, opponents of Morsi stepped up protests. At the same time a court was preparing to deliver verdicts on police, officials and other suspects charged with murder after 74 people died during a stampede at a football stadium in Port Said last year. It was a combustible mix. When judges in the football case sentenced 21 people to death, fury erupted in Port Said. As street protests left at least 32 people dead, the army moved in. General Osama Askar, commander of the third army division in Suez, said at the time: “This is an emergency deploy-

In this Feb 21, 2013 photo, Egyptian Minister of Defense Lt Gen Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi meets Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi at the presidential headquarters in Cairo. — AP ment to assist the police ... this is not the army’s role but we are assisting the police force in imposing law and order for now.” Behind the scenes Sisi, a former head of military intelligence, went further than merely assisting the police. On Jan 28, according to security sources, he spoke to Morsi’s political rivals in the National Salvation Front: Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear agency; Hamdeen Sabahy, seen by some as a leftist firebrand; and Amr Moussa, a former chief of the Arab League. Sisi treated each of the politicians with friendliness and respect, said security sources, but made his point clear: chaos in the Suez cities endangered the Canal and threatened the stability of the state. He told the political leaders they must compromise over their differences.

“The country was facing a political stalemate that had to be ended to prevent a downward spiral of events. Now is not the time to dissolve a newly elected state institution (the presidency),” said the security source with links to the military. To ram the point home, Sisi went public with his message the next day, warning that political unrest was pushing the state to the brink of collapse. The military leadership also played a role in bringing political leaders together two days later, under the auspices of the head of the venerable Azhar university. The party leaders met and signed a document renouncing violence.

In a continuation of a system operated by Mubarak, the new Islamist government has agreed that decisions on the military budget will continue to be discussed in the national defence council, not parliament. In the council - which includes the president, parliament speaker and military leaders - security officials have the upper hand over civilian members. The government has also guaranteed the armed forces control over provinces along the border with Israel and along the Suez Canal, according to a Muslim Brotherhood source. Egyptian authorities announced at the end of January that shipping fees for the Canal would rise between two and five percent from May 1. The waterway is an important source of funds for the country and for the military, generating revenue of about $5 billion a year in hard currency.

‘Alliance of Convenience’ On Sunday Feb 3, Sisi dined in private with Morsi at the president’s home near Cairo. The army chief acknowledges the prestige of Morsi’s position as president, said two securi-

ty sources. At the same time, Morsi respects Sisi, according to the president’s office, army officials and the Muslim Brotherhood source. At 59, Sisi is the youngest member of the government’s military council made up of commanders from various branches of the armed forces. “Generally, the alliance of convenience was that the Brotherhood would respect the military’s autonomy, and that would include their economic position in the country, and in return the military would give up its opposition to Brotherhood rule,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Centre, a think-tank based in the Gulf.

At present there seem few other options, said Hamid. “It’s not as if there’s a more stable alternative to Brotherhood rule right now or in the foreseeable future. I see no reason for the military to reduce its support for the Brotherhood or to undermine the Morsi government right now”. In Hamid’s view, the street protests are a “generalized expression of anger over the status quo” but it is unclear whether they will translate into significant electoral support for Morsi’s opponents. This week an alliance of opposition parties said they would boycott the parliamentary elections.

Some foreign powers appear to take the view that amid uncertain political times Egypt’s armed forces remain a constant. On Tuesday Feb 5, then US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke to Sisi about the political situation in Egypt, discussing the “importance of continued security assistance for Egypt so that the Egyptian armed forces can continue to address shared security objectives while modernising their equipment and capabilities,” according to a statement issued by the Pentagon.

Egypt’s military has worried that political instability might be used as an excuse by other countries to cut aid; some members of the US Congress had tried to block a deal, agreed when Mubarak was in power, to give Egypt F-16 fighters. But US and Egyptian officials announced this month that the US had gone ahead with delivery of four F-16 fighter jets as part of their continuing cooperation. An Egyptian military official told Reuters: “The military leadership has told the American counterparts that the armed forces is a national institution and has nothing to do with politics ... and that supplying the Egyptian army with weapons is the strongest strategic link between Egypt and the United States.” —Reuters

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

A model presents a creation by Manish Arora during the Fall/Winter 2013-2014 ready-to-wear collection show yesterday. — AFP

FOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Recipes to rescue a tired

home cook

T

he funny thing about being a food writer and cookbook author is that people think since I’m in the kitchen all day long, dinner must be a snap. Right. Thing is, I’m not always in the kitchen. And when I am, I may be testing appetizers or desserts all day long for something I’m working on. That doesn’t get me any closer to dinner than I would be if I worked in an office. In fact, I’m at a greater disadvantage because when my day is over, the last thing I want to do is cook.

But I can’t just untie my apron and dash out to dinner any old time I decide I’m tired of being in the kitchen. It’s expensive, for one thing, and going out also requires that an effort be made to spruce up one’s appearance - because let me tell you, it’s not all Food Network gloss and shine in my cramped little kitchen, and I usually emerge at the end of the day looking like I’ve been to war with the oven (which I usually have, and I have the burn scars to prove it). I’m also likely to be decorated with bits of whatever I’ve been cooking.

All of that’s to say that just like you, I’m wiped out at the end of the day, and I’m usually trying to figure out what I can make for dinner that will minimize my kitchen time. I have some super-easy, go-to meals - avocado smashed on toast with a drizzle of pistachio or hazelnut oil; scrambled eggs and chevre in a tortilla, splashed with Valentina sauce; a heap of baby spinach or arugula topped with a poached egg and Parmesan - but even these get a bit boring after a while.

This year, I’m trying to mix it up. Make something new, something different, even when I’m tired and I just want to take off my cowgirl boots and sit in front of the TV and watch Downton Abbey reruns. These recipes, fortunately, do not require the sort of time that will put off marathon Maggie Smith viewing, if you’re like me and cannot watch just one. And no servants required, either. Less than a half-hour, almost all of these, from start to finish.

RED QUINOA, CANNELLINI BEANS AND CAULIFLOWER WITH ARUGULA PESTO Makes 4 servings 1 small head of cauliflower, florets removed About 2 tablespoons olive oil Sea salt and pepper 1 cup red quinoa Handful of wild arugula 1 cup (9.25 ounces) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed For arugula pesto: 1 clove garlic, minced 4.5 ounces wild arugula 1/3 cup walnuts, toasted 1\2 cup olive oil Sea salt and pepper 1. Preheat oven to broil and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil. Put cauliflower florets onto cookie sheet, add olive oil, salt and pepper, and toss. Place in oven and cook until florets begin to brown, about 15 minutes, then flip them and brown other sides, about 10 more minutes. Remove from

the oven and let cool.

2. Cook quinoa: Put 2 cups of salted water onto boil, then add quinoa, stir, cover, and reduce heat to a simmer. Let cook for 10 minutes, then turn off heat and let quinoa absorb the rest of the water. Let cool.

3. Make arugula pesto: Put garlic, arugula, walnuts, olive oil, salt and pepper in a food processor and pulse till combined.

4. To assemble the salad, put quinoa in a large bowl and add handful of arugula, beans, roasted cauliflower and a tablespoon or two of pesto. Toss and serve.

Cowgirl tip: Toss roasted veggies with leftover arugula pesto, or use it as a sandwich spread or whisked into vinaigrette. Pasta works, too.

SPINACH STRACCIATELLA SOUP Makes 2 to 4 servings 4 cups/1 quart vegetable or chicken stock 2 cups water Sea salt and pepper 4.5 ounces baby spinach 1\2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving 2 eggs, lightly beaten Warm stock and water over medium-high heat, with salt and pepper to taste. When it comes to a simmer, add spinach and Parmesan and let cook until the spinach wilts, 5 to 10 minutes. Slowly add beaten eggs, briskly stirring so they’ll be streaky throughout and not cook in clumps. Taste for seasonings and serve right away with more Parmesan.

CHOPPED STEAKS WITH GRILLED RADICCHIO Makes 2 servings 1 clove garlic, minced 1 teaspoon grainy mustard 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar Sea salt and pepper 4 to 5 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 2 chopped steaks, at room temperature 1 to 2 heads of radicchio (depending on the size; I used 1), cut into fourths About 2 ounces Roquefort, crumbled 1. Make the vinaigrette: Put garlic, mustard and vinegar in a jam jar along with a pinch

of sea salt and pepper, and give it a shake.

After 5 to 10 minutes, add olive oil and shake again. Taste.

3. Put vegetable oil in a cast-iron skillet, making sure it’s evenly coated, and turn the heat to high. Salt and pepper the steaks, then add them to the skillet and cook 2 to 3 minutes each side, depending on how done you like them. Remove steaks and cover with foil.

4. Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel and add a tiny bit of olive oil - just enough to moisten the bottom. Turn the heat to medium-high. Add radicchio wedges and cook for about 30 seconds on each side.

5. Put the radicchio on two plates and top with steaks. Drizzle with vinaigrette and sprinkle with Roquefort.

CHICKEN TINGA TACOS Makes 4 to 6 servings 1 pound chicken tenders 1 celery stalk, halved 1 carrot, halved A couple sprigs of parsley About 10 peppercorns Olive oil 1 onion, diced 3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 chipotles in adobo, finely chopped 2/3 cup canned corn, rinsed and drained 1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced fire-roasted tomatoes Sea salt and pepper (if needed) 6 to 8 tortillas (corn or flour) 1 avocado, chopped Handful of chopped cilantro 3 to 4 tablespoons goat cheese, crumbled 2 to 3 limes, cut into wedges 1. Poach chicken tenders: Put chicken, celery, carrot, parsley and peppercorns in a saucepan. Cover with water, put on the stove over medium-high heat, and cover.

When it boils, reduce heat to a simmer and set the timer for 10 minutes. Let the chicken cool in the pot if you have time; if you don’t, shred chicken and proceed to the next step.

2. Drizzle a little olive oil in a large skillet, add onion and garlic and turn heat to medium-low. Cook just until the onion is translucent, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add chipotles, corn and black beans and stir.

Add shredded chicken and let mixture cook 10 to 15 minutes. Add tomatoes and let it go for 5 minutes more. Taste and add seasonings if necessary. Serve on warmed tortillas with avocado, cilantro, goat cheese and limes. — MCT

FOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Rich possibilities of lowly

By Russ Parsons

A

s culinary fashion continues to wind inexorably lower on the luxury scale - from tournedos to beef cheeks, from foie gras - it was probably inevitable that we would eventually come to lentils. Representing the lowest and plainest possible food denominator since biblical times, when Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of soup made from them, lentils have always been regarded as a food you would eat only when you absolutely had to.

Yet look at a restaurant menu today or visit an upscale grocery and you’ll find lentils that come in a rainbow of colors and bear an atlas of place names. You’ll find lentils that are reddish pink, canary yellow and pure ivory. Many chefs swear by the dark green lentils from Le Puy in France, but at Mozza, chef Nancy Silverton won’t use anything but the tiny tan Castelluccios from Italy’s Umbrian hills. You’ll even find lentils called beluga, after the ultimate in luxury foods, caviar.

But with lentils becoming socially acceptable, clearly a more organized analysis was overdue. Generally speaking, the brightly colored lentils - canary yellow, bright red, ivory - are so soft they can almost be pureed with a spoon. These are best used as Indian dal. A side note: All lentils are dal, but all dal are not lentils (lens culinaris). Chana dal is from a split chickpea (cicer arietinum) and ivory lentils, urad dal, are from black gram (vigna mungo).

Setting those softies aside - I am interested in lentils that hold together to use in salads, soups and stews. Among the firm lentils, I found differences mostly in cosmetics: size and color. They all cooked in roughly 20 minutes, and 1 cup raw yielded about 1 cup cooked. The biggest surprise was just how good the plain brown supermarket lentils turned out to be.

They were about the same firmness as the far more expensive Du Puys and Pardinas with a flavor that, although not quite as rich as the exotic lentils, was certainly more than acceptable.

Even the most expensive lentils don’t cost that much in the grand scheme of things, so I figure $3.50 a pound for the Umbrian lentils is a small enough price to pay for the difference in quality, and that’s probably what I’ll use for dinner parties. But it’s good to know that you can get a really delicious lentil for less than half that price right in your neighborhood.

Either way, lentils are the ultimate in affordable luxury.

COLORS, TEXTURES, FLAVORS Here are some of the lentils we tested: Beluga Very dark green, almost black; tiny and very firm; delicate flavor, with a slight brininess.

Lentils du Puys Dark olive drab; small and fairly firm; rich meaty flavor with a

slight pepperiness.

Pardinas Dark brown to khaki; small and fairly firm; rich meaty flavor.

Umbrian brown lentils Golden brown; tiny, very firm; very rich flavor.

Supermarket brown Dark khaki brown, medium and fairly firm, good meaty flavor.

LENTILS WITH KALE AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH Total time: 50 minutes Servings: 6 1 pound butternut squash Olive oil 1\2 teaspoon ground cumin Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 cup lentils 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 carrot, diced small 1 rib celery, diced small 1 onion, diced small 1\2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes 1 pound chopped kale, about 6 cups 1 clove garlic, minced 1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Peel and seed the squash and cut it into roughly three-fourths-inch dice. Line a jellyroll pan with aluminum foil and mound the squash in the center. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, sprinkle with cumin, salt and pepper, and mix well. Roast until the squash is tender enough to be pierced with a sharp knife, about 15 minutes.

2. Place the lentils in a medium saucepan and cover with water by 2 inches. Season generously with salt and bring just to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the lentils are tender but firm, about 20 minutes. Drain, rinse well. Stir in the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.

3. While the lentils are cooking, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, onion and dried red pepper flakes, and cook until the onions and celery are translucent, about 5 minutes. Rinse the kale under water and add it, still dripping, to the skillet in heaping handfuls. Add the minced garlic and salt to taste, and stir to mix well.

4. Cover the pan, leaving the lid ajar, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the kale is very soft, dark and frazzled looking, about 30 minutes. It should be very sweet.

5. Stir the lentils into the cooked kale, taste and adjust seasoning for salt, pepper and vinegar. Gently stir in about 2 cups of the roasted squash before serving.

Each serving: 224 calories; 11 grams protein; 32 grams car-

bohydrates; 11 grams fiber; 8 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 4 grams sugar; 34 mg sodium.

MEJADRA Total time: 1 hour, 10 minutes Servings: 4 to 6 1 1/3 cups (8 ounces) green or brown lentils 4 onions (1 pound before peeling) 3 tablespoons flour Salt and pepper About 1 cup sunflower oil, more as needed 2 teaspoons cumin seeds 1 tablespoon coriander seeds 1 cup (7 ounces) basmati rice 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon ground turmeric 1 teaspoon ground allspice 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon sugar About 1 cup (350 milliliters) water 1. Place the lentils in a small saucepan and cover with water.

Bring to a boil over high heat and cook until the lentils have softened but still have a little bite, 12 to 15 minutes. Drain.

2. Peel and thinly slice the onions. Sprinkle over the flour and 1 teaspoon salt, and mix well. In a saucepan, heat up the sunflower oil over high heat. Check the temperature of the oil by tossing in a small piece of onion; it should sizzle vigorously.

3. Reduce the temperature to medium-high and fry the onions, one-third at a time, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and crispy, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a colander lined with paper towels and sprinkle over a little more salt.

Repeat with the remaining onions, adding additional oil as needed.

4. Discard the oil and wipe the saucepan clean. Add the cumin and coriander seeds. Place the pan over medium heat and toast the seeds until lightly toasted, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the rice, olive oil, turmeric, allspice, cinnamon, sugar, onehalf teaspoon salt and a good sprinkling of pepper. Stir to coat the rice with the oil and then add the cooked lentils and the water. Bring the mixture to a boil, then cover with a lid and simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Remove from heat, remove the lid and quickly cover the pan with a clean tea towel. Seal tightly with the lid and set aside for 10 minutes.

6. Add half of the fried onion to the rice and lentils and stir gently with a fork; this makes about 8 cups mejadra. Top with the rest of the onion.

Each of 6 servings: 525 calories; 15 grams protein; 66 grams carbohydrates; 13 grams fiber; 24 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 7 grams sugar; 592 mg sodium. — MCT

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

By Ryan N Behr

M

y daddy has written lots about Zurich for about a million years by now, but he says he never realized what a great place it must look like to a 3-year-old like me. He asked me to tell you why it is, so here goes: You may have heard that Switzerland is where ever so many watches come from and that the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich has stores just full of them. That may be important if you are one of those people who can do something called

telling time (which I’m starting to figure out), but for me, the best part is going into Beyer, a store that has its own watch museum. When you are inside, you should ask everyone, “How is your day feeling?” And when your daddy finally says that, maybe we had better leave, go up to everyone again and say, “Auf Wiedersehen!”

Then convince a nice lady to give you a red apple from a bowl and go outside while eating it.

Make your daddy sit on a cold bench so you can eat your apple and watch ever so many street cars go by and call out the route numbers on top of each. Later, join your mommy and daddy for a tram ride that is even more fun than taking the “really big bus” back home. Riding a tram is easy to do in Zurich because those route numbers are clearly marked, and friendly Zurich

people are always around to help your parents find their way when they get lost - which mine tend to do.

Switzerland is known for its terrific wooden toys, which have been made here for longer than even my daddy can remember, which is hard to believe. Want one? First, convince your parents, on a stroller tour of the lovely old town, that all you want is, “one little car.” Get them to take you to Franz Carl Weber, the most famous toy store in Switzerland. Then run from your stroller to the handmade wooden model of a yellow Swiss Postbus with removable peg passengers and driver and say, “This one!” Watch your parents stare at the price, which would be a little over $100 of the green money they use back home, and every time they offer you a car or truck or tractor made in China that would set them back only a few francs, say, “I ever don’t want it!” Lucky for me, my parents like to see me with traditional toys that let me use my imagination. I really like my new Swiss Postbus.

We stayed at the Eden au Lac, in a room with a lake view and a fireplace that really works.

Whenever a boat came by, I shouted out, “Boat,” making my daddy stop hunting around the floor for the peg people I kept pulling out of my Swiss Postbus - just so he could watch the boat with me, using the binoculars the hotel had left in our room.

The hotel’s restaurant, the Eden, served us a dinner that Mommy and Daddy both said was the finest hotel dinner they had in their ever so many visits to Zurich. Daddy had soup and meat (Thai consomme with house-made shrimp dumplings, followed by a tagliata of beef filet); I had a pile of pasta on my plate, and I even ate some of it. Then I broke the plate, but the

Restaurant Eden. Waiter Christian Lengen tops a young diner’s dessert in the kitchen.

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Produce stand at morning open-air market near the lake.

Tram in the heart of town.

restaurant had ever so many others - I just wasn’t allowed to touch any of them after that.

My daddy says I have a specialty in bashing precision German things - like the Miele vacuum cleaner that wasn’t working so well after I took it for a ride around our house. At dinner, I took Daddy’s camera and dropped it. There was a “bash!” and Daddy’s very brand-new B+W 72mm filter went from looking like finely made German glass to something like a paper snowflake.

Serefino, the captain, made balloon animals for me, and our waiter, Christian, took me to the kitchen, where I got to help scoop out my own chocolate ice cream. Whenever I get dessert, I also ask for a little cake. Lucky for me, the Eden makes really great little cakes. So does Caffe Al Leone, where we went for apple juice the next day. I noticed that, in Zurich, people who are drinking hot things like coffee, tea or chocolate also like to have little cakes. These are very smart people.

At Blaue Ente, another restaurant, my mommy ordered a plate of venison that she said was the best she had in ever so long; my daddy had pasta (meat ravioli in a foam truffle sauce); and I had spaghetti, which is really great for practicing your slurping noises. To keep me busy this time, my parents brought my portable DVD player, which worked well enough until I tried to grab it. When Daddy reached out to keep it from falling, he knocked his glass of grape juice (JeanRene Germanier Humagne Cepage Rouge du Valais Reserve 2007) all over it! Do you know what happens when your daddy spills his juice onto a portable DVD player? It gets broke, and the waitress brings you colored pencils and a coloring book and encourages you to occupy the rest of dinner in artistic pursuits. Then she gives you two little cakes. But I was bored by then with the videos, so that was a really good trade.

There are ever so many other fun things we did in Zurich, like buying children’s music and chocolate milk and another shirt to wear after ever so many that my mommy had neatly packed were yucky from chocolate milk and little cakes. But the best part was on our last day.

We were staying this time at the airport, just back in Zurich from our vacation (in Arosa, in the Swiss Alps), and for only one night so that I could adjust and not get cranky before we flew home.

But the next day was the one when I went in my stroller through the Zurich Airport, which is clean and full of signs to make sure that people who get lost a lot, like Mommy and Daddy, get where they want to go - like to great stores where we bought ever so much chocolate. We went to the observation deck, where there was a playground that had a big make-believe Swiss International airplane where kids could go inside and pretend they are pilots and passengers.

On our way to the real Swiss airplane, my daddy made a funny face when the left rear wheel of my stroller, which had been making a grrrr-grrrr noise for days, broke and dragged sideways along the nice clean floor of the airport. That is OK because I’m big now and I really would rather walk on board the Swiss airplane and say, “How’s your day feeling?” to everyone.

Nice people who all wore blue and white gave me little cakes and chocolate ice cream, and I got to watch kids’ videos on my seat back, even though my own DVD player had been broken by what my daddy wants you to know is a robust but balanced example of a unique Swiss varietal. I really like Zurich. I really like the hotels and the airport and flying in real Swiss airplanes.

My daddy says that none of the friendly people who helped us is soon ever to forget me. I’m OK with that. — MCT

Jazz night at Eden au Lac Hotel.

— MCT photos

Patrons at Caffe Al Leone for afternoon coffee.

32

Te c h n o l o g y FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

A

fter a number of delays and setbacks, BlackBerry 10 is finally here, and BlackBerry’s new mobile platform can finally take its first breath as it steps out into the mobile market. Kicking off the BB10 revolution is the BlackBerry Z10, a phone tasked with reigniting the ailing fortunes of the Canadian firm. But it’s the software the handset is running that is really the key to BlackBerry’s success, or ultimate demise.

The BlackBerry smartphone range has been in desperate need of a reboot for a while as the likes of iOS 6, Android Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8 have outstripped the now extremely outdated BB OS7 platform. Whereas the other platforms have witnessed incremental upgrades, BlackBerry 10 is a completely new offering - BlackBerry has scrapped the BB OS7 base and rebuilt from the ground up.

BB 10 sees the implementation of a whole new user interface, doing away with the familiar BlackBerry system we’re all used to in favour of something that resembles the likes of Android and iOS, although with its own unique features.

BlackBerry 10 has merged homescreens, widgets, app lists and a unified inbox into one slick interface, offering up an easy-tonavigate user experience.

baked into BlackBerry 10 and they dictate the way you use the system. Flow refers to the way the whole of BB 10 operates, as you glide between applications and screens with no hard navigation tools such as the back or home buttons that are found on rival handsets. It’s very different to any system we’ve experienced before, so it took us a few days to get our heads around the various gestures required to effectively use BB10.

At times we wished there was a simple back button below the screen, since it wasn’t always clear how to return to the

BlackBerry Hub The BlackBerry Hub is the universal inbox found on BlackBerry 10, and it pulls in all forms of communications from calls and texts to emails, BBMs and social updates. Of course, with so many accounts feeding into the handset, the more popular among us will be quickly inundated with notifications from various different channels, and this is where the Peek idea makes it easy to see when you’ve got anything new to look at.

To make the reams of messages easier to manage, place your finger on the title in the bottom-left corner of the message centre and pull across to reveal a list of all the accounts you have linked up, and then select the one you’re interested in - this will then populate the Hub with notifications from just that source.

There are also various options which can be selected for a particular message, hold down on the communication in question and a slim column of tools will pop up to the right for you to choose from, including reply, forward and delete.

Drag down from the top of the message centre and the Hub will automatically pull in your calendar events for that day in the top half of the screen, enabling you to quickly see what you’ve got on without having to launch the full calendar app. It’s an impressive setup and we reckon other platforms may be looking at the BlackBerry Hub with a little bit of envy.

Lock screen The first thing you’re greeted with on BlackBerry 10 is the lock screen, which not only shows the time and date, but also notifications, unread messages and upcoming calendar events. There’s a button to launch the camera straight from the lock screen to grab a quick snap, just hold down on the icon for a couple of seconds. To unlock a touchscreen BB 10 handset you need to slide your finger up the screen. As you do, the homescreen below will begin to appear, giving you a sneak peek of what’s underneath.

Homescreen The main BlackBerry 10 homescreen is comprised of ‘Active Frames’, technically mini-applications, which give you an overview of information from a particular app and launch the full version when tapped.

BB10 will display up to eight of these active frames, showing your most recently used apps with the latest app appearing in the top-left position. Only four active frames can fit on the screen at a time, so you’ll need to scroll down to see the rest - which all seems a little pointless, since you can just as quickly swipe sideways to access the app list and launch the app you want from there.

For those of you who may be concerned that these ‘Active Frames’ could be both data and battery-intensive, BlackBerry assures us that this is not the case, with the QNX core of BlackBerry 10 providing efficient power management, and the frames only downloading the minimum amount of data required for them to update.

When you’re in an app there’s no back button. Instead, with BB10 you use a gesture to exit applications by running your finger up from the bottom of the screen.While this is easy to do, those who are already familiar with other smartphones will find the action pretty unnatural, and it takes a while to get used to the new way of doing things on BlackBerry 10.

Interface Swiping from right to left will take you to the app list, with 16 apps on the screen at any one time. If you have more than 16 apps, additional pages are added and can be accessed by swiping the same way again, which is familiar territory for iOS and Android users. At the bottom of both the homescreen and app list you’ll notice a shortcut bar, with quick links to the phone, search and camera applications, enabling you to quickly jump to these regularly used features. There’s a pleasant fading animation as you flick between pages, and you’ll see the previous page of apps fade away to the side of the screen, to be replaced by the new page.

Peek and Flow Peek and Flow are two core aspects that come heavily

interest then continue your finger’s motion to the right and the screen will slide over to reveal the BlackBerry Hub so you can see who the message is from. If it’s just a boring newsletter you can return to the app or video you were viewing without having to go back to the app list and navigate to it.

Unless it’s the TechRadar newsletter, which you’ll obviously want to read straight away. The whole BlackBerry 10 interface does appear to be very smooth with no sign of lag, which makes for a pleasing user experience - once you’ve worked out the various gestures required to get around, that is.

BBM BBM, or BlackBerry Messenger, has been a cornerstone of the BlackBerry experience for years, and it gets a revamp with BlackBerry 10. The dedicated application has been given a lick of paint, with easier navigation and a new feature called BBM Video.

BBM Video joins up with BBM Voice, which launched recently on BB OS7, to bring both voice and video calls to the BBM application on BlackBerry 10. The days of the BlackBerry bolt-ons on phone tariffs have been and gone, with all your BBM activity coming out of your data allowance if you’re not connected to Wi-Fi. So you’ll need to keep an eye on your data usage.

previous screen. But the more we used BlackBerry 10 the more we became used to the way it needs to be used. Our concern here is that BB 10 requires a relatively steep learning curve for everyone, even those who have owned BlackBerry handsets in the past.

It becomes easier once you’ve played with BlackBerry 10 for a few days, but we fear customers may be turned off instore when they preview a handset. Now onto Peek, which is the smart little gesture enabling you to check your latest notifications and messages without having to exit the current app you’re using. As you swipe up over the screen, BB10 will minimise the pane you’re viewing and display notification icons down the left side.

This includes icons for new texts, emails, BBMs, social updates and missed calls, and if any of these pique your

Keyboard Now all this messaging capability is nothing without an input method, and keyboards are arguably the thing BlackBerry handsets are most known for.

BlackBerry has spoken in length about how it has engineered its on-screen keyboard to bring users the experience they get on the physical version with the all-new touch offering. Straight up, we can say the BlackBerry 10 keyboard is miles better than the pitiful attempt that adorned the Torchrange of BlackBerry handsets, but it’s not perfect. The keyboard sports the silver frets that can be found on the Bold 9900, providing additional spacing between lines and allowing for better travel between keys.

These frets also act as the space for the next word prediction, and the more you type the more BB 10 learns and offers smarter suggestions. We were able to type at a reasonable pace, but we found the next word prediction if anything slowed us down, since the font is too small to easily see, and we found our fingers were covering most of the suggestions anyway.

— www.techradar.com

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Visitors wander through the first exhibition on King Herod, the biblical Roman-Jewish king who ruled Jerusalem from 37 to 4 BC, in The Israel Museum in Jerusalem. (Right) A woman and child visit the first exhibition on King Herod. — AFP photos

JERUSALEM: An ambitious new exhibit at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum sheds new light on the life and death of Herod the Great, the ancient king whose empire sought to straddle imperial Rome and a flourishing Jewish culture. The Roman-appointed king, who ruled Judaea from 37 to 4BC, is known as much for his brutal tyranny as for his magnificent building projects, with the new exhibition focusing on his stunning archaeological legacy.

Known as the biblical king who ordered the slaughter of infants in Bethlehem on hearing of the birth of Jesus, Herod also killed three of his own sons and one of his wives, as well as many political foes.

He was, in the words of first century historian Flavius Josephus, “equally cruel to everyone, a slave to his temper who distorted justice.” But this ego, combined with rare organizational and political talents, was what pushed him to demonstrate his grandeur to both his Jewish subjects in Jerusalem and fellow rulers across the Roman empire, by building monumental palaces and renovating the Jewish Second Temple. The exhibition is described by Israel Museum’s director James Snyder as the museum’s “most ambitious” archaeological undertaking and the first ever to focus on Herod. It takes visitors on a journey that starts at the winter palace in Jericho and ends at Herodium, a hollowed-out hill near Bethlehem where he built a palace and fortress.

The meticulous reconstruction, which includes some 30 tonnes of stone artefacts, showcases the height of Roman fashion and craft work-from a stone bath and patterned floors to a set of jugs for holding the finest delicacies imported from

S

Europe. Among the 250 artefacts on display is a decorated cornice from Herod’s most grandiose undertaking: the expansion of the Second Temple, located on what is today known as the AlAqsa mosque compound. And three-dimensional video exhibits use aerial photography to show how Herod’s massive structures would have appeared today.

In the comfort of Herodium, away from the religious centre of Jerusalem, Herod-who was born into a family from local tribes who had converted to Judaism-could feel free to enjoy exquisite wall paintings and frescos at his palace. These were replete with images of animals and people that would have been condemned as idolatrous under Second Temple-era Judaism.

Behind a row of giant columns stands the centrepiece of the exhibition: a reconstruction of the king’s burial chamber at Herodium. Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer spent four decades searching for Herod’s burial site on the mount, announcing he found the first evidence of its location in 2007.

But three years later, he fell to his death during an initial tour of the site. The museum has dedicated the exhibition-entitled “Herod the Great-The King’s Final Journey”-to Netzer’s memory.

Herod’s greatness came from him retaining the delicate balance between the western and eastern cultures he represented, Snyder said. “At the same time that Herod managed to have strong diplomatic ties to the home base (Rome), he enabled the flourishing here of a local culture which was Second Temple period Judaism,” he said. “That delicate balance is really a remarkable thing to see in history, and Herod accomplished that.” Roi Porat, a Hebrew University archaeologist who worked

inger Scott Weiland said he learned that he’d been fired by the Stone Temple Pilots when the band released a one-sentence statement to the media Wednesday. “I learned of my supposed ‘termination’ from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press,” he wrote in a statement. “Not sure how I can be ‘terminated’ from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that’s something for the lawyers to figure out.”

The statement by the band said: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” No other information was provided. Weiland said he’s focusing on his solo tour, which kicks off today in Flint, Mich Stone Temple Pilots’ 1992 debut, “Core,” has sold more than 8 million units in the United States. Their hits include “Vasoline,” “Interstate Love Song” and “Plush,” which won a Grammy in 1993 for best hard rock performance with vocal. Weiland was also in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with Slash and other musicians. The 45 year-old has dealt with drug addiction, run-ins with the law and two failed marriages. He released his memoir, “Not Dead & Not for Sale,” in 2011. The Stone Temple Pilots’ latest album is their self-titled 2010 release. — AP

Chris Cooper

on the excavation of Herodium, said Herod had tried to resolve the internal conflict of belonging to two opposing camps. “On the one hand, he wanted to be a Jewish king, and on the otherhe wanted to be the King of Judaea for the Romans,” he told AFP. “He tried to win the sympathy of both sides-by building a holy site of worship for the Jews and by building the largest temple for the Romans,” he explained. Everything about Herod was extreme, he said: his diplomatic skills, his financial abilities and his ambitious construction projects, which included six desert palaces, the Temple and the port of Caesaria. But the exhibit has also stirred some controversy and come under fire from the Palestinians, as it uses artefacts from Jericho and Herodium-both in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamdan Taha, director of antiquities and cultural heritage at the Palestinian tourism ministry, accused Israel of displaying the antiquities “without the approval” of the Palestinian Authority in what he said was a “violation of international law.” “Showing those relics at an Israeli museum aims to create historical facts to serve the goals of settlement activities in the state of Palestine,” he said. The Palestinians said they would raise the issue with the UN cultural body, UNESCO, where they recently gained full membership. — AFP

Lindsay Lohan has e‘ piphany,’ hopes to give inspirational talks

T

roubled starlet Lindsay Lohan has had an “epiphany,” her attorney said on Wednesday, after almost six years of repeated trips to jail, rehab,counseling and courtrooms.

The “Mean Girls” actress has started a new round of psychotherapy and is looking at giving inspirational speeches to school kids and cheering up young girls in hospitals, Mark Heller told E! News.

Heller was speaking ahead of a pre-trial hearing in Los Angeles on Friday where Lohan, 26, has pleaded not guilty to charges of reckless driving and lying to police when she said she was not driving a car that smashed into a truck in June 2012.

Lohan risks being sent to jail because she is still on probation after a string of legal woes that started with her 2007 arrest for drunken driving and cocaine possession. She is scheduled to stand trial on the June car crash charges on March 18.

Heller said Lohan was traumatized by the events of the past few years.—Reuters

File photo shows Lindsay Lohan attends the Mr Pink Ginseng launch party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

“A File photo shows the Stone Temple Pilots, from left, Dean Deleo, Eric Kretz, Robert Deleo, and Scott Weiland, pose for a portrait in Santa Monica, Calif. — AP

A

spider crawls up the leg of 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) early in Park Chan wook’s Englishlanguage debut, “Stoker,” and she regards it passively, intrigued. There’s a creepy intruder in the Stokers’ handsome, isolated estate, but it’s India’s Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), whose existence India was unaware of until he arrived following the death of her father (Dermot Mulroney) in a mysterious car accident. Dashing, cultured and oozing melodramatic evil, he’s an homage to Joseph Cotton’s Uncle Charlie - a murder in a suit jacket at the dinner table - from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt.” Park, the celebrated South Korean filmmaker of stylistic, hyper-violent revenge tales (“Oldboy,” “Lady Vengeance”) has long drawn Hitchcock comparisons. In “Stoker,” he makes them explicit, with references not just to “Shadow of a Doubt,” but “Psycho” and maybe even “The Birds,” if we can agree that Hitchcock forever owns violent attacks in phone booths.

The plot outlines of “Stoker” from the screenplay by Wentworth Miller, a TV actor and star of “Prison Break,” share some of the basics of the nifty “Shadow of a Doubt” and countless other thrillers, but it’s emphatically a Park film. In his first Hollywood movie, there isn’t even a slight dip in his brilliant, colorful compositions (with his usual cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung), his grisly flesh tearing, or his extreme warping of genre. But the question with Park (whose “Oldboy” will later this year be released as a remake by Spike Lee) is whether his genre contortions are purely for the fetishistic pleasure of seeing characters and bodies - movies mangled and bloodied. “Stoker” certainly relies too much on its heavy Gothic atmosphere, but it does add up to something - particularly because of Wasikowska’s deft performance.

“Stoker” begins in a lush montage of rhythmic freeze frames of India, with an ominous police car in the background, ruminating in a voice-over about her nature: “Just as

a flower doesn’t choose its color, we don’t choose what we are going to be.” The foreshadowing sets the tone for a pulpy coming of age story, where India’s transition into womanhood comes via incestuous desires and buried corpses.

With stringy black hair shrouding her face, India is a dour, intelligent introvert - a kind of Victorian shadow of Wasikowska’s Jane Eyre. She doesn’t like to be touched, not even by her mom (Nicole Kidman), and her acute sensitivity picks up the whispers at her father’s funeral, the thundering tick of a metronome and (in one of the many heavy symbols of India’s maturation) her loud cracking of a hardboiled eggshell, rolled on a table. Charlie has an immediate, eerie interest in India. He stays at the house, and a lurid triangle forms between Charlie, India and her mother, Evelyn. Evelyn throws herself at Charlie, who all the while is eyeing India.

Visitors like India’s aunt (Jacki Weaver) quickly disappear, some on screen and some off.

Park rarely metes out violence with guns, preferring more tactile gruesomeness with objects like scissors or a hammer.

Here employed to bloody ends are a rock, a pencil and a belt.

The movie has a dreamy, heightened air. The dialogue is arch and the whole affair is over-the-top; certain moments of sexual release are tacky and unforgettable. The melodrama doesn’t rise to Pedro Almodovar levels of sublime, but to intoxicating macabre outlandishness.— AP

“J

This film image released by Warner Bros Pictures shows the character Cook, voiced by Philip Philmar, in a scene from ‘Jack the Giant Slayer.’— AP

ack the Giant Slayer” - A big-budget, 3-D retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk legend may seem like the unlikeliest pairing yet of director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie, but this ends up being smart, thrilling and a whole lot of fun. Singer and McQuarrie’s collaborations include, most famously, the twisty crime mystery “The Usual Suspects” and the Hitler assassination drama “Valkyrie,” featuring an eye patch-wearing Tom Cruise.

They’ve sort of been all over the place together over the past couple decades - why not reinterpret a classic fairy tale? “Jack the Giant Slayer” is cheeky without being cutesy. While the look is medieval, the vibe seems more current, but it’s not so anachronistic as to be subversive along the lines of a “Shrek,” for example. It actually ends up being pleasingly old-fashioned. Shot in 3-D - rather than one of those muddled 2-D redos - the film looks crisp and clean, much more so than the trailers and ads might suggest. The action sequences are cut in an unobtrusive way as to allow the intricacy of what’s happening on screen to shine through. —AP

mour” was always the clear favorite in the Oscar foreign-language category, and its win on Sunday was one of the least surprising parts of a generally unsurprising ceremony. But if Michael Haneke’s drama hadn’t been in the mix, there’s a good chance that Kim Nguyen’s “War Witch” would have emerged as a serious contender for the prize. The film is the wrenching story of a teenage girl who becomes a child soldier in an unnamed African country - and then, because she can see the dead, the “witch” of the gang of rebels.

Starring the remarkable Rachel Mwanza, who won the best-actress award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, it will receive a post-Oscar release from Tribeca Film on Friday in New York and March 8 in Los Angeles. Born in Montreal to a Vietnamese father and a French-Canadian mother, Nguyen has made four features. He was able to secure a visa for Mwanza and bring her to the Oscars. How did you hit upon the story? I was hunting for good stories, and I just found this amazing story about Johnny Htu, who was a Burmese child soldier. Johnny was nine years old, and he woke up one day and said he was the reincarnation of God. He became a kind of half God. He was forbidden to walk on the soil, because they were afraid it would soil his visions, so he was carried around all day. And he would smoke cigars every day.

As a storyteller I thought his story had power and humanity and all the elements that make a good film. And slowly I got pulled into the child-soldier element. Did you meet with child soldiers while writing the script? I went to Burundi to meet ex-child soldiers. What I saw in Africa was this complete superimposition of these heavy, intense, war-ridden countries where the love stories are the same as here.

You still have boyfriends and girlfriends, and the girlfriends that are jealous because the boyfriend came home late last night. It’s very simple. I find that odd and beautiful at the same time, and I wanted to try and convey that.—Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Arab rappers take revolts to next level S itting on the fringes of upheaval in the Middle East, Lebanon’s capital Beirut has become the scene of experimental music-making by Khat Thaleth, a group of rappers out to take the revolts that started during the Arab Spring to the next level. The collective has members from around the region-ranging from Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab uprising, to the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanonand vocalizes the realities of a new generation carrying the baggage of the past. Khat Thaleth literally means “Third Track”, a metaphor for an alternative take on the polarized societies and politics of the region, and a reference to the Hijaz Muslim pilgrimage railway which once connected the Arab world.

“We’re not doing rap. This is not the same as American or French music; it has to do with our culture, our history,” said Al Sayyed Darwish, a member of the Syrian trio LaTlateh. The 24-year-old from Homs, known as the capital of the Syrian revolution, said the protests which have swept the Middle Eastern region since 2010 lit the fuse for the collaboration which he describes as “a first of its kind”. “People and the street are so far ahead of us... We need to catch up with them,” Darwish told AFP. As Syrian hip-hop developed alongside the nearly two-year-old revolt against the regime, “people started to listen... and it became more direct,” he said.

On the morning of a concert in early February to plug the rappers’ album release, Darwish said he was well aware that much of the audience would be expecting the Syrian rappers to speak of the struggle in their country. “It’s a big responsibility that you have 250 people (at)

a concert,” he said. “And they are expecting you to give them something to relieve them... So it’s a big responsibility, a big pleasure and a big honour for me to be a representative for my people and my revolution.”

Though the Khat Thaleth artists come from similar backgrounds, they do not shrink from belting out sharply divergent views-even on the same track. On “Souret Soureya” (Verse of Syria), El Rass, who hails from the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, goes head-to-head with Paris-based Lebanese artist Hamourabi on the Syrian revolt. “El Rass is talking about the revolution and how the rebels are moving, and Hamourabi is saying they are terrorists and it’s a conspiracy” yet “they are on the same track, and it’s great to have this diversity,” said Darwish. “We would love to show people that you don’t have to kill each other for having different points of view.”

And those points of view cover some big subjects. In the song “E-stichrak” (Orientalism) — borrowing the title of the Edward Said book that said Western caricatures of Islamic culture were used to justify colonialism-El Rass and El Faraai, a Palestinian-Jordanian, bemoan a modern form of imperialism. “They brought the dumbest American to come teach me my human rights... while a Sudanese engineer gets stopped at the border and thrown in a cell,” the lyrics go.

Raw poetry Darwish and veteran Palestinian rapper Tamer Naffar, meanwhile, together criticise the stale anti-Western rhetoric of Arab regimes on the track “Kursi Aatiraf” (Interrogation Chair). They rap: “Don’t keep

Lebanese hip-hop artist El Rass performs on stage during a concert for the outcome of the ‘Khat Thaleth’ project in Beirut. — AFP photos

Lebanese hip-hop artist Nusrdeen Touffar performs on stage during a concert for the outcome of the ‘Khat Thaleth’ project. telling me about the colonisers and occupiers. Look how (well) they treat each other, the ones you despise. Then look how we deal with each other and start to be jealous.” The raw poetry of the young rappers has earned them a devoted audience since the start of the project in March 2012. At the concert, fans say the artists get right to the heart of the issue.

“They speak about the pulse of the street and social themes... Their goal is to better the

current situation,” said 29-year-old Hassan, a videographer. “French rap or American rap doesn’t talk to me or represent what I feel or live. But when I heard Arabic rap, it really spoke to me,” said Mira Minkara, a manager at the Beirut Arts Centre. Chef Mohammed Sayyed said he went to the concert to hear the rappers’ take on current events in the region. “They sing about our fears, about the politics, the things we always think aboutthey are the ones who say it out loud,” said the 26-year-old.

As they perform “Min Al-Awwal” (From the Start), the Touffar duo from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley warn the audience not to be complacent about change the Arab revolution has brought. “There are thieves making a living from the revolution, and other thieves waiting in line. The victory of the revolution takes two revolutions: One against the regime strangling freedom, another against those awaiting its victory to steal,” they blast. — AFP

Hollywood legend Spielberg to head Cannes jury

S

teven Spielberg, named head of the Cannes Film Festival jury Wednesday, is a Hollywood legend and one of modern cinema’s most influential filmmakers-even if his awards glory has faded of late.

The 66-year-old was named to the prestigious post days after his second disappointing awards season in two years, with his top-tipped drama “Lincoln” going home with only two Oscars out of 12 nominations last weekend. So it will come as a welcome honor to be selected to help choose this year’s Palme d’Or at the world’s top film festival, to be held on the French Rivieria May 15-26.

Spielberg has directed more than 50 films in his five-decade career, including pop culture touchstones such as “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Indiana Jones” and “Jurassic Park.” His movies-a canny mix of big-budget, effects-laden blockbusters and intensely personal projects-have raked in over $4 billion at the box office, according to Boxofficemojo. However, he won his last Oscar for best director 14 years ago for “Saving Private Ryan,” and

despite repeated nominations, he has fallen short of his earlier awardwinning success. Born in the eastern US state of Ohio in December 1946 and raised in Arizona, Spielberg is the oldest of four children born to a Jewish engineer and a musician mother.

By the age of 12, he had made his first movie, an eight-minute Western called “The Last Gun,” which the future mogul financed with proceeds from a tree-planting business. Two years later, he had made two more films, a war movie and another in which he spliced World War II newsreel footage of planes together with film he had taken at his local airporthis first special effects. After leaving school, Spielberg went to university near Los Angeles but dropped out and began hanging around Hollywood’s Universal Studios, where he became a tour guide.

After sneaking onto sets, he was spotted by a screenwriter who taught cinematic techniques, and when he was 22, Universal gave him a seven-year contract making televi-

sion shows after his short film, “Amblin,’” won a prize. He made the classic TV suspense movie “Duel” in 1971, the story of a traveling salesman being pursued by a psychopath in a truck, which was so well received that it was released in theaters. His career took off and he became a household name in 1975 with his second big-screen movie, the risky shark thriller “Jaws,” which entered into pop culture lore and launched the tradition of the summer blockbuster.

A string of mega-successes followed: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977); “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones; “Poltergeist” and “E.T.” in 1982; and the dinosaur epic “Jurassic Park” (1993). He began producing movies with “E.T.” but came into his own in the field after he produced the 1985 blockbuster “Back to the Future,” soon becoming one of Hollywood’s richest and most powerful movie moguls. His estimated net worth is $3.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. But alongside his

File photo shows US film director Steven Spielberg leaving after a ceremony at the National WWII Memorial in Washington, DC. —AP action-packed blockbusters, Spielberg has also made several movies that were close to his heart, including “Schindler’s List”; “The Color Purple” (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey; “Amistad” (1997), about the slave trade; and 2005’s “Munich.”

Spielberg secured his first best

director Oscar for “Schindler’s List,” based on a true story about a German businessman who protected Jews during the Holocaust. After some less successful projects, Spielberg cofounded the DreamWorks SKG studio in 1994 along with former Disney president Jeffrey Katzenberg and music producer David Geffen, a move that reversed his fortunes with a string of hits.

His 2011 comic book adaptation “Tintin” won an Oscar nomination for its music. He followed that with “War Horse”-which was nominated for six Oscars but won zero-and then “Lincoln,” which lost to Ben Affleck’s “Argo” for best film and Ang Lee for best director at the 85th Academy Awards last Sunday. His upcoming projects include teaming up with Ford again on “Indiana Jones 5,” said already to be in the works, according to the IMDb industry website. Spielberg is married to actress Kate Capshaw, with whom he has five children, and he also has another child with his first wife, Amy Irving. — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Mugler, Van Noten, Pugh

ant black plumes. Even the Mugler show, the day’s most unified, featured plays between sheen and fur, and midriffs versus shoulders a reminder that tensions are inescapable.

DRIES VAN NOTEN Dries Van Noten thinks fashion is far too serious. That’s why he explored his usual menswearwomenswear tailoring this season via the frivolity of ballroom dancing, feathers and the two some Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Wednesday’s show was proof again of the Belgian designer’s mastery when it comes to the art of clashing styles. Who better to represent the Van Noten universe, where men’s and women’s styles

Models present creations by Dries Van Noten during the Fall/Winter 2013-2014 ready-to-wear collection show in Paris. — AFP photos

merge together, than one of the most iconic and inseparable malefemale couples in Hollywood history? Ostrich feathers in midnight blue, faded gray and tea rose billowed like 1930s boas with large vivid embroideries and vintage fur alongside men’s baggy pants, club stripes and Prince of Wales check.

One fantastic look said it all: a sumptuous navy feathered skirt (Ginger), and a large white tuxedo shirt (Fred.) In Van Noten’s world, like in Hollywood, there’s no man without the woman, no Ginger without the Fred.

Gareth Pugh

pposites and contradictions fuel contemporary fashion, as seen in the second day of Paris ready-to-wear shows.

Wednesday saw an abundance of such contrasts in style, fabric, tailoring and even in location that gave the start of the fall-winter 2013-14 season a dynamic lift.

Whether it be in Dries Van Noten’s ode to Fred and Ginger, which captured his signature flirtations with menswear on girls, Guy Laroche’s fierce versus the feminine, or Damir Doma’s perfect twinning of slouchy and sophisticated, tensions littered the catwalk. They were often delivered with an ironic wink.

To playful gasps from onlookers, down the grand salon of 19th century townhouse Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, Gareth Pugh gave his show a postmodern kick by sending models wearing shredded polythene trash bags down the catwalk. They shivered like luxuri-

Mugler

O

create tensions in fashion

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

GARETH PUGH To discordant music and hellish mist, Gareth Pugh went to the gates of the underworld, bringing back with him an inspired collection of dark angels. Starting in white and ending in black, the 49 looks saw the London wunderkind further explore the long, flared and otherworldly silhouettes seen last season. Here it came with stiff cowl and giant shawl collars, or fold-over jackets with exaggeratedly large lapels. Each look was fastidiously tailored. At times, it looks as if Pugh had made a pact with the devil and channeled the

full-skirted proportions of the 1950s, with their tights waist and full collars, but with dark excess.

But in Wednesday’s show, Pugh saved the best till last: a series of impressive black creations billowing with shredded black polythene. They fluttered by malevolently like feathers, as if the models were half-human, half-raven.

MUGLER In a tight show of only 27 looks, designer Nicola Formichetti served up a collection of feminine, cocoon-like silhouettes. Slick was the word. The gentle rounded shoulders and softer skirts, in soft gray, blue and peach, evolved away from the angular, insectoidobsession that’s been almost haunting Mugler’s recent collections. It was a welcome change, which made for a ladylike vibe - in line with this season’s trend.

Contrasts, such as soft peach fur on champagne satin, made one gentle look sparkle. The odd geometric print - used sparingly added the signature futuristic edge, as did neat bonnets on the heads. Keeping it simple seems to suit Formichetti: it’s one of the strongest collections he’s done.

GUY LAROCHE “It’s the story of women, women who don’t need men,” says Guy Laroche’s designer Marcel Marongiu of his brash, even kinky offering. With this mantra, the Franco-Swedish designer explored a whole new terrain this season. See-through lingerie shifts, rock-and-roll leather and even fierce bondage straps moved on quite dramatically from the classical codes of the house.

The sumptuous evening wear was still here though, in shocking pink and purple silk gowns, and several looks in blinding navy rhinestone.

He cited the style of Jimi Hendrix and Prince as inspirations - seen in the revealing sexuality of exposed nipples. There were some great statement bombers, another nod to the fall trend: coats as the new accessory. — AP

Gareth Pugh

Guy Laroche

Pe t s FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Some folks put pets in their wills

G

randma’s china that you never used, the recliner that will evermore bear the imprint of your backside, your extensive collection of old Reader’s Digests. Chances are, you’re not that concerned about their fates once you’ve gone on to your reward. But could you really rest in peace not knowing what will become of your pets? Pennie von Achen of Eudora, Kan., east of Lawrence, had considered putting her dog, four cats and a tortoise in her will. What got her thinking about it was planning a trip to Africa last summer. She, husband Kurt and one of their two grown daughters would be jetting to Uganda to visit their other daughter.

What, von Achen wondered, would happen to her beloved pets if, heaven forbid, she and her loved ones perished in a plane crash? She and her husband finalized their wills before the trip, but ultimately von Achen decided to take a non-legal route with the pets. She made a deal with a friend, “a real dog person”: Each agreed to take the other’s pooch if something befell one of them.

She used another friend as a “pet broker,” writing her a letter about the dog arrangement and including a list of six “cat people,” thinking that “somewhere in those six maybe she could find someone to take a cat here and a cat there.” She also described the animals’ personalities and health backgrounds. Von Achen included a check in the letter. If she died, the broker was to give specified sums to the dog person and anyone who took a cat.

The few hundred dollars for each animal “wouldn’t begin to compensate for a whole lifetime” of food and vet bills, von Achen says. “I thought it would at least help somewhat. I suppose if I were to do that again, I would increase the amounts.” She and her family survived the Africa trip, of course, but von Achen decided to keep in place the plans she made for her pets.“I’m not real thrilled thinking about my own death, especially as I get older,” says von Achen, a retired biology teacher. But “one of the things that does concern me is my animals. I don’t want them to end up in a pound. They’re used to TLC, and I want for them to continue to be cared for properly.” Lynn Munro of Raymore, Mo., feels the same way about her two dogs and a cat. She doesn’t have close family around, but she could easily imagine one friend in particular stepping in to care for the dogs. Problem is, he thinks dogs should be kept outside. That’s not the way Munro feels: “My dogs would never survive outside.”

She wrote her will and set up a trust last summer, and she made sure to include arrangements for her pets. Why? “Because they are family,” Munro says. The dogs, and money to care for them, will go to one friend - and here we quote the will - “with the stipulation that she provide or procure the necessary shelter and care for all the canine companion animals under my care at the time of my death.” Munro did not mention her current two dogs, Wiley and Roadie, by name, because she figures whenever she dies she’ll have two dogs.

Otherwise, the will states, the dogs would go to the Best Friends Animal Society sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. The cat, 18 or 19 and with kidney failure, is being bequeathed to a vet tech (her veterinarian’s wife) “because nobody else would put up with this cat” and its medical needs. “I really don’t think,” says Munro, 62, “that the cat’s going to outlive me.” But you never know how long a pet might live. Or how long you will live. Or whether you’ll be incapacitated at some point. It seems reasonable to expect that if you have a significant other or a good friend, your pets will be in good hands once you’re gone. But that might not be the case, says lawyer Patricia D. Reynolds, who practices in Liberty, Mo., and has a special interest in pets.

“I have seen dogs abandoned (after someone’s death); I have seen them euthanized,” Reynolds says. “My vet told me the story of a man who came in with his wife’s parrot. The wife had just died the week before, and he couldn’t wait to bring the parrot in and have it euthanized.” The veterinarian refused, Reynolds says, and found the bird another home.

It’s not unheard of for family members arriving at the home of the dearly departed to put the pets outside for good, leaving them to fend for themselves. Michelle Fowler, whose business Fairy Godmothers KC provides services such as pet sitting and house sitting, tells of a man who lived in an Overland Park retirement community with his 10-year-old cat. When he died recently, a family member, citing pet allergies, decided to put the cat to sleep. But Fowler and an employee intervened and found the feline a new home.

“My dog is in my will,” Fowler says. “I lecture my elderly (clients to do the same) because this happens ‚Ķ and I get stuck trying to find a home for them.” So far, she has always been able to “rehome” these animals. Whatever arrangements you make for your pets, and whether you decide to spell everything out in a legal document, you should make your wishes known to family and friends. “I always tell people: Just like leaving your (minor) chil-

Lynn Munro of Raymore, Missouri, made sure to include arrangements for her pets. Here, she poses for a photo with her two dogs, Wiley, top, and Roadie. — MCT two cases in which people “with sizable estates” made sure their dren to someone, don’t let leaving a pet be a surprise to the perpets would continue to live in their homes, with caretakers, after son,” Reynolds says. Talk to the person you have in mind, and the owners’ deaths. Make sure you name alternates, Reynolds make sure they’re willing to take on the commitment. Any money you leave for the pet’s care might or might not be enough. Yes, all says. If something happens to your first choice of pet guardian, specify a backup. You might not want to make the trustee or this is a fair amount of fuss and bother. But pets are worth it, aniguardian - they can be the same person - the beneficiary of monmal advocates say. ey remaining after a pet’s death. If, for example, you leave $10,000 When we adopt a pet, “we take on the obligation to care for a for your dog’s care but arrange it so the guardian gets whatever’s creature that’s not capable of providing its own housing, food left, Fido could meet an untimely end. “I just think that’s a little and health care,” Reynolds says. It’s sad to ponder a future for too tempting,” Reynolds says. your loyal dog or cuddly cat that doesn’t include you. But making When you’re calculating how much to leave for pet care, take arrangements for them is “something everybody should do, even into account the average life expectancy of your pet. And rememif you’re not as crazy about your animals as I am,” Pennie von Achen says. “It’s a courtesy to your friends and family so one fami- ber that as a pet ages it is more likely to need vet care and medicine. “Overfunding it is better than underfunding,” Reynolds says. ly member doesn’t feel all the responsibility is going to fall on In the legal documents, you can specify the pet’s veterinarian and them.” And if your loved ones - two-legged, four-legged and othspell out under what terms the animal is to be euthanized, as well erwise - are resting easy, chances are you will, too. as any other details you deem important.

If you already have set up your estate plan, modifying a will to Things to consider when include pets is not usually too expensive, perhaps $150-$200, including pets in your will Reynolds says. Even if you haven’t set up a living trust for yourself, It’s common to not only specify whom you’re leaving your you can establish a pet trust. If you die or become incapacitated, pets to but also to leave some money - specific amounts or a percentage of the estate - for the animals’ care. (The cost of caring for this trust transfers ownership of your pet to whomever you designate, along with funds. Pet trusts are recognized in most states, a dog over a 10-year period is estimated to be about $15,000; for including Missouri and Kansas. The website LegalZoom offers a a cat, $10,000.) If you set up a trust, the trustee would distribute “pet protection agreement,” a document it describes as less comyour money to the person you’ve selected as the pets’ guardian plex than a pet trust. — MCT or manager. Local lawyer Patricia D. Reynolds says she has seen

Stars

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Aries (March 21-April 19)

The emotional waters are a bit on the cool side today and if you encounter the cold shoulder, don’t be surprised. Put a toe in the water before you jump in or you might run into the big chill. People taking themselves too seriously abound, so try not to be one of them. Take it all with a grain of salt instead. You may want to call or write someone you love, simply to cheer them up or tell them you love them. The tone of this time is light, friendly and easy. Positive connections are made with others, and you may meet a new romance. This is a favorable time to visit people you really enjoy.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

You see what?s wrong and you know what to do now.

The time has come to make it real, and it’s a lot bigger than any one person. This means cooperation and organization, authority and discipline, and most important responsibility. All these things are what it takes to get you where you know you want to go.

Warning signals are in the air today, and trying to get the final word on anything will be virtually impossible, and no matter how right you feel in your side of an argument any loose ends turn up that won’t be silenced. Try to keep your words positive, but leave the last word for later.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Don’t let negative thinking get you down — criticism for its own sake is a waste of time. Lack of confidence can slow you down, so believe in yourself even when others don’t. Stay on course with your goals through the currents of self-doubt and ignore the sometimes jealous remarks of others who would see you give up. Taking care of business is where most of your emotional orientation is concerned now. You crave organization and practicality, and you want to get things accomplished with the least effort. Your aim should be to have a place for everything and everything in its place, this includes your relationships as well.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

You are excitable and restless today and may do something quite unexpected and out of character. Impatience with dreary routine and the desire for freedom and change may spur you to do something you normally consider adolescent or irresponsible.

You are very insistent on your own “rights”, needs and preferences at this time. This is a good time to assert your own needs and desires, to communicate to others what you really want. You are sharp, clear, decisive, and articulate. Your daily life is steady and stable, although not particularly exciting or unusual at this time. This is an excellent time to make steady, practical progress in your life.

Leo (July 23-August 22) At this time you are able to be very clear and aboveboard with other people, bringing out your desires and differences between yourself and others in a way that is unlikely to offend or stir up hostility. Because you appear confident, others are inclined to follow your lead now. This can be a time for exposing and talking about hidden, intensely private or secret subjects. It could be about past issues or current fantasy’s. Conversations and interactions are intense. Just be sure the person you share your inner thoughts with is someone you can trust.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)

If you can’t bear the thought of letting your close ones do it their way, you may be forced to take a look at where you could be going wrong. Being too possessive or interfering could work to your detriment if you aren’t careful. Try to go with the flow. A feeling that anything is possible if you set your sights high enough is what it’s all about today. You are full of optimism, faith, and may feel the need to take chances at the deepest emotional levels. This is a time of exploring your feelings, a restlessness for new emotional experience and adventure.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

Your career, reputation, and most important personal goals receive a boost now, primarily through your own initiative and willingness to assert yourself. You feel a surge of positive energy. Superiors or people in authority will also notice you now and can help you immensely, enabling you to fulfill something you are striving for. Feelings and actions with loved one are at cross purposes today and make this day’s energies one you may not want to put much effort in. Under any circumstances, don’t be hasty, and try not to repeat yourself too many times because you didn’t get your point across with the first try.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You will be gratified by some demonstrations of kindness, assistance, or sympathy offered to you by others today. You will find much contentment, joy, and happiness in the company of a certain person in your life during this time, and you will feel protective and affectionate toward them. You may not be able to be with them as much as you desire so patience is the name of this game at the moment. You are moved to express your affections more openly than usual. Giving and receiving appreciation, love, and happiness come into your life now.

Close relationships take on more emotional depth, power, and importance now. Feeling cared for and needed is comfortable is a comfortable place to be right now. Enjoy the day and people around you.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

Dark thoughts could get the better of you today and you need to balance your attitude now and gauge where these excessive thoughts are coming from and whether or not you aren’t creating a dilemma for yourself. You’ve probably been correct in reading a situation - don’t assume that your understanding of the situation necessarily equates with an understanding of the motives of the people involved. You could be projecting some unhealthy attitudes and that needs to be clarified before you pass judgment.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

Wahoo.....you’re in the mood to experiment and to learn something new. Off the wall or original ideas excite you and you will seek people who can offer you a different way of looking at things. You may want a break from the predictability of your usual routine and methods. Your thoughts turn to love and this is a favorable time to bring out any concerns you have in your personal relationships. Agreements and cooperation can be achieved easily during this time. You readily discuss your personal needs and desires.

Also, you are more aware of beauty and may want to rearrange your decor or buy something to beautify your surroundings.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18)

It’s time for a change, and that takes a bit of courage, but is well worth the challenge. Follow your instincts on what is right for you and what isn’t working. Write them out, and weigh the pro’s and con’s of the changes you would find most beneficial.

Support from close friends, family, and the women in your life gives you extra confidence now. This is a good time to mend fences and smooth over problems in your home life. Try to find the positive aspects of situations before looking for the negative. It will get you farther and keep you on steadier ground emotionally.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

A tax or legal matter may be getting you all bothered.

There are ways around it if you use a little creative thinking.

Someone in the know has a better legal handle on these issues and you should be approaching them to help you find your way out of the woods. The energy is running hot and cold today, and just as you think you’re warming up to someone, they can suddenly turn negative and even outright cranky. So wait, if you can, to make commitments or even propositions. If it’s meant to happen you’ll have another chance when things feel more stable.

COUNTRY CODES Afghanistan 0093 Albania 00355 Algeria 00213 Andorra 00376 Angola 00244 Anguilla 001264 Antiga 001268 Argentina 0054 Armenia 00374 Australia 0061 Austria 0043 Bahamas 001242 Bahrain 00973 Bangladesh 00880 Barbados 001246 Belarus 00375 Belgium 0032 Belize 00501 Benin 00229 Bermuda 001441 Bhutan 00975 Bolivia 00591 Bosnia 00387 Botswana 00267 Brazil 0055 Brunei 00673 Bulgaria 00359 Burkina 00226 Burundi 00257 Cambodia 00855 Cameroon 00237 Canada 001 Cape Verde 00238 Cayman Islands 001345 Central African Republic 00236 Chad 00235 Chile 0056 China 0086 Colombia 0057 Comoros 00269 Congo 00242 Cook Islands 00682 Costa Rica 00506 Croatia 00385 Cuba 0053 Cyprus 00357 Cyprus (Northern) 0090392 Czech Republic 00420 Denmark 0045 Diego Garcia 00246 Djibouti 00253 Dominica 001767 Dominican Republic 001809 Ecuador 00593 Egypt 0020 El Salvador 00503 England (UK) 0044 Equatorial Guinea 00240 Eritrea 00291 Estonia 00372 Ethiopia 00251 Falkland Islands 00500 Faroe Islands 00298 Fiji 00679 Finland 00358 France 0033 French Guiana 00594 French Polynesia 00689 Gabon 00241 Gambia 00220 Georgia 00995 Germany 0049 Ghana 00233 Gibraltar 00350 Greece 0030 Greenland 00299 Grenada 001473 Guadeloupe 00590 Guam 001671 Guatemala 00502 Guinea 00224 Guyana 00592 Haiti 00509 Holland (Netherlands)0031 Honduras 00504 Hong Kong 00852 Hungary 0036 Ibiza (Spain) 0034 Iceland 00354 India 0091 Indian Ocean 00873 Indonesia 0062 Iran 0098 Iraq 00964 Ireland 00353 Italy 0039 Ivory Coast 00225 Jamaica 001876 Japan 0081 Jordan 00962 Kazakhstan 007 Kenya 00254 Kiribati 00686

Kuwait 00965 Kyrgyzstan 00996 Laos 00856 Latvia 00371 Lebanon 00961 Liberia 00231 Libya 00218 Lithuania 00370 Luxembourg 00352 Macau 00853 Macedonia 00389 Madagascar 00261 Majorca 0034 Malawi 00265 Malaysia 0060 Maldives 00960 Mali 00223 Malta 00356 Marshall Islands 00692 Martinique 00596 Mauritania 00222 Mauritius 00230 Mayotte 00269 Mexico 0052 Micronesia 00691 Moldova 00373 Monaco 00377 Mongolia 00976 Montserrat 001664 Morocco 00212 Mozambique 00258 Myanmar (Burma) 0095 Namibia 00264 Nepal 00977 Netherlands (Holland)0031 Netherlands Antilles 00599 New Caledonia 00687 New Zealand 0064 Nicaragua 00505 Nigar 00227 Nigeria 00234 Niue 00683 Norfolk Island 00672 Northern Ireland (UK)0044 North Korea 00850 Norway 0047 Oman 00968 Pakistan 0092 Palau 00680 Panama 00507 Papua New Guinea 00675 Paraguay 00595 Peru 0051 Philippines 0063 Poland 0048 Portugal 00351 Puerto Rico 001787 Qatar 00974 Romania 0040 Russian Federation 007 Rwanda 00250 Saint Helena 00290 Saint Kitts 001869 Saint Lucia 001758 Saint Pierre 00508 Saint Vincent 001784 Samoa US 00684 Samoa West 00685 San Marino 00378 Sao Tone 00239 Saudi Arabia 00966 Scotland (UK) 0044 Senegal 00221 Seychelles 00284 Sierra Leone 00232 Singapore 0065 Slovakia 00421 Slovenia 00386 Solomon Islands 00677 Somalia 00252 South Africa 0027 South Korea 0082 Spain 0034 Sri Lanka 0094 Sudan 00249 Suriname 00597 Swaziland 00268 Sweden 0046 Switzerland 0041 Syria 00963 Taiwan 00886 Tanzania 00255 Thailand 0066 Toga 00228 Tonga 00676 Tokelau 00690 Trinidad 001868 Tunisia 00216 Turkey 0090 Tuvalu 00688 Uganda 00256 Ukraine 00380 United Arab Emirates00976

Stars

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Word Search

Yesterdayʼs Solution

C R O S S W O R D 1 1 5

ACROSS 1. A shape that sags.

4. Resoluteness by virtue of being unyielding and inflexible.

12. A potent estrogen used in medicine and in feed for livestock and poultry.

15. A unit of pressure.

16. Wearing livery.

17. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.

18. Oblong cream puff.

20. A river in southeastern Australia that flows generally northwest to join the Darling River.

21. Airtight sealed metal container for food or drink or paint etc..

22. A wad of something chewable as tobacco.

23. A blue dye obtained from plants or made synthetically.

24. Genus of tropical plants with creeping rootstocks and small umbellate flowers.

26. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural).

28. A linear unit (1/6 inch) used in printing.

31. A collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn.

32. The capital and largest city of Ghana with a deep-water port.

35. Used of gloves, socks, etc..

37. A lace used for fastening shoes.

40. A rotating disk shaped to convert circular into linear motion.

44. Committee formed by a special-interest group to raise money for their favorite political candidates.

45. Large brownish-green New Zealand parrot.

48. A ruler of the Inca Empire (or a member of his family).

50. (Greek mythology) One of the mountain nymphs.

53. A barrier consisting of a horizontal bar and supports.

54. Greek mythology.

55. Affect with wonder.

56. Angular distance above the horizon (especially of a celestial object).

57. A very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms.

59. The federal agency that insures residential mortgages.

61. The biblical name for ancient Syria.

63. The branch of engineering science that studies the uses of electricity and the equipment for power generation and distribution and the control of machines and communication.

65. A bay on the Mediterranean Sea in northern Egypt.

68. Periodic shedding of the cuticle in arthropods or the outer skin in reptiles.

70. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely the razorbill.

74. United States writer of poems and plays about racial conflict (born in 1934).

75. (possibly Roman) Goddess of horses and mules and asses.

77. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine.

78. The cry made by sheep.

79. A cut of pork ribs with much of the meat trimmed off.

81. A communist nation that covers a vast territory in eastern Asia.

82. An extension at the end and at right angles to the main building.

83. A language spoken by the Atakapa people of the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas.

84. Seed of a pea plant.

3. A river that rises in western New Mexico and flows westward through southern Arizona to become a tributary of the Colorado River.

4. American prizefighter who won the world heavyweight championship three times (born in 1942).

5. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

6. The eleventh month of the civil year.

7. Stone crabs.

8. Any of various plants of the genus Aralia.

9. Game in which matchsticks are arranged in rows and players alternately remove one or more of them.

10. The corporate executive responsible for the operations of the firm.

11. Make editorial changes (in a text).

12. The capital and largest city of Bangladesh.

13. Order by virtue of superior authority.

14. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

19. (sometimes followed by `of') Having or showing realization or perception.

25. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

27. One of several parallel sloping beams that support a roof.

29. Stout-bodied insect with large membranous wings.

30. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa.

33. Thorny shrub or small tree common in central Argentina having small orange or yellow flowers followed by edible berries.

34. Any spherical or nearly spherical bacteria.

36. The square of a body of any size of type.

38. (in Gnosticism) A divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation of the universe.

39. A bottle with a stopper.

41. Tired to the point of exhaustion.

42. A public square with room for pedestrians.

43. (from a combination of MOdulate and DEModulate) Electronic equipment consisting of a device used to connect computers by a telephone line.

46. (Greek mythology) Goddess of the earth and mother of Cronus and the Titans in ancient mythology.

47. A large fleet.

49. A state in northwestern North America.

51. Something transitory.

52. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

58. A derogatory term used by Jews to refer to non-Jewish women.

60. Hairy aromatic perennial herb having whorls of small white purple-spotted flowers in a terminal spike.

62. Of or pertaining to hearing or the ear.

64. All the plant life in a particular region.

66. Any of numerous local fertility and nature deities worshipped by ancient Semitic peoples.

67. Deeply moved.

69. An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common policy for the sale of petroleum.

71. An inhabitant of Lappland.

72. The work of caring for or attending to someone or something.

73. Type genus of the family Arcidae.

76. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

80. A highly unstable radioactive element (the heaviest of the halogen series).

Yesterdayʼs Solution

DOWN 1. A detailed description of design criteria for a piece of work.

2. United States writer (born in Poland) who wrote in Yiddish (1880-1957).

Daily SuDoku

Yesterday’s Solution

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Heading football may cause brain damage LONDON: Heading the ball may increase the risk of brain damage to football players, new research has indicated. The US study, which concentrated on schoolgirl footballers, revealed evidence of mental impairment cause by repeatedly heading the ball, with scientists saying the effects suggest “mild traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobes”. However, they stressed more research was required to determine whether the changes were permanent or temporary.

The study featured a group of 12 teenage female footballers and a matching group of non-players.

Both groups were given a computer screen response test designed to assess levels of mental alertness. The participants had to react to the random appearance of a white square by touching a point on the opposite side of the screen, with their performance measured by the speed of their response. In order to assess the impact of heading, the girls who played football were, prior to taking the test, involved in a practice

session where they headed the ball a number of times. Results showed the footballers were significantly slower at the task than the non-players.

However, both groups performed equally well in another task where they had to touch the white square where it appeared, with this test involving less thinking time and a more instinctive response. Researchers said the more hours spent playing football led to slower responses and this was a greater factor than merely the number of playing years.

Concerns about sport and mental impairment have tended to centre around high contact events such as boxing, where deliberate blows to the head can cause loss of consciousness and long term health problems.

However, previous studies into the effect of heading a football have been contradictory, with an Australian researcher in 2004 saying it did cause brain damage after a 2003 editorial in the British Medical Journal reckoned such an outcome “unlikely”. But Dr

Anne Sereno, from the University of Texas, and her colleagues who were the authors of the latest US study wrote in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE: “These findings suggest that even subconcussive blows in soccer (football) can result in cognitive function changes that are consistent with mild traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobes.”

The researchers added: “Further study is needed to track soccer players for longer periods to evaluate if these changes are transient or longer lasting, if they are dependent upon repeated subconcussive blows, and if they generalise to male soccer players. To our knowledge, these results provide the first evidence that even subconcussive blows in soccer could lead to measurable, even if possibly transient, cognitive changes in young soccer players.”

After former England footballer Jeff Astle, a centre forward renowned for his heading ability, died aged just 59 in 2002, an inquest ruled he had suffered death by “industrial

injury”. However, leather footballs used for the bulk of Astle’s career were considerably heavier than modern plastic ones used by the girls in the US study, especially when wet. While competitors across many sports worry about the health effects of concussion, for administrators there is a looming financial cost, with players now more prepared than ever to take legal action in response to head injuries. For example, in American football dozens of federal lawsuits by more than 3,700 former National Football League (NFL) players, including a class action on behalf of over 2,000 ex-players, accused bosses of ignoring evidence about the long-term impact of repeated blows to the head. The issue came to the fore after Junior Seau, considered one of the greatest linebackers of all time, shot himself dead in May at the age of 43. A post-mortem examination of his brain revealed that, like dozens of former players, he was suffering from the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy. — AFP

Tseng hovers at HSBC Champions ACAPULCO: Rafael Nadal of Spain celebrates after defeating Martin Alund of Argentina during their Mexico ATP Open men’s single tennis match on Wednesday. — AFP

Nadal eases into Acapulco q-finals ACAPULCO, Mexico: Rafael Nadal eased into the quarterfinals of the Mexican Open on Wednesday, continuing his comeback from the knee injury that sidelined the 11-time Grand Slam champion for seven months. Nadal, playing in his third tournament in four weeks after his lengthy layoff, needed one hour and 16 minutes to get past Argentine qualifier Martin Alund 6-0, 6-4. Nadal pocketed the first set in less than half an hour, saving all three of the break points he faced in the contest and winning 26 of his 33 first service points.

The convincing victory came a fortnight after Nadal needed three sets to get past Alund in the semi-finals of the clay court tournament in Sao Paulo, where Nadal went on to win his first title since last year’s French Open. A week before that he fell in the final at Vina del Mar in Chile to Horacio Zeballos. “The first set I played at a very high level,” Nadal said. “I started strong without any errors. In the second set Martin played at a high level and made it hard to close it out. “I’m happy to be in the quarter-finals.”

The relatively low-key clay court tournaments in Latin America were expected to serve as Nadal’s preparation for prestigious Masters Series events on US hard courts at Indian Wells, California, and Miami. Nadal has denied a Spanish media report that he has already decided to skip Indian Wells and Miami, saying he intended to go to Indian Wells and would only opt out if he feels his troublesome left knee is not up to it.

Men’s main draw play begins at Indian Wells on March 7. At both Vina del Mar and Sao Paulo, Nadal was the top seed but in Acapulco he is seeded second behind fellow Spaniard David Ferrer. — AFP

SINGAPORE: World number one Tseng Yani eagled her last hole at Singapore’s star-studded HSBC Women’s Champions yesterday as she shot up the leaderboard and put pressure on first-round leader Azahara Munoz.

Tseng’s 25-foot downhill putt across the 18th green, a contender for shot of the day, drew broad smiles and an arms-aloft celebration from the Taiwanese ace as she rocketed up the standings to lie three shots behind Munoz with a 68. Munoz ended a hot first day at the par-72 Sentosa Golf Club two shots clear on seven-under-par 65 after dropping four birdies on her front nine and another three on the way back.

The Spaniard also pulled out a big par save on 16 and lipped out a birdie attempt on 17, as she finished bogeyfree and ahead of five players tied for second, including American world number four Stacy Lewis.

Tseng, another shot back and hunting her first win in nearly a year, was among four players on 68 including America’s Paula Creamer, who made light of whiplash sustained in a car crash after last week’s event in Thailand.

Japan’s Ai Miyazato was forced to pull out of the Singapore event as she recovers from similar injuries from the five-car smash in Bangkok, which also involved Norway’s Suzann Pettersen. Tseng, the “Pride of Taiwan”, carded three birdies and a bogey over her first seven holes, and then parred 10 in a row in what looked destined to be a quiet round - until her grandstand finish. Afterwards, she revealed that the unerring final stroke won her a bet with her manager, who will now have to accompany her on a skydiving trip.

“I told her I need some motivation, a little energy. So I told her a 69 is a tie and 68 I win. Her bet was for a Louis Vuitton bag and if I win, she will go skydiving with me in Hawaii,” said Tseng.

“When that putt dropped, I was so happy. I was looking for her, I saw her face, I thought she was going to cry, so I think that’s very good motivation. If you have a bet with your friend, it feels so good. Today that really kept me very patient and relaxed all day.”

World number two Choi Na-Yeon, who is threatening to supplant Tseng at the top of the rankings, shot 69 to lie alongside Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn, 17, who recovered well from the final-hole disaster which cost her victory in Pattaya last week. Former teen prodigy Michelle Wie, now

23 and ranked 73rd, finished the day one under par, but Angela Stanford’s chances of a successful title defence looked remote after she signed for a wayward 76. — AFP

SINGAPORE: Azahara Munoz of Spain hits a shot during round one of the HSBC Women’s Champions LPGA golf tournament at the Serapong Course yesterday. — AFP

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Americans try to reach WBC title game at last SCOTTSDALE, Arizona: Ryan Vogelsong has a little running joke that he is going to plunk San Francisco teammate Pablo Sandoval in the World Baseball Classic to keep the Panda from a three-homer game like the one he produced in Game 1 of the World Series last fall. Sandoval plans to play nice once he pulls on the Venezuela uniform. “He’s my teammate, I don’t want to fight,” Sandoval said with a smile. Both know the team to beat: Two-time WBC winner Japan. Joe Torre is returning to the top step of the dugout to manage the Americans, who have yet to even reach the championship game of this hugely popular international event.

Team USA has plenty of motivation to make up for two poor showings in this tournament. The Americans didn’t get out of the second round in 2009, then lost in the semifinals to Japan three years later. Now, they are making plans to reach the semifinals and final at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. “We’ll probably be disappointed if we don’t make it to San Francisco,” said Vogelsong, slated to be the No 2 starter in the US rotation. “First and foremost, we’re focused on getting there.”

The Japanese topped Cuba in the inaugural Classic in 2006, then South Korea three years later. Japan is known for its rigorous spring trainings, which typically begin a couple of weeks before the major league clubs and feature all-day workouts with just a short break to eat. “It’s such a dedicated group of players. I go back to going

over to Japan as a member of the Mets back in ‘74 and just noticing and at that time I didn’t think necessarily that the Japanese could play at our level, maybe staturewise,” Torre recalled. “Even though their game was clean and disciplined, it just didn’t look like they were as good as we were. That’s certainly has changed.”

Rockies slugger Carlos Gonzalez will play alongside Sandoval for Venezuela. The World Series champion Giants have had to plan carefully this spring to get through the Cactus League with much of their roster headed to the WBC - Marco Scutaro on Venezuela, Angel Pagan and Andres Torres on Puerto Rico, Vogelsong and reliever Jeremy Affeldt on the US team, closer Sergio Romo pitching for Mexico. “It’s my first time representing and I’m really looking forward to doing it,” Pagan said.

“The first two Classics I couldn’t do it because I was either trying to make a team or I was trying to be the everyday player. It fills my heart to go out there and play in front of my countrymen and in front of my family. I did it when I played in New York and Puerto Rico but it’s not the same when you’re wearing the PR jersey. It’s going to be a little different, and I’m ready.”

And CarGo sure is confident in Venezuela’s chances.

“I don’t think we need practice - Venezuela doesn’t need practice,” he said. “Japan, they train together for a long time and get prepared for that. We don’t really get prepared for that, we all focus on our teams. ‘OK, you’ve got

to go play for your country.’ We’re all going to be blind, put the uniform on, let’s play.” Many players are torn between playing for their country or playing for the club that signs their paycheck - especially those who might be on the bubble of making the roster or earning a starting job. Gonzalez said the Venezuelans feel tremendous pressure to take part in the Classic, yet he understands why Seattle ace Felix Hernandez has passed after signing a $175 million, seven-year contract earlier this month that made him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball. “You have to represent your team,” Gonzalez said. “You see all the news about King Felix not playing for Venezuela and the whole country changes, they get upset that you’re not going to play for your country. They think it’s all about the money but, you know what, we’ve been working since we were 16 years old and we came from Venezuela to represent. Especially King Felix, he’s been playing since he was 16 with Seattle. He’s a franchise player who was about to sign the biggest contract. It’s crazy how people feel bad about it. He has to think about his future, he has to think about his family. I think made the right choice.”

The inaugural 2006 Classic featured a pool-play format, while 2009 was double-elimination - and this one will be a combination of both. The first round will be pool play, with the top two teams advancing. The second round is double-elimination, and the top two teams will reach the semifinals. —AP

NY Knicks overcome Curry to beat Warriors

LOS ANGELES: Detroit Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard looks up at the puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday. — AP

Flyers crush Capitals PHILADELPHIA: Claude Giroux scored after just 23 seconds as the Philadelphia Flyers rolled to a 4-1 victory over the Washington Capitals yesterday. Wayne Simmonds gave Philadelphia a 2-0 lead less than four minutes later, and Simon Gagne scored his first goal of the season in the second period, one day after being reacquired by the Flyers from the Los Angeles Kings. Max Talbot stretched the advantage to 4-0 in the second and Ilya Bryzgalov made 23 saves. Bryzgalov was in line for a shutout until Joel Ward tipped in his own deflection with 2:09 left to cut the Capitals’ deficit to 4-1.

Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher, Max Pacioretty and Brian Gionta scored third-period goals in the Canadiens’ 5-2 win at the Toronto Maple Leafs. Gallagher scored his sixth goal of the season 9:08 into the third to break a 2-2 deadlock. Pacioretty cemented the win with his sixth goal - and second of the game - at 14:26. Gionta added an empty-net tally with 2:26 left. Pacioretty also scored in the second period, and defenseman Alexei Emelin got Montreal on the board in the first period. Carey Price made 21 saves for his 11th win. Frazer McLaren and Clarke MacArthur scored for Toronto, which had won three straight at home.

At Los Angeles, Anze Kopitar scored the tiebreaking goal off a slick pass from Dwight King with 4:48 to play as the Kings rallied from a third-period deficit to down the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 for their fifth straight victory. Jonathan Bernier made 32 saves for the defending Stanley Cup champions, who leveled it with 9:34 left on Jeff Carter’s goal during a twoman advantage. King then made a spinning pass from the boards in front to Kopitar, who beat Jimmy Howard for his sixth goal of the season. Howard stopped 27 shots for the Red Wings, who had won two straight. Los Angeles is on its longest winning streak of the season, winning seven of eight overall. —AP

NEW YORK: The New York Knicks overcame Golden State guard Stephen Curry’s NBA season-high 54 points to beat the Warriors 109-105 on Wednesday. Carmelo Anthony scored 35 points and J.R. Smith hit the tiebreaking shot with 1:10 left to help give the Knicks the win. Curry was 18 of 28 from the field, finishing one short of the NBA record with 11 3-pointers. It was the most points by an NBA player in a loss since Kobe Bryant had 58 in a loss to Charlotte on Dec 29, 2006 Curry finished with seven assists and six rebounds while passing his previous career-best of 42 points, and Kevin Durant’s 52-point performance that had been the best in the NBA this season.

But he had little help without All-Star forward David Lee, who was suspended one game for his role in an altercation Tuesday night in Indiana.

Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook scored 29 points and Kevin Durant recorded his third career triple-double as the Thunder finished a perfect threegame homestand by routing the shorthanded New Orleans Hornets 119-74.

Durant had 18 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists as Oklahoma City finished a dominant four-game sweep of the season series against New Orleans, which was without starters Anthony Davis (shoulder) and Eric Gordon (knee). The Thunder led by at least 29 in three of the four meetings this season, At San Antonio, Jermaine O’Neal had 22 points and 13 rebounds, and Wesley Johnson hit a 3-pointer at the end of regulation to force overtime as the Phoenix Suns beat San Antonio 105-101 to end the Spurs’ 18-game home winning streak. Luis Scola added 15 points and Goran Dragic had 13 points and 13 assists for Phoenix, which ended a sixgame losing streak against San Antonio.

NEW YORK: Golden State Warriors’ Jarrett Jack (left) and New York Knicksí Iman Shumpert dive for a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game on Wednesday. — AP

Zach Randolph scored 22 points and Marc Gasol added 21 at Memphis as the Grizzlies matched their largest comeback in franchise history, rallying to beat the Dallas Mavericks 90-84. Quincy Pondexter finished with 12 and Austin Daye added 10, all in the first half, for Memphis, which trailed by 25 points in the second quarter but stormed back to win its eighth straight. Gasol had 12 rebounds and Randolph 10 as Memphis outrebounded Dallas 46-34.

Cleveland rookie Dion Waiters scored 23 points and Shaun Livingston added 15 as the Cavaliers overcame a horrendous start and playing without injured All-Star Kyrie Irving for the second straight game, beating the Toronto Raptors 103-92. Tristan Thompson

scored 14, Wayne Ellington added 13 and Luke Walton had seven rebounds and seven assists for the Cavs, who closed with a 10-2 run.

The Detroit Pistons escaped with a 96-95 victory over the Washington Wizards as Brandon Knight returned from a right knee injury to score a career-high 32 points, and John Salmons had 21 points to lead six players in double-figures as the hot-shooting Sacramento Kings cruised past the Orlando Magic 125-101.

In other games, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Houston Rockets 110-107, the Atlanta Hawks downed the Utah Jazz 102-91 and the Denver Nuggets were 111-109 victors against the Portland Trail Blazers. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

German League Preview

Bayern is top team in Germany once again BERLIN: After beating German Cup holder Borussia Dortmund to reassert the club as the country’s dominant force, Bayern Munich will turn its attention back to the Bundesliga. “We’ve definitively restored supremacy in German football. The German balance of power is clarified,” Bayern president Uli Hoeness said Wednesday after his team beat Dortmund 1-0 to reach the semifinals. Relegation-threatened Hoffenheim is unlikely to derail Bayern’s march toward its 23rd league title on Sunday, and it seems just a matter of time before the club finally wraps it up.

Dortmund and third-place Bayer Leverkusen both dropped points last weekend, leaving Bayern 17 points clear with 11 rounds to play. At Hoffenheim, second from last with the league’s worst defense, there appears to be little hope against a side with 19 wins and only one loss in 23 games.

Bayern has scored 63 goals and conceded only eight. Bayern has yet to concede a goal in the German Cup, and the club also holds a commanding 3-1 lead over Arsenal in the last 16 Champions League before the return leg - in Munich - on March 13.

Fans in Munich are already taking a league and cup double for granted. Talk has turned to making up for last season’s Champions League final loss and claiming a

treble. Dortmund looked second best on Wednesday, especially in the first half, and might have lost by a heavier margin but for crucial interventions from goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller - the visitors’ busiest player.

Nevertheless, the sense of relief that came once Arjen Robben’s goal proved enough was palpable. Bayern had won only one of its last seven matches with Dortmund, but the club has now emerged unbeaten from three meetings this season, including the season-opening Super Cup win in August. Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp, whose side’s only hope of silverware this season remains the Champions League, bristled in response to Hoeness’ boast about a transfer of power. “Bayern are the only club interested is these balances of power,” Klopp said. “We are still going through development and it’s not so bad. I certainly don’t think that we have no hope against Bayern in the next couple of years.”

Hoffenheim has even bigger problems after losing to fellow relegation candidate Augsburg last week. The club backed by software millionaire Dietmar Hopp is facing the prospect of relegation for the first time since winning promotion in 2008.

Hoffenheim’s Munich-born US international Fabian Johnson said there would be slightly

MUNICH: Dortmundís German defender Marcel Schmelzer and Bayern Munichís German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger (right) vie for the ball during their German Cup quarter-final match on Wednesday. — AFP less pressure on Sunday because expectations of claiming a result against Bayern are so low. “Bayern are clear favorites, but we’re in a bad situation and there are three points to be gained in every game. That’s why it’s

English League Preview

French League Preview

PSG looking to extend lead against Reims PARIS: Having won 14 of its past 16 games in all competitions, Paris Saint-Germain will be looking to extend its French league lead against struggling Reims tomorrow. PSG is three points clear of secondplace Lyon, which visits Brest on Sunday, and eight clear of Marseille, which heads a tightly packed group of clubs aiming for a Champions league place. PSG also beat Marseille for the second time in four days on Wednesday to reach the French Cup quarterfinals.

David Beckham made his first start for PSG and proved his aging legs can still last the pace.

The 37-year-old former England captain played a 15-minute cameo from the bench in last Sunday’s 2-0 win against Marseille in the league, helping to set up the second goal for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He lasted 86 minutes on Wednesday, standing up to the test of a frenzied cup game as PSG again won 2-0.

“This is encouraging,” Beckham said. “I came to the club wanting to be part of the team knowing I would not always be part of the starting line-up, and I understand that. I want to try and add to it and help the team be successful. If that means starting, great. If that means coming from the bench, great. “Obviously I am very happy to be playing. I am happy to be setting goals up. I had a hand in the second goal the other day.” Reims has won just one of its past 18 league matches and is in a perilous position, only one point above the relegation zone. “We can’t let our heads go down,” director Didier Perrin said. “We have to continue working. We must win against our direct rivals.

Nothing is lost yet.”

Brest is five points clear of the bottom three after beating Bordeaux last week, but it faces a tough test against title-chasing Lyon. After being knocked out of the Europa League by Tottenham, Lyon won 3-1

also a game like any other,” Johnson told the club website. Fortuna Duesseldorf hosts Mainz in Sunday’s other game. Dortmund, which had already conceded its league title, hosts Hannover tomorrow.

Tottenham banking on Bale for derby clash LONDON: Unbeaten in 11 Premier League matches and with man-of-themoment Gareth Bale scoring at will, Tottenham Hotspur start as favourites against Arsenal on Sunday in a north London derby crucial to both sides’ hopes of Champions League qualification. Victory for third-placed Tottenham would send them seven points clear of the fifth-placed Gunners and keep them above Chelsea in what is becoming a London-based tussle for third and fourth spots behind the Manchester clubs. Bale has scored eight goals in his last six matches for Tottenham after manager Andre VillasBoas gave the Welsh winger freedom to roam inside, his latest stunner coming to earn his side a 3-2 victory at West Ham United on Monday.

Arsenal, who last claimed three points at Spurs in 2007, have also been consistent in the league despite cup exits at the hands of fourth tier Bradford City and Championship side Blackburn Rovers and a Champions League mauling by Bayern Munich.

While Villas-Boas has won over the sceptics among Tottenham’s fans after a tricky start at White Hart Lane, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has come in for unprecedented criticism as an eighth successive trophyless campaign looms. Wenger, however, has

LONDON: Tottenham Hotspurís Welsh defender Gareth Bale (right) vies for the ball against West Hamís Republic of Ireland defender Joey OíBrien in an English Premier League football match at the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park on Feb 25, 2013. — AFP lost only five times in 39 north London a 5-2 defeat, Arsenal eventually finderbies, even if the gap between the ished third and although Tottenham clubs has closed. It was about this time ended fourth they were denied a last season that his side met Champions League spot because Tottenham at the Emirates with the vis- Chelsea, who came sixth, ended up as itors in an even stronger position, seek- European champions. Tottenham also ing a victory that would have opened led at the Emirates this season before up a 13-point gap between themselves Emmanuel Adebayor was sent off and Arsenal again roared back to claim and their bitter rivals.

Tottenham led 2-0 but collapsed to another 5-2 victory. — Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Italian League Preview

Napoli has chance to reopen title race ROME: Napoli’s match with Serie A leader Juventus today could represent the last chance for the southern club to reopen the title race. Juventus holds a six-point lead over Napoli and is closing in on its 28th Italian league title, but that could change depending on the result at San Paolo stadium in Naples. The rivalry between the two clubs has grown especially tense over the past two seasons.

Napoli’s victory in last year’s Italian Cup final inflicted Juve’s only loss last season.

But Juventus exacted revenge with a comeback 4-2 extra-time win in the Italian Super Cup in Beijing in August, after which Napoli skipped the award ceremony.

Juventus won again in October, beating Napoli 2-0 with late goals from substitutes Martin Caceres and Paul Pogba. “For two years now we’ve been playing with everything on the line that Italy has to offer,” Juventus midfielder Claudio Marchisio said. “They are always extremely tough matches, like the Italian Cup final and especially the Super Cup.” Napoli hasn’t won Serie A since Diego Maradona led the club to titles in 1987 and 1990, and the 1986 World Cup winner from Argentina made a surprise visit to Naples this week in an attempt to clear his

name in a tax evasion case. He also had encouraging words for his former squad.

“With 12 rounds to go you can’t say the season is decided,” Maradona said.

“Napoli needs to go after Juve, which is more solid and stronger than Napoli, but let’s remember that Juve has to come play here in Napoli and we know they’re not the same away from Turin. That’s why I’m telling the players not to be afraid to win.”

Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini is questionable with a swollen right ankle, perhaps opening up a spot for Federico Peluso on the left side of coach Antonio Conte’s three-man defense. “The match with Napoli is fundamental,” Peluso said.

“We can’t think about our six-point lead.

We’ve just got to think about ourselves.

We know what our goal is and we want to reach it match by match. Tomorrow’s match is definitely a game that will say a lot about the title race.”

Mirko Vucinic and Sebastian Giovinco should line up in attack for Juve, which bounced back from a loss to Roma with a convincing 3-0 win over Siena last weekend. Napoli has drawn its past three matches with just one goal scored and Edinson Cavani, who leads Serie A with 18 goals, has not found the target for four matches. Since Ezequiel Lavezzi’s depar-

UDINE, Italy: Napoli’s Pablo Estifer Armero (right) kicks the ball during a Serie A football match versus Udinese at Friuli Stadium on Feb 25, 2013. — AFP ture to Paris Saint-Germain in the offseason, Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri has struggled to find a replacement in attack alongside Marek Hamsik and Cavani, although he seems set to use veteran Goran Pandev for this match over 21-year-

Spanish League Preview

Portuguese League Preview

Sombre Sporting seek respite against Porto LISBON: Troubled Portuguese Premier League club Sporting are banking on youngsters as they desperately seek some respite from one of their worst campaigns when they host leaders Porto tomorrow. The Lisbon club have lost three of their last four matches and are down in 11th place in the championship, 30 points adrift of Porto. “We knew since the start of the season that it would not be realistic to be champions, because Porto and Benfica are much above us,” Sporting’s 19-year-old Moroccan playmaker Zakaria Labyad told Dutch Voetbalzone magazine.

With Sporting’s budget running thin, coach Jesualdo Ferreira, who took over last month, is betting on youngsters. Technically gifted 18-year-old winger Bruma and 20-year-old defensive midfielder Zezinho caught the eye in the last few matches but Sporting will need to improve dramatically to get a result, having won only five in 20 league matches. Another defeat would pretty much mean Sporting had failed their target of climbing to fifth place and reaching a Europa League spot.

Their sombre mood contrasts with the heroics of reigning champions Porto who remain invincible in the league and are thriving in the Champions League. The twice European champions put on an impressive display at home to grab a 1-0 advantage over Malaga in the first leg of their last-16 Champions League tie. Porto need to beat Sporting to keep up with fierce rivals Benfica, with whom they share the championship lead, both on 52 points from 20 matches. But they have every reason to be confident ahead of the match. Not only have Sporting failed to grab a single goal against them in their last three encounters, but Porto’s attacking arsenal is full of resolve, mainly thanks to in-form Colombia striker Jackson Martinez. — Reuters

old Lorenzo Insigne. Pandev hasn’t scored in 19 matches but he found the net twice against Juve in a 3-3 draw last season in Naples and also gave Napoli a momentary 2-1 lead in the Super Cup - before being sent off for protests. — AP

Madrid host hurting Barca before Utd trip BARCELONA: Five days after its biggest win at Camp Nou in more than a decade, Real Madrid hosts Barcelona again tomorrow in the Spanish league with its decisive Champions League match at Manchester United looming.

Madrid’s defense did a masterful job of neutralizing Barcelona forward Lionel Messi on Tuesday, and its counterattack speared by Cristiano Ronaldo did the rest as the Portugal forward scored twice in the 3-1 win to put Madrid into the Copa del Rey final.

Injured Madrid captain Iker Casillas, out healing a broken hand, said he hoped the victory marked “a turning point” for Madrid with Barcelona. The game at the Santiago Bernabeu transcends the league title race, which Barcelona has well in hand with a 12point lead over second-place Atletico Madrid and Madrid a further four points adrift. Another dominant victory for Madrid could signal a shift in the balance of power between the two fierce rivals that Barcelona has had in its favor for the past five years.

Besides, there’s no better way for Madrid to boost morale for its trip to United next Tuesday than a pair of strong showings against Barcelona.

Madrid will visit United with their last16 series poised at 1-1, giving the

BARCELONA: Barcelona’s defender Gerard Pique (right) vies with Real Madrid’s Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo during the Spanish Cup semifinal second leg at the Camp Nou stadium on Feb 26, 2013. — AFP English club a slight advantage hav- Champions League knockout series ing already scored away from home. and six days later flopped to its “We are strengthened by this win and biggest loss to Madrid at Camp Nou are also more motivated going for- since a 2-0 defeat in April 2002. ward after not starting the league well Twenty head-to-head matches ago, a this season,” Casillas said. “We hope 4-1 loss in 2008 marked the end of the winning this series will mark a turning Frank Rijkaard era at Barcelona. The point for us and especially with arrival of Guardiola, however, started Barcelona. Barcelona, meanwhile, is Barcelona’s most dominant run of its reeling after its worst week of results rivalry with Madrid, including a 6-2 since former coach Pep Guardiola win at Madrid and a 5-0 victory at took over in 2008. Barcelona lost 2-0 Barcelona in the first “clasico” for at AC Milan in the first leg of its Madrid coach Jose Mourinho. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Ibra upstages Beckham as PSG beat Marseille PARIS: Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored twice to help Paris Saint-Germain to a 2-0 win against Marseille in the last 16 of the French Cup on Wednesday as David Beckham made his full debut for his new club. Beckham had an efficient game, and at times excelled, but Swedish striker Ibrahimovic made the difference as he opened the scoring 11 minutes before half time and then netted the second from the penalty spot after being brought down inside the area just past the hour mark. It was PSG’s second win against their great rivals in four days and was achieved by the same scoreline.

However, unlike Sunday’s league clash, there could be no question as to which was the superior side as PSG dominated from start to finish at the Parc des Princes. The win keeps alive PSG’s chances of winning an unprecedented domestic league and cup double, but the game was of much greater interest globally thanks to the presence of veteran Englishman Beckham. “Beckham played

well, as he usually does,” said Carlo Ancelotti. “It was a better match from us than Sunday. Marseille played with a different strategy and that made it easier for us to boss possession. We were more aggressive and controlled the game well.”

After his 15-minute cameo off the bench in Sunday’s Classique, former Manchester United and Real Madrid star Beckham was introduced to the starting line-up as Ancelotti made a total of eight changes to his team in a bid to maintain freshness. In the absence of Thiago Motta due to suspension and Marco Verratti due to injury, the 37-year-old Beckham slotted fairly seamlessly into the central midfield holding role.

Just as he had insisted in the run-up to the game, Beckham appeared in excellent physical condition, and there could be no question that he added something to the hosts’ performance as he showcased his range of passing attributes and occasionally popped up on the right wing to deliver one of his trademark whipped crosses.

His presence again added to the sense of occasion which always makes the fixture so special, but it cannot be forgotten that there is an awful lot more to PSG than one English midfielder in the twilight of his career.

Ibrahimovic has been their unquestionable star this season, even if his recent performances have attracted criticism in some quarters. Those critics might have felt justified when the Swede failed to connect properly with a low cross from Kevin Gameiro after 15 minutes, but he soon stung the palms of Steve Mandanda in the Marseille goal with a shot from 30 yards. And then came the opening goal, Ibrahimovic battering his way past Lucas Mendes as the two players chased a long ball over the top of the Marseille defence before beating Mandanda with an untidy finish that nevertheless underlined PSG’s superiority up to that point.

There was almost a response from Marseille early in the second half when Andre-Pierre Gignac tried his luck with a

snap-shot on the turn that Nicolas Douchez did well to save. However, the visitors were some way short of their best, with their own Englishman Joey Barton struggling to make an impact in midfield, and PSG were handed the chance to increase their lead when Ibrahimovic was unceremoniously brought down inside the box. The Swede then stepped up to score from the penalty spot to make it 2-0.

Beckham played his part in that goal though, with his long ball forward initially releasing Ibrahimovic, and the Englishman was given a standing ovation when he was substituted towards the end. Joining PSG in the quarter-final draw were Lorient, who beat Brittany rivals Brest 3-0 with Jeremie Aliadiere bagging a brace, while Bordeaux and Nancy both progressed against lower-league opposition. On Tuesday, Saint-Etienne beat Lille 3-2, while Ligue 1 strugglers Troyes and Evian-Thonon-Gaillard also advanced to the quarter-finals. — AFP

Atletico set up all Madrid Cup final MUNICH: Bayern Munich’s Dutch midfielder Arjen Robben (left) and Dortmund’s midfielder Marco Reus vie for the ball during their German Cup quarter-final match on Wednesday. — AFP

Robben strikes as Bayern dump Dortmund out MUNICH: Bayern Munich ended their three-year wait for a competitive win over Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday as Arjen Robben’s first-half strike sealed a 1-0 German Cup quarter-final victory. Feb 2010 had been the occasion of Bayern’s last league or cup win over Dortmund - a six-game stretch - but Robben’s thunderbolt two minutes before the break at the Allianz Arena was enough to put Munich in the last four. A pre-season Supercup final win in Munich last August had been Bayern’s only source of comfort against Borussia recently. “We have proved with this result that we are the strongest team in Germany,” boasted Bayern president Uli Hoeness after the final whistle.

Despite having spent much of this season on Bayern’ bench, Robben took over on the left wing from France’s Franck Ribery, who was suspended, to show coach Jupp Heynckes what he has been missing. The 29-year-old ex-Chelsea and Real Madrid star sank to his knees and beat the turf in delight at the final whistle.

“It’s nothing to do with the past, it’s all about now,” beamed Robben when asked if his goal was redemption for previous weeks on the bench. “It was a top game between not only two of the best teams in Germany, but in Europe and I think I’m allowed to be happy.” This was the clash of Germany’s titans - Bayern Munich, 17 points clear in the Bundesliga against defending league champions and cup holders Dortmund, who have dominated the top tier of German football for the last two years.

Robben’s inclusion for the suspended Ribery was the only change from the team which won 3-1 at Arsenal in the Champions League just over a week ago and coach Jupp Heynckes said his side had simply wanted to win more. —AFP

MADRID: Atletico Madrid set up a King’s Cup final with city rivals Real after Diego Costa and Radamel Falcao scored in a 22 second leg draw at Sevilla on Wednesday, to progress 4-3 on aggregate. Costa, who had scored both Atletico goals from the penalty spot in the first leg, put the visitors in charge after carving an opening for himself in the sixth minute and firing low into the far corner. His seventh goal in the Cup made him the competition’s leading scorer this season, one ahead of Real’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Sevilla striker Alvaro Negredo.

The Brazilian striker then broke away down the left and crossed low for Colombia’s Falcao, who darted in front of his marker to score in the 29th. Roared on by a noisy home crowd, Sevilla’s most dangerous player Jesus Navas breathed life back in to the tie with a curling shot that went in off the far post just before the break. Sevilla, who beat Atletico 2-0 in the 2010 Cup final, pressed hard in the second half but did not find a way past Thibaut Courtois again until Ivan Rakitic scored in time added on. By then, Sevilla had lost their cool with Gary Medel being sent off 14 minutes from time, and Geoffrey Kondogbia was red-carded at the end, both for fouls on Costa.

Nine-times Cup winners Atletico will meet their neighbours Real in the May 18 final after Jose Mourinho’s men swept past holders Barcelona on Tuesday to secure a 4-2 aggregate victory. The venue for the match has still to be decided.

“To reach a final is very important for Atletico,” Falcao told Spanish television.

“We went in search of a result from the beginning. We knew they would come at us and leave spaces. We made the most of it and took our chances. On the incidents with Costa, Falcao added: “The end of the game was ugly. These things happen in games with a lot to play for,

SEVILLA: Sevillaís Chilean midfielder Gary Medel (center) kicks the ball during the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup) semi-final second leg match versusAtletico de Madrid at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium on Wednesday. —AFP but we leave it out there on the pitch.”

Costa, 24, has muscled his way into Atletico’s starting team this year with some outstanding performances in recent weeks.

He was a constant thorn in the side for Sevilla with his driving runs, his power in the air, and his ability to get under the skin of his opponents. The fiery Medel saw red after picking up two yellow cards in the same incident, the second for appearing to kick Costa while he was on the ground. Kondogbia received a straight red after he committed a foul on the Brazilian and then stamped on him between his legs. “We know Costa is provocative but we fell for it,” Negredo told Spanish television.

Reaching the final shows the contin-

ued improvement of Atletico since Simeone took the helm just over a year ago. The former Argentina captain, who helped the club win their last Cup as a player in 1996, guided the side to the Europa League final last season where they beat Athletic Bilbao 3-0.

They swept aside Champions League winners Chelsea 4-1 in the season-opening European Super Cup, and have surprised many by holding off Real Madrid to hang on to second place in La Liga behind leaders Barcelona for so long.

Atletico have not beaten Real in over a decade but Simeone was not prepared to discuss the final. “It shows a lack of respect to Sevilla to talk about Real Madrid after this game against a great rival,” he said. — Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Chelsea sink Boro to set up United q-final MIDDLESBROUGH, United Kingdom: Holders Chelsea ground out a 2-0 win at second-tier Middlesbrough on Wednesday to set up an FA Cup quarter-final glamour tie at Manchester United.

Second-half goals from Ramires and Victor Moses secured victory at the Riverside Stadium as Chelsea bounced back from Sunday’s 2-0 loss at Manchester City, which had seen them slip to fourth place in the Premier League. Victory in the fifth-round tie means Chelsea remain on course for what would be a fifth FA Cup title in seven seasons.

Interim manager Rafael Benitez has complained about fixture congestion in recent weeks, but with his side also still in contention in the Europa League, the European champions look set for a busy few weeks.

Chelsea made eight changes to the side beaten by City at the weekend, with Fernando Torres and skipper John Terry both returning to the starting lineup. Oscar and Moses also came back into the team and they almost combined to break the deadlock in the 11th minute, but Oscar could not get enough purchase on his shot from his team-mate’s cut-back.

Chelsea started authoritatively but as the first half wore on, Middlesbrough came back into the game. In the 26th minute, Scott McDonald came close to opening the scoring but his header from Nicky Bailey’s rightwing cross drifted narrowly wide of the right-hand post. The hosts went even closer five minutes before half-time, with Petr Cech spilling a shot from Boro winger Mustapha Carayol and obliging Terry to make a hurried clearance. It therefore came as something as a relief to the visitors when Ramires put them in front six minutes into the second half.

Yossi Benayoun laid the ball back to Ramires and his placed shot from the edge of the box beat goalkeeper Jason Steele with the aid of a slight deflection off the back of the crouching Torres. The goal calmed

Motherwell shock high-flying Celtic GLASGOW: Motherwell moved up to second place in the Scottish Premier League as they inflicted a shock 2-1 defeat on runaway league leaders Celtic on Wednesday. Motherwell handed a first starting slot to prodigal son James McFadden but it was Nicky Law who inspired the Fir Park side as he set up Chris Humphrey for the opener in the 31st minute. It took Celtic an hour to have a shot on target but they found themselves level in the 63rd minute when Georgios Samaras, who was returning from a long injury lay-off, headed past Darren Randolph.

However, Motherwell responded excellently and took the lead for the second time when Law crossed for Michael Higdon to volley high into the net at the far post. The Glasgow giants still hold a massive 19-point lead at the top of the table but the win put Stuart McCall’s side in pole position to clinch the second Champions League slot in the SPL. Motherwell made a positive start when Keith Lasley tried his luck with an effort from 25 yards but a deflection took the pace out his shot and it was easily gathered.

Celtic almost took the lead in the 27th minute in bizarre circumstances when a dangerous cross from James Forrest came off the standing leg of Shaun Hutchinson and headed towards goal only for Randolph to pounce on it. However, it was Motherwell who drew first blood in the 31st minute. Law twisted and turned on the edge of the box to get away from Victor Wanyama before driving a shot across goal. His effort was going wide before Humphrey popped up at the back post to poke the ball high into the net for only his second goal of the season.

Celtic struggled to find a way back into the game and didn’t have their first shot on target until nearly the hour mark when Commons made room for a shot but his shot lacked power and Randolph got down low to stop it. Samaras hauled the Hoops level in the 63rd minute. Anthony Stokes played in the on-rushing Forrest who sent in a superb cross to the front post where Samaras got in front of Hutchinson to glance a header past Randolph. The goal spurned the home side into action and Higdon fired them in front again.—AFP

MIDDLESBROUGH: Chelsea’s Ramires (left) vies for the ball with Middlesbrough’s Curtis Main during their English FA Cup fifth round match at the Riverside Stadium on Wednesday. — AP Chelsea’s nerves and after Steele had tipped over a shot from Torres, Terry headed wide at a corner. Eden Hazard replaced Benayoun and the Belgian quickly created Chelsea’s second goal in the 73rd minute, neatly exchanging passes with Oscar and speeding into the

box before squaring for Moses to score from close range. The hosts produced a flurry of late chances, with Cech notably saving from Ishamel Miller, but Chelsea survived to take their place in the last eight and take some of the heat off the under-fire Benitez. — AFP

Angry Benitez blasts fans, confirms exit LONDON: Interim manager Rafael Benitez’s patience with the Chelsea fans finally snapped on Wednesday as he confirmed he will leave the club at the end of the season.

Benitez has been targeted by sections of the club’s support ever since he was appointed as the successor to Roberto Di Matteo last November. Chelsea beat Middlesbrough 2-0 on Wednesday to reach the FA Cup quarterfinals and they are also in the last 16 of the Europa League, but they have slipped to fourth place in the Premier League.

Benitez was only appointed on a temporary basis but he confirmed in an angry press conference that the abuse he has received from some of Chelsea’s fans had prompted him to abandon his ambition to coach the team on a permanent basis. “I have been in charge in football for 26 years,” he said after the victory at Middlesbrough. “I have won the Champions League, won the FIFA Club World Cup, the FA Cup, the Italian Super Cup, the Spanish league twice, nine trophies, all the trophies you can win at club level. “A group of fans, they are not doing any favours for the team when they are singing and wasting time preparing banners.”

Benitez also appeared to take issue with the Chelsea management for insisting on the temporary nature of his employment. “It’s because someone made a mistake. They put my title ‘interim manager’, and I will leave at the end of the season, so they (the fans) don’t need to waste time with me,” he said. “They have to concentrate on supporting the team, that’s what they have to do. In the end, they

are not doing any favours to the club, to the rest of the fans and to the players.

“Every game they continue singing and they continue preparing banners, they are wasting time. What they have to do is support the team. If we cannot achieve what we

LONDON: Chelsea’s Spanish interim manager Rafael Benitez gestures during the second leg of the UEFA Europa League round of 32 football match between Chelsea and Sparta Prague in this Feb 21, 2013 photo. — AFP

expect to achieve, that is to be in the top four and be in the Champions League for next year, I will leave. They will stay in the Europa League and they have to take responsibility too. I am the manager and I will be managing the team. I pick my team and I will make decisions. And then I will leave anyway - because I’m interim, as they say - so they’re wasting their time.”

Benitez was roundly booed during his initial appearances in the Chelsea dugout and was also the target of jeers during the game at Middlesbrough. His critics among Chelsea’s supporters were aggrieved by the appointment of a man who previously spent six years at Liverpool during a period of intense rivalry between the two clubs. The 52-year-old Spaniard alluded to the problems caused by his Liverpool connections, saying: “Why put ‘interim’ in the title? Why did they need to do that? Maybe they thought, ‘He was at Liverpool, so put ‘interim’.’”

His comments are unlikely to be appreciated by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and with the Russian billionaire not known for his tolerance of dissent, it remains to be seen if Benitez - appointed until the end of the season - will still be in charge when Chelsea play United in the Cup on March 10.

But a spokesperson for the club said: “It’s business as usual.” Benitez was expected to take training as scheduled yesterday as the European champions began preparations for tomorrow’s league game with West Bromwich Albion. — Agencies

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Atletico set up all Madrid Cup final Page 46

www.kuwaittimes.net

Benitez blasts Chelsea fans, confirms exit Page 47

MIDDLESBROUGH: Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez is seen during his team’s match against Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium on Wednesday. —AP