11 Oct

RI PT IO N BS C SU THE LEADING INDEPENDENT DAILY IN THE ARABIAN GULF

40 PAGES

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010

THULQIDA 3, 1431 AH

Israeli Cabinet passes loyalty bill, Arabs angry

N Korea puts military might and heir apparent on display

Abu Dhabi shifts plans, delays green city project

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conspiracy theories

By Badrya Darwish

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By B Izzak

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KUWAIT: GCC oil ministers (from right), Oman’s Mohammad Al-Rumhi, UAE’s Mohammed Al-Hamli, Bahrain’s Abdul-Hussain Mirza, Saudi Arabia’s Ali Al-Nuaimi, Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah, Qatar’s Abdullah Al-Attiyah and GCC assistant general secretary for economic affairs Mohammad Al-Mazroui, pose for a photo prior to the GCC oil ministers’ meeting yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Gulf vows stable oil Kuwait calls for joint GCC energy projects

By Nisreen Zahreddine and Agencies KUWAIT: Oil ministers of the world’s leading producers in the Gulf wound up a joint meeting yesterday by vowing to achieve price stability on the international markets, ahead of an OPEC meeting. “The oil market has witnessed many developments that obliged us as major producers to counter more challenges in the way of achieving stability of the oil price and markets,” Kuwait’s Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Al-Sabah told the gathering.

Sheikh Ahmad said that Kuwait has insisted on using the wealth generated from natural resources properly since the start of oil production. He confirmed that Kuwait is interested in working on shared projects, especially in the oil sector, by coordinating the standards of international parties on several issues such as oil, energy and the environment. He stressed the fact that GCC countries are always eager to satisfy their clients by providing high quality products that apply to international standards and are environmentally friendly.

Sheikh Ahmad pointed out the important role media plays in educating society on oil information as well as promoting transparency by publishing oil industry news. He added that GCC states have executed programs on oil education in schools and universities in addition to developing educational TV and radio programs. Sheikh Ahmad said that providing additional motives for the private sector to Continued on Page 13

RAYAK, Lebanon: An aerial view taken from a military helicopter yesterday shows the world’s largest national flag at the Rayak airbase in the eastern Bekaa valley. — AFP

Lebanon flags up record BEIRUT: Having breezed through several world records in the culinary field Lebanon has now gone for the big one the world’s largest national flag, and so huge it needed an airfield. The Lebanese military yesterday released a picture taken from the air of the massive flag, stitched in Kuwait, assembled in Lebanon and covering 65,000 sq m “unfurled”.

Continued on Page 13

Vettel leads Red Bull one-two in Japan

Committee indicts interior minister

Zubaidi or gold? on’t eat tomatoes! Don’t eat fish!

Don’t eat meat! I cannot advise you to go vegetarian because even the price of vegetables is skyrocketing. It all started with the tomato revolution and it looks like the revolution has spread to fish and meat. As usual, revolutions can easily spread. In all honesty, fish has always been expensive in Kuwait for many years. I love to go to the seaside to buy fish. I cannot recall for the last five years that the price of zubaidi (pomfret) has come down to less than KD 6 or KD 5 per kilo. Now, the price has doubled to KD 10 or KD 12. I think the beautiful zubaidis are competing with the price of gold.

Earlier there was compensation with the availability of many other kinds of fish which were reasonably-priced within the reach of the middle class. Leave the zubaidi for the rich men. This has been the case for many years and we never bothered as there were other kinds of fish. In my opinion, they even taste better. It is just a matter of taste as many people love zubaidi. For instance, a basket of rubyan (shrimps) that weighs 20 kg used to cost as much as KD 20 to KD 30. Now the minimum is KD 70. Nueby used to be reasonably-priced for people of less income. Now its price is soaring up to KD 75. The worst of all is a small kind of fish called ‘maid’ that nobody bothered about and which used to cost 200 fils per kilo. Now a basket of maid costs KD 50. Isn’t this a crazy price rise for a tiny fish called maid, which many people did not even choose for their tables before?

The government is justifying the high price with the fishermen’s strike. The fishermen throw the ball in the government’s yard and the government then kicks it back to their net. One of the major demands of the fishermen is that the kind of ecological fishnet that they are forced to use has been imposed by the government.

In all honesty, I prefer the fish from outside of Kuwait, especially in the wake of the Mishref sewage affair. Every time I see local fish from Kuwait, it looks fat, maybe because it is well-fed with the sewage. A friend of mine has been wondering why you eat the fish and you fall asleep immediately. No, thanks. I will opt for even frozen fish from the Indian Ocean or I can go as far as Vietnam. It is cheaper, clean and it is still fish. I hope they don’t realize the potential of frozen fish which people will start buying and in effect, increase the price.

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Amir calls on Arabs, Africans to boost ties SIRTE, Libya: HH the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah called on African and Arab nations yesterday to bolster ties among them to face rising global challenges and achieve the aspirations of their peoples for greater cooperation. “The African and Arab worlds guided by historic links, long heritage, interests and hopes and joint fate and in accordance with the aspirations of Continued on Page 13

SIRTE, LIBYA: HH the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah attends the ArabAfrican joint summit yesterday. — KUNA

KUWAIT: The National Assembly’s interior and defense committee dropped a bombshell yesterday when it indicted the interior minister and held him responsible for the release of two Iranian drug traffickers before investigation or trial amid sharp conflicting statements by the panel members. Rapporteur and spokesman of the committee MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri said the five-member panel voted to indict Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled Al-Sabah by three votes to two.

Later, head of the committee MP Askar Al-Enezi and member MP Saad Al-

Khanfour cast doubt over the outcome of the voting, with Askar insisting that he did not find any evidence to indict the minister while Khanfour hinted at the possibility of having another vote. However, Muwaizri insisted that the vote was final and the committee will submit its report and recommendations on the issue to the Assembly next week for further action.

The committee was asked by the Assembly in late June to investigate allegations by MP Musallam AlBarrak that the interior minister ordered the release of the two Iranian brothers.

Barrak said that the two Iranians were arrested and

in the news Kuwait arrests Iraqi fishermen KUWAIT: Kuwaiti coastguards have arrested five Iraqi fishermen on board two boats for violating the state’s territorial waters, an interior ministry official statement said yesterday. The statement, cited by the official KUNA news agency, said the Kuwaitis intercepted the two vessels for fishing inside their territorial waters. Legal measures have been taken against the five Iraqis, the ministry statement said without elaborating. It did not say when the incident took place.

Fatwa defends Prophet’s wife RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Islamic authority Saturday issued a strong defense of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) wife Aisha, after a Kuwaiti activist’s attack on her fed new tensions between the region’s Sunnis and Shiites. The General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta, the official fatwaissuing body of the government, attacked what it called “libelous, insulting and damning” statements against Aisha.

“Insulting the companions of the messenger of Allah, or impugning his family’s honour via his wives, is committing a great crime, especially talking about (Aisha),” it said in a statement on the official SPA news agency. The statement, which has the weight of an official fatwa, or authoritative religious opinion, appeared to be a reaction to the disparaging remarks against Aisha made in early September by exiled Kuwaiti Shiite fugitive Yasser Al-Habeeb. Aisha is held up as “The Mother of Believers” by Muslims.

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Monday, October 11, 2010

‘Price increase due to lack of supply’

By Nisreen Za hreddine KUWAIT: Ahma d Al-Haroun, the Minister of Commerce a nd Industry asserted that the price rise is not a loca l issue, a nd that it is connected to the interna tional ma rket conditions, and the situa tion of supply and demand. Al-Haroun w as spea king during a w eekly seminar held a t the Arab Media Forum hosted by General Secretary Madi Al-Khamis. Severa l issues w ere ra ised during the seminar. Al-Ha roun explained to attendees tha t the new a mendments ma de to commercia l la ws like the Kuw ait Stock Exchange Authority Law , Chamber of Commerce law upda ted amendments.

Al-Haroun explained that the price rise issue is an offshoot of international problems and is considered ‘seasonal’ due to the lack of supply during certain seasons, “This is natural. We are an importing country, we are influenced by the ups and downs of the agricultural seasons worldwide”, he explained. AlHaroun pointed out that Kuwait is one of the countries in the Arab World where food items are sold at subsidized rates.

Other Arab countries also suffer from the high price of tomatoes. He predicted that the price of legumes would also shoot up, adding that the government had taken precautionary measures and that the country has enough reserves for at least six months. The minister assured that the government body has been trying to break merchants’ monopoly, especially those that have been hiking prices in an artificial manner.

Al-Haroun stressed the importance of issuing new regulations that fit in with the latest world trends as part of HH Amir’s vision to transform Kuwait into a financial and commercial hub. He also spoke at length about the new regulations placed in several fields. First, the Kuwait Stock Exchange authority law which is strongly linked to the companies law, then the competition protection law which is being prepared for implementation, in addition to a privatization law which is expected to boost market inflows.

Real estate expert Sulaiman AlDejjan and General Manager of AlMadina Investment Company Khaled AlMuttawaa also attended the seminar questioned the obstacles and persistent problems that plague the real estate

market in Kuwait, including the new companies’ law. Al-Haroun explained that the real estate market needs to be completely revamped. The government has been encouraging its institutions and companies to complete real market transaction through ‘Makassa’ or bidding company’ that was established to tackle all the real estate transactions to prevent manipulation and speculation.

Al-Haroun underplayed the so-called problem of the Chamber of Commerce.

He accused the media of blowing the issue out of proportion. He, at the same time, pointed out that the new amendments made to the law are legal and any amendment is considered legal, and ready for implementation, after it passes through the legal and bureaucratic channels.

Al-Haroun announced that the Industrial authority executed around 102 industrial projects in Amghara and Sabhan areas, in addition to 1,062 industrial establishments. More studies are being conducted in Al-Naaeim, west to Kuwait City to set up heavy industries.

Finally Al-Haroun described the influence of the global economic crisis on Kuwait as ‘normal,’ as a player in the international market. He stressed that the country’s banks operate safely as they possess collateral against deposits, and most Kuwaitis are civil servants and their purchasing power has not been affected by the financial crisis, especially in terms of deposits made to the private sector that exceeds 24 billion dollars. Al-Haroun drew attention to the fact that the government has been backing up every Kuwaiti by providing a sum of KD 300 KD per month.

Panel’s approach to KCCI law non-neutral KUWAIT: A parliament member recently described the financial and economic committee’s finalized draft law for the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) as non-neutral, reported AlQabas.

The parliament’s financial panel received criticism following the completion of the new draft law for not consulting with current members of the chamber’s board. In a recent statement made to the press, MP Ali Al-Rashid said that he also should have been consulted given the fact that he was one of the MPs who proposed challenging the chamber’s status from a legal standpoint.

Meanwhile, Al-Rashid described the claims made by those who believe KCCI’s status is illegal as flimsy and criticized the panel’s disregard of KCCI’s board members opinions. “How come (KCCI’s) members are consulted about several other draft laws but are ignored when it comes to discussing a law regarding their own organization?” the MP pointed out.

Meanwhile, MP Naji Al-Abdulhadi claimed that some within the government are deliberately obstructing the process to come up with a means to finance the development plan’s projects and to establish shareholding companies that will execute these projects.

Tomato prices to increase again KUWAIT: After their recent gradual drop which indicated that the problem is about to end, prices of tomatoes are expected to increase again soon after a number of suppliers refrained from importing more stock from outside. Moreover, the problem this time might escalate to alarming levels since the current supply is mostly reserved by catering companies, hotels and restaurants. Suppliers complain that the prices of vegetables have increased in their countries of origin including Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, which put together with the increase of cargo charges, would make them suffer a lot of losses. In the meantime, the market suffers from a severe shortage in local produce since the local-

grown tomatoes are currently out of its picking season.

Separately, head of the labor union at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has recently claimed that the ministry is currently unable to maintain a sufficient supervision for the local markets against price increases, and that due to the shortages in inspectors that has been ongoing for a long time Al Rai reported.

Furthermore, Ajmi Al-Mutalaqim, who is also the head of the National Association for Kuwait Workers, also indicated that the union had offered to provide the ministry with inspectors to fill the voids; however the ministry refused to allow those inspectors to work.

KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah with Benin’s President Yayi Boni. — KUNA

kuwait digest

Wisdom dawns now

By D r W a ’el Al-Ha sa w i

I

asked a friend to explain the problems faced by the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). The answer? The reasons behind the problem are the same as with most other problems in the country, including the sports issue, reforming the Public Authority for Youths and Sports’ board, the appointments made to the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the selection of the director of the disabled citizens’ authority, and the election of a new rector to the Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET).

The answer is simple. The authorities responsible for managing the country’s affairs do not respect the Cabinet and Parliament. Every one fights to reap the most benefit regardless of the general outcome. This is my friend’s conclusion.

They say that vultures always hover

over areas were injured people or animals have fallen. Whenever I see former MPs or potential candidates deeply engaged in activities with the aim of receiving membership from the Parliament, regardless of whether they visit diwaniyas or strengthen their media presence, I sense that casualties are about to result. And by casualties, I mean that a potential dissolution of the Parliament is impending, which has prompted activists to begin preparations early - such as the action taken by current MP Saadoun Al-Otaibi who has shifted his base to the third constituency instead of the fifth.

With all the disagreements present with the current Parliament, compiled by government figures based on sectarian and tribal aspects, the continuous pressure faced by hard-line MPs to dissolve it is strange. Will that help create a parliament of elite members that can rectify corruption. — Al-R a i

Have small mullets turned plus sized?

KUWAIT: Several years ago, Kuwait had experienced a unique phenomenon in which fish began dying in its waters en masse. Tons of fish, namely the small mullet variety (locally known as “maid”) were killed, reported Al-Watan. It noted that, Kuwait is experiencing a different incident with regard to the same species of fish.

Officials from the Environment Public Authority (EPA) said that small mullets have doubled in size, at an alarming rate, by storing more oil in their bodies. Officials explained that the species’ began doubling in size following the Mishref sewage water spillage incident. Enormous amounts of sewage water was dumped in the sea, increasing the amount of organic nourishment available to small mullets that thrive near the shallow waters. Officials added that some fish had changed in shape as well, which calls for conducting large-scale studies to probe the negative impact of a drastic change.

Furthermore, officials also asserted that the chlorine levels had increased in the sea as the Ministry of Public Works had been using to treat sewage water, ‘The problem lies not only in the genetic make-up of some varieties of fish, the water’s chemical composition too has altered, turning into swamp-like ponds,’ officials warned.

While Mohammed AlEraifan, Chairman of Kuwait Fishermen Union, confirmed that mullets were expanding in size, Dr Sulaiman Al-Mutar, Manager of Fish Farming and Fish Resources Department, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research denied the existence such a phenomenon and asserted that mullets were still in normal sizes and that such a ‘thing’ was not likely to happen.

Kuwaiti University’s Marine Sciences expert, Dr Salem AlMuhanna rejected the idea that fish would get any larger. Yet, he stressed that it would require at least three years to arrive at a sound scientific judgment after conducting extensive studies, ‘The oversized ‘maid’ could be a new type of mullets that migrated to Kuwaiti waters from elsewhere,’ he underlined.

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Bleached coral reefs show signs of recovery KUWAIT: Algae are re-growing and fish swarming some of the deteriorating coral reefs off Kuwait, signs of restoring life, the Kuwait Diving Team announced yesterday.

Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ashkenani, in charge of the environmental projects in the team, told KUNA that some of the bleached coral reefs

showed signs of recovery with the re-growth of the algae and re-appearance of swarms of fish swirling around the locations.

The divers, who scoured the sites off the coast, located some locations with full bleaching, many “dead ones,” noting drop of the water temperature by three degress, reaching 32 degrees, he said, renewing the

call on visitors of these locations to refrain from harmful action to the corals.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Ashkenani declared the first successful Kuwaiti experience of planting coral settlements at Umm Al-Mardem island, after completing a special session in the Maldives, in coordination with French experts. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Fishermen on strike at the Sharq Warf yesterday. — Photos by Ben Garcia

Fish prices soar to new highs as fishermen strike ‘We have agreed not to work until our demands are met’

By Ben Garcia

Vendors waiting for customers

Egyptian pedestrian killed in Farwaniya KUWAIT: An Egyptian pedestrian was killed after he was struck by a car in Farwaniya, reported Al-Watan. The man was struck while crossing the road by a speeding car. The man suffered a fatal head injury and was pronounced dead by paramedics.

Swimmer drowns An Egyptian man drowned while swimming near the Kuwait Towers, reported AlWatan. The man was pulled into deep water by the current and drowned while trying to reach the shore.

Armed robbery A 44-year-old Iranian grocery store employee was badly injured during an armed robbery in Salmiya, reported AlWatan. The man was attacked by a group of thieves after he refused to cooperate and was stabbed in the neck and head several times. Paramedics responded to the emergency and admitted the man to Mubarak Hospital’s intensive care unit. Investigators are still searching for the thieves.

Fight An Indian man fell unconscious after he was stabbed by

a compatriot in Ahmadi, reported Al-Watan. Paramedics brought the 25-year-old to Adan Hospital while police apprehended the man’s assailant.

Abortion An Ethiopian woman attempted to perform an abortion on herself in public after becoming pregnant as a result of an illegal relationship, reported Al-Watan. An ambulance reported to the scene in Adan and brought the woman to Adan Hospital where the abortion procedure was completed. Authorities were able to determine the identity of the person responsible for making the woman pregnant.

Public shooting Police arrested a citizen for shooting pedestrians with a handgun for fun, reported AlQabas. Officials responded to an emergency call in Salwa from workers at a public school who complained that someone was firing a gun in their direction. Authorities were able to arrest those responsible for the shooting based on the description they received from the victims. The culprit, a person in his 20s, was found to be under

the influence of alcohol. When questioned, he explained that he fired shots at pedestrians for fun. He was referred to the public prosecutor.

Burglar maid A maid was arrested while trying to escape from the country with her sponsor’s jewelry, reported Al-Rai. The woman fooled her sponsor into believing that she had to travel back home because of an illness in her family. While bringing the maid to the airport however, the sponsor received a phone call from his wife informing him that some of her jewelry was missing. The man brought the woman to the Ardiya police station and filed a case against his maid. When questioned, the woman admitted to trying to escape with the jewelry and a search of her luggage revealed the stolen items. She was referred to the proper authorities.

Hit and run Police are searching for the person responsible for hitting a 9-year-old child in Sulaibikhat with his car and fleeing the scene, reported Al-Rai. The child was struck while crossing the street by a German-made

maroon vehicle. An Asian pedestrian who witnessed the incident recorded the car’s license plate number and provided it, as well as a description of the vehicle, to authorities.

The boy suffered several broken bones and was brought to Sabah Hospital.

Car thieves caught Ahmadi police arrested a group of people responsible for stealing cars left running by their drivers, reported AlAnba. Two of the thieves were caught while trying to steal a vehicle in front of an Al-Thahar bank branch. When questioned, the two young thieves confessed to trying to steal the car and led police to the whereabouts of their four accomplices. They were all referred to the proper authorities.

False alarm Authorities recently reported to an old military camp in Doha after a citizen placed an emergency call regarding the suspicious activities of a group of armed men, reported AlAnba. When police responded to the scene they discovered that the suspicious individuals were just American soldiers playing a game of baseball.

KUWAIT: The prices of fish have already skyrocketed in recent weeks mostly owing to high demand following Ramadan. It is expected to soar to new highs due to the ongoing strike being staged by expatriate fishermen, with the support of local sponsors.

The group demands better treatment and the lifting of several ‘sanctions’ on Kuwaiti territorial waters.

“Yes, we are still on strike. We have agreed not to work until our demands are met,” said Ahmed, one of the protesting fishermen at the Sharq Warf yesterday.

“There are officials that have already spoken to our representative, but I think, they haven’t reached an agreement as yet. We’ll wait for their instructions before resuming normal work again,” he told Kuwait Times.

The prices of fish in the market have already been affected and some vendors admitted to prices increasing again since yesterday, “At least now, we still have fish to sell. Some are imported from neighboring countries, but I don’t know about tomorrow,” commented a fish vendor when asked if fish supplies were sufficient.

Yesterday’s shrimp auction was normal according to some vendors, but what was noticeable was a considerably less display of fish in the market. The Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) has imposed a ban on using nylon nets for trawling purposes, in compliance with the agreement signed between all the GCC countries for ecological reasons.

However, the Kuwait Fisherman Association has argued that the proposed replacement (cotton net) was not only weak, but also unsuitable for commercial fishing.

Besides, they claimed that none of the GCC countries who are signatories to the nylon net ban charter have enforced or applied the ban. The fishermen also complained of strict rules that govern the ban on fishing ‘maids’ (a kind of edible but tiny fish) in the Kuwaiti bay.

Despite efforts made by some representatives, they complain that their demands were allegedly being ignored and that many offenders were being deported.

Ring roads to be expanded KUWAIT: The Ministry of Public Works (MPW) has conducted recent studies to assess the traffic capacity of Second and Third Ring roads, as well as the Cairo and Damascus roads.

These were conducted as part of the preparations made to assess the necessary requirements needed to create mass road development projects with the aim of coping with increasing

traffic capacity until 2030, reported Al-Qabas.

According to a news report, the ministry had previously asked an international company to cooperate with a local consultant to develop these roads. These studies maintained that the roads’ maximum speed was at 80 kilometers per hour, while extending them to three lanes at opposite directions.

Kuwait relics authority plans exhibit in Milan KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Dar Al-Athar AlIslamiyyah (DAI) (House of Islamic Antiquities) announced yesterday its planned inauguration of ‘Al-Fann: Art from the Islamic Civilisation Exhibition’ in the Italian city of Milan on October 19.

DAI said in a press release the exhibition would be attended by Minister of Oil and Minister of Information Sheikh Ahmad AlAbdullah Al-Sabah, representing His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah. Mayor of Milan Mrs. Lerizia Moratti will premiere at Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy, the exhibition along with diplomatic, academic and public figures from both countries.

DAI Curator Sheikha Hessa Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah will hold a news conference (in English with Italian translation), in the presence of Mayor Moratti, where they will make a quick tour of the exhibition. Later that day, the official opening ceremony of the exhibition will be held at 6 pm.

The exhibition has the ambitious purpose of giving a proper response to the growing interest in the rich culture of Islamic civilization and

to give this culture the balanced representation of the scholar, suffused with the passion of the art-lover.

It is indeed a difficult but fascinating task to endeavour to give an idea of the many centuries of Islamic culture’s history and of the vastness of the lands (from Spain to China) where that civilization has grown, involving artistic encounters, exchanges and influences with respect to other civilizations, the statement added. To present it in a package of undiminished impact, a collection of about 350 objects made of different materials, from ivory to glass, from stucco to metalwork, to pottery, rock crystals, manuscripts, woodwork, stones and textiles, including carpets, have been chosen for the exhibition.

The proposed progression of the exhibition is rather simple and linear. The first part is organized in a chronological way, from the earliest objects up to representatives of the empires of the sixteen-hundreds, that is the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal territories.

Other sections are dedicated to emphasizing particular themes. These include calligraphy in

the Arabic alphabet (probably the most original expression of Islam), which is to be seen throughout the exhibition and which is a substrate constantly present in its art.

Geometric patterns and compositions, in which the artists, so often anonymous, applied themselves with unparalleled mastery of science, creating powerful artistic images.

Arabesques, which are formally organized and endlessly repeated floral patterns, display an extraordinary virtuosity and endless fantasy.

And negating the myth and common perception that Islamic art is devoid of representations of the earthly world are a number of examples demonstrating the special styles and exalted mastery of the artists who drew, painted and carved such representations.

A separate section is dedicated to Islamic jewels, which, like those of other civilizations, are rightly celebrated as works of art. In this area, the Al-Sabah Collection’s holdings are unparalleled worldwide. In addition to the artistic conception and execution of their designs, these pieces document the importance of light in art as a source of wonder. — KUNA

Sheikha Hessa Sabah Al-Salem AlSabah

Monday, October 11, 2010

in my view

Time to get Kuwait Airways back!

By Fouad Al-Obaid

A

t an age and in a time when the ancient East-West silk and spice routes are no longer in existence, newer routes that cross over to the Middle East region have sprung to emulate the role of the old routes, and more importantly prosper from such roads. In today’s world, airlines and trans-shipment ports are the motors of growth to some countries in our region, and the potential for more growth is there. When looking into the phenomenal growth of GCC airlines primed by the likes of Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad, one comes to see a successful pattern that we ourselves could very well benefit from - should we decide to leave old quarrels and open the road for the rise of a new national carrier from the ashes of today’s Kuwait Airways.

Without going into the woes of the current airline, I would like to praise the two private carriers that have grown to regional respectability in a relatively short period of time. Both AlJazeera and Wataniya have managed in a short period of time, to bring some new possibilities to a local market that demands quality aviation linking Kuwait to our major trading partners.

I for one hope and look forward to the proposed expansion of the current airport, and I hope though knowing in advance that the capacity to deliver new airplanes to a new or revamped national carrier would take time due to the impressive backlogs both Boeing and Airbus have, it would nonetheless pave the way in the medium term to the rise of a new airline that would be equipped with the most modern and advanced airplanes available on the market. The re-launch of a privatized carrier should bring impetus to a plan to diversify the economy and with it allow for a greater flow of individuals, increasing competition on the East-West global axis.

The new airline should be at the epicenter of Kuwait’s foreign policy strategy linking our growing network of embassies and their host countries to Kuwait. We could use the new carrier as a vector to propagate; through efficient branding the vision of peace and tolerance that Kuwait champions. Further, it could be properly done to catalyze the local economy by offering direct flights on a new modern fleet.

One issue that would need to be looked into would be the possibility of offering alcoholic beverages on board flights, as is the case with the main competing carriers. Though prohibited on national soil, it could become an issue especially when facing tough competition from regional carriers that are all based in Muslim countries. Not doing so would mean that we do not consider them as such. Though the issue could be delicate, the government should bear in mind the highest national priority as opposed to a Parliament, which I assume would be less than enthusiastic about such a prospect.

I request all those concerned to consider the long-term ramification of losing out a lucrative international market that has the ability to offer employment to a large portion of the national workforce all along, easing the gradual diversification of the national economy.

— foua d@kuw aittimes.net

Ministries consulted over ‘kafeel’ system cancelation KUWAIT: The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL) recently contacted other government authorities to obtain their opinions on the proposed move to scrap the sponsorship system. In addition, they also discussed the Manpower and Government Restructuring Program, with the possibility of devising a mechanism to shift certain specialties that are currently handled by the MGRP, to a manpower public authority which will be established as one of the solutions to finding an alternative to the ‘kafeel’ system.

The representatives from the MSAL and other bodies held discussions with a visiting team from the Human Rights Watch, about procedures that will be taken by the Kuwaiti government to eliminate the sponsorship system.

They also provided the HRW representatives with an explanation about intended plans. The MSAL is also said to have completed organizational structure of the soon to be set up Manpower Public Authority.

It will consist of five main departments: a department to recruit manpower, a financial and administrative department, a legal department, a planning and development department, as well as a department for manpower affairs. At least 13 other subdivisions will be affiliated to this, including a newly established subdivision to assess the requirements of public firms, reported AlQabas. One of the proposed alternatives is the establishment of a shareholding public corporation to sponsor all employees employed with country’s public sector.

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GCC discusses ‘Green’ initiative and sustainable development First session of the 26th GCC environmental coordination committee meeting KUWAIT: Participants in the first session of the 26th GCC environmental coordination committee meeting discussed yesterday here a number of key issues, mainly the GCC ‘Green’ initiative and sustainable development.

During the session, outcomes of the third committee meeting of the initiative, as well as recommendations of the 25th GCC environmental coordination committee meeting, were discussed.

The initiative is seen as of the most significant in relation to the Gulf environmental framework.

Other topics discussed included concerned regional and international agreements; such as the

ones on preserving wildlife, biological diversity and protection of falcons, in addition to accords on climate change and the Ozone layer.

Director General of the Environment Public Authority (EPA) in Kuwait Dr Salah Al-Mudhi said the meeting’s first session focused on three main issues; the ‘Green’ initiative, approving the GCC general secretariat to participate in UN agreements on climate change, protection of the Ozone layer, desertification and biological diversity as a supervisor, and lastly showcasing the GCC’s achievements in the domain of protecting the Ozone layer.

Al-Mudhi, in a speech marking the commencement of the committee meeting earlier yesterday, said efforts exerted by GCC countries to protect the environment would contribute in bringing points of view closer, as the meeting is a prelude to the 14th GCC ministerial meeting for the environment.

The ministerial meeting is due next Tuesday here, with Minister of Commerce and Industry Ahmad Al-Haroun representing the Deputy Premier, Minister of Defense and Chairman of the Higher Council of the Environment Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

Pointing out to Kuwait’s keenness on protecting marine life, especially after being hit with a range of intoxicants within the last three decades, Al-Mudhi said EPA brought experts from the World Bank to come up with an assessment to rehabilitate marine life in Kuwait and the GCC waters.

Finally, he hoped for more progress to be attained in the future in order to limit deterioration of natural resources, advising all to cooperate with the GCC general secretariat in order to complement environmental action within the Gulf region. — KUNA

Cross section of the audience during the symposium. —Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Dr Frank Hu

Dasman Diabetes Institute hosts obesity, diabetes symposium KUWAIT: Dr Frank Hu, MD, PhD, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, yesterday hosted a symposium on ‘Epidemiologic Methods in Obesity and Diabetes Research’ at the Dasman Diabetes Institute. The symposium was attended by many healthcare pro-

KUWAIT: A prominent Kuwaiti female lawyer called yesterday for amending some of the national laws and regulations concerning women’s rights for sake of attaining equality between two genders.

Najla Al-Naqi, speaking at a forum, organized by the Community Development Department in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, said some legislations concerning the rights of women should be amended “to achieve the principle of equality and justice,” as stipulated by the Kuwaiti Constitution as well as international and regional conventions, signed by the State of Kuwait.

The gathering, themed “providing a mechanism to address issues of priority for the women in Kuwait,” started yesterday and would continue until December 14.

Al-Naqi shed light, in particular, in her opening address, on some of the “discrimination aspects against women in the Kuwaiti laws and legislations,” especially the social-civil rights, approved by the Kuwaiti Constitution and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW International), joined by Kuwait in 1994.

For her part, the (ministry) Director of Community Development Sheikha Al-Adwani said in a press statement after the opening of the forum, that the gathering aimed at educating and sensitizing the community by shedding light on social, family, development issues and women’s affairs in particular.

She added that the forum would include 11 lectures given by a group of specialists, with an interest in women’s issues. — KUNA

fessionals from different hospitals and clinics across Kuwait, including Dr. Kazem Behbehani, the Director General of the Dasman Diabetes Institute.

During the symposium, Dr. Hu discussed various diabetes and obesity-related health issues and the correlation between obesity and diabetes melli-

tus, as well as the potential consequences.

The Dasman Diabetes Institute constantly seeks to promote awareness among the local population by holding such symposiums and lectures, aiming to always stay abreast of the latest research and studies into all diabetes-related diseases. This

is achieved through cooperation with experts and researchers from other nations worldwide, demonstrating the institute’s interest in health, science and development and the exchange of expertise with the best universities and medical centers in the world.

Discrimination against women in some laws should be tackled

KUWAIT: Lawyer Najla Al-Naki speaks during the launch of the Kuwaiti Women Convention. — KUNA

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Panel to finalize anti-corruption law KUWAIT: The Parliament’s legislative affairs committee is planning to finalize its final report on anti-corruption and financial assets disclosure draft laws. This will be done during the meeting scheduled to be held next Sunday, regardless of whether the Cabinet spells out its policies on these

laws or not. The rapportuer of the committee MP Dr Waleed Al-Tabtabae said that it cannot wait any longer for the Cabinet to provide its report, “especially since the time period that they had asked for had already expired a year ago.”

Meanwhile, the National Action Bloc

(NAB) will convene meet today to discuss the sports issue. It will feature participation of MPs Saleh Al-Mullah and Adel AlSaraawi who have failed to attend previous meetings that are held for the same purpose.

The meeting is widely speculated to be

decisive, especially in terms of the interpellation motion that is planned to be filed against His Highness the Prime Minister over the sports issue, reported Al-Rai. As it is the third to be held for the same reason in less than a week, more clauses are also expected to be added in the interpellation

Kuwait media delegation concludes visit to Iran Boosting media and popular communication between the two countries MASHHAD: A high-profile Kuwaiti media delegation consisting of 50 prominent figures left the Iranian city of Mashhad here Saturday following a three-day visit that was described by both Kuwaiti and Iranian sides as outstanding. Deputy Editor-in-chief of Kuwaiti daily and the delega-

tion’s media coordinator Adnan Al-Rashid said in a statement to KUNA that the delegation’s visit was very successful and achieved the goal behind it in boosting media and popular communication between the two countries.

Prime Minister receives GCC oil officials KUWAIT: The Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received yesterday at Seif Palace the Minister of Oil and Minister of Information Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah AlAhmad Al-Sabah who was accompanied by GCC ministers of oil and energy, currently partaking in the 29th GCC Ministerial Committee for Oil Cooperation Meeting held here. — KUNA

Al-Zinki to be appointed CEO of KPC today KUWAIT: During their weekly meeting today the Cabinet will announce the official appointment of Farouq Al-Zinki to Chief Executive Officer of the Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation (KPC), reported Al-Rai. The announcement comes following the completion of the decree-law necessitating the appointment of a KPC board.

Official sources within the Cabinet claim that the Minister of Oil, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah, nominated Al-Zinki to the Cabinet committee assigned with selecting a new CEO for KPC. The sources added that the minister also contacted the former oil minister and current consultant of the Amiri Diwan, Ali Al-Jarrah, for a justification of the controversial maintenance carried out at AlZinki’s home by KPC. “The minister was part of the team that decided against renewing the term of former CEO Saad Al-Shuwaib in order to allow others to handle future development projects,” the source said, speaking

MEW to recommend five candidates KUWAIT: The Minister of Electricity and Water (MEW) Bader Al-Shuraian plans to recommend the names of five candidates to the posts of Assistant Undersecretary at MEW. The minister will discuss this with the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in the next meeting, reported Al-Shahed.

If an agreement is reached, some officials will be sent into retirement.

Meanwhile, the MEW has launched its mass maintenance program for all power generation and water desalination plants.

This program takes place every year at the end of the summer season in order to prepare the plants to increase demand in the following summer, reported Al-Qabas.

This year’s maintenance plan will proceed throughout winter so as to repair malfunctions, said Minister Dr Bader Al-Shuraian.

anonymously. “Members from the former KPC board are politically connected to the controversial Dow Chemical and fourth refinery deals.”

The committee also consisted of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Dr Mohammad AlSabah, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Housing and Development Sheikh Ahmad AlFahad Al-Sabah, the Minister of Communication and State Minister for Parliament Affairs Dr Mohammad AlBusairi and the State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Roudhan Al-Roudhan.

According to the sources, Al-Abdullah informed committee members that he has no complaints against any of the candidates nominated for the post. They did point out however that the minister did have a few reservations regarding the notes mentioned in a State Audit Bureau’s report on the maintenance that was carried out on Al-Zinki’s house, which is owned by the Kuwait Oil Company.

The minister explained that Al-Zinki provided proof of approval for the maintenance by former minister Al-Jarrah. He also explained that the house is KOC’s property and will be returned to its custody when he retires.

When asked for confirmation, former minister Al-Jarrah said that he did agreed to the request and said that he is willing to provide a written letter on that regard if necessary.

“The decision to select Al-Zinki as the new CEO of KPC was made based on these results and its enforcement depends on the formation of new board members,” the sources said.

While several lawmakers rejected AlZinki’s nomination, MP Adel Al-Saraawi called on His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah to reconsider the situation of the country’s oil wealth. He asked HH the Prime Minister to reconsider placing such a responsibility ìin the hands of a minister who usually evades his duties.

Parliament committee discusses education bills KUWAIT: Kuwait’s parliamentary committee of education, culture and guidance affairs discussed a bill to amend Kuwait University and Higher Education laws yesterday, in addition to increasing school hours an extra day a week. Head of the National Assembly committee MP Dr. Salwa Al-Jassar talking to reporters, said that the committee had agreed to a bill regarding the construction of government universities. She added that the committee would add its own recommendations in preparation for the bill’s presentation to the Cabinet at the end of the month.

She said that the matter, along with another related to private universities would be of high priority, and that the unavailability of a law on the issue would cause many legal and administrative inadequacies.—KUNA

Crime rate up KUWAIT: Crime rates in Kuwait are increasing, said the acting director for the Capital Governorate and monitory markets prosecution departments Rujaib AlRujaib, reported Al-Qabas. He explained that crimes have become more sophisticated and that online crimes have increased. Al-Rujaib said that an increase in state security crimes have been noticed during elections. He said that the reason for that is because, according to the audiovisual law, violations such as offensive statements made through the media are considered state crimes.

He added that the visit succeeded thanks to many factors, the most important of which is the moral support lent by the political leadership, in particular His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah who put into effect the instructions made by His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah as well as His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

Al-Rashid said that HH the Amir and HH the Crown Prince are always keen on strengthening Kuwait’s relations with its neighboring states and with Arab and Muslim countries.

He also referred to the efforts made by the Kuwaiti foreign ministry represented by the ambassador of the State of Kuwait in Iran Majdi Al-Zafiri who was a constant companion of the delegation as well as the efforts made by the Ministry of Information represented by the news sector and the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) through its chairman and managing director Sheikh Mubarak Al-Duaij Al-Ibrahim AlSabah and KUNA’s bureau in Tehran.

Al-Rashid said that the Kuwaiti media delegation with its members representing all the societal sectors conveyed good impression to all Iranian officials whom they met on Kuwait’s keenness on promoting its ties with all neighboring countries, particularly the friendly neighboring Islamic Republic of Iran.

Further, he said that all Kuwaiti media institutions including newspapers, radio stations and TV complement the governmental and popular role in strengthening Kuwait’s ties with the neighboring states and clarifying its views.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is an important friendly neighboring state that should draw “our attention as Kuwaiti media institutions and that we should double our contacts with Iranians through experienced thinkers, journalists and media people and encourage the Iranians as well to open up to us and this needs further contacts with Iran as well as other Arab and Muslim countries,” Al-Rashid explained.

He also said that Kuwaiti media institutions do their best in order to further boost the government’s role in setting up a correct, clear and sound relations with all concerned neighboring countries of Kuwait.

Although the visit paid by the Kuwaiti media delegation is short, it gave many connotations about, “the cohesion of our society with all its trends and what our forefathers instilled in us of the unity of Kuwaitis abroad even if we differed at home.”

Al-Rashed also expressed his hope for such visits to Iran to happen again and again provided that “our fellow Iranians pay similar visits to Kuwait,” with the aim of reaching a common understanding that serves the mutual interest of both Kuwait and Iran.

The Kuwaiti delegation met last night the governor of Khorsan Dr Mahmoud Islahi who held a banquet in honor of the delegation and welcomed them in his address, saying that ties between Iran and Kuwait are deep-seated. — KUNA

motion. On a separate note, MP Saleh Ashour announced that he has been gathering information on the dual citizenship issue, indicating that several contradictory stances were detected.

“The number of Kuwaiti citizens have doubled from 113,622 to 1,200,000 during

the period from 1957 till today; a relatively short time during which figures registered a leap,” Ashour explained. Meanwhile, the MP said that he does not necessarily oppose a future amendment made to the Citizenship Law according to which dual citizenship should be allowed.

kuwait digest

Does KCCI need a law?

By Dr Naji Al-Zaid spent the weekend following up on the controversies regarding the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). I failed to come up with any information that could help explain where these concerns and problems are coming from.

I started to search the websites of similar institutions in countries such as the United States, The United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. I found that the UK’s chamber was established two centuries ago and its documents were not officially publicized until the fifties.

I also noticed that members of the British Chamber of Commerce did not require great efforts from businesses or businessmen and that there are different types of memberships.

The role of the chamber there is to assist companies and traders with their work by providing them with updates regarding the British economy. They also provide them information about the economies of countries they are working in as well as other countries around the world.

I

While researching, I also found out that the chambers of commerce in these countries have committees with special connections to the parliament so that they can propose legislations that protect businesses, especially small businesses, and support economic growth.

Most importantly, I found no trace of law or legislation that governs the British Chamber of Commerce.

In Kuwait, the KCCI carries out the same duties as those conducted by its British counterpart: coordinate with the government and parliament to improve the country’s economy. This brings up an important question; do we really need a law to govern the KCCI? I can’t answer this because I’m not an economic expert but I can tell that the chambers of commerce in other parts of the world are not and that membership is open and voluntary.

What’s with all the fuss regarding KCCI then? Is it another attempt to target the stability of the country’s institutions, similar to the attempts directed at the Kuwait Airways Corporation? What will be next when the KCCI issue subsides?—Al-Qabas

KUWAIT: Outstanding members of the Research and Studies Center were honored under the patronage of Director General Maj. General Yahya Jaber Al-Saleh, and Assistant Director General Brig. Ibrahim Al-Sayed Hashim.

Al-Saleh congratulated the honores and told them this ceremony comes upon the instructions of Interior Minister Lt. General Sheikh Jaber AlKhalid and Interior Minister Undersecretary Lt. General Ahmad Al-Rujaib.

Dear citizens and residents

Blocking the road in front of schools seriously disturbs the flow of traffic.

Compliments of the Ministry of Interior’s security media department

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Exhibition to attract businessmen and investors

Taipei commercial office hosts product exhibition in Mishref

By Na wara Fa ttahova KUWAIT: On the occasion of Double-Tenth Day, the Republic of China ’s (Taiw an) Ta ipei Commercial Representative Office in Kuwa it is organizing their ‘2010 Taiw an Excellent Products Solo Show.’ It w ill be held from October 10 - 12, 2010 in ha ll number four of the Kuw ait International Fa ir Ground (KIF) in Mishref. The event w ill be held under the patrona ge of Dr Ali Al-Mudhaf, Director General of the Public Authority for Industry (PAI).

Al-Duwaisan threatens information minister

By A Saleh KUWAIT: A new situation has developed in the information ministry, with MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan giving the information minister an ultimatum until October 25th to rectify the ministry’s situation.

He has asked that the assistant undersecretary for administrative affairs as well as the radio’s undersecretary be dismissed. Al-Duwaisan said that he would submit an interpellation motion against the minister on October 26.

In other news, officials have learned the real reason behind MP Jamaan AlHarbash’s criticism of Moudhi AlHumoud, Education and Higher Education Minister. Officials said, “AlHarbash expected the minister to renew the term of incumbent Kuwait

University Rector Abdallah Al-Fuhai.

He learned that the minister wants to form a committee to select another academic to replace him.”

They added that the situation was normal until Al-Harbash’s fears turned true. There is speculation that Minister Moudhi may choose Administrative Science Professor Dr Mirza Hassan as rector, who is a Shiite. His name has surfaced many times in the past as a possible candidate for the post.

In another development, MP Waleed Al-Tabatabae remarked that the government’s decision to ban public gathering, infringed upon individual liberty.

He said he would participate in the freedom rally that has been scheduled to be held tomorrow. The lawmaker said that he would hold a gathering at his

diwaniya as a representative of the Development and Reform Bloc, and added that it was strange that the Interior Ministry has been acting in a manner that is contrary to laws and Constitution.

Also, the Parliamentary Education Committee Chairperson MP Salwa AlJassar said that after holding a meeting, it was agreed upon that any amendment made to the current university law would be amended, adding that discussions would be limited to the proposed law of government universities.

With regard to increasing class hours, she said that she had commented on this subject during a previous occasion. She said that the strike staged by Kuwait Teachers Society’ would not resolve the problem.

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Shuwaikh and Shuhada area firefighters responded to a fire that occurred in a carpentry shop in Shuwaikh Indistrial area. The fire, estimated to be spread out over an area of 3,000 meters, consumed warehouses containing wood products and potentially combustible materials such as paint. The fire was extinguished before it could spread further. Two persons were injured, one with second degree burns on his foot.

Accompanying the two firefighting units were firefighters from Ardhiya, Farwaniya and Hilali.

Deputy Director General for firefighting and Human Development, Brigadier Yousuf Al-Ansari asked store owners to be mindful of the fire hydrants located throughout the area. He said that they are needed by firefighters to extinguish fires and should not be obstructed by wood or any other materials.

Heroin dealers busted

KUWAIT: Drug dealers after their arrest.

KUWAIT: Shih-Chao Cho, Dr. Ali Al-Mudhaf Director General of PAI cutting the ribbon. —Photos by Fouad Al-Shaikh

KUWAIT: Shih-Chao Cho, Mansour Ashkanani cutting the cake.

KAC launches new electronic services

2 persons injured in Shuwaikh fire

A Pakistani and an Egyptian expat were arrested after they were found to be in possession of nearly 1,500 grams of heroin. An official security source said the Egyptian was arrested after he unknowingly sold three grams of heroin to an undercover agent from the General Department of Drug Control. When questioned, the Egyptian informed police about his Pakistani accomplice and authorities found him in possession of the remaining amount of heroin.

Participating in the exhibition are 30 Taiwanese companies from different fields and producing different goods. Some provide electronics while others provide hydraulic fittings, routers, wireless adaptors, extenders, switches, different IT solutions, multimedia players, headphones, radios, TVs, ebooks, cameras, commercial airplane models, filters, notebooks and many other goods.

The exhibition will attempt to attract businessmen and investors. “This exhibition is an excellent event showcasing various modern products and services,” said Dr Ali Al-Mudhaf, Director General of the Public Authority for Industry (PAI) during the event’s launching ceremony yesterday. “This idea helps attract Kuwaiti investors and gives them the opportunity to see high quality Taiwanese products and make deals with Taiwanese businessmen.”

The Public Authority for Industry is encouraging industrial investors. “We have plans to support local production abroad and the PAI is also working on a study to help develop this field by offering scholarships, especially to schools in the United States, to bring back expertise and develop Kuwaiti factories,” added AlMudhaf. There are many good investors in the industrial field.

“The PAI is communicating with other countries in an attempt to enter into their markets,” he said.

“I invite all Kuwaiti investors to come and visit this fair and see the available opportunities,” he concluded.

Shih-Chao Cho, the Representative of the Taipei Commercial representative Office in Kuwait praised the commercial and trading activity of Kuwaiti companies. “This fair is a great opportunity for a commercial exchange between the two countries,” she said. “I invite Kuwaiti investors to visit this exhibition.”

Visiting hours for the ‘2010 Taiwan Excellent Products Solo Show’ exhibition are from 9:30 am - 1:00 pm and from 5:00 pm - 9:30 pm.

KUWAIT: Firefighters fighting the blaze in a carpentry shop.

KUWAIT: Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) has introduced new electronic services in Arabic and English.

KAC’s IT Chief Khalid AlQaqian said in news remarks that the airliner’s fresh services include, apart from online booking, a section for travel agents, services for cargo information, suggestions and complaints as well as Lost and Found services.

The national carrier’s newly offered services would surely make communication between the carrier and its clients much easier and smoother, he said.

Furthermore, the company is seeking to develop its website, given that it receives over 12 million visitors from all world countries and has recently won several awards, the IT official boasted. — KUNA

KGL Holding hands over donation to Kuwait Red Crescent Society KUWAIT: The KGL Holding handed a donation check on October 4, 2010 to the Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) for the flood victims of Pakistan.

The donation were made by the KGL Holding employees from various business units who took part in the fund drive dubbed ‘Lend a Hand to Pakistan’ that was initiated by the company during the last 10 days of the Holy Month of Ramadan. The donation collected from employees amounted to $10,000. It was matched by the KGL Holding Management. The $20,000 donation was handed over by Wataniya Environmental Services Vice Chairman and Managing Director Engr Shahad Saeed Dashti to Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) Honorary Treasurer Saad A AlNahedh in the presence of KRCS Director of Disaster Management and Emergency Yousef Al-Merag and KGL Holding Communication and PR Manager Saqer AlRashoud. The KGL Holding thanked all its employees for their donation that would help alleviate the plight of the people in Pakistan which is in line with its corporate citizenship program.

The Wataniya Environmental Services Vice Chairman and Managing Director Shahad Saeed Dashti (right) hands the check to Kuwait Red Crescent Society Honorary Treasurer Saad A Al-Nahedh in the presence of KRCS Director of Disaster Management and Emergency Yousef Al-Merag.

71,000 laptops for high school students KUWAIT: The Ministry of Education announced that they will provide public high school students with laptop computers and that they are prepared to purchase 71,000 laptops, reported AlQabas. Additionally, the ministry’s undersecretary assistant for planning, Khalid Al-Rasheed, revealed plans to install 16 surveillance cameras in each school.

Meanwhile, head of the ministry’s department for imports and warehouses, Waleed Al-Qattan, indicated that the tender to install CCTV cameras at schools is currently being studied by the Audit Bureau. He added that the bureau will provide notes to the company that wins the bidding process. He complained that several of the companies planning to bid on the tender have agreed to present bids with exaggerated prices in order to fool the ministry into paying inflated prices.

In related news, Al-Qattan also indicated that the department is currently working on a tender to provide public schools around the country with medical equipment and nurses.

international

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Monday, october 11, 2010

With talks at impasse, Palestinians explore other options

RAMALLAH: After nearly two decades of sputtering peace talks that have failed to bring about their promised state, the Palestinians are exploring other options. President Mahmud Abbas, fed up with Israel’s refusal to halt settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land, this weekend said there would be no further negotiations until the construction stops. But perhaps more importantly, officials and analysts said, was that he spoke of alternative paths to statehood that would not rely on Israel ending its own occupation or the United States pressuring its closest ally.

“The negotiations with Israel have been ongoing for more than 19 years since the Madrid peace conference in 1991 and until now have not achieved anything,” said Mohammed Ashtayeh, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team.

“It makes no sense for the Palestinian people to continue to wait for an Israeli government that wants peace and a US administration that is able to pressure Israel.

Experience has made it clear that is not going to happen. “It also does

not make sense to leave it to the occupation to end the occupation,” he added. Since direct negotiations began in the early 1990s, the Palestinians have often viewed the peace process as a mechanism for the United States to pressure Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967.

But in more than a year and a half of shuttle diplomacy Washington has failed to get Israel to completely freeze settlement activity, which the Palestinians view as a crucial test of the entire process.”It’s clear that there will not be serious US intervention in the interest of the Palestinians, and even if there were, the Israelis would not respond,” said Samir Awad, a professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to renew a partial moratorium on new settler homes that expired late last month, insisting his rightwing-led coalition would never support such a move.

At a meeting in Libya over the weekend Arab foreign ministers backed Abbas’s position that there

NABLUS: Israeli soldiers secure the area as Palestinian farmers pick olives in the village of Hawara near the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday. — AP

Qaeda in North Africa ‘a key Europe threat’ A potentially greater menace lies just across the Mediterranean ALGIERS: While Europe’s latest terror threat stems from militants in Pakistan, a potentially greater menace lies just across the Mediterranean: Well-organized and financed Islamic terrorists from AlQaeda’s North African offshoot. Over the last month alone, the group has

been accused of seizing five French nationals and two Africans from a mining town in Niger, part of its effort to make millions by kidnapping Europeans and getting ransoms. It is also blamed for a truck bombing last Saturday in Algeria that left five soldiers dead.

JUBA: Southern Sudanese people from the Dinka tribe perform a celebratory dance at a pro-independence rally in Juba. — AP

Security Council visit leaves Sudan on track for division

KHARTOUM: Sudan remains on course to break up next year after the UN Security Council put new pressure on the government over a self-determination referendum, but the major powers are still fretting over how to avoid conflict. Council ambassadors spent four days testing independence fever on the red dust roads of South Sudan and the North’s opposition to the breakup of Africa’s oil-rich biggest nation.

The envoys left Khartoum on Saturday having warned both sides to make sure that a January 9 self-determination referendum in the South was held on time. The South is virtually certain to choose secession and many neighbours and western nations fear new violence if the vote is delayed.

Britain’s ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the timetable was now “extremely tight”, but that if the political commitment shown by the governments in the North and South was followed up the vote could go ahead on time.

The referendum is part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended a two-decade-long North-South civil war in which two million people died. Vote preparations are way behind schedule and tensions are high. North Sudan demonstrators and police clashed with a small group of South Sudan activists in Khartoum on Saturday as the UN envoys met Sudan’s foreign minister. The South’s President Salva Kiir asked the Security Council to

deploy peacekeepers along the disputed frontier before the vote when he met them in Juba last week, diplomats said.

No promise was made however.

Sudan is already the country with the biggest UN peacekeeping operation.

The rival governments accuse each other of staging a military buildup on the frontier, which has still not been permanently fixed-one of “the key outstanding issues” that Lyall Grant, coleader of the UN mission with US ambassador Susan Rice, said has to be decided for the vote to go ahead. The Security Council also expressed concern over an “upsurge” in violence in Darfur, the western region where at least 300,000 people have been killed since 2003, according to the UN estimates.

Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti told the ambassadors his government did not want “war” over the independence vote, but that it would not accept the result if there was “interference”-a veiled warning about secession calls by the South’s leaders. Sudan has taken on added importance on the international agenda since US President Barack Obama spoke at a UN meeting on Sudan last month and said a peaceful vote must be held on time. On top of the referendum, however, much will depend on any final accord over the frontier, the sharing of the major oil revenues and the citizenship of northerners and southerners who live on the other side of the border.

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki is mediating negotiations.

“Mbeki is a kind of divorce lawyer. The North knows what the result of any referendum is going to be so it is holding out for the best deal possible,” said one diplomat from one of the UN delegations.

“There seems to be some hopeful commitment by the two sides to make sure the referendum goes ahead. But the problem in the next three months will not be just keeping the two governments on track,” the diplomat added.

“The two armies, the tribes on the borders and the local politicians have all got to be restrained.”

While none of the ambassadors says that the south’s independence is inevitable, and all say that the result must be respected whichever way it falls, all are preparing for one likely result. After seeing thousands of new South Sudan police being trained at an academy near the capital, Juba, last week US ambassador Rice told reporters: “All the institutions of state are literally being built from scratch.”

The new recruits, many of whom have moved back from northern Sudan, were equally certain of the result. “This is a vote for our freedom. Our fathers fought the north in the civil war, many of them died. Now this is our right,” said David Diine, a former fighter in the south’s rebel army and now a sergeant in the South’s new police. —AFP

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb effectively rules a wide, lawless swath of the Sahara and is trying to overthrow Algeria’s government.

It’s active online and mediasavvy, and has the globally recognized Al-Qaeda brand name.

It has also sparked arrests in Spain and France. The question now is how far it has the will and means to turn its anger on Europe. French and US counterintelligence officials suggest AQIM’s logistics and networks aren’t yet mature enough to stage an attack on a European capital, but say it’s a broad and constant threat. France’s prime minister said Friday that the group is in touch with fellow fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US military is worried enough that it trains African armies to resist AQIM. “For years, I’ve said this - and we’ve known - that AQIM has capabilities to project outwards outside of Africa. ... It’s just that no one understands the dynamics from Europe to Africa and back to Afghanistan,” said Rudolph Atallah, retired from his post as Africa Counterterrorism Director in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and who now runs private security firm White Mountain Research.

“Can AQIM carry out an attack in Europe? Yeah, I think so.”

For Europe, homegrown terrorists have long been a central concern. French authorities watch out for dual nationals who fall under AQIM’s spell, via extremist websites or preachers in private prayer meetings in poor suburbs. Algerian militants who blended in with Europe’s large North African immigrant community were linked to the 2004 Madrid bombings and killed dozens of people in the 1990s in attacks in the Paris Metro. “If unfortunately a terrorist operation occurs, it will come from networks within those European nations,” said Mohand Berkouk, political scientist at the University of Algiers who specalizes in Sahara and Sahel geostrategy.

The US government warned Americans this week of new terror risks in Europe. Focus fell on Pakistan, where US drones have struck suspected Al-Qaeda targets and where Pakistani officials say eight German militants have been killed. But two French counterintelligence officials said in recent days that terrorists tied to AQIM and not Pakistan - are France’s No 1 security threat.

One official says at least six AQIM-related cells have been dismantled across Europe in recent years. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

French National Police Chief Frederic Pechenard said last week that authorities suspect AQIM of plotting a bomb attack on a crowded target. —AP

should be no further negotiations without a settlement freeze but gave Washington another month to try to broker a compromise.

Meanwhile Abbas, who has been pursuing a negotiated solution to the conflict for over three decades, presented a list of alternative paths to statehood. One option would be to ask the UN Security Council to declare a state on Palestinian lands occupied by Israel in 1967, but Abbas has also hinted that he might resign from the Palestinian Authority or dissolve it altogether. “(Abbas) has started to doubt that the path of negotiations will lead to a solution with Israel,” Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri said.

“I think he is almost convinced that the negotiations have failed.”

The Palestinians would be highly unlikely to surmount a US veto should they demand drastic action from the UN Security Council, but a decision by Abbas to resign or dissolve the Palestinian Authority could deal a major blow to both the United States and Israel, who strongly support him. “The only serious alternatives are the unilat-

eral ones,” said Yossi Beilin, a former Labor party minister who was involved in peace negotiations with the Palestinians throughout the 1990s.

“A Palestinian threat to dissolve the Palestinian Authority is something they can do. They don’t need anyone to confirm this. This has been a threat for years now, and it’s a threat today,” he said.

The dismantling of the Authority would potentially force Israel to take over the cost of governing the nearly 2.5 million residents of the West Bank and spell the end of the peace process launched with the 1993 Oslo accords. Abbas could take the less drastic step of resigning as president with no clear successor, but Beilin believes that would be welcomed by those in Netanyahu’s mostly rightwing government who oppose a negotiated solution. “I’m not sure that the resignation of Abu Mazen is a threat to Netanyahu,” he said. “A moderate Palestinian leader who is ready to compromise is much more a threat to the extreme Israelis than an extreme Palestinian.” — AFP

A glance at Saudi approved fatwas A glance at several official fatwas, or religious rulings, by the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, the body of government-appointed clerics that is the voice of Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.

The fatwas, viewable in Arabic and English at http://www.alifta.net/, are in most cases in response to questions sent in by Saudis seeking advice.

TAKI NG FLOWERS TO THE SICK “This practice is impermissible as it entails wasting money on non-useful purposes and imitating Allah’s adversaries in this custom.”

CI NEMAS “It is not permissible for a Muslim to build a cinema, or run it for himself or for another person, due to the forbidden kinds of amusement it provides. As shown today around the globe, it presents obscene scenes and images that provoke desires and promote lewdness and immorality. Furthermore, it helps women mix with men who are not Mahram (spouse or unmarriageable relatives).”

SWIMMI NG POOLS “The mingling of boys and girls in studying is Haram (prohibited). The same applies to showering and swimming while naked (or semi naked)

in a swimming pool, whether they are young or old, for the Fitnah (sedition) occurring due to this, and for seeing each others’ ‘Awrah’ (private parts of the body that must be covered in public), this isalso considered a means to mischief and evil.”

RELATIONS WI TH NON-M USLIMS “A Muslim should not begin greeting the nonMuslims. However, when the Jews, Christians, or others offer Salam (greetings), he should reply “Wa ‘Alaykum” (the same to you) ... These are some of the rights the non-Muslims have on Muslims. This also includes the right of being a good neighbor. You must not harm your nonMuslim neighbors. You should give them charity if they are needy.” “It is not permissible for a Muslim to follow the funeral of a Kafir (disbeliever), for this is considered an act of loyalty to them which is Haram (prohibited). However, consoling them is acceptable.” “Relationships based on mutual affection, love and brotherhood between a Muslim and a Kafir are prohibited. It might render a Muslim as a Kafir. There is nothing wrong, however, if the kind of relationship developed between the Muslim and Kafir does not go beyond selling and buying or accepting the Kafir’s invitation to have lawful food with him or accepting a lawful present, provided that no harm is done to the Muslim’s faith.” — AP

Sudan president warns of greater conflict with south Southerners set for independence referendum KHARTOUM: Sudan’s president accused former civil war foes in the south of going back on the terms of a peace deal, warning a worse conflict could erupt if the sides did not settle disputes before a referendum on secession. The comments from President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, reported on state media, raised the stakes in a war of words between Khartoum and the south’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), five years after the sides ended decades of conflict with an accord. In three months’ time, that peace deal is supposed to come to a climax with a referendum giving the people of the oil-producing south the right to decide whether to declare independence or stay part of Sudan.

Bashir told a conference in Sirte, Libya he regretted the fact that SPLM leader and south Sudan president Salva Kiir had recently publicly come out for separation. This was against the terms of the 2005 peace deal which said both northern and southern leaders should try to make unity “attractive” to southerners before the vote, Suna news agency reported. Bashir said he was still committed to holding the vote but both sides first had to settle differences over the position of their shared border and how to share out oil revenues, debt and Nile river water.

‘MORE DANGEROUS’ “He (Bashir) said a new conflict between the north and south will ensue if there was a failure to address these issues before the referendum and that such a conflict could be more dangerous than the one that took place before the peace agreement” said Suna, reporting on the speech which Bashir gave on Saturday. Bashir spoke as envoys from the UN Security Council wrapped up a visit to Sudan aimed at pressing both sides to hold the vote on time and avert a new civil war.

Any renewal of conflict in Africa’s largest country could spill into the nine countries that border Sudan-Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Chad, Libya and Egypt-threatening the region’s economic success stories and complicating existing conflicts and allegiances.

Diplomats with the UN mission said Kiir last week asked them to deploy peacekeepers and set up a buffer zone along the tense north-south border before the vote. Kiir, who is also first vice president of all of Sudan, angered Khartoum when he said he would not vote for unity in the referendum during a speech to supporters in the southern capital Juba earlier this month.

One of his senior aides later told Reuters Kiir had not meant to indicate his personal voting preferences but just wanted to point out that the north

had failed to make unity attractive to the southern voter. Northern and southern leaders have been locked in negotiations for months on issues including how they would share out oil revenues after the vote. Most of Sudan’s oil is found in the south but runs through the north’s pipelines and port to get to market. The SPLM has insisted lack of progress in the talks should not be used as an excuse to delay the scheduled start of the referendum on Jan 9, 2011. —Reuters

Iraqi Sunni-backed bloc bending on premiership BAGHDAD: The Sunni-backed political coalition that narrowly won the most votes in Iraq’s parliamentary election appeared yesterday to be giving up its demand for the premiership, boosting the Shiite prime minister’s drive to keep his job. The stunning turnabout is sure to inflame Iraq’s minority Sunnis, whose crucial support helped the secular Iraqiya movement edge ahead of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s political coalition in the March 7 parliamentary election. US diplomats worry that if the Sunnis feel sidelined by backroom dealmaking over the formation of a new government, it could spark unrest.

A key Iraqiya leader said yesterday the party is no longer insisting on receiving the top job as long as it gets an equal share of power in Iraq’s government. It marks the strongest concession to date by Iraqiya, and could break the sevenmonth political impasse that has stymied Iraq from seating a new government. “We have reached a position that we don’t care anymore about posts,” said Sheik Adnan al-Danbous, a Shiite who is close to Iraqiya chief Ayad Allawi.

“Posts are not as important to us as having participation in decision-making.” Al-Danbous said Iraqiya could live with al-Maliki keeping his job so long as the party gets other plum positions, like the presidency or parliament speaker. “We don’t mind if al-Maliki is the prime minister, but we have to have a decision-making post,” alDanbous told The Associated Press.

Marginalized in Iraq’s power circles after Saddam Hussein’s ouster and after boycotting the first round of elections in 2005, Sunnis joined with Iraqiya this year in hopes of regaining political strength and credibility. Sunnis make up the majority of Iraqiya, which is widely recognized as the largest and most influential nonreligious political alliance. —AP

Monday, October 11, 2010

INTERNATIONAL

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In South Africa, crowded graveyards make for heated spirits DURBAN: Want to share a grave? It’s a blasphemy for South Africa’s Zulus who revere their ancestors, but overcrowding in Durban’s cemeteries has forced the city to begin “recyclying” tombs. “We are forced to do so,” says Pepe Dass, the city official who oversees graveyards. “It is not only a question of space, but a question of sustainability.” Durban is located in KwaZulu-Natal province which suffers the highest HIV rate in the nation with the world’s biggest burden of 5.2 million AIDS cases. The death toll has soared for years, and cemeteries are running out of space. Urban graveyards reserved for whites only under apartheid have also filled up since multi-racial democracy arrived in 1994.

With about 20,000 deaths a year, Durban would have to build several new

cemeteries to keep pace, with each costing 20 million rands (2.9 million dollars, 2.0 million euros). Dass says the city just does not have the money. So Durban has launched a pilot project at one graveyard, which will eventually expand to all 60 in the city. Remains more than 10 years old will be re-buried farther underground, with new corpses placed above.

But for many like Thandi, a 63-yearold widow visiting the grave of her husband in Stella Wood, the city’s biggest cemetery with no plots left, the stacking solution is “a bad idea, very bad.” “If they want to recycle my husband’s grave? I will stop them. No way.” In this predominantly Zulu region, her anger is widely shared. “People communicate with the spirit of the ancestors. They don’t want anything to interfere in their relation

with the ancestors,” explains Sihawu Ngubane, a professor of Zulu culture at the University of Durban. If funeral rites are not followed properly, misfortune can befall the family of the deceased, which creates concerns about how to venerate a shared grave.

“They believe that if you recycle the graves, there can be a confusion of the ancestors’ spirits. There can be a clash between the spirits. They will revolt against people who are alive,” Ngubane says. Durban says it has no choice, fearing the existing cemeteries will be completely filled in two years. Land for new cemeteries is hard to come by in this coastal city of four million people, squeezed between the Indian Ocean and the hills of Zululand. “If you look at the map, the land is not free. You have agri-

culture, development programs. Finding the ideal space for a cemetery is not easy,” Dass says.

A poorly placed cemetery could also pose problems for underground water supplies, because of the risk of contamination from decomposing corpses. Until the city settles on a solution, black market vendors of illegal tombs are filling in the gap. Some cemetery guards are reportedly re-selling abandoned tombs, while others are digging spaces outside approved burial grounds. Another illegal practice involves stealing tombstones, a luxury in South Africa where 43 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. That’s why recently barbed wire and electric fences have begun sprouting around Durban’s cemeteries. — AFP

Kyrgyzstan votes in landmark election Turnout highest in volatile city of Osh BISHKEK: Kyrgyz voters cast their ballots yesterday to create the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia, in an election many hope can unite the country four months after the worst bloodshed in its modern history. Unique among elections in ex-Soviet Central Asia, voters have no idea which party will win the majority of seats in a new parliament and select a prime minister

DURBAN: A picture shows a general view of a graveyard that will be recycled by the Ethekwini (Durban) Municipality at the Loon Street cemetery in Durban, South Africa.—AFP

Serbian police clash with anti-gay rioters BELGRADE: Serbian riot police fought running battles yesterday with hundreds of far-right supporters who tried to disrupt a gay pride march in downtown Belgrade. Several dozen people were hurt, officials said. Thousands of police officers sealed off the streets in the capital where the march took place, repeatedly clashing at several locations with rioters who were trying to burst through security cordons. Several parked cars were set on fire or damaged, shop windows were broken, garbage containers were overturned and streets signs destroyed.

The rioters fired shots and hurled petrol bombs at the headquarters of the ruling proWestern Democratic Party, setting the garage of the building on fire. The state TV building and other political parties headquarters were were also attacked, with many of the house windows shattered by stones. The protesters, chanting “death to homosexuals!” hurled Molotov cocktails, bricks, stones, glass bottles and firecrackers at riot police. Police responded by firing tear gas and deploying armored vehicles to disperse the charging protesters in the heart of the capital even after the brief pride march ended.

The protesters hijacked a bus, ordered all of its passengers and the driver out, and pushed it down a steep street before it hit an electric pole on a main Belgrade square. Several shops were looted.

Belgrade emergency hospital said 57 people were injured, including 47 policemen, one seriously.

Police said several rioters were arrested. Rightwing groups say the gay events are contrary to Serbian family and religious values. Most of the rioters yesterday were young football fans whose groups have been infiltrated by neo-Nazi and other extremist organizations.

“These riots obviously have nothing to do with

the gay parade or any moral values,” said Democratic Party spokeswoman Jelana Trivan.

“These are hooligan gangs which must be punished severely.” Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac, vice president of the Democratic Party, said a part of the party’s archive, warehouse and phone lines at the building were destroyed and shots were also fired at the building.

“It is high time that we deal in a very democratic way, through the courts, with those who call themselves members of the patriotic organizations,” Sutanovac said.

“Is this Belgrade or the wild West?” Senior Justice Ministry official Slobodan Homen said that the state response will be “fierce.” He said that the city center is covered with surveillance cameras and that the rioters have been identified and many already detained. He said they could face up to eight years in prison. Yesterday’s march was viewed as a major test for Serbia’s government, which has launched pro-Western reforms and pledged to protect human rights as it seeks European Union membership.

Right-wing groups broke up a pride march in 2001 and forced the cancellation of last year’s event. Vincent Degert, the head of the EU mission in Serbia, addressed around 1,000 gay activists and their supporters who gathered at a park in downtown Belgrade which was surrounded by riot police, including armored vehicles.

“We are here to celebrate this very important day ... to celebrate the values of tolerance, freedom of expression and assembly,” Degert told the crowd waving rainbow flags. The same rightwing group set the US Embassy on fire during riots in 2008 to protest US support for Kosovo’s independence. —AP

Far-right seeks gains in Vienna elections VIENNA: Voters in the Austrian capital casted ballots in local elections yesterday that could bring gains for the far-right following a campaign laced with anti-Islamic rhetoric. Chances are practically nonexistent that Freedom Party chief HeinzChristian Strache will garner enough support to become Vienna’s mayor. But polls suggest the city’s popular incumbent leader, Michael Haeupl, may see his Social Democrats lose their absolute majority of mandates because of a surge in support for the former party of the late Joerg Haider.

In 2005 elections, the center-left Social Democrats won 49.1 percent of the vote, followed by the center-right People’s Party with 18.8 percent. The Freedom Party trailed in third place with 14.8 percent, just slightly ahead of the Greens. Five years on, some vote watchers predict that Strache’s group could get at least 20 percent - and snag second place. “I’m convinced we’ll bring about liberation from the red diktat,” Strache was quoted as saying by the Austria Press Agency as he cast his ballot in a working class neighborhood with an increasingly Turkish immigrant population. The Social Democrats are known as “the reds” locally.

Haeupl, accompanied by his son to a polling station across town, appeared optimistic his party would be able to maintain an absolute majority but acknowledged in comments carried by APA that he

didn’t know for sure. Over the past few months, the Freedom Party has tried to shore up support through, among other things, provocative campaign posters that mentioned “Vienna blood” - originally a waltz by Johann Strauss, which critics claimed had clear racist undertones when used in this political context.

It also circulated a controversial comic strip that features a character resembling Strache who urges a young boy to use his sling shot to hit Mustafa, who led the historic Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have tried to position the 61-year-old Haeupl - mayor since 1994 - as a strong captain who has proven capable of steering the city through difficult times.

In a last minute attempt to vie for votes and change the focus of debate leading up to the election, Haeupl recently also voiced support for an end to conscription and called for a referendum on the matter. In response to the Freedom Party, the young Social Democrats handed out a comic that portrays Strache as brain-dead and remote-controlled and in which a hero named “Mr X” beats up Nazi zombies. The People’s Party, although in a governing coalition with the Social Democrats on the national level, has attempted to portray itself as the best alternative to those keen on breaking their absolute hold on power. — AP

After nearly two decades of failed authoritarian rule, interim leaders want to empower a prime minister to restore stability in the former Soviet republic, where clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks killed more than 400 people in June. The United States, which operates a military air base in the country to support the war in Afghanistan, has vocally embraced the plan to create the first democracy in a region otherwise ruled by presidential strongmen. Russia, which also has an air base in Kyrgyzstan, is an opponent of the parliamentary model, arguing it could expose the country to more violence or a power grab by Islamist militants as rival factions vie for influence.

Gennady Danilov, 45, was the first to cast his vote at Polling Station No. 1215, a school in the centre of Bishkek. He folded his ballot paper, 70 centimeters in length, and dropped it into a glass box adorned with the Kyrgyz national crest.

“I’ve never voted before,” he said. “I’m simply fed up with this shambles. I hope that, this time, things might change for the better.” Otunbayeva, who came to power after a popular revolt toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April, said about 800 election observers will monitor the vote nationwide. Voters’ thumbs were stamped with indelible ink, a safeguard against multiple voting.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has stationed 40 long-term observers around the country and a further 200 short-term observers arrived for the vote. “This is a remarkable election so far. We hope this openness and transparency will be reflected on polling day, but there is still a lot of work to be done,” Morten Hoeglund, special coordinator of the OSCE’s short-term observers, told Reuters. There were some isolated reports of attempted vote-rigging.

Presidential chief-of-staff Emilbek Kaptagayev said in a statement two election officials in the southern region of Jalalabad had been charged with issuing extra ballot papers.

They could face a seven-year prison term, he said. Twenty-nine parties have registered for the election, of which six

who will attempt to knit together a country plagued by political and ethnic divisions. “Our people do not suffer from amnesia. Our people know their history. They will rise quickly to create a parliamentary republic and protect it themselves,” President Roza Otunbayeva said after casting her vote in a music school in Bishkek.

BISHKEK: Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva casts her ballot at a polling station in Bishkek yesterday. —AP were widely expected to attract a large amount of support from Kyrgyzstan’s 2.8 million registered voters- slightly more than half of the country’s total population.

“We don’t have faith in anyone but ourselves. We’re hoping, of course, for bet-

ter,” said 18-year-old Azamat Dzhanaliyev. Turnout was 42.5 percent by 5 pm (1100 GMT), three hours before polls closed, the Central Election Commission said. The biggest turnout, nearly 50 percent, was in the southern

city of Osh, epicenter of the June violence.

Parts of Osh remain in ruins, with many ethnic Uzbeks living in makeshift tents as they attempt to rebuild houses burned in the clashes. Ethnic Uzbeks turned out in large numbers to vote.

“The new authorities must take into account the mistakes of their predecessors,” said Maksat Kalykulov, 41, an unemployed ethnic Kyrgyz in Osh. “They have to find and punish those behind these events, otherwise there will be new clashes.”

Janez Lenarcic, director for the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), said he was encouraged by the peaceful start to the election in Osh. “Whatever irregularities or shortcomings appear, they should not be solved in the street. They should be solved through legal and judicial methods,” Lenarcic told reporters in the city. All 120 parliament seats will be filled through popular voting for party lists. No single party will be allotted more than 65 seats, regardless of its election result.

Among the frontrunners were the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, led by Almazbek Atambayev, deputy to Otunbayeva in the temporary government that replaced Bakiyev, as well as the Ata Meken party led by Omurbek Tekebayev.

Some parties fiercely oppose the idea of a parliamentary democracy, including Ar-Namys, led by former Prime Minister Felix Kulov. The party’s campaign posters show Kulov shaking hands with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

“Kulov is a military man. My husband is a military man. Military rule means order,” said Taisiya Krevenkova, 62, after casting her vote in Bishkek.

Another party critical of the parliamentary system is Ata Zhurt, which has strong support from ethnic Kyrgyz in the south. Its leader, Kamchibek Tashiyev, voted in a village outside Jalalabad, also the scene of violent clashes in June.

“The election will put a stop to this conflict,” he said. Critics fear the vote could trigger more violence as rival factions struggle for power. —Reuters

Questions raised on Congolese slaughter Mass graves found MUSEKERA: The mass graves are hidden in the darkening shade of a hard-to-reach banana plantation, high up a mountain above the cloud line, at the end of a treacherous dirt track slippery with mud and animal dung. Those who survived say they did not go to the meeting called by Rwandan soldiers. The Congolese Hutu peasants who did were brought out of the thatched-roof meeting house two by two, to be bludgeoned to death with their own hoes, picks and axes. Some 300 villagers died that morning of Oct 20, 1996, according to the local Observation Center for Human Rights and Social Assistance.

The story of the 1994 genocide of more than a half million Tutsis slaughtered by Hutus in Rwanda has been told in the world’s press, in books and in movies such as “Hotel Rwanda.” But the subsequent slaughter of Hutus in neighboring Congo is little known, and its perpetrators never have been brought to justice. The discovery of mass graves prompted investigations that led to a controversial U.N. report published on Oct 1, which accuses invading Rwandan troops of killing tens of thousands of Hutus in 1996 and 1997.

“There are many, many such mass graves. We’ve identified 30 just in this Rutshuru district, but our research indicates that this was the first massacre committed by Rwandan troops,” the center’s coordinator, Herve Nsabimana, said beside the banana trees. Many victims told their

wives to take the youngest children and hide in the fields. Today, Musekera is a village of widows. The only man over 50 was at a nearby health center during the massacre.

Matata Ihigihugo has relatives in three mass graves: her husband and two sons in the one reserved for males, a sister in the women’s grave, and her 8-year-old daugh-

ter in the one where children’s small bodies were buried. “They killed all my people. I have no life left,” said Ihigihugo, who thinks she is 40 but looks many years older. She objected to being asked to name her massacred family. “Why do you ask me to call out the names of those who are dead?” she demanded. “There can be no peace for me until they are properly

MUSEKERA: Matata Ihigihugo, whose husband, three children and sister were killed by Rwandan Tutsi soldiers in a 1996 massacre of 300 Hutu civilians, poses for a picture in the village of Musekera in eastern Congo. —AP

buried.”

It was the Rwandan Tutsi soldiers, led by now-president Paul Kagame, who as rebels ended Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

But they now are accused of vengeful massacres of Hutus when they took the war into Congo. Roberto Garreton, a Chilean lawyer who for eight years was the UN special rapporteur in Congo said that his first report detailing massacres by Kagame’s troops involved Hutus killed in Rwanda in 1994. He said the United Nations suppressed that report, apparently because of embarrassment and guilt that it did nothing to stop the genocide.

The United Nations initially denied the existence of the report, which later was leaked. After the Tutsi rebels triumphed and took over Rwanda’s government, Kagame became vice president and defense minister. He sent troops into Congo in 1996 - although he denied it at the time - in an invasion that led to the ouster of Congo’s longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. UN reports in 1997 and 1998, including one by Garreton, blamed a coalition of Congolese rebel forces that Kagame later admitted were commanded by Rwandan officers for massacres of Hutus, and said they were on a scale to suggest a possible genocide.

Then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan responded by asking Congo and Rwanda to investigate the allegations - basically to investigate themselves. — AP

internatiOnal

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Clinton due in Balkans amid wave of political change WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo this coming week in a bid to help the parties patch up their quarrels and integrate more closely with Europe. In Sarajevo, Belgrade and Pristina, Clinton will underscore US support for “all the Balkan states as they build prosperous, peaceful, democratic societies and move to take their rightful places as members of the European and Euro-Atlantic community,” diplomat Philip Gordon said.

Clinton is due to arrive late today in Sarajevo, a week after elections in

which moderates gained ground in the Muslim Croat Federation and central government, but hardliners stayed entrenched in the Serb entity. Tomorrow the chief US diplomat will meet the outgoing leaders, but also Milorad Dodik and Bakir Izetbegovic, respectively the new Serb and Muslim members of the tripartite presidency.

Analyst Sanel Huskic said Clinton’s visit to Bosnia signals “intense American activity for a year or two” in this state seeking unity.Izetbegovic has already reached out to the Serbs. Last week he urged US President Barack Obama’s administration to help the

country acquire stronger central institutions and allow it to function without international tutelage. Srecko Latal, who is with the International Crisis Group, said Clinton could help the Bosnian “government form more quickly than expected.”

Gordon, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, said Clinton will argue that cooperation among Serbs, Croats and Muslims will promote European integration.”We hope as Bosnians see their neighbors, they will realize too that cooperating internally brings many benefits for the European path which is really the only pos-

sible future for Bosnia,” Gordon said.

Betting that Bosnians are more concerned with unemployment and the economy than with sectarian disputes, Clinton is seeking out meetings with students and the media to hammer home these points publicly.

She will then travel to Belgrade, where she will meet with Serb President Boris Tadic, who has signaled the start soon of the next talks between Serbia and Kosovo under European Union auspices. Twelve years after the war in Kosovo and two years after the former Serb province declared independence, Clinton will express US

impatience to see a dialogue begin with US involvement. “We do expect to be actively involved. We have major commitments in the region,” Gordon told reporters in a conference call. The United States is among 70 states-including 25 of the 27 European Union members-to have recognized Kosovo.

The State Department also hopes that new countries will follow suit following a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.Following a motion from Serbia, which still considers Kosovo as a province, the Court ruled in July that

Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate international law. Clinton’s stop in Pristina on Wednesday has been calibrated to take such raw sensitivities into account. In the capital of Kosovo, the secretary of state will meet with the provisional leaders of a country which was shaken by the surprise resignation of President Fatmir Sejdiu for internal political reasons. She will then visit the neighboring Serb-majority community of Gracanica “to show how much ground Kosovo has made on these issues,” such as integrating the countries ethnic groups. — AFP

Chile rescuers reinforce shaft for miners’ escape Miners set new world survival record COPIAPO: Chilean rescuers yesterday reinforced an escape shaft to hoist 33 miners to freedom two months after they were trapped deep underground in a cavein, as a stunning survival story that gripped the world nears its climax. Engineers finished drilling a nearly 2,050 foot-long shaft just wider than a man’s shoulders to evacuate the men, and the miners used explosives to make room for a special capsule dubbed “Phoenix” that will hoist them one at a time to the surface.

SAN JOSE: Rescue workers insert steel pipes to encase the escape tunnel that will be used to free trapped miners at the San Jose mine near Copiapo yesterday. — AP

US polls all shaken up NEWARK: Little shocks Americans raised in the colorful world of US politics, but when an upstart conservative candidate launched her Senate campaign declaring “I’m not a witch,” eyebrows were raised. The freshfaced Christine O’Donnell, who is 41 but looks a decade younger, has leaped into the national spotlight since she scored an upset victory over the official Republican candidate to win the Delaware nomination for Senate. She is running against Democratic Party candidate Chris Coons aiming to win the seat once held by Vice President Joe Biden in the November 2 elections. Last month’s surprise primary win by the Tea Party-backed O’Donnell over the establishment Republican candidate thrust her into the media glare.

And political pundits were soon feasting on a host of videos dragged up from the archives dating back to the 1990s and filmed during the years of O’Donnell’s conservative, Christian-based political activism. In one video, O’Donnell advises young people against masturbation as part of a crusade by a group called Savior’s Alliance for Lifting

the Truth (SALT) against pornography and abortion. “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can’t masturbate without lust!” she says in the MTV documentary from 1996 advocating sexual abstinence.

In another interview she admits to having tried witchcraft when she was young. “I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven,” she says. Then came allegations that she had misrepresented her academic credentials, claiming she had studied at Oxford University, England, when in fact she had joined a course whose organizers rented rooms at the prestigious college.

There were other eye-browing raising images such as when O’Donnell explained the “myth” of the theory of evolution, or claimed that “American scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”

O’Donnell, who survived charges of past financial improprieties, has a history of rightwing activism and is well-known to Delaware voters. This time around though

she managed to harness a groundswell of anti-establishment anger, and backed by an endorsement from former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, won a stunning victory in Delaware. The ensuing barrage of bizarre videos and statements forced her underground for several weeks to regroup her forces and reshape her strategy. And she came out fighting in her first campaign ad last week.

“I’m not a witch. I’m nothing you’ve heard. I’m you,’ she says. “None of us are perfect, but none of us can be happy with what we see all around us: politicians who think spending, trading favors and backroom deals are the ways to stay in office. I’ll go to Washington, and do what you’d do.”

She seeks to draw the difference with her Democratic rival Coons, stressing she has never been to Yale university, and insisting she is as ordinary as the next person. “It is these career politicians who’ve been groomed for office from day one, who have gotten our country in the shape that it’s in,” she told a small campaign meeting of about 70 people in Newark recently. — AFP

Schools confront anti-gay bullying and suicide surge NEW YORK: A spate of teen suicides linked to anti-gay harassment is prompting school officials nationwide to rethink their efforts against bullying and in the process, risk entanglement in a bitter ideological debate. The conflict: Gay-rights supporters insist that any effective anti-bullying program must include specific components addressing harassment of gay youth. But religious conservatives condemn that approach as an unnecessary and manipulative tactic to sway young people’s views of homosexuality.

It’s a highly emotional topic.

Witness the hate mail - from the left and right - directed at Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District while it reviews its anti-bullying strategies in the aftermath of a gay student’s suicide. The invective is “some of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Superintendent Dennis Carlson said. “We may invite the Department of Justice to come in and help us mediate this discussion between people who seem to want to go at each other.”

They rescuers were inserting metal tubes to line the first 330 feet of the duct to strengthen it, and the government expects to start the evacuation on Wednesday in one of the complex rescue attempts in mining history.

Spontaneous celebrations broke out across Chile on Saturday as news of the drilling breakthrough spread, with horns honking in the capital Santiago and flags waved in towns across a country still recovering from the ravages of a massive Feb 27 earthquake. The mens’ relatives-who danced, sang, cheered and sobbed when the drill broke through 65 days after the Aug 5 collapse at the small gold and copper mine in Chile’s far northern Atacama desert-could barely wait. “I have held back tears until now, but the joy is now too great,” said Cristina Nunez, whose husband Claudio Nunez is among the trapped.

“I’m so happy he will be with us by my daughter’s birthday!”

Among the families is weeks-old infant Esperanza, or “Hope,” whose father is trapped miner Ariel Ticona.

Ticona’s wife, Elizabeth, named the child after the makeshift camp erected at the mine. Ticona saw the birth on a video sent down a narrow bore hole that served as an umbilical cord to pass water and food to keep the men alive during the ordeal, and yearns to hold his daughter for the first time. Once the men are winched to the surface, they will be given astronaut-style medical checks in a field hospital set up at the mine. They will then be able to spend some time with their families, before being flown by helicopter to nearby Copiapo to be stabilized at another hospital.

After spending so long below ground in a humid, dimly-lit tunnel, their eyesight will need time to adjust.

“They will come to the surface with their eyes closed and will immediately put on dark glasses which will protect them from the light,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. “They will keep them on night and day ... until they get used to natural light.”

The miners are in remarkably good health, although some have developed skin infections. The government brought in a team of experts from the US NASA space agency to help keep the men mentally and physically fit during the protracted rescue operation. The men had lost an estimated 22 pounds (10 kg) each in the 17 before they were found. — Reuters

NEWARK: California attorney general and democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown seen at Petersen Dean Roofing and Solar Systems in Newark, Calif. — AP

In Big Oil Texas, Democrat looks to sun, wind energy White challenges long-serving Republican Rick Perry HOUSTON: As a former oil entrepreneur, Bill White is by no means a foe of Big Oil, the engine at the heart of the Texas economy. But if the Democrat wins the state governor’s race next month, he will be spending lots of time working with two other resources in abundance in Texas-sun and wind-and trying to make the whole state much more energy efficient.

If successful, White could help turn oilhappy Texas into the de facto US leader in alternative energy while Washington’s push toward a low-carbon economy drags on in Congress. As Houston’s mayor for three terms, White burnished his clean energy credentials by championing efficiency and making the “Petro Metro” the biggest municipal clean energy purchaser in the state. He also proved his mettle as a cool-headed, straight-talking administrator who focused on the bottom line and proved a steely crisis manager after Hurricane Ike barreled through Houston in 2008.

But White, 56, has yet to prove he can win this tough election. Most polls have him trailing Republican Rick Perry, the longest-serving governor in the history of the second most populous US state. “The guy is darn near a deity in the Houston area,” said Jason Stanford, a political consultant with Stanford Research in Austin, the state capital. “The challenge for him is to make his case to the rest of the state in the time that’s left.” To his credit, White is already the best Democratic bet in 15 years.

“Being a conservative, fiscally careful Democrat puts White in pretty good stead,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “He’s making as good a run as any Democrat has made since Ann Richards,” the last Democrat to hold the office in 1991-1995.

JUMP START SOLAR The clean energy credentials help distinguish White, but he can’t call Perry a slouch on the matter. Under Perry’s watch, Texas wind energy bloomed, and the state leads the nation in producing carbon-free electricity from windmills. Surging interest in renewable energy supplies like wind and solar has made Texas a hotbed for clean-energy technology.

As governor, observers say White could take the state’s success as the No 1 US wind energy producer and apply it to the solar industry, harnessing thousands of carbon-free megawatts and boosting the state’s high-tech credentials. “That would jump-start our solar industry here and get a lot of private investment,” said Jim Marston, director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Texas office.

“It would change the solar industry in this

country like we did for wind.” White says he would defend Texas’ place as “energy capital of the world” as governor by focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

“We have all the natural ingredients to be the clean energy leader for the nation’s future, including the largest concentration of engineers in the Western Hemisphere,” White told Reuters in a recent interview. Like many Texas politicians, White’s position on energy issues is nuanced and complex. As Deputy Energy Secretary under former President Bill Clinton, White focused on cutting costs in a giant federal agency and secured early funds for Texas first wind power. He is no sworn enemy of Big Oil. In his prior career as a businessman, White started an energy company that pursued oil deals in the Caspian Sea. As mayor, he served in a pro-business city that is home to more energy companies than any other US city.

CYCLING AROUND TOWN However, White has clear pro-environment proclivities. He’s an avid cyclist and public transportation advocate-Houston’s Metro light rail expanded during his watch. As mayor, he made Houston the state’s biggest municipal renewable energy purchaser and went after Houston-area petroleum refiners to reduce their harmful air emissions. “On the energy efficiency side Bill White has been a true champion,” Marston said. “He made the city of Houston a model for building retro-fits and reduced air emissions from power plants.”

White’s one-page energy plan calls for a program to encourage home-owners to adopt energy-efficiency, retrofit government buildings to reduce energy use, and adjust the state’s renewable energy targets to accentuate solar power. In a state whose heavy refining and petroleum-extraction industries are firmly in the cross-hairs of carbon-reduction legislation being pursued by some Democrats in Congress, both White and Perry have opposed “cap-and-trade” schemes that would set limits on heat-trapping carbon emissions.

Perry has sued the US Environmental Protection Agency to prevent regulation of carbon emissions, and White has called federal emissions regulation “the wrong way to go.”

Instead of regulating carbon, White said the government should tighten US automobile fuel standards, boost building efficiency, and encourage utilities to switch their generators to burn natural gas instead of coal. “The biggest culprit is emissions from coal-fired power plants,” White said. “The low-hanging fruit is substituting natural and renewables for coal.” — Reuters

Cuba to free more political prisoners TEXAS: School buses bring students home from Hamilton Middle School in Cypress, Texas as Brian Carter (left) Sharon Ferranti, (foreground right) and others stand on a corner with signs to protest the treatment of Asher Brown, an eighth grader at the school who killed himself at home. — AP Carlson’s district in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis is politically diverse, and there are strong, divided views on how to combat bullying.

“We believe the bullying policy should put the emphasis on the

wrong actions of the bullies and not the characteristics of the victims,” said Chuck Darrell of the conservative Minnesota Family Council. That’s a wrongheaded, potentially dangerous approach, according to the Gay, Lesbian and

Straight Education Network, which tries to improve the school climate for gay students nationwide. “Policies have to name the problem in order to have an impact,” said GLSEN’s executive director, Eliza Byard. — AP

HAVANA: Cuba will free three more political prisoners and send them to Spain, the Catholic Church said, in an expansion of its release of imprisoned opponents. The three to be released were in addition to the 52 the government already pledged to free in a deal with the church announced in July, a human rights activist said. “Evidently, today has begun a second phase in the process of releases of opponents who do not belong to the group of 52,” said Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights.

President Raul Castro appears to be intent on ending the political prisoner controversy which has marred Cuba’s

international relations for years, and particularly since 75 dissidents were jailed in a 2003 crackdown.

In the July deal brokered by the Catholic Church, he agreed to free the 52 prisoners who remained in jail from the crackdown and the church has said he wants to release all other dissidents still behind bars.

The move to release prisoners came after the communist-led island was heavily criticized following the February death of imprisoned hunger striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

There is wide-ranging disagreement on how many more prisoners Cuba has, although Sanchez has said there could

still be about 100. Of the group of 52, 39 have been freed and sent to Spain, and 13 are still waiting to be freed.

Sanchez said 12 of them have refused to go to Spain, which the Cuban government is seeking to make part of the deal because it wants the dissidents out of the country. Cuba considers the prisoners to be mercenaries working for its long-time ideological foe, the United States.

The three soon-to-be released prisoners announced on Saturday included one on Amnesty International’s list of Cuban prisoners of conscience and two others who tried to escape Cuba by hijacking. — Reuters

INTERNATIONAL

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Indonesia’s changing face of terrorism HAMPARAN PERAK: Muslim militants wearing black masks stormed the tiny police precinct in western Indonesia and unloaded their assault rifles - riddling officers’ bodies with bullets and shining a spotlight on the country’s changing face of terrorism. Extremists, better known for targeting Western nightclubs and hotels, are now going after Indonesia’s state. And for the first time in more than a decade, the army has waded into the fight.

“It happened so fast, there was no way to react,” said Irsol, the chief detective at the precinct on Sumatra island, who narrowly escaped the midnight assault by turning off the lights and hiding in the bathroom. By the time the militants had sped off, one of his friends was sprawled on the floor with a hole in his head and 10 others in his arms and chest. Another friend was slumped over his computer, and a third lay motionless in a pool of blood in front of a

holding cell.

“It was like they were sending a message to police and soldiers everywhere,” said Irsol, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name. Still shaken after the Sept. 22 strike, he said the message was simple: “Watch out ... you’re next.”

Indonesia, a secular nation with more Muslims than any other in the world, was struck by a massive terrorist attack in 2002, when members of the Al-Qaeda linked network Jemaah Islamiyah carried out twin suicide bombings on crowded nightclubs on the country’s resort island of Bali. 202 people were killed, many of them foreign tourists.

Though Jemaah Islamiyah has since abandoned such tactics, saying too many Muslim civilians were among the victims, members of a violent offshoot led by the late bomb-making expert Nordin Top continued to carry out near-annual strikes on

embassies, beach-side restaurants and glitzy hotels, killing more than 60. But the attacks have been far less deadly, in part because hundreds of suspects have been arrested and convicted - making the government and its security forces yet another target.

Indeed, the discovery of a new terror cell’s jihadi training camp in westernmost Aceh province in February made it clear the game was about to change. Several arrested militants said they wanted to punish the state for lending support to the USled war on terrorism, said Maj Gen Ansyaad Mbai, the head of the newly formed National Anti-terrorism Agency.

Their weapons of choice were guns, not bombs, he said, so they could be more precise.

Sidney Jones, a leading international expert on Southeast Asian terrorist groups, said the Aceh cell - which brought

together militants from different networks - has been influenced in part by the Middle East. “They have a long-term strategy of building an Islamic state and Muslim officials who hinder that objective are the enemy and need to be confronted,” she said. “That doesn’t mean attacks on foreigners are a thing of the past. But for now, at least, police appear to be the number one target.” The attack on the police precinct financed by a series of deadly armed robberies of banks and money changers that has netted more than $127,000 since April - has been billed by militants as a warning of what is yet to come.

Militants also have warned of high-profile assassinations, saying President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono topped their list. The government has wasted no time in going on the offensive. For the first time since longtime dictator Gen Suharto was swept from power in a wave of pro-democracy street

protests in 1998, the military has joined US-trained elite police in fighting the militants. “We’re ready to crush terrorists, any time,” said Maj Gen Lodewijk Paulus, who heads Kopassus, an army unit that until recently was on a US blacklist for widespread, Suharto-era rights abuses.

In recent weeks, soldiers have been shown on national television taking part in anti-terrorism drills, some wearing black helmets and uniforms as they jump out of helicopters.

Others have been shown combing rugged mountain terrain for fleeing militants. One clip even showed troops screaming at suspects in a river to surrender and then - before they were given a chance to do so - emptying their guns.

Critics warn that involving the army in combating terrorism has its dangers. It could spark competition between security forces, undermining the anti-terrorism

fight, they warn. It also risks fueling Islamist propaganda and angering the public at large.

Mardigu Wowiek Prasantyo, a terrorism analyst, said that Indonesia has been successful in pushing back the terror threat so far partly because the alleged militants were, for the most part, treated according to the law.

They weren’t secretly detained for long periods of time, and they received open trials, widely covered in the media. This helped convince a skeptical public that the threat was homegrown - not part of a US conspiracy against Muslims. But Hendardi, a noted rights activist from Setara Institute who uses only one name, has other concerns. “I’m worried the military will use their power to once again suppress civil rights and arrest anyone they consider “terrorists,” he said. “It really feels like we’re turning back the clock.” — AP

US, Asian defense ministers to meet amid China tensions Beijing opposes ‘internationalizing’ its territorial wrangles HANOI: Defense ministers from the United States and China meet key Asian counterparts tomorrow for the highest-level security talks ever held in a region where tensions are rising over Beijing’s assertiveness. The ASEAN-led meeting in Vietnam comes against the backdrop of the worst row in years between China and Japan, and a renewed US diplomatic push in Southeast Asia, where

TAIPEI: Taiwanese honor guards perform during Taiwan’s National Day celebrations yesterday. — AP

Taiwan wants arms despite Chinese ties

TAIPEI: Taiwan will keep buying arms abroad as it cannot rely just on improving ties with Beijing for security, President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday, urging China to withdraw missiles pointed at the island. “Of course, for Taiwan’s security we cannot place our hopes only on improved relations with China,” Ma said in a National Day address in central Taipei. “Therefore, it is our necessary and unalterable policy to develop an independent defensive capability and to continue to buy from abroad defensive weapons that we cannot produce ourselves.”

Late last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was quoted by Taipei-based media as suggesting that mainland missiles targeting Taiwan could one day be removed. Ma again welcomed this yesterday. “The mainland authorities recently made a statement on withdrawing the missiles. We think that’s positive for ties between Taiwan and China, and we hope it will be realised at an early date,” Ma said. Taiwanese experts estimate that the Chinese military has more than 1,600 missiles aimed at the island.

The number has been growing steadily in recent years, in a stark reminder that China has

never given up the option of using force to bring about reunification. The United States in January approved a 6.4-billion-dollar package including helicopters, anti-missile defenses and minesweepers for Taiwan, which is still pressing for US F-16 fighter-jets. China reacted furiously to the arms deal and is only now resuming suspended military exchanges with the United States. Ma was elected in 2008 on a promise to improve Taiwan’s economy, mainly by stepping up exchanges with China. Under his leadership, ties between Taiwan and China have warmed rapidly and are now at their friendliest since 1949, when the two sides split at the end of a civil war. “We will continue to expand economic, cultural and social exchanges and build up mutual trust,” Ma said. He spoke on the 99th anniversary of the Republic of China, which was founded on the mainland and ruled there until defeated by the communists. It remains the official name of Taiwan. “The Republic of China is a sovereign, independent nation,” Ma said in his speech, addressing concerns among many of the island’s 23 million people that closer ties with China could endanger the island’s de facto independence. — AFP

Iran’s ‘other Neda’ finds political voice DREUX: An Iranian woman mistaken for Neda AghaSoltan, whose death in post-election protests last year became a symbol of Iran’s opposition movement, has found her own political voice after being forced into exile. “I have a personal link to her (the other Neda) because her death somehow caused a serious destruction of my life. Not her immediate death but the consequences of her death,” Neda Soltani told AFP.Shocking images of Agha-Soltan bleeding to death on a Tehran street after being shot during a June 2009 demonstration were broadcast on the Internet and seen around the world.

The 26-year-old student was viewed as a martyr, and in a rush to get images several media mistakenly took a picture of Soltani from her Facebook page and presented it as Agha-Soltan. Within days, the photo was printed on t-shirts, posters and in newspapers around the world. Soltani, a 32-year-old English liter-

ature lecturer from the University of Tehran, had no connection with Agha-Soltan. Despite her attempts to correct the mistake, the Iranian regime threatened her life and eventually she sought political asylum in Germany. “The Iranian regime wanted to use the confusion to its own advantage, by saying the tragic death had not taken place,” she said. “Because I did not want to cooperate with them, I was accused of treason and spying. I finally had to leave everything and seek asylum. “I am really thankful and I must acknowledge my appreciation of the German authorities for giving me a second chance. “It’s a very difficult life because I have to start everything again. I don’t have any relatives in Germany, my family lives in Iran. “Everybody (political refugees) wants to go back home and for me it’s even stronger because I am not even here because of the consequences of my own actions,” she said. — AFP

His boat collided with two Japanese coastguard vessels near a disputed East China Sea island chain, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Japan released the captain in late September but two Chinese fishery patrol boats sent to the area did not withdraw until last Wednesday, Tokyo said.

Kitazawa said he hoped to meet his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie on the fringes of the Hanoi forum. “Between Japan and China, I would like to propose establishing a mechanism to resolve accidental incidents,” he said, describing the East China Sea security environment as “getting severe and volatile”.

Last month a Japanese defense paper voiced concern over China’s growing military muscle, after a US Defense Department report in August said China was ramping up investment in an array of areas including nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, submarines, aircraft carriers and cyber warfare. The report predicted Beijing may step up patrols in the South China Sea, where China claims sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos, as do Vietnam and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. At the second annual ASEAN-US leaders’ summit last month both sides agreed on the importance of “freedom of navigation” including in the South China Sea. China vehemently opposes “internationalising” its territorial wrangles and had warned the US not to get involved in the maritime sovereignty dispute.

Vietnam last week demanded the release of a vessel and its crew seized by China one month ago while fishing in the Paracels-the latest of numerous similar cases reported by Hanoi since last year.

At a meeting of regional foreign ministers in July, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said resolving disputes over the South China Sea is “pivotal” to regional stability. Other delegates also raised the matter, sparking anger from China, diplomats said. They said there has been Chinese pressure for this week’s meeting to avoid discussion of the South China Sea. China has also objected to US military exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea. They followed a March torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors and which the US and South Korea blamed on North Korea. The incident sharply raised regional tensions. Despite such strains in the relationship, analysts see a positive sign in expected bilateral talks, on the sidelines of the Hanoi forum, between US Defense Secretary Gates and his Chinese counterpart. China in January suspended military contact with the US over American plans to sell military equipment to Taiwan but after a 10-month break the US and China agreed late last month to resume contact.

Vietnam will host tomorrow’s day-long talks-known as the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus-because it is this year’s chairman of the 10-member ASEAN bloc. The meeting will be the first-ever between the ASEAN ministers and their eight regional partners: Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the US.— AFP

concern is growing over Chinese activity in the South China Sea. Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Friday he would meet his US counterpart Robert Gates in Hanoi to discuss how to deal with China’s increasing naval presence. China issued threats and cut all high-level diplomatic contact with Tokyo after the September 8 arrest by Japan of a Chinese trawler captain.

HANOI: A group of traffic policewomen takes part in a parade to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi yesterday. — AP

Hanoi throws lavish 1,000th birthday bash HANOI: Draped in red Communist banners and propaganda slogans, Vietnam’s capital turned 1,000 years old yesterday in an extravagant ceremony intended to stoke national pride and show the world that this once war-ravaged country has moved beyond its dark history. More than 30,000 people marched in Vietnam’s biggestever parade, with goose-stepping soldiers, colorful dragon dancers and 10 military helicopters displaying huge Vietnamese and Communist Party flags.

The procession, a third of which was military, started in the capital’s historic Ba Dinh Square where the late President Ho Chi Minh declared independence from the French colonialists 65 years ago. Ho’s massive granite mausoleum provided the backdrop for the festivities commemorating King Ly Thai To’s decision in 1010 to move Vietnam’s capital 62 miles north to Hanoi, then called Thang Long. “Experiencing 1,000 years of numerous ups and downs, Thang LongHanoi, maintains its assured posture and proudness, deserving to be the heart of the country,” President Nguyen Minh Triet said in a speech.

But the 10-day millennial bash hasn’t been without its problems. Traffic congestion on the capital’s already-overloaded streets reached

manic levels as police closed off main avenues for parade practice sessions, forcing thousands of jostling, roaring motorbikes to sit revving their engines and beeping their horns in aggravation.

The city of 6.5 million was also bloated by busloads of villagers from the countryside pouring in for a glimpse of the twinkling lights showcasing the city’s central landmark, Hoan Kiem Lake.

A lavish fireworks display planned for 29 different sites around the city was canceled after online bloggers complained that the extravaganza was wasteful amid mass flooding in central Vietnam that has killed 62 people in the past week, leaving hundreds of thousands more suffering. The Communist Party said the quarter million dollars saved from not putting off the fireworks would be donated to flood victims. A display at My Dinh National Stadium was still planned as the grand finale, despite four people being killed at the site earlier in the week, including two Germans and a Singaporean, when two containers of fireworks accidentally exploded.

Authorities have been cagey about releasing just how much was spent on the celebration, with one Hanoi official saying $15 million, not including the parade. However, the true price

tag was likely much higher given the numerous facelift projects throughout the city pegged to the event. “I think corruption is really widespread in this system,” said Hong Vu, an Australian member of Viet Tan, the banned Vietnam Reform Party, who passed out T-shirts and hats Saturday in Hanoi during a rare event calling for Vietnam to defend its right to sovereignty over disputed islands in the South China Sea, which China and several other countries also claim.

“There is no controlled system to monitor transparency.” Hanoi considers the US-based group of pro-democracy dissidents, with members abroad and within the country, a terrorist organization, but the US has found no evidence to suggest that. Vietnam does not tolerate any form of challenge to its one-party rule and has jailed several Viet Tan members. Some $2 million for the birthday party was spent painting buildings in Hanoi’s famous Old Quarter, a narrow maze of ancient homes and shops popular with tourists. Another $2 million was allocated to replace tiles around Hoan Kiem Lake, but construction was halted after loud public protests saying it was a waste of money in a country where graft runs rampant.— AP

Highest-ranking North Korean defector dies SEOUL: The highest-ranking North Korean defector to come to South Korea was found dead at his Seoul home yesterday, as the regime he once served staged a triumphal military parade in Pyongyang. Police said there was no reason so far to suspect foul play in the death of Hwang Jang-Yop, 87, who lived under police guard at a secret address and had received death threats from the North. Hwang was a former tutor to current North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and secretary to the North’s ruling party before he defected during a 1997 trip to Beijing and became one of the regime’s most bitter critics. A Seoul police spokesman said a security guard found Hwang dead in his bathtub.

He had no external injuries. “So far there is nothing to suspect that he was murdered,”

the spokesman said, adding an autopsy would be conducted. Footage from closedcircuit TV around his home would also be examined.

YTN television quoted sources as saying Hwang apparently suffered a heart attack.

Yonhap news agency said there was no sign of a forced entry. Former South Korean President Kim Young-Sam, in a statement through an aide, described Hwang as a “great patriot” who spoke out against the Pyongyang regime despite constant death threats. Hwang was found dead on the day the North’s regime staged a huge military parade attended by Kim and his youngest son and heir apparent Jong-Un. The defector was a firm critic of what will be the communist nation’s second dynastic succession.

In April the North’s official website threatened Hwang with death for his criticism of the regime during trips to the United States and Japan. Hwang “will not be safe anywhere”, the Uriminzokkiri website warned in a commentary. “You must not forget traitors have always been slaughtered with knives.” The commentary described Hwang as a “traitor and human scum” and said he had “viciously slandered our dignity and system” during his trips. In July a South Korean court passed 10-year prison sentences on two North Korean agents who posed as fugitives from the communist state in a bid to assassinate Hwang. The court heard they had received their orders directly from the North’s military intelligence head Kim Yong-Chol.— AP

internAtiOnAL

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Two senior Taleban commanders killed 2 NATO troops slain KABUL: A senior Taleban commander and two other insurgents were killed in a firefight with NATO and Afghan forces in western Afghanistan, the military alliance said yesterday, as the government named a chief of a new council tasked with talking to insurgent groups. Also yesterday, five civilians died in a roadside bombing in the east, and two NATO troops were killed in a blast in southern Afghanistan.

HERAT: Italian soldiers carry coffins of four of their comrades at a base in Herat, west of Kabul yesterday. The four Italian troops died in a roadside blast in western Farah province on Saturday. — AP

Afghan ex-president heads peace council KABUL: Afghanistan’s former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who has been implicated in war crimes, was yesterday elected chairman of a new peace council set up to broker an end to the war with the Taleban.

The High Peace Council is President Hamid Karzai’s brainchild, intended to open a dialogue with insurgents who have been trying to bring down his government since the USled invasion overthrew their regime in late 2001.The 68-member council, hand-picked

by Karzai, was set up following a nationwide conference in June and was inaugurated on October 7 amid mounting reports of secret peace talks with Taleban leaders and key insurgent groups.

Rabbani, who was president during Afghanistan’s chaotic 1992-1996 civil war, was elected to chair the council at its second session Sunday in what Karzai’s office described as a “unanimous” vote.

Delivering his acceptance speech, Rabbani said he was “confident” that peace was possible, according to a statement from the palace. “I hope we are able to take major steps in bringing peace and fulfil our duties with tireless effort and help from God,” he was quoted as saying. According to Human Rights Watch, Rabbani is among prominent Afghans implicated in war crimes during the brutal fighting that killed or displaced hun-

dreds of thousands of Afghans in the early 1990s.

With the current war now into a 10th year, record numbers of Western troops and Afghan civilians are dying and the Taleban is more powerful than at any time since its ouster. The government has increasingly been discredited by graft. Western militaries have accelerated efforts to train Afghan troops, while Karzai has promised that Afghanistan will take responsibility for security by 2014 and has put negotiations with the Taleban at the top of his agenda.

The Taleban has said publicly it will not enter dialogue with the government until all 152,000 foreign troops based in the country leave.

Analysts also warn that the council is so stacked with warlords and militia leaders it could be set up for failure, particularly when many in Afghanistan accuse Pakistani intelligence of supporting the Taleban. There is also a fear among Afghans, particularly the urban elite who have prospered in the last nine years, that any power-sharing with the Taleban could bury some new-found freedoms, particularly for women. “No doubt Rabbani is a known figure of jihad, but my feeling is that times have changed,” former deputy foreign minister and political analyst Mahmoud Saiqal said.

“Now we need someone who would be able to actively deal with the source of the problem-which is the interference of ISI,” he said, referring to Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence agency. Rabbani led one of seven resistance factions to the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan in the 1980s and later became a leader of the Northern Alliance, an arch enemy of the Taleban that allied itself to US-led forces in late 2001.

Although a US-led troop surge is said to be making tentative progress against Taleban strongholds in the south, there is increased acceptance that a negotiated settlement will be a vital component in ending the conflict. US General David Petraeus, the NATO commander in Afghanistan who was credited with easing the quagmire in Iraq, has confirmed Taleban “overtures” to the Afghan government and foreign forces about quitting the fight. The Washington Post reported last week that Mullah Mohammad Omar, Taleban leader said to be hiding in Pakistan, has backed secret high-level talks with the Afghan government. A British newspaper said the Afghan and US governments had recently made contact with the Haqqani network, one of the most feared groups in Afghanistan and the target of a major increase in US drone strikes. — AFP

in the news 40 killed as bus plunges into river DHAKA: At least one university student died and around 40 people were feared dead yesterday after a crowded bus plunged into a river near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police said. The bus was packed with around 50 people when the accident happened at Aminbazar, 20 kilometers west of Dhaka. The bus swerved into the Turag river trapping some 40 passengers inside, chief district administrator Mohibul Haq said. Army and navy rescuers were called in to help after fire brigade divers failed to locate the bus due to the strong current, Haq said. “Six hours have passed and still we could not find the bus. I am afraid all the passengers are now feared dead,” he told AFP, adding a metal detector was being flown from the southeastern city of Chittagong to help find the bus. Police said eight people had swum ashore.

One of those who emerged from the wreckage, a 23-year-old female student, later died in hospital in the town of Savar, local police chief Mahbubur Rahman said.

Nepal parliament fails to elect PM KATHMANDU: Nepal’s parliament failed to elect a new prime minister for the twelfth time yesterday, meaning the impoverished Himalayan nation has been without a functioning government for over 100 days. Nepal has been stuck in a series of futile elections since caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned from his post on

June 30. He resigned under intense pressure from the opposition Maoist party, which was calling for a consensus government. At yesterday’s vote Ram Chandra Poudel, leader of the Nepali Congress and the sole candidate for prime minister, secured just 89 votes, far short of the 301 needed in the 601-member Constituent Assembly.

Members from other parties abstained. Political leaders have repeatedly failed to negotiate a solution to the shape of the new administration and eleven earlier votes to try to select a prime minister have failed to produce a winner. The Maoists, who waged a decade-long armed uprising against the monarchy, became the largest party in the 2008 constituent assembly elections, but without sufficient seats to form a government alone. Their candidate, party chairman Pushpa Kama Dahal, known as Prachanda or “the fierce one”, was the front-runner in earlier votes, but withdrew to enable fresh talks on forming a national consensus government.

17 die as bus, truck collide BEIJING: Chinese state media says a collision between an intercity bus and a cement truck on a foggy eastern China highway has killed at least 17 people. The Xinhua News Agency reports that Saturday’s crash occurred in thick fog outside Nanjing city.

The report says that the collision caused the truck to catch fire.

Xinhua reports the bus was carrying 53 people, and besides the 17 dead, another 23 were

injured, six seriously. The crash occurred between Nanjing city and the eastern city of Hefei, but the report did not say which direction the bus was heading.

Tehran hangs woman, 3 men TEHRAN: Iran hanged yesterday a woman and three men in a prison in the northwestern city of Zanjan after they were found guilty of drug trafficking, Fars news agency reported. The report did not identify those who were hanged but said the executions were carried out in Zanjan’s main prison. The latest hangings bring the number of executions in Iran to at least 129 in 2010 so far, according to an AFP count based on media reports. At least 270 people were hanged last year. Iran says the death penalty is essential to maintain public security and is applied only after exhaustive judicial proceedings.

Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are all punishable by death in the Islamic republic. Iran is one of the leading countries that carry out executions each year, along with China, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

7 killed in Algeria ALGIERS: State radio reports at least seven people have been killed in the wake of torrential rains in Algeria - including five people in a car carried away by a river that jumped its banks.

Downpours were reported across the north African country overnight Saturday to Sunday.

Authorities closed some schools, houses were inundated

and some roads were impassable. An 83-year-old woman died after the balcony of her house collapsed in the Belcourt area of Algiers, the capital. A man in his 50s died in similar circumstances in Boumerdes 45 kilometers to the east. The five car passengers died in Djelfa, about 300 kilometers south of Algiers. At least 30 people died in Algeria in downpours in October 2008.

S Korea suspends plan to use ‘sound cannon’ SEOUL: South Korea has suspended a plan to use ‘sound cannons’ at next month’s G20 summit in Seoul after the tactic to disperse protestors drew criticism from rights’ groups, an official said yesterday. Police had said they wanted to deploy Long Range Acoustic Devices-or sound cannons-that can emit up to 152 decibels. But critics say prolonged exposure to the noise can cause hearing loss in and infringe on the right to stage protests. Senior aides to President Lee Myung-Bak had a meeting yesterday and agreed to put the plan on hold, the presidential spokesman said.

“There were many controversies on the plan to adopt the sound cannons, so it was agreed to suspend the plan,” he said.

Police have been on high alert as Seoul prepares to host US President Barack Obama and other Group of 20 leaders at the November 11-12 gathering.

South Korea sees the summit as its biggest appearance on the world stage since the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber targeting a convoy of foreign forces wounded two civilians in eastern Khost province’s Mandozai district, said provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Hakim Hsaqzai.

Intelligence sources tracked a Taleban commander identified as Mullah Jamaluddin as he traveled in western Badghis province’s Murghab district Saturday, and NATO and Afghan forces moved in. A gunbattle erupted and the Taleban leader and two militants were killed, NATO said.

Provincial spokesman Sharaf Uddin Majidi confirmed NATO’s account. “Jamaluddin was a very important person who received support from much of the local community,” Majidi told The Associated Press. “His death will certainly lead to increased peace and stability.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced yesterday the recently formed “peace council” had selected former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as its chairman. In a speech to the council, Karzai praised their choice, saying Rabbani’s leadership would be “good for Afghanistan.”

Rabbani was one of a group of mujahedeen leaders who fought the Soviets in the 1980s.

He was Afghanistan’s president between 1992 and 1996, when he was ousted by the Taleban.

The 70-member panel, which formally began work on Thursday, was created by Karzai to have a structure in place to guide talks with the Taleban and other insurgent groups. “How much longer can we wait for foreigners to establish security for us? How much longer can we witness explosions in our mosques and see our leaders killed?” Rabbani said as he accepted the position.

“Peace will come when we cooperate.”

Publicly, the Taleban have said they won’t negotiate until foreign troops leave the country, yet many Taleban leaders have reached out directly or indirectly to the highest levels of the Afghan government.

There have been no formal negotiations yet between the Afghan government and the Taleban, only some contacts and signals from each side, according to Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar.

Another Taleban leader, Ajmal Agha Jan, also died Saturday in southern Helmand province’s Marjah district after he pulled a pistol on a joint force that raided his compound, NATO said in a statement.

Six senior Taleban were killed in operations in Badghis and neighboring Faryab province over the past two weeks, NATO said. The Taleban has accused NATO of engaging in a propaganda campaign to demoralize the insurgents’ moral by inventing Taleban leaders and alleging they were killed or captured.

Violence continues unabated throughout much of Afghanistan. The focus of the US-led war, which entered its 10th year last week, has been on the south, but coalition troops are increasingly fighting resilient militants in the west, east and north.

A family of five was killed by a roadside bomb that struck their vehicle in eastern Paktia province yesterday, said Rohullah Samon, spokesman for the provincial governor. The nine-year war has inflicted a mounting toll on Afghan civilians. A UN report said more than 1,200 Afghans died and nearly 2,000 were wounded between January and June this year. Two NATO troops were killed in a roadside bomb attack yesterday in southern Afghanistan, an alliance statement said, without giving nationalities or a specific location. On Saturday, four Italian troops died in a roadside blast in western Farah province.

Yesterday’s deaths brought to 26 the number of NATO forces killed this month. At least 2,014 NATO service members have died since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan on Oct 7, 2001, according to an AP count. — AP

TORKHAM: Pakistani oil tankers carrying fuel for NATO forces enter into Afghanistan through Pakistan’s border crossing Torkham yesterday. — AP

Pakistan reopens Afghan crossing PESHAWAR: Pakistan reopened a key border crossing to NATO supply convoys heading into Afghanistan yesterday, ending an 11-day blockade imposed after a US helicopter strike killed two Pakistani soldiers. The closing of the Torkham crossing to NATO vehicles stranded many fuel tankers at parking lots and on highways where they were vulnerable to militant attacks. Some 150 trucks were destroyed and some drivers and police were wounded in the near-daily attacks.

The reopening of the northwest crossing came four days after the US apologized for the Sept 30 helicopter attack, saying the pilots mistook the soldiers for insurgents being pursuing across the border from Afghanistan. “I am very happy that our difficult days have finally ended and we are through now,” driver Khan Rehman told The Associated Press minutes before he drove the first truck into Afghanistan just after noon. “I am thankful to the government of Pakistan for ending our hardship.” By the end of the day, some 120 trucks carrying NATO supplies - 40 of them carrying fuel - had crossed into Afghanistan through Torkham, said local government official Raza Khan.

Pakistan is a key supply route for fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other nonlethal supplies for foreign troops in landlocked Afghanistan - although NATO has reduced its reliance on the country by using Central Asian routes to the north. NATO now ships about 40 percent of its non-lethal supplies through Pakistan, down from 80 percent at its peak.

NATO said the Torkham closure did not affect its ability to keep troops supplied because hundreds of trucks still crossed into Afghanistan every day through Central Asia and one border crossing in Pakistan’s southwest that remained open. But its reopening does reduce strain on the supply line.

“It’s easier for us to come to grips with logistics and supplies when Torkham gate is open,”

German Brig Gen Josef Blotz, a NATO spokesman, told reporters in Kabul. The blockade raised tensions between the US and Pakistan at a time when they were already quite high.

Washington accuses Pakistan of being unwilling to go after Afghan Taleban militants in its territory with whom it has strong historical ties and who generally focus their attacks on Western troops rather than Pakistani targets. NATO has responded to Pakistan’s position by increasing its forces in key areas in Afghanistan near the border, including in the provinces of Khost and Paktia which abut Pakistan’s tribal region, said Blotz.

A stronger force has also been put in place near Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, which borders Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, he said.

The US has also dramatically increased the number of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt, including two yesterday in North Waziristan that killed eight people - the ninth and tenth missile strikes this month. In the first attack, a drone fired two missiles at a pair of cars in an Afghan refugee camp in the Spin Wam area, killing six people, said Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Minutes later, a drone killed two people near the bank of a river located just outside the refugee camp, the officials said. The identities of the people killed were not known, but the area where the strikes occurred is dominated by a militant group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur that regularly attacks NATO troops in Afghanistan. In September, the US is believed to have launched at least 21 missile strikes, nearly double the previously monthly record. The US rarely acknowledges the covert missile strike program, but officials have said privately that they have killed several senior Taleban and Al-Qaeda commanders. Pakistan officially opposes the program, but is believed to secretly support it. — AP

‘Red Shirts’ rally in Bangkok BANGKOK: About 6,000 “Red Shirt” protesters rallied in Bangkok yesterday to mark six months since a night of bloody clashes with the army, which left 25 people dead, during their two-month-long street protests.

Anti-government Red Shirts began with a Buddhist ceremony near the capital’s Lumpini Park, before leaving to join fellow demonstrators near Democracy Monument, the main site of violence on April 10. Police said an estimated 6,000 joined the non-violent rally, and more than 1,000 police were on hand to ensure security in the city, which has been rattled by a series of explosions since the protests ended in May. The group, dressed in trademark red attire and carrying banners and flags, lay roses, flowers and pictures of those who died in the violence by the monument, where they were due to light candles before dispersing. The Reds, mostly sup-

porters of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a 2006 coup, took to the streets in mid-March demanding snap polls to replace the current government, which they say is undemocratic and elitist. April 10 saw the first fatalities of the rally as troops attempted in vain to clear them from Bangkok’s historic district.

The ensuing clashes were Thailand’s worst political violence in almost two decades, killing 25 and wounding more than 800.

An army crackdown over a month later, on May 19, finally brought to an end the weeks of protests, during which clashes with the authorities ultimately left 91 people dead. About 6,000 Reds, who are mainly poor and working class, gathered in Bangkok last month to mark four years since the coup that ousted Thaksin, and to commemorate those slain in the May crackdown. The capital and three other provinces remain

under emergency rule, which was introduced in early April in response to the mass anti-government rallies that peaked at 100,000 people.

Just hours after the decree was extended on Tuesday, four people were killed by a deadly blast at an apartment complex near Bangkok, which police said was a probably a bomb accidentally detonated while it was being assembled. The government, which has stepped up security following a string of other minor blasts in Bangkok, was quick to blame the Red Shirts for the explosion. The Reds deny any involvement in the unrest and have accused the authorities of a plot to justify tougher security powers.

Though no-one has been convicted, 19 senior Reds are currently in jail in Thailand on terrorism charges relating to the unrest during the protests, while others thought to have played key roles remain on the run. — AFP

BANGKOK: Anti-government protesters chant slogans as they gather yesterday in Bangkok. — AP

NEWS

Monday, October 11, 2010

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Israeli Cabinet approves loyalty bill, Arabs angry

ABU DHABI: This picture dated Aug 30, 2010 shows the library building of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, where the first students have started to move into the research facility. — AP

Abu Dhabi shifts plans, delays green city project DUBAI: A $22 billion clean-energy city being built in the desert outside Abu Dhabi will no longer aim to produce all its own power, the developer revealed yesterday following a wide-ranging review that retools some of the project’s ambitions. Plans originally called for Masdar City to become a self-contained “carbon-neutral” community of 40,000 residents and even more commuters. Cars would be banned. Waste and water would be recycled.

It is meant to be a marked environmental contrast to other cities in the Emirates, where fuel-guzzling SUVs and year-round air conditioning powered by fossil fuel are common.

The state company behind the city said yesterday the project now won’t be completed until at least 2020 - four years after the original deadline - and that work could stretch until 2025. The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co - which goes by Masdar or “source” in Arabic - also backed away from original plans to power the city solely on power produced on site.

The latest plans still call for the project to rely solely on renewable energy, however.

Chief Executive Sultan Al-Jaber insisted that the project is in no way being scaled down or scaled back. Rather, he said, Masdar is adapting its plans to account for new research and technologies as they become available. “By us actually doing it and investing money, we had access to lessons learned

that no one had access to,” he told AP. “We have to learn, adjust, adapt and move forward.

We can’t be rigid,” he said.

Masdar said it is exploring a range of clean-energy sources for the city, including geothermal energy and solar thermal cooling, but that it will also consider buying renewable power from other locations. Vast solar arrays were originally slated to provide the bulk of Masdar City’s power. The changes mark the biggest shift in Masdar’s strategy since the project was announced in 2006. Work on the site started in 2008. As part of its new plans, Masdar said it is going to limit the development of a highly publicized network of personal podcars that would shuttle tens of thousands of Masdar City residents and visitors around the six square kilometer development.

The “personal rapid transit” podcars, which would travel on fixed tracks, were meant to replace personal vehicles in a city that promised to be entirely car-free. Masdar now says the podcar system will be limited to an “ongoing pilot project”, and that other types of electric vehicles may be allowed in the future. Gulf energy expert Robert Bryniak, chief executive of Golden Sands Management Consulting in Abu Dhabi, said it made sense for Masdar to re-examine its plans. He described the original targets as “extremely aggressive” given the timeframe

involved. “Trying to get to a zero-carbon footprint is extremely difficult. To try to supply all the energy internally was going to be a pretty tough challenge,” he said.

Some parts of Masdar City are already up and running. Students and faculty began moving into six buildings housing a research facility known as Masdar Institute last month.

While Masdar does not claim those buildings are carbon neutral, it says they use about half the water and electricity than other buildings in the Emirates thanks to rooftop solar panels and hot water heaters.

Al-Jaber told reporters in June that the overall aims of the project were not in jeopardy amid reports that the company had shed jobs and was looking to cut costs. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE, a Gulf federation that has the world’s largest ecological footprint per capita, according to the World Wildlife Fund. That means each of its residents uses more of the world’s resources on average than those living in any other nation. Masdar City is at the heart of efforts by Abu Dhabi, one of the world’s biggest exporters of oil, to position itself as a world leader in renewable energy.

The emirate is investing heavily in solar and nuclear power, and was picked last year as the home of the International Renewable Energy Agency. — AP

North Korea heir debuts at giant military parade PYONGYANG: North Korea’s leader-in-waiting, the youngest son of ailing ruler Kim Jong-il, took centre stage during a big military parade yesterday, making his first national appearance in the secretive state. Kim Jong-un stood near his father on the dais, clapping and saluting thousands of goose-stepping soldiers, and reviewing missiles, tanks and artillery rockets. The young Kim’s prominent role at the parade in Pyongyang’s Kim Ilsung Square marked his military debut and showed his standing in one of the world’s largest armies.

Until his appointment as a general last month - along with his naming to a key political post - little was known about the young Kim other than that he was educated in Switzerland.

“The future of our country is rosy and bright because Kim Jong-un was elected vice chairman of the military commission of the Workers’ Party,” said a government official, who asked not to be identified. “We have a proverb in Korean that great teachers produce great students and great parents produce great children. “Kim Jong-il is healthy enough to lead our country and to give spot guidance in every field including economic, agricultural, industrial, military and arts.”

Kim Jong-il, 68, is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but he has shown no sign of losing his grip on power and was reappointed last month as secretary-general of the ruling Workers’ Party. He stood for over an hour during the parade and waved to the crowds, but limped noticeably and reached to the balcony for support. State television broadcast the parade live, giving North Koreans their first real

PYONGYANG: North Korea leader Kim Jong Il (left) walks by his son Kim Jong Un on the balcony as they attend a massive military parade marking the 65th anniversary of the communist nation’s ruling Workers’ Party yesterday. — AP look at their next leader, known only to be in his mid- to late-20s.

A stable succession would be a relief to North Korea’s economically powerful neighbours China, South Korea and Japan which worry that a regime collapse could result in massive refugee flows and domestic unrest.

The young Kim, the third son of the ailing leader, is poised to

continue dynastic rule in the isolated state which also has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

Among the guests at the parade, the biggest in the North in years, were foreign diplomats and Communist Party officials from China - the destitute North’s only major ally on which it relies for food and fuel aid.

Foreign media were also invited

to watch the parade which marked the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party and gave the world its first independent look at the protege.

Kim Jong-il, who now has a large, unexplained mark on the right side of his face, was greeted with thunderous applause and chants of “Long Live Kim Jong-il”.

Thousands of soldiers marched to the tune of brass bands in the square, dominated by a giant portrait of the state’s founder, Kim Il-sung. A sea of red and pink flowers, waved by spectators, served as a backdrop to the show of power. “This military parade shows that we are certain of success if the United States dares to attack us,” said Kim Yoon-jong 21, a factory worker at the parade wearing traditional red, white and pink dress. “We have a single mind, which is stronger than nuclear weapons,” she said through a translator.

Later yesterday, father and son returned to a brightly lit Kim Il-sung square for a fireworks display and a spectacular pageant of dancing and music.

The military parade was the climax of celebrations which started at the end of last month with the staging of a rare party conference to pick a new leadership. After months of speculation, the untested Jong-un was made second-in-command to his father on the ruling party’s powerful Central Military Commission, as well as being appointed a party Central Committee member.

Rising with him were the leader’s sister Kyong-hui and her husband, creating a powerful triumvirate ready to take over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since its founding after World War Two. — Reuters

UAE to shut Canadian military camp DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates will close a military camp near Dubai used by Canadian troops to support operations in Afghanistan, a UAE source said yesterday, in an escalation of a dispute over landing rights. The decision comes after the UAE failed to convince Canadian authorities to allow its two major airlines to increase flights to Canada. “Canada kept giving excuses and playing for time,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Dubai carrier Emirates has been lobbying the Canadian government to boost its thriceweekly direct flights to Toronto and more Canadian destinations. Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, also wants to increase flights.

Canadian carriers worry the UAE airlines would steal away connecting passengers that make their routes profitable and have lobbied the government to resist.

The UAE source said the agreement allowing Canada to use the airbase had expired in June. It was extended to September at Canada’s request. “In the spirit of goodwill, the UAE went ahead and gave them the extension. The MOU has now expired and that is that.” Other coalition forces in Afghanistan, including Australia, also use the airbase. “Australia (bound) flights for example have gone up from 30 flights a week just a few years back to 100 flights a week today,” the source said. “Obviously, you don’t expect the UAE to extend the same facilities to Canada as it does to Australia,” he added. “We have growing and improving relations with one while the other is playing for time.”

Earlier yesterday, state news agency WAM quoted the UAE’s ambassador to Canada Mohammed Abdullah Al-Ghafli as saying his

government was disappointed by the failure of five-year talks on the airline issue. “The UAE entered negotiations in good faith on the understanding that a solution would be reached ... The fact that this has not come about undoubtedly affects the bilateral relationship,” Al-Ghafli was quoted as saying.

Canadian newspapers reported last week that Canada was preparing for a move in anticipation of the closure of the little-known Canadian base, called Camp Mirage. “The Canadian government is now preparing to relocate forces from the United Arab Emirates to somewhere such as Cyprus rather than give in to what it considers unreasonable demands from the host country,” the Globe and Mail newspaper said. Canada has already announced it will withdraw most of its 2,900 troops from Afghanistan next year. —Reuters

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Cabinet approved yesterday a bill that would require new citizens to pledge a loyalty oath to a “Jewish and democratic” state, language that triggered charges of racism from Arab lawmakers who see it as undermining the rights of the country’s Arab minority. The measure was largely symbolic, since few non-Jews apply for Israeli citizenship. Nevertheless, it infuriated the Arab minority and stoked tensions with Palestinians at a time when fledgling peace talks are deadlocked over Israel’s refusal to extend a moratorium on new building in West Bank Jewish settlements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the bill reflected the essence of Israel at a time when he said many in the world are trying to blur the connection between the Jewish people and their homeland. “The state of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people and is a democratic state in which all its citizens - Jews and non-Jews enjoy full equal rights,” he said. “Whoever wants to join us, has to recognize us.”

Ahmad Tibi, an Arab lawmaker, called the move a provocation. “Its purpose is to solidify the inferior status of Arabs by law,” he said. “Netanyahu and his government are limiting the sphere of democracy in Israel and deepening the prejudice against its Arab minority.”

Unlike their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel’s Arabs

are citizens, with the right to vote, travel freely and collect social benefits. But they have long suffered from discrimination and second-class status. Arabs make up roughly one-fifth of Israel’s 7 million people. While the new bill would not force Arab citizens to profess their loyalty, a non-Jewish spouse of any Israeli would have to take the oath in order to receive citizenship. Israel’s Interior Ministry said several thousand people would be affected by the measure, while Adalah, an Arab advocacy group, said the number was about 25,000. The bill presumably would not affect Jewish newcomers, who automatically receive citizenship under Israel’s “Law of Return”.

Roni Schocken, spokesman for the Abraham Fund, a group that promotes coexistence between Israeli Jews and Arabs, said the new legislation added to what is becoming a “terrifying” atmosphere for Arabs.

Efforts are under way in parliament, for instance, to punish groups that recognize the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, the term that Palestinians use to describe the suffering caused by Israel’s founding. “It conveys a very strong message that Arabs are secondrate citizens,” he said.

The bill - which still needs to pass a wider parliamentary vote - easily passed by a 22-8 margin. Only a handful of ministers, mostly from the centrist L abor Party, opposed it. It was backed by Yisrael

Beitenu, a hard-line nationalist party whose leader, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, openly questioned the loyalty of Israel’s Arabs during last year’s election campaign.

The issue helped propel his party to a strong third place in parliamentary elections. Many Israeli Arabs openly identify with the Palestinians, and in recent years, a small number of Arabs have been charged with spying for Israel’s Arab enemies.

In the most controversial proposal, Lieberman called for all citizens, including Arabs, to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state and wanted anyone refusing to do so to be stripped of their citizenship. That measure, widely seen as antiArab, was struck down by a ministerial committee last year. “Obviously this is not the end of the issue of loyalty in return for citizenship, but this is a highly important step,” he said.

The vote came during an impasse in Mideast peacemaking. Just a month after their launch at a White House ceremony, talks between Israeli and the Palestinians have become deadlocked over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

Palestinians say they will not resume negotiations unless Israel extends a 10-monthold slowdown on new housing starts, which ended in late September. Netanyahu has rejected an extension, but is considering compromises to keep the talks alive. —AP

Lebanon flags up record Continued from Page 1 Morocco is the current holder of the Guinness world record for the largest flag, at a mere 60,000 sq m, a Lebanese military spokesman said.

Now Lebanon’s bid for the title has been displayed at Rayak air base in the east of the country, in the presence of a representative of the “Guinness World

Records” book. The country’s green cedar emblem in the flag’s centre alone covers an area of 10,452 sq m, the same figure as the country’s surface area in square kilometres.

Tiny Lebanon has both a troubled past and a history of setting the bar high in the record-breaking department. It already holds records for the largest tabbouleh salad (more than three and a half

tonnes) and has also served up a twotonne platter of the chickpea-based dip hummus.

Non-vegetarians are catered for as well: in August last year Lebanon gained an entry in the Guinness book for producing the largest ever kebbe - a dish of minced meat and cracked wheat. Now it would appear to have cracked the flag record too. — AFP

one fifth of the world crude supplies, are working to “consolidate a balanced policy... in a bid to stop sharp swings on oil prices”. He pointed out that GCC states have placed much effort on balancing the needs of the oil industry to constantly develop, overcome international challenges and explore renewable energies.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s Minister of Oil Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah said that OPEC will not change its output target in its next meeting. He explained that the international economy is not being negatively affected by the current oil prices.

He added that the current price, which is currently between 70 and 85 dollars a barrel, is “appropriate for consumers and producers”. During their Kuwait meeting,

the ministers discussed activating the GCC unified economic agreement to promote internal investments and joint oil projects, a final communique said. The ministers also discussed ways of expanding the role of the Gulf’s private sector in the oil industry.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil cartel meets on Thursday in Vienna to assess member output levels against a backdrop of steady prices and a huge jump in Iraq’s estimated reserves. Oil has traded at roughly between $70 and $80 per barrel for the past year. It had plummeted to $32 in Dec 2008 from a record high of $147 in July of the same year, because of the global financial crisis.

Gulf vows stable oil Continued from Page 1 perform common projects between Gulf companies will lead to an increase of joint economic interests of those in GCC states. He pointed out that the committee’s agenda is filled with opportunities to develop cooperative projects between the oil sector and the private sector of GCC countries, develop renewable energy projects and exchanging experiences.

Assistant secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Mohammad Al-Mazroui, said the six-nation alliance is coordinating its oil policies closely with the “aim to stabilise the international markets”. Mazroui said that the GCC states, which together pump just under

Amir calls on Arabs, Africans to boost ties Continued from Page 1 our peoples to achieve a better future - are called on together for a serious and ongoing drive to strengthen bridges between us,” the Amir said in his address before the opening session of the AfroArab summit.

Sheikh Sabah noted that Kuwait, through distinguished bilateral ties and heavy diplomatic presence in many African nations, has put such partnerships into perspective, namely in the economic and political fields. He said that Kuwait has numerous contributions and investments in many Arab and African countries. The Amir said that the ongoing conflicts in Somalia and Sudan are a great source of concern to Arabs and Africans, adding that Kuwait will do its utmost to bring a happy ending to them. He pointed out that Kuwait will host a conference on the construction of Sudan and will also host the ‘Arab summit in 2013.

Other concerns include desertification and drought in many African regions, as well as obstacles hindering economic development, he said. The Amir said that holding the Sirte summit comes amid international and regional political and economic challenges which require joint efforts. He said that since joining the UN in 1963, Kuwait has done a great deal towards supporting development in the Arab and African worlds and establishing the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED), which has granted over $14.5 billion to more than 100 countries, 40 of which are in southern Africa. He added that Arabs pin great importance to ties with Africa since its stability and security “is a stability and security for our entire Arab region”.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Sabah condemned the “terrorist plots” against Bahrain and Yemen and expressed full support to all measures taken by both countries to safeguard their security and sovereignty. He

said that Kuwait is following developments related to Iraq, hoping that the Iraqis would succeed in forming their government to achieve their aspirations.

The Amir condemned the Israeli antipeace stance, which has impeded efforts to realize a better partnership with Africa.

Meanwhile, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi warned yesterday ahead of a vote on possible independence for south Sudan that a partition of the country would be a “contagious disease” that could spread to other African states.

“What is happening in Sudan could become a contagious disease that affects the whole of Africa,” Gaddafi said at the opening of the summit. “We must recognise that this event is dangerous,” he said of the planned Jan 9 referendum on southern Sudan independence which could see Africa’s largest country split in two. A simultaneous referendum is to be held in the disputed oil-rich Abyei region, straddling north and south Sudan, on which part it wants to belong to.

“The partition of Sudan is likely to change the map of the country. But other (African countries) will change too,” the Libyan leader told the gathering, which is being attended by Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir. Gaddafi had called in March for Nigeria to be partitioned between the Christian and Muslim communities to solve its problem of sectarian violence. He proposed that it should follow the model of Pakistan, which was born in 1947 after the Muslim minority of predominantly Hindu India founded their own homeland.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade proposed yesterday that a delegation of five African and Arab heads of state travel to Sudan in a bid to defuse tensions there, Bashir advisor Mustapha Othman Ismail said. For his part, the chairman of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, told the summit that the “referendum for

both southern Sudan and the Abyei region in 2011 continues to be a source of concern, given the complexity of pre- and post-referendum issues which need to be resolved”. The referendum is a central plank of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended two decades of civil war in Sudan, a northsouth conflict in which two million people died.

Arab League chief Amr Moussa voiced concerns about “the referendum’s impact on security and stability on a large region of Africa and the Middle East”. He said the League was working with Khartoum to resolve outstanding issues over the referendum, and stressed the need for “good preparation”. Moussa called for “a credible and transparent ballot that reflects the will of the people of south Sudan and the Abyei region.”

In a summit draft declaration seen by AFP, the leaders stress the need to “respect Sudanese sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence”. The draft “Sirte Declaration” also affirms their “complete rejection of any attempt to undermine its (Sudan’s) sovereignty, unity, security or stability”. “The importance of completing negotiations on questions pertaining to issues in post-referendum south Sudan” is also underlined in the draft. According to the document, the leaders also “reject resolutions by the International Criminal Court against the Sudanese president.”

Bashir, the first sitting head of state to face arrest warrants issued by the ICC, denies masterminding war crimes and genocide in Sudan’s war-wracked western region of Darfur. The gathering is also set to discuss establishing a strategic partnership between Arab and African states in areas such as energy, trade and food security. This is only the second such summit ever held, the first one dating back to a 1977 meeting in Cairo. — Agencies

Committee indicts interior minister Continued from Page 1 center instead of being referred to the public prosecution for legal action and trial. But instead of deporting them, the interior minister ordered their release without any legal action. Besides drugs trafficking, one of the two was illegally conducting abortions although he is not a doctor. The interior minister had publicly confessed that he ordered their release but insisted that he was acting out of mercy over a letter he received from

their Kuwaiti sister, but later said she was their aunt. The minister shunned the committee’s summons three times but finally attended late last month.

Committee members said he did not provide a clear justification for his action.

But MPs Enezi and Khanfour, both members of the interior and defense committee, said they were not convinced of the evidence to hold the minister responsible and that the report of the committee will be sent to the minister at a later stage. MPs Muwaizri and Falah Al-

Sawwagh, both panel members, however stressed that the voting was final and will not be repeated, adding that the report will be submitted to the Assembly next week. Separately, the Islamist Reform and Development Bloc said yesterday it will support a plan to hold 11 diwaniyas (public gatherings) at the same time today to protest the interior ministry’s ban on public gatherings. MP Waleed AlTabtabaei said the bloc totally backs the gatherings and he will host one too to support the campaign.

14

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Monday, October 11, 2010

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focus

Russia’s defence industry boosted

By Alissa de Carbonnel ussia’s ailing defence industry has received one of its biggest boosts in years with a huge fighter jet deal with India, but much of the sector remains stuck in a Soviet-era time warp, analysts said. India announced Wednesday it planned to buy up to 300 fifthgeneration stealth fighters that would be jointly developed with Russia in a deal that may be worth up to $30 billion. Last year’s record arms sales helped mask systemic troubles in Russia’s defence industry that have pushed even the Russian military to seek hardware abroad in its drive to overhaul outdated weaponry. “Russia needs the Indian money like it needs air to accelerate the production of fighter jets for its own military,” said Ruslan Pukhov, head of Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST). “It’s not only good but revolutionary news.”

The deal is the biggest ever for India - one of Russia’s top three arms buyers - and crowned two years of growing defence bookings for Russia that will ensure a steady revenue in the coming years. But Russia has struggled to innovate technologies to meet the needs of modern warfare and is relying excessively on a few high-performing refurbished Soviet-era models, which form the bulk of its arms sales. President Dmitry Medvedev lashed out at the “poor” state of the industry last month, as the defence ministry announced it was tripling its procurements budget over the next decade, bucking global trends.

Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov stressed Russia would not hesitate to spend the

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allotted 19 trillion rubles ($613 billion) on imported arms where Russian makes “did not meet the required standards”. “Our producers want to issue outdated models, but we don’t want to buy them,” Serdyukov told the weekly Russian Newsweek. The world’s second-largest arms supplier has been in talks with France to buy its Mistral-class warships in what would be its first ever purchase of hardware from a NATO member.

The planned procurements are part of a massive military reform that gained speed after Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia showed the need to drop its Cold War-style structure to ready for modern-day, irregular warfare.

“Overall the situation in the defence industry is very negative and not consistent: It needs to be diversified,” military expert Konstantin Makienko said. Leaders such as Sukhoi, whose exports make up roughly 50 percent of the world’s war jet sales, remain competitive - but they were the exception not the rule, he said. “Everything which the defence industry is producing is simply a modification of Soviet technology from the 80s.

There are no new innovations.

We are chewing through our old stocks,” independent defence analyst Alexander Golts added.

A key problem, he said, was the slow deterioration in the industry of small-parts producers, an important cog in defence manufacturing but starved for investment since the dissolution of the Soviet planned economy.

Golts said these troubles were to blame for an embarrassing series of failed test launches of Russia’s new nuclear-capable Bulava intercontinental missile, which only saw the sixth successful firing out of more than a dozen trials this week.—AFP

Tension exposes contradictory aims

By Lachlan Carmichael surge in US-Pakistani tension last week exposes deep contradictions in their aims for Afghanistan but both sides will try to repair ties because they still need each other, experts say. The core of the problem, experts say, is Pakistan refuses to cut ties to the Afghan Taleban and other extremists because it fears an eventual US pullout from Afghanistan will create a vacuum that its old rival India will exploit. They said tensions came to a head now as Washington -under pressure from an Obama administration goal to begin drawing down forces next year -loses patience with Islamabad’s failure to crush militants on its side of the border.

“Field commanders are feeling pressed by the prospect of having to show improvements because of the looming deadline,” said Ashley Tellis, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “They’ve simply become more aggressive in their efforts to root these guys out,” Tellis told AFP. In the past month, US-led NATO forces based in neighboring Afghanistan have launched a record number of drone strikes against militant sanctuaries in the lawless northwest tribal zone, angering the Pakistani authorities.

Washington and Islamabad are also at odds over the killing of two Pakistani soldiers on Pakistani soil after they were mistaken for militants by a US helicopter crew. The incident prompted Pakistan to close the main NATO supply route into Afghanistan. The crossing remains shut, despite profuse apologies from top US officials.

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“The US strategy, which aims to essentially degrade and weaken the (Afghan) insurgency, relies on Pakistan to confront and if possible eliminate the (militant) sanctuaries,” Tellis explained. “Pakistan’s strategy is to hold on to these insurgent groups and protect them as long as is possible because they represent the ace in Pakistan’s bargaining strategy with regard to the end game,” he added.

Echoing many of Tellis’s points is Daniel Markey, a former State Department expert on Pakistan who is now an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), another think tank. “Part of the problem is that the United States hasn’t done a good job convincing Pakistan that it is either in for the long haul or is going to win,” Markey said. “Either way Pakistan still feels it needs to hedge its bets.” Though the US is unhappy that Pakistan has failed to hunt down the Afghan Taleban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, Tellis said, it shares Pakistan’s goal of eliminating the Pakistan Taleban.

And though he believes Washington should do more to confront Pakistan over the militant sanctuaries, he said “I promise you this (tension) will pass away.” He added that Washington has always sought to “bribe” Islamabad with aid to placate anti-American feelings.

“And so I fully expect that within the next two to three months, we will announce a new assistance package which will run into a few billion dollars,” Tellis said. In addition to offering massive relief for devastating floods, the Obama administration has already launched a $7.5 billion multi-year development assistance package for Pakistan. —AFP

By Catherine Bremer forlorn little figure, five-yearold Bryan perches at the door of Irma Casas’s office at a women’s shelter in this murderous border city. He has walked all the way here to tell her, again, that his mother is in a bad way, again. At 23, Bryan’s mother recently became a drug war widow for the second time when her narcotics smuggler husband was shot in the head by a teenage hitman who strolled up to their home as he was parking outside, with Bryan, his mother and baby sister in the car.

Bryan gabbles uncontrollably, Casas says, about how it was to see his stepfather’s brains spill out of his head that day. It was just one more killing in a brutal war between rival drug trafficking cartels and Mexican security forces that has killed nearly 30,000 people in under four years. As far as Casas knows, nobody is tracking Bryan’s attendance at school or providing therapy. The omens for his future aren’t good. “She is aware of the risks to her children but she’s always lived in this world. She has no examples of other ways to live,” Casas said as she recounted the story of Marisol, one of thousands of drug widows in Ciudad Juarez, which has jumped ahead of places like Baghdad and Caracas to become the world’s murder capital.

Marisol was a pretty 17-year-old when Bryan’s father, a big-league local drug lord, seduced her and took her off as a permanent mistress. He kept her shut up in one of his houses and took to beating her before he was shot dead by a hired gun from a rival gang. She married a lower-level trafficker and they had a baby girl. But since he was murdered she sits at home, depressed and bloated from drinking all day. To stop her infant daughter from screaming, she bottle-feeds her with beer.

Squashed into a two-room cinderblock house in a vast and soulless slum on the edge of Ciudad Juarez with her sister, also widowed, and her teenage kids, Marisol plans to prostitute herself to other drug smugglers in what could be the final straw for the future of her two young children.

Decapitated bodies. Murder victims hanging from bridges. Blood crusted on street curbs where an assassin has struck. These are the gruesome images the world has come to associate with Mexico’s drug war.

But, out of view, the plight of so-called narco orphans like Bryan is just as haunting. It may also foretell more mayhem in the years to come. With shoddy education standards and poor career prospects already holding back Mexico’s youth, people like Casas worry about the impact on society of tens of thousands of kids growing up emotionally traumatized and with their prospects for building a better life for themselves in tatters.

“There is an enormous cost because these kids aren’t children as they should be. They are future criminals. What other aspirations are they going to have? What kind of future awaits them?” Casas said over an uncomfortably early supper in a brightly lit mall in Ciudad Juarez, where these days people avoid side streets and don’t stay out after dark.

Neither Mexico’s government nor the various independent groups studying organized crime keep track of the number of narco orphans who have lost fathers, and sometimes mothers too, to the drug war.

Veteran human rights lawyer Gustavo de la Rosa, an investigator for the Chihuahua state human rights commission that covers Ciudad Juarez, analyzed a pool of 5,000 drug war dead in the city, only separated from El Paso, Texas, by a wire fence and the dry river bed of the Rio Grande. Based on data showing Mexican men aged 18-35 have an average 1.7 kids, de la Rosa estimated they left 8,500 orphans behind.

Extend the math over a national level and Mexico, which considers a child to be orphaned even if its mother survives, could be looking at a total of 50,000 drug war orphans to date. “It’s like a war zone,” de la Rosa told Reuters. “There is no program, no interest from any organization to look after the situation of orphans. These people are living on a knife edge but for the government it’s as if the problem doesn’t exist. It’s left for the families to deal with.”

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Mexican Hemorrhage President Felipe Calderon launched his drug war upon taking office in December 2006 to take a tough stand against drug cartels whose power had grown steadily over decades of one-party rule. Calderon says his offensive has weakened the cartels’ operations, but it has backfired by setting off horrific levels of bloodshed and tainting Mexico’s standing as a stable developing economy that is safe for foreign companies and tourists alike.

This year, drug gangs have taken their battle tactics to unprecedented new levels, setting off car bombs, murdering a spate of town mayors and threatening, abducting and killing journalists. Calderon has admitted that the security risk in Mexico has reached a disturbing new level. His

A boy runs behind a water fountain at the Tijuana Cultural Center in Tijuana, Mexico, Oct 8, 2010.— AP Attorney General Arturo Chavez describes the drug violence as a “hemorrhage”.

While government officials stress that Mexico’s overall homicide levels are low, headlines about open-air shootouts and mutilated corpses dumped everywhere from the resort of Acapulco to cobblestone getaway towns near Mexico City are alarming foreigners and the US government.

Increasingly, the nation’s plight is drawing parallels with Colombia, which is still scarred from its fight in the 1980s and early 90s with full-on narco terrorism.

National security spokesman Alejandro Poire told reporters in September that the government’s goal has always been to make the country safer. “The battle without quarter undertaken by the federal government against criminal organizations is causing their visible deterioration,” he said. Most of Mexico’s drug war victims are traffickers, hitmen and police, some of them targeted for being in the pay of rival smuggling gangs, and there is a tendency in official quarters to dismiss the dead as bad guys who had it coming.

Yet analysts and academics reckon several thousand of the victims were innocent cops or civilians caught up in the cross fire, and at least 1,000 were minors: either the offspring of traffickers or hitmen, or teenagers sucked into drug crime for want of better opportunities in a country which has a third of its employed workforce stuck in the gray economy. The growing pool of drug war orphans is a stain on Mexico’s social fabric. Too small to make a major dent in the country’s future economic growth, they are easy to ignore, but these kids, largely abandoned by the authorities, will be tomorrow’s criminals and long-term unemployed when they could have been pushing into Mexico’s still-toosmall middle class with blue-collar jobs or small businesses.

In Ciudad Juarez, a dismal mass of assembly plants and slum housing that counts 300 murders a month in a population of 1.5 million, many are left unsupervised, making them easy prey for recruiters for the city’s several hundred criminal gangs, as their widowed mothers go out to work long factory shifts. The street gangs are training camps for hired killers, now in strong demand by the drug cartels who are losing dozens of young men a day in slayings around the country.

U.S. author Charles Bowden, who has studied Ciudad Juarez closely, estimates half of the adolescents there are unemployed or cannot afford to go to school.

“There is an opportunity cost from these hundreds of thousands of youths in Mexico who are either orphaned or part of criminal gangs,” said Edgardo Buscaglia, an expert on armed conflict and Mexico’s drug trade who increasingly talks about Mexico and Afghanistan in the same sentence.

“These are people who are growing up with high levels of deprivation, in dysfunctional families, with sexual abuse, and these risk factors should be addressed. There’s no policy to address these issues and we are really concerned that at some point it will be too late to stop the social unrest to come.”

Graves and Fake Flowers Mexico is ranked 53rd out of 182 countries in a 2009 United Nations Human Development Index, below Cuba but well above Brazil and among the highest developing country scores. The ranking masks the fact that a tiny elite in Mexico drips with wealth and business opportunities while almost half the country lives under the national poverty line.

Corruption and organized crime have always exacerbated poverty levels in Mexico, which was under one party rule for seven decades until 2000.

Now more pervasive than ever, crime gangs hurt family businesses with extortion demands and kidnap

ransoms. Society suffers as the government plows funds that could have gone into education into fighting crime gangs. The oil producing nation has spent several billion dollars so far on Calderon’s army-led drug war. Of those youths on the bottom rung of Mexico’s economic ladder, too many are now dying in drug-plagued cities before they even have a chance to start a career, judging by the rows of graves of teenagers and youths in their early twenties in Ciudad Juarez’s San Rafael cemetery.

Gaudy fake flowers and cheap wood crosses painted white mark the drug war graves of the last few years, including children as young as four.

Flies buzz over mounds of fresh earth at the communal grave where unidentified bodies are buried. “We have to review the way children are being affected by this drug war. There is impunity. The facts are not being investigated,” said Juan Martin Perez, head of Mexico’s Network for the Rights of Children, a non-governmental organization.

The Mexican government does not keep a count of child deaths in drug violence but Perez’s calculations from local media and official data show that 1,120 children have died in the 3-1/2 years of drug violence since Calderon took power. “The worst thing is that there is no official response to try and prevent children dying, to stop them being used in organized crime.

Practically nobody is talking about this,” Perez told Reuters. “Mexico is losing investment and tourism, but perhaps the most serious thing is that we are losing the lives of children.

Not only the dead ones but all the others affected by this.”

Junior Hitmen A top US trade partner and oil supplier with robust manufacturing and tourism industries, Mexico has been an emerging markets darling for years, even despite its 1994 “Tequila Crisis” currency collapse. While some foreign companies in Mexico tell pollsters they are growing more nervous about drug violence, foreign direct investment is steady and Mexico’s peso currency and stock markets have yet to suffer from the rising insecurity.

Unlike in a fully fledged war zone where entire industries are stalled, a few tens of thousands of drug war dead cannot impact an economy that struggles to create enough jobs for its young population anyway - as evidenced by the stream of Mexicans trying to cross the US border each day.

Adding up lost hours of education and economic output from drug war victims, who mainly die in their prime, aged between 18 and 35, is an interesting exercise, but largely meaningless next to the large numbers of unemployed.

Indeed the up to $40 billion of estimated drug smuggling revenues coming into Mexico each year - three times as much as tourism generates keeps many rural communities afloat in swathes of drug cartel territory in northern Mexico as drug lords spread their cash around and pay locals to be lookouts. “There is a lot of money flowing through Mexico as a result of the drug war. It stimulates local economies just as much as it provides opportunities for violence,” notes Latin America geopolitical analyst Karen Hooper at global intelligence company Stratfor.

Unskilled youngsters in Ciudad Juarez can earn $700 a month working as junior drug hitmen, three times what they’d earn in an assembly plant producing microwaves or car parts for the US market. A longtime professional drug gang killer interviewed by Reuters earlier this year in a secure location in Ciudad Juarez rued how in the old days he was paid $15,000 a pop, whereas nowadays, “they pay peanuts” and everybody is a cartel killer: drug addicts, teenagers and low-level cops.

All that said, Mexico’s Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens,

speaking in early 2009, and Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero, speaking in September this year, have both said drug cartel crime and violence could be shaving at least a percentage point off Mexico’s gross domestic product.

That is a notch of growth that would be welcome as the country battles to grow 5 percent this year after a 6.5 percent slump in 2009 during the global economic crisis.

As emerging market rivals such as China, India and Brazil overtake Mexico in investor portfolios with strong growth, well-run industries and better-educated workers, holding back the potential of tens of thousands of narco orphans is not going to help Mexico catch up. Calderon has acknowledged that the drug war will last for several years yet, meaning the toll of dead and orphaned children is set to keep rising. “If the same trend continues, we’ll end this government with a death toll of 74,000, and they are killing younger people all the time,” said Mexican political scientist and organized crime specialist Eduardo Guerrero. “The atmosphere of extreme violence brings problems in the long term. We shouldn’t minimize the impact.”

Originally concentrated along Mexico’s border with the United States, the main market for marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, the violence is now so widespread that a study of drug gang deaths during the first half of 2010 by the University of San Diego’s TransBorder Institute found only one of Mexico’s 31 states registered zero killings. Of the country’s 31 states, plus a federal district containing the capital, 13 counted more than 100 drug killings over the period and seven counted more than 250 deaths, in a sweep of bloodshed that runs from Ciudad Juarez on the northern border down to the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero.

For a long time, polls showed that Mexicans saw drug violence as much less of an issue than the economic slowdown, but surveys now indicate citizens are growing more worried as the violence spreads. More than half of Mexicans think drug cartels are winning the drug war and some respondents feel the army presence across the country is making things worse by sparking more turf wars.

“Everything Happens” Calderon came to power, in a whisker-thin election victory, on a platform of job creation. He has also pushed for better education on the heels of his predecessor, Vicente Fox, who launched an internationally lauded scheme of handing families cash in return for kids’ school attendance.

The program, called “Oportunidades”, reaches 5.8 million families across Mexico and has been ramped up in Ciudad Juarez to help 26,000 families, up from 12,000 at the end of 2009.

Today Mexico spends 5.5 percent of GDP on education, only a little below Britain and France, according to the most recent CIA data.

Although Mexicans are not big readers, preferring drama-packed TV soap operas, the country has an 86 percent literacy rate and the average Mexican completes 13 years in school - well within the kind of goalposts favored by the United Nations as a way for developing countries to progress.

In dysfunctional drug war cities like Ciudad Juarez, however, it is easier to skip school if your parents are missing, and social workers are deeply worried about the amount of children gawping at the aftermath of the daily drug killings. “It’s a woman.

She died of a drug overdose,” 11year-old Oscar tells Reuters matterof-factly as forensic experts pull a black plastic bag over a decomposing body on a patch of wasteland in a dilapidated red-light district. “Here everything happens,” the kid says, shaking his head wearily.

The bloodiest flashpoint of Mexico’s drug war, with a drug war death count of more than 6,600 since violence took off here in January 2008, Ciudad Juarez has become emblematic of all that is wrong in Mexico today. Shabby infrastructure, desolate streets and prison-like houses contrast with the shiny shopping malls of El Paso, tantalizingly visible through the fence that marks the world’s only land border between a rich and a developing nation.

Many middle-class Juarenses used to have border passes and day jobs in El Paso and gave their kids back in Mexico American-influenced names like Ashlemy, Aimee or Dayana. The violence has driven thousands fleeing over the border permanently, their homes now standing abandoned.

Where US tourists once crossed the border to enjoy cheap tequila, strip joints and burritos in venues made famous in the city’s US Prohibitionera heyday, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza has now warned that people in the city should stay indoors after dark.

Once feted for its US trade links and swathes of factories, Ciudad Juarez became tainted by a series of women’s murders in the 1990s.

Then, drug gang killings spurted in 2008 as Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s top drug fugitive and head of the Sinaloa cartel from northwestern Mexico, sent in his hitmen to try to edge out the incumbent Juarez cartel run by rival drug lord Vicente Carrillo.

Now masked police pointing machine guns roar through the streets in trucks to reach the killings splashed in local papers under headlines like “Six killed in 20 minutes” and “Hitmen Hat-trick”.

Shantytowns and trash-strewn wasteland ring the city where shootings now happen in broad daylight, in public parks and busy avenues.

Bullets have even strayed into school playgrounds. “The dead just keep piling up,” said Ana, 33, whose husband was killed this year when masked gunmen burst into a funeral parlor during a wake and sprayed machine gun fire at mourners. “The hitmen don’t care if there are people around, they just do what they need to do.

Many innocent people are dying.”

Politics Of Chaos Controlled by a handful of powerful families, Ciudad Juarez is a microcosm of the institutionalized corruption which helped the illegal drug trade flourish during 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Polls show that Mexicans, disillusioned with the ruling conservatives, could vote the PRI back into power in the 2012 presidential election. Whoever succeeds Calderon, it is hard to see how they can do much better against drug gangs. Police corruption is endemic and in the last few years Mexico’s former head of Interpol and several top members of the attorney general’s office’s antidrug unit have been charged with working for drug cartels.

“At present Mexico is like a jigsaw puzzle where different organized crime groups have captured different pieces of the state and the government’s left hand does not know what the right hand is doing,” said Buscaglia. “Felipe Calderon is basically a decoration figure, giving speeches while the country is in fragmentation.”

Calderon, an austere former lawyer who says he is fighting to stop drug gangs taking over Mexico, visited Ciudad Juarez twice this year and pledged to increase spending on schools, social services, nurseries and soccer pitches for the city, which has hardly any green spaces or parks.

But he gave no details on funding.

The government says that since February it has awarded thousands of educational grants for Ciudad Juarez, renovated some 50 schools and opened rehab centers.

Nonprofit workers who spend afternoons playing soccer and skipping rope games with poor kids in dusty yards told Reuters they have seen no evidence of any money being spent. In a lovingly decorated state orphanage, nurses in bonnets bottlefeed infants rescued from drug gang violence and soothe them to sleep with taped lullabies. Doctors monitor an angelic-looking toddler with bruises, a fractured skull and permanent brain damage from his cocaine addict stepfather’s beatings.

Officials at the Ciudad Juarez branch of Mexico’s DIF family development agency consider it depressing that they count just nine drug war orphans in their care, meaning thousands more are at large. “Those are the children I lie in bed and worry about at night,” said Maria Teresa Martinez, director of Granja Hogar orphanage. Tiny pairs of shoes sit neatly at the foot of each cot and shelves in the playrooms are stacked with dolls, toy cars and xylophones playthings aimed at helping these children forget the world outside.

“There are no monsters, no toy soldiers, no swords and no guns. I got rid of all the violent games,” Martinez said. “This is all I can do. It’s my grain of sand.” — Reuters

SPORTS

Monday, October 11, 2010

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NEW YORK: Yankees Curtis Granderson safely steals second base as the throw gets past Minnesota Twins Orlando Hudson in Game 3 of the American League Division Series baseball at Yankee Stadium.—AP

Yankees down Twins NEW YORK: Phil Hughes pitched seven shutout innings and Marcus Thames hit a two-run homer as the New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins 6-1 Saturday to complete a three-game sweep and return to the American League championship series.

Robinson Cano tripled off Brian Duensing in the second inning and scored on Jorge Posada’s single, Mark Teixeira added an RBI single in the third and Thames

and Nick Swisher homered later.

The wild-card Yankees begin the ALCS on Friday at Texas or Tampa Bay. With the short first-round series, the defending World Series champions put ace CC Sabathia in position to start the opener.

The AL Central champion Twins lost their 12th straight postseason game dating to 2004, one shy of the record set by the Boston Red Sox from 1986-95.

In addition to this year, the Yankees knocked out the Twins in the first round in 2003, 2004 and last season. New York outscored the Twins 17-7 in this series and scorched them 69-36 in the four playoff triumphs, With Minnesota badly missing Justin Morneau, sidelined since midseason because of a concussion, the heart of the Twins’ order Saturday, AL most valuable player Joe Mauer and Jason Kubel, com-

bined to go 3 for 20 (.150) with no RBIs in the series.

Rays 6, Rangers 3 At Arlington, Texas, John Jaso hit a tiebreaking RBI single in the eighth after Carlos Pena had another rare clutch playoff hit for Tampa Bay, as the Rays avoided elimination in the AL division series by beating the Texas Rangers.

The Rays, the AL’s best team in the regular season, cut their deficit in the best-offive series to 2-1. Game 4 is Sunday.

Limited to a total of one run while losing the first two games at home, Tampa Bay broke loose in the late innings. With the record crowd of 51,746 still buzzing from Ian Kinsler’s leadoff homer in the seventh that put the Rangers up 2-1, Dan Johnson doubled off the wall with one out in the Rays

eighth. Pena followed with an RBI single that tied the game. After BJ Upton struck out, reliever Darren O’Day was pulled after facing only one batter. Rangers manager Ron Washington made a curious move bringing All-Star closer Neftali Feliz into a tie game in the eighth. Feliz walked Jason Bartlett, the No. 9 hitter in Tampa Bay’s order, before Jaso’s liner gave the Rays their first lead in the series.—AP

Le Jeune wins individual show jumping title

ROME: Brazilís Murilo Endres (top right) spikes the ball past Italy’s Luigi Mastrangelo (left) and Valerio Vermiglio during the semifinal match between Italy and Brazil, at the Menís Volleyball World Championships.—AP

Brazil, Cuba in final ROME: Brazil will play for a third consecutive world volleyball championship against Cuba after beating host Italy in the semifinals on Saturday.

Brazil won 25-15, 25-22, 23-25, 25-17 in its bid to become the second team to win three straight world titles. Italy won in 1990, 1994 and 1998. The Soviet Union won a record six titles.

Victory in late yesterday’s final would add to a remarkable run for Brazil. As well as the 2002 and 2006 world titles, the South Americans won the Olympic gold in 2004 and silver in 2008.

Top-ranked Brazil earned its 12th straight

win over Italy since 2003 with a focused effort in front of a sellout crowd of more than 12,000 in the PalaLottomatica. Vissotto top scored for Brazil with 24 points, while Alessandro Fei scored 20 in Italy’s first loss of the tournament.

Cuba upset Serbia 22-25, 25-17, 31-29, 2225, 16-14 in a marathon lasting 1 hour, 50 minutes to reverse a second-round loss to the Serbs.

Ivan Miljkovic scored a tournament recordequaling 30 points for Serbia, but thanks to Wilfredo Leon’s 23 points and Yoandy Leal’s 21, Cuba advanced to its first world final since 1990.—AP

Yang bags Korea Open CHEONAN: YE Yang, the 2009 PGA champion, shot a 5-under 66 yesterday to complete a stunning comeback and win the Korea Open. Yang, who started the final round 10 shots behind second-and third-round leader Noh Seung-yul, won the tournament by two strokes over fellow South Koreans Choi Ho-sung and Kim Bi-o.

South Korean teenager Noh imploded with a final-round 8-over 79 and finished in a tie for fourth with Choi Jin-ho, three shots back.

The victory earned Yang 300 million won ($267,500). The tournament carried a total purse of 1 billion won. “To come back from the brink of worrying about missing the cut and win is just great,” said Yang, who made headlines by defeating Tiger Woods at last year’s PGA Championship.

“For me, this tournament has been defined by patience, perseverance and a lot of luck. “It

has given me back a lot of confidence after the last few months, as I’ve been struggling a bit with my timing.” Yang carded six birdies and an eagle on the final day to finish the tournament on 4-under par. Noh, 19, received some encouraging words from Yang after his disastrous final round, which included six bogeys and two double-bogeys.

“He has so much ahead of him,” Yang said.

“To have that swing and that game at 19 is amazing. He’s so far ahead of where I was at that age. His talent is incredible.” South Koreans, including amateur Han Chang-won, were the top six finishers in the tournament.

The top foreign golfers were New Zealander Danny Lee and Australian Ryan Haller, who ended in a four-way tie for seventh at 1-over 285 with South Koreans Kim Dae-hyun and Bae Sang-moon.—AP

LEXINGTON:Belgium’s Philippe Le Jeune won the individual show jumping championship Saturday at the World Equestrian Games with a flawless run.

Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah Al Sharbatly was second, and Canada’s Eric Lamaze finished third.

Four competitors took part in the final, which has a unique format for this level of competition. All riders were required to jump the course four times.

They competed on their own mounts first, and then rode each of their competitors’ horses. Le Jeune was the only person to post four clear rounds.

“I was quite relaxed,” Le Jeune said. “I had no difficult moments. I decided I had to go their way, not make them go my way. When I was a young boy, my father taught me to love animals. My life is dedicated to my horses. If I had a wish, it would be that if a horse could speak, that it would say it would be happy to stay at my place.”

Al Sharbatly finished the night with eight faults, while Lamaze had nine. The fourth competitor, Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa, had 12.

In the competition, the best horse also was determined based on performance. That honor went to Lamaze’s mount, Hickstead, who was the only horse to complete all four rounds with no faults.

Vaulting also determined individual champions Saturday.

In the women’s competition, Britain’s Joanne Eccles took home the gold. Germany’s Antje Hill was second, and teammate Simone Wiegele third. In the men’s competition, Switzerland’s Patric Looser won the gold medal, Germany’s Kai Vorberg took the silver and France’s Nicolas Andreani won bronze.

“It was really hard to do my last freestyle because I knew Kai was in front,” said Looser, who is good friends with Vorberg. “I just tried to smile and relax during my freestyle and be clean. What I feel, I can’t tell you.”

Earlier in the day, there was controversy during the marathon portion of the driving event when it was discovered the carriage of one of the leading drivers had been vandalized.

The Netherlands’ Ijsbrand Chardon was allowed to take the course last so he and his team would have time to repair the damage.—AP

LEXINGTON: Gavin Robson of Australia, drives his team during the Marathon event at the World Equestrian Games. —AP

Slocum leads McGladrey Classic ATLANTA: American Heath Slocum stuck to his formula on Saturday and emerged with the same result, a 66 that gave him a one-stroke lead in the McGladrey Classic at St. Simon’s Island in Georgia heading into late yesterday’s last round.

It was the third straight round of four under par by Slocum, whose 12-under-par 198 total was a shot better than compatriots Joe Durant (68) and Troy Merritt (64).

“Just another solid day,” the 36-year-old Slocum told reporters. “Drove it well again,

only missed a couple fairways.

Hit some good iron shots.

Minimized the mistakes. Made some putts.

“That’s kind of I would say the formula to get around this place. I think that’s what I’ve done for three straight days.” A further stroke back was second-

PRATTVILLE: Brittany Lincicome chips to the 17th green during third round play in the Navistar LPGA Classic golf tournament. —AP

round leader David Toms, who offset two birdies with a pair of bogeys en route to an even-par 70 for 200.

Slocum birdied three of four holes from the fourth and added birdies at the 11th and 14th before dropping a shot at the par-four 16th when the wind suddenly died and his approach flew over the green.

It was Slocum’s first bogey since the opening hole of his first round when he dropped a shot on the par-four 10th.

Australians John Senden (67) and Aron Price (66) were among a group of players tied on 201, with compatriots Robert Allenby (66) and James Nitties (68) another shot back along with Arjun Atwal of India (67).

Slocum, who has four top 10s this season, claimed his third U.S. PGA Tour victory at last year’s Barclays, the opening event of the FedExCup playoffs, which he said had given him a confidence boost. “I just confirmed at the Barclays what I always felt like I could compete with the best for sure, in any given week.”—Reuters

SPORTS

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Monday, October 11, 2010

NHL results/standings National Hockey League results and standings on Saturday. Phoenix 5, Boston 2; Columbus 3, San Jose 2 (OT); NY Rangers 6, Buffalo 3; Toronto 5, Ottawa 1; Dallas 5, NY Islanders 4 (SO); Montreal 3, Pittsburgh 2; Washington 7, New Jersey 2; Tampa Bay 5, Atlanta 3; St. Louis 2, Philadelphia 1 (OT); Nashville 4, Anaheim 1; Detroit 3, Chicago 2; Los Angeles 2, Vancouver 1 (SO). (OT denotes overtime win; SO indicates shootout victory)

Philadelphia NY Rangers NY Islanders New Jersey Pittsburgh Toronto Montreal Buffalo Boston Ottawa Carolina Tampa Bay Atlanta Washington Florida Detroit Nashville St. Louis Columbus Chicago Edmonton Colorado Vancouver Minnesota Calgary

BUFFALO: Marc Staal No. 18 and Henrik Lundqvist No.30 of the New York Rangers defend against Drew Stafford No.21 of the Buffalo Sabres at HSBC Arena. — AFP

Dallas San Jose Phoenix Los Angeles Anaheim

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L GF GA 1 0 4 4 1 0 6 3 0 0 4 5 0 1 5 11 0 2 4 6 Northeast Division 2 0 8 3 1 1 5 5 1 1 5 7 0 1 2 5 0 2 2 7 Southeast Division 2 0 6 4 1 0 5 3 1 1 7 7 1 1 9 6 0 0 0 0 Western Conference Central Division 2 0 7 2 1 0 4 1 1 0 2 1 1 1 5 5 0 1 5 7 Northwest Division 1 0 4 0 1 0 4 3 0 0 1 2 0 1 4 6 0 1 0 4 Pacific Division 2 0 9 7 1 0 5 5 1 0 5 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 8

PTS 3 2 1 1 0 4 2 2 0 0 4 2 2 2 0 4 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 0 4 3 2 0 0

Rangers’ Stepan scores three in NHL debut

BUFFALO: Derek Stepan became the fourth player to score three times in his NHL debut as he led the New York Rangers to a season-opening 6-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.

After being credited with the opening goal, which caromed off several skates, Stepan scored twice 3:12 apart late in the second period to complete the hat trick and put the Rangers ahead 4-1.

Brandon Dubinsky scored twice and Erik Christensen added a goal for the Rangers.

Buffalo defenseman Jordan Leopold scored twice and added an assist, and Derek Roy also scored for the Sabres in their home opener.

Capitals 7, Devils 2 At Washington, Alex Ovechkin beat Martin Brodeur with a penalty shot to complete Washington’s four-goal second period in a win over New Jersey.

Ovechkin finished with two goals and an assist. John Carlson had a goal and two assists for Washington, which won its ninth straight home opener — a streak that began with a victory over New Jersey in 2001.The

Capitals got 31 saves from Michal Neuvirth.

Jason Arnott and Henrik Tallinder had goals for the Devils, 0-1-1 under first-year coach John MacLean. Brodeur stopped only 15 of 20

Coyotes took a 4-0 lead in the second period on goals by Taylor Pyatt, Scottie Upshall and Eric Belanger. Phoenix and Boston will play the second and final game of their series in Prague on Sunday.

Blue Jackets 3, Sharks 2 At Stockholm, Ethan Moreau scored 1:56 into overtime to give Columbus a victory over San Jose and a split of the two-game series in Sweden.

Kristian Huselius and Rick Nash also scored and Steve Mason made 33 saves for Columbus. Joe Thornton and Devin Setoguchi had goals for San Jose. The Sharks beat the Blue Jackets 3-2 on Friday night.

Canadiens 3, Penguins 2 At Pittsburgh, Mike Cammalleri and Scott Gomez scored in a 24-second span over the final 2:12 as Montreal rallied for a win over Pittsburgh.

Cammalleri’s second goal of the game was scored when he deflected Josh Gorges’ shot from the right-wing boards, getting it past Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

Gomez scored on the next shift.

Evgeni Malkin and Mark Letestu had goals for the Penguins, who were beaten at home by Philadelphia on Thursday.

Cammalleri also scored in the first period for the Canadiens.

Coyotes 5, Bruins 2 At Prague, Radim Vrbata scored twice and added an assist to lead Phoenix past Boston in their NHL season-opening game in the Czech capital.

Nathan Horton scored twice for Boston in the third period. Vrbata, a Czech right winger, scoring on a rebound of Adrian Aucoin’s shot 7:59 into the game. The

Lightning 5, Thrashers 3 At Tampa, Florida, Steven Stamkos had two goals and an assist to help new Tampa Bay coach Guy Boucher win his NHL debut.

Stamkos had 51 goals last season to tie

Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby for the league lead. Steve Downie, Dominic Moore and Vincent Lecavalier also scored for the Lightning in their season opener.

Atlanta, which trailed 4-0 in the second period, got goals from Tobias Enstrom, Ben Eager and Chris Thorburn.

Stars 5, Islanders 4 At Uniondale, New York, Mike Ribeiro beat goalie Rick DiPietro with a strong backhand-to-forehand move in the final round of a shootout to lift Dallas over the New York Islanders.Brenden Morrow scored twice, and Jamie Benn and Stephane Robidas added goals for the Stars, 2-0 this season after back-to-back road wins following regulation. Dallas won 4-3 in overtime at New Jersey on Friday night. Brad Richards and Ribeiro added two assists, and Kari Lehtonen posted 43 saves for the victory.

James Wisniewski, Doug Weight, Blake Comeau and Moulson scored in regulation for the Islanders.

Maple Leafs 5, Senators 1 At Toronto, newcomers Kris Versteeg

and Clarke MacArthur each had a goal and an assist as Toronto beat Ottawa. Nikolai Kulemin, Phil Kessel and Tim Brent also scored and Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 17 saves for Toronto. Jason Spezza scored for Ottawa.

Predators 4, Ducks 1 At Nashville, Tennessee, Steve Sullivan scored a power-play goal and had an assist in the second period as Nashville opened the season by beating Anaheim. Marcel Goc, Patric Hornqvist and David Legwand added goals for Nashville.

Shea Weber, chosen as Nashville captain in July, also had two assists as the Predators won their opener for the fifth time in seven season. Saku Koivu scored the first goal of the season for the Ducks, who have lost the first two game of a three-game, seasonopening trip.

Blues 2, Flyers 1 At St. Louis, Carlo Colaiacovo scored 1:47 into overtime to lift St. Louis over Philadelphia. The Blues also got a goal from Brad Boyes. Alex Steen had two assists, and

Jaroslav Halak stopped 29 shots in his St. Louis debut. The Flyers got a goal from Danny Briere — his second in two games.

Red Wings 3, Blackhawks 2 At Chicago, Valtteri Filppula’s second goal of the game snapped a third-period tie as Detroit spoiled Chicago’s Stanley Cup banner-raising celebration. Todd Bertuzzi had a goal and assist for the Red Wings (20).

Brent Seabrook and Bryan Bickell scored for the defending champion Blackhawks (01-1) in their home opener.

Kings 2, Canucks 1 At Vancouver, British Columbia, Anze Kopitar and Jack Johnson scored shootout goals for Los Angeles, which rallied late and beat Vancouver in the season opener for both teams.

Justin Williams leveled it on a power play with 4:05 left in regulation, and the Kings had a glorious chance to win it on another advantage late in overtime. Defenseman Christian Ehrhoff scored a power-play goal in regulation for Vancouver. — AP

Nadal wins Japan Open

The Kuwaiti Jet-Ski team

Mohammad Burabei in action during the race.

Kuwait Jet-Ski team wins 15 medals in Arizona event

KUWAIT: Kuwait Jet-Ski team won 15 medals in the 29th US Annual Quakysense International Jet Sports Boating Association (IJSBA) World Finals held in Arizona State, US, a step which brought them closer to the grand trophy.

Kuwait’s Marine Club said in a statement that the team won seven gold, four silver, and four bronze medals in the event.

Head of Jet sports committee at the club as well as chief of the team Abdulqadr Al-Najar told KUNA via phone that the team was doing very well in the tournament, affirming that Kuwait racers were outdoing their counterparts from other nations with their astonishing skills and determination. The 2010 IJSBA World Finals is being held on Lake Havasu from Oct 3-10.

The list of participating nations in addition to the host country United States are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Indonesia, Hungary, Italy, Kuwait, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.—KUNA

Mohammad Burabei standing on the podium after being crowned as the champion, while Jassem Al-Baz is seen with the second place trophy.

TOKYO: World number one Rafa Nadal overpowered Frenchman Gael Monfils 6-1 7-5 to win the Japan Open yesterday, capping a week of “Nadal Fever” in Tokyo.

It was the Spaniard’s seventh title of the year and improved his tour-best record to 66-8 after a flawless match in which Monfils failed to force a single break point.

“I want to finish the season well and winning titles is a prefect way to finish,” Nadal told reporters. “It’s difficult to keep winning. I have to enjoy these moments because you never know when they will end.

“I’m going to try to keep it going in Shanghai (next week) and the rest of the season and in London (ATP Tour Finals) — the most difficult tournament for me.

“Gael is a great player. He beat me in 2009 and we had a tough match at the U.S. Open the same year. But I played really well today.”

Nadal bounced onto the court like a prizefighter and quickly had fifth seed Monfils on the ropes with some brutal hitting from the baseline.

He wrapped up the first set with a ferocious forehand down the line but Monfils, who survived a fright when he took an early tumble and turned his ankle, raised his game in the second.

The Frenchman’s extra energy gave the match its highlight point in the 10th game when he scrambled to return two overheads from Nadal.

Monfils charged the net after clawing back the second and dived in front of Nadal, whose third smash narrowly missed giving Monfils a sore backside, after which the two men

TOKYO: Rafael Nadal of Spain bites the winner’s trophy during the award ceremony for the men’s singles at the Japan Open tennis tournament in Tokyo. — AP touched hands.

Luck deserted Monfils in the next game, a net cord giving Nadal break point and the Spaniard nosed ahead 6-5 when a sliced backhand return floated past Monfils and landed flush on the line.

Nadal delivered the knockout punch in the next game, a big serve to the body ending the match and giving this year’s triple grand slam champion a 43rd career title.

He celebrated by striking a gunslinger’s pose as a packed

crowd of 10,000 in Tokyo erupted in cheers. Nadal, a ninetimes grand slam winner, pocketed $260,000 for winning on his debut in Japan.

The end of the match triggered a stampede for Nadal’s autographs and it took him 20 minutes to leave the court as he signed everything from baseball caps to teddy bears.

“I think Rafa likes my type of game and I didn’t find a solution to give him any trouble,” Monfils said. “Rafa is so tough to play against.” — Reuters

Monday, October 11, 2010

17

SPORTS

HH Crown Prince’s Shooting Tournament concludes Results of HH the Crown Prince’s Shooting Tournament are as follows

Joint picture of winners with Lt. General Al-Hajji, Sheikh Salman and officials

Sheikh Salman presenting Lt General Al-Hajji the KSSC plaque.

KUWAIT: HH The Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah’s Shooting Tournament, which concluded on Saturday, featured strong competition from shooters. Shooters participating and performing well in this event will be selected to represent Kuwait in upcoming regional and international events.

HH the Crown Prince was represented by Farwaniya Governor Lieutenant General Abdelhameed Abdelraheem at the closing ceremony.

Deputy General Manager for Youth Affairs at the Public Authority for Youth and Sports (PAYS), Jassim AlBasarah, also attended the ceremony.

President of the Asian and Kuwait Shooting Sport Federations and Vice President of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem AlHumoud Al-Sabah said “We at the Kuwait Shooting Sport Club are happy

to have the season opened with this tournament because HH the Crown Prince gives his support to the sport and contributes to its technical and administrative development.”

Sheikh Salman Al-Sabah said the sport’s recent achievements would not be possible if it were not for the support of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. He said that HH the Amir told shooting officials to develop international relations in the field of shooting and guarantee that the Sabah Al-Ahmad Olympic Shooting Range Complex is an advanced sports center. “We started executing those instructions by holding quality continental tournaments and plan to host international tournaments as well.”

Sheikh Salman congratulated all shooters who participated in the events and those who contributed to its success.

Skeet - Men event: First: Abdallah Al-Turqi Al-Rashidi Second: Zaid Dakheel Al-Mutairi Third: Nasser Mohammad Al-Daihani

Air Rifle - Men First: Khalid Shari’ Al-Shubaie Second: Mishal Mohammad Al-Tahous Third: Hussein Salem Al-Ajmi

Trap - Men: First: Nasser Bader Al-Miqlid Second: Abdelrahman Al-Faihan Third: Talal Abdallah Al-Rashidi

50 Meter Free Rifle - Men First: Mishal Mohammad Al-Tahous Second: Hussein Salem Al-Ajmi Third: hamad Dhaidan Al-Hajiri

Double Trap - Men: First: Mishfi Abdallah Al-mutairi Second: Saad Lafi Al-Mutairi Third: Hamad Mohammad al-Afasi

50 meter pistol - men First: Dawood Salem Al-Shimmari Second: Bader Saleh Al-Muhaini Third: Zaid Zaal Al-Dhafiri

Trap - Women: First: Rasha Ahmad Al-Faris Second: Sarah Abdelrahman Al-Hawal Third: Israa Ali

Air Rifle - Women First: Mariam Mohammad Irzouqi Second: Hussa Nabil Al-Zayed Third: Ayesha Adel Qasim

Skeet - Women: First: Afrah Adel Mohammad Second: Sheikha Ali Al Rashidi Third: Iman Salem Al-Shammaa

Air Pistol - Women First; May Mahmoud Irzouki Second: Huthama Ali Al-Baghli Third: Ghizlan Ali Hussein

Skeet - Juniors First; Abdelaziz Mohammad Al-Saad Second: Mater Mutlaq Al-Rashidi Third: Fawaz Ali Al-Azmi Trap - Juniors First: Talal Abdallah Al-Rashidi Second: Ahmad Dakhil Al-Daihani Third: Omar Saad Al-Daihani

Air Rifle Juniors - Women First: Hussa Nabil Al-Zayed Second: Ayesha Adel Qasim Third: Shayma bu Hamad Air Pistol - Juniors First: Ali Al-Mutairi Second: Jasim Abdelmalik Third: Bader Abdelrazaq Al-Tayyar

Double Trap Men - Juniors First: Osama Nasser al-Faihan Second: Mohammad Farhan Al-Mutairi

Air Rifle - Juniors First: Bandar Al-Mutairi Second: Turky Abdallah Al-Shimmari Third: Ali Farhan

Trap - Men - Shooting School First: Abdallah Nasser Abdallah Second: Abdelaziz Al-Najdi Third: Hamad Al-Mijbil

Air Pistol Juniors - Women First; May Mahmoud Irzouki Second: Ghizlan Ali Hussein Third: Hawraa Basim

Skeet- Men - Shooting School First: Hashim bu Abbas Second: Thamer Najjar Al-Mutairi Third: Majid Al-Enezi

Archery - Men First: Abdelaziz bu Shiri Second: Sami Al- Kandari Third: Faleh Askar Al-Askar

Air Pistol - Men First: zaid Zaal Al-Dhafiri Second: Hassan Al-Mulla Third: Dawood Salem Al-Shimmari

Archery Juniors First: Eid Nasser Al-Shimmari Second: abdelrahman Adel Mohammad Third: Askar Nawaf Al-Askar

Lorenzo clinches maiden MotoGP title SEPANG: Spain’s MotoGP rider Jorge Lorenzo (99) powers his Yamaha as he leads a pack of riders during the Malaysian Motorcycling Grand Prix at Sepang International Circuit. — AP

Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 metres EUGENE: Olympic bronze medallist Walter Dix edged out Tyson Gay in the former world champion’s hotly-anticipated return to the 200 metres at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting on Saturday. In the 110 metres hurdles, American David Oliver recorded the fourth fastest 110 metres hurdles of all time with a 12.90 second run.

Gay, who has been battling a nagging hamstring problem for seven weeks, ran his first 200 of the year in 19.76 seconds to finish just shy of Dix, who took control coming off the bend and stayed in front to win in 19.72.

“It wasn’t bad, but I was a little fatigued toward the end,” Gay said. “I tried to stay relaxed and bring it home, but it wasn’t enough.”

Dix, who won the 100 metres and placed second at the US nationals last weekend, said his race experience had helped, “but I’m a little beat up, too.”

“I was a little sloppy out of the blocks, but I was able to hold on,” he added. “Tyson gave me great competition.” Oliver, the Olympic bronze medallist, equalled Dominique Arnold’s national record with his second consecutive lifetime best. He ran 12.93 to win the US championships last Sunday.

Only world record holder Dayron Robles (12.87) of Cuba and China’s Liu Xiang have run faster. “I didn’t get a great start but I brought it home,” Oliver said. The American left countryman Ryan Wilson (13.16) well behind in second spot.

Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown, the Olympic 200 champion, surprised a talented 100 field with a personal best and season-leading 10.78 seconds to leave her thinking she might double at next year’s world championships.

Olympic 100 gold medallist Shelly-Ann Fraser trailed in 10.82, just ahead of American Carmelita Jeter (10.83). Three other season-leading marks were set.

American world champion Christian Cantwell used a last-effort throw of 22.41 metres to win the shot put, and world indoor 800 metres champion Mariya Savinova of Russia clocked 1:57.56 to beat Olympic 1,500 gold medallist Nancy Langat of Kenya at the shorter distance.

Sudan’s Abubaker Kaki added a fifth season-leading mark when he took the infrequently run 1,000 metres in 2:13.62. Kenyan Olympic 1,500 champion Asbel Kiprop just missed another when he won the mile in 3:49.75.

Olympic long jump champion Irving Saladino of Panama pulled a mild surprise as he used a windassisted leap of 8.46 metres to beat US world gold medallist Dwight Phillips (8.41).

Brazilan world indoor gold medallist Fabiana Murer also came out on top, winning the women’s pole vault over Polish world champion Anna Rogowska. Both cleared 4.58 metres. US world leader Jenn Shur failed to clear a height. — Reuters

SEPANG: Spain’s Jorge Lorenzo clinched his maiden MotoGP world title with a comfortable third-place finish at the Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday.

The Yamaha rider only needed a top-10 finish to lift the title with three races remaining and he sealed the crown with something to spare.

After starting on pole position the 23-year-old took few risks, easing off with two laps remaining and pulling a celebratory wheelie along the home straight and across the finish line.

Yamaha team mate and outgoing world champion Valentino Rossi put in a vintage performance to win the race ahead of Italian compatriot Andrea Dovizioso on a Honda, but the day belonged to Lorenzo, who never looked in danger after making a smooth start.

Lorenzo’s triumph was assisted by injuries to his main rivals, Rossi and the absent Dani Pedrosa, but the Spaniard celebrated in style, flanked by team members dressed as video game characters as the rider held up a ‘Game Over’ sign.

“Today is the happiest day of my life and I am looking forward to celebrating it. It’s a dream come true and it doesn’t get any better than this,” Lorenzo told reporters.

“There are a lot of people to thank for what I achieved today and it’s difficult to put it into words at the moment.”

Dovizioso also made an impressive start and was all over Lorenzo on an eventful first lap in which Rossi pushed back to 11th place and Australian Casey Stoner’s hopes of a repeat Malaysia victory were dashed with a crash on the final bend.

The leading pair pulled away from the chasing pack as fanfavorite Rossi delighted his massed local support base by weaving his way through the field to third place in hot pursuit of a sixth Malaysian victory in the premier class.

Rossi bridged the gap to the

leading duo just as Dovizioso took the lead on the start of lap nine, with Lorenzo appearing to be settling for a top-three finish.

“I was happy to be able to defend my front-row position until almost the end of the race,” Lorenzo added. “Once the tyres started sliding, I felt we just needed to finish and get the maximum points available.”

The threat of rain never materialised and the packed grandstand was soon on its feet when Rossi took the lead on lap 11, passing Lorenzo and Dovizioso as the 20-lap race became a dogfight between the Italians.

Rossi and Dovizioso swapped positions twice on the 16th lap before the former put enough daylight between himself and his compatriot to take the chequered flag for the first time since the opening race of the season in Qatar.

The race was watched by more than 62,000 mostly Rossi fans and the 31-year-old, who rides with the number 46 on his bike, was delighted to register a landmark win for the team he is nearing the end of a successful seven-year association with.

“This is my 46th victory with Yamaha so it is an important milestone,” said Rossi, who won four world titles with Yamaha but will move to Ducati next season.

“I missed the start and was 11th on the first lap but knew straight away that I had great pace. Lap-by-lap, I was able to fight my way back to the leaders,” he added.

“I then needed to use up all my remaining energy to stay on the pace so I am happy to have come through with the win.

“I’d like to thank Yamaha for the seven years I have been with them and I would like to congratulate Jorge (Lorenzo) for a deserved championship win, he is a great champion.”

Earlier, Spain’s Toni Elias wrapped up the Moto2 title with a fourth-place finish which opened an insurmountable 91point lead with three races remaining. — Reuters

FRANCE: Toulouse’s David Skrela is tackled by London Wasps’ Joseph Simpson (right) as Toulouse’s Thierry Dusautoir (background) and London Wasps’ Tom Rees (left) look on during their Heineken European Cup rugby union. — AP

Skrela makes Wasps pay the penalty PARIS: David Skrela kicked six penalties to inspire defending champions Toulouse to a 18-16 victory over 2004 champions Wasps in their opening European Cup clash yesterday.

Skrela landed the sixth of his kicks eight minutes from time to give the hosts a two-point lead in a match which was played in heavy rain and yielded just the one try.

David Lemi grabbed it for the English side in the second-half to give them the lead and hope of recording their fourth win in six meetings with their French opponents.

Skrela’s fifth penalty, a massive effort from the halfway line gave the hosts some breathing space at 15-9 but Wasps, who beat Toulouse in a thrilling 2004 European Cup final, hit back immediately with a try.

A great chip ahead by Dave Walder — who had scored all their points prior to that with two penalties and a drop goal - was allowed to bounce by Toulouse fullback Clement Poitrenaud and it gave Lemi the time to hack it ahead and apply enough pressure to it to persuade the video referee to award it.

The decision infuriated both the players and the crowd, who jeered referee George Clancy Walder paid no heed to them and converted to make it 16-15.

Toulouse cleared their heads and retook the lead eight minutes from the final whistle as the peerless Skrela once again converted a penalty from distance.

Wasps had a final opportunity to win the match but Walder for once was found wanting as his penalty drifted wide of the left hand post.

France scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili kicked four

second-half penalties to give last season’s beaten European Cup finalists Biarritz a 12-11 victory over English outfit Bath.

Yachvili - who landed five penalties in their semi-final meeting five years ago which also ended in victory for Biarritz - turned the match around after hosts Bath had gone 8-0 up through a try and a penalty by Michael Claassens and Olly Barkley.

Bath - without injured England captain Lewis Moody — took their eight point advantage into the break after a try by South African scrum-half Claassens and a penalty by former England fly-half Barkley.

The French side would have been much closer after 40 minutes but for a superb try-saving tackle by Bath fullback Nick Abendanon on Zimbabwean-born American international winger Takudza Ngwenya.

However, Yachvili converted two penalties in the first 10 minutes of the second-half to make it 8-6 as the two-time European Cup finalists turned on the pressure.

The visitors thought they had scored a try in the 53rd minute when No 8 Raphael Lakafia touched down but he was judged by the video referee to have already been tackled and a penalty was awarded against him.

Yachvili, though, put Biarritz into the lead in the 55th minute with his third successful kick from three attempts.

Barkley restored Bath’s lead but the French side got a huge boost in the 70th minute when not only was Bath prop Davie Wilson sin-binned but Yachvili landed a penalty to give them a 12-11 lead. — AFP

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Big guns going strong in Euro 2012 qualifiers LONDON: Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are among the sides looking to continue perfect starts to European Championship qualifying tomorrow.

The trio top their groups, and Spain is progressing so serenely that its latest opponent, Scotland, has already acknowledged that it is playing only for second place and a playoff spot.

Scotland has two points fewer than Spain ahead of its meeting with the world and European champion in Glasgow but has played one game more.

Germany is at Kazakhstan and the Netherlands host Sweden, which has won both of its games so far. England hosts surprise Group G leader Montenegro, while Italy welcomes Serbia and resurgent France is at home to Luxembourg.

Spain tops Group I with six points after beating Lithuania 3-1 in Friday’s qualifying round but did not score until the second half, conceding an equalizer before prevailing.

Valencia striker Aritz Aduriz, who made his debut as a late substitute, was among the players to acknowledge dissatisfaction with the performance.

“I was happy we attained our objective, which was to acquire three points,” Aduriz said. “However, I have not been as at ease as I would have liked. “I think I was a bit too relaxed in some moments. I’m going to train hard in the coming days and then I’ll see if I’m lucky enough to get some minutes against Scotland.”

The player Aduriz replaced, Fernando Llorente, is likely to start again after scoring two headers against Lithuania, while midfielder Xabi Alonso is expected to be fit after missing Lithuania because of ‘flu.

Coach Vicente Del Bosque said defender Sergio Ramos, who was replaced in the 82nd

by Alvaro Arbeloa after limping heavily, only bruised his ankle.

Del Bosque is anticipating another tough game against a lower-ranked opponent. He said Lithuania made it difficult for Spain to play its normal fast-passing game, forcing the team into a more orthodox style.

“They narrowed the field and we found it difficult to receive balls,” Del Bosque said.

“We tried to play our one-two passing game but eventually our goals came from three crosses. It’s another possibility, there’s noth-

ing better than a good cross to make a good strike.” Scotland’s players are anticipating a difficult match whatever style Spain employs at Hampden Park. “We are still on course for finishing second,” Scotland defender Gary Caldwell said. “That was probably always the objective. Spain on Tuesday is a game we will go into and give everything.

“Everyone in the world wouldn’t expect us to get anything and that’s when Scotland are usually at their best. So we can have a right go on Tuesday night.” Also in Group I, the Czech Republic aims to follow Friday’s 1-0 win over Scotland with victory at lowly Liechtenstein.

Germany beat Turkey, supposedly its closest Group A rival, 3-0 on Friday and should have little problem obtaining a fourth straight competitive win at Kazakhstan. Any slip-up could give second-place Austria the chance to close a three-point gap when it meets Belgium in Brussels.

The Netherlands’ game against Sweden is likely to be its hardest so far in Group E. The World Cup runner-up has won its three games by a combined margin of 8-1, but Sweden has gone one better — winning

its two matches by a total of 8-0.

Sweden captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic and forward Johan Elmander both missed training on Friday, when Sweden was one of the few teams not to play — but coach Erik Hamren said they were just taking “precautionary measures” and the pair trained on Saturday. “It’s been amazing quality in training,” Hamren said.”Good focus and good humor.” But experienced defender Olof Mellberg is suspended after a red card in Sweden’s 6-0 win against San Marino.

Andreas Granqvist, Petter Hansson and Jonas Olsson will vie to take his place at the heart of Sweden’s defense, most likely alongside Daniel Majstorovic.

England’s squad was depleted by the withdrawal because of injury of winger Aaron Lennon and defender Phil Jagielka, but coach Fabio Capello is hoping to have Wayne Rooney fit after an ankle injury ruled him out of Manchester United’s past two games and threatened his participation.

England has two wins from two games but its rest on Friday allowed Montenegro to pull three points clear with a 1-0 victory over Switzerland in Podgorica.

Switzerland is last in the five-team group but coach Ottmar Hitzfeld insists all is not lost ahead of Wales’ visit tomorrow — another team that has lost its opening two matches in Group G. “The important thing is to keep calm,” Hitzfeld said. “If we win our three matches at home and if we take some points in Cardiff and Sofia (against Bulgaria) then we can come back.” Central defender Steve von Bergen could miss facing Wales in Basel because of a knee injury, though Hitzfeld has bigger problems with his attack.

Switzerland has only five goals in its last 12 matches, and none from its forwards.

After dismal World Cup campaigns, France and Italy have turned their fortunes around and top their respective groups after three qualifying matches. France opened up group play with a 1-0 home loss to Belarus but has bounced back well with an away win at Bosnia-Herzegovina followed by Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Romania.

Laurent Blanc’s team should easily beat bottom side Luxembourg in Metz in its fourth qualifier. “The team spirit in the squad is a pleasure to see,” said Alou Diarra,

who captained France against Romania.

“There is an enormous amount of talent in this squad. These two wins are good for our morale and now we’re up and running in the qualifiers. Now it’s got to be more of the same and three points against Luxembourg.”

Blanc has no new injury worries but could make changes to freshen up his team, unlike Italy coach Cesare Prandelli, who was happy with his players’ performances in the goalless draw at Northern Ireland on Friday. It was the first time the Azzurri had dropped points in Euro 2012 qualifying but they are still a point clear of second-place Estonia, which beat Serbia away on Friday. “I’m not thinking about changing a lot for the game with Serbia,” Prandelli said. “Its loss at home to Estonia changes things as I would have preferred not to be facing a team with a point to prove.” Italy defender Leonardo Bonucci went for an x-ray after taking a heavy blow to his left foot against Northern Ireland, but scans revealed there was no break and he could feature against Serbia.

Also among tomorrow’s 23 qualifying matches, Ireland is at Slovakia, Portugal is at Iceland and Greece hosts Israel.—AP

Tendulkar gets past another milestone

BANGALORE: India’s Sachin Tendulkar (right) bats as Australia’s Tim Paine reacts during the second day of their second Test cricket match. Tendulkar became the first batsman to score 14,000 runs in Test cricket. —AP

SCOREBOARD Scoreboard at the close on day two of the second and final test between India and Australia in Bangalore yesterday.

1w), Ojha 42-7-120-3 (2nb), Singh 43-3-148-4, Australia first innings: (overnight 285-5) Sehwag 4-1-7-0 (1nb), Raina 8-1-19-1.

S Watson c Dhoni b Ojha 57 S Katich c Dravid b Singh 43 R Ponting lbw b Raina 77 India first innings M Clarke c Raina b Singh 14 M Vijay not out 42 M Hussey c Sehwag b Khan 34 V Sehwag c Johnson b Hilfenhaus 30 M North c Sreesanth b Singh 128 R Dravid c North b Johnson 1 T Paine st Dhoni b Ojha 59 S Tendulkar not out 44 M Johnson lbw b Ojha 0 Extras: (b-4, lb-2, w-5) 11 N Hauritz run out 17 Total (two wickets, 34.2 overs) 128 B Hilfenhaus not out 16 To bat: C. Pujara, S. Raina, M.S. Dhoni, H. Singh, Z. P George st Dhoni b Singh 2 Khan, P. Ojha, S. Sreesanth.

Extras: (b-9, lb-12, w-1,nb-9) 31 Fall of wickets: 1-37 2-38 Total: (all out; 141 overs) 478 Fall of wickets: 1-99 2-113 3-132 4-198 5-256 6-405 7- Bowling (to date): Hilfenhaus 9-2-18-1, Johnson 7-230-1 (1w), George 5-1-18-0, Hauritz 11.2-0-45-0, 415 8-458 9-459 10-478 Bowling: Khan 23-5-84-1, Sreesanth 21-1-79-0 (6nb, Clarke 2-0-11-0.

BANGALORE: India’s Sachin Tendulkar passed another major milestone but a dogged century from Australian Marcus North put the touring side in control of the second Test yesterday.

North’s career-best 128 was the cornerstone of the Australian first innings which folded for 478 at tea on day two, but not before their lower half had added 193 runs to their overnight score of 285 for five wickets.

In reply, India made a feeble start, losing the explosive Virender Sehwag (30) and bailout specialist Rahul Dravid (one) in quick succession.

Tendulkar remained unbeaten on 44 with opener Murali Vijay (42) at the other end with India still trailing Australia by 350 runs.

“It’s going to be extremely important tomorrow that we have a very big partnership,” Tendulkar told Neo Cricket channel after the second day’s play which ended with India on 128-2.

“A couple of partnerships will bring us back in the game and put us in a decent position.

Right now it’s one of those challenging phases.”

Playing his 171st test, Tendulkar became the first batsman to amass 14,000 test runs in the 27th over of the Indian innings, hitting off-spinner Nathan Hauritz for a boundary. Earlier, North’s 149-run sixth wicket stand with fellow overnight batsman Tim Paine (59) defied the Indian bowlers in the morning session and took the visitors past the 400-run mark. North mixed caution with occasional aggression, slogsweeping Pragyan Ojha for the first six of the innings before retreating into his defensive shell. Paine’s was a more eventful knock in which he was caught behind off a Shanthakumaran Sreesanth noball and was dropped by Suresh Raina off Ojha before the leftarm spinner returned to settle the score.

North completed his fifth test century in the next over and eventually fell to Harbhajan Singh after a resolute 240-ball knock with 17 boundaries and a six in it. “I got a start last night, so I needed a big score,” North said. —Reuters

DHAKA: New Zealand cricketer Bradley-John Watling tries to catch a ball during a training session at the Sher-e Bangla National Stadium. The second ODI match of Bangladesh and New Zealand was abandoned due to heavy rain. — AFP

Duminy sets up narrow victory for South Africa KIMBERLEY: JP Duminy hit 96 not out, the highest score by a South African in a Twenty20 international, and it proved just enough to secure a 2-0 series victory against Zimbabwe at the Diamond Oval yesterday.

Duminy propelled South Africa to an imposing 194 for six in 20 overs but Zimbabwe made a spirited reply before losing by eight runs.

Brendan Taylor and Chamu Chibhabha both hit 59 as Zimbabwe raced to 122 for one with seven overs remaining. In the end it was Duminy’s late assault that made the difference. The left-hander made his runs off 54 balls, with his last 46 scored off just 17 deliveries, as South Africa scored 67 off the last five overs of their innings.

It was a closing rate Zimbabwe could not match as five batsmen fell to catches off attempted big hits and captain Elton Chigumbura was run out attempting an improbable second run in the penultimate over.

Zimbabwe’s total of 186 for seven was their highest in a Twenty20 international and Chigumbura said he was happy with his side’s improved showing after they went down by seven wickets with 25 balls remaining in the first match in Bloemfontein on Friday.

“It was a much better performance, especially with the ball,” said Chigumbura, “but the last three overs went for many (runs). Overall I’m happy.”

Johan Botha, South Africa’s newly-appointed Twenty20 captain, gave credit to Zimbabwe for making the match so close. “They played excellently in the chase,” he said. For Duminy it marked a strong start to a new season after a disappointing 2009/10 campaign.

He followed up an unbeaten 35 in the first game with a score which surpassed Loots Bosman’s previous South African best of 94, made against England at

Vettel wins Japanese GP SUZUKA: Sebastian Vettel cruised to Japanese Grand Prix victory yesterday in a Red Bull one-two with Mark Webber, who stretched his Formula One championship lead to 14 points with three races remaining.

The German led from the pole he had secured only a few hours earlier and triumphed comfortably, despite taking the chequered flag just 0.9 seconds ahead of the Australian, for the second year in a row.

“I’m really, really happy and it’s about time,” said Vettel, after spraying the winner’s champagne at Red Bull designer Adrian Newey, of his first win since Valencia in June.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, winner of the two previous races, finished third without ever looking like troubling the leading pair.

McLaren’s world champion Jenson Button, one of five title contenders, gambled by starting on harder tyres than the others but it failed to pay off and he finished fourth. Team mate Lewis Hamilton was fifth in a race that dealt a heavy blow to their chances.

Webber now has 220 points to 206 for Alonso and Vettel, with the Spanish double world champion having won four races to the German’s three.

“It is the first time I have won a grand prix for the second time, so I think ultimately you have to fall in love with this track,” said Vettel when it was pointed out that only two others had ever won in

successive years at Suzuka. Both of them, Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher, went on to win the title. Webber lost second place to Renault’s Robert Kubica at the start but gained it back when the Pole came to a halt on lap three with the rear right wheel missing from his car.

“A very good day for me,” declared Webber. “It was probably difficult for me to win the race unless I got the start. “It is a beautiful track but it is basically a formation finish. Both Sebastian and I just following each other around and it is very difficult to get much closer.”

Hamilton, who started with a five-place grid penalty on a weekend where nothing went right for him and most things went wrong, dropped to fourth overall on 192 points with his hopes fading.

The tone of the afternoon for the Briton seemed set when he did the pre-race drivers’ parade perched on a three-wheeled ‘bubble car’ while Webber and Vettel cruised around in Rolls Royces.

“I was happy that I finished,” said the deflated 2008 champion. “I lost third gear as I was shifting up. It’s a tough one for the team. Maybe this is a sign.” Button fell further behind in fifth overall, with 189 points and just three races to try and make up a 31-points deficit if the Briton is to become the first driver since 1957 to win back-to-back titles with different teams. —Reuters

Centurion last season.

Duminy hit ten fours and four sixes after he came to the wicket with his side on 29 for two, with both wickets taken by Zimbabwe off-spinner Prosper Utseya, who opened the bowling.

“We lost a few key wickets up front, so it was about rebuilding the innings, then launching at the end,” said Duminy. “It’s always good to get runs under the belt, especially for me after an iffy sort of season last season.”

Opening batsman Taylor starred for Zimbabwe, hitting 59 off 39 balls after claiming the key wicket of Graeme Smith and conceding only 16 runs in four overs with his rarely-used off-spin bowling.—AFP

SCOREBOARD KIMBERLEY: Final scores in the second Twenty20 international between South Africa and Zimbabwe at the Diamond Oval yesterday: South Africa: L. Bosman c Mpofu b Utseya 5 G. Smith c Cremer b Taylor 46 C. Ingram b Utseya 12 J. Duminy not out 96 D. Miller b S. Masakadza 25 H. Kuhn c Taylor b Mpofu 1 R. Peterson c Utseya b S. Masakadza 1 J. Botha not out 1 Extras (b4, w3) 7 Total (6 wkts, 20 overs) 194 Fall of wickets: 1-6 (Bosman), 2-29 (Ingram), 3-74 (Smith), 4-143 (Miller), 5-150 (Kuhn), 6-171 (Peterson) Did not bat: W. Parnell, J. Theron, L. Tsotsobe Bowling: Utseya 4-0-28-2, S. Masakadza 4-0-39-2 (1w), Mpofu 4-0-59-1 (2w), Taylor 4-0-16-1, Cremer 3-0-34-0, Dabengwa 1-014-0 Zimbabwe: H. Masakadza c Botha b Tsotsobe B. Taylor c Theron b Peterson C. Chibhabha c Parnell b Botha C. Coventry c Botha b Peterson E. Chigumbura run out (Theron) K. Dabengwa c Duminy b Theron T. Taibu not out 11 S. Masakadza b Theron 1 G. Cremer not out 2 Extras (lb3, nb1, w5) 9 Total (7 wkts, 20 overs) 186

JAPAN: Red Bull Formula One driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany leads teammate Mark Webber of Australia and Ferrari Formula One driver Fernando Alonso of Spain during the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit. —AP

10 59 59 8 26 1

Fall of wickets: 1-15 (H. Masakadza), 2-122 (Chibhabha), 3-137 (Coventry), 4-146 (Taylor), 5-152 (Dabengwa), 6-179 (Chigumbura), 7-180 (S. Masakadza) Did not bat: P. Utseya, C. Mpofu Bowling: Parnell 4-0-41-0 (1nb, 2w), Tsotsobe 4-032-1 (1w), Theron 4-0-27-2, Botha 3-0-30-1 (1w), Peterson 4-0-36-2, Duminy 1-0-17-0 Result: South Africa win by 8 runs Series: South Africa win 2-0 Man of match: JP Duminy (RSA)

SPORTS

Monday, October 11, 2010

19

Indian wave of emotion rides out Games storms

STANFORD: Southern California tight end Jordan Cameron (center) misses on a catch attempt while Stanford cornerback Michael Thomas (right) and safety Harold Bernard (28) defend during the first half of an NCAA college football game.—AP

S Carolina stun Alabama

NEW YORK: Stephen Garcia threw three touchdown passes, two to Alshon Jeffrey, and Marcus Lattimore scored three times as 19th-ranked South Carolina stunned topranked Alabama 35-21 on Saturday.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan State intercepted three of Denard Robinson’s passes as the 17th-ranked Spartans beat No. 18 Michigan 34-17.

The defending national champion Alabama had won 19 straight games — including last week’s 31-6 rout of Florida — since losing the Sugar Bowl after the 2008 season to Utah. The Gamecocks (4-1, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) had never beaten a No. 1 team in four previous tries.

Playing at home, South Carolina shredded the country’s top-rated scoring defense, putting up the most points on Alabama since a 4134 loss to LSU in 2007. The Gamecocks scored four touchdowns when they got inside the ‘Bama 20 — double what the Crimson Tide had allowed coming in.

Alabama’s Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson were held to 64 yards on the ground as the Crimson Tide tried to rally back, just as it had in beating Arkansas 24-20 two games ago.

Ohio St. 38, Indiana 10 At Columbus, Ohio, a week after leaving a win at Illinois

with a strained muscle in his left thigh, Terrelle Pryor threw for a career-best 334 yards and three touchdowns to lead Ohio State. The junior’s big day gave coach Jim Tressel his 100th victory on the Buckeyes sideline.

Oregon 42, Washington State 23 At Pullman, Washington, LaMichael James scored three touchdowns, including an 84yard scoring reception, as Oregon shook Washington State in the second half.

Backup quarterback Nate Costa played the final three quarters for Oregon after Darron Thomas left with an apparent shoulder injury.

Costa led three scoring drives and ran for an 18-yard touchdown.

Boise State 57, Toledo 14 At Boise, Idaho, Jeremy Avery ran for three touchdowns, Kellen Moore passed for three more and the defense forced four turnovers.

Boise State (5-0) has now won 19 straight games, the nation’s longest winning streak after top-ranked Alabama was upset by No. 19 South Carolina.

TCU 45, Wyoming 0 At Fort Worth, Texas, Andy Dalton threw for a season-high 270 yards and three touchdowns a week after his worst game of the season and TCU recorded consecutive

shutouts for the first time in 55 years.

Dalton was 14 of 17 and surpassed last week’s passing total on the first play of the second quarter, a 31-yard strike to Bart Johnson that put the Horned Frogs (6-0, 2-0 Mountain West) ahead 21-0.

Auburn 37, Kentucky 34 At Lexington, Kentucky, Cam Newton drove Auburn into position for Wes Byrum’s 24-yard field goal as time expired.

Newton ran for a careerhigh 198 yards and four touchdowns and deftly guided the Tigers (6-0, 3-0 Southeastern Conference) 88 yards in the final 7:22 after the Wildcats tied it at 34.

Oregon State 29, Arizona 27 At Tucson, Arizona, Oregon State’s Ryan Katz threw for 393 yards and two touchdowns, and sneaked across for another score.

The sophomore from Santa Monica, Calif., completed 30 of 42 against an Arizona defense that had been ranked No. 2 nationally, giving up 230.8 yards per game.

Utah 68, Iowa State 27 At Ames, Iowa, Jordan Wynn threw for 325 yards and two touchdowns, and Shaky Smithson threw a TD pass and caught another one for Utah.

Eddie Wide added three touchdowns for the Utes (5-0, 2-0 MWC), who scored 31 unanswered points in the sec-

ond quarter and racked up their most points since beating Wyoming 69-14 in 1983.

Arkansas 24, Texas A&M 17 At Arlington, Texas, Ryan Mallett threw three touchdown passes in the first half for Arkansas and Tramain Thomas sealed the victory at Cowboys Stadium with an interception in the end zone on the final play.

The Razorbacks (4-1) failed to take advantage of three fumbles recovered inside the Aggies’ 40. They got just one field goal out of the turnovers.

LSU 33, No. 14 Florida 29 At Gainesville, Florida, Jarrett Lee tossed a 3-yard touchdown pass to Terrence Tolliver with 6 seconds left after LSU kept its final drive alive with a successful fake field goal, and the Tigers pulled out another wild victory.

With 35 seconds remaining, LSU (6-0, 4-0) lined up for a game-tying, 52-yard field goal, but holder Drew Alleman threw a no-look pitch over his head to place-kicker Josh Jasper. The ball bounced, Jasper scooped it up on a hop and ran for the first down.

Wisconsin 41, Minnesota 23 At Madison, Wisconsin, John Clay ran for three touchdowns and freshman James White added two more to help Wisconsin to keep Paul Bunyan’s Axe for the seventh straight year. Clay ran for 111 yards and White had 118 in another lopsided victory for Wisconsin (5-1, 1-1 Big Ten) in the most played rivalry in major college football, a series dating to 1890.

Missouri 26, Colorado 0 At Columbia, Missouri, Blaine Gabbert threw two touchdown passes before leaving with a hip pointer after three quarters and Missouri made several big plays on special teams.

The Tigers (5-0, 1-0 Big 12) had four sacks and an interception in their fifth straight victory over Colorado (3-2, 0-1) by a total score of 203-40. This one came just a few days after the 20th anniversary of the infamous Fifth Down game in 1990, which helped the Buffaloes win their only national championship.

Air Force 49, Colorado State 27

TAMPA: South Florida running back Mo Plancher (3) breaks away from Syracuse cornerback Phillip Thomas (1) for extra yardage during the second quarter of a college football game. —AP

At Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force added some air to the nation’s topranked running attack and Jonathan Warzeka returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown. Tim Jefferson threw for 160 yards on 5 of 9 passing and hooked up with Zach Kauth for two scores.

He also set up the Falcons’ first two touchdowns with completions of 51 and 39 yards as Air Force (5-1, 3-0 Mountain West) celebrated its first game as a ranked team in seven seasons with a big win.—AP

NEW DELHI: India finally lifted the Commonwealth Games gloom yesterday as a wave of patriotic emotion supercharged their gold medal count and sparked a sevengoal rout of bitter hockey rivals Pakistan.

After a week of depressing tales of corruption, botched organisation and embarrassing blunders, the country’s athletes clicked into gear.

Somdev Devvarman clinched men’s tennis gold, 800 metre runner Tintu Luka brought the house down at the track with a blistering qualifying run while a 19,000 crowd roared India to a 7-3 win over Pakistan and a place in the hockey semi-finals.

The hosts also won more gold in shooting and wrestling with national poster boy Sushil Kumar, a rare world champion in the country, cruising to 66kg gold.

By the end of the day, India had won 29 gold to England’s 26, striking a crucial blow in their cat-and-mouse duel to finish runners-up to Australia.

At a jam-packed Major Dhyan Chand stadium, and with members of the country’s political elite looking on, Sandeep Singh starred as India trounced Pakistan to storm into the semi-finals of the hockey in a do-or-die encounter.

Faced with the prospect of elimination before the knockout rounds, India responded in style to set-up a last four showdown against England with world champions Australia set to face New Zealand.

“All credit to the crowd,” said India coach Jose Brasa.

“Their support was tremendous, something I have never seen before in any match.”

Devvarman became the first Commonwealth Games men’s tennis champion cruising to a 6-4, 6-2 win over Greg Jones of Australia. The top seed’s win had local fans on their feet, 24 hours after the despair of seeing glamour girl Sania Mirza lose the women’s final.

“A gold medal is tough to come by. I’m happy I got mine. I’ve worked really hard,” Devvarman said. Out at a packed Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, where the Games’ ticketing woes are slowly being addressed, Tintu Luka won the the third semi-final of the 800m, bringing over 50,000 people to their feet in expectation of a rare track gold in today’s final.

Pakistan gained a measure of revenge for their hockey humbling when they claimed their first Commonwealth Games wrestling titles for 40 years, winning two golds through Azhar Hussain in the 55kg and Muhammad Inam in the 84kg.

Sushil Kumar still sent the Indian crowd home happy when he defeated South African Heinrich Barnes 7-0 in the 66kg final to add Commonwealth gold to his world title.

“You have no idea with all the expectations riding on me and competing in my home country and winning gold - it is the best feeling I ever had,” he said.

However, not all the Games’ problems have disappeared. Australia clinched both cycling road race golds, but an eerily quiet Delhi resembled a ghost town as the organisers’ hair-trigger security concerns kept spectators away.

Rochelle Gilmore and Allan Davis triumphed on a course which should have shown off this teeming city of almost 18 million people at its best.

But with TV helicopters relaying majestic views of the riders who passed iconic Connaught Place, India Gate and Parliament House, Delhi organisers were once again embarrassed by yet another event played out with nobody watching.

Apart from soldiers and police, the riders only had the heat, dirt, wild dogs and monkeys for company. “There wasn’t much atmosphere. The

NEW DELHI: Indian hockey player Danish Mujtaba celebrates after scoring a goal against Pakistan during the Commonwealth Games.—AP

Medals Table Nation Australia India England Canada South Africa Nigeria Malaysia Kenya Singapore Samoa New Zealand Scotland Jamaica Pakistan Wales Bahamas

G 61 29 26 22 9 8 6 6 5 3 2 2 2 2 1 1

S 36 22 45 12 11 7 7 4 5 0 16 8 3 1 5 1

crowd was very bare apart from the armed guards everywhere,” said English cyclist Katie Conclough. “It was a shame to have had this big event and not have many people out there to watch it.”

In track and field, England’s Leon Baptiste streaked to the men’s 200m title as Kenya’s Boaz Lalang made the most of David Rudisha’s no-show to win the 800m. Lalang led a

B 37 22 30 25 9 11 7 4 6 1 5 6 1 0 6 1

Tot al 134 73 101 59 29 26 20 14 16 4 23 16 6 3 12 3

Botswana Cyprus Nauru Uganda Trinidad Cameroon N. Ireland Sri Lanka PNG Seychelles St. Vincent Ghana Isle of Man Namibia Bangladesh Guyana St. Lucia

Kenyan cleansweep of the event - the first for 56 years.

Wales won their first gold in Delhi with European champion Dai Greene taking the 400m hurdles. Nigeria’s Muizat Odumosu took the women’s crown but the 200m final failed to go ahead due to a protest from the semi-finals held earlier in the evening.

In weightlifting, Samoa’s Niusila Opeloge gave his fami-

1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 0 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 2 2 2 1 1 1

2 2 1 1 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1

ly and country their second gold of the day when he clinched the 105kg heavyweight title. Earlier, sister Ele Opeloge won the women’s +75kg super-heavyweight title.

Her victory followed Faavae Faauliuli’s triumph in the men’s 94kg on Saturday which was Samoa’s first ever Commonwealth Games gold medal.—AFP

Commonwealth Games Medalists ATHLETICS Men 200 GOLD — Leon Baptiste, England.

SILVER — Lansford Spence, Jamaica.

BRONZE — Christian Malcolm, England.

400 Hurdles GOLD — David Greene, Wales.

SILVER — Louis van Zyl, South Africa.

BRONZE — Rhys Williams, Wales.

800 GOLD — Boaz Kiplagat Lalang, Kenya.

SILVER — Richard Kiplagat, Kenya.

BRONZE — Abraham Kiplagat, Kenya.

Parasport 1,500 GOLD — Kurt Fearnley, Australia.

SILVER — Richard Colman, Australia.

BRONZE -Josh Cassidy, Canada.

Discus GOLD — Benn Harradine, Australia.

SILVER — Vikas Shive Gowda, India.

BRONZE — Carl Myerscough, England.

Women 400 Hurdles GOLD — Muizat Ajoke Odumosu, Nigeria.

SILVER — Eilidh Child, Scotland.

BRONZe — Nickiesha Wilson, Jamaica.

High Jump GOLD — Nicole Forrester, Canada.

SILVER — Sheree Latoya Francis, Jamaica.

BRONZE — Levern Spencer, St. Lucia.

Long jump GOLD — Alice Falaiye, Canada.

SILVER — Prajusha Maliakkal, India.

BRONZE — Tabia Charles, Canada.

ARCHERY Men’s Individual Recurve GOLD — Jayanta Talukdar, India.

SILVER — Matthew Gray, Australia.

BRONZE — Rahul Banerjee, India.

Women Individual Recurve GOLD — Deepika Kumari, India.

SILVER — Alison Williamson, England.

BRONZE — Dola Banerjee, India.

CYCLING Men Road Race 168 kilometers GOLD — Allan Davis, Australia.

SILVER — Hayden Roulston, New Zealand.

BRONZE — David Milla, Scotland.

Women Road Race 112 kilometers GOLD — Rochelle Gilmore, Australia.

SILVER — Elizabeth Armistead, England.

BRONZE — Chloe Hosking, Australia.

DIVING Men 1-Meter Springboard GOLD — Alexandre Despatie, Canada.

SILVER — Matthew Mitcham, Australia.

BRONZE — Scott Robertson, Australia.

Women 3-Meter Synchro

GOLD — Canada (Jennifer Abel and Emilie Heymans).

SILVER — Australia (Briony Cole and Sharleen Stratton).

BRONZE — Australia (Jaele Patrick and Olivia Wright).

10-Meter Synchro GOLD — Australia (Melissa Wu and Alexandra Croak).

SILVER — Malaysia (Pandelela Pamg and Mun Yee Leong).

BRONZE — Australia (Briony Cole and Anabelle Smith).

SHOOTING Men 25-meter Centrefire Pistol GOLD — Harpreet Singh, India.

SILVER — Vijay Kumar, India.

BRONZE — Lip Meng Poh, Singapore.

Men’s Trap GOLD — Aaron Heading, England.

SILVER — Michael Diamond, Australia.

BRONZE — Manavjit Singh Sandhu, India.

Women 10-meter Air Rifle GOLD — Jasmine Ser, Singapore.

SILVER — Ayuni Halim, Malaysia.

BRONZE — Suryani Taibi, Malaysia.

TENNIS Women Doubles GOLD — Sally Peers and Anastasia Rodionova, Australia.

SILVER — Jessica Moore and Olivia Rogowska, Australia.

BRONZE — Sania Mirza and Rushmi Chakravarthi, India.

WEIGHTLIFTING Men 105 kilograms GOLD — Niuisla Opeloge, Samoa.

SILVER — Stanislav Chalaev, New Zealand.

BRONZE — Curtis Onaghinor, Nigeria.

Women 75+ kilograms GOLD — Ele Opeloge, Samoa.

SILVER — Maryam Usman, Nigeria.

BRONZE — Deborah Acason, Australia.

WRESTLING 55 kilograms GOLD — Azhar Hussain, Pakistan.

SILVER — Ebikewenimo Welson, Nigeria.

BRONZE — Anil Kumar, India.

66 kilograms GOLD — Sushil Kumar, India.

SILVER — Heinrich Barnes, South Africa.

BRONZE — Chris Prickett, Canada.

84 kilograms GOLD — Muhammad Inam, Pakistan.

SILVER — Anuj Kumar, India.

BRONZE — Andrew Dick, Nigeria.

120 kilograms GOLD — Arjan Bhullar, Canada.

SILVER — Joginder Kumar, India.

BRONZE — Hugues Onanena, Cameroon.

Jazeera unit leases planes to Virgin

Al-Tamimi & Company holds seminar

23

23

China eyes new Silk Road to Europe

26

Monday, October 11, 2010

www.kuwaittimes.net

IMF told to toughen scrutiny of rich powers No deal on FX tensions, global imbalances WASHINGTON: Emerging powers won a battle on Saturday for heightened IMF scrutiny of rich countries’ economic policies as world financial leaders sought to defuse mounting tensions over currencies. The International Monetary Fund’s 187 member countries gave voice to long-running frustrations of emerging economies, which say the Fund has traditionally not been tough enough on its biggest shareholders, led by the United States. Now, with the United States and Europe in the doldrums, and emerging economies providing the major growth engine for the world, the tables appear to be turning.

“Stronger and even-handed surveillance to uncover vulnerabilities in large advanced economies is a priority,” the IMF’s steering committee said in a communique. The statement reflected the arguments of developing countries that weak finances and sluggish growth in the United States are a fundamental cause of imbalances in the global economy, with U.S. policies fueling the dollar weakness that is causing strains for many emerging market currencies. This view was driven home by Chinese Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan on Saturday and won broader support.

“The IMF is no longer the institution designed to look after the developing countries solely,” said Thailand’s finance minister, Korn Chatikavanij. “Its role needs to be more broad-based, and it needs to realize that mistakes in the larger economies have global impact.”

The United States, in contrast, has pointed its finger at China, saying its huge current account surplus and undervalued yuan currency are partly to blame for the imbalances that have caused the dollar to fall and raised concerns about a “currency war.”

No deal on cur rencies The finance leaders struck no deal on currencies but their IMF communique sought to defuse these escalating tensions by acknowledging both sides’ points of view. Not only did it underline the need for scrutiny of rich countries, it added language sought by

WASHINGTON: Development Committee Chairman and Bahrain’s Minister of Finance Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, left, and World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick, talk during a committee meeting at the IMF World Bank 2010 Annual Meetings in Washington, Saturday, Oct 9, 2010. — AP Washington for the IMF to speak with greater “candor” in advising countries on economic policy, potentially giving the Fund more clout when dealing with China’s yuan. But it laid out no concrete actions for addressing the problems of unbalanced global growth

that underlies the mounting stress in foreign exchange markets.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said there is a direct link between planned reforms at the IMF designed to give emerging powers a greater voice and foreign exchange rate policies, and said if

emerging markets want more influence they must release their grip on tightly managed currencies.

IMF chief Dominique StraussKahn put it slightly differently: “You cannot be at the center and be a free rider.” Strauss-Kahn said he hoped to get an agreement possibly

within weeks on giving emerging countries more IMF voting power, which would be in time to meet a deadline of the Group of 20 summit next month in Seoul.

Sur veillance unclear Exactly how the IMF would

Finance ministers cannot resolve currency dispute

Dubai on top as Mideast markets rise on Q3 hopes MIDEAST STOCKS DUBAI: Most Middle East markets rose yesterday, led by Dubai which climbed to a fivemonth high, as investors bet on strong third-quarter earnings.

Dubai’s index climbed 1.6 percent to its highest close since April 26. Property-related stocks dominated trade, with Arabtec and Emaar Properties advancing 5.1 percent and 3.1 percent respectively. Other regional markets, with the exception of Egypt, also rose, tracking a higher close on Wall Street on Friday.

“There is speculation that third-quarter results will be good,” said Mohamed Khaled, risk manager at Prime Emirates. Arabtec gained as two projects boost the company’s outlook, traders said. The firm was recently awarded a $1.3 billion order for a four-year Saudi project, while a Russian report said that a large project involving Arabtec received the go-ahead. Sources at a Gazprom Neft affiliate said a Russian state committee granted a final approval for the controversial project, Moscow’s Kommersant newspaper reported on Saturday.

Both the Okhta Centre project and the expert commission declined official comment when contacted by the newspaper.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in May backed a UNESCO bid to halt construction of the 403-metre (1,322 foot) skyscraper. Arabtec officials were not available to comment.

Property stocks advanced despite analysts’ concerns over continued signs of

financial stress in the regional sector. “The real estate sector continues to slump under a new glut of supply this year,” said Commerzbank’s Barbara Nestor in a report on Dubai’s credit strength.

“Not only is Dubai’s debt high, its term structure suggests heavy repayment obligations falling due this year and next ($20bn-$24bn in 2011), when cash flows are expected to remain still weak,” Nestor said. In Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, banks led the bourses higher as investors anticipated strong third-quarter earnings.

Doha Bank and Qatar National Bank rose 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent respectively.

“Qatari banks should continue to exhibit moderate growth and no significant deterioration in asset quality,” said Credit Suisse in a preview note on third-quarter results. Saudi banks, however, fell as investors remained cautious ahead of earnings. Riyad Bank and Samba Financial Group fell 1.1 percent and 2 percent respectively. “Investors are not sure how well the banking sector did in the third quarter: provisions are still unpredictable,” said Ahmed Al-Qahtani, NCB Capital analyst. “Some banks have yet to cover 100 percent of their non-performing loans,” he added. In Kuwait, Agility rose 1.9 percent, after a US magistrate judge recommended the dismissal of a case against a subsidiary of the company, which is accused of fraud over multibillion dollar US Army contracts.— Reuters

conduct strengthened surveillance remained far from clear. The communique said: “Further action is urgently needed to reinforce the institution’s role and effectiveness as a global body for macro-financial surveillance and policy collaboration,” Strauss-Kahn had circulated

an idea for the IMF to review the world’s five largest economies-the United States, Japan, China, the 16-nation euro zone, and Britainand assess the impact of their domestic policies on the global economy, or what he called the “spillover” effect.

That idea gained lukewarm support. Eswar Prasad, a former IMF official who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said it appeared to offer little change from the IMF’s current responsibilities. “The IMF is trying to reinvent the wheel yet again,” he said. The proposals were “fancy new names for old surveillance mechanisms” and did not give the IMF any stronger authority to turn their policy advice into action.

The IMF only has explicit power when it extends loans and can set conditions. Otherwise, it can only try and prod nations into policy actions. In one sign of how the Fund will seek to be more forceful, Strauss-Kahn said he would personally attend regular economic consultations with the largest players, including the United States, the euro zone, China and Japan.

But there was no prospect of any quick change to the role of the Fund-the communique called for a review in 2011 of its effectiveness.

The IMF already conducts annual economic reviews of most of its member countries and reports on a range of issues, including exchange rate moves and monetary and fiscal policy.

It has a mixed track record when it comes to identifying the seeds of crisis and getting countries to change their policies before it is too late.

Some critics argue that the IMF cannot be a respected voice in the global economy until all of its members feel their views are heard on world policy decisions. “As long as the Fund is seen as an organization in which all decisions are taken by a relatively small number of rich countries, and then announced in the name of the international community, mistrust in the Fund will persist in many regions of the world,” Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. — Reuters

SIRTE: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (right) greets Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal, during the second Afro-Arab summit yesterday. — AP

Gaddafi wants Arab investment SIRTE: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urged wealthy Arab nations yesterday to invest in Africa, including through joint ventures in largescale infrastructure projects, to help lift up poorer countries on the continent. Gaddafi made the appeal at the first African-Arab summit in more than 30 years, which he hosted in the Libyan city of Sirte. “I will encourage capitalism in Africa and I encourage the Arab nations to invest their money in African nations,” Gaddafi said. Food security and water resources topped the agenda,

as the 66 leaders discussed ways to fight poverty in the region as well as joint ventures in dam building and irrigation systems. The Arab and African nations last met in 1977 in Cairo.

Gaddafi hinted at another African-Arab meeting next month that would include European participation. Yesterday’s summit followed an emergency Arab League meeting in Sirte a day earlier in which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sought Arab support in troubled peace talks with Israel. — AP

WASHINGTON: Differences over currency management persisted after a weekend meeting of global finance ministers who left without resolving what to do. They did agree, however, that the 187-nation International Monetary Fund was the organization best suited to deal with rising global currency tensions that risk overshadowing next month’s summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations in South Korea.

The G-20 includes traditional economic powers such as the United States and Europe along with fast-growing economies such as China, Brazil and India.

Various nations are seeking to devalue their currencies as a way to increase exports and jobs during hard economic times.

The concern is that such efforts could trigger a repeat of the trade wars that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s as country after country raises protectionist barriers to imported goods. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Saturday that a successful resolution of the currency dispute with China would require a cooling of overheated rhetoric about currency wars.

“In a war, there is always a loser and in this situation there must not be a loser,” she said. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said, “Currency disputes can easily become trade disputes.” The International Monetary Fund ended two days of talks with a communique that pledged to “deepen its work” in the area of currency movements. This included giving the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn a mandate to operate as judge, arbiter and analyst in dealing with the main players in the currency dispute, The United States, the euro area, China and Japan.

The communique essentially papered over sharp differences on currency policies between China and the United States. The Obama administration, facing November elections where high US unemployment will be a top issue, has been pressing China to move more quickly to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar. American manufacturers contend the Chinese yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent and this has cost millions of US manufacturing jobs by making Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and US products more expensive in China.

China has allowed its currency, the yuan, to rise in value by about 2.3 percent since announcing in June that it would introduce a more flexible exchange rate.

Most of that increase has come in recent weeks after the Obama administration began taking a more hardline approach and the US House passed tough legislation to impose economic sanctions on countries found

to be manipulating their currencies. Chinese officials continued to insist that their gradual efforts to revalue their currency was the best approach to take.

“China will move the exchange rate gradually,” Zhou Xiaochuan, head of China’s central bank, said during a panel discussion Friday. “We will do it in a gradual way rather than shock therapy.” Chinese officials say that allowing the currency to rise too rapidly would cost thousands of manufacturing jobs and destabilize the Chinese economy. China is hardly alone in trying to gain a competitive advantage. The United States is contributing to a weaker dollar by pressuring Beijing and by the Federal Reserve flooding the markets with US dollars. The Japanese government intervened in currency markets for the first time in years on Sept. 15. It sold yen and bought dollars to push the yen’s value lower. And this week, the Japanese central bank announced that it would pursue a policy similar to the Fed’s: buy assets to lower Japanese interest rates, another way to lower the yen’s value. Brazil and South Korea have also taken recent actions to weaken their currencies as a way to protect their exporters.— AP

Bidding on $2.7bn Abu Dhabi-Saudi road delayed ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi has delayed to the fourth quarter the selection of a preferred bidder for a $2.7 billion highway project as evaluation continues, a senior transportation official in the Gulf emirate said yesterday.

Consortiums led by Australia’s Macquarie Group, Austrian builder Strabag and China Communications Construction Co are bidding for the Mafraq-Ghweifat highway linking the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

“It is still under evaluation for the benefit of the parties,” said Abdulla Rashid Al-Otaiba, chairman of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Transport. “We have extended the date and will announce it before the end of the year,” Otaiba told reporters. In August, the department said it would name the preferred bidder in the third quarter of this year. The department is evaluating bids for the 25-year concession to upgrade, finance, operate and maintain the 327 km (203.2 mile) highway. It is the first transport-related public-private partnership (PPP) project in the region. — Reuters

BUSINESS

22

Monday, October 11, 2010

AUB announces results of quarterly, weekly draws KUWAIT: The biggest-ever Al-Ha ssad Islamic savings scheme fea tures 6,000 prizes w orth KD10 million in tota l. The scheme’s structure gives eligible customers the opportunity to w in KD1

million in tw o qua rterly prize dra w s, offering a single ‘Gra nd Sala ry for Life’ prize of KD4,000 a month for the next 250 months.

KUWAIT: Alaa Elddin Bashar receives the cash gift from Amer Najem, AUB Area Manager.

Al-Tijari sponsors 2nd Kuwait Financial Forum KUWAIT: Commercial Bank of Kuwait sponsors the second Kuwait Financial Forum held under the patronage of the Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The forum was jointly organized by both the Central Bank of Kuwait and Al-Iktissad Wal-Aamal Group in co-operation with Kuwait Banking Association during the period from October 31 to November 1, 2010 in Sheraton Kuwait Hotel.

Commenting on the Bank’s participation in this important economic forum, Amani AlWaraa - Executive Manager, Advertising and Public Relations Department said this golden sponsorship comes within the bank’s concern to sponsor all the significant economic and financial activities which highlight the challenges facing local and regional banking industry and find solutions for the same.

Al-Waraa stated that the forum will address a number of main topics and issues related to the global financial crisis and its implications and prospects, the progress in the international financial system reform, the way in which Arab banks shall cope with the prospective challenges, the features of the regu-

Amani Al-Waraa latory development, the new restrictions imposed on financial industry and the investment horizons in Arab countries and Kuwait development plan. In this context, Al-Waraa indicated the significant role of banks in enhancing local and regional economy and sustaining the economic stability. Al-Waraa added that the forum has made great success where it was highly attended by a number of economists and banking experts in the Arab World from different banks and investment companies in addition to the presence of an elite of central banks’ governors.

The lucky grand quarterly prize winner- Salary for Life (KD500,000): Awadh Zaher Shakhaer Al-Dammak The lucky quarterly winnersSalary for Life (KD250,000): Fawaz Delil Shaman Jazaa, and Zuhair Ebrahim Abdulla AlOlaiwat The lucky weekly grand prize winners worth KD20,000 each are: Hasan Humoud Awwad AlAwwad & Khaled Omar Azmie Al-Khatib The lucky weekly winners won cash prizes of KD1,000 each are: Abdulla Ali Hassan Aburahmah, Fawaz Faisal Ahmed Al-Fahad, Mahmoud Mohamad Nasser Abbas, Ebrahim Mohd Hasan Tolifat, Bashar Khayro Dawara or Alaa Elddin Bashar, Rabab Abdulla Makki Hussain, Aziza Ahmed Hasan Al-Aali, Abbas Jassim Hussain, Ali Zaid Suwayed AlSanea, George Samuel.

Other ‘Salary for Life’ prizes include quarterly KD500,000 prizes (KD2,000 paid out every month) and KD250,000 prizes (KD1,000 paid out every month).

With a total of three winners announced each quarter, all prizes convert to a stable source of monthly income for the winner over the next 250 months.

Apart from the quarterly prizes, one grand weekly prize of KD20,000 and five weekly cash prizes of KD1,000 each are given away every week. Customers with KD1,000 and above invested in the Al-Hassad Islamic scheme are eligible to win KD 500,000 in each of the four loyalty draws held over the scheme period.

The concept behind the savings scheme is giving customers the opportunity to win a “salary for life”. AUB’s objective has been to create a lifetime change for the winners and allow them to invest their winnings in things that will make a lasting difference to the well being of their families. For more information on the Al-Hassad Islamic investment savings account, its prize structure and eligibility criteria, customers may visit any AUB Kuwait branch or call Hayakom 181 2000.

CBK congratulates first winner of Al-Najma Draw KUWAIT: A new surprise was unveiled when the names of the winners of Triple Najma Draw were announced on October 3, 2010 in the main building of the Bank and in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and the Ministry of the Interior. The names of the winners are: Ghulam Murtadha Mohamad Nasser, Filomena Rebelo and Shaun Dylan Edward, and Mohammad Ijaz Mohammed Niaz For this occasion Simon Clements, Acting General Manager of the Retail Banking Division, greeted Ghulam Murtadha Mohamad Nasser and congratulated him while giving him a cheque of the prize money. Ghulam Murtaza received a phone call from the Commercial Bank of Kuwait to convey the news of winning the KD100,000. He expressed his joy at winning after several attempts to convince him that he is the first winner of the KD100,000. He said that when he

received the news from the bank employee he did not know how to speak and couldn’t think and did not think that the prize is KD100,000 as he thought it was KD100 or KD1,000. After many attempts of the bank employee to convince him of the correct amount, he visited the branch the next day and the branch manager assured me about the news of the KD100,000 award, and then “ felt the joy of winning the Al-Najma Triple Draw from CBK which was and still means a lot to me, especially after I won a prize and I was able to achieve many of my dreams.” CBK provides the award every four months in addition to 81 other cash prize per month with access to receive credit cards free of charge to the winners. The bank invites everyone to open an account in any of its 53 branches scattered in various areas in Kuwait to give opportunity to the largest number of customers possible to win the prize.

Samsung showcases world’s best HD 3D TV Samsung Gulf Electronics, a leading brand in consumer electronics and information technology, will be showcasing the gigantic C8000 full HD 3D TV at this year’s GITEX, taking place from October 17-21, 2010. The C8000’s ultra-slim 65” screen is the world’s largest LED TV that is full HD capable and supports 3D rendering.

The Samsung C8000 3D LED TV sets a new standard in cinema-style home theater experience, using explosive 3D capabilities and the immersive Samsung HyperReal Engine to deliver the world as never seen before. Superior picture quality courtesy of Samsung’s proprietary 3D processor, combined with unique Precision Dimming Technology for improved black point accuracy and the impressive motion clarity of 800 CMR, make the Samsung C8000 the pinnacle in rich, Full HD 3D content viewing.

When combined with the BDP-C6900 Blu-ray Disc and 3D Glasses, the package creates a fullyfledged home entertainment system rivaling the best cinema-going trip suitable for any living room. With the BDP-C6900’s standard 3D support and wireless online capabilities, an immersive 3D journey is never more than a click away, while the 3D glasses’ refresh rate of 120Hz per lens makes for a comfortable and enjoyable 3D viewing effect.

“The C8000’s 65” screen rivals the best the silver screen has to offer with an immersive Full HD 3D viewing experience at home. The sheer size of the LED screen makes even the most minute details come to life in glorious color and

depth, creating an unmatched 3D phenomenon,” said Justin Shaw, General Manager, TV division at Samsung Gulf Electronics. The 3D HyperReal Engine and Clear Motion technology allow users to enjoy 3D content in a vibrant, crystal-clear and realistic medium, while the Wide Color Enhancer Plus feature stretches each pixel to its 3-dimensional limit, resulting in the fullest, most life like colors ever seen on a TV. At 65”, the Samsung’s C8000 has an ultra-slim design that takes virtually no space in any room at only 23.9mm thickness.

The Full HD 3D capabilities create a new dimension in your movie-viewing and gaming adventure thanks to richer colors and smoother motion.

The C8000 also comes with the ability to stream content using AllShare, which enables content from your PC or mobile devices - such as music, videos and photos - to be shared and displayed directly on your TV wirelessly and effortlessly. Other features like Internet@TV offer users the benefit of downloading movies, music widgets and apps like Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and more, enabling a richer and more immersive streaming and browsing experience.

All these functionalities are delivered without compromising on energy efficiency and meet the high standards of sustainability that Samsung LED TVs are known for. The C8000 exceeds the most stringent EnergyStar 4.0 guidelines and is made from eco-friendly materials, while still delivering the highest build quality that Samsung consumers are used to.

EDF, Renault-Nissan Alliance strengthen their partnership KUWAIT: Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault and Nissan, and Henri Proglio, CEO of EDF, signed agreements at the Paris Motor Show to further their cooperation in the field of electric mobility. Two years after signing a collaboration contract with a view to preparing the electric mobility of the future, EDF and the Renault-Nissan Alliance are confirming and extending their activities with today’s agreements, notably in three areas that are essential for developing a mass market for electric vehicle.

Starting in 2011, EDF and the Renault-Nissan Alliance will put their know-how and resources

together in order to give customers easy access to simple, practical and economical recharging equipment. A person buying an electric Renault or Nissan vehicle will be put in contact, via the vehicle dealership, with one of EDF’s partner electricians present across the country and selected for the quality of their services. The service will include monitoring the customer’s electric equipment and, where necessary, ensuring it complies with prevailing standards and fitting an electric socket adapted to the recommendations of Renault and Nissan.

For businesses and public authorities looking to

use electric vehicles, their Renault or Nissan sales advisor will put them in direct contact with an EDF group contact, who will advise them directly on the charging infrastructures they need as well as on their electricity supply contract for EDF customers.

During the press conference, Henri Proglio said, ‘’With the agreements we are signing today, EDF is committing itself to accompany Renault and Nissan’s electric vehicle customers so that they can fully enjoy their new acquisition, with electric energy up to five times less expensive per kilometer than gasoline or fuel, while contributing to preser-

vation of the environment without any emissions of noise, pollution or odors.’’

Carlos Ghosn commented, ‘’Our shared aim is to make electric vehicles a rational alternative to internal-combustion engined vehicles. We want motorists to see the electric vehicle as a solution that respects the environment, and that is economical, reliable and simple. Through this partnership, the Renault-Nissan Alliance and EDF are pooling their expertise to make electric mobility a reality, and to make France a pioneer in the development of electric vehicles.’’

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian dollars Danish Kroner Swedish Kroner Australian dlr Hong Kong dlr Singapore dlr Japanese yen Indian Rs/KD Sri Lanka rupee Pakistan rupee Bangladesh taka UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi Riyal/KD Omani riyals Philippine Peso US Dollar Sterling pounds Swiss Francs Saudi Riyals

.2770000 .4470000 .3900000 .2900000 .2760000 .2750000 .0045000 .0020000 .0765690 .7459860 .4020000 .0750000 .7313070 .0045000 .0500000 CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2817500 .4497930 .3924830 .2926750 .2787600 .0526840 .0423630 .2775860 .0363140 .2157190 .0034390 .0064030 .0025320 .0032850 .0040540 .0767500 .7477510 .3984850 .0751840 .7325900 .0065520 TRANSFER CHEQUES RATES .2838500 .4529720 .2947500 .0756640

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. Japanese Yen Indian Rupees

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.439 6.386

.2870000 .4560000 .3900000 .2990000 .2850000 .2820000 .0075000 .0035000 .0773380 .7534830 .4180000 .0790000 .7386570 .0072000 .0580000 .2838500 .4529720 .3928130 .2947500 .2807360 .0530580 .0426630 .2795490 .0365710 .2172480 .0034630 .0064480 .0025500 .0033090 .0040820 .0772400 .7525240 .4013100 .0756640 .7372660 .0065980

Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

3.295 2.533 4.004 217.480 36.553 4.026 6.544 9.478 0.296 0.310 GCC COUNTRIES Saudi Riyal 75.598 Qatari Riyal 77.894 Omani Riyal 736.530 Bahraini Dinar 752.970 UAE Dirham 77.201 ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 52.500 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 49.759 Yemen Riyal 1.330 Tunisian Dinar 203.290 Jordanian Dinar 400.340 Lebanese Lira 190.200 Syrian Lier 6.160 Morocco Dirham 35.690 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 283.380 Euro 398.430 Sterling Pound 455.960 Canadian dollar 281.970 Turkish lire 200.690 Swiss Franc 298.290 Australian dollar 278.560 US Dollar Buying 282.645 GOLD 20 Gram 260.000 10 Gram 130.000 5 Gram 67.000

Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal 10 Tola Sterling Pound US Dollar

SELL CASH 282.500 752.600 4.260 284.700 555.800 14.100 53.800 167.800 52.010

397.000 37.010 6.380 0.033

400.000 0.190 94.450 4.020 216.000 734.920 3.305 6.535 77.850 75.560 217.940 43.910 2.530 453.500 296.200 6.300 9.640 77.120 283.000

GOLD 1,427.690 TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 453.500 283.300

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound

398.500 37.160 6.520 0.033 0.264 0.247 3.540 401.880 0.191 94.450 47.500 4.430 217.500 1.929 49.700 735.100 3.440 6.680 78.280 75.560 217.940 43.910 2.695 455.500 43.500 297.700 6.300 9.800 198.263 77.220 283.400 1.360

SELL DRAFT 281.000 752.800 4.023 282.200

217.900 49.747

Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Cyprus Pound Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Indian Rupees

Selling Rate 287.500 280.729 449.241 375.734 286.606 704.798 761.106 78.268 78.962 76.649 405.769 50.446 6.214

Pakistani Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees

3.359 2.552 4.152 6.476 3.368 9.278 6.273 3.881

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. Currency US Dollar Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah Nepali rupee Yemeni Riyal Jordanian Dinars Syrian Pounds Euro

Rate per 1000 (Tran) 282.900 3.300 6.380 2.545 4.025 6.550 77.110 75.650 752.100 49.730 457.000 0.00003280 3.990 1.550 401.900 5.750 400.400

Al Mulla Exchange Currency Transfer Rate (Per 1000) US Dollar 282.600 Euro 396.100 Pound Sterling 452.900 Canadian Dollar 281.950 Japanese Yen 3.475 Indian Rupee 6.390 Egyptian Pound 49.745 Sri Lankan Rupee 2.531 Bangladesh Taka 4.023 Philippines Peso 6.530 Pakistan Rupee 3.300 Bahraini Dinar 751.000 UAE Dirham 77.000 Saudi Riyal 75.450 *Rates are subject to change

BUSINESS

Monday, October 11, 2010

23

Jazeera Air unit leases planes to Virgin America KUWAIT: Jazeera Airways Group yesterday announced that Sahaab Aircraft Leasing (Sahaab), a fully owned subsidiary, has placed four Airbus A320 aircraft on long-term leases with California-based Virgin America, one of the fastest

Marwan Boodai, Jazeera Airways Group Chairman

growing airlines in the US. This is Sahaab’s first lease to a US based customer and comes only a few months after the company was acquired by Jazeera Airways Group in February 2010. The contract is valued at $155 million.

Jazeera Airways Group Chairman Marwan Boodai said, “It was important for us to make our first placement as early as possible. However it was even more important to place the aircraft with the right customer and the award-winning Virgin America was the perfect customer. The airline, with 28 aircraft in service, is a rising star in North America and has a great all-around product.

“We welcome Virgin America as Sahaab’s latest customer and look forward to a long-term relationship with the airline.” Sahaab Aircraft Leasing was launched in October 2008 with the Kuwaitbased airline Jazeera Airways being its first customer. The company was acquired earlier by Jazeera Airways Group as part of the Group’s vertical integration strategy of investing in services that compliment passenger airline operations.

Boodai added, “With Sahaab’s first placement taking place just a few months after the acquisition, it is already creating tangible synergies as intended as well as contributions to the Group’s bottom line”. Virgin America operates from its home base of San Francisco to high-demand destinations across the US and Canada, including Boston, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, New York and Toronto. Known for its award-winning service, stylish design and innovative amenities, Virgin America has been growing and winning over travelers since its August 2007 launch. The airline offers mood-lit cabins, the most advanced

touch-screen in-flight entertainment platform in the North American skies and custom-designed leather seats. Virgin America has swept the major travel awards, including “Best Airline” in CondÈ Nast Traveler’s 2008 and 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards and for the past three consecutive years in Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards.

“We’re pleased to partner with Sahaab as we continue to grow aggressively and expand our network in North America,” said Holly Nelson, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Virgin America. “With strong demand, a healthy projected revenue environment and expansion to several new cities ahead - this partnership will help fuel our network and financial growth.”

Virgin America continues to experience significant growth with the addition of four new destinations in 2010. In July 2010, the growing airline placed one of the year’s largest single aircraft orders at the Farnborough International Airshow announcing plans to order 40 new aircraft. The airline’s fleet is projected to grow by two-thirds by the end of 2011 and will triple in size by 2016.

Virgin America continues to expand at its base of operations at San Francisco International Airport, as one of two anchor tenants in the airport’s new $383 million Silver LEED certified Terminal 2 facility - which is slated to open in the spring of 2011.

WEEKLY COMMODITIES REPORT

Dollar moves set the agenda B y Ol e S Han s e n

E

quities and commodity markets has been recording strong gains over the past month driven to a large extent by the expectation that the US Federal Reserve will embark on another round of quantitative easing or QE2 as the market calls it. Another theme has been the ongoing tensions in currency markets, where the dollar has lost ten percent versus the Euro and trades at a 15-year low versus the Yen. The Reuters Jefferies CRB index returned 4.8 percent this past month with volatility continuing at elevated levels as seen below with large differences in performance.

Money managers have recently returned to commodities. The combined speculative long positions on US exchanges are at a record high, especially driven by increased positions in grain and metals. The net energy position is negative due to a large short position in natural gas. Gold continues to make all the headlines with interested buyers counting anyone from central banks to retail investors. Silver has never the less been the star performer having outperformed gold by 14 percent during this recent rally. Being called the poor man’s gold it tends to outperform during extended rallies like the one seen recently. On that basis it is also likely to sell off harder once profit taking sets in which we experienced towards the end of the week.

Most researchers and commentators agree that metal prices will continue to rally going into 2011 as the fundamentals behind the current move will stay with us for a long period of time. Sovereign indebtedness combined with an exceptional amount of stimulus will ensure official rates staying low for a prolonged period removing the opportunity cost of holding metals. The fear of a weaker dollar in the months ahead however continues to be the main driver.

Investors based in euros and other currently strong currencies like CHF and AUD will be surprised to see that their gold position has actually declined in value during September despite all the bullish headlines. This is a clear indication that without continued dollar weakness the rally will be running into trouble unless other factors like inflation fear or double dip recession emerges.

Technical the uptrend is firmly established, however the failure of the dollar in making further progress on Thursday led to a sharp 40 dollar reversal in prices. This indicates that the market is currently overbought and that some consolida-

tion is now required before the next attempt higher. Saxo Banks yearend target of 1,350 has been met and currently it looks likely to be exceeded given the strength of the current rally.

Technically the steep uptrend since July provides support at 1,290 before the previous high at 1,265.

A move through the recent high at 1,365 would bring 1,400 into play.

The price of crude oil has rallied strongly recently finding support from a weaker dollar and of signs that US inventories have slowly begun to tighten while strong Chinese economic data also helped. The near month of November almost touched 85 dollars before profit taking on short dollar positions ahead of US employment rapport drove prices back towards 80 dollars.

The above mentioned three factors will continue to be the main drivers over the coming months. While we find it unlikely that the year high at 87.15 will be broken anytime soon it has to be accepted that a potential continuation of the weaker dollar theme could trigger such an event.

The speculative long position has now more than tripled since the lows back in August indicating that money managers have returned to the market albeit not in the same kind of size recorded when we breached 85 back in April. This reflects the trading behavior during 2010 where range trading has been the preferred trade. A move back below 80 would bring the middle of the year long range at 78 back into play.

Operators of very large crude carriers are still struggling as the supply of tankers currently outstrips the demand by nearly two to one. This has brought the cost of hiring a VLCC on the benchmark route from Saudi Arabia to Japan down to USD 2,500 per day from a 2010 peak of USD 70,000 back in June, and is well below operating cost. Natural gas prices continues to suffer and for the second year running it is sitting at the bottom of the performance table having difficulties in getting any traction despite the ongoing rally in other products. The end of the hurricane season passed without any major incidents combined with ample supply and near term forecast of milder weather has driven prices to a year low at 3.60 dollar per mmBtu. Recent price drops attracted renewed interest in buying natural gas through ETFs. The problem which is not that well addressed is the negative impact the forward price curve has on the performance of these. ETFs tend to track the near month natural gas contract and currently the price difference between November and the peak season contract of February is 18 percent. This leaves ETF investors a bit of mountain to climb in order to achieve any positive return on their investments. Sugar rallied strongly this week after a recent round of profit taking as supplies from Brazil began to flow again. The rally puts sugar up by 23 percent on the year and it comes amid concerns about potential limits on supplies from India, the world’s second largest producer and reduced production from Europe.

Wheat and especially corn prices have begun to move higher again after the sharp sell off recently that took the price of corn back to test important support at 4.50 per bushel. Ukraine, who was also hurt by the drought this summer, said they would impose export restrictions on wheat, barley and corn lasting until year end.

The main focus on the week was the production report Friday from the USDA which added extra support to prices as they cut production and estimates for end of year stocks as adverse weather trimmed yields. The supply and demand situation continues to favor corn over wheat in the coming weeks. US September wheat stocks showed the highest level in 23 years leaving the global balance in a comfortable situation. Just like other dollar based commodities the price development of the currency will be an important factor as a weaker dollar will help prices higher due to increased competitiveness on the international market.

Abdulla Al-Najran Al-Tuwaijri, Banking Group Manager

NBK launches new discount promotion

360 MALL offers more variety in international luxury brands KUWAIT: 360 MALL, Kuwait’s most exciting shopping centre, announced yesterday further store openings to complement its dynamic and outstanding retail offering. The mall has added global names such as the renowned French brand of clothing and accessories, Givenchy, Swiss luxury watch manufacturer Jaeger-LeCoultre, as well as leading creative international fashion brands such as Marni, La Martina, and Pop Up Shop with includes fashion from world renowned designers.

Claudia Lopusinska, 360 MALL’s Marketing Manager said: “New luxury stores continue to open in 360 MALL, adding considerable value to our strong shopping and entertainment offers. Our aim is to provide the finest retail centre in Kuwait by introducing the most popular, innovative and unique brands. We believe that shoppers across the country should have a sophisticated shopping experience which is comparable to any international shopping destination around the world.” “Introducing new brands to make our guests’ shopping experience a unique and memorable one is a key strategy adopted by the mall. 360 MALL is the perfect location in Kuwait to showcase these unique luxury brands.”

An icon in world fashion trends, Givenchy has long been synonymous with luxury. The French global brand, which evokes glamour, refined elegance, simplicity and style, includes a wide selection of clothing and accessories that cater to the needs of both male and female shoppers across Kuwait. Jaeger-LeCoultre, a

pioneer in manufacturing high quality precision Swiss clocks and watches, presents exceptional timepieces, each of which is a statement of the manufacture’s state-of-the-art expertise in the traditional art of high class watch making.

Pop-up shop showcases fabulous collection of ready-to-wear fashion as well as accessories that have been carefully crafted by talented young local and international designers. The new concept includes eye-catching caftans and casual wears, down to glamorous accessories and elegant footwear’s. La Martina, renowned in Argentina for its exclusive line of casual wear, provides a new competitive edge in quality and unique design that will now be available to shoppers around Kuwait. This famous brand caters to both female and male shopper, providing the very best quality of leisure polo sport branded clothing.

Marni’s collections are designed and crafted for the refined shopper, who is accustomed to the highest quality. The brand offers cutting edge Italian design and includes the latest trends in women fashion wear as well as accessories and foot wear. Marni continues to be a pioneering symbol of eclectic style combined with a creative production quality that ensures the uniqueness of its collection across the luxury fashion industry. 360 MALL has been created to give its visitors a uniquely sophisticated and elegant retail experience in the heart of Kuwait. With 115 opened stores, this landmark destination is fast becoming known as the most exciting luxury retail centre in Kuwait.

KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has launched a joint promotion with BoConcept, the renowned urban design furniture store to offer its premium credit cardholders with a 20 percent instant discount on all items and also allow them to take advantage of the 0 percent interest for a period of six months when purchases are made using NBK Premium credit cards. NBK Premium credit cards include Visa and MasterCard Gold, Visa and MasterCard Platinum, Diners Club, Laki Titanium MasterCard, World MasterCard, and Visa Infinite cards.

Deputy General Manager- Consumer Banking Group Manager Abdulla Al-Najran Al-Tuwaijri said: “We are pleased to partner with BoConcept, the renowned retailer in urban design furniture, in order to provide NBK Premium credit cardholders with the opportunity to benefit from this exclusive offer. This offer comes in line with NBK’s strategy to reward its customers and offer them greater value for their money. This offer gives NBK Premium cardholders a double incentive to use their credit cards.” Al-Tuwaijri added.

Thomas Lungren, CEO at BoConcept, invites NBK Premium credit cardholders to attend the BoConcept event at Marina Mall on Wednesday, October 13 at 6:30 pm. Lungren stated that “NBK Premium credit cardholders will enjoy a wide range of furniture in fresh designs, colors, functionalities, and customization options offering them inspiration for the home”.

Al-Tamimi & Company holds seminar KUWAIT: Al-Tamimi & Company, the leading law firm in the Middle East, recently hosted a one day seminar, in partnership with Deloitte, on debt restructuring strategy and processes for creditors with regard to debtors in Kuwait, especially in relation to investment companies. The seminar, which was held at Kuwait’s Sheraton Hotel, was attended by an invited audience of 75 plus senior executives from the financial and banking community. The audience was addressed by Alex Saleh, Head Partner of Al-Tamimi & Company in Kuwait, and Neven Hendricks, Chief Operating Officer from Deloitte’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional office. Al-Tamimi & Company in Kuwait is a joint venture with Yacoub Yousef AlMunayae.

Saleh said: “Debt restructuring may offer creditors the most positive way forward but the careful management of this process is critical. It is a matter of record that many Kuwaiti investment firms were hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis as their assets slumped and getting new credit became difficult. Since then, a number of these firms have defaulted on their loans, negatively impacting the market as a whole. Debt restructuring can be a way to avoid this and provide creditors with some protection for their investment.

Making the right choices and developing a robust debt restructuring strategy is often the best way towards achieving the most positive outcome for creditors and debtors alike.”

Alex Saleh In the aftermath of the global recession, debt management and restructuring programs have become an important tool in helping many Kuwaiti companies manage their liabilities. Kuwait has more than 100 investment companies and several industrial and real estate companies with large investment portfolios. Listed investment companies alone constituted about 20 per cent of the total market capitalization of Kuwaiti listed companies at the end of the third quarter in 2008 and about 15 per cent in 2009, a higher share than in most other industrialized economies. A recent Kuwait Stock

Exchange release announced the suspension of shares / trading of 22 listed investment companies, more than in any other sector.

Al-Tamimi & Company’s Kuwait office has developed unique expertise in guiding clients through restructuring programs. As a result of this success, the firm has been nominated for ‘Restructuring Deal of the Year’ and ‘Restructuring Team of the Year’ at the forthcoming International Financial Law Review (IFLR) Middle East Awards 2010 on October 27 in Dubai.

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KSE price index ends trade up 18.2 points KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange ended yesterday’s session on a higher note, backed by smart rally staged by banking stocks. As investors had positive sentiments on account of analysts’ expectations regarding NBK 3rd quarter results.

GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT

Market indices Global General Index (GGI) closed 0.93 points up (0.42 percent) during the day at 219.58 point as the Market capitalization was up for the day reaching KD35.52m. On the other side, Kuwait Stock Exchange Price Index managed to close up adding a 18.20 point to its value and closed at 7,013.2 point.

Market breadth During the session, 119 companies were traded.

Market breadth was skewed towards advancers as 48 equities advanced versus 41 that retreated, while 122 stocks remained unchanged during the trading session.

Daily trading activity Trading activities ended on a negative note yesterday as volume of shares traded on the exchange decreased by 28.98 percent to reach 263.10m shares, and value of shares traded decreased by 32.85 percent to stand at KD43.51m.

The investment sector was the volume and value leaders yesterday, accounting for 36.53 percent of total shares and 32.81 percent of total traded value. Jeezan Holding Company was the volume leader yesterday, with a total traded volume of 37.32m shares. National Investment Company was the value leader, with a total traded value of KD4.98m.

Top gainers and biggest decliners In terms of top gainers, Osoul Investment Company was the biggest gainer for the day, adding 8.77 percent and closed at KD0.062. On the other hand, Kuwait Financing & Investment Co was the biggest decliner, dropping by 8.20 percent and closed at KD0.056.

Sectors wise During yesterday’s session, Global indices were positive yesterday, as 6 out of eight indices ended yesterday’s session with a daily gains led by Global Banking Sector, which gained 1.33 percent supported by National Bank of Kuwait that increased by 1.41 percent to close at KD1.460. Al-Ahli Bank of Kuwait was the top gainer in the sector adding 3.51 percent to close at KD0.590. Global Insurance Index followed adding 0.56 percent. Gulf Insurance Company increased by 6.67 percent to close at KD0.640. Warba Insurance Company followed up by 3.57 percent to close at KD0.174. On the decliner’ side, Global Services Index was the only decliner shedding 0.80 percent pushed by Zain, which declined by 1.47 percent to close at KD1.340. On the other hand, Agility Company went up by 1.89 percent, to close at KD0.540 after a US magistrate judge has recommended the dismissal of a case against a subsidiary of the company, which is accused by prosecutors of fraud over multibillion dollar contracts with

the US Army. Global Special Indices were mixed. Global Islamic Index was the biggest gainer adding 1.21 percent backed by Kuwait Finance House (KFH) & Boubyan Bank.

Oil news The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at $81.07 dollars a barrel on Thursday, compared with $81.51 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations.

Corporate news Jazeera Airways Company said yesterday that its unit Al-Sahaab Aircraft Leasing Company has signed a $155mn leasing contract with US airline firm Virgin. AlSahaab will lease four A320 aircraft to Virgin for 10years, the company said in a statement posted on the Kuwait Stock Exchange website. Gulf Cable and Electrical Industries Co (GE) received award letter No WKM/2009-2010 from the Central Tenders Committee

(CTC). Under the KD21,900,000 worth of contract, the company will supply medium-voltage cables and will refer to the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) in this regard. Aref Energy Holding Co signed an agreement to buy a 36 percent stake of Kitara Ofil- one of the biggest Indian companies operating in recording and analyzing data of digging oil fields -at a total value of $4.10m.

Kitara Ofil has a presence in Syria, Iran, north Iraq, Oman and other countries.

Burgan Bank funds 2nd phase of AUM building KUWAIT: Burgan Bank, one of the fastest growing and leading banks in Kuwait, announced that it was pleased to have completed the second phase of American University of Middle East (AUM) building project executed by Human Soft Holding Co. The project was financed through the Corporate Banking Group.

Highlighting the importance of this project, Raed Al-Haqhaq, Chief Banking Officer at Burgan Bank said “We are happy that the second phase of the project has finished on time by completing American University of Middle East (AUM) faculty buildings in association with Human Soft Holding Co.” “Our support and financing to this project stem from our concern and commitment to providing banking and financial support to our customers of private companies in Kuwait. It is a positive indicator to see that the educational sector in Kuwait is witnessing a quick and fruitful improvement and we are happy to take part in this growth and development” Al-Haqhaq added.

On his part, Hasan Al-Ali - Chairman of Human Soft Holding Co said “We are proud of the continuous support we are receiving from Burgan Bank and the financing for this project which stands out as a remarkable architectural and educational edifice”. “We hope this cooperation with Burgan Bank will carry our relationship to further strength and continuity in our forthcoming projects”. Al-Ali concluded. American University of Middle East (AUM) has entered its third year of inception and work continues to add more facilities, academic programs and research services.

It is worth mentioning that Burgan Bank has shown a high degree of understanding for this developmental project and its importance for the community and therefore it has provided this important support particularly in these peculiar circumstances the financial and banking sector in Kuwait and the world is passing through. AUM In our turn we extends its sincere appreciation and gratitude to Burgan Bank’s Board of Directors and senior management team for this support.

Burgan Bank is one of the leading banks in providing financial support and facilities to many vital projects in the State of Kuwait.

Over the past few years, the bank has provided financing to a number of significant projects that truly reflect its commitment to supporting developmental projects in Kuwait.

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Realty’s sales during past 9 months at KD1611.6m Local Real Estate Market Third Quarter 2010 According to latest available data from the Ministry of Justice -Department of Real Estate Registration & Authentication- there is a noticeable growth in September’s trading vis-a-vis August’s trading. This growth was close to about 50.4 percent with total sales worth KD178.8 million (KD118.9 million in last August).

Quarterly data show a drop in the real estate market’s activity, especially in its liquidity level in the third quarter of the current year, where its trading value fell below its level in the second quarter.

Value of trading, contracts and agencies, during the third quarter scored about KD428.1 million (KD 400.6 million contracts and KD27.5 million agencies), which less by 34.9 percent than it’s worth in the second quarter. Sales of private housing, contracts and agencies, scored KD221.3 million (51.7 percent of the total sales), investment housing scored KD114.7 million (26.8 percent of the total sales). By that, the private and investment housing have gained about 78.5 percent of the real estate market’s liquidity, leaving 21.5 percent to commercial housing.

Total value of contracts and agencies traded in the first quarter of the current year scored about KD526.3 million and went up to KD657.2 million in the second quarter, and declined to KD 428.1 million in the third quarter, specifically in the first two months. Therefore, total real estate market’s sales during the past nine months scored about KD1611.6 million, which is higher by 32.2 percent than its counterpart in 2009 implying improvement in the real estate market’s liquidity.

Assuming liquidity of the real estate market would continue at the same level in the fourth quarter, total trading value, contracts and agencies, would reach about KD2148.8 million, which is about KD270.9 million (14.4 percent) higher than 2009 trading value, which was KD1877.9 million.

It is worth mentioning that there is change in trading characteristics: concentration on private housing trading increased during the first 9 months and scored 55.7 percent of sales value (43 percent for the same period 2009); investment and commercial housing sales declined to 34.8 percent and 9.1 percent respectively of total sales (36.4 percent and 20.2 percent respectively for the same period last year).

Dividing private and commercial housing deals by the number of deals, we perceive a drop in the average sales per unit value compared with its registered counterpart last year by 1.4 percent for private housing, 10.7 percent for thee investment and 1.7 percent for thee commercial, compared to its counterpart registered in the first 99 months of last year.

The Monthly Report of the State, Financial Administration Accounts The Ministry of Finance indicated in its monthly follow up reports of the State’s financial administration accounts for April, May, June, July and August 2010, a steady growth in its revenues.

Until 31/08/2010 (5 months of the current fiscal year 2010/2011), total received revenues scored about KD8.233 billion, which is 84.7 percent of the total estimated revenues for the current fiscal year (about KD9.7119 billion)) and with a noticeable rise by 24 percent over the past part of 2010, May was the most active month with trading percentage making about 17 percent of total market’s trading value, while February was the least active with 6.6 percent off the total.

We believe that the more important index for the real estate market is its liquidity, as it is the first index for recovery, while prices reflect the required competitive average return which, unless it is logical, reflects nothing but a harmful inflation rise.

The received amount of revenues for the same period of last fiscal year 2009/2010 in the amount of KD66.641 billion, when the world was struggling to exit out of its financial crisis. In details,

AL-SHALL WEEKLY ECONOMIC REPORT

the bulletin estimates actual oil revenues until 31/08//2010 by about KD7.7415 billion, or 89.8 percent of estimated oil revenues for the entire current fiscal year in the amount off KD9.61166 billion, or 94 percent of total received revenues, due to increased oil prices. Received oil revenues in the 5 months of the current fiscal year were higher by KD1.5015 billion (244.1 percent) than its counterpart last year. KD491.386 million, a monthly average of KD98.277 million, was received from non-oil revenues, while KD1.103 billion was estimated for the budget for the entire fiscal year. Therefore, the realized amount will be higher by KD76 million for the entire current fiscal year than the estimated, if we assumed revenues continue by the same monthly average above.

Expenditures budget allocated for the current fiscal year were estimated at KD16.310 billion. According to the bulletin, KD3.654 billion has been actually spent until 31/08/2010, a monthly spending average of KD730.763 million. We however do not recommend relying on this figure because there are expenditures which are already due but have not been spent. Besides, spending in late months of the year is usually higher than in the early ones. Though the bulletin concludes that the budget surplus in the end of the first five months of the current fiscal year scored about KD4.579 billion, we publish it without endorsing because we believe the actual surplus budget figure will be less than the published figure.

The monthly spending average will be ascending which will reduce the surplus the further we go in the fiscal year and will certainly be less with issuing of the

final account.

Comparative Performance of Selected Stock Markets With the end of the third quarter of the current year, and despite the many obstacles like Europe’s sovereign debts, the fear from the American economy drifting into another recession, and the concern about the performance of the Japanese economy because of a strong Yen, the performance of September was a continuation to the positive performance. The number of stock markets in the region with positive performance prevailed by the end of the third quarter vis-a-vis the end of 2009. Out of 14 selected markets, 8 achieved positive performances that ranged from 1.6 percent at the lowest and 20.8 percent at the highest compared with the end of last year, while only 6 markets were positive by the end of August.

The positive performance was shared by 4 regional markets and 4 other major markets. Similarly, 3 markets from the region and 3 other major markets shared the negative performance. KSE official weighted index retained its superiority over the 14 markets followed by Bombay, then Doha which was the fastest in compensation during the past two months, which is logical. The encouraging thing is that the last month, i.e. September was Dubai’s month which consolidated greatly its improvement and reduced its losses from 17.7 percent in 8 months or the end of August to 6.6 percent in the end of September, thus becoming the third in terms of losses, coming from second, since its improvement excelled that of the Japanese market. In the negative zone

Bahrain and Abu Dhabi markets remain the more likely to cross to the positive zone perhaps by the end of the current month unless something unexpected happens. In September, 5 markets out of 11 that were in the negative zone, in the end of August, crossed to the positive zone.

We are still at our previous expectations that most of the 14 capital markets will be favorable by this year-end. Two or three capital markets performances might differ with Dubai capital market may likely not be amongst them, which remains highly vulnerable to the UAE credit crisis developments, even if it is stemming from public companies. The rally performance will remain on the front amongst Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) and Indian and Qatari capital markets, where the KSE has taken the lead by the third -quarterend with 6 points over the Indian’s and 10 points over the Qatari’s.

China and India and the Future It seems there is no disagreement between the understanding of economic literature of both the East and West on the inevitable shift of economic weight from the West to the East. The disagreement is on the time frame required for this shift, and on who comes at the first place in the East side of the world. As all literatures agree that the economic center of gravity in the East will be China, which came second globally in terms of its economy size, after the release of the results of the first half of this year. As for India, although its economy worth one-fourth that of China’s, it is useful to go through some ideas about the future of both.

During the last two weeks, India was

under the lime light by bitter criticism leveled against it for its failure in managing the 72nd sports tournament of the Commonwealth states and entities. It has been said that India’s failure in organizing a relatively small sports event vis-a-vis China’s astounding success in organizing the more important and greater Olympiad in the summer of 2008, implies that India should not be placed at par with China in comparison neither now nor in the future.

In its October 8 issue, the Economist devoted more than one article to India expecting the opposite by outweighing India over China in terms of economic growth whether in the near future or in the long-run.

The Economist believes that India goes beyond China in two main areas. The first is the age structure of its population. The rate of people that are in the non-economic productive age (below 15 years and over 64 years) has currently dropped from 69 percent in 1995 to 56 percent. The opposite happened in China due to the onechild policy, which resulted in a larger number of senior people outside the economic-productive age until 2020 and due to its demographic structure, China will add only 23 million people to the economic-productive age group of its population, while India will add 136 million people.

The second is the general environment. While there is no disagreement on the Indian public sector’s failure in organizing even a small sports event (collapse of a pedestrians’ bridge security and infrastructure problems, even in the tickets sale and among the audience), India is unlike China, it has a private sector of 45 million business people. Also, India’s

commodities, goods and services have real relevance to its people’s needs, like the production of TATA vehicle (a car worth US$ 2000), with superior international presence, which is the difference between the totalitarian regime which might save time but with high risks, and the democratic system which encourages the making of entrepreneurs.

Therefore, The Economist believes that India will achieve 8.5 percent growth rate this year, will achieve growth rates of two digits (10 percent and more) in the near future and will exceed that of China by 2013. However, China due to its demographics constraint will remain unchanged at as 8 percent growth rate, coupled with high risks such as a likely relapse if its totalitarian regime’s leadership changes.

We personally believe that these changes with or without the above details are worth monitoring and will have great impacts on our region. We hope to benefit from learning how strategic obstacles, like overpopulation in India, translate into strengths.

The Weekly Performance of Kuwait Stock Exchange The performance of the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) for the last week was more active than the previous one where all the major indices showed an increase including the general index. Al-Shall Index (value weighted) closed at 562.2 points at the closing of last Thursday, showing an increase of 7.9 points or about 1.4 percent compared to previous week’s closing, and increased by 122.6 points or about 27.9 percent compared to the year end 2009.

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Dim chances at home force Spanish builders overseas MADRID: Spanish builders are looking abroad for work to shield themselves from the collapse of a decade-long property boom that has left hundreds of thousands of unsold homes across the country. In perhaps the most high-profile case, Sacyr, one of Spain’s top groups, is leading a massive expansion of the Panama Canal that will double its capacity and accommodate a new generation of super-size container ships. Nearly 2,000 people are working on the project, one of the world’s largest and most lucrative, a number that will swell to 7,000 when construction is at its peak, a Sacyr spokeswoman said.

It is the largest project for Sacyr outside of Spain since the company was founded more than two decades ago, she added. Sacyr’s consortium won the

three-billion-dollar (2.15-billion-euro) contract last year, beating two other bids, including one led by ACS, Spain’s largest construction firm. Sacyr’s revenues from overseas activities rose to 4.62 billion euros last year from 4.28 billion euros and are expected to rise further this year. Mauro Guillen, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania who wrote a book about the rise of Spanish multinationals, said the groups began moving abroad, as well as into other areas like waste management, in anticipation of the property market cooking down at the end of 2007.

“They realized that construction is a cyclical business and that they needed to diversify,” Guillen told AFP. In the second quarter, the order books of

Spain’s six largest builders-ACS, Acciona, FCC, Ferrovial, Sacyr and OHL-were almost evenly split between projects at home and abroad, totalling 26.9 billion euros against 25.9 billion euros, the El Pais daily reported last month. That contrasts with the situation during the last quarter of 2007 when the six firms had overseas projects worth 13.9 billion euros, less than half of the 33.3 billion euros in projects in the pipeline in Spain.

The growing importance of the foreign market was highlighted last month when ACS launched a 2.76-billion-euro all-share takeover bid for German rival Hochtief just as Germany’s economy is rebounding. Spanish builders have cast a wide net.

FCC has signed contracts this year to build a highway

in Slovakia, a railroad in Algeria and a media broadcast centre for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, among others.

Last month, a consortium led by Acciona won a 1.1-billion-euro contract to build, maintain and operate a traffic tunnel in Brisbane, its first contract in Australia. The construction sector enjoyed a massive boom in Spain in the decade through 2007 as the cheap credit that came with the arrival of the euro single currency fueled a building frenzy and an unprecedented economic upturn. But the global credit crunch at the end of 2008 hastened a correction, plunging Spain into its worst recession in decades.

Now builders face bleak prospects at home. “The decline in construction activity in Spain will be per-

manent although I can’t say that is necessarily bad.

The problem now is how to manage it,” OECD secretary general Angel Gurria said last week during a visit to Madrid.

The International Monetary Fund estimates there are some 700,000 unsold housing units which will take two to three years for the market to digest.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s socialist government initially responded to the economic downturn by pouring billions of euros into infrastructure projects. But as the economic downturn dragged on and a budget surplus was transformed into the third-biggest eurozone deficit after Greece and Ireland last year, it suspended dozens of road and rail projects. — AFP

Abrupt yuan rise will trigger havoc in China European policymakers claim yuan is undervalued BEIJING: A sharp revalua tion in the yua n w ould trigger mass factory closures and job losses in China, ana lysts say, backing up the government’s strident defense of its controversial exchange ra te policy. Premier Wen J iabao told European leaders last w eek tha t the 20-40 percent appreciation demanded by critics w ould destroy Chinese “If suddenly or within a few months China’s renminbi is revalued by such an amount, most companies in the export sector will be out of business,” said Lu Ting, a Hong Kongbased economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “It does not make sense for any country to have a very big one-off revaluation in such a short time unless they are in a really big mess.” China appeared to bow to international pressure for a stronger currency in June, promising to let the yuan trade more freely against the dollar while ruling out any large market fluctuations.

Since then, the yuan has only gained around two percent against the greenback, angering US and European policymakers who say the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, giving Chinese exporters an unfair edge. In Brussels, Wen countered that many Chinese exporters had profit margins of just two to three percent, and told his critics to back down.

“Should the yuan appreciate by 20 to 40 percent, as demanded by some people, a large number of Chinese export enterprises will go bankrupt, the workers will lose their jobs... making it hard for society to remain stable,” Wen said.

“The world will by no means benefit from a crisis in the Chinese economy,” he added, pledging to “gradually allow more flexibility in the yuan exchange rate while maintaining

firms and lea d to social upheava l by triggering widespread unemployment. The premier’s cla ims ha ve merit, experts say, w arning that a ny dra matic shift in the value of the yuan would be harmful not only to export-driven China but also to a globa l economy struggling to recover from the fina ncial crisis.

its basic stability”. China’s top central banker Zhou Xiaochuan, in Washington for an annual International Monetary Fund meeting, said Friday that the yuan would move gradually towards an “equilibrium” level but rejected any “shock therapy”. Ian Sloan, an economics fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stressed that the legitimacy of China’s communist rulers rests on guaranteeing rapid economic growth year after year.

A sudden change in the yuan’s value could set off “a chain reaction of factory closures and layoffs across the interconnected networks that drive China’s export-oriented economy”, he wrote in a blog post. “In the short term, China might be able to manipulate legislation, the banking sector, and welfare levers to prop up key industries or regions. “But in the long term, it is uncertain if these steps would be enough to preserve social stability or continued loyalty to the Communist Party.”

Lu at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said he supported calls by US and European policymakers for further reform of the exchange rate regime but that their current demands went too far. The House of Representatives last month passed a bill inviting the US government to consider Beijing’s currency policy as an improper trade subsidy, allowing the Commerce

Department to slap retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods.

“It is wise for US politicians to impose some pressure on China but to ask for something that is not practical or even harmful is not good,” said Lu. Hong Kong-based Credit Suisse economist Tao Dong said: “I think a rapid currency appreciation would probably do damage to the Chinese export sector, which typically is a low-margin business.” China’s trade surplus shrank to 20.03 billion dollars in August as imports accelerated, growing a larger-than-expected 35.2 percent year-onyear while exports growth slowed to 34.4 percent. Wen’s remarks come amid fears of a global currency war after several countries including Japan intervened in recent weeks to prevent their currencies rising to levels that would endanger their exports. “Everyone is guilty-it’s not just the Chinese,” Tao said. Despite claims that China has dragged its heels on exchange rate reforms, Tao said Beijing had taken other less obvious steps to curb its ballooning trade surplus. Official moves this year to hike minimum wages across the country will increase the cost of production and, eventually, help curb overseas shipments of Chinese products and boost demand for imports, Tao told AFP. “It will achieve the same purpose as revaluing the exchange rate,” he said. — AFP

Rising Australian dollar could hurt budget: Treasurer

ROME: Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (right) and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jibao give a joint press conference at the end of round table Italy-China at Villa Madama. Wen Jiabao sealed SinoItalian business deals worth 2.25 billion euros (3.15 billion dollars), after fending off European pressure to raise the yuan. — AFP

China eyes new Silk Road to Europe amidst political rift ATHENS: China is laying the groundwork for a new Silk Road to Europe, holding out the promise of lucrative investments to a continent limping to economic recoverydespite the ideological gulf with the West.

Ahead of a furious row this week over the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to a dissident academic jailed by Beijing, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao completed landmark visits to Greece, Italy and Turkey. The accompanying business deals further extended the Asian powerhouse’s influence in Europe.

In Rome last Thursday, Wen sealed agreements worth 2.25 billion euros (3.13 billion dollars) including solar power and broadband Internet projects. He pledged to more than double trade to 100 billion dollars by 2015. A day later in Ankara, the Chinese PM signed another batch of contracts including an agreement for the joint construction of 4,500 kilometers (2,700 miles) of Turkish railway.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan styled the project “a new Silk Road”, a reference to the centuries-old trade network that has linked the Asian and Mediterranean worlds since antiquity. To Greece, deep in the grip of recession and struggling to fill the gaping hole in its finances with a draconian austerity program, Wen promised to buy Greek bonds as soon

as the debt-hit country returns to markets.

“China has always attached great importance to its relations with the European Union,” says Wang Liqiang, a Europe researcher in the academy of Chinese social sciences in Beijing. “Helping Greece to the extent of China’s ability will prevent contagion of the debt crisis to the rest of the euro area,” he told AFP. Chinese shipping giant Cosco is already expanding container facilities at the main harbor, Piraeus, just outside Athens, where it was awarded a 35-year lease two years ago.

During his visit to Athens on October 2 — the first by a Chinese prime minister in 24 years-Wen said the number of containers through Piraeus would rise this year to 800,000 and reach 3.7 million by 2015. “The merchant marine is an important sector of cooperation between the two countries because 60 percent of crude oil is imported in China on Greek boats and 50 percent of Chinese merchandise is transported on Greek boats,” he added. Greece has the largest merchant fleet in the world. It also has one of Europe’s most troubled state rail operators, currently 10 billion euros in the red. The Greek government intends to break up the company and hopes to attract interest from Chinese investors.

Some commentators have observed that

China’s involvement in Greece is the most sweeping by a single country since the Marshall Plan, the United States aid package that helped rebuild the country after the 1946-49 Greek civil war. Others view that investment differently: Radio Netherlands Worldwide discussed the prospect of Greece becoming “China’s first colony in Europe”, while the Asia Times spoke of a “dragontailed Trojan Horse”. The Chinese PM’s trip also saw stormy talks in Brussels where he rebuffed European pressure to raise the value of the yuan to right global trade imbalances.

Wen argued that such a move would bankrupt many Chinese companies. As the Chinese PM returned home, a diplomatic row broke out when jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, prompting renewed Western calls for his immediate release. Liu was sentenced last December to 11 years behind bars for subversion, following the 2008 release of “Charter 08”, a manifesto for reform signed by more than 300 Chinese intellectuals, academics and writers. China responded furiously to the award, calling it “blasphemy” and summoning the Norwegian ambassador to warn that the decision by the Oslo-based Nobel Committee would damage relations. — AFP

SYDNEY: The surging Australian dollar, which analysts say is set for a sustained period at or above recent record highs, could cut into national revenues as exports suffer, Treasurer Wayne Swan warned yesterday. The Aussie is rocketing on the back of an unprecedented mining boom, a strong local economy and exposure to China’s growth, zooming up against the US dollar last week to hit a record of 99.18 US cents last Thursday.

The record-the Australian currency’s highest level since it was floated in December 1983 — prompted suggestions that the local dollar would tip past parity with the greenback by the end of the year. Swan said the high Aussie reflected the economy’s underlying strength amid a fragile global situation. But speaking to ABC TV, he admitted that reaching parity would be a bittersweet milestone for Australia and would pose challenges for some industries such as manufacturing, tourism and agriculture.

“Many people, for example, who are buying imported goods would be pleased that they’re cheaper but many others, particularly in manufacturing, and also in tourism, would certainly feel the effects of a higher dollar,” he said.

Swan added “there may be some impacts on the downside for revenue”. “We’ll just have to wait and see as we prepare the budget what the overall net impact of that is,” he said from Washington. “There’s no doubt that a high dollar will impact on company profitability.”

Analysts say the case for a rising Aussie is supported by surging demand for Australian minerals, particularly from Asia, and the central bank’s likely lifting of interest rates from the current 4.50 percent again in 2010. “It’s quite easy to see the currency potentially moving up to parity and then through that level,” Westpac currency strategist Jonathan Cavenagh said. Westpac sees the Aussie reaching 1.02 US dollars by year end, but Cavenagh said he would be surprised if it does not reach this level earlier. “It could really get there in a couple of sessions if things really got a wriggle on,” he said, adding that the dollar would likely reach around 1.05 US in 2011.

AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver forecasts the currency, which has soared more than 20 percent since June, will reach 1.10 US dollars next year. While 100.00 US cents is “just a round number, a line in the sand”, the previous norm of the Aussie sitting in a range of 70-80 US cents seems to be over with the currency trending higher on a more sustained basis, he said. Oliver said while this will cause some headaches for manufacturers, the tourism sector and companies with offshore operations, it takes the pressure off inflation and this could potentially put interest rate rises on hold.

As global friction mounts around the Chinese yuan, with US and European leaders complaining that China cheats on its exchange rate, economists say it is probably better for Australia to have a strong currency than a weak one. —AFP

Geithner denies govt takeover WASHINGTON: US Treasure Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday refuted charges President Barack Obama planned to use the financial bailout of troubled US firms to increase the government’s stake in the US economy.

“President Obama adopted a strategy designed to get the government out of the private sector as quickly as possible,” Geithner wrote in an op-ed piece published by The Washington Post.

The comments came after the Troubled Asset Relief Program expired last week. TARP had at one point called for 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to be handed over to Wall Street institutions to shore them up in the midst of the global economic crisis. The treasure secretary said that to date, the government had recovered more than 200 bil-

lion dollars in TARP funds, as well as made 28 billion in profits.

The US government would exit insurance giant AIG and the automotive industry “much faster than anyone predicted,” he added. “General Motors is planning an initial public offering for later this year, and AIG has announced a restructuring plan that will accelerate the timeline for repaying the government,” he said. Geithner noted that because of TARP, “the financial security of all Americans is much stronger today than it would have been without the rescue strategy that the program made possible.” According to US Treasury figures, released October 3, TARP cost about 50 billion dollars, substantially less than anticipated just a few months ago. — AFP

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of the Treasure Timothy Geithner visits Canadian Embassy for G-7 meeting to discuss economic policies on October 8, 2010. — AP

TECHNOLOGY

Monday, October 11, 2010

27

Analysts believe not the end of the road for the laptop

Asia market has room for both tablets and laptops TAIPEI: Tablet computers such as Apple’s iPa d and Samsung’s Ga laxy have had a fanfare of publicity, but they are unlikely to kill off their older cousin the laptop anytime soon, say Asian ana lysts a nd vendors. Sa les of smaller-screen a nd cheaper netbook laptops may appear to be sloping off in a ma ture market like the United Sta tes, but a nalysts in Asia believe this is not Apple’s iPad has replaced half of US electronics chain store Best Buy’s cheaper netbook sales, the retailer estimated last month, and the pressure can only increase as a stream of gadget makers bring out their own tablets. Best Buy has begun showcasing e-readers, tablets and mobile devices in its most prominent store displays as Christmas approaches. “People are willing to disproportionately spend for these devices because they are becoming so important to their lives,” Best Buy Chief Executive Brian Dunn told the Wall Street Journal. In Taiwan, a Nielsen Global Consumer survey in March found that 36 percent of people either had a tablet computer already or planned to buy one. “iPads have faster Internet connections than laptops,” said a vendor in downtown Taipei surnamed Wen. “It’s lighter and easy to carry around so many people are buying it now.” But Taipei is not typical of Asia’s billions of consumers, however, and there will initially be relatively limited markets for the iPad and competing tablets made by several manufacturers including Samsung and Dell. “In emerging markets users in places like Shanghai or Beijing have a purchasing power similar to the average person in

the end of the road for the la ptop itself. “The tablet is a secondary device, meant for people w ho a lrea dy have a PC and w ant a device for portable usage,” said Tracy Tsa i, a Taipei-ba sed ana lyst w ith technology research company Gartner. “Using the tablet as your only device is ra re, as you still need something w ith a keyboard to type in things, and stora ge.”

Singapore and Taipei, but it’s still limited to first-tier cities,” said Gartner’s Tsai. “Most emerging markets are price-sensitive, and in Indonesia for example a price difference of 20 or 30 dollars is important.” Japan is definitely alert to the advantages of moderately-sized tablet computers in cramped spaces, but observers are careful not to pronounce the laptop dead, or even ailing, just yet. “A tablet computer is an item you can literally walk around with in one hand,” said Takumi Sado, a senior analyst at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets. “You can carry a notebook computer around, too, but you still need to find a place to sit down and work on it. But if you want to type up something, a notebook computer still works better... At this point, I can only say that tablet PCs are for different needs, such as online search, from those of laptop computers.” Japanese electronics giant NEC, the dominant player in the domestic computer market, sold 2.73 million PCs last year, 60 percent of which were laptops, a company spokesman said. “Basically in Japan, a notebook computer has become an essential item in a regular household.

We are considering a tablet PC as an item somewhere between a

notebook and a mobile phone,” he said. “We think the tablet computers will create a whole new market on top of notebook PCs. We don’t think the tablet would diminish the market of laptop computers.”

Toshiba, another Japanese electronics giant, has marketed a mobile PC model without a keyboard, called the libretto, which opens up like a book with two slate displays on both sides. The company said it has also developed a slate-type tablet computer called Folio 100, planning to release it next year only in Europe, Africa, Middle East and part of Asia including Southeast Asian nations, but not in Japan. “The company believes tablet computers are a new category of products,” a Toshiba spokeswoman said. New technologies can be disruptive, even destructive. But they can also be the opposite, giving new momentum to existing, more mature technologies. “Tablet PCs and laptops have different functions and are expected to create a different segment of consumers and will complement each other,” said James Song, a Seoul-based analyst for Daewoo Securities. “So tablets will enhance the overall usage of mobile PCs.” — AFP

With Twitter blocked, Chinese micro-blogging websites thrive

JAPAN: Colin Angle, American robot venture “iRobot” chief executive, displays a crawler robot with an arm “PackBot,” used by military and civil defense force at a press conference in Tokyo on October 7, 2010. — AFP

Apple to make iPhone for Verizon Wireless WASHINGTON: Apple Inc. plans to make a version of its popular iPhone 4 available through Verizon Wireless by early next year, according to a published report.

The iPhone is now available only through AT&T Inc. Adding Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest mobile phone operator, could significantly boost sales of Apple’s phones, which face rising competition from smart-

phones that use Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

The New York Times, citing an anonymous source briefed by Apple, reported the development late Friday. The Wall Street Journal also reported the move earlier this week.

Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, declined to comment. Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Apple, said he

wouldn’t comment on “speculation.”

It’s long been rumored that a version of the iPhone would soon be made for Verizon Wireless. A Verizon Wireless executive earlier this week downplayed the possibility of an iPhone using the company’s current network.

The executive suggested that an iPhone could be made available later for a faster Verizon Wireless network.—AP

BEIJING: When a huge mudslide swamped a Chinese town in August, killing at least 1,500 people, word first reached the world thanks to a digital camera-wielding, 19year-old micro-blogger who idolises Lady Gaga.

Wang Kai’s reports on a Chinese Twitter-like service from the northwestern town of Zhouqu made him an online celebrity and underlined the potential impact of the fastgrowing new medium in the world’s largest online population. Things looked grim last year when China’s censors added Twitter to their list of blocked foreign services amid government accusations that social media were used to fan deadly ethnic unrest in northwestern China in July 2009.

But several Chinese clones soon sprung up, offering users a platform for sending 140-character messages via provider websites or mobile phones-while exercising heavy self-censorship to keep authorities happy.

China’s 420-million web users have seized on microblogging as a new avenue for mass expression in a tightly controlled information landscape. From almost nothing last year, there are estimates of tens of millions of micro-blogging, or “weibo”, accounts in China. Active users will hit 65 million by year’s end, the Data Center for the Chinese Internet (DCCI) predicts. “Weibo’s role is huge,” Wang Kai, now an English student at university, told AFP when asked to explain its appeal. “It provides you with your own platform for sending out really meaningful microblogs and opinions. I hope it can be used to help people solve problems.” Users say China’s half-dozen providers offer services that are superior to those of Twitter, such as embedding of videos and photos. They add that more can be expressed in 140 of the Chinese language’s pictographic characters than in English. But the real impact of “weibo” could lie in its ability to knit together- through the rapid, mass sharing of links-the countless Chinese blogs, forums and other websites that are the dominant outlet for public expression. “The density of information they have created, their frequency of dissemination and the degree of connectivity they have enabled for web users far surpass any previous form of Internet use,” Hu Yong, an author of several books on the Chinese Internet, wrote in a recent opinion piece. The DCCI predicts active user accounts will exceed 400 million within three years as China’s online population grows. Twitter said in early September it had 145 million users. A recent poll found that about 90 percent of under-40s use a “weibo” service, engaging in lively discussions on entertainment, lifestyle, the job market or flogging a company’s products. But several cases also have highlighted its potential for rattling the government, which aggressively censors web content it views as a political threat. In July, an investigative reporter who exposed alleged graft by a listed company in eastern China found himself on a most-wanted list for slander. Qiu Ziming of the respected Economic Observer financial weekly went on the run, drawing thousands of “followers” with defiant blog posts declaring his innocence and alleging a cover-up.

Police eventually quashed his arrest order after public pressure in an episode that triggered a debate about abuse of official power.

Rumours of a split between President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao were a recent hot topic after Wen made comments seen as urging political reform, and chatter on numerous graft cases and other scandals was widely credited with adding to online pressure that resulted in government action. Micro-blogging services were briefly cut in July in what analysts said was a message from the government to users to toe the line, but authorities are beginning to use micro-blogging for their own ends as well.

A June government white paper on the Internet singled out micro-blogging as a useful communication tool and praised Internet users for “supervising” the government.

Local-level government agencies nationwide, such as Beijing’s police, have set up accounts in a bid for openness-or at least to guide public sentiment. “The Chinese government learns very quickly and is very much at the forefront or ahead of the curve of what is on the Internet,” said Bill Bishop, co-founder of the news site MarketWatch.com, who now blogs about the Internet in China. “They are working very hard to effectively channel and manage public opinion. Weibo offer unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the government PR folks to deal with issues in near-real time.” Few experts however see microblogs as posing any imminent threat to the Communist government. Beijing keeps firm control by restricting Weibo services to top Chinese Internet firms well-versed at self-censorship, said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor of the China media website Danwei.org. “(Micro-blogging) adds to the pressure but it’s not enough of a revolution to rewrite the rules of the game. The government can just hire more censors,” he said. — AFP

NEVADA: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives his keynote address at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show, in this January 7, 2010 photo in Las Vegas, Nevada. — AFP

Microsoft pinning hopes on new operating system Move seen as potential make-or-break effort by the US software giant NEW YORK: Microsoft unveils a new mobile phone operating system today in what is being seen as a potentially make-or-break effort by the US software giant to remain a player in the hotly competitive niche.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is to take the wraps off a new line of smartphones powered by Windows Phone 7 (WP7) at an event in New York and the devices are expected to hit stores around the world in the next few weeks.

Though mobile makes up only one percent of Microsoft’s revenue, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt said WP7 is a “pivotal release” for the Redmond, Washington-based company.

“This is an 11 on a scale of one to 10,” agreed Ramon Llamas of technology research firm IDC. “They’ve been slow to come to market, and when they do, they use yesterday’s technology.

There’s some catching up to do.”

Ballmer is confident WP7 will help Microsoft claw back market share lost to Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s Blackberry and devices powered by Google’s Android mobile platform. “I think our products will stand out compared to any others,” Ballmer told a business conference in Madrid. “We would not be launching the product if we did not feel good about its chances to do well.”

Analysts are cautiously optimistic about Microsoft’s future in a smartphone market which Morgan Stanley estimates is seeing annual growth of 38 percent.”While WP7 is debuting in the midst of intense competition, Microsoft seems to have developed a viable next generation mobile platform which may help the company gain credibility in mobile,” Morgan Stanley’s Holt said.

WP7 is Microsoft’s first significant update to its mobile operating system in 18 months and its release

comes on the heels of the disastrous launch of a “Kin” line of mobile phones. “The Kin was an abject failure,” said IDC’s Llamas of the devices aimed at the youth market which were pulled from stores after just two months. According to technology research firm Gartner, Microsoft’s share of the worldwide mobile operating system market will fall to 4.7 percent this year from 8.7 percent last year. It is expected to rise to 5.2 percent by 2011 but decline to 3.9 percent in 2014.

Among the handset makers expected to launch WP7powered devices in the United States and Europe are South Korea’s Samsung and LG Electronics and Taiwan’s HTC. Nicolas Petit of Microsoft France said WP7 features a number of innovations which will help make the company a player again. “In 2010, an operating system needs to decompartmentalize and allow content to circulate more easily,” Petit said, comparing other platforms to “a long hallway with doors to a lot of rooms that don’t join up with each other.” Smartphones powered by WP7 will run email from various services, not just Microsoft’s Hotmail, integrate calendars, contacts and social networks and allow for documents to be viewed, edited and shared using Microsoft Office. WP7, which represents a shift for Microsoft from the enterprise market to the consumer, will also allow users to tap into Microsoft’s Zune music player ecosystem and to access mobile versions of Xbox 360 games. If WP7 proves to be a hit, Microsoft will once again manage to overcome the skeptics.

Since its launch in June of last year, Microsoft’s new Internet search engine, Bing, has steadily gained market share and its Windows 7 computer operating system has been a commercial and technical success. — AFP

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HEALTH & SCIENCE

Monday, October 11, 2010

Hungary to build dam in case of new toxic flood KOLONTAR: Hungary raced against time yesterday to erect a dam around a ruptured reservoir and divert a new wave of toxic sludge that threatens to overwhelm already devastated villages.

As hundreds of volunteers joined engineers rushing to erect the 600-metre dam, a top official said it was only a matter of days before the reservoir housing a chemical residue would begin to crumble. “In two or three days there is going to be rain and we are trying to speed things up so that we can finish off the dam before the rain comes,” Zoltan Illes, the state secretary for environmental protection, told reporters at the dam construction site. “Once the rain is here, the remaining sludge will be washed out and the dam’s northern section is going to break away. This is imminent. Once the wall breaks down, the sludge will start flowing again.” Repair work also continued on the reservoir itself where cracks have been detected, raising fears that what is already Hungary’s worst environmental disaster could soon get even worse.

At least seven people were killed when the red-colored sludge first began seeping from the reservoir next to an alumina plant before then cascading into nearby villages and tributaries of the Danube.

Kolontar was the village worst hit by the disaster and its entire population of nearly 1,000 people have been forced to evacuate while the threat of a new spill remains.

Many have been put up in a sports centre in the nearby town of Ajkar although others have moved in with relatives.

Tibor Dobson, the official in charge of the disaster relief effort, said around 800 volunteers were helping 900 police, disaster relief workers and firefighters yesterday. A team of five experts from the European Union’s civil protection unit are heading to Hungary to assess the environmental impact and issue advice on decontamination. Half a dozen cranes and a similar number of bulldozers were at the site of the dam yesterday, as part of the effort to build a dam which will eventually be up to five meters in height and six meters in width once completed. It will stretch from next to the church in the centre of Kolontar and wind up in fields.

Illes said that around 2.5 million tons of sludge still remain inside the reservoir after around 800,000 tons of sludge spilled out originally.

But he said that the remaining sludge should be easier to deal with if it does spill out.

“This is a different texture now, more like clay and not going to flow as far,” he told reporters. More than 40 people who suffered injuries from the spill were still in hospital yesterday, most treated for burns from the chemicals which also killed livestock and fish.”They don’t have life-threatening injuries, but some will need plastic surgery,” said Jeno Racz, director of the Veszprem county hospital.

A three-year-old boy was also transferred to a Budapest hospital because some of the sludge had entered his eyes, causing serious damage, Racz said.

Villagers evacuated to Ajka, 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital Budapest, were worried about their homes.

“Unfortunately we will have to stay here for a couple of nights until they build that dam. After that we can hopefully return,” said Peter, who like all of those who spent the night at the shelter would only give his first name.

The sludge from the MAL Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company plant is a residue from aluminum production that contains toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who visited the scene on Saturday, warned that the reservoir was so damaged that a second breach was “likely” and it could release 500,000 cubic meters more of the corrosive mud. —AFP

The remaining sludge should be easier to deal with if it does spill out

KOLONTAR: Furniture seen in a sludge-covered house in Kolontar about 160 kms southwest of Budapest yesterday where a wave of toxic red mud swept through the small village. —AFP

Thousands in Asia join Space double: Astronaut global message on climate twins to join up in orbit SYDNEY: Tens of thousands of people in the Asia-Pacific region yesterday planted trees, collected trash and campaigned against pollution for what organizers hope is the world’s biggest day of climatechange activism. The 10/10/10 event known as the “Global Work Party” kicked off in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific before moving to Asia and was set to spin its way across the globe via more than 7,000 community events in 188 countries. “The only countries that aren’t taking part, we think, are Equatorial Guinea, San Marino, North Korea, so it’s clearly the most widespread day of environmental action,” co-founder of the 350.org campaign Bill McKibben said. “And as far as we can tell, the most widespread day of civic engagement on any issue ever in the planet’s history.” The events come as long-running United Nations efforts to broker a global deal to tackle global warming have stalled, and McKibben said while organizers had feared that people would be disillusioned by this, the opposite was true. “People are discouraged but they are taking out their frustrations in action,” he told AFP via telephone from Washington. “They have decided that we are going to have to show our leaders what leadership looks

like.” Thousands of people from throughout Asia, including from some of its most impoverished areas, joined the initiative through various events organized at grassroots level, Manila-based coordinator Joyce Sierra said. “I think this is a very clear message to the leaders of the world that the people in every developing country in Asia ... who are most vulnerable to climate change impact, are taking actions into their hands,” she said.

In Beijing, hundreds of volunteers walked through the city collecting trash as a “symbol of how much waste is in the public sphere”, said Christian Teriete of the Global Campaign for Climate Action. More than 30,000 students from some 200 Chinese universities launched a nationwide program calling for climate action through practical measures, such as removing rubbish from local areas. “This was the biggest show of youth environmental action in China’s history,” media spokeswoman Joanna Wong said. “It is about China’s youth showing the world they want to take responsibility for our country’s green future.” In the Philippine capital Manila, thousands of people joined a run yesterday to raise awareness about the Pasig River-a major waterway that is heavily polluted. And in

Australia, the call for practical action resulted in gardeners sharing tips on going green, bicycle rides to urge less use of carbonpolluting cars, the planting of trees and public talks on reducing household emissions. Every island in the Pacific took part in the event, from a “no car” campaign in Tonga to cycling events in Papua New Guinea, tree planting in tropical Fiji and gardening in New Zealand, coordinator Aaron Packard said.

“Often I find the issue of climate change pretty depressing when you look into the details of it,” he said.

“But the thing that really gives me hope is the way the people of the Pacific have responded. “It’s just incredible because you know darn well they have done so little to contribute to climate change but they are some of the most vocal, the most willing, to get to work and do really inspiring things.” The 350.org campaign, named for the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that scientists say is the safe limit for humanity, is spearheading actions around the world that take in events in Afghanistan, Russia and the US. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, war refugees will plant a “Forest of Hope” while in Iraq, students will install solar panels on the roof of the University of Babylon.

NEW ZEALAND: A handout photo taken yesterday by 350.org shows the safe upper limit for carbon in the atmosphere: 350ppm, as New Zealanders display solar panels at sunrise. —AFP

CAPE CANAVERAL: The stars may have finally aligned for the world’s only space sibling team. Astronaut Scott Kelly is circling the planet, fresh into a five and a half-month space station mission. His identical twin, Mark, will join him next year, if NASA’s shuttle schedule holds up.

Together, they will become the first blood relatives to meet up in space.

“It’s something we hoped would happen,” Mark said. “It wasn’t done by design. But we’re fortunate. I think it will be fun for us.”

Scott is the International Space Station’s next commander. He took off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket early Friday — texting and joking with his brother right until launch — and arrived at the orbiting complex Saturday night. Mark is space shuttle Endeavour’s next commander.

He’s due to take off at the end of February and knock on the space station door March 1. It’s currently slated to be NASA’s last shuttle flight.

Mark couldn’t resist a little twin humor in a congratulatory call to his brother at the space station. “Hey Mark, this is Scott,” Mark radioed from Mission Control outside Moscow. “You know, six months is a long time in space. So thanks for switching spots with me. Just hope I can remember how to fly that space shuttle.” Don’t expect any handshakes when the Kellys unite more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) up.

The 46-year-old brothers — Navy captains and former fighter pilots — have never shaken each other’s hands and don’t plan to start just because the space station cameras are rolling. Rather, count on embraces and even arm-wrestling when the hatches pop open between the space station and Endeavour, and the world does a double take.

For now, anyway, there’s a little difference — Scott is clean-shaven and Mark has a mustache.

The Kellys promise no gags or matching outfits in space. They insist they’ve never done any of that.

So how will they mark the historic occasion? The Associated Press posed the question in a recent interview. “We’re going to armwrestle,” replied Mark. “I was going to say the same exact thing,” said Scott. They laughed, then speculated on which twin would win, and whether it might end up a draw, with the two rotating around each other in weightlessness. “I’ll win because I’ll have more zero-g experience,” Scott said. “By that point, your bones will be like powder. Your muscles will be atrophied,” Mark countered. While there have been fatherand-son astronauts and cosmonauts, decades have separated their space missions. A husband and wife flew

together in space in 1992 _ Mark Lee and Jan Davis _ but NASA permitted it only because they were not married at the time they were picked for the shuttle mission and had no children. They divorced several years later. For the Kellys, it wasn’t meant to come together like this.

Mark should have been up and back from space by now.

Endeavour’s launch had been scheduled for July, but it was delayed to make improvements to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, the primary cargo. Between them, they have five shuttle flights. Endeavour’s trip will make six.

Even if NASA had agreed to put them on the same shuttle flight, which brother would be commander and which one co-pilot? “We’d have to arm-wrestle again,” Mark said.

Endeavour will have to hit its Feb. 27 launch date or come awfully close, if the Kellys-in-space reunion is to stay on track. Scott Kelly will

return to Earth in a Soyuz in midMarch, brotherly visit or no.

They expect their parents _ retired police officers _ to be stressed out more than usual as Endeavour’s flight nears, not to mention their 94-year-old grandmother, who still asks if they might prefer becoming a lawyer or dentist.

“Fortunately, my brother’s the one that’s going to have to deal with it because I’ll be in space,” Scott said. The twins grew up in West Orange, New Jersey, fists constantly flying at one another. They went to different colleges, but ended up together in the Navy’s 1993 test pilot school class and, on occasion, shared jet cockpits. Unable to choose between them, NASA accepted both as astronauts in 1996.

The brothers live in Houston, and each has two daughters from previous marriages. Mark is now married to US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat. Scott is single. —AP

KAZAKHSTAN: In this Oct. 8, 2010 file photo, US astronaut Scott Kelly, a crew member of the mission to the International Space Station, accompanied by his brother Mark Kelly, right, walks to the rocket ahead of the launch of the Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian-leased cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. —AP

HEALTH & SCIENCE

Monday, October 11, 2010

KUWAIT: Dr Hanaa Al-Khawari, the chairperson of the Department of Clinical Radiology at the Kuwait Cancer Control Center speaking at the event Saturday evening.

29

KUWAIT: Speakers and organizers as well as distinguished guests pose for a group picture during the cancer awareness event organized by the Indian Women Association.

IWA holds breast cancer awareness seminar Breast cancer one of the most common causes of cancer death amongst women KUWAIT: October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, the Indian Women’s Association (IWA) hosted a seminar to launch their awareness campaign on the 9th of October at the Arraya Ballroom, Courtyard by Marriott.

H.E. Ajai Malhotra, Ambassador of India to Kuwait graced the occasion as Chief Guest, and the evening was well attended by dignitaries like Sheikha Awarad Al Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Dr. Salwa Al Kandary who represented the Honorable Minister of Health Dr. Hilal Al Sayer, Dr. Abdullah Behbehani, Vice Rector of Health Science Center, and Dr. Adel Al Khadur who represented Dr. Fuad Al Ali, Dean at the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Shafika Alawadi, Consultant Medical Oncologist and Head of Breast Unit, KCCC, as well as Dr. Tarek Al Habeeb representing Dr. Rehab Al Watiyan, Director of Primary Health Care were also present at the occasion. The speakers at the seminar were Dr. Hanaa Al Khawari, Chairperson, Dept of Clinical Radiology, Kuwait Cancer Control Center (KCCC) and Dr. Noha Al Saleh, Specialist in Surgical Oncology, KCCC. IWA comprises a group of women who have come together, and have been living their maxim “To lend a helping hand” to the community. IWA provides humanitarian assistance to those in need, with special focus on community service. Now in its fourteenth year in Kuwait, it works

under the patronage of Mrs. Ira Malhotra, wife of the Ambassador of India to Kuwait.

With regard to breast cancer, one of IWA’s major concerns is about women who delay seeking medical attention.

This factor considerably reduces the chances of survival .On the other hand, early discovery and diagnosis make an enormous difference in managing this disease.

This year, members of IWA, having explored the community, are trying to reach out to more sections who might benefit from this campaign. Special effort has been made to target those who are unable to gain access to basic information available in the media.

Under IWA’s banner for health awareness projects, “Reach for Health”, the seminar launched The Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, , similar to the one conducted last year, which comprises of a string of awareness workshops which will be held throughout October, with the expert direction of Dr Hanaa Al Khawari, Chairperson of the Department of Clinical Radiology, Kuwait Cancer Control Center. A team of experts from the Indian Doctors Forum, under their President, Dr. Narayanan Nampoory, will be giving valuable support.

At the seminar, Mrs. Muriel Alphonso, President, IWA welcomed the dignitaries and guests and acknowledged the

Awareness Workshop role of the various organizations that had come together to design and take this important annual campaign forward.

She spoke about her team’s aspirations to serve the community and highlighted the various humanitarian and social services IWA has undertaken.

Dr. Narayanan Nampoory, President, IDF welcomed the guests and spoke of IDF’s involvement in this awareness campaign and commented that there was such a dearth of knowledge on health issues, particularly breast cancer in the community. Over the past 6 years IDF has been involved in various community services, organizing health related programs to serve those in need of it. Moreover, IDF annually publishes a very useful health guide, which provides basic health information to the public.

The Chief Guest, His Excellency Ajai Malhotra, Ambassador of India to Kuwait, inaugurated the seminar and stressed the importance of early detection of breast cancer, which is key to recovery. He noted that breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women and one of the more common causes of cancer death amongst women. He

pointed out that being informed about breast cancer is the first step to fighting it. He appreciated the launch of an awareness campaign that would benefit members of society across the board. He highlighted the role of IWA and the team of expert doctors from KCCC and IDF, which functions under the patronage of the Kuwait Medical Association, in voluntarily organizing this community service. He lauded the efforts of the participating organizations in the conduct of the seminar and the eleven breast cancer awareness workshops that would be conducted during October 2010.

Mrs. Ira Malhotra, Patron of IWA, graced the occasion and, on behalf of Indian Women’s Association, honoured the dignitaries by presenting them a token of appreciation for being part of this campaign.

Dr. Tahseen Khan, Vice President, IWA, introduced the medical session and the concept of the awareness campaign.

She outlined the details of forthcoming workshops that are being organized.

Dr. Noha began the presentation by recounting the important clinical aspects of the disease lifestyle changes that people can make in their lives to reduce their risk breast cancer. She also delved on some of the features which may give an indication of the problem, concentrating on early detection by self examination of the breast. She concluded

her talk with a brief explanation on the medical management of breast cancer.

Dr. Hanaa Al Khawari stressed on the importance of mammography in early detection. She spoke about the various imaging techniques available to diagnose and treat breast cancer such as ultrasound and MRI. She also demonstrated various techniques of obtaining tissue samples to reach a final diagnosis and emphasized the importance of having annual mammography for women over the age of 40 years.

A breast cancer survivor shared her experience and described the need for endurance and psychological support needed to survive her ordeal, and eventually overcome the traumatic period of her life.

The sole sponsor of the seminar was ELM Trading Company, specializing in Engineering, Environment, Labs and Medical Services. ELM Trading Co. being aware of social, environmental and health issues surrounding them, feel a moral responsibility to be proactive in supporting socially responsible causes. They have regularly been involved in supporting IWA’s educational sponsorship program for AIDS affected children.

The evening concluded with a vote of thanks by Mrs. Shireen Kanchwala, Executive Consultant, IWA.

AIMS offers cost-efficient premium healthcare compassion and competence KUWAIT: In the short twelve years since its inception, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) has grown from a 100 bed specialty hospital in 1998, to a 1400 bed super-specialty tertiary-care, health science campus integrated to a medical college hospital. A not-for-profit organization, dedicated to establishing excellence in healthcare through quality preventive care, medical education and research, AIMS lives up to the World Health Organization’s new “Universalism”, which calls for providing the simplest and most basic quality healthcare for all.

“With over 5,000 employees, more than 40 medical departments and a faculty that has risen from 60 in 1998, to over 800 today, AIMS offers cost-effective and comprehensive healthcare solutions comparable to the best hospitals in the world,” said Dr. Prem Nair, Medical Director at AIMS, while speaking on the sidelines of the First International conference and Exhibition for Best Hospitals that was held from 7th to 9th of October in Kuwait.

The facilities at AIMS include among others, 25 modern operating theaters, 210 well-

equipped intensive-care beds, an entirely computerized and networked Hospital Information System, a fully digital radiology department, nationally accredited clinical laboratories and a 24/7 telemedicine service.

The extensive healthcare infrastructure at AIMS, with over 278,710 sq meters (3 million sq feet) of built-up area spread over 160 acres of land, supports an annual patient turnover of over 605,000 outpatients and nearly 48,600 inpatients. Dr. Nair added, “When we established AIMS in 1998, we started a process that has revolutionized the healthcare industry in India. Today, we are regarded as one of the largest and best academic teaching and clinical care centers in India - in terms of size, in terms of patient numbers and in terms of the complexity of care provided.”

“However, even the best quality infrastructure is no guarantee of any quality. We see this all over the world; hospitals with some of the finest equipment and amenities offering abysmal medical service.” The doctor continued, “The quality of healthcare provided is directly related to the quality of

KUWAIT: Dr. Prem Nair healthcare professionals at the medical center. The phenomenal success that we have notched up in a little over a decade is the result of the dedication, commitment and quality of our human capital - our team of

physicians, surgeons and other healthcare support personnel. By employing highly skilled, experienced, committed faculty and staff from all over the world, purely on merit, irrespective of bureaucratic controls and any

racial, sectarian or religious bias, we have been able to deliver remarkable achievements.”

Speaking on the initiative by the Ministry of Health in Kuwait to improve the quality of health in the country through transfer of knowledge with other medical institutions abroad, Dr. Nair said, “We believe this is a step in the right direction. The focus should be on training the human resources in the medical sector; otherwise, you could end up spending humongous amounts on the best infrastructure and equipment and yet fall short of delivering quality healthcare to the people.”

Dr. Nair was of the opinion that in a world where medical science is changing rapidly from day to day, it was inevitable that in order to deliver the highest level of healthcare, there should be sharing of capabilities and exchange of information between medical centers around the world. “At AIMS we have an ongoing partnership with over 60 medical entities in the United States, Canada and Europe that allows us to leverage our medical and clinical expertise with the technological

expertise of these centers, to deliver some of the best medical solutions for our patients.”

On the possibilities of partnering with medical institution in Kuwait, Dr. Nair recommended a tripartite relationship involving medical centers in Kuwait, AIMS, and its partners in America and Europe. “By harnessing the financial resources of Kuwait, the clinical and technical expertise of AIMS and the laboratory experience of medical campuses in the West, we could provide a hands-on teaching and learning environment for developing high-quality healthcare professionals in the region.”

The doctor concluded by saying, “At AIMS we currently have a student and faculty exchange program with over 30 countries that provides a hands-on care and skills development program. Using state-of-the-art simulation environment, including computer programs, mannequins and cadavers, we teach skills rapidly with minimum risk of complications. At AIMS, our aim is to develop medical expertise that is second to none in the world and to provide the best quality healthcare.”

WHAT’S ON IN KUWAIT

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Anmatt exhibition

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43rd Engineers’ Day he Institute of Engineers - India will hold a celebration on Wednesday, 13 of October 2010 at the Arab Organizations Fund headquarters in Shuwaikh. The event commemorates the birth anniversary of Engineer, Statesman and Bharat Ratna M V Visvesvaraya.

Speakers will include Dr Yaqoub Al-Sayed Yousef Al-Refaei, the director of the

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Adios, Gerry! t is with a heavy heart that the Kuwait Scrabble Club bids farewell to Mr Gerardo Perez — among the early founders of the club and an all-round good guy - who’s leaving Kuwait for good. A man of many hats, Gerry, 63-years-young, now wants to see the world, and will head to Chicago tomorrow for a muchdeserved vacation. Gerry has been working in Kuwait as a hearingaid specialist for nearly two decades.

An avid Scrabble player, orator and organiser, Gerry was also very active in the Filipino community in Kuwait. He represented Kuwait at the World Scrabble Championship in London in 1995 and numerous Gulf championships in Bahrain. He intends to keep playing Scrabble wherever he finds himself in the future.

Best of luck for the future, Gerry! You will surely — and sorely — be missed! These wishes come from Wone Mamadou, Rohaina Tanveer, Shakir Reshamwala, Uzma Saeed, Jaber Hafez, Alifiya Murtuza, Zahida, Batul Kaizer and Nida.

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General Public Authority of Applied Education and Training; Dr Manaf Bahbahani, environmental expert at the Faculty of Science, Kuwait University, as well as a number of other distinguished speakers. The event will begin at 6:45.

Please call S M H Zaidi, the chairperson of IEI Kuwait Chapter on 66655185 for more information.

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Gulf Voice of Mangalore 2010

Canadian Embassy notice

US Embassy notice The US Embassy will be closed today in observance of Columbus Day in the United States. The embassy will reopen for normal business on Monday. October 11. Regular business hours are from 8 am to 4:30 pm from Sunday to Thursday. The telephone number is 2259-1001 and the fax number is 25380282.

Indian Embassy notice

Indian Lawyers Forum holds Onam-Eid celebrations ndian Lawyers’ Forum’, the association of Indian Lawyers and Law Graduates working in Kuwait celebrated ONAM-EID 2010 at Hidine Auditorium Kuwait.

The function was presided over by the President Advocate Palavilayil Thomas Panicker and was inaugurated jointly by Advocate Thomas Panicker, Jose Thomas Behrain Exchange, Advocate Anas Puthiottil, Advocate Suresh Pulikkal, Advocate Bishnudas and Advocate Rajesh Sagar by lighting the traditional lamp.

President in his speech welcomed

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The Embassy of India will remain closed on Sunday, October 17, 2010 on account of ‘Dussehra’.

everybody to the function and thanked the members for the large turn out.

New member - Advocate Vinodh Nair was introduced to the Forum.

Children who stood with highest percentage marks in the last 10th std exam Miss. Aisha Sana Anas and Justin John Thomas were honored in the function.

Advocate Rajesh Sagar, conducted a very informative professional talk on the new Kuwaiti Labour law.

Advocate Sumodh presented a talk on general legal system. He presented a professional paper on legal affairs.

Birthday Greetings

Argentine Embassy notice The Embassy of the Argentine Republic to the State of Kuwait wants to inform that the embassy will be closed tomorrow and work will resume on Tuesday, October 12, 2010.

eartiest birthday greetings go to our dearest son Ashton who celebrates his birthday today. May the Almighty God shower you with his blessings. These wishes come from your loving mother Cynthia, father John, aunts Vera, Lavina, Avilia, uncles Martin, Edwin, cousins Aaron, Samatha, Kimberly, your godparents Cassy, Alister, your paternal and maternal grandparents, and all your loving relatives and friends from Kuwait, Goa, Bangalore and Portugal.

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Zumba fitness party with the British Academy of Sport

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he British Academy of Sport is pleased to announce the start of Zumba Classes on a Monday and Tuesday evening at The British School of Kuwait from 1900-2000.

Zumba fuses intriguing musical rhythms and fascinating moves to create a dynamic workout system designed to be FUN and EASY TO DO! Our goal is simple: We want people to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. By integrating Zumba into everyday life, individuals may achieve long term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exhilarating hour of caloric burning, heart racing, muscle pumping, body energizing movements meant to engage and captivate for life!

The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat.

Add some Latin flavour and International zest into the mix and you’ve got ZUMBA! For more details contact Andrea on 67093690 or Aisha on 99458013.

Vote of thanks was proposed by Advocate Shivadas, the Treasurer of the Forum.

Mrs. (Advocate) Vidhya Sumodh, member of Indian Lawyers’ Forum,performed Mohiniyattom. The “Chenda Melam Team, entertained the crowd by their Chenda Melam which was new experience for some of the guests.

The “Orchestra Team, under Advocate Anas Puthiottil, entertained the crowd by their melodious songs which included the Onam songs, Nadodippattukal and film

songs. Mrs. Ambika Surya Narayanan, Rafi also participated in the Orchestra.

Several Guests from Indian Community attended the programme.

They were Varghese Puthukulagara, Soorya Narayanan, Albert, Joy Muakkadan, Jose Thomas, Nixon George, Chessil Ramapuram etc.

Those who are interested with FORUM activities may contact Tel. & Fax 24346934, Mob. 97203939, 97260159 Email. advpanicker@gmail.com

Kala Kuwait to hold painting competition ala Kuwait will conduct a painting competition on Friday, 5th November 2010 at the Indian Community School, Khaithan Branch. at 2.00 PM. The program named as “Niram 2010 ñ Tiffany Paining Competitionî consists of Drawing & Painting Competition for the Indian School Students and a “Marathon Open Canvas Painting” for the other attendees including parents, visitors and Guests. The Drawing and Painting Competition will be conducted in four different age groups. Group ‘A” from LKG to 1st Standard, Group ‘B” from 2nd to 4th Standard, Group ‘C” from 5th to 8th Standard and Group ‘D” from 9th to 12th Standard.

The media for Group ‘A” and ‘B”

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will be Crayons while Group”Cî and ‘Dî are water colors. Crayons and Water Colors to be brought by the participants. Stamped Drawing papers will be supplied by the Organizers.

Clay Modeling Competition also will be conducted for 7th to 11th Standard Students. The Marathon Open Canvas Painting is conducting in a view to display everyoneís views and talents through their vivid creations.

For more details and registration please contact by e-mail at kalakuwait@gmail.com or by web www.indiansinkuwait.com or www.kalakuwait.net and the following telephone numbers 24891490, 99489078, 97449419, 97959072, 67001038, 97982935.

AWARE Center Diwaniya... uraaaaa baby Joy is ONE. May the lord bless you as grow to be a blessing to your family.

Greetings from Daddy, Mummy, bother, friends and well-wishers.

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orty Days and Forty Nights in Yemen: A Journey to Tarim, the City of Light” by Journalist Ethar El-KatatneyTuesday 12 October at 7:00pm Ethar El-Katatney is an award-winning journalist, a blogger, and an author. She is currently a staff writer at Egypt Today, the leading current affairs magazine in the Middle East. Her story “The Business of Islam” won the Economics and Business award in the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year 2009 award, making her the first Egyptian to win one of the prestigious awards. Join us at AWARE as we welcome Ms. Ethar El Katatney, to speak about her unique experience in South Yemen.

“F Founder’s Day

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KTAA monthly presentation he Kuwait Textile Arts Association (KTAA) under the auspices of Sadu House cordially invites you to the monthly presentation “Islamic Motifs in The al-Sabah Collection of Art from the Islamic World” given by Susan Day and Katherine Baker on Tuesday 12 October at 7pm in Sadu House, Arabian Gulf Street, on the corner of the National Museum, Kuwait City. More information available from wovenpieces@yahoo.com

Kuwait-St.Gregorios Indian Orthodox Maha Edavaka Harvest Festival 2010 coupon release.

The Embassy of Canada is open from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm from Sunday through Thursday.

Consular Services for Canadian Citizens are provided from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm on Sunday through Wednesday. Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St, Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.kuwait.gc.ca.

bdullah Al-Awadi’s exhibition opens tomorrow at 7:00 pm at Dar Al-Funoon.

The exhibition will run till October 15 and the showcasing hours are from 10 am to 1 pm and 4 pm to 8 pm (Closed on Fridays) at Behbehani Compound House 28, Al-Wattiyah, Kuwait. Ph: 22433138.

Geometry, icons calligraphy, vintage images, songs, repetition, drama, irony, and comedy. A whimsical concoction of ideas, images and sometimes secret coded messages come together to create this exhibition. A juxtaposition of seemingly polar topics from Islamic patterns to pop art merged with Arab songs and calligraphy, A mind twisting tour de force or just an eye-pleasing superficial object d’arte: Abdulla was trained as an architect in Miami, furthermore he is a designer of contemporary clothes, theatrical costumes, large format photography jewelry indoor and outdoor installations and plastic art.

Exclusively for this exhibit, he was united by Sarah Baydon, designer and founder of Sarah’s Bag to produce an exclusive collection inspired by this show They have joined forces to create this celebration of their knowledge and joie de vive an pop culture from East to West and back. Pattern being the key element is sometimes read as geometrical pattern, cultural pattern or behavioral pattern. Scratch your head hide a smile or just blush at this collection of images, ideas, and accessories. Recent exhibitions include a solo photography exhibition at Beit Lothan, Kuwait and a jewelry exhibition for The Sultan Gallery, Kuwait.

ll Algerians are invited for dinner to commemorate Founder’s Day on October 28, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (Al-Murjan Hall) at 7:30 pm. Event will have a Fancy dress competition for children up to 1st standard and drawing competition for children from 2nd standard to 8th standard. For the fancy dress competition, children are requested to come prepared from home and those participating in the drawing competition are requested to bring crayons/coloring pencils/sketch pens with them, paper sheets will be provided at the venue. For confirming your presence and for queries, please contact: Ikram on 97611788; Tariq Sibte on 99638779; Usman on 66629904; or Sabihuddin on 97210594.

ndian tabla player Iqbal Koyilandi, left, is seen on stage in a cultural event held in Kuwait with one of his students, Santhosh Sundar.

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outh Recreation Center (Rising Stars), on the completion of 30 glorious years in Kuwait has organized a maiden/mega Singing Competition, the “Gulf Voice of Mangalore 2008” on October 17, 2008 and Kuwait’s very own voice, Vinay Lewis was declared the winner of ‘Gulf Voice of Mangalore 2008. After the super success of this event we are back again with Gulf Voice of Mangalore 2010’.

The auditions/preliminary rounds for Kuwait already held on June 11, 2010 under the leadership of Lawrence Pinto and Louis Rodrigues and 12 semifinalists (six male and females each) were chosen to compete for the semi-finals in Kuwait on October 8, 2010 at the American International School - Hawalli.

On this day two finalists, one male and one female each will be chosen to enter the grand-finale. Famous personalities in the music field will arrive from Mangalore to judge the semi-finalists. There will be an entertainment program by visiting artists from Mangalore as well as the local artists, Twelve finalists from six Gulf countries will be fighting for the coveted title in the grand-finale to be held in Dubai on October 22, 2010. For further information about this competition, contact Lawrence - 99803755, Louis 66561184. Wilson - 99719938.

Filipino Badminton Committee

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he Filipino Badminton Committee is inviting all badminton enthusiast to join its 20th Badminton Tournament for-A cause that will start on November 5 until December 10 at the Kuwait Disabled Club , Hawally every Friday from 8:00 AM until 5 PM. The tournament will be a Team event compose of 5 players. Each team must have Level 1 & 2 (Men’s), Level 1& 2 (Ladies’) and Level 3 (Ladies’). Deadline for submission of line up will be on Octobr 15. Special prie will be given for Best Uniform, Best Team. For more information, call 97197268.

Football For All

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he Premier Goal Academy in association with Everton F.C. launches its ‘Football For All’ programme at Shaab Park in October 2010. Expert guidance from professional English F.A./UEFA coaching team. Coaching courses for 3-14 years are held Fridays 0900-1100 and Saturdays 1500-1700. Advanced coaching for Centre of Excellence players aged 8 to 18 years also takes place on Fridays and Saturdays plus Mondays (8-12 years), Tuesdays (12-14 years) and Wednesdays (14-18 years) 1700-1900. Regular fixtures against Kuwait Club teams and tournaments in the Gulf, USA and Europe are also available for selected players. The Premier Goal Academy also offers coaching courses in Salwa, Hawally, Mangaf, Sharq (Girls Only) and Freestyle courses (13-18 years) at Shaab Park on Mondays.

For further details of any of the P.G.A. Courses contact; Mike Finn, Director of Football Tel.99981327(English), Baker al Nazer, Director of Administration Tel.66918666(Arabic) or Daniel Christensen 99128010. Email; premier_fa_kuwait@yahoo.com

IMWA Quran competitions 2010

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MWA - Kuwait (Indian Muslim Welfare Association) is conducting its annual IMWA QURAN COMPETITIONS 2010 for the school children in Kuwait on Saturday, October 23, 2010 at Indian Public School, Salmiya, in segments as follows: Inaugural Session & Registration 8:30 am Quran Recitation (Memorized) 9:00 am to 11:00 am Islamic Quiz 11:00 am to 11:30 am Break for Zohr prayer until 12:00 noon Elocution Competition 12:00 noon to 01:00 pm Boys and girls from Grade 1 to Grade 12 are eligible to participate. The rules and the syllabus of the Competitions are made available online at IMWA website, imwakuwait.org. All the participants and parents are requested to note the timings and cooperate with organizers.

Competition results will be announced on IMWA website. For further info please call competition hotlines: 99740083/66520620/55630073.

Monday, October 11, 2010

WHAT’S ON IN KUWAIT

31 Nair Service Embassy information Society (NSS) to host initiation day EmbAssy of Us air Service Society, Kuwait (NSS Kuwait) to host the “Vidhyarambham Day” for the Eighth consecutive year on Sunday, 17 October 2010, 4:00AM onwards until 7:00AM (early morning) at the Indian Community School, Amman Branch, Salmiya.

On the Vidhyarambham day, young children between the age of 2 and 3 yrs are introduced into the world of alphabets or letters and they take the first step into the world of knowledge. NSS Kuwait’s Vidyarambham Day is a very special annual event to be held in Kuwait every year on the Vijayadashami day.

For this initiation of children into the world of learning, NSS Kuwait invites renowned and leading personalities and scholars associated with literature, medicine, education, arts, engineering etc to adorn the role of Guru to the children. This year, NSS Kuwait has invited Dr.Narayanan Nampoory, Senior Consultant Nephrologist and Transplant Physician in Kuwait to perform the role of the Guru. This program is open for all Indians and requires pre-registration.

Registration is free and can be done by calling Riggae/Farwaniya: 97601637, Abbasiya/Hasawi: 99636472, Abu Halifa/Mahboula: 94067350, Salmiya/Hawally/Kuwait City: 66387400, Fahaheel/Mangaf/Ahmadi: 97953488, 66059471.

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Kasaragod Expatriates Association (KEA-Kuwait) Tug of war asaragod Expatriates Association of Kuwait (KEA-Kuwait) is organizing a tug of war competition on Friday, 15th October 2010 @ 2:00 pm at Touristic Park in Jleeb Al-shyoukh.

We cordially solicit the presence of all the members of your organization.

K ISP holds general knowledge quiz The International School of Pakistan held a general knowledge quiz on Wendesday September 22. Participants were divided into teams, and were from grades 5, 6, 7 and 8. The event was enjoyed by many of the students.

Berchmans Annual Day Celebrations lumni Association of St. Berchmans’ College (AASBCO) Kuwait Chapter is celebrating its 13th Annual Day on Friday, 15th October 2010 at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Hall, Jleeb Al Shuwaikh. The program will start at 6.30 PM and H. E. Mr. Ajay Malhotra, Hon. Ambassador of India to Kuwait will inaugurate the function, in the presence of Prof. Dr.

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Ruble Raj, Principal of Marian College Kuttikanam, besides several other dignitaries from India and Kuwait.

AASBCO has been conducting several competitions every year, for the students of Indian Schools in Kuwait, mainly the Extempore Speech Competition and the Basketball Tournaments for both boys and girls. Trophies and certifi-

cates for the winners of these events will be given away at this function.

AASBCO invites the presence of all its members and other alumni of St. Berchmans’ College living in Kuwait, on this auspicious occasion.

Please call Mr. Shibu Pallickal (99852331) Mr. Thomas Varghese (97676277) or mail to aabsco.kuwait@gmail.com

Hilton Kuwait Resort launches the ‘Truly Asia’ ilton Kuwait Resort would like to welcome you to their unique Asian food theme, “Truly Asia” at Teatro Restaurant every Friday evening. The official launch was attended by the Ambassadors of South East Asian countries, VIP corporate guests and the media.

Now you can enjoy different Asian cuisines from India, China, Thailand, Japan, Korea and the Philippines that will be prepared and served by our selective Asian chefs all under one roof at Teatro restaurant. Our professional team will take you on a journey accompanied with traditional music, ambience and decoration.

“Truly Asia” will be running along with our other theme nights as “Sea Treasures” every Wednesday night, “Star Light BBQ” every Thursday where guests can enjoy an exquisite BBQ meal under the stars. Not to forget our Friday’s Family Brunch as well.

Hilton Kuwait Resort is proud to welcome all these guests, assuring that all these new cuisines and our famous “Yin Yang”, the Chinese and Thai restaurant, will strengthen the guests’ experience.

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Bangladeshi TV channel’s birthday celebrated he first Bangladeshi digital satellite television “Channel i” viewers forum in Kuwait observed the channel’s reaching of 12 years on September 30, in the hall room of Dosti hotel in Kuwait city.

The event was attended by a number of dignitaries from the Bangladeshi community in Kuwait.

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✦✦✦ Call to classical music lovers: Are you a lover of music? Would you like to promote the traditional Indian classical music in Kuwait? If your answer is in the affirmative, please write ton more details to music_karnatic@yahoo.co. in (that is, music underscore karnatic) with your contact details or call 7978286.

Oct 14

Tulukoota Kuwait announces its “Decennial Parba “on October 14th & 15th. 2010 at American International School Hawally. We invite all Tulukoota Kuwait members to join us for fun filled and exciting events planned to celebrate the milestones throughout Tulukoota Kuwait’s 10 years journey. 14th October Rasamanjari - musical show by Star performer Anuradha Bhatt, Prakash Mahadevan Naveen Koppa & others, Vismaya Jadoo by Mega Magic Star Ganesh Kudroli & troupe. Dr. Mohan Alva Cultural Performances & King of Comedy Navin D Padil presents tulu drama “ Paniyerla aath Panande Budiyerla aath” This is a fun tilled evening for entire family! Join us for a great time. For more information call : Swarna C Shetty - 99006934; Pascal Pinto - 9953 1557; Sathya Narayan 66585077: Suresh Salian - 99161228; Chandrahasa Shetty - 55941955.

OCT 21 Rendezvous 2010: The Kuwait Chapter of the St. Aloysius College Alumni Association (SACAA KUWAIT)

have announced that “Rendezvous” their hallmark event will be conducted on 21st October at Asia Asia Restaurant, Souk Al Watiya, Kuwait City from 8 pm onwards. This year, SACAA Kuwait celebrates five years of its existence in Kuwait. SACAA-Kuwait has been synonymous with various fund raising initiatives through which they consistently supported various needs of their Alma Mater and its students back in Mangalore, India. Through Rendezvous2010, SACAA-Kuwait intends to help generate funds for the Poor Students Fund of St. Aloysius institutions where numerous needy students look forward to assistance to subsidize their costs.

SACAA Kuwait calls upon all Aloysians, their families and also like minded people to join this noble cause and help make life a little better for those needy students back home. For entry passes and further information, kindly contact 66731828, 66746425, 66181041, 94093275, 66699857, 66091962.

OCT 28 Colva feast: Colva United Centre -

Kuwait invites all Colvenkars and wellwishers to attend Feast Mass at Holy Family Cathedral Kuwait - on 28th Oct 2010 at 6.30 pm.

OCT 29 Onathanima tug of war: Thanima is conducting its annual Onam celebrations along with its celebrated tug of war competitions on October 29 at Central School compound, Abbasiya. Cultural procession, concert and other attractive cultural items will add glitter to the evening function in which many prominent personalities are expected to be present. Those teams wishing to participate in the tug of war competition, please contact 99865499 / 97253653 / 66071276 / 99703872.

Nov 17 Trend setter Udupi Restaurant, Kuwait proudly presents “ Gandharva Ganam” a live carnatic classical concert by living legend & maestro Padmabooshan Dr. K.J.Yesudas with his troupe on 17th Nov. 2010 at American International School, Kuwait. Sri. Nagai Murali on

EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India has further revamped and improved its Legal Advice Clinic at the Indian Workers Welfare Center, and made the free service available to Indian nationals on all five working days, i.e. from Sunday to Thursday every week. Kuwaiti lawyers would be available at the Legal Advice Clinic daily from Monday to Thursday, while Indian lawyers would be available on Sundays.

Following are the free welfare services provided at the Indian Workers Welfare Center located at the Embassy of India: [i] 24x7 Helpline for Domestic Workers: Accessible by toll free telephone no. 25674163 from anywhere in Kuwait, it provides information and advice exclusively to Indian domestic sector workers (Visa No. 20) as regards their grievances, immigration and other matters. [ii] Help Desk: It offers guidance to Indian nationals on routine immigration, employment, legal, and other issues (Embassy premises; 9 AM to 1 PM and 2 PM to 4.30 PM, Sunday to Thursday); (iii) Labour Complaints Desk: It registers labor complaints and provides grievance redressal service to Indian workers (Embassy premises; 9 AM to 1 PM and 2 PM to 4.30 PM, Sunday to Thursday); (iv) Shelters: For female and male domestic workers in distress; (v) Legal Advice Clinic: Provides free legal advice to Indian nationals (Embassy premises; Kuwaiti lawyers 3 PM to 5 PM, Monday to Thursday; Indian lawyers 2 PM to 4 PM on Sunday); and (vi) Attestation of Work Contracts: Private sector worker (Visa No. 18) contracts are accepted at the Embassy; 9 AM to 1 PM; Sunday to Thursday; Domestic sector worker (Visa No. 20) contracts are accepted at Kuwait Union of Domestic Labor Offices (KUDLO), Hawally, Al-Othman Street, Kurd Roundabout, Al-Abraj Complex, Office No 9, Mezzanine Floor; 9 AM to 9 PM, Saturday to Thursday; 5 PM to 9 PM on Friday.

EmbAssy of bANGLADEsH The Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Kuwait has taken up an initiative to update the database of Bangladesh nationals residing in the State of Kuwait. For inclusion in the database all the Bangladesh nationals are requested to collect the Registration Form from the Labour Wing of the Embassy. The forms can also be collected sending request to bdoot@kems.net e-mail address. The filled-in forms can also be submitted by hand, by email or by fax (number 2491-3204).

Announcements Theater & Music All level music classes: ‘Treasure of Talents’ (est in 1992) music education program invites all level music classes on piano, theory of music, vocal, flute.

Academic Level teachers help prepare for international exams, children concerts, yearly ‘Treasure of Talents’ Festival and music competitions.

Contact Prof Cezary, Tel. 25320427, 66549009 of Ms Yasmeene - Berlitz Institute Tel: 22542212. 22512533 or email: treasureoftalents@yahoo.com treasureoftalents@hotmail.com

The United States Department of State announces the increase in various visa fees to ensure sufficient resources to cover the increasing cost of processing nonimmigrant visas (NIVs).

US law requires the Department to recover the cost of processing non-immigrant visas through the collection of the application fees. The increased fees are to take effect June 4, 2010. Under the new rule, applicants for all visas that are not petition-based, including B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas and all student and exchange-visitor visas, will pay a fee of $140. Applicants for petition-based visas will pay an application fee of $150, as each of the below categories requires a review of extensive documentation and a more in-depth interview of the applicant than other categories, such as tourists.

These categories include: H visa for temporary workers and trainees L visa for intra-company transferees O visa for aliens with extraordinary ability P visa for athletes, artists and entertainers Q visa for international cultural exchange visitors R visa for religious occupations The application fee for K visas for fiance(e)s of US citizens will be $350. The fee for E visas for treaty-traders and treaty-investors will be $390.

violin, Sri. Bakthavalsalam on Mridangam and Sri. Thripunithura Radhakrishnan on Ghatam. For more details, please contact 66752462 or 66784867.

OCTOBER 22 ‘Jashn e Bahara’n: Indian Cultural Society (ICS) presents “Jashn e Bahara’n” with Ghazal singer Talat Aziz & famous Poets on 22nd October 2010 Friday at 7.30 pm sharp. The Chief Guest for the event will be H.E. AJAI MALHOTRA Ambassador of India and the Guest of honor will be renowned personalities from Kuwait. Young talents from Kuwait will be another attraction of the evening. So, join us for entertainment on 22nd October, 2010 Friday, at the Auditorium Al Jeel Al Jadeed School, Tunees Street, Opp- Al Bahar Center (Canary Restra.) Hawally. For more details. Please contact: 97690035, 66568147, 94450833, 99812832, 97296577, 99788692, 94068099 & 24716004 Email ics.kuwait@gmail.com Web Page: www.nazarkesamne.webs.com

EmbAssy of THAiLAND All foreigners who apply for Tourist Visa at the Royal Thai Embassies and the Royal Thai Consulate General worldwide, including eligible foreigners who apply for Visa on arrival at designated checkpoints, will be exempted from tourist visa fees until 31 March 2011. Such arrangement is for Tourist Visa only.

EMBASSY OF turkEY The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey announces that Turkish language course restarted at the Embassy’s Tourism, Culture and Information Office yesterday (Monday Oct 4). The lessons will be held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00 8:00 pm. For further details and registration please contact. * The Embassy at Tel: 22531785 (only from 9 am to 3 pm) * Or fill the application form on http://kuweyt.befscnet.net and send it to the e-mail: Turkish_embassy_Kuwait@hotmail.com

TV PROGRAMS

32

Monday, October 11, 2010

Orbit / Showtime Listings

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00

Sons of Anarchy Dollhouse Ghost Whisperer GMA Live RPT Kathy Griffin Damages Cold Case The Ellen de Generes Show Drop Dead Diva Dollhouse Sons of Anarchy Good Morning America Live Damages Cold Case The Ellen de Generes Show Without a Trace White Collar The Philanthropist Sons of Anarchy Saving Grace The Ellen de Generes Show GMA Live RPT

00:30 I’m Alive 01:25 Animal Cops Miami 02:20 Untamed And Uncut 03:10 Wildlife SOS 03:35 Rspca: Have You Got What It Takes?

04:00 Corwin’s Quest 04:50 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 05:15 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 05:40 Groomer Has It 06:35 In Too Deep 07:00 Stranger Among Bears 07:25 Stranger Among Bears 07:55 Monkey Life 08:20 Sspca: On The Wildside 08:50 Animal Precinct 09:45 E-Vets: The Interns 10:10 Pet Rescue 10:40 Animal Cops Houston 11:35 Wildlife SOS 12:00 Rspca: Have You Got What It Takes?

12:30 Dogs 101 13:25 Project Puppy 13:50 Project Puppy 14:20 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 14:45 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 15:15 The Pack 15:40 The Pack 16:10 Lions Of Crocodile River 17:10 Dogs 101 18:05 Into The Pride 19:00 Your Worst Animal Nightmares 19:55 Animal Cops Houston 20:50 Lions Of Crocodile River 21:45 Untamed And Uncut 22:40 Your Worst Animal Nightmares 23:35 Into The Pride

00:25 01:00 01:20 01:45 02:05 02:25 02:45 03:10 03:30 03:50 04:10 04:35 04:55 05:15 05:35 06:00 06:20 06:40 07:10 08:10 08:55 09:35 10:05 10:35 11:25 12:25 12:55 13:40 14:25 14:55 15:25 16:15 17:00 17:45 18:15 18:45 19:45 21:15 22:00 22:45 23:45

Only Fools And Horses Tweenies Teletubbies Me Too Balamory Tweenies Teletubbies Me Too Balamory Tweenies Teletubbies Me Too Balamory Tweenies Teletubbies Me Too Balamory Mastermind 2006 Only Fools And Horses The Weakest Link Strictly Come Dancing Doctors Mastermind 2006 New Tricks Only Fools And Horses Only Fools And Horses Strictly Come Dancing The Weakest Link Doctors Mastermind 2006 New Tricks Strictly Come Dancing The Weakest Link Doctors Eastenders Holby City Blackjack1 Jack Dee The Weakest Link Holby City Eastenders

00:00 Cash In The Attic 00:50 Fantasy Homes In The City 01:40 Indian Food Made Easy 02:10 Rhodes Across China 02:55 Living In The Sun 04:10 Antiques Roadshow 05:00 What Not To Wear 05:25 What Not To Wear 05:50 Bargain Hunt 06:35 Hidden Potential 07:00 Cash In The Attic USA 07:20 Rhodes Across China 08:05 House Swap 08:50 Cash In The Attic 09:35 Come Dine With Me 10:20 What Not To Wear 10:50 What Not To Wear 11:15 House Swap 12:00 Rhodes Across China 12:45 Antiques Roadshow 13:35 Antiques Roadshow 14:25 MasterChef: The Professionals 14:50 Daily Cooks Challenge 15:20 Daily Cooks Challenge 15:50 Come Dine With Me 16:40 MasterChef: The Professionals 17:10 Wine 18:00 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is 18:50 Cash In The Attic 19:35 Come Dine With Me 20:25 MasterChef: The Professionals 20:50 MasterChef: The Professionals 21:15 What Not To Wear 21:40 What Not To Wear 22:05 Wine 23:00 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is 23:50 Cash In The Attic

00:10 00:35 01:00 01:25 01:50 02:15 02:40 03:05 03:30 04:00 04:25 04:55 05:20 05:45 06:10 06:35 07:00 07:30 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:15 09:40 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:20 11:45 12:10 12:35 13:00 13:20 13:45 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:20 16:45 17:10 17:35 18:00 18:25 18:50 19:15 19:40 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:40 22:05 22:30 22:55 23:20 23:45

The Jetsons Pink Panther And Pals Tom And Jerry Popeye Classics Scooby Doo Where Are You! Tom And Jerry Kids A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Yogi’s Treasure Hunt Tex Avery Show Tom And Jerry Looney Tunes The Flintstones The Jetsons Tom And Jerry Kids The Garfield Show Duck Dodgers The Scooby Doo Show Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley King Arthur’s Disasters Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Popeye Scooby Doo Where Are You! Top Cat Hong Kong Phooey Duck Dodgers The Jetsons The Flintstones Looney Tunes Tom And Jerry Top Cat Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley The Scooby Doo Show Johnny Bravo Dexter’s Laboratory Looney Tunes Duck Dodgers The Garfield Show The Flintstones The Jetsons Looney Tunes Tom And Jerry The Scooby Doo Show Hong Kong Phooey Top Cat The Garfield Show The Scooby Doo Show Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch Popeye The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop Scooby-Doo And Scrappy-Doo Looney Tunes The Flintstones

00:00 The Powerpuff Girls 00:15 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 00:40 The Secret Saturdays 01:05 Codename: Kids Next Door 01:30 Ben 10

12 Rounds on Show Movies

01:55 Best ED 02:20 Samurai Jack 02:45 Cramp Twins 03:10 Eliot Kid 03:35 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 04:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 04:25 Chowder 04:50 Best ED 05:15 Chop Socky Chooks 05:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 06:05 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 06:30 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 06:55 Eliot Kid 07:20 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 07:30 Squirrel Boy 07:55 Robotboy 08:20 Camp Lazlo 08:45 The Powerpuff Girls 09:10 Class Of 3000 09:35 Ed, Edd N Eddy 10:00 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 10:25 Codename: Kids Next Door 10:50 Ben 10 11:15 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 11:40 Squirrel Boy 12:05 Eliot Kid 12:35 Casper’s Scare School 13:00 Skunk Fu! 13:25 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 13:50 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 14:15 The Secret Saturdays 14:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 15:05 Hero 108 15:30 Chop Socky Chooks 16:00 Best ED 16:25 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 16:50 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 17:05 The Powerpuff Girls 17:30 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 17:45 Ben 10: Alien Force 18:10 Ed, Edd N Eddy 18:35 Robotboy 19:00 Camp Lazlo 19:25 Samurai Jack 19:50 Megas Xlr 20:15 Out Of Jimmy’s Head 20:40 Chowder 21:05 Cow And Chicken 21:30 Cramp Twins 21:55 George Of The Jungle 22:20 Adrenalini Brothers 22:45 Eliot Kid 23:10 Ed, Edd N Eddy 23:35 Ben 10: Alien Force

00:00 The Young Americans-PG15 02:00 Broken Lines-PG15 04:00 Escape To Victory-PG15 06:00 Fireproof-PG 08:00 Tribute-PG15 10:00 Northern Lights-PG 12:00 Nights In Rodanthe-PG15 14:00 Ambrose Bierce: Civil War Stories-PG15 16:00 Frozen River-PG15 18:00 Scream Of The Ants-PG15 20:00 Red Rock West-18 22:00 Holly-R

00:25 01:20 01:50 02:15 02:40 03:05 04:00 04:25 05:15 06:10 07:05 08:00 08:55 09:25 09:50 10:20 11:15 12:10 13:05 14:00 14:55 15:50 16:15 16:40 17:05 17:35 18:00 18:55 19:50 20:45 21:40 22:35 23:30

X-Machines How Stuff’s Made How Stuff Works Destroyed In Seconds Destroyed In Seconds Extreme Engineering Fifth Gear Extreme Engineering Chop Shop: London Garage Mythbusters Ultimate Survival Overhaulin’ Border Security How Stuff’s Made How Stuff Works Mythbusters Miami Ink Ultimate Survival - The Pilot Dirty Jobs Overhaulin’ Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security The Gadget Show How Stuff Works How It’s Made Dual Survival Deadliest Catch Swamp Loggers Deadly Women Chop Shop: London Garage Dirty Jobs Dual Survival

00:00 The Colony 00:50 The Colony 01:45 Catch It Keep It 02:40 How Stuff’s Made 03:10 The Future Of...

04:00 Thunder Races 05:00 Sci-Trek 06:00 What’s That About?

06:55 Stunt Junkies 07:20 The Gadget Show 07:50 The Future Of...

08:45 How Stuff’s Made 09:15 Da Vinci’s Machines 10:10 Weird Connections 10:35 What’s That About?

11:30 Nextworld 12:25 The Gadget Show 12:55 Sci-Trek 13:50 Building The Biggest 14:45 Brainiac 15:40 Mega World 16:30 Superships 17:20 How It’s Made 17:45 The Gadget Show 18:10 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 19:00 Mega World 19:50 Superships 20:40 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 21:30 The Gadget Show 21:55 Building The Biggest 22:45 Mega World 23:35 Superships

03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:40 05:05 05:30 06:00 06:25 06:50 07:15 07:40 08:05 08:30 09:00 09:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:25 11:50 12:15 12:45 13:15 13:40 14:05 14:30 14:55 15:20 15:45 16:10 16:35 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:25 18:55 19:20 20:00

K9 Adventures American Dragon Kid Vs Kat Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Kick Buttowski Pokemon Zeke And Luther Zeke And Luther I’m In The Band The Super Hero Squad Show Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Aaron Stone Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Kid Vs Kat Kid Vs Kat The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody Zeke And Luther The Super Hero Squad Show Kick Buttowski I’m In The Band Suite Life On Deck Zeke And Luther Zeke And Luther Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Kick Buttowski Pokemon American Dragon Aaron Stone Kid Vs Kat Phineas And Ferb I’m In The Band The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody Shreducation Programmes Start At 6:00am KSA

00:15 01:10 02:05 02:30 03:00 Feuds 04:45 05:10 05:35 06:25 06:50 07:15 08:05 08:30 09:00 09:50 10:15 10:40 11:05 11:30 12:25 13:15 13:40 14:10 14:35 15:00 15:50 16:15 16:40 17:30 17:55 18:20 18:45 19:10 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:40 22:30 22:55 23:20

Extreme Hollywood Sexiest Battle of the Hollywood Hotties Streets of Hollywood 30 Most Outrageous Celebrity

00:20 00:45 01:10 02:00 02:50 03:15 04:05 04:30 05:00 05:30 06:00 06:25 06:50 07:15 08:05 08:30 08:55 09:45 10:10 10:35 11:25 11:50 12:15 12:40 13:05 13:55 14:20 14:45 15:10 15:35 16:00 16:25 16:50 17:15 17:40 18:30 18:55 19:20 20:10 20:35 21:00 21:50 22:40 23:05 23:30 23:55

Eds Up Eds Up Winter X Games Winter X Games Mantracker Mantracker Mantracker I-Ex I-Ex I-Ex Relentless Skate Tour Relentless Wakeboard Tour Summer Of Skate, A Saab Salomon Mountain-X Race Saab Salomon Mountain-X Race Rebel Tv 17 Fim World Motorcross Fantasy Factory Fantasy Factory Mantracker Tread Bmx Tread Bmx Untracked Untracked Fim World Motorcross Fantasy Factory Fantasy Factory Relentless Skate Tour Relentless Wakeboard Tour Summer Of Skate, A Saab Salomon Mountain-X Race Saab Salomon Mountain-X Race Saab Salomon Mountain-X Race Rebel Tv 17 Mantracker Fantasy Factory Fantasy Factory Fim World Motorcross Untracked Untracked Mantracker Fim World Motorcross Tread Bmx Tread Bmx Untracked Untracked

Behind the Scenes Behind the Scenes E! News Denise Richards: It’s Complicated Kourtney & Khlo√© Take Miami THS E!ES E!ES E! News Behind the Scenes Pretty Wild Keeping Up with the Kardashians Kendra E!ES E!ES Behind the Scenes Behind the Scenes Keeping Up with the Kardashians Keeping Up with the Kardashians E! News Keeping Up with the Kardashians Pretty Wild THS Kendra Chelsea Lately The Spin Crowd The Spin Crowd E! News The Soup Kendra Kourtney & Khlo√© Take Miami Pretty Wild Dr 90210 Wildest TV Show Moments Reality Hell THS

00:00 Barefoot Contessa 00:30 Unwrapped 01:00 Food Network Challenge 02:00 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 02:30 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 03:00 Food Network Challenge 04:00 Paula’s Best Dishes 04:25 Good Deal With Dave Lieberman 04:50 Guy’s Big Bite 05:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 05:40 Everyday Italian 06:05 30 Minute Meals 06:30 Tyler’s Ultimate 07:00 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 07:30 Barefoot Contessa 08:00 Unwrapped 08:30 Paula’s Party 09:30 Guy’s Big Bite 10:00 Good Deal With Dave Lieberman 10:30 Paula’s Best Dishes 11:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 11:30 Everyday Italian 12:00 30 Minute Meals 12:30 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 13:00 Iron Chef America 14:00 Barefoot Contessa 14:30 Unwrapped 15:00 Paula’s Best Dishes 15:30 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 16:00 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 16:30 Good Deal With Dave Lieberman 17:00 Food Network Challenge 18:00 Barefoot Contessa 18:30 Everyday Italian 19:00 Iron Chef America 20:00 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 20:30 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 21:00 Chopped 22:00 30 Minute Meals 22:30 Tyler’s Ultimate 23:00 Food Network Challenge

02:30 MLB: Divisional Playoffs - Teams TBA (if necessary), all times/dates tentative, check local listings OR PAC-10 Football #5 (D) 05:30 World Sport 2010 06:00 Golf Central International 06:30 The Golf Channel - TBA 09:00 MLB: Divisional Playoffs - Teams TBA (if necessary), all times/dates tentative, check local listings OR NFL #9 12:00 Champions Tour Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship Final Rd. from Potomac, MD 14:00 ACC: TBA at TBA 17:00 NFL TBA at TBA 20:00 MLB: Divisional Playoffs - Teams TBA (if necessary), all times/dates tentative, check local listings OR NFL #9 23:00 World Sport 2010 23:30 MLB: Divisional Playoffs - Teams TBA (if necessary), all times/dates tentative, check local listings OR Big 12 Football #10

00:05 01:00 01:55 02:20 03:10 03:35 04:00 04:50 05:40 06:30 07:20 08:10 09:00 09:25 09:50 10:40 11:30 12:20 13:10 14:00 14:50 15:40 16:30 16:55 17:20 18:10 19:00 19:50 20:40 21:30 22:20 23:10

True Crime Scene I Almost Got Away With It Ghosthunters FBI Files Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls Forensic Detectives FBI Files Undercover Solved Forensic Detectives Life or Death: Medical Mysteries Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls Hot Art Disappeared Forensic Detectives FBI Files Undercover Solved Forensic Detectives Life or Death: Medical Mysteries Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls Hot Art Disappeared FBI Case Files Forensic Justice Dr G: Medical Examiner A Haunting FBI Files FBI Case Files

03:00 03:25 03:45 04:10 04:15 04:40 05:05 05:10 05:35 06:00 06:05 06:30 06:55 07:20 07:45 08:10 08:30 08:55 09:20 09:45 10:10 10:35 11:00 11:25 11:50 12:15 12:40 13:05 13:10 13:15 13:40 14:05 14:30 14:50 15:15 15:20 15:35 16:00 16:20 16:45 17:10 17:30 18:00 18:25 18:50 19:10 19:35 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:40 22:00

Dennis The Menace Beverly Hills Teen Club Pelswick Boo and Me Fat Dog Mendoza The Fairly OddParents The Beach Crew Cyberchase Birdz The Beach Crew Heathcliff Ned’s Newt New Adventures of Madeline Rupert Babar Max and Ruby Corduroy Rupert New Adventures of Madeline Ned’s Newt Corduroy Max and Ruby Babar Rupert Ned’s Newt Beverly Hills Teen Club Sabrina The Animated Series The Beach Crew Boo and Me New Adventures of Ocean Girl Dino Squad The Future is Wild Rescue Heroes Even Stevens The Beach Crew Boo and Me Fat Dog Mendoza Sonic Underground Dino Squad The Future is Wild Rescue Heroes Ace Lightning Even Stevens Sabrina The Animated Series Tales from the Cryptkeeper Rescue Heroes Ace Lightning New Adventures of Ocean Girl Sabrina The Animated Series Sonic Underground Fat Dog Mendoza Tales from the Cryptkeeper Even Stevens Marathon

01:35 03:20 05:00 06:55

Heat Final Approach The Black Stallion Curse Of The Pink Panther

Love Happens on Super Movies 08:45 10:25 12:00 13:40 15:30 17:20 19:00 20:40 22:10 23:50

Mystery Date The Spikes Gang Love Bites Yours, Mine And Ours Where Angels Fear To Tread High Spirits Madison Jiminy Glick In Lala Wood Dream Lover War Party

00:00 Saturday Night Live 01:30 Entourage 02:00 Entourage 02:30 Yes Dear 03:00 Frasier 03:30 The Drew Carey Show 04:00 Best of Late night with Jimmy Fallon 05:00 Two and half men 05:30 Yes Dear 06:00 Frasier 06:30 The Drew Carey Show 07:00 Will & Grace 07:30 Better off Ted 08:00 Everybody Loves Raymond 08:30 Frasier 09:00 Best of Tonight Show with Jay Leno 10:00 Two and half men 10:30 Yes Dear 11:00 Frasier 11:30 Community 12:00 Better Off Ted 12:30 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (repeat) 13:00 The Colbert Report (repeat) 13:30 The Drew Carey Show 14:00 Best of Late night with Jimmy Fallon 15:00 Two and half men 15:30 Will & Grace 16:00 Better Off Ted 16:30 Community 17:00 Cougar Town 17:30 Cougar Town 18:00 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Global Edition) 18:30 Colbert Report Global 19:00 Monday night Stand Up 20:00 Life & times of Tim 20:30 Better Off Ted 21:00 Community 21:30 Two and half men 22:00 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Global Edition) 22:30 Colbert Report Global 23:00 Best Late night with Jimmy Fallon

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 PG15 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Under The Mountain-PG My Life In Ruins-PG15 The Princess And The Frog-FAM Appaloosa-PG15 All She Wants For Christmas-

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 PG15 08:00 10:00 12:00 PG15 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:10 22:00

Max Payne-PG15 Mortal Kombat-PG Shifty-PG15 Thor: Hammer Of The Gods-

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00

Bolt-FAM Rrrrrrr!!!-PG15 Loins Of Punjab Presents-PG15 Scrooged-PG Baby Mama-PG Girl’s Best Friend-PG15

Eva-PG15 The Princess And The Frog-FAM 12 Rounds-PG15 Sleuth-18 Transporter 3-18 Tenderness-18 The Two Mr. Kissles-18

13:00 Backseat-PG15 15:00 The War Of The Roses-PG15 17:00 The First $20 Million Is Always The Hardest-PG15 19:00 High Life-18 21:00 Zero Effect-PG15 23:00 The War Of The Roses-PG15

01:00 03:00 05:00 FAM 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 FAM 23:00

Red Wall: The Movie-FAM Legend Of The Titanic-FAM Babar: King Of The Elephants-

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 03:30 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 09:30 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 15:30 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Mercy The View Downsize Me Emmerdale Coronation Street Mercy Yes Dear Downsize Me Mercy The View Emmerdale Coronation Street Yes Dear CSI: NY Kings What’s Good For you The View Emmerdale Coronation Street CSI: Miami Lost Special Mercy The View What’s Good For you CSI: Miami Lost Special Yes Dear

01:00 01:30 03:30 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 16:30 19:00 21:00 22:00 22:30 23:00

ICC Cricket World Currie Cup Futbol Mundial European Challenge Cup Currie Cup Euro 2012 Qualifier PGA European Tour Premier League Snooker Euro 2012 Qualifier PGA European Tour Highlights ICC Cricket World World Sport Rugby Union ITM CUP

00:00 03:30 04:00 09:30 11:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 17:00

Premier League Snooker World Sport PGA European Tour European Challenge Cup Premier League Snooker Futbol Mundial ICC Cricket World PGA European Tour Highlights European Challenge Cup

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:30 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00

WWE Bottom Line WWE NXT WWE Vintage Collection UFC Unleashed WWE Bottom Line Red Bull X-Fighters Planet Power Boats Le Mans Series Highlights UAE National Race Day WWE Vintage Collection V8 Supercars Championship UFC Countdown UFC Wired UFC Unleashed UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC Countdown WWE Smackdown

Red Wall: The Movie-FAM The Three Musketeers-PG Kung Fu Panda-PG Space Buddies-PG Hey Arnold! The Movie-PG Max Keeble’s Big Move-PG The Three Musketeers-PG Babar: King Of The ElephantsHey Arnold! The Movie-PG

House Under Siege-PG15 Hide-PG15 Thor: Hammer Of The GodsIce Twisters-PG15 Resident Evil 3-18 Se7en -PG15 Dark Ride-18 Resident Evil 3-18

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 PG15 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

It’s A Free World-PG15 Ice Castles-PG15 Four Extraordinary Women-PG15 Five Minutes Of Heaven-PG15 Creation-PG15 The Memory Keeper’s Daughter-

00:00 00:55 01:50 02:40 03:30 04:20 05:10 06:00 06:55 07:50 08:40 09:30 10:20 11:10 12:00 12:55 13:50 14:40 15:30 16:20 17:10 18:00 18:55 19:50 20:40 21:30 22:20 23:10

How The Earth Was Made 2 Tales Of The Gun Clash Of The Gods Ancient Discoveries Modern Marvels The Universe 3 Ufo Files How The Earth Was Made 2 Tales Of The Gun Clash Of The Gods Ancient Discoveries Modern Marvels The Universe 3 Ufo Files How The Earth Was Made 2 Tales Of The Gun Clash Of The Gods Ancient Discoveries Modern Marvels The Universe 3 Ufo Files Life After People The Universe Ax Men Engineering Disasters Ice Road Truckers 2 Dogfights Ancient Discoveries

Witness To Waco-PG15 Five Minutes Of Heaven-PG15 Love Happens-PG15 Doubt-PG15 Michael Jackson’s This Is It-PG Saw V-R

00:00 Word Travels 00:30 Culture Shock 01:00 Cruising the Spirit of Adventure 02:00 Globe Trekker 03:00 Julian and Camilla’s World Odyssey 04:00 The Thrillseekers Guide 04:30 PhotoXplorers 05:00 Globe Trekker 06:00 Travel Oz 06:30 Grannies On Safari 07:00 Word Travels 07:30 Essential 08:00 Chef Abroad 08:30 Opening Soon 09:00 The Big Fish 09:30 Skier’s World 10:00 Globe Trekker Special 11:00 Planet Food 12:00 Flavours of Chile 12:30 Grannies On Safari 13:00 Word Travels 13:30 Essential 14:00 Globe Trekker 15:00 Travel Oz 15:30 Chef Abroad 16:00 Flavours Of Mexico 16:30 Opening Soon 17:00 Globe Trekker 18:00 Planet Food 19:00 Hollywood and Vines 19:30 The Thirsty Traveler 20:00 Working Holiday 21:00 Globe Trekker 22:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 23:00 Planet Food

01:00 01:25 03:20 04:00 05:50 07:40 09:15 12:15 14:15 15:40 17:20

The Screening Room The Year Of Living Dangerously The Screening Room Boys’ Night Out Bhowani Junction Born Free Nicholas And Alexandra Never So Few The Honeymoon Machine To Have And Have Not The Wizard Of Oz

Monday, October 11, 2010

33 ACCOMMODATION Sharing accommodation available for one executive Indian bachelor, near United Indian School, Abbassiya.

Contact: 94917087.

(C 2745) Flat for rent in Khaitan near Pakistani International School. 2 bedrooms + big hall + 2 bath + big kitchen & balcony, good location. Call: 99322585. (C 2749) Sharing accommodation available for small family or couple in a 2 BHK flat near Hi-dine supermarket at Abbassiya.

Contact: 99396714 after 5 pm.

(C 2750) 11-10-2010 Sharing accommodation available for executive bachelor(s)/couple in a two bed & two bathroom flat with all facilities at Abbassiya, near United Indian School. Please Call: 97552140. (C 2742) Sharing accommodation available for couple & small family, 2 bedroom flat in New Riggai. Contact: 66889615. (C 2736) Sharing accommodation available for families/working ladies in Abbasiya in a new building with two rooms and two toilets (near United Indian School) from November 1st onwards. Please contact: 66772421 / 66552412. (C 2738) 9-10-2010

Furnished CA/C flat for sale as from 01-11-2010 in front of Masjid in Khaitan.

Interested please contact: 99854094/94928732.

(C 2743) 9-1-2010 Full furniture & household items of spacious 2 B.R.H. Central A/C Flat. Near Bhel Puri Shop, Indian School, Salmiya.

Contact: 66226145 (C 2734) 7-10-2010 Pool table with all the accessories for sale. Tel: 99792777. (C 2727) 6-10-2010

MATRIMONIAL Proposals are invited for Hindu Nair girl, BSc Nurse, 24 years old working in Amrutha Hospital, from well educated Nair boys working in Kuwait or aboard. Contact with biodata thru Email: t_pillai10@yahoo.com (C 2737) 11-10-2010 Bride needed - Inviting proposal for a Malankara Catholic boy, working in Kuwait as an Accountant, will be going for vacation 2nd week of November.

Interested please contact : alexlukose@hotmai.com (C 2744) 10-10-2010 A bride wanted for a Roman Catholic young man (42 yrs), now working in Kuwait for PSA company at American Army Base.

Unmarried/Widows preferred, religion no bar.

Please contact through my Email address: sunnyfrancis66@yahoo.com (C 2739) Proposals are invited for Hindu Nair girl BSC nurse, 24 year working in Amrutha Hospital, well educated Nair boys working in Kuwait or abroad contact with BioData. Email ID: t_pillai10@yahoo.com (C 2737) 9-10-2010

SITUATION WANTED

Small Indian family requires maid preferably Indian, Nepali, Indonesian, Ethiopian. English speaking, good cook, good household work, experienced baby-sitter.

Contact 66014855, Fax: 24839128, E-mail: buildermerchants@yahoo.com

(C 2746) I am an IT Professional-

Software & web Development (Java, PHP, .NET), holding MCA & M.Phil. CS, with one year experience, transferable visa (No.18) and in search for a job in IT sector. Contact: 97796702 or samjohn2u@gmail.com (C 2748) 11-10-2010 A Jordanian artist who can teach drawing of portraits, caricature, story books, as well as designing logos and posters. Tel: 60986750.

(C 2741) 9-10-2010 Indian male, Accountant having six years experience in Kuwait looking for suitable opening. Can handle accounts up to finalization and good working experience in Accounting Modules. Interested please contact: 65067919. (C 2725) 9-10-2010 A qualified full time / part time accountant with 20 years of experience in Kuwait available for accounting, finance management, budgeting, auditing, costing, banking, jobs and up finalization. Please Call: 66467800 (C 2728) 6-10-2010

CHANGE OF NAME

No: 14876

I Syed Sahib Peer Baba Syed Ayzaz Hussain s/o Syed Sahib Peer holding Indian Passport No. A9109107, resident of Bangalore, India, change my name to BABA SYED AYZAZ HUSSAIN. (C 2747) 11-10-2010

SITUATION VACANT

Urgently need young, healthy person Indian driver for a very good and decent Kuwaiti Doctor family near Kuwait City area. Good Salary, if need residence, or visa or Kuwait driving license. For anything we help. Please call immediately: 60741156. (C 2733) 7-10-2010

Sharing accommodation available for a bachelor with a Kerala bachelor in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh. Contact: 66475154. (C 2731) Sharing accommodation available for Indian nonsmoking bachelors in old Riggae near Tariq Al-Ghanim. Contact: 97525930 from November 1st 2010.

(C 2732)

FOR SALE 2010 Toyota Corolla 1.6 XLi, colour white, KM done 14,000, excellent condition, new brand car, option C.D sensor wood dicore and ele. folding mirror, service only Sayer. Cash Price KD 4,100. Cont. 99934965.

(C 2740)

FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION 161

FLIGHT SCHEDULE

In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines

Arrival Flights on Monday 110/2010 Flt Route

Wataniya Airways Wataniya Airways Bangladesh Gulf Air Turkish Egypt Air Jazeera DHL Emirates Etihad Qatari Ethiopian Falcon Air Arabia Egypt Falcon Jazeera Jazeera Kuwait Jazeera British Jazeera Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Fly Dubai Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Emirates Arabia Qatari Etihad Jazeera Gulf Air Middle East Jazeera Iran Aseman Jazeera Egypt Air Oman Air Kuwait Jordanian United Fly Dubai Jazeera Saudia Kuwait

188 305 045 211 772 614 267 370 853 305 138 622 201 553 201 637 503 412 527 157 529 204 382 302 053 676 352 284 344 362 855 121 132 301 425 213 404 447 6521 171 610 645 672 800 982 057 257 500 552

Bahrain Cairo Dhaka/Bahrain Bahrain Istanbul Cairo Beirut Bahrain Dubai Abu Dhabi Doha Addis Ababa/Bahrain Dubai Alexandria Dubai Aleppo Luxor Manila/Bangkok Alexandria London Assiut Lahore Delhi Mumbai Dubai Dubai Cochin Dhaka Chennai Colombo Dubai Sharjah Doha Abu Dhabi Bahrain Bahrain Beirut Doha Lamerd Dubai Cairo Muscat Dubai Amman Washington DC Dulles Dubai Beirut Jeddah Damascus

Time 00:30 00:50 01:05 01:05 01:15 02:05 02:10 02:15 02:25 02:55 03:25 03:30 05:25 03:40 05:25 05:45 05:50 06:15 06:20 06:30 06:40 07:10 07:20 07:50 07:55 08:00 08:05 08:10 08:20 08:20 08:25 08:40 09:00 09:20 10:25 10:45 10:50 11:20 11:45 12:40 12:55 13:15 13:15 13:35 13:35 13:50 14:05 14:30 14:35

Nas Air Jazeera Qatari Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Wataniya Airways Kuwait Etihad Emirates Gulf Air Saudia Wataniya Airways Jazeera Arabia Wataniya Airways Jazeera SriLankan Kuwait Wataniya Airways Wataniya Airways Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Jazeera Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Indian Fly Dubai Wataniya Airways Middle East Rovos Jet A/W KLM Wataniya Airways DHL Gulf Air Jazeera Emirates Qatari United Jazeera Jazeera Jazeera Tunis Air Lufthansa Pakistan Wataniya Airways

745 525 134 548 546 678 118 104 502 303 857 215 510 202 239 125 432 367 227 104 304 106 542 786 618 177 744 674 614 774 575 061 186 402 081 572 0445 404 372 217 459 859 136 981 429 449 185 327 636 239 108

Jeddah Alexandria Doha Luxor Alexandria Muscat/Abu Dhabi New York Dubai Beirut Abu Dhabi Dubai Bahrain Riyadh Jeddah Amman Sharjah Damascus Deirezzor Colombo/Dubai London Cairo Dubai Cairo Jeddah Doha Dubai Dammam Dubai Bahrain Riyadh Chennai/Goa Dubai Bahrain Beirut Baghdad Mumbai Amsterdam Beirut Bahrain Bahrain Damascus Dubai Doha Bahrain Bahrain Doha Dubai Tunis Frankfurt Sialkot Dubai

14:55 15:00 15:05 15:10 15:30 15:35 16:15 16:30 16:45 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:20 17:20 17:40 17:40 17:50 17:55 18:00 18:35 18:35 18:45 18:50 18:55 18:55 19:05 19:15 19:20 19:20 19:25 19:30 20:05 20:15 20:20 20:30 20:30 20:40 20:50 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:15 21:35 21:55 22:15 22:30 22:40 23:35 23:45 23:55 23:55

Departure Flights on Monday 11/10/2010

Airlines

Flt

Route

Time

Jazeera India Express KLM Lufthansa Safi Indian Pakistan Turkish Bangladesh Egypt Air DHL Emirates Etihad Ethiopian Air Arabia Egypt Qatari Jazeera Jazeera Gulf Air Jazeera Jazeera British Jazeera Kuwait Fly Dubai Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait Arabia Kuwait Emirates Qatari Etihad Kuwait Gulf Air Kuwait Wataniya Airways Middle East Kuwait Jazeera Jazeera Wataniya Airways Wataniya Airways Kuwait Kuwait Egypt Air Iran Aseman Oman Air

528 390 0447 637 216 982 206 773 046 615 371 854 306 622 554 139 422 446 212 524 256 156 170 545 054 677 671 551 122 547 856 133 302 501 214 165 303 405 541 238 366 201 431 103 785 611 6522 646

Assiut Mangalore/Kozhikode Amsterdam Frankfurt Kabul Ahmedabad/Hyderabad/Chennai Peshawar/Lahore Istanbul Dhaka Cairo Bahrain Dubai Abu Dhabi Addis Dhabi Alexandria Doha Bahrain Doha Bahrain Alexandria Beirut London Dubai Alexandria Dubai Abu Dhabi/Muscat Dubai Damascus Sharjah Luxor Dubai Doha Abu Dhabi Beirut Bahrain Rome/Paris Cairo Beirut Cairo Amman Deirezzor Jeddah Damascus London Jeddah Cairo Lamerd Muscat

00:05 00:25 00:30 00:50 01:00 01:05 01:10 02:15 02:15 03:05 03:15 03:45 04:00 04:15 04:20 05:00 07:30 07:40 07:45 08:00 08:05 08:25 08:30 08:35 08:40 08:45 09:00 09:10 09:20 09:20 09:40 10:00 10:10 11:00 11:35 11:45 11:50 11:50 12:00 12:10 12:15 12:25 12:25 12:30 13:30 13:55 13:45 14:15

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

Wataniya Airways Jordanian Fly Dubai United Jazeera Kuwait Wataniya Airways Kuwait Saudia Nas Air Jazeera Kuwait Qatari Kuwait Kuwait Rovos Etihad Wataniya Airways Gulf Air Emirates Kuwait Arabia Jazeera Saudia Kuwait Jazeera SriLankan Jazeera Wataniya Airways Wataniya Airways Kuwait Fly Dubai Kuwait Middle East Jet A/W Wataniya Airways KLM Gulf Air DHL Kuwait Emirates Falcon Kuwait Qatari Kuwait Kuwait Jazeera United Jazeera Kuwait

105 801 058 982 176 673 403 617 501 746 458 773 135 613 743 082 304 306 216 858 543 126 184 511 285 448 228 428 433 107 283 062 331 403 571 187 0445 218 373 675 860 102 381 137 301 205 526 981 502 411

Dubai Amman Dubai Bahrain Dubai Dubai Beirut Doha Jeddah Jeddah Damascus Riyadh Doha Bahrain Dammam Baghdad Abu Dhabi Cairo Bahrain Dubai Cairo Sharjah Dubai Riyadh Chittagong Doha Dubai/Colombo Bahrain Damascus Dubai Dhaka Dubai Trivandrum Beirut Mumbai Bahrain Bahrain/Amsterdam Bahrain Bahrain Dubai Dubai Bahrain Delhi Doha Mumbai Islamabad Alexandria Washington DC Dulles Luxor Bangkok/Manila

14:30 14:30 14:35 14:50 14:55 15:10 15:10 15:35 15:45 15:45 15:50 16:05 16:20 16:20 16:25 17:00 17:35 18:05 18:05 18:05 18:10 18:20 18:30 18:35 18:45 18:50 19:10 19:20 19:30 19:40 20:00 20:50 21:00 21:20 21:30 21:35 21:40 21:55 22:00 22:10 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:55 23:20 23:40 23:40 23:40

SPECTRUM

34

Monday, October 11, 2010

Calvin

CROSSWORD 106

Aries (March 21-April 19) There is a greater than

usual interest in relationships, social connections and the arts—on a more intellectual level than in the past, most likely. A dreamy manner or appearance, plus the ability to enchant others, finds this a time when mysticism and idealism seem to really be living in you. Harmonious ties to others are what you yearn for; refinement and elegance are what you seek. The ideal partnership, the perfect balance and the highest standards of truth and beauty are some of the things that quicken your pulse. Close relationships offer a lot of potential for growth and good fortune. A marriage or other partnership can raise high hopes and give your spirits a boost. People close to you are optimistic and have good input and attitudes.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Breakthroughs regarding

relationships and the social life are obtainable. Possibly there will be unconventional, but acceptable approaches and techniques to partnerships and lovers.

You may find yourself pursuing very eccentric or different methods of communicating and enjoying every moment. You can give as much support to others as you would want them to give back to you.

There is a little boost or enthusiasm for your ideas. You may discover insights into day-to-day problems that will be valuable later. There are many rewarding days ahead. You will reap the rewards of your hard work and there is satisfaction that comes when you do your best. Fun discussions around the dinner table tonight lead to good relationships.

Pooch Cafe

ACROSS 1. 32nd President of the United States.

4. Discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of.

10. Above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent.

13. A toilet in England.

14. A liquid solution that results from elution.

15. A member of the Siouan people inhabiting the valleys of the Platte and Missouri rivers in Nebraska.

16. Relating to or using sight.

18. Someone whose business is advertising.

20. Italian physiologist noted for his discovery that frogs' muscles contracted in an electric field (which led to the galvanic cell) (1737-1798).

22. (usually followed by `to') Having the necessary means or skill or know-how or authority to do something.

23. A soft white precious univalent metallic element having the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal.

24. French cabaret singer (1915-1963).

27. A port in southwestern Scotland.

28. A university town in east central Maine on the Penobscot River north of Bangor.

31. The jurisdiction or office of an abbot.

33. An Asian river.

35. An artificial language for international use that rejects rejects all existing words and is based instead on an abstract analysis of ideas.

38. Speaking a Slavic language.

39. Severe diabetes mellitus with an early onset.

40. Harsh or corrosive in tone.

42. A state in east central United States.

43. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

48. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

49. Narrow wood or metal or plastic runners used for gliding over snow.

52. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

55. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

57. A city in western Germany.

59. The eighth month of the civil year.

62. (Babylonian) God of wisdom and agriculture and patron of scribes and schools.

63. An informal term for a father.

64. The act of moving along swiftly (as before a gale).

65. Rounded like an egg.

66. Title for the former hereditary monarch of Iran.

67. Produced by a manufacturing process.

68. A small cake leavened with yeast.

DOWN 1. Beat severely with a whip or rod.

2. Amino acid that is formed in the liver and converted into dopamine in the brain.

3. A unit of weight used in some Moslem countries near the Mediterranean.

4. A polygon with 10 sides and 10 angles.

5. A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause).

6. Eurasian perennial bulbous herbs.

7. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

8. A New England state.

9. A beverage made by steeping tea leaves in water.

10. A city in western India just off the coast of the Arabian Sea. 11. A republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula.

12. A person in desperate straits.

17. Russian choreographer (1834-1905).

19. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.

21. Alternatively, a member of the family Nymphaeaceae.

25. A United Nations agency created to assist developing nations by loans guaranteed by member governments.

26. The syllable naming the fourth (subdominant) note of the diatonic scale in solmization.

29. Have confidence or faith in.

30. A Turkish unit of weight equal to about 2.75 pounds.

32. An informal conversation.

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

36. A heavy brittle diamagnetic trivalent metallic element (resembles arsenic and antimony chemically).

37. A public promotion of some product or service.

41. A starch made by leaching and drying the root of the cassava plant.

42. A republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula.

44. (informal) Of the highest quality.

45. (Old Testament) The wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac.

46. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

47. An indehiscent fruit derived from a single ovary having one or many seeds within a fleshy wall or pericarp.

50. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

51. Any plant of the genus Inula.

53. An Indian nursemaid who looks after children.

54. A quantity of no importance.

56. (computer science) A data transmission rate (bits/second) for modems.

58. A person regarded as arrogant and annoying.

59. (used of animals especially a horse) Of a moderate reddish-brown color n 1.

60. A belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.

61. A lyric poem with complex stanza forms.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) This is a great day to decorate for the season ahead. All that is psychic, mysterious and spiritual comes to the forefront today.

This can be inspiring or it can be confusing, depending on how you are able to integrate it into your overall experience. Artistic talent and appreciation are heightened beyond words. To use all the information coming into you today would be to enjoy art, music and creating beauty. While shopping today, you may have some insight into who made or designed some of the things you see and enjoy at this time.

Your mind could be quite clear just now. Ideas are flowing and could come with ease. You can talk, talk, talk. Be careful that you do not overspend or indulge too much just now. Enjoy.

Non Sequitur

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You will be pleased at the progress you have made today—just take a look! This is a rewarding day. There is faith, optimism and a yearning to explore all kinds of new horizons. Travel, education and other ways to stretch your horizons open new doors of opportunity. Religious, philosophical and cultural matters are likely to have special appeal for you now; transmitting ideas on a broader scale brings gain.

Family, home and the other roots in your life give you a sense of mission.

Generally, this is a fruitful period for real estate investments. The exchange of ideas becomes a focal point in your life. Learning a little about a lot of things, staying in touch and on top of the latest developments is satisfying.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You may be feeling more inward and more like sharing some time with your loved one or with close friends. Perhaps this is not a time to be very outward or to try to present yourself to the world. You are feeling reflective rather than expressive just now. Close relationships are important to you and this day may bring about some opportunity to enjoy each other’s company through participating in some sports event. Whether you are watching a game or participating in a game, these are the times you will always remember. Fondness and appreciation for the past and for your roots in life takes on a greater importance. The sale or purchase of real estate is coming up soon and could bring you much gain before this cycle is complete.

Zits

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Opinions are a keynote of the new phase you have begun—the power of ideas and the power they exert over people. Religious, cultural or philosophical controversies and crusades have a way of stirring your blood. There may be great mental activity and heightened communication with others. Intellectualism and the exchange of ideas, the idea of being smart as a fox have a special appeal and importance. Today is a wonderful time to enjoy a day outside or begin a vacation. Travel and adventure are compelling temptations as you dare to test your abilities and see new horizons. In particular, you will do well in activities that include children, young people and your home and surroundings for now. This is a nice day that should just flow along.

Libra (September 23-October 22) You rip through

Mother Goose and Grimm

appearances in an effort to get beneath, behind and at the heart or essence of an issue today. You may find the occult, psychology, initiation and mysticism of great interest. Intense personal change and inner growth are lifelong habits. Positive results can happen if you are looking for a loan today.

You work hard to make your dreams and ideals a reality. You work hard at community or group work. You spare no effort here. Humanitarian goals are central to your life’s work. This is a time to absorb and take in new impressions and information. In summary, here is a breaking point in life, a time to let go of what has been occupying you for the last years and assume a new attitude. You could be most persuasive with others this evening.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You may have insights

or breakthroughs about improvements on your home or living surroundings—perhaps you have just met a knowledgeable repair person or attended a great wallpapering course. Now is the time to gather your tools for whatever you feel you need to accomplish and move forward with your ideas and plans. With that wit of yours, you will be able to pull in the interest of others and gain the help you may need for a project. Later today, you may enjoy relaxing with your friends and celebrate your accomplishments or just celebrate your friendships. This could be as simple as a pizza party. Movies, books and all forms of escape could prove very enjoyable this evening. You may be sought after for your advice tonight.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Now is the time to get away from the usual and enjoy a vacation.

Also, this is a good time to start a diet. Change and inner growth tend to come through your relationships with both friends and lovers. Marriage or some other similar union will be very intense and not at all superficial. You get to the heart of a relationship. Religion, philosophy and truth are essential to your life. You are painstaking and deliberate when it comes to sorting through ideas and values for what is lasting and solid. You may appear to others as too sober or religious. Friends, group projects and community concerns could play a key role that affects your career direction. Altruism and humanitarian works can affect your work and life path.

Yesterday’s Solution

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Until

your thoughts are interrupted by a young person today, you may feel very dreamy and imaginative. You could be involved in a good book or plan to see a new movie. A young person needs your advice and you are able to magically come up with some workable solution that will help. You seem to have a natural sense of how to help others. You usually have clear insight into the person and the problem and the best solution is to stay with the facts and to teach that to others.

Emotions are built into us so that we have an early warning system but we must realize that emotions are not the true indicator of answers. You could be most persuasive with others and eloquent in speech and communication.

Any political issue will gain a positive response.

Yesterday’s Solution

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) There is an opportunity to take control and become more disciplined. You may find answers to some of your storage problems. Since you may not live alone, you will find yourself considering the other person(s). You might be in a position to offer your talents in exchange for a little extra space or some item that will make your space more useful, perhaps some book shelves. New discoveries delight you. If you are left-handed, you may discover there are left-handed scissors on the market; nothing slows your progress. Give yourself time to think through things and you will discover what you are looking for at this time. Future goals are quickly coming to fruition. This evening’s dinner could be served away from home— sometimes called a tailgate meal.

INTERNATIONAL CALLS Kuwait Qatar Abu Dhabi Dubai Raas Al Khayma Al-Shareqa Muscat Jordan Bahrain Riyadh Makkah - Jeddah Cairo Alexandria Beirut Damascus Allepo

00965 00974 009712 009714 009717 009716 00968 009626 00973 009661 009662 00202 00203 009611 0096311 0096321

Tunisia Rabat Washington New York Paris London Madrid Zurich Geneva Monaco Rome Bangkok Hong Kong Pakistan Taiwan Bonn

0021610 002127 001212 001718 00331 004471 00341 00411 004122 0033 00396 00662 00852 0092 00886 0049228

Word Sleuth Solution

Pisces (February 19-March 20) You place a high value on your dreams and do not consider them otherworldly or impossible. You experience the unity around you—that which joins things together. There is a love of the sea and of whatever solves that which separates us. Some of your collections could be pulled out into the open and enjoyed. You might consider some ideas you had for a seashell collection. You could enjoy making a wind chime or a mobile hanging with shells to watch them move in the breeze. This or some other collection is where your energies are today. You possess a waking experience of that part of us that is mystical and dreamlike. You find new ways to bring people together, to unify situations. This is a happy day, one that could be spent with friends.

INFORMATION

Monday, October 11, 2010

35 FIRE BRIGADE Operation Room 112 Al-Madena 22418714 Al-Shohada’a 22545171 Al-Shuwaikh 24810598 Al-Nuzha 22545171 Sabhan 24742838 Al-Helaly 22434853 Al-Fayhaa 22545051 Al-Farwaniya 24711433 Al-Sulaibikhat 24316983 Al-Fahaheel 23927002 Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh 24316983 Ahmadi 23980088 Al-Mangaf 23711183 Al-Shuaiba 23262845 Al-Jahra 25610011 Al-Salmiya 25616368

Ministry of Interior website: www.moi.gov.kw

For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128 HOSPITALS Sabah Hospital

24812000

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

POLICE STATION Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

24874330/9 CLINICS

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Keifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Al-Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

W.Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Al-Ardhiya

24884079

Firdous

4892674

Al-Omariya

4719048

N.Kheitan

4710044

Rabiya

4732263

Fintas

3900322

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988 AIRLINES

PHARMACIES ON 24 HRS DUTY GOVERNORATE Ahmadi

PHARMACY Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

ADDRESS Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

PHONE 23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554

EMERGENCY 112

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists: Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea Dr. Masoma Habeeb Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy Dr. Mohsen Abel Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly

25622444 25752222 25321171 25739999 25757700 25732223 25732223

Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT): Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners: Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists: Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Plastic Surgeons: Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf 22547272

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari Dr. Abdel Quttainah

22617700 25625030/60

Family Doctor: Dr Divya Damodar 23729596/23729581

Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr.

Zahra Qabazard Sohail Qamar Snaa Maaroof Pradip Gujare Zacharias Mathew

25710444 22621099 25713514 23713100 24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari 22635047 Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan 22613623/0 Gynaecologists & Obstetricians: Dr Adrian Harbe 23729596/23729581 Dr. Verginia s.Marin 2572-6666 ext 8321 Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan 22655539 Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami 25343406 Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly 25739272 Dr. Salem soso 22618787 General Surgeons:

Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer 22610044 Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher 25327148

(2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

25655535 Dentists:

Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists:

Paediatricians: Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed 25340300

Rheumatologists: Dr. Adel Al-Awadi 25330060 Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah 25722290 Internist, Chest & Heart: DR.Mohammes Akkad 24555050 Ext 210 Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Tel: 25339667 Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Consultant Cardiologist Tel: 2611555-2622555 Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri 25633324 Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

Internists, Chest & Heart: Dr. Adnan Ebil 22639939 Dr. Mousa Khadada 22666300 Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan 25728004 Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra 25355515 Dr. Mobarak Aldoub 24726446 Dr Nasser Behbehani 25654300/3

Physiotherapists & VD: Dr. Deyaa Shehab 25722291 Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees 22666288

25345875

Gastrologists Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly 25322030 Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Endocrinologist: Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman 25339330 Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari

25658888

Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr

25329924

Psychologists/Psychotherapists Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688 info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677 William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

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Andre’s Hurley admiration

Monday, October 11, 2010

Sleepy date Eva Longoria Parker

to move back

E

va Longoria Pa rker reportedly fell asleep during a dinner date with her husband Tony Parker. The ‘Desperate Housewives’ beauty was so exhausted at the Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles, that she couldn’t keep her eyes open long enough for her food to come out and lay her head on the table as she waited. A source told National Enquirer magazine: “When their meals arrived, Tony didn’t wake his napping bride, but quickly wolfed down his dinner solo and had hers packed to go. Then he gently woke his sleeping beauty, whose eyes were still halfmast, and gallantly guided her out to their car.”

Eva is not the only celebrity to have nodded off during

P

eter Andre has a crush on Elizabeth Hurley. The ‘Mysterious Girl’ singer who has his own range of fragrances for men and women - admits he has admired the model-andactress for several years and was even more impressed by her when they met a few years ago. Pete said: “I went to give her a

kiss at Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara ball and thought, ‘Wow you smell sensational.’ I’ve fancied her since she was in ‘Austin Powers’ but she’s attached, sadly.” As well as Elizabeth, Peter - who has children Junior, five, and three-yearold Princess Tiaamii with ex-wife Katie Price- recently admitted to finding Kim Kardashian is “sexy”. He said: “Rumors keep surfacing about my so-called ‘relationship’ with Kim Kardashian but I’ve never even met the girl! At least when we do meet, we’ll have something to talk about, though. She’s not a bad person to be linked to, given how sexy she is!”

T

he ‘Celebration’ singer - who moved back to her native US following her divorce from British film director Guy Ritchie in 2008 - plans to head back to Britain because she “feels her heart is” in the country, but she will have to apply to move back as she is no longer married to a UK citizen. A source said: “Madonna has loved being back in the States since the divorce but England is where she feels her heart is now. “She is deliberately focusing on work that will keep her in Britain. “She has

had meetings with her London legal team, Mischon de Reya, to arrange a visa that will enable her to move back for good. Now that she is no longer a British citizen by virtue of being married to Guy, she is having to apply like everyone else.” Madonna’s eldest son Rocco, 10, is able to stay in Britain because he is Guy’s son, but her other children - Lourdes, 13 and adopted kids David Banda, five and Mercy James, four will need their mother to complete her visa application before they can live in the UK. The

source added to the Daily Mail newspaper: “The other children will automatically gain visas as Madonna’s dependents as long as she can get past the paperwork.” “The past couple of years have been the breath of fresh air Madonna needed after her divorce, but she is now ready to embrace the British lifestyle again.” Madonna is not the only star to be planning on a move to England - Lady Gaga is also said to be keen to uproot her life to the UK and purchase a castle in the country.

Keira Knightley doubts success K

eira Knightley doesn’t always think she deserves to be famous.

Despite a glittering Hollywood career - after taking the lead in movies including ‘Atonement’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘The Edge of Love’ - the 25year-old beauty has struggled to acknowledge how successful she has become as an actress.

She said: “It’s taken me time to overcome my own doubts and insecurities. It’s been my nature not to want to believe in my own success and that I don’t deserve my success. But that’s something I’ve fought to overcome.” Keira is also still terrified about starting on a new movie set. She explained: “I’m getting better, but the terror is still occasionally there!

Sometimes you have to fight your fear prior to an important scene. You don’t want to make a mess of things. I try not to place so much pressure on myself now.” However, the actress is determined not to let her nerves or self-doubt affect her future career path. She said: “I’m still young and know I will be able to show people that I can play much more complex characters than anything I’ve done up to now. I just have to be patient and take advantage of opportunities that come my way.”

Tempah’s technological tunes Morrison wants pay rise M T inie Tempa h can’t write songs without his BlackBerry. The ‘Pass Out’ hitmaker relies on his mobile communication device to make notes and record the lyrics which he is inspired to write while he’s on tour. He said: “I never really set a time aside for writing, I just write whenever wherever, I carry my Blackberry and if I think of something then I make a bit of a voice note and maybe by the end of the week, I’ll have about 40 different voice notes, and I’ll complete the lyrics or merge a few together, unless I’m working on a project I never just sit down and say I’m going to write now.”

The ‘Written In The Stars’ rapper also credits a great deal of his success to the way the internet and modern technology has changed the way people buy music. He told BANG Showbiz: “I’m a fan of the change to how we buy music now. I’m one of those people who embraces it. “If it wasn’t for the evolution of digital music and the new ways of getting through to people that artists like myself and a lot of artists in the top 40 or top 100 wouldn’t be here without it. Things have changed, but for the better. “I think the internet is a fantastic tool and I’m a very avid twitter fan, I love doing video blogs and if it wasn’t for modern technology I wouldn’t even be here.”

a romantic evening. Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland once dozed off during a cinema trip with a prospective boyfriend, and was snoring so loudly her pal Beyonce Knowles had to wake her up. She recently said: “Once I fell asleep. He was the nicest guy, but I just happened to fall asleep. We were at a movie and yes, he noticed that I fell asleep.

Beyonce had to come up to me and say, ‘You’re snoring. We can hear you snoring back here.’ That was so embarrassing.”

atthew Morrison believes he should be paid more because his hair is “another character” in ‘Glee’. The 31-year-old actor - who plays teacher Mr Schuester in the musical TV series - explained he gets so much attention for his hairstyle in the show that he thinks he should be given a pay rise by Fox bosses. He said: “How do I feel about the jokes about my hair? It doesn’t bother me, but I do feel I should be paid more money because my hair is another character!

“As people once asked for a Rachel from ‘Friends’ haircut, perhaps they’ll soon be asking for a ‘Schuester!’” The hunky actor admitted he has had to add a lot of hats to his wardrobe in order to avoid being recognized by the show’s enthusiastic fans. Matthew added: “My anonymity has gone. I can’t walk five feet without being stopped for a picture.

But you have to embrace it. You work this hard and hope for something like this to come along, so you can’t push it away when it happens. “But I am buying a lot more hats now! I’m also walking around a lot in clear glasses - sunglasses make it look like you’re trying too hard!”

Osbourne praises British beauties

J

ack Osbourne thinks British women are more naturally beautiful than American girls. The reality TV star - who is currently single - insists he isn’t attracted to a particular kind of female but appreciates different qualities in women in both the UK and US. He explained: “If you’re going for a natural beauty, the UK is the best place. But if you want a bit of plastic fantastic and a touch of enhancement, then America is better. “I’m single at the moment, but I don’t mind whether a girl is from the UK or US.” Jack, 24, previously dated Kimberly Stewart and has remained on good terms with the socialite - and even keeps her old breast implants on his living room wall. He explained: “Kim gave them to me after I jokingly asked for them - it wasn’t anything pervy. They just look like plastic balloons on the wall. Unless someone told you what they were, you wouldn’t even realize. “I would put them on another wall if I moved house. They’re funny.”

—Bang Showbiz

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Monday, October 11, 2010

R

Music & Movies

eview

ARTIST: HANK WILLIAMS A L B U M : TH E CO M P L E TE M O TH E R íS B E S T RECORDINGS ... PLUS!

I

n Merle Haggard’s song “The Way It Was in ‘51,” the singer-songwriter recalls, “66 was still a narrow, two-lane highway/Harry Truman was the man who ran the show/The bad Korean War was just beginning/Hank and Lefty crowded every jukebox.”

The “Hank” in question was at the zenith of his career that year, and his young life was less than two years from ending.

1951 also found Hank Williams at his most prolific and productive, as well as hosting a live weekday morning radio show at the Grand Ole Opry’s powerhouse station, WSM Nashville, that was sponsored by the Mother’s Best Flour Co. Taken from fragile acetate discs recorded for playback when Williams was touring, the surviving Mother’s Best shows spent the better part of 60 years in storage and ownership litigation. They finally see daylight in this stunning 16-disc boxed set, painstakingly restored and documented with a hardcover booklet. The audio results are nothing short of staggering, with Williams covering a wide range of his personal favorites and current hits by other stars of the era. Backed by his Drifting Cowboys band and co-hosted with WSM announcer Louie Buck, the set shows Williams as most fans never experienced him-unscripted, warm, folksy and humorous, with everything to live for and still plenty to prove.

ARTIST: TOBY KEITH ALBUM: BULLETS IN THE GUN

T

oby Keith has been writing and playing country music long enough to know every one of its conventions-and how to twist them around. “Bullets in the Gun” is his 14th studio set and fifth for his own Show Dog label. It’s full of shootfrom-the-hip cleverness, whether it’s the screenplayready gunslinger’s tale of the title track or the down-andout character- lovelorn and a Chicago Cubs fan, no lessin “Somewhere Else,” the “Trailerhood” community where they pull out six-packs and lawn chairs to watch a tornado or the guy who tells his ex that “I don’t miss you too much/But I think about you all the time.” Keith and his cohorts do all this with such offhand dexterity that it’s easy to overlook the craft of it all. But the rich melodicism of “Is That All You Got” and “Kissin’ in the Rain” reminds us that’s no mean feat, while “Drive It on Home,” “Think About You All of the Time” and “Ain’t Breakin’ Nothin”“ throw a little brawn into the mix.

ARTIST: KINGS OF LEON ALBUM: COME AROUND SUNDOWN

I

n an interview during their summer tour, Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill said that a lot of fans-lured to the band’s concerts by recent propulsive stadium anthems like “Sex on Fire” and record of the year Grammy Award winner “Use Somebody”-thought the group’s old songs were new ones. Such is the hardship of a group that toiled in domestic semi-obscurity for years while becoming a superstar abroad. On Kings of Leon’s latest album, “Come Around Sundown,” the family Followill makes a strong bid to please longtime fans as well as the recently converted. The current single “Radioactive” has the uplift and bombast to make a strong stand at radio; by contrast, “Mi Amigo” has the strippeddown junkie rock jangle of the greatest songs from 2005’s “Aha Shake Heartbreak.” With “Come Around Sundown,” Kings of Leon may have the ticket to pleasing everyone all of the time.

ARTIST: TRICKY ALBUM: MIXED RACE

T

ricky, the Bristol-born godfather of trip-hop, filters his influences unlike any other artist. He’s not reverent or iconoclastic; neither seamy nor seamless.

But while his music, especially in the post-trip-hop period, openly nods to an army of other styles and artists, it sounds completely new. With his latest album, “Mixed Race,” Tricky picks up where 2008’s “Knowle West Boy” (named after his rough birthplace) left off, exploring his diverse background, musical heritage and frequently unforgiving surroundings with sounds as much as words. The track “Murder Weapon” remakes the dancehall classic by Jamaica’s Echo Minott with Irish/Italian singer Frankey Riley, and “Hakim” features Algerian rai star Rachid Taha vocalizing in Arabic over uptempo beats that recall Thievery Corporation.

Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie sings about faux fame on “Really Real,” while lighthanded synths pop over an unperturbed bass hum that’s got less than half of the old trip-hop rumble. This is 30 minutes of melting pot magic.

ARTIST: MICHAEL W SMITH ALBUM: WONDER

O

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n “Wonder,” Michael W Smith’s 22nd album, the veteran singer-songwriter has never sounded more compelling or impassioned. Teaming once again with producer Bryan Lenox, who helmed Smith’s albums “Freedom” and “This Is Your Time,” the three-time Grammy Award winner delivers a set that’s diverse in terms of subject matter and musically satisfying. The tracks “You Belong to Me” and “Forever Yours” are gorgeous love songs inspired by Smith’s wife of 29 years, Debbie. Elsewhere, “Run to You” boasts a memorable melody and poignant lyric about surrendering to God’s grace, and Smith’s performance on “Leave” — an unsettling yet moving ballad from the viewpoint of a tormented youth seeking escape from a tragic, painful life- is achingly vulnerable. But longtime fans will most likely relate to such buoyant pop anthems as “Save Me From Myself” and “Take My Breath Away.” —Reuters

US soul ‘king’ Solomon Burke dies G

rammy award-winning US singer Solomon Burke, crowned “the King of Rock and Soul” during a career spanning five decades, was pronounced dead yesterday at Amsterdam airport. He was 70 years old. A spokeswoman for The Netherlands’ Amsterdam-Schipol airport confirmed that Burke had died but could not say whether he had died during his flight from Los Angeles or after he arrived at the airport. “I can confirm that Solomon Burke is dead,” spokeswoman Antoinette Spaans told AFP. Burke, whose songs found new audiences through the soundtracks for movies such as “The Blues Brothers” and “Dirty Dancing”, was to have given a concert in Amsterdam’s Paradiso venue on Tuesday with Dutch group De Dijk, with whom he has recorded an album. An ordained church minister, Burke continued to sing and perform around the world. In recent interviews, he had made clear that he had no intention of retiring despite celebrating his 70th birthday. “I’m still on a journey walking up the King’s Highway, carrying that seed of hope and spreading that word that love is the answer,” he told the USA Today newspaper. Born on March 21, 1940 in Philadelphia, the rhythm ‘n blues star was most famous for “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” which was recorded by the Rolling Stones and became the hit song from the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers”.

His style was largely gospel and sometimes country, while his youthful voice and performances were similar to those of the late soul legend, James Brown. Burke was father to 21 children and had 90 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren, according to his official website, which lists the late Pope John Paul II as among his fans. He was also a preacher and ran a funeral agency. The singer recorded his first album “Christmas Present from Heaven” in 1956 and it sold a million copies. Between 1961 and 1968, Burke released 32 singles with Atlantic Records.

He continued to record and perform in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The legendary Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler as described Burke as “the best soul singer of all time”. In 2001 Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the same year as Michael Jackson and Paul Simon, which says on its website that his “versatile, force-of-nature voice combines gospel fervor, country gentility and R&B grit.”

The following year, Burke was awarded a Grammy for the best blues album for “Don’t Give Up On Me”. — AFP

US singer Solomon Burke performs during the eighth edition of the Mawazine music festival in Rabat on May 20, 2009. —AFP

‘Oranges and Sunshine’ sheds light on dark episode

By Mathew Scott

A

film focusing on Britain’s policy of sending thousands of children abroad made its world premiere in South Korea with its director saying it tells a story that “refuses to be ignored”. British director Jim Loach’s “Oranges and Sunshine” is based on a book by social worker Margaret Humphreys, the woman who in the 1980s uncovered the plight of around 150,000 children sent from care homes to Australia and other Commonwealth countries, where many suffered years of abuse.

Speaking after his production had premiered at the 15th Pusan

International Film Festival (PIFF) — Asia’s most prestigious cinema eventLoach said he had immediately been drawn to the “incredible and shameful story”. “Once I read Margaret’s book (“Empty Candles”), I knew it was a film I wanted to make,” said the 41year-old Loach. “It’s been quite a long road to get to where we are now. But we are still as shocked and amazed by the story as we were in the beginning.

“And that’s why we made the film. It is something that refuses to be ignored.”

Humphreys stumbled upon the British’s government’s secret policy of child migration-which was in place until 1970 — while a social worker in Nottingham, England. Many of the chil-

dren involved were told their parents had died and were sent overseas into church-run or other institutions, where many faced abuse or even forced labor.

“There were apparently all sorts of reasons given as to why this was a policy,” explained Loach at Saturday’s debut screening. “And one of them was it simply cost less to send a child on a boat to Australia than it did to keep them in care for one month.”

Starring Oscar-nominee Emily Watson (“Breaking the Waves”) as Humphreys and noted Australian actors Hugo Weaving (“The Matrix”) and David Wenham (“The Lord Of the Rings” franchise), Loach’s grippingly emotive film looks at how the scandal

Radiohead drummer Selway sings on new solo record

By John Carucci

R

US director Milos Forman poses during a photocall after being awarded for his contribution to cinema yesterday during the second edition of the Lumiere 2010 Film Festival in Lyon, eastern France. —AFP

5 most generic romantic comedy titles

“L

ife As We Know It” is a new romantic comedy in theaters this weekend, starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel as two single adults who are thrown together to raise an orphaned child when their mutual best friends die in an accident. But you’d never know any of that from the title.

Romantic comedies tend to be formulaic by nature, which in theory is part of their allure: You know the guy and the girl will end up together in the end.

It’s all very safe, familiar and comforting. But these movies also tend to have safe, familiar, comforting titles. Not so much the classics, such as “It Happened One Night,” “The Philadelphia Story” or “The Apartment,” which have some clever relevance to what actually happens in the film. “When Harry Met Sally ...” is about ... when Harry met Sally.

More recent rom-coms, however, have had titles that tell you nothing and are essentially interchangeable. The following five are so bland, it took me a while just to remember them, much less recall what the movies themselves were about: “Life or Something Like It” (2002): I think of this movie every time I see the ads for “Life As We Know It.” Five years from now, I’ll wonder to myself, which was the one with Angelina Jolie starring as a platinum-blond TV news reporter?

Oh yeah, it’s this one. You can understand the confusion. In

was uncovered. It then focuses on the first cases to come forward out of Australia-and Humphrey’s relationships with the people she then helped try to trace their families.

The title of the film comes from the promise one man says he was given as a child that in Australia life would be full of “oranges and sunshine”. It took Loach and his screenwriter Rona Munro years to get Humphreys to agree to sign over rights from the book and the director said they had screened the finished production to her and her family, who had been happy with the end result. “She said we had remained faithful to the story and that meant a lot to us,” said Loach. —AFP

case you can’t remember, either, Jolie has a seemingly perfect life, until a psychic homeless man she interviews tells her she’ll be dead in a week. That’s plenty of time for her to engage in wacky on-air antics and fall for the tough-guy cameraman (Edward Burns) with whom she’d always clashed. Not exactly a high point in either actor’s career.

“A Lot Like Love” (2005):

dictable rom-com moments, including an awkward serenade and a crucial scene at a New Year’s Eve party, this was a surprisingly sweet movie, with Kutcher and Peet enjoying a goofy playfulness.

“She’s the One” (1996): But isn’t there always a “she,” and isn’t she always “the one”?

More from Edward Burns, this time as director, writer, producer and star in the follow-up to

One of the most egregious offenders in this category.

Without looking it up on the Internet Movie Database, do you seriously know what this is about? OK, here’s a refresher: Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet repeatedly meet each other over a seven-year period.

They’re always in different cities and involved with other people but somehow their paths keep crossing because, naturally, they’re destined to be together. Despite some pre-

his debut “The Brothers McMullen.” This one is also about the dysfunctional, intertwined lives of New York Irish brothers and the women they love. For good measure, one of them is played by Jennifer Aniston, queen of the average romantic comedy. Although there are many women involved here, “the one” is Cameron Diaz, which vis understandable, even though her character, a former prostitute, is the exfiancee of one brother and the

mistress of the other.

“Hea d Over Heels” (2001): It’s a Go-Go’s song!

It’s a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie!

You kids are both right. It’s also a shameless rip-off of “Rear Window” (now there was a movie with a strong, succinct title), with Monica Potter’s character thinking she sees Prinze’s character kill someone while spying on him through her apartment window. She and her roommates-four gorgeous models-play amateur detectives to get to the bottom of the suspected crime. Madcap hilarity ensues, including plenty of scatological humor and pratfalls.

Hey, maybe the title was pretty precise after all-but for all the wrong reasons.

“Definitely, Maybe” (2008): Despite the weak title, this is by far the best movie of the bunch. It is that rare thing: a romantic comedy with a brain and surprises to boot. Leading a strong cast, Ryan Reynolds stars as a dad whose 10-yearold daughter (Abigail Breslin) demands that he explain to her where she came from and who else he dated before her mom.

He reluctantly obliges by telling her a bedtime story, describing his history with Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz but changing their characters’ names so she won’t know which one’s her mother until the end. It all takes too long to wrap up but in its best moments, “Definitely, Maybe” crackles like the classic examples of the genre. — AP

adiohead drummer Philip Selway ventured into uncharted territory with the release his first solo album, “Familial.”

Not only does he join band mates Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood with a solo project to his credit, but Selway also became a full-fledged singer on the record. It was quite an arduous task, since he never did more than background vocals on a Radiohead record. To fill his drumming role, he tapped Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche for the album. In a recent interview, Selway shared his enthusiasm for the record, his admiration for Kotche, and the familial bond within Radiohead.

AP: Wha t compelled you to put out a solo record?

Selw ay: I suppose going back about three or four years agothat was the point where I actually really decided to make a record. I had little fragments of songs coming together in the years running up to that, and then it got to the point where, actually I could see a collection of songs emerging from it. Something that I actually felt had a particular character, which I suppose is me, in there. And stuff that wasn’t that appropriate to Radiohead, either.

AP: Is there a differen t k in d of n erv ous a nticipa tion w ith a solo record?

Selw ay: Yes. In a band, you share the responsibility, but with “Familial,” it’s my name on the record, so it’s my reputation on the line in a good way and a bad way-hopefully good.

A P: W h a t w a s t h e m otiv a tion for th is group of songs?

S e l w a y : I suppose, consciously, with the Radiohead aspect of it, I thought, “Well, I’m going to do this outside Radiohead, so it’s something that I wouldn’t do in that context.” It had to be something that reflected the way that the songs were written. It was a very private process for me.

AP: What w a s the collaboration like betw een you and Kotche?

Selw a y: That was great actually. When I was writing the songs, I didn’t really hear drum parts in my head. I drummed on one song, which is the third song on the record called “A Simple Life.” So to actually meet Glenn — (an) amazing drummer, very versatile, very unique take on kit playing, and general percussion-and to see, there was something percussive in it that he brought out, added extra depth to it. It was fascinating. I sat there with my notebook getting ideas for future drumming of my own.

AP: Now tha t you got a taste of being a solo a rtist, is it something you w ant to pursue further?

Selw ay: At some point I’d like to make another record. I’m still writing material. ... We are straight in the middle of recording Radiohead material, so I will be immersing myself in that as well.

AP: Wha t is the chemistry like in Radiohead?

Selw ay: It is a very strong bond in there. It’s not like a group of friends. It’s not like a group of colleagues. It is much more akin to a sibling relationship where you have all these common experiences. ... It dates right back to when we were all at school together. You’ve been through all those life changes together, effectively from being boys to toying with the idea of being adults, and sticking, actually, to being boys again. —AP

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38

Monday, October 11, 2010

Fashion

Big-city designers

go small-town on new TV show

By Caryn Rousseau

S

mall-town America get ready, one-time “Project Runway” designers Santino Rice and Austin Scarlett are equipped with a station wagon and visions of special-occasion gowns-and they’re headed your way. Scarlett and Rice launched a half-hour television show earlier this year that’s one-part buddy comedy and onepart makeover show. “On the Road with Austin & Santino” casts the big-city pair into small-town sewing shops and tasks them with making dream dresses for deserving ladies. “I could see ourselves as mini ambassadors of creativity and fashion,” Scarlett says. The series of 14 episodes airs after “Project Runway” on the Lifetime network. So far the pair have

designed gowns for an Army captain’s graduation, a mother’s 30th birthday and a mother and daughter’s appearance in a pageant.

It sounds easy enough, but the designers say there are two major crunches: the availability of fabric and supplies in the rural areas and time constraints. They usually have about 48 hours to create a wearable, attractive garment-that’s along with their TV show hosting duties. “It’s definitely the most challenging job or project I’ve been involved in,” Scarlett says. “Much, much, much harder than ‘Project Runway.”‘ Rice agrees. By buying local materials and designing with what’s available nearby, Rice says the hope is to prove everyone can have a taste of high fashion-no matter where they live.

“You might think you have to

fly to Paris to get this look, but no you don’t,” Rice says. “It is available.” Between fittings and client consultations, the duo find themselves immersed in local culture, from trick-riding on rodeo horses in Texas to racing go-carts in Arkansas. The show plays up the differences among Rice and Scarlett and the locals in the towns they visit. In one scene a beretwearing Scarlett enters an Oklahoma department store, earning a confused look from a young boy behind the counter. “They would have been less surprised if an alien beamed into their store,” executive producer Rich Bye says.

“They just kept staring. They didn’t say a word.” But overshadowing the country-versus-city theme is the designers’ seemingly sincere interest in creating a dress their

clients will love and a welcoming attitude from the small towns.

“A lot of clients have said to us, ‘This is the most amazing thing that’s happened to our family,”‘ Rice says. “And that brings tears to my eyes.” The truly reality-television aspect of the show comes when the designers reveal the dress to their client and she debuts her new look to a gathering of friends of family. The moment is usually accompanied by cheers and teary eyes. Production for the show started by first choosing the towns, which span ten states across the southern and western United States. A prerequisite was that a town had to be near some sort of fabric store.

Once the towns were slated, producers called local beauty shops or chambers of commerce to find

women who may need a special gown. Finding the perfect candidates happened through word of mouth.

Bye, a former executive producer of “Project Runway,” says the goal was to create a makeover show that’s “not someone coming into another person’s home and riffling through the closet and throwing everything away and imposing their vision of what the client should be wearing.”

Another aim is to demonstrate that the fashion world, with its aloof reputation, is achievable for all sorts of women, Scarlett says.

“I’m hoping that if we can bridge the gap between big city and country and just help the two worlds understand each other a little more, that’s wonderful,” Scarlett says. —AP

This undated photo released

by Darren Michaels for Lifetime Television shows Santino Rice, left, and Austin Scarlett during the filming of the Lifetime series “On the Road with Austin & Santino,” —AP

Models display Spring/Summer 2011 creations

by Bosnian designer Lidija Kolovrat during the 35th Edition of Moda Lisboa at Mercado da Ribeira in Lisbon on October 9, 2010.

—AFP

The 35th edition of

Models display a Spring/Summer 2011 creations by Portuguese fashion Miguel Vieira during the 35th Edition of Moda Lisboa at Mercado da Ribeira in Lisbon on October 9, 2010.

—AFP photos

Models display Spring/Summer 2011 creations by Portuguese fashion designer Dino Alves during the 35th Edition of Moda Lisboa at Mercado da Ribeira in Lisbon on October 9, 2010.

SPECTRUM

Monday, October 11, 2010

39

Fashion

Tween vogue

(From left) Dream Ali-Cherry, 9 and Demetriaj Smith, 10, show off some of their favorite tween fashion.

By Jessica Yadegaran

D

ream Ali-Cherry is a fashionista.

Hanging out at Sunvalley mall in Concord, Calif., the 9-year-old is wearing dark skinny jeans and a pink Baby Phat tank top lined with big, diamondlike studs. Dangling from her tiny wrist is a Juicy Couture purse. Lately, Dream has been eyeing the colorful panties at Victoria’s Secret. She also wants a pair of fishnet stockings. But her mom, LaPrielle Ali, refuses to buy her those things. “That is not OK,” says Ali, of Benicia, Calif. “Ever since she was 5, I’ve tried to explain to her what is appropriate. She gives me a hard time, but at the end of the day, it’s my say.”

Naturally, parents don’t want their tweens dressing provocatively. Neither do schools. Most of the clothes on the racks don’t come close to meeting their dress codes. So, shopping for 8-to-13 year olds can be challenging. Developmentally, they are at a turning point: looking to

peers and celebrity tastemakers instead of parents for what to wear.

Too old for the girls section and too young for their older sisters’ duds, preteens like Dream are responding in part to a $43 billion tween fashion industry that crafts children’s versions of most everything women wear, down to this fall’s leopard minis and skintight jeggings, or denim leggings. A good example is “Material Girl,” a line of punky leather and lace that debuted last month at Macy’s. Madonna’s 13-year-old daughter, Lourdes Leon, designed the clothes. Yet even Madonna has said there are items in the line that Lourdes is not allowed to wear.

It is imperative to set dress codes as early as girls show interest, even kindergarten said Palo Alto, Calif., marriage and family therapist Carol Campbell. Parents should discuss place-appropriate and ageappropriate attire and impart values that counteract the media messages girls receive. “Ideally, the conversation should

start before you head to the mall,” Campbell says. “You want to explain that how you dress is a reflection of your values and what matters to you.”

For starters, determine what stores are off limits, Campbell says. Ask your daughter why she wants or needs a particular halter top or short shorts. You may learn it’s the color or fabric that she admires. Or, her response may indicate a serious issue, such as body image.

Sometimes, something as simple as fit can be an issue. Vivian Minaise of Pleasanton, Calif., says shopping for her 8-year-old, Kira, is difficult because she is a little chubby, and the clothes at stores such as Justice, which bills itself as the largest tween specialty retailer in the world, are too tight to begin with. Size is not the only issue.

“Most of the clothes I feel are not appropriate for her age,” Minaise says.

“It’s just too much for an 8-year-old.”

Justice has plenty of non-racy options, but a recent trip revealed some eye-openers: Sequined accessories, frayed, denim micro minis available in a child’s size six “slim,” and jeggings in “extreme skinny” cuts.

Why would an 8-year-old with short legs and no hips need extreme skinnies?

Because she probably saw Heidi Klum on “Project Runway” wearing them, says Sally Miller, a New Jersey-based tween fashion designer who counts Malia Obama among her clients.

When designing, Miller thinks about contemporary trends, such as lace, a fall runway favorite. Then, she reinterprets them in a way that’s hip and appropriate for her market. She often invites the mothers of her models into the studio to get their take as well. “Most of the time, those moms are in the room with us, and I’m asking them, ‘Would you let her leave the house in this?’” says Miller, whose fall collection includes cropped cardigans and empire-waisted dresses. “I think it’s important to let a girl choose her aesthetic and explore who she is.”

Campbell concurs. Parents can even encourage tweens to express themselves as it relates to the world of grown-up attire. “They can play dress up,” she says. “Let them do the makeup and jewelry and high heels at home. It gives them a wonderful chance to try on roles in their imaginations.”

At the Silver home in Piedmont, Calif., 12-year-old Sydney Silver loves to dress up in “hootchie” clothes, like little hot pants and secondhand cheetah platforms, and pretend to be a famous singer. It’s fine with mom because it’s in the privacy of their home. “They realize that showing their body in public is not positive power,” explains Paula Sullivan Silver, of Sydney, and her older daughter, Madison, 17. “As much as what they see in the media might look fashionable and enticing to them, they know it’s all for show.”

As for street clothes, there are rules: Spandex shorts under miniskirts and camisoles under low-cut tops. “The other day I got a new shirt, and it had a low Vneck, so of course my sister wouldn’t let me wear it without a cami,” Sydney says.

“It didn’t look as cute as it did without it, but oh well.”

Like many girls her age, Sydney is a fan of the clothes at Forever 21, a trendy chain geared to older teenagers and young women. Mom recently bought her a chic, form-fitting black dress from there. The tween absolutely loves it. “It’s really sexy,” Sydney says. “But I’m not allowed to wear it to school.” According to mom, she is allowed to wear it to a family dinner party or other supervised function. “I bought it for her because she is approaching that age where there is a desire to be a strong, sexy, budding woman,” mom says. “And I support that.

She looks like a million bucks in it.”

Dream Ali-Cherry, of Benicia, Calif., has broken the school dress code twice.

Once, she wore a tank top with thin straps. The other time, Dream stuffed a short, tight skirt she’d outgrown into her backpack, and changed into it at the bath-

Amber Le Bon

Le Bon’s friendly fur

Sequins are popular with ten-year-old Demetriaj Smith .

A

At nine-years-old, Dream Ali-Cherry of Vallejo, California, loves fashion. —MCT photos

mber Le Bon isn’t against wearing fur as long as the animal has had a “nice, clean death”. The British model - who has fronted campaigns for the likes of Moschino in the past - revealed she takes a pragmatic approach to wearing fur, and prefers to know how the animal has been killed before she decides whether to wear an item of clothing made from real fur.

She explained: “I do like vintage fur but I think if you’re buying new fur you need to know how it’s been killed.

You want to know that the animal had a nice, clean death. You’re not going to feel great if you know the animal has been half-dead for a week.” The 21year-old star admitted her relaxed attitude to wearing clothes made from animal skin stems from the fact that she would rather not “waste” creatures which have already been killed.

Amber added to the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “I don’t like cruelty to animals, but I’m not a vegetarian and I’d rather be using a whole animal than wasting it.” —Bang Showbiz

room at her school. To avoid a third strike, mom now performs random backpack checks. “If it happens again, the clothes are gone,” LaPrielle Ali says. “I don’t want to be like my mom, where there was no compromise. But I will take the clothes away.”

Ta lking tw een fashion Want to talk to your daughter about appropriate clothing? Follow these tips from Palo Alto marriage and family therapist Carol Campbell: Have the discussion before you leave for the mall. Set rules.

Determine what stores are off limits.

Stress values over what’s popular among

media starlets. Give your daughter the floor. Let her explain why she wants that top. Her response may relate to another issue, like body image. Encourage dress up at home. Playing dress up at home with makeup, clothes, and high heels is a good way for girls to try on roles in their imaginations. Clothing is expression.

Some kids are just more creative, and it’s important for them to feel unique.

Encourage other forms of fashion expression, like sewing or accessorizing. Look for creative outlets. Encourage your daughter to express her opinion about fashion by keeping a style journal or scrapbook. —MCT

www.kuwaittimes.net

Reverend Moon marries thousands in mass wedding S

ome 7,200 South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed marriage vows yesterday in the Unification Church’s second mass wedding this year.

Church founder Rev Sun Myung Moon, a selfproclaimed messiah, offered blessings for the participating couples gathered at Sun Moon University, the school he founded in Asan, south of Seoul.

“I pronounce marriage for the blessed beautiful women and handsome men standing before God, the Lord, the world, and myself,” said the 90-year-old Moon. The couples exchanged vows and held hands to pray during the one-hour spectacle, which was broadcast live online and through satellite television to 194 countries, church officials said.

“We’ve always grown up, hoping that we could find someone with whom we can then share a family to invite God in and to bring rejoice to God,” 22-year-old Italian bride Mika Kanno said as she stood with her British husband Chris Koconey. The participating couples also threw up their hands and cheered “Hurrah!” in unison.

The church apparently did not schedule the ceremony for the novelty of the 10-10-10 date.

Critics say the mass weddings prove the church brainwashes its followers. Followers routinely let Moon pick their spouses on the belief that he has divine insight and many meet their future spouses for the first time at the mass weddings.

Moon, who says he was 15 when Jesus Christ called upon him to carry out his unfinished work, has courted controversy and criticism since founding the Unification Church in Seoul in 1954. He held his first mass wedding in the early 1960s, arranging the marriages of 24 couples himself and renewing the vows of 12 married couples.

Over the next two decades, the weddings grew in scale and began to involve followers from Japan, Europe, Africa, Latin America, the US and elsewhere. A 1982 mass wedding at Madison Square Garden in New York, the first held outside South Korea, drew tens of thousands of participants — and protesters. The ceremonies had been smaller in recent years.—AP

Couples from around the world pray during a mass wedding ceremony in Asan, South Korea, yesterday. — AP

For Muslim woman, pride trumps stares, misunderstandings

By Matt O’Brien

T

ori Burrell learned to ignore the frequent stares and weather the occasional gawks. But there are times the 23-year-old Muslim can’t help but feel the judgment of strangers. They see her wearing a hijab, the traditional Muslim headscarf. It happens to be a glittery scarf she bought at H&M, but that does not matter. The hijab, be it fashionable or austere, is a magnet for disapproving strangers.

“I’m aware that it’s much better here than other places,” said Burrell, who was born in Vallejo, Calif, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay area all her life. “But I’ve had ‘go back to your own country’ a lot. More than once, I’ve had the ‘Jesus loves me.’” The Bay Area, known for its multicultural diversity and acceptance, is not immune to the anti-Muslim sentiment that has infected the country. Talking heads argued this summer over a planned Manhattan mosque near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and a Christian pastor’s pledge to burn copies of the Quran. Burrell and her Muslim friends know the sentiments are there because they bear the brunt of them. Usually, they shrug it off.

Take one day in early August, when Burrell was sitting alone at the Peet’s coffee shop in downtown Concord, Calif. With her laptop plugged in and her headphones on, the college student was working on an art history paper while listening to rapper Ludacris. There were many patrons drinking coffee or waiting in line in the busy cafe. One of them zoomed in on Burrell, gesturing to make it known he had something to say. “I turned off my music and said, ‘Excuse me?’ And he said, ‘Jesus, my Lord and savior, loves you.’ And I was, like, ‘Thank you.’ What do you say to that?”

Jesus, after all, is considered an important prophet in Islam, and the proselytizing was less objectionable to Burrell than other unsolicited comments and slurs she has faced since she decided, as a young adult, to cover her hair every day with a scarf. “I wanted to be easily recognizable

as a Muslim, because I’m proud of it,” she said. It was a big change for the Vallejo native, who wore swimsuits as a water polo player in high school. Her Muslim family members were happy she did not want to wear miniskirts and tank tops, but they were not so enthused about her embrace of the hijab. “I’m a little more conservative and-I don’t want to say religious, because they believe-but I’m a little more practicing than them,” Burrell said.

Most interpretations of Islam require Muslim women to dress modestly in the presence of men who are not part of their family. Modest dress usually includes fully covering the hair, though interpretationsand the way Muslim women dress-vary greatly as they do in other religions. Many women also see the hijab as an expression of their faith and identity, while others opt out of wearing it.

Only about 43 percent of MuslimAmerican women say they wear a hijab all or most of the time, according to a Pew Research Center poll from 2007.

According to the same poll, more than half of American Muslims are worried that women who wear the hijab will be treated poorly, though women who actually wear it all the time are less worried than those who do not. “My mom still makes comments like, ‘Will you come to your senses

By Griffin Shea

A

new collection of Nelson Mandela’s private papers reveals his years of heartache at missing his family while in prison and his wariness at becoming idolized, in excerpts published yesterday. The book “Conversations with Myself” goes on sale tomorrow, but passages printed in British and South African papers show his thoughts on everything from the danger of corruption in power to his grief at his son’s death. Decades’ worth of letters, diaries and private recordings were distilled by his eponymous Foundation in a project that purports to show the private man behind the global icon.

Now 92, the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle against the white-minority apartheid government says he doesn’t want to be remembered as a larger-than-life saint. “One issue that deeply worried me in prison was the false image I unwittingly projected to the outside world; of being regarded as a saint,” he said in an excerpt printed in South Africa’s Sunday Times. “I never was one, even on the basis of the earthly definition of a saint as a sinner who keeps trying.” Mandela was detained for 27 years for resisting apartheid rule. He was released in 1990 and led negotiations with the government that culminated in his election as the country’s first black president in 1994.

He stepped down in 1999, after serving one term in office.

Today he appears frail and makes few public appearances since retiring from public life in 2004. He remains deeply revered in South Africa, and although he has spoken publicly about his shortcomings, critical talk is almost non-existent

(From right) Madeline Elbgal, 23, of Berkeley, California, and Tori Burrell, 23 enjoy a meal at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California. —MCT photos was as American as he was. So are her parents, who helped teach her to drive.

But she didn’t complain to higher authorities, pleading no contest to the driving charges. “It’s my word against this officer,” she said. “Who are they going to believe, this officer or this black Muslim girl?”

Life is mostly normal for Burrell, who feels both devoutly Muslim and quintessentially Californian. But anti-Muslim sentiment, whether it’s in the news or on the sidewalk, can take a toll on her and her

Muslim friends, she said. “You really do have to be strong, and secure enough with yourself, and your choice of wearing a hijab, to face it,” she said. Those who judge usually are older than her, Burrell said, which she hopes is a sign that time will bring a more welcoming climate.

“Younger people, most of the time, are more willing to ask questions,” she said.

“They realize they’re ignorant about something, so they ask. ... I just feel like people, before they judge, they should (do some) research.” —MCT

Madeline Elbgal and Tori Burrell share a laugh at the makeup counter in Pleasonton.

Madeline Elbgal and Tori Burrell discuss the packaging on makeup.

I’m no saint, Mandela says in new book

and take that off?’ She wore it in college, but it just wasn’t for her,” Burrell said. “I think they are worried about my safety. I think that’s their biggest concern-my safety.”

Burrell, who recently moved from Bay Point to San Francisco, found plenty of acceptance among her peers, including fellow students at Diablo Valley College. She studied art history at the Pleasant Hill school before transferring to San Francisco State this year. Some strangers, on the other hand, can be unkind. One recent example was the local police officer who pulled her over for driving in the wrong lane.

“Next time,” she said the officer told her after handing her a citation, “you should have an American teach you how to drive.” Burrell, who is AfricanAmerican, was offended and upset. She

Madeline Elbgal and Tori Burrell share a laugh at the makeup counter in Pleasonton.

about the man known fondly by his clan name Madiba. The book appears to invite a more rounded discussion of his life, while also focusing on the enormous personal sacrifices required by his devotion to the liberation struggle. “As a young man, I combined all the weaknesses, errors and indiscretions of a country boy, whose range of vision and experience was influenced mainly by events in the area in which I grew up and the colleges to which I was sent,” he wrote, according to the South African paper.

“I relied on arrogance to hide my weaknesses,” he added.

In letters written to his family while in prison, Mandela wrote that he felt “soaked in gall” by being powerless to help his then-wife Winnie and his children, according to Britain’s Sunday Times. “I feel I have been soaked in gall, every part of me, my flesh, bloodstream, bone and soul, so bitter am I to be completely powerless to help you in the rough and fierce ordeals you are going through,” he wrote to Winnie Mandela in August 1970. When Winnie was also jailed for a time in 1969, he wrote to his daughters Zeni and Zindi, then aged nine and 10, that “now she and Daddy are away in jail.”

“It may be months or even years before you see her again.

For long you may live like orphans without your own home and parents, without the natural love, affection and protection Mummy used to give you.” The letters also reveal his sometimes stormy relations with Winnie, whom he divorced after his release from prison. In a letter to a friend in 1987, he says that after writing to Winnie to say that their daughters had grown up well: “My beloved wife was furious... she reminded me: ‘I, not you, brought up these children whom you now prefer to me.’ I was simply stunned.” —AFP