22 Nov

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

40 PAGES

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2010

THULHIJA 16, 1431 AH

Sweden issues warrant for WikiLeaks founder

Painful wait for NZ mine families

Abbas rejects freeze that excludes E Jerusalem

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NO: 14916

150 FILS

Man City rout Fulham 4-1

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Saudi seeks to prevent power vacuum Crown Prince takes over as ailing king travels to US RIYADH: Saudi King Abdullah is to be treated in the United States for a back problem, with ailing Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz returning from Morocco to take over, officials said yesterday. The king will leave today to “complete his medical examinations and follow-up treatment based on the recommendation of the medical team,” the royal court said in a statement carried by official news agency SPA. Crown Prince Sultan is to return to the oil-rich kingdom

from Morocco after “his highness has enjoyed a private holiday,” another official statement said. Sultan, who has spent nearly 12 weeks at his palace in Agadir in Morocco, will take over the reins during the king’s absence, a Saudi official said, on condition of anonymity. Abdullah, 86, is to be treated for a herniated disc and “blood accumulation” around the spine, the official said. He added that Prince Sultan, who has himself been receiving treatment for the past two years for what is

believed by analysts and diplomats to be cancer came back yesterday.

Any transfer of power in the absolute monarchy, founded in 1932, is keenly watched by oil markets as the vast nation sits on one quarter of the world’s known oil reserves. In December 2007, King Abdullah formed a 35member committee to choose the kingdom’s crown princes to ensure a smooth transition of power in the world’s biggest oil producer, ruled by the Al-Saud dynasty for 75

years. Crown Prince Sultan, as defense minister for the past five decades, played a key role in building up the Gulf state’s military in a volatile region and boosting the power of the ruling family.

His long tenure as defense and aviation minister has been marked by multi-billion-dollar procurement scandals, including the Yamamah deals with Britain, but his influence never waned until his health started to deteriorate.

Sultan’s long absence abroad as he fought his illness had

held up government decisions and facets of Abdullah’s ambitious reform program, as well as raising questions about the future shape of the monarchy.

Sultan is one of the Sudairy Seven-sons of King Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia-by a favorite wife, Princess Hassa AlSudairy. The crown prince, who is 79 according to an official biography and approaching 85 years according to a specialist close to the royal family, has not been very active since Continued on Page 14

JEDDAH: A combo of file pictures shows Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud (left) and Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz AlSaud. — AFP

Khorafi blasts US over human rights report MP Khrainej proposes deporting expatriate prisoners

By B Izzak

GUANGZHOU: Kuwait’s silver medalists (from left) Hamad Alafasi, Fehaid Aldeehani and Meshfi Almutairi attend the award ceremony of the men’s double trap team shooting at the 16th Asian Games yesterday. — AP

No Kuwait flag at Asian Games Kuwaiti athletes under IOC banner GUANGZHOU: There are 45 countries represented at the Asian Games in Guangzhou. Technically, Kuwait is not one of them. The International Olympic Committee suspended Kuwait’s national Olympic committee at the beginning of the year for alleged political interference by the government, consequently barring Kuwaiti athletes and officials from the Olympic Games and making the country ineligible for Olympic funding.

Still, the Gulf state is represented at the 16th Asian Games. It has 194 athletes competing in 21 sports under the IOC banner. They are simply labeled “Athletes from Kuwait.” By the ninth day of competition, Kuwait had two gold medals - both in trap shooting and five overall. Naser Meqlad won the trap from countryman Khaled Almudhaf at the Guangzhou Shotgun Center. Both were disappointed at the medal ceremony, though, because there was no Kuwaiti flag raised and no anthem.

“It hurts, and I cried twice, “ Almudhaf said. “But what can I do? I

want to take the IOC flag off and hear my national anthem. My heart was a rock.” Meqlad won the Asian Games gold medal closer to home when the last edition was held at Doha, Qatar in 2006. He said he could never compare the feelings of having won his first gold. “I was very happy about winning in Doha. Winning the gold medal was a really good feeling. I cannot replace that feeling.”

Olympic Council of Asia president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah is a Kuwaiti and understood the athletes from his country would be disappointed that they’re not representing their national team. But he said it was important for them to be here, competing, and was pleased the IOC had involved them under the Olympic banner.

Abdullah Mansour, the captain of the men’s volleyball team, said the controversy has affected the team on and off the competition field. “I mean to participate in events without the Kuwaiti flag, that really hurt the players,” Mansour said in remarks translated Continued on Page 14

Kuwaiti in Gitmo ‘tortured’ KUWAIT: The American lawyer representing Kuwaiti Guantanamo Bay detainee Fayez Al-Kandari has alleged that torture and abusive practices towards inmates there, including his client, are still a daily occurrence.

The lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Wingard, told Kuwaiti daily AlShahed that during his incarceration at the controversial facility AlKandari has been, on separate occasions, hung by his wrists from a ceiling fan, interrogated by female officers while naked, and subjected to other forms of torture and abuse, adding that he fears that his client will never be released.

Lt Col Wingard said that US politics and justice “wear the same hat,” adding that recent American history has been full of political blunders. He also stated that despite President

Obama’s presidential campaign declarations of opposition to the tactics adopted at Guantanamo Bay, since his election he has pursued the same policies as his predecessor, George W Bush.

The lawyer urged the Kuwaiti government to take the same measures which the US administration would pursue if an American citizen were unlawfully detained in Kuwait.

“Would America allow the abuse and humiliation of its citizens?” he asked rhetorically, adding that detaining individuals without due cause makes the US a tribal and lawless society.

“The first question Fayez asks me whenever I meet him is, ‘Is there any justice for me today?’” said Lt Col Wingard, adding that his own customary response to this question is, “Unfortunately Fayez, there is no justice today.”

KUWAIT: National Assembly speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi yesterday strongly lashed out at the US Department of State report on human rights in Kuwait which claimed that the Shiite minority are facing discrimination.

Khorafi stressed that the report contained many mistakes about the human rights situation in Kuwait, denying any discrimination against the Shiites and accused the report of trying to stir internal conflicts in Kuwait.

“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others” stressed Khorafi, recalling that the United States is continuing to violate human rights by detaining Kuwaitis and others in Guantanamo without trial.

Khorafi said the report is not the first and will not be the last, accusing Washington of trying to be the policeman of the world by issuing such erroneous reports.

He said that if the United States is keen at the stability of the region and maintaining good relations with the peoples and the countries of this region, it should pay more care to the reports it issues.

He also called on Washington not to incite conflicts in this region, especially in “our small society” in Kuwait. The US report, released a few days ago, has focused its attention on what it called religious discrimination against the minority Shiite community which the report alleged is not receiving their full religious rights.

The report claimed that Kuwaiti Shiites represent 30 percent of the Kuwaiti population but they have only a handful mosques compared to Continued on Page 14

KUWAIT: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, listens to some officials during his visit to Ahmadi. — KUNA

PM, officials discuss gas leak KUWAIT: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah yesterday headed a vital meeting at the headquarters of the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to discuss the recent gas leaks in the Ahmadi area and the measures being deployed to resolve the issue.

Sheikh Nasser was briefed during the meeting about the measures taken to protect local residents from the potentially damaging effects of the leaks.

The Prime Minister began by thanking the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah and fellow officials participating in the mission to safeguard local residents, adding that their

efforts came in line with directives issued by HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlSabah. Sheikh Nasser called on the officials to continue their efforts in investigating the cause of the leaks, stressing that the government would hold all those found to be responsible for the problems to account. The premier said that he was confident that the government and the cooperating bodies would definitely find a solution to the gas leakage.

The meeting was also attended by Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak, as well as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah Al-Sabah, the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Minister

of State for Development Affairs, and Minister of State for Housing Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the Minister of Electricity and Water Dr Bader Al-Shuraiaan, the Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Municipal Affairs Dr Fadhil Safar, the Minister of Communication and Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Dr Mohammad AlBusairi, the Governor of Ahmadi Sheikh Dr Ibrahim Al-Sabah, senior oil sector officials and a number of other experts. Following the meeting, HH the Prime Minister conducted an inspection tour of the Ahmadi area, meeting with local residents who called on him to deal Continued on Page 14

Qaeda vows to ‘bleed enemy to death’ HONG KONG: The Yemenbased branch of Al-Qaeda has vowed further small but frequent attacks against the West such as last month’s cargo plane parcel bombs, in a “strategy of a thousand cuts” that will “bleed the enemy to death”, a monitoring group said. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said the packages it put aboard freight planes bound for the US in late October were never

intended to cause mass casualties, but were aimed at creating maximum economic damage.

The group said the parcels, which were intercepted in Dubai and Britain, were part of “Operation Hemorrhage,” a plan that had cost just 4,200 dollars to mount. It said there was now little focus on large-scale masscasualty attacks like those on New York and Washington in September 2001. “To bring down

America we do not need to strike big,” the network said in an English-language magazine called Inspire, which was monitored Saturday by the US-based Intelcenter.

“In such an environment of security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch and thus we may circumvent the security barriers

America worked so hard to erect,” AQAP said. “This strategy of attacking the enemy with smaller, but more frequent operations is what some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts. The aim is to bleed the enemy to death.”

The two parcels were addressed to synagogues in Chicago and found to contain the hard-to-detect explosive PETN hidden in ink toner cartridges. A

massive global security clampdown on airfreight followed the discovery, with a number of countries banning cargo or flights originating from Yemen, including the United States, Canada and several western European countries. The AQAP magazine details the “total bill of 4,200” dollars for Operation Hemorrhage, adding that it was three months in the planning and Continued on Page 14

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Officials’ lips sealed tighter than gas pipes over Ahmadi investigation Stage set for press conference

By Wendy Clayton KUWAIT: Officials dealing with the gas leak crisis in Ahmadi refused yesterday to comment on progress in the investigation, except to announce that an official press conference is to be held at

KUWAIT: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Ahmad AlSabah and other officials listen to one of the workers in Ahmadi. — Photos

by Fouad Al-Shaikh

KUWAIT: Workers in Ahmadi lay pipes to assist release of gas.

Ambassadors speak on maid mistreatment in Saudi

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: An Indonesian maid was killed recently in Saudi Arabia when her sponsor hit her on the head with a metal pole. Another Indonesian maid was seriously disfigured when her female Saudi sponsor poured acid on her face and head. The victim is still receiving treatment in a hospital in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This news prompted the Saudi government to establish new laws to protect domestic workers and maids. Many different authorities in KSA are providing protection to maids and ensuring that their rights are protected, said a Saudi ambassador in Jakarta. Such incidents in neighboring countries may also affect the situation of Indonesian and other maids working in Kuwait. Previously, the Indonesian government set a moratorium on dealing with Kuwait and placed strict rules on allowing Indonesian maids to come work in Kuwait.

The Indonesian embassy in Kuwait is not sure if such incidents will have an impact on the situation of Indonesian maids in Kuwait. “These incidents happened in Saudi Arabia and the embassy in Riyadh will take action on this tragedy,” Afrian Asri, the Spokesman and First Secretary of the Indonesian Embassy in Kuwait, told the Kuwait Times. “If something similar happened in Kuwait we would also take action to protect our citizens.”

“We believe that the Kuwaiti government would also take the necessary action to protect our maids,” he continued. “The law is different in each country and I believe there is some differ-

ence between KSA and Kuwait. In the end we are all humans and our rights should be protected.”

Such accidents could happen anywhere.

“Violence can happen anywhere in the world. If a similar case happened in Kuwait, and I hope it will not, I believe they will take decisive action. It is about the law and protection,” Asri pointed out.

The moratorium however is a different story altogether. “We are still discussing it between Jakarta and Kuwait,” concluded Asri.

Meanwhile, the Labor Attaché of the Embassy of the Philippines in Kuwait, Vivo Vidal, refused to comment on the subject. He said that he was not interested in commenting on the issue at the time because he was unfamiliar with the subject.

The Sri Lankan Ambassador to Kuwait, Sarath Dissanayake didn’t think that the incident in Saudi Arabia would affect the situation of Sri Lankan maids in Kuwait.

“I don’t think it will have an impact here in Kuwait,” Dissanayake said. “There were few cases of harassment in the past and no deaths have ever been reported. We haven’t had this experience in the past but if we did our government would definitely take action. We believe that maids working in the Gulf are in a good situation.”

Dissanayake expressed his condolences to the families of the victims but said that such an incident would not have an effect on the workers here in Kuwait. “Of course if any maid dies as a result of mistreatment all maids will be concerned, but there is no reason to believe that Sri Lanka as a whole will be effected,” he concluded.

Earlier reports from the Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD) two days after the explosion stating that the gas levels in the area were at acceptable rates were quickly revised as 45 homes were reportedly evacuated over the last week.

Al-Qabas has reported that an inside source close to the investigation revealed that the explosions may have been caused by the unprofessional replacement of ageing underground pipelines with substandard alternatives. It is claimed that the new pipes used were of low quality and not fit for this purpose.

The insider also revealed that the same contracting firm which carried out the replacement of the pipelines was responsible for the maintenance work at the Mishref sewage treatment plant which was troubled by a series of malfunctions shortly after reopening last year.

The insider laid the responsibility for the problems squarely at the feet of the government, which he said had failed to give the gas leaks in Ahmadi the proper level of importance when they were first reported. He particularly singled out the fact that there had been no subsequent follow-up investigation after an earlier explosion at a husseiniya (Shiite mosque) in the area caused by the same problems.

While MPs have called for the complete evacuation of the area regardless of cost, questions are being raised as to where residents will be relocated and who should be responsible for footing the bill for any such mass relocation.

Major General Jassem AlMansouri, the Director General

CTC rejects tender KUWAIT: The Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has rejected a request made by the Ministry of Electricity and Water to award a tender to a company, citing high costs. The tender concerned renewing a contract to perform cleaning work at the Subbiya power plant. The ministry had hoped to sign an agreement with the company at an offer of KD 1.9 million. The CTC had agreed to award a tender to install underground power cables in South Surra at a total cost of KD 7.4 million, in addition to three other tenders concerning maintenance operations, reported Al-Qabas.

Separately, the amount to be collected in unpaid dues from consumers now touches KD 300 million as of the end of September, reported Al-Rai.

Al-Tijari releases 2011 calendar KUWAIT: In keeping pace with its policy aimed at reviving the old Kuwaiti heritage, Commercial Bank of Kuwait always endeavors, in issuing its annual calendar, to present scenes and portraits from this traditional heritage. The bank assumed this responsibility since long time, a mandate that is significant as the exposition of the aspects of the recent renaissance and modern life in Kuwait.

Drawing upon this consideration, the Advertising and Public Relations

Sheikha Nouf Al-Sabah

Department has issued 2011 Calendar which the CBK customers and non-customers await for long.

On this occasion, Sheikha Nouf Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah, head of advertising and public relations department said: “With the approach of the Gregorian New Year 2011, the bank renews its commitment by issuing its yearly calendar which contains pieces of art to mirror the aspects of old lifestyles and traditions in Kuwait”.

It is to be noted that the 2011 cal-

endar has contained a number of pictures of certain old places, markets and vendors to establish a link between our past, the present and the future. Such pictures have been drawn by the artist Fadel Ashkenani to reflect some of the old customs and traditions of the Kuwaiti people as well as some simple and primitive tools our grandfathers used in the past, in addition to certain features of the everyday life experienced by our ancestors so that such glorious past remains remembered in our minds.

12:30 PM today at the Ahmadi Sports Centre. Since the most recent explosion in the area on Thursday 11 November, when a manhole cover was blown off after an underground high-pressure gas pipeline exploded, debate has raged over who is to blame and whether or not there really is a threat to the area and its residents.

KUWAIT: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah listens to complaints from angry Ahmadi residents. of the Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD), announced that the evacuated families had been rehoused in temporary accommodation in Mahboula and Aquila until the problems in Ahmadi are resolved.

While debate rages over this issue, it still fails to address the problem of the gas leaks themselves, with nobody yet publicly admitting responsibility for the problem despite KOC workers having the greatest involvement in natural gas extraction and in installing equipment to help release the trapped subterranean gases.

Glamping trend harming Kuwait’s environment KUWAIT: Since the beginning of the local camping season earlier this month, Kuwaitis have been racing to reserve their campsites in open desert areas across the country. Some are warning, however, that the advent of glamorous camping or ‘glamping,’ as more and more campers bring along all the necessary contemporary accessories for a luxurious life under canvas, is harming the environment in these wild areas.

Although camping was once seen as an opportunity to return to the simple life, the introduction of electrical appliances, fully equipped bathrooms and decorative fencing, amongst other fittings and accessories, has turned many campsites into something more closely resembling upmarket apartment complexes.

Local environmental campaigners are warning, however, that the effects of ‘glamping’ on the environment are far more damaging than those of the traditional form of camping, reported Al-Qabas.

The government team working to resolve the issue has split the handling of the operation into two phases; the first, shortterm phase will see experts working to contain the leak and taking regular readings to assess gas levels, with the longterm stage including a complete and detailed analysis of gas levels in the area. The government’s efforts are being overseen and coordinated by First Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak AlSabah, who recently conducted a tour of the area to assess the

problems there.

Questions have also been raised over whether Ahmadi could face similar traumas to those experienced by residents of San Bruno, California in the US, where, on September 9 this year, an underground explosion in a nine-meter section of natural gas pipeline caused a 56meter by nine-meter crater to appear in the heavily populated area, with four dying in the incident and over 60 being injured, some critically. The massive blast also completely destroyed 53 homes in the area and severely damaged a further 120.

In a situation like the current one in Ahmadi where inspections of natural gas pipelines have been random and the replacement of sections of ageing pipelines has reportedly been poorly carried out, there are concerns over a similar event to the San Bruno blast occurring there.

One certainty among local residents is that all the officials, companies and public sector bodies involved need to take rapid and serious action to prevent a repeat of the San Bruno tragedy from taking place in the area.

Cabinet meeting to focus on Ahmadi leak problem KUWAIT: The cabinet will today hold its first full meeting after the extended Eid Al-Adha break, addressing several urgent issues, including the Ahmadi gas leak and complaints from returning Hajj pilgrims who were stuck at Jeddah Airport for almost twelve hours.

Parliament is also set to resume, with the political climate already heating up as preparations get underway to submit a number of grilling motions against ministers, belying the attempts of State Minister for National Assembly (parliament) Affairs Dr Mohammad Al-Busairi to suggest that the two bodies are working smoothly together in an atmosphere of unity.

During their meeting, cabinet members are expected to examine the recommendations put forward by experts from the Environmental Public Authority investigating the Ahmadi gas leak, who have suggested that the current situation in the area is “not good.”

Meanwhile, on the issue of the pilgrims stranded for hours at Jeddah Airport, the cabinet is expected to issue an emergency directive to ensure no recurrence of the incident, reported Al-Rai. Another issue high on the cabinet’s agenda is the aforementioned grillings, with discussion set to focus on the strategy to be employed in confronting the expected interpellation motion from the Reform

and Development Bloc (RDB) against education minister Dr. Moudhi Al-Humoud.

The minister has reportedly already assigned senior education ministry officials to prepare the necessary documentation for use in refuting the grilling points, with the RDB insisting that it will not back down from going ahead with the interpellation even if the cabinet appeals against it on constitutional grounds.

The bloc has indicated, however, that it may put this grilling motion on hold until another interpellation motion, submitted by the National Action Bloc against His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah, has been submitted.

250 laid off citizens re-employed KUWAIT: The Manpower and Government Restructuring Program (MGRP) has submitted a report to the Civil Services Commission (CSC) stating that it had received government subsidies for 12 months, as stipulated by a Cabinet decree to support citizens that were laid off.

Fauzi Al-Majdali, Chairman of the private sector has headed the laid-off citizens committee.

He explained that the report noted that some laid off citizens have not been hired, and that some companies did not follow standard employment procedures.

They claim to be affected by the economic crisis, reported Al-Watan. He added that around 250 out of 685 laid off citizens had been reemployed.

Monday, November 22, 2010

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Pilgrims complain about Jeddah airport chaos Airport officials blamed for inefficiency

By Hussain Al-Qatari KUWAIT: Hundreds of pilgrims who were stranded at the Jeddah airport returned to Kuwait yesterday after performing Haj rituals in Makkah. Many pilgrims were

KUWAIT: A crash took place on Wafra Road after a truck driver lost control of his vehicle. Paramedics rushed to the scene, taking the driver to hospital, where medical staff discovered that his high blood sugar levels had led to his becoming disoriented, causing him to lose control of the vehicle.

— Photo by Fouad Al-Shaikh

Kuwaiti pilgrims complained that they were hardly offered any services during their long, tiresome wait at the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.

Pilgrim Abdulwahab Al-Kanderi, 47, said that what he found to be most annoying is the unclear answers they received from officials at the airport in Jeddah, “We showed up a few hours before the scheduled flight, but they told us that our flight was delayed for three hours due to the overcrowding. We waited, but they told us that we have to wait even longer. We ended up waiting for more than a day before getting on the plane,” he complained. There were barely any services offered, said Al-Kanderi, as the pilgrims

delayed for over 12 hours, others for more than a day.

The culprit is overcrowding at the Jeddah airport, as millions of pilgrims from all around the world flock back to their home countries following the completion of Haj rituals.

were checked in and waited to board on the plane, “We weren’t offered anything to eat or drink, and we sat on the floor waiting for any updates about our flight,” he said.

Al-Kanderi blames the airport officials for their inefficiency in dealing with the airplane traffic, “We called the organizers at the Haj convoys, but they could not do anything about the matter; it’s all in the hands of the airport officials, who were unable to organize the flights better,” he added.

Jumana Al-Matouq, 28, says that the disorganization in the airport led many people to lose their temper, “For the first few hours, people were patient and did not mind waiting. But the matter took much longer, and soon enough fights broke out

between people and officials, as well as among the pilgrims. It was very frustrating,” she says.

Meanwhile, the Haj experience for pilgrim Bader Al-Failakawi, 58, was tiring and exhausting due to several reasons. The sudden rain, the crowds in Makkah and the transportation between pilgrimage sites were all strenuous, but the most exhausting was the trip back home.

“The airport was packed, we could barely move. Why is a country with capabilities like Saudi Arabia not doing anything to expand its airport? It hosts a big crowd of thousands if not millions every year, they can’t be this unequipped for overcrowding,” he said.

Interior Ministry facilitates pilgrims’ smooth return Dubai’s metro railway station local spotlight

By Muna Al-Fuzai

I

went to Dubai for the Eid holidays and was happy to have enjoyed the sights and sounds of the country. It had been nearly two years since I last visited Dubai. The city not only does not sleep, but has also tried to maintain its status as a touristic hub, especially targeting expatriates from developed countries. So, the common belief that a desert cannot be a center of tourism is no longer true. Dubai is always busy during all the seasons. Once there, I decided to use the much-talked about infrastructural set up, that everyone is talking about in and out of the UAE, the metro railway station.

Honestly, I am more familiar with the underground metro railway of the UK. I wanted to compare it with my UK experience. I was staying at the City Center hotel

and mall, and there was a point of destination from my hotel which I found to be very convenient. After a few minutes of walking, it is easy to obtain tickets, which are also cheap.

My destination was the Mall of Emirates. A trip to this glamorous mall is really worth the ride. You can check the class you want to use, the Golden which corresponds to first class or the regular cabins. I bought the ticket for the first class cabin. As I waited for the train, I realized that I did the right thing by buying a first class ticket because I found many people with small children and infants waiting at the regular terminal. I was not ready to tolerate ‘unbearable’ noise during the 30-minute trip.

The first class cabin does not cost much, and the seating arrangement was practical and neat. There was a female ticket collector to check tickets at the time of departure. All the way, I kept thinking what it would have been like if Kuwait could boast of this facility, and how people would use it, as many do now in Dubai by respecting public property.

It could be open to all users and nationalities.

I have not seen anyone take food or drinks in

the train as there is a possibility that these items could be spilt, dirtying its interiors.

Everyone took their seats quietly with no attempt to etch the windows or doors with indecent words, as is the usual practice here.

The ride went well, but during my trip back to Kuwait, I waited to board the plane. I saw two Kuwaiti women in their twenties perform a juggling act. They tried to steer their heavy hand baggage, also sip coffee and eat muffins! I wondered why they did not make use of their time by having coffee somewhere and then pick up baggage, rather than struggle in the queue! How dangerous could it be if it spilt on someone? If they were at the railway station, would the women get rid of their coffee? They would probably pick up a fight with the female ticket collector, rudely arguing that what they ate was none of her business! I believe that civic sense is a great virtue. The UAE is trying to set a new standard and implement it. This is why people fear this enforcement and do anything to avoid being fined. Anyhow, I enjoyed every part of the trip.

muna@kuwaittimes.net

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Interior’s Border Checkpoints Security Department has made concerted efforts during Eid Al-Adha holidays to ensure a smooth entry for returning pilgrims from Saudi Arabia through land routes.

In a statement made recently to the press, Brig Gen Mohammad Al-Sabr, official ministry spokesman and head of its Security Media Department explained that procedures were taken based on instructions of Maj Gen Abdullah Al-Muhanna, Assistant Undersecretary for Border Checkpoints Security Affairs, to utilize all efforts during the period between the 11 and 20th of the current month. Among the measures taken are suspending leave requests as well as increasing the number of employees at passports checking counters, as well as deploying more supervisors to take follow up action with the work process.

Al-Sabr further indicated that 204,573 travelers exited the three-border checkpoints at Al-Samly, Al-Nuwaiseeb and AlAbdaly during that period, while 197,607

crossed the borders during the same period last year. Meanwhile, the sick leaves dilemma has once again covered ministries and other government bodies as the first working day after Eid holiday begins. Many government employees used the sick leaves ‘weapon’ to take more days off, claiming that they could not purchase airline tickets to return home.

The Civil Service Commission warned that it would scrutinize those claiming to be sick. In a strongly- worded statement, officials added that employees that violated the regulations would be referred to the state’s ministries. Officials have instructed to not accept any sick leaves from polyclinics or medical centers. They said that the Civil Service Commission has stipulated that sick leaves should be obtained from hospitals, or be authenticated by the medical council. Otherwise, the employee will be considered absent. The CSC has asked ministries to account for all absenteeism cases, and note down the names of doctors who issue sick leaves.

Brig Gen Mohammad Al-Sabr

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Chicken prices rocket

Poultry disappears from co-op shelves KUWAIT: Consumers are set to face further poultry shortages at co-ops and other supermarkets, with chicken suppliers reportedly insisting on steep price rise. Reporters from Al-Watan who visited various local co-ops noted that a number of the most popular brands of frozen chicken had disappeared from the shelves, while others have already undergone steep price rises.

KUWAIT: At his residence in Dasman Palace yesterday, the Director General of the General Department for Drugs Control, Maj Gen Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Khalifa Al-Sabah received the producer and theatre team behind the play, ‘Beit Al-Marhoum,’ which was recently staged at the Qadisiya Theater under his patronage. —Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

Celebration turns to tragedy

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A vast family brawl involving approximately 150 people, which broke out during a celebration of some family members’ return from the Hajj pilgrimage, resulted in the death of an 18-year-old Bedoon boy.

The dead boy’s attacker also suffered several stab wounds, administered by his victim’s brother. Police were quickly at the scene, intervening to break up the fight and arresting 15 of those involved. Police have launched an investigation into the incident.

Amghara leak Two Bangladeshi expatriates died while another two were admitted to Jahra Hospital for treatment following a gas leak at a cleaning firm in Amghara. An investigation is underway into the incident.

TV crew attacked Three male employees of a local satellite TV station - a Kuwaiti and two Bedoon (stateless) residents - told police in Ferdous that they were attacked by two male citizens who accused them of recording video footage

of their home without permission. Police are investigating the allegation.

Road accidents An 18-year-old Kuwaiti boy was rushed to Adan Hospital after sustaining head injuries in a car crash near the Um Al-Hayman exit on King Fahad Road.

In a separate incident, a 30-year-old Asian woman suffered head injuries and a broken collarbone when she was hit by a car in Abu Hlaifa. She was immediately taken to Adan Hospital.

In a third accident, a 20-year-old Kuwaiti man was taken to Farwaniya Hospital after suffering a broken right arm in a car crash on the Sixth Ring Road.

Meanwhile, a 22-year-old Kuwaiti man suffered a broken right ankle and gashes to his forehead in a collision under Shaab Bridge. He was taken to the Amiri Hospital.

A number of people were injured in a collision between two cars opposite the Hadi Hospital. The injured were taken for treatment while police controlled traffic at the scene until the two severely damaged vehicles were towed away.

Eid accidents Ten men and two women died in accidents on Kuwait’s roads during the Eid AlAdha holiday in the period from November 12-19, according to weekly statistics issued yesterday by the Ministry of Interior’s General Department for Criminal Evidence.

Defamation lawsuits The Minister of Public Works and Municipality Affairs, Fadhel Al-Safar plans to take legal action against any individual who has publicly accused him of incompetence and irresponsibility in tackling the spoiled meat issue. The minister has already met his lawyers to file cases with the attorney general. The defamation suits will target published reports in which he has been accused of colluding with violating suppliers, or comments that have been misquoted, reported Al-Rai. The Kuwait Municipality was heavily criticized after a supplier sold tons of imported food to the local market before results were obtained. It was subsequently revealed that the supplies were unfit for human consumption.

The chairman of the Sulaibikhat and Doha Co-op, Muttar Ali Al-Mutairi confirmed the price rises, explaining that less frozen chicken than usual were on display since many chicken suppliers had refused to continue providing their merchandise at the existing prices. AlMutairi said that although price rises in chicken and chicken products seem inevitable, the Co-op had managed to maintain the prices at their existing level to date.

The Co-op head also called on officials from the relevant government bodies to meet with representatives of the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies (UCCS) to discuss the issue which has begun to

Kabad sewage plant to be launched soon KUWAIT: A sewage treatment plant currently under construction in Kabad will enter into operation during the first quarter of 2011, according to the project’s engineer who said that 96 percentage of construction works have been finalized.

In a statement made recently to the press, the KD 56 million project manager Hamad Shammooh indicated that the plant is equipped with advanced machinery that conforms to the international environmental standards, a first time initiative in Kuwait. The official further indicated that the projects come as part of the ministry’s plans to reinforce its sewage treatment operations as per the increasing demands placed by the construction sector, reported AlRai. The Ministry of Public Works’ sewage network collects sewage from homes and constructions that is sent through pipelines to treatment plants. They are treated using mechanical methods before being used in irrigation purposes to provide an eco-friendly method of disposing liquid waste.

affect the amounts of frozen chicken available at the subsidized goods outlets.

He urged the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI) to act in forcing the suppliers to provide the usual quantities of chicken, explaining that many of the firms involved had justified their refusal to do so by citing the Co-ops’ refusal to increase prices.

Fouad Harbi, the chairman of the Bayan Co-operative Society, said that the problem had been caused by the addition of many new poultry suppliers to the list of those providing subsidized goods for Kuwaitis, claiming that this had “reduced demand for chicken in many Co-ops.”

Another senior Co-op official, Nasser

Al-Anwar, the chairman of the Saad AlAbdullah Co-op, said that his outlet is facing real problems as chicken suppliers have demanded that their product prices be increased there, threatening to withhold supplies if this demand is not met.

A number of local restaurant owners also complained that chicken prices had rocketed over the last two months, describing government officials’ statements on the matter as a “delusion.”

“The price of a ten-piece carton of Class B and C chicken weighing 9001,000 grams has leapt from KD 5.800 to KD 7.500,” said one restaurant owner, stressing that nobody can now afford to buy Class A chicken.

kuwait digest

May Allah have mercy on us!

By Ahmed Mohammed Al-Fahad

I

was stopped the other day by three ‘cool’ young citizens. The first wore a dishdashah with an uncovered head, the second blue jeans and a white shirt and the third was dressed in a full traditional outfit; dishdasha, gotra and egal. Recognizing me, the three asked why I hadn’t written about privatizing the Kuwait Airways Corporation or the waste of the airlines assets.

“Do you mean the worn out planes we use to travel from one place to another,” I asked.

He laughed in a most cold-hearted manner, just like a villain plotting an evil scheme in a movie, and responded; “no, what I meant was the young staff members who have cost KAC millions to train and develop their skills. The ones who are worth millions now.” The three then continued arguing about KAC problems; the need to privatize it, the number of its engineers, employees,

pilots and its laws.

I stood by helplessly, waiting for one of them to stop speaking for just one moment so that I could answer their question with an “I will Inshallah.”

Reading about the two successive KAC flights that had to make emergency landings I recalled my meeting with those three cool guys. I asked myself a single question: What are these staff members - who must be worth billions - sitting behind fancy desks waiting for? Does a disaster have to take place before they admit to their failure and confess that their planes are pieces of junk?

KAC should reduce the number of flights they are offering and only use the planes that are in the best shape. My second question was where were those staff members, including engineers and technicians, who refused privatization plans before those two flights took off? Were they watching a TV series or something?! —Al-Watan

Gross financial violations unearthed at KPTC KUWAIT: The Audit Bureau recently issued a report on gross financial violations that were detected at the Kuwait Pubic Transport Company (KPTC). The report also stated that the company had lost 75 percent of its capital over the past three years.

Despite assurances made by the minister of social affairs and labor that wages would not be reduced, the KPTC has been deducting KD 50 from its employees for over 18 months, as indicated in its payroll drafts made to local banks, reported Al-Watan.

A KPTC official said that the company had been deducting the amount from hundreds of expatriate employees while, at the same time, members of the board of directors had received KD 35,000 for ‘excellent performance’ allowances, that is KD 7,500 each. It is a clear violation of Article 49 of its charter and Article 150 of law number 15/1960 pertinent with commercial companies. The official explained that these laws state that “the chairman and members of board of directors can only get a maximum of 10 percent of the company’s profits as bonuses after deducting all expenses and distributing at least five percent to shareholders.” He also noted that the company has lost around KD 7 million so far.

NBK staff donate blood KUWAIT: The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), the leading bank in Kuwait and the highest rated in the Middle East, yesterday launched a blood donation campaign among its employees in response to the Blood Bank’s urgent need for donations in light of low blood inventories.

The NBK staff yesterday voluntarily rushed to the Blood Bank and donated blood. NBK encouraged its staff to donate blood as a contribution to replenish the current low blood inventories at Kuwait Blood Bank due to the sharp decrease in the number of blood donors during Eid Al-Adha holidays.

Manal Al-Mattar, PR and Advertising Executive Manager said that the call that NBK channeled to all its employees for blood donation was met with great enthusiasm. NBK staff voluntarily rushed to the Blood Bank in a clear manifestation of their human and national commitment towards all patients who are in dire need of blood.

Manal Al-Mattar

NATIONAL

Monday, November 22, 2010

5 Civil Aviation chief eyes growth

Kuwait’s Open Skies policy reaps rewards

kuwait digest

Anything but the constitution

By Ali Al-Baghli

T

here are groups in Kuwait whose job it is to repeat certain slogans or cliches without necessarily understanding the goal behind the statements. They keep shouting and defending whatever they are told, whenever they get the chance.

One of the more common slogans we are hearing these days is ‘anything but the constitution.’ Those who support this notion believe that the constitution should be treated as a holy book; meaning that it should never be adjusted. However, unlike the divine books given to us by God Almighty,

constitutions are created by human beings, which make them far from perfect.

The Kuwaiti constitution was finalized 48 years ago by an elite group of Kuwaiti activists. They took examples from the constitutions of France and Egypt, as well as the Universal Declaration for Human Rights.

The professionalism of the committee’s members reflected positively on the outcome, the result of which was a fine constitution uninfluenced by fundamentalist ideologies thanks to the lack of Salafi or Muslim Brotherhood groups in Kuwait at the time.

In recent years, the ‘anything but the constitution’ group launched a rowdy campaign

against MP Ali Al-Rashid for suggesting amending certain aspects of the constitution.

Meanwhile however, the same group failed to comment on a proposal made by MP Mohammad Hayef who suggested that permission be taken by an individual looking to receive plastic surgery, despite the fact that his suggestion clearly violates article 30 of the constitution, which protects privacy.

Actions to protect the constitution should also be made against those who try to violate its meaning, not only those interested in actually changing it, especially if it is an attempt to further protect our freedoms. —Al-Qabas

Kuwait to host Eastern Sudan donor conference

KUWAIT: A teenager was injured when he fell from an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) in an open area of Al-Julaia. He was treated at the scene by paramedics.

—Photos by Fouad Al-Shaikh

38.5% of bedoons have 1965 census documents KUWAIT: Only 42,000 of Kuwait’s 109,000 bedoon (stateless) residents possess documents related to the 1965 official census, according to a survey carried out by the cabinet committee looking into resolving the problems facing this group.

The committee revealed the figure pending an expected announcement that its work will soon come under the supervision of the new authority charged with ruling on bedoon-related issues, rather than the Ministry of Interior (MoI) which it currently answers to. The cabinet has assigned former MP Saleh Al-Fadhalah to head the new authority.

The new body is expected to give those Bedoons registered in the 1970 census one year in which to legalize their status, after which they will face prosecution on charges of illegal immigration, along with removal of their original nationalities.

In its first year of operation, the new authority is expected to focus solely on resolving the situation of those Bedoons registered in the 1965 census. These individuals may be given Kuwaiti nationality according to official recommendations submitted by the authority to cabinet, as long as

they have no criminal record. Within five years, those included in this group will be entitled to claiming all civil rights, including possession of civil IDs, driving licenses, marriage certificates, etc.

Meanwhile, an Amiri decree is expected to be issued within the next few days officially announcing the members of the new Bedoon authority.

While Al-Fadhalah has been confirmed as president of the new body, the supreme president is expected to be named as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber AlMubarak Al-Sabah, with Sheikh Khalid AMubarak Al-Sabah expected to become the Secretary General.

Other members of the new authority are reportedly set to include cabinet Secretary General Abdullatif Al-Roudhan, the cabinet Bedoon committee’s secretary Fawaz Al-Fadhil, Kuwaiti Army Chief of Staff Ahmad Al-Khalid AlSabah, MoI Undersecretary Ahmad Al-Rujaib, foreign ministry Undersecretary Khalid AlJarallah and the Director General of the Public Authority for Civil Information Musa’ed AlAssousi. —Agencies

KUWAIT: The Donor Conference for Eastern Sudan is of Arab, regional and international significance, KFAED Director General Abdulwahab Al-Bader said yesterday.

The conference, to be held here under patronage of his Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah on Dec 1 and 2, will also see attendance of HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad AlSabah.

“The conference is within the implementation mechanism of the Peace Agreement signed in October 2006, which aim at meeting development requirements in the region,” Al-Bader said in a press release.

He added that with a number of Arab and global investment firms taking part, importance of the conference would enhance.

The conference, to be held in cooperation with the Sudanese government, sees the participation of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and a number of Arab funds, including the Arab Fund Economic and Social Development (AFESD), the Islamic Development Bank (IDP), Eastern Sudan Reconstruction and Development Fund (ESRDF) and Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).

“The conference will address different aspects and means to revive economy and development in Eastern Sudan, focusing on curbing poverty, rehabilitating infrastructure and investing in human resources,” Al-Bader noted.

He also voiced pride that KFAED (Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development) is part of such event.

Sudanese Presidential Advisor and head of the conference’s preparatory committee Mustafa Ismael estimated overall cost of development projects in Eastern Sudan by $4.2 billion, covering development, services and investment sectors.

Two-part projects were divided among the three states of East Sudan of Kassala, AlQadarif and Red Sea with the Al-Qadarif accounting for 39 development projects and 13 investment projects estimated at $1.133 billion, Kassala having 48 development projects and eight investment projects worth $1.570 billion and the Red Sea having 41 development projects and seven investment projects at a value of $1.275 billion. —KUNA

KUWAIT: The major expansion earmarked for Kuwait International Airport (KIA) is set to produce a wealth of investment opportunities for the private sector, according to Fawaz Al-Farah, President of Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Al-Farah told Oxford Business

Group (OBG), the global publishing, research and consultancy firm, that although the DGCA had put interim measures in place to help ease congestion, such as reallocating flight slots, only long-term solutions would enable KIA to handle the growing number of passengers using the airport.

“With a projected compound annual growth rate in passengers of 10 percent over the next 10 years, we have to expand to be able to cater to the increase in passenger traffic and cargo movement,” Al-Farah said. “This will bring a number of opportunities for the private sector and foreign investors to contribute and participate.”

The development of KIA is expected to include the construction of a second terminal, a third runway, a five-star passenger transit hotel and a new control center. The airport will also house extensive new cargo handling facilities which it is hoped will allow the country to carve out a niche as a regional hub.

Al-Farah was being interviewed in the compilation of business information for ‘The Report: Kuwait 2011,’ an in-depth economic guide to be produced by OBG. The report will include a detailed, sector-by-sector guide for foreign investors, together with a wide range of interviews with the most prominent political, economic and business leaders, including Deputy Premier for Economic Affairs Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahed Al-Sabah.

Al-Farah views the overhaul planned for KIA as a strategic component in Kuwait’s economic expansion which will produce ripple effects across the sectors as the country looks to link up transport networks and upgrade infrastructure in parallel with the airport development.

He also pointed out that the industry was already benefiting from adopting the ‘Open Skies’ policy which had bucked the trend of the global downturn by boosting air traffic last year.

marks the culmination of more than six months’ on-the-ground research by a team of analysts from OBG, assessing trends and developments in all major sectors of the economy. It will provide information on opportunities for foreign direct investment into Kuwait’s economy and will be a guide to the many facets of the country, including its macroeconomics, infrastructure, political landscape, banking developments.

OBG’s forthcoming business guide will also feature a comprehensive analysis of the country’s impressive development over the past five decades to mark Kuwait’s 50th anniversary of independence. ‘The Report: Kuwait 2011’ will be available in print form or online.

Oxford Business Group (OBG) is a global publishing, research and consultancy firm, which publishes economic and political intelligence on the markets of the Middle East, Africa,

KUWAIT: Fawaz Al-Farah, President of Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, talking to Oxford Business Group.

“Open Skies adoption has contributed significantly to the growth of air traffic into and out of Kuwait, which in turn contributes to the economy of the country.

This is reflected in the statistics of passenger and cargo movement which hit record figures in 2009 despite the world economic crisis.”

Voicing his support for the privatization of Kuwait Airways, AlFarah pointed out it would raise the national airline’s profile by providing it with the modern administrative supervision and fleet task force needed to be a key player on a competitive stage.

“There is a highly competitive aviation environment in the Gulf, and for a regional airline to compete and expand, it must be flexible and adaptive,” Al-Farah said.

“Kuwait Airways is in need of an injection of new technology, modern fleet and high- performance expertise provision which privatization should hopefully provide.”

‘The Report: Kuwait 2011’

Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. Through its range of print and online products, OBG offers comprehensive and accurate analysis of political, macroeconomic developments, including banking, capital markets, insurance, energy, transport, industry and telecoms. ‘The Report: Kuwait 2011’ will be produced in partnership with KAMCO, Al-Sarraf and AlRuwayeh and Moore Stephens, Al-Nisf and Partners.

The critically acclaimed economic, political and business reports have become the leading source of business intelligence on developing countries in the regions they cover. OBG’s online economic briefings provide up-todate in-depth analysis on the issues that matter for tens of thousands of subscribers worldwide. OBG’s consultancy arm offers tailor-made market intelligence and advice to firms currently operating in these markets and those looking to enter them.

6

NATIONAL

Four-member gang held for trading in liquor KUWAIT: Ahmadi authorities arrested four people trying to sell alcohol on Gulf Road, reported Al-Rai. The four w ere arrested after a police patrol spotted tw o w omen stepping out of one car and handing a plastic bag to tw o men in another vehicle.

The patrol approached the tw o suspiciously parked cars and a search of their vehicles revealed that they w ere in possession of tw o bottles of imported liquor. When questioned, the tw o Asian w omen admitted to selling alcohol for a local dealer. They, as w ell as the tw o men, an Arab and a European, w ere referred to the proper authorities.

Road accident A domestic worker was killed in a traffic accident that left members of a Kuwaiti family seriously injured, reported Al-Watan. The accident occurred on Sixth Ring Road when a vehicle carrying a Kuwaiti family turned over after crashing into another car driven by a young citizen. Paramedics responded to the emergency and pronounced the Asian maid dead upon their arrival. Members of the family that the maid worked for were admitted to a nearby hospital with serious injuries. An investigation into the accident was launched.

Death threat A man reported that his friend threatened to kill him at gunpoint in the parking lot of the Scientific Center, reported Al-Rai. He reported the incident to authorities at the Rumaithiya police station and informed them that the incident occurred after he decided to meet up with a friend of his to settle a previous dispute. He reported directly to the police station after escaping from his friend in the parking lot.

Children saved An Asian barber escaped from authorities after he attempted to sexually assault two children inside his shop in Salmiya, reported Al-Rai. The incident occurred after the barber lured a brother and sister playing in a nearby yard into his shop. He fled the scene after the little girl began screaming for help.

Neighbors responded to the girl’s screams and returned the children to their parents. Their father reported the incident to the Rumaithiya police station and the barber’s sponsor was contacted as soon as authorities could not find him. The sponsor provided police with the suspect’s cell phone number, which they discovered was turned off.

Investigators are in pursuit of the criminal.

Drug dealer busted A drug dealer and a female drug abuser were arrested in Mahboulah following a brief car chase with authorities that started in Fahaheel, reported Al-Rai. Police pursued a suspicious driver who refused to pull over and forced him to stop his car. When

questioned, police discovered that the man was a drug dealer and that his female companion was offering the dealer sexual favors in exchange for heroine.

They were referred to the proper authorities.

Police officer investigated The interior ministry launched an investigation against a police officer who was accused of misusing his authority and threatening two people he pulled over with a gun, reported AlAnba. The case was opened when two young Kuwaiti men reported that they were pulled over by a police officer they had a previous financial dispute with. The two said that the police officer pointed his gun toward them and ordered them to shut up.

Fake identity Investigations into a previously reported case regarding the son of an interior ministry employee accused of sexually assaulting the daughter of a businessman revealed that the suspect faked his relation to a ministry official in an attempt to avoid punishment, reported Al-Qabas.

kuwait digest

Retirement age and its effect on budgets

By Dr Yaqoub Al-Sharrah n France, large-scale strikes were staged in protest against a bill that was passed by the Parliament to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 years. Despite the serious repercussions that the strike has had on the country’s ability to govern its daily activities, the Parliament as well as President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted that the retirement age be raised for financial, social and political reasons that account for the country’s benefit.

In Kuwait, and most countries of the world, the age of 65 is considered the average age of retirement. Retirement means, parting from one’s post to be occupied by a younger staff member. This process will result in an increase in the amount spent as salaries as a result of new personnel being

I

One dead in traffic accident

The case was filed by a businessman who brought his daughter to the police station. He reported that his daughter suffered a broken nose while being sexually assaulted by the suspect after he kidnapped her. Authorities arrested the suspect and he claimed to be the son of an interior ministry official. The official was contacted and informed about the case and it was later revealed that the culprit gave a name identical to that of the ministry official’s son in an attempt to avoid punishment. Further investigations revealed that the suspect is also employed by the Ministry of Defense. He was referred to the proper authorities.

news agency BNA as saying yesterday.

He asserted Bahrain’s unflinching support for multilateral efforts to come out with viable solutions and common denominators for the global crises to be contained and alleviated.

Sheikh Khaled underscored importance of security and political issues to be discussed by delegates, who would also talk about means of steering the region away from arms race, including nuclear weapons.

“Different regional players will outline

appointed. That, of course, depends on the rates of the number of newly signed employees in comparison with retirees. The increase in the amount that the government spends on salaries also affects other forms of spending, including spending on projects and importing goods.

Therefore, procedures regarding retirement and appointments are usually dealt with due to their effect on the state’s annual budget. Adding or taking out a year or two from the retirement age might not appear to be a big deal at a first glance.

This operation has a great impact on the country’s budget, due to a direct connection with the state’s spending habits. This is in addition to the budgetary deficits caused as a result of the state’s inability to provide citizens with suitable services.

Making comparison between France and Kuwait, is of course not the primary objective. However, it is interesting to consider the cases in our country where people file for early retirement, and others request for their terms to be extended after passing the age of retirement.

As explained earlier, both cases affect Kuwait’s spending and subsequently its ability to enhance the services provided to citizens. It is also important to note here how Kuwait sometimes imposes an increase in pension in order to convince employees who pass the age of retirement, to free their positions for younger staff.

This case also proves that the government does not have the authority to force employees into retirement, or deny early retirement requests. — Al-Rai

Official arrested A Ministry of Interior employee was arrested for threatening the daughter of a retired serviceman, reported Al-Qabas. The case was opened when a ministry of defense official informed police that his married daughter was being threatened by a person she had a previous relationship with.

Authorities apprehended the suspect and he was referred to the proper authorities.

Forum discusses regional security MANAMA: Participants in the Manama Dialogue Forum, to open in Bahrain on Dec 3, will discuss security and political issues, in addition to challenges jeopardizing regional security and steering the region away from any arms race, Bahrain’s top diplomat said.

“This year’s edition will discuss key economic and political challenges and crises facing the world and gauge their repercussions on the region,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa was quoted by official

Monday, November 22, 2010

their respective views, thus promoting dialogue and understanding between all parties,” he said.

Sheikh Khaled said the face-to-face dialogue was crucial to iron out misunderstandings and avert any further simmering tensions in the already highly-polarised region.

“The role of influential countries in promoting the security of the Gulf on the regional and international arenas will be scrutinised,” he said. — KUNA

Children enjoy an event.

Entertainment City celebrates Eid KUWAIT: The Entertainment City celebrated Eid AlAdha with the help of various programs that were prepared by the Touristic Enterprises Company and sponsored by Zain.

Thousands of visitors were welcomed between 11am and 11pm.

They enjoyed various events and took part in competitions.

TEC staff members pose for a photo.

Visitors take part in a competition.

A competition held for children.

Traditional ‘Dabkha’ dance.

A visitor receives a prize after winning a competition.

INTERNATIONAL

Monday, November 22, 2010

7

Israeli soldiers walk free in Gaza human shield case ‘Sentence is unbelievable’ JERUSALEM: Two Israeli soldiers received suspended sentences and demotions yesterday for using a Palestinian child as a human shield during the 2008-2009 Gaza war, an army spokeswoman said. The soldiers were convicted on October 3 for forcing a nine-year-old boy to search bags believed to be “The two Givati soldiers will be on probation for two years and any violation will result in three months in prison. Their rank will be dropped from staff sergeant to sergeant,” she said.

Gerard Horton, a spokesman in the West Bank for Genevabased rights group Defense for Children International (DCI), described the sentence as “unbelievable.” “Do the Israeli authorities think that a threemonth suspended sentence is an appropriate punishment for two heavily-armed soldiers

VATICAN CITY: Newly-appointed Cardinal Antonius Naguib, of Egypt, walks past Pope Benedict XVI after receiving his cardinal ring during a mass in St Peter’s Basilica yesterday. The Pontiff formally created 24 new cardinals on Saturday amid cheers in St Peter’s Basilica, bringing a mostly Italian group into the elite club that will eventually elect his successor. —AP

Iraq MPs meet as government formation talks gather steam BAGHDAD: Iraqi politicians began horse-trading yesterday over the formation of a cabinet, but hopes for a quick resolution were dampened on news Nuri Al-Maliki would not be named premierdesignate for several days. The talks came after a power-sharing pact between Iraq’s divided political factions put an end to months of impasse in which it shattered the world record for the longest period without a new government following elections.

“They will start today, the real negotiations with other political blocs,” Kamal Al-Saidi, an MP from Maliki’s State of Law coalition, told AFP. Saidi said the National Alliance, the pan-Shiite grouping of which State of Law is the largest component, had formed a committee to consider which cabinet posts it wanted, and to hold talks with other parties. Newly re-elected President Jalal Talabani was not expected to officially ask Maliki to form a cabinet until Thursday, a parliamentary official said, so as to give the incumbent prime minister more time to negotiate ministerial posts.

Under Iraq’s constitution, Talabani has 15 days to appoint a prime minister following his selection

by MPs on November 11. He had earlier been expected to name Maliki as premier yesterday.

Once selected, Maliki would have 30 days to form a government. “Jalal Talabani decided to nominate Maliki as prime minister on Thursday, one day before the official limit,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“That is to give him the maximum amount of time to form the government, which is a very difficult task.” Meanwhile, lawmakers held just the fourth session of parliament since March elections and the first since the conclusion of the five-day Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, focusing on parlia-

mentary rules and procedures, he added. It comes after the power-sharing pact was agreed earlier this month and lauded by international leaders including US President Barack Obama, although the agreement has looked fragile ever since.

The deal called for Maliki, a Shiite, and Talabani, a Kurd, to keep their jobs and for a Sunni Arab to be selected speaker of parliament. It also established a new statutory body to oversee security as a sop to ex-premier Iyad Allawi, who had held out for months to regain the top job after his Iraqiya bloc narrowly won the most seats in the March 7 poll. The support of Iraqiya, which garnered most of its seats in Sunni areas, is widely seen as vital to preventing a resurgence of interconfessional violence.

The Sunni Arab minority that dominated Saddam Hussein’s regime was the bedrock of the anti-US insurgency after the 2003 invasion.

Illustrating the tenuousness of the accord, around 60 Iraqiya MPs walked out of a session of parliament on November 11, the day after the deal was signed, protesting that it was not being honored.

The bloc’s MPs had wanted three of its senior members, barred before the election for their alleged ties to Saddam’s banned Baath party, to be reinstated immediately. Two days later, however, Iraq’s lawmakers appeared to have salvaged the deal after leaders from the country’s three main parties met and agreed to reconcile and address the MPs’ protests. In a sign that security in the country remains precarious, two people were killed, including a seven-year-old boy, in separate bomb attacks in the restive central province of Diyala, the province’s security operations command said. —AFP

Abbas shuns freeze that excludes East Jerusalem CAIRO: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said yesterday that he will not return to the negotiating table with Israel without a settlement freeze that includes annexed Arab east Jerusalem. The Palestinian leader also hit out at US efforts to persuade Israel to agree to a more limited freeze applying only to the rest of the occupied West Bank in return for a raft of political and security benefits, saying he wanted to have nothing to do with such deal-making. “If it does not encompass Jerusalem, in other words if there is not a complete freeze on settlement in all the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept it,” Abbas told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“If Israel wants to return to its settlement activities, then we can’t go on. A settlement freeze must include all of the Palestinian territories and above all Jerusalem,” Abbas said. Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.

Although that freeze did not apply directly to east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly held off approving projects there for most of its duration to avoid the political fallout.

But faced with opposition from hardliners in his cabinet to any new settlement freeze, Netanyahu has said repeatedly that no restrictions will apply to construction in east Jerusalem. In talks last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put together a package of incentives to get Netanyahu to accept a one-off 90-day freeze, including an additional 20 F-35 fighter jets, worth three billion dol-

lars, and a pledge to block any international efforts to impose a peace deal on Israel.

But Abbas spoke out against the US diplomatic efforts. “We told the Americans that we wanted nothing to do with their deal-making. We reject the idea of linking these bargains to the resumption of negotiations,” he said. “If the issue is a matter of weapons for one side or another, then we don’t accept it.” Abbas said there were still no firm proposals from Washington. “So far nothing official has come out of the US administration, either to us or to the Israelis, that we can comment on,” he said.

After talks with Abbas on Saturday, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said that as soon as the Palestinians received the US response, the bloc’s follow-up committee would hold an emergency meeting to discuss its next step. The League has given Washington until the end of this month to rescue the peace talks.

Abbas also held talks on Saturday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been brokering reconciliation talks between the Western-backed Palestinian leader’s Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza.

“So far we have not reached an agreement with Hamas,” Abbas said, accusing the movement of going back on some of its earlier bargaining positions. “Despite all that... we will continue to hold a dialogue with Hamas at all levels until we restore Palestinian national unity,” he added. The two factions have been at loggerheads since Hamas seized Gaza in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to the Palestinian president and effectively restricting his authority to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. —AFP

Jordanians riot over police shooting AMMAN: Calm was restored to the northwestern Jordanian town of Salt yesterday after four days of rioting sparked by the shooting of an alleged traffic violator, police said. Suleiman Khreisat remains in critical condition after he sustained a gunshot wound to the head after he drove through a police road block on Wednesday, said police spokesman Lt Col Mohammed Al-Khatib. He said a police major shot the man while chasing after the vehicle.

The officer has been detained and is being investigated for “using excessive force with a civilian.” Al-Khatib said the victim refused to stop at the road block.

“His vehicle had no license plates and broken front and back windows, which made it look suspicious,” he said, adding that riots then erupted in the town. “Salt residents wanted to know who shot their townsman, demanding that police identify him so that they could take revenge,” Al-Khatib added. Dozens of residents hurled stones at police, smashed police kiosks, street lights, a building that belongs to traffic police, as well as shop windows and cars, including police vehicles.

They also burned trees in at least two main city squares, ATM machines and tires to block roads. “Several police officers and citizens were also wounded and have been hospitalized,” Al-Khatib said. He said police used tear gas to restore order. Al-Khatib said 34 rioters were also arrested and will face trial. —AP

treating a nine-year-old boy as a human shield?”

He told AFP that the trial appeared designed to deflect attention from accusations in the Goldstone report, a UNmandated study by South African judge Richard Goldstone which accused both Israel and the Palestinians of war crimes during the threeweek war. “It’s purely for international consumption,” Horton told AFP. “It’s to look like you’re doing something busy after the Goldstone report, in

booby-trapped during Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza which erupted in December 2008. The two, who were not identified, were each given suspended terms of three months imprisonment and were demoted from the rank of staff sergeant to sergeant.

order to get the UN off your back. It’s not a genuine attempt to enforce the law or to send a message that this is not appropriate conduct for the army to engage in.”

Goldstone recommended that the report’s findings be transferred to the International Criminal Court if Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement fail to conduct “credible” investigations into the war. Israel rejected the report as “biased.”

Israel’s Supreme Court banned the army from using human

shields in October 2005.

Since then, DCI had documented 15 breaches of that ban in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Horton said. “This is the only case out of those 15 where anyone has been prosecutedand they get a three-month suspended sentence,” he added.

During the trial, the boy, identified as Majd R, said he feared for his life as one of the soldiers ordered him at gunpoint to open a suspect bag. “I thought they would kill me. I became very scared and wet my pants,” he

said in an affidavit given to DCI. The military court recognized that when the incident occurred in January 2009, the troops had been under “difficult and dangerous combat conditions” and had gone several nights without sleep.

Israel launched its 22-day offensive against the Gaza Strip in December 2008 in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory. The fighting killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. —AFP

Welfare funding runs out in Iraq BAGHDAD: Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows’ benefits, farm crops and other programs for the poor, the parliament leader yesterday told lawmakers who have collected nearly $180,000 so far this year in one of the world’s most oil-rich nations. In only their fourth session since being elected in March, members of Iraq’s parliament demanded to know what happened to the estimated $1 billion allocated for welfare funding by the Finance Ministry for 2010.

“We should ask the government where these allocations for widows’ aid have gone,” demanded Sadrist lawmaker Maha Adouri of Baghdad, one of the women who make up a quarter of the legislature’s 325 members. “There are thousands of widows who did not receive financial aid for months.” Another legislator said farmers have not been paid for wheat and other crops they supplied the government for at least five months.

The cause of the shortfall was clear, but officials have worried that the deadlock over forming a new government since March’s inconclusive election ultimately would lead to funding shortages. Whatever the cause, the welfare cutoff has been felt among Iraqis. “We are sick people and others are old, and not getting our welfare puts us in a financial crisis,” said Fatima Hassan, 54, a widow who lives with her four children in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum.

BAGHDAD: In this file photo, an Iraqi widow waits to receive money from a government office. —AP “How can we pay for our daily needs and for our medicine, or to cover the needs of my children? Where are the revenues of our right in our oil?” said Hassan, who stopped receiving government payments more than four months ago. Speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi promised that parliament would push the Iraqi government for answers on where the money went. But he said new funding for the nation’s social care programs will have to come out of the 2011 budget, which he said would be sent to par-

liament within days. He said the Finance Ministry recently alerted parliament of the cash drain. A Finance Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media put the 2010 welfare budget total at about $1 billion.

He would not say the cause of the shortfall. “We will ask the government about this - if there is any carelessness or delaying these payments,” said Al-Nujaifi, a Sunni member of the Iraqiya political

alliance. Iraq sits on top of some of the world’s largest oil reserves, although production has failed to grow significantly since the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent reluctance by private investors to mine the vast petroleum fields. There are an estimated $143.1 billion barrels of oil reserves in Iraq, valued at over $1 trillion, based on the $81.51 per-barrel price as of Friday.

The lawmakers’ eagerness to take up an issue dear to their constituents may have aimed in part to reverse public scorn for their own lavish paychecks. Even though parliament has hardly met over the past eight months, lawmakers have continued to pull in salaries and allowances that reach $22,500 a month - as well a one-time $90,000 stipend and perks like free nights in Baghdad’s finest hotel. The four-hour session was otherwise largely taken up by procedural issues since lawmakers still can’t take up the most politically meaty issue before them - approving a new government.

Factions have already started haggling over positions in backroom talks, even though President Jalal Talabani has not yet formally asked Prime Minister Nouri AlMaliki to begin selecting ministry leaders a step that government spokesman Ali AlDabbagh said would like come in several days. —AP

INTERNATIONAL

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Burkina leader urges big turnout for poll Incumbent leader seen as key power-broker in region Sarkozy ratings up but latest scandal looms PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy received a boost from a poll yesterday showing his popularity rebounding from record lows, but he faced a growing scandal over allegations of back payments on 1990s naval deals with Pakistan.

The 55-year-old conservative leader hoped a cabinet reshuffle last week would help turn the page on a difficult year marred by allegations of illegal funding of his conservative UMP party and a series of national protests over his pension reform.

Sarkozy is also trying to use an ambitious agenda under France’s year-long presidency of the G20 group of nations, which began this month, as a platform for rebuilding his popularity in the run-up to a presidential election in early 2012. A survey by pollsters Ifo published in the Journal du Dimanche offered Sarkozy some respite. It showed his approval rating inching up by 3 percentage points to 32 percent in early November, after hitting rock-bottom in October at the height of union-led protests against legislation to raise the pension age.

The poll was conducted either side of a Nov. 14 cabinet reshuffle, which retained government heavyweights like Economy Minister Christine Lagarde but ditched centrists and left-wing converts to shore up Sarkozy’s right-wing support base. However, yesterday’s newspapers all led on the investigation into the “Karachi affair”, in which 11 French naval engineers and technicians died in a 2002 bomb attack in the Pakistani port, originally thought to be the work of Islamist militants.

Relatives of the victims launched a case this week against former President Jacques Chirac and his then chief-of-staff Dominique de Villepin, alleging the suicide attack was a reprisal for Chirac’s decision to halt commissions on Agosta submarine sales to Pakistan when he won power in 1995. —Reuters

OUAGADOUGOU: A young girl holds up a poster portraying Hama Arba Diallo, Burkina Faso’s presidential election candidate ahead of the elections yesterday. —AFP

Germany gets set for first pirate trial in 400 years HAMBURG: Ten Somali men go on trial for piracy today in this maritime city, the first such case in Germany in some 400 years. The men are charged with attempting to seize the German container ship MS Taipan in April, some 900 kilometers (560 miles) east of the Somali coast. The trial should last several months.

The pirates were captured

by Dutch naval forces who boarded the ship after a brief exchange of gunfire. They were later handed over to Germany.

The crew evaded capture by hiding in a so-called “panic room”.

Pirates used to have their heads chopped off down by the Hamburg docks, but today’s defendants face a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.

Experts suggest this will hardly deter others from rushing to join the Horn of Africa’s most lucrative business. “It’s a highprofit, low risk game” for pirates, said Dieter Berg, head of marine underwriting at Germany’s Munich RE, the world’s leading reinsurance company.

“It’s important pirates should face trial”, but too few countries are prepared to deal with such difficult cases, Berg said. “There’s little risk involved for would-be pirates” as most of those captured are simply let go, Berg said. For a Somali pirate to be tried in the West “might be the ultimate prize rather than a deterrent,” suggested Anja Shortland, who studies the issue at the German Institute for Economic

Research (DIW) “Spending three, five, even seven years in a European or American jail followed by political asylum-you can’t do much better as a Somali man,” she said. “It is rather unlikely that the trial in Hamburg will have any major effect on the general problem,” agrees Niels Stolberg, president of the Beluga Shipping Company, which has seen several of its ships attacked. Both the number of attacks and the amounts demanded for ransom have

spiked over the past two years, despite deployment of naval forces in the region, according to the London-based International Maritime Bureau.

Some 23 vessels and 500 crew are currently held by Somali pirates, according to the Bureau. The average length of captivity was 45 days in 2008, 90 days in 2009, and 120 days so far this year because “negotiations over ransoms are getting both longer and more complicated,” according to Berg. “Most ransoms average four to five mil-

Britons want William, not Charles as their next king LONDON: Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton should be Britain’s next king and queen, not the heir to the throne Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, two polls showed on Saturday. An ICM poll, published in Britain’s News of the World newspaper, showed that 64 percent of people wanted William and his future bride as next in line to the throne, while a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times found the majority of Britons thought William would make a better king than his father Charles. Charles, 62, is currently next in line to the throne, now occupied by his mother Queen Elizabeth, 84. The British public has no say in who should be their next king or queen, a largely symbolic role in a country run as a parliamentary democracy.

The ICM survey also found that fewer than one in five people wanted the crown to pass to Charles and Camilla. The YouGov poll showed that 44 percent of people thought Charles should make way for his son to become the next king, against 37 percent who thought he should not. William and Middleton, both aged 28, announced their engagement this week, the photogenic couple drawing extensive media coverage. Charles is seen by some as too old to inject vitality in the monarchy should he eventually succeed his mother. Charles’s wife Camilla is nowhere near as popular as his first wife, Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997 after they had divorced. —Reuters

lion dollars,” Berg believes.

Pirates say they received a record nine million dollars for the release of a South Korean supertanker in November.

Many shipping companies now take out special “kidnap and ransom” insurance. At least one London company now advertises five-million-dollar coverage for a premium of 15,000 dollars per voyage, according to Berg. “But it’s not just the payment of ransom that is expensive. You have to add two to three million dollars for brokering a deal” with insurance companies employing professional negotiators and helicopters to drop off ransoms to pirates. According to Berg, pirates manage their money well, investing it abroad and buying better weapons and faster speed boats for their attacks.

Many ships are captured because they gamble with security measures, according to Shortland. “If you look at the pattern of what is being hijacked, it’s the idle, the unprepared,” she said. “If you make a good show of being prepared then the pirates go elsewhere.”

Stolberg, whose shipping company operates nearly 70 heavy lift ships, said his company resorts to passive defense measures to ward off attacks. “A few hundred meters of razor sharp wire are installed along the railing of each Beluga vessel entering risk areas,” he said. Decks are sprayed with a slippery water-chemical solution to slow down any pirate who makes it onto a ship. —AFP

OUAGADOUGOU: Burkina Faso’s leader Blaise Compaore appealed to voters yesterday to cast their ballot amid early signs of a weak turnout in a presidential poll where he is seen as the clear favorite. Compaore, 59, has carved himself a niche as an important and sometimes controversial power-broker in the unstable West African region, with analysts in particular citing his role in pushing for a return to civilian rule in Guinea. A Reuters witness who toured the capital Ouagadougou noted only a trickle of early voters and said a number of opposition parties had failed to place representatives at polling stations to monitor the vote.

“Voters should turn out in large numbers for this election because it is an opportunity for us to take stock and also to plan for the future,” Compaore told reporters as he cast his vote in a booth in the capital Ouagadougou.

Compaore seized power in a 1987 coup. Despite allowing multi-party politics he has faced little or no real opposition in a gold-mining and cotton-producing country where income per head is half the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Compaore last won election in 2005 with an overwhelming 80.3 percent. A weak turnout among the 3.3 million registered voters would nonetheless undermine the credibility of the poll result, which is due to be declared by Nov 25 at the latest. A landlocked country of 15 million people, Burkina Faso has avoided the instability that has plagued its neighbors and has in recent years benefited from high gold and cotton prices.

Foregone conclusion?

But while Ouagadougou hosts a top African film festival and has established itself as a venue for international conferences, it is stuck at 161st place out of 169 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index, a composite measure of life quality.

“It’s true, here, we haven’t got anything but at least we have peace and that is the most important thing,” said pensioner Alfred Ilboudo.

“This isn’t perhaps the best regime but I am voting for peace-just look around us.”

Others said they would vote against Compaore, but had little faith in any of the six opposition candidates, none of whom has had the financial means to match a campaign that has seen him hold rallies in even far-flung rural areas.

“It’s a foregone conclusion,” said teacher Omar Tapsoba. “I am voting just to ease my conscience because I don’t want to think that tomorrow this government will still be in power because I didn’t cast my vote.”

Analysts say Compaorewho retains his army title of captain-has only modest talents as an orator and often struggles to connect with voters on their main preoccupations. He is more at home as a mediator in the many conflicts and crises that have faced the wider region in the past two decades. Compaore was cited in UN reports for supporting insurgents during Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.

He was also initially accused by neighboring Ivory Coast of backing rebels that seized the north in its 2002-2003 conflict, but eventually became official mediator in efforts to overcome the ensuing political deadlock.

Working in concert with US and French backing, Compaore helped broker a Jan 15 accord in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou this year that paved the way for elections aimed at restoring civilian rule in Guinea. “It is not an exaggeration to say that nowadays he is a factor for stability in the region,” analyst Tara O’Connor at London-based Africa Risk Consulting. —Reuters

ANTANANARIVO: Special police officers point their weapons as they sit at the back of truck outside the air-force base, Saturday, Nov 20, 2010. —AP

Madagascar PM says mutiny defused without bloodshed ANTANANARIVO: An attempted coup on this troubled Indian Ocean island has been defused without bloodshed, the Madagascar regime’s prime minister said. Camille Vital told reporters late Saturday that 16 officers surrendered, ending an impasse that began Wednesday when a faction of officers declared they were taking over from Andry Rajoelina. Rajoelina, a former mayor and disc jockey, himself had the military’s support when he toppled an elected president last year after months of violent protest. Earlier Saturday, reporters had seen hundreds of soldiers loyal to Rajoelina converge on a base near the capital’s airport where the mutineers were holed up. Officials had said talks were planned, but shots could be heard inside the base.

Col Julien Ravelomihary, a high-ranking member of the High Transitional Authority’s military, told reporters Saturday that mutinous officers were ready to hand themselves over, but some junior officers initially resisted. Despite the shooting, Vital said: “This crisis ended with the surrender of the mutineers, without bloodshed or threat to human life.” He said those who surrendered would face trial. Also Saturday, police fired tear gas to break up a crowd of several hundred antiRajoelina demonstrators in central Antananarivo.

Saturday’s protest was led by a mayors’ organization that seeks a negotiated resolution to the crisis. Police say they arrested the group’s leader. No injuries were reported. The protesting mayors say they also oppose an electoral plan imposed by Rajoelina. Wednesday’s coup attempt

came amid a nationwide vote on Rajoelina’s proposed constitution. The vote went ahead, and incomplete results put the ‘yes’ vote well ahead.

Leaders of Madagascar’s neighbors, meeting Saturday at a regional summit in Botswana, said they did not recognize the referendum as legitimate, and that Rajoelina had been informed of that last month.

Yesterday, Raymond Ranjeva, a lawyer and professor in Madagascar who has served as a judge on the International Court of Justice, told The Associated Press the referendum was a “sad joke” that tested the opinion of very few of the country’s citizens. Ranjeva has called for an independent transitional authority to eventually oversee new elections in Madagascar.

The proposed new charter largely resembles the existing constitution, but states that Rajoelina, the current leader of the so-called High Transitional Authority, would remain in power until a new president is elected. There is no certainty new elections will be held. The proposed constitution also sets the minimum age to be president at 35 instead of the current 40.

Rajoelina is 36. Since Madagascar gained independence from France in 1960, soldiers have repeatedly meddled in politics. Most Malagasy, as the nation’s people are known, live in poverty, which ecotourism, vanilla production and the recent discovery of oil have done little to alleviate. Madagascar is famed for its lemurs and other unique wildlife and was the inspiration for two animated films of the same name. —AP

Ex-Congo VP Bemba to go on trial at int’l court THE HAGUE: The war crimes trial begins today of the most senior political figure in the custody of the International Criminal Court, a former vice president of Congo who is being held to account for mass rape and murder of civilians by his followers in the neighboring Central African Republic.

The trial is only the third to get under way at the court that began work in 2002 and is the first to focus on so-called command responsibility - charging a military leader for crimes committed by his troops - and on the use of widespread rape as a weapon of war.

Prosecutors say Jean-Pierre Bemba allowed his personal militia, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, to run amok in Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003 after the country’s then-president, Ange-Feliz Patasse, asked for its help in an ultimately unsuccessful fight against rebels led by the country’s former army chief of staff, Francois Bozize.

Calling them “neglected (victims) in a neglected country,” prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said the trial would shine a spotlight on the plight of girls, women and men raped in Central African Republic.

“International justice is forcing the world to pay attention to the victims of these atrocities,” he said. Prosecutors say Bemba’s troops aimed to terrorize civilians into not supporting Bozize’s rebels. “He chose rape as his method,” deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told judges at a preliminary hearing. Bensouda cited one unidentified witness, who said three of Bemba’s men burst into his home firing their weapons, forced him to his knees as his family watched, then sodomized him for four hours. “In front of my eyes they abused my wife,” she quoted the witness as saying. “After they finished with my wife, they came for my kids.” Prosecutors will call up to 40 witnesses at the trial and more than a dozen are victims of rapes. They expect to take around six months to present their evidence.

Bemba’s lawyers say he had no command of his troops once they crossed the Oubangui River into Patasse’s country and say he tried to investigate and prosecute officers responsible

Jean-Pierre Bemba for atrocities.

In written arguments to the court, they say 48-year-old Bemba “strenuously denies a breach of command responsibility.” Activists hope the trial will send a message to fighters and their commanders around the world that using rape as a weapon will be punished.

Brigid Inder, executive director of Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, said the trial should show women “that crimes of sexual violence are important enough to prosecute those who commit such acts” and demonstrate to military and militia leaders “that should they fail to prevent or punish subordinates for gender-based crimes, they will be held accountable.” Bemba has not yet entered pleas to three counts of war crimes and two crimes against humanity covering murder, rape and pillaging by his forces.

Moreno Ocampo said Bemba failed in his obligation to “prevent, repress and eventually punish” crimes by his troops. “On the contrary, we will show how he intentionally avoided any control,” the prosecutor said. “Carte blanche was the policy.” Bemba is the

most senior political figure of any country in the court’s custody. He ruled a large part of Congo during that country’s 1998-2002 war, with support from neighboring Uganda.

After a peace agreement ended the war, he became one of the country’s four vice presidents in a reunited Congo. He came second in a presidential election in 2006 behind Joseph Kabila. He was elected a senator, but refused to dismantle his militia, leading to clashes with security forces that left at least 300 dead in March 2007.

Facing charges of treason, he fled into exile in Portugal and Belgium.

Bemba was arrested in Belgium and transferred to the court in The Hague in July 2008. Bozize’s coup in Central African Republic was successful and he replaced Patasse as president in 2003. Defense lawyers tried unsuccessfully to have the case dismissed, saying that Bemba had already been investigated for the same offenses in Central African Republic and that his political opponents there and in Congo wanted him sent to The Hague for trial to get him out of the way. —AP

INTERNATIONAL

Monday, November 22, 2010

9

Obama, Medvedev urge US Senate to approve START Republicans have no good reason to oppose START LISBON: US President Barack Obama used the international stage on Saturday to press his Republican opponents in Congress to ratify a new nuclear arms deal w ith Russia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also urged US law makers to approve the START treaty sw iftly, and six European

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Workers of Haiti’s Health Ministry carry the body of Stephanie Sanbronce, 17, who died of cholera, outside her house, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2010. — AP

Candidates call for later vote in cholera-hit Haiti Critical supplies and skills urgently needed PORT-AU-PRINCE: Four Haitian presidential candidates have called for postponing elections set for November 28 as the country struggles with a cholera epidemic that has claimed nearly 1,200 lives and protests targeting UN peacekeepers.

Authorities have maintained that the election will not be postponed, but four candidates-Josette Bijou, Gerard Blot, Garaudy Laguerre and Wilson Jeudy-sought a poll delay. “We urge authorities to postpone the date of the elections, and to establish and publish a plan to battle the cholera epidemic that threatens the lives of all Haitians,” the presidential hopefuls, none of whom is a frontrunner in the polls, said in a joint statement.

Prominent candidates have urged the elections be held as scheduled, to avoid further political instability. Meanwhile, a senior UN official on Saturday expressed disappointment with the international response to the organization’s appeal to collect 164 million dollars to help Haiti combat a cholera epidemic. “While we are very grateful for the contributions received so far, both cash and in-kind, so far we only have received less than 10 percent of what we need,” said UN Humanitarian Coordinator Nigel Fisher.

“Critical supplies and skills are urgently needed,” he added. “We need doctors, nurses, water purification systems, chlorine tablets, soap, oral rehydration salts, tents for cholera treatment centers and a range of other supplies.” The response has also been impeded by recent violence in Cap Haitien, where most cholera response has been suspended for the past four days. UN authorities also called for an end to protests and a French cholera expert advising Haitian health authorities warned that the “unusual” month-old epidemic could be far more severe than figures suggest.

Gerard Chevallier, who is advising Haiti’s Health Ministry, warned that the country needs to focus on trying to halt the spread of the disease detected in Haiti one month ago. “The mechanics of the epidemic are unusual, swift and severe,” Chevallier told AFP in an interview. “The whole country is not affected, but the epidemic will spread.” Officials say 1,186 people have died and nearly 20,000 people have been treated in hospi-

tal, but Chevallier noted that in such epidemics, especially in impoverished nations like Haiti, the toll is “under-assessed” and almost always higher than the official figure. “Reports are imperfect.

There are areas where people die and nobody knows,” Chevallier said. “Two thirds of the territory is accessible only on foot.” Edmond Mulet, head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, said the protests against the blue helmets were putting aid and supplies at risk.

Demonstrators must stop blocking roads, bridges and airports so that vital humanitarian assistance can reach the thousands of people affected by the epidemic, he said. On Friday, youths threw rocks at military trucks in downtown Port-au-Prince while soldiers responded with volleys of tear gas. UN agencies have made several pleas for an end to the violence which they have said is threatening lives as the epidemic spreads. The unrest is preventing the UN’s World Food Program from providing daily hot meals to 190,000 children in schools in Cap Haitien, officials said.

Rumors have swirled for weeks that the cholera emanated from septic tanks at a base for Nepalese UN peacekeepers in central Haiti, leaking into the Artibonite River where locals drink, wash clothes and bathe. The UN says it tested some of the Nepalese and found no trace of cholera, while health officials say it is impossible to know and the focus must be on containing the epidemic and not divining its source. The unrest is especially worrying as the UN peacekeepers are scheduled to help organize and preside over the elections.

“It is not reasonable to talk of postponement.

We are at a point where people are willing to go vote,” argued frontrunner Mirlande Manigat.

Three cases of cholera have been found in the neighboring Dominican Republic, including a newborn baby and her grandmother in the capital Santo Domingo-who have never been to Haiti. Two cases have appeared in the US state of Floridaboth from people who traveled from Haiti.

Argentina said it was sending aid to Haiti including rehydration salts and medical equipment. — AFP

Mexico marks revolution centennial MEXICO CITY: Mexico on Saturday marked the centenary of its revolution-the first major social revolution of the 20th century-with its goal of greater justice in mind as the

country battles poverty and violent crime. “We acknowledge the thousands of Mexicans who struggled and gave their lives to achieve a fairer and more equal Mexico

MEXICO CITY: A man dressed as Mexican hero Pancho Villa gestures a parade marking the centennial of the Mexican Revolution in Zocalo plaza, Saturday, Nov 20, 2010. — AP

for themselves and their children,” President Felipe Calderon said in an address.

The movement started with a November 20 uprising led by Francisco Madero against dictator Porfirio Diaz, just months after Mexico celebrated the centenary of its 1810 independence from Spain. Its representatives produced a constitution in 1917, but outbreaks of warfare continued into the 1920s.

The revolution left more than one million people dead, maybe twice as many, according to some historians. It led not only to the constitution, but also to education and land reforms as well as the eventual creation of the PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was the dominant power for 71 years, creating relative stability in a region long marked by political unrest. Although Mexico is the 12th largest economy in the world, about half its population of 107 million still lives in poverty.

And commemorations for both the centenary and bicentenary come as the country is again struck by violent upheaval, this time from vicious drug gangs blamed for more than 28,000 deaths in less than four years, amid a military crackdown involving some 50,000 troops.

“The nation is not in a party mood... I would not be surprised if it occurred to some clear thinkers that the Revolution did not achieve all that much.

Because Mexico is not better off than many countries where there was no revolution,” author Hector Aguilar Camin wrote in an essay in Saturday’s Milenio newspaper. — AFP

foreign ministers echoed the appeal in a joint appearance at a NATO summit in Lisbon. The treaty, signed by Obama and Medvedev in April, commits the United States and Russia to cutting deployed nuclear w eapons by about 30 percent w ithin seven years. It also includes verification measures.

Obama says the treaty is vital because it allows US inspectors to gather accurate intelligence about the state of Russia’s nuclear stockpile.

“There is a time element to do this. We don’t have any mechanism to verify what is going on right now on the ground in Russia,” he told a news conference. Republicans, led by Senator Jon Kyl, have stalled ratification of the treaty in the Senate, saying it needs more work. They say their concerns are unlikely to be resolved before the end of the year.

Washington a “partisan place” Sounding frustrated on the last day of the NATO summit, Obama said military officials, senior members of past Republican administrations and European states backed the treaty. He said his administration had sought to address Republican concerns about the US nuclear arsenal by agreeing to spend $4 billion, in addition to $80 billion already earmarked to modernize it.

“There is no other reason not to do it other than the fact that Washington has become a very partisan place,” he said.

Medvedev told a separate news conference after talks with NATO leaders that if there was no START deal it could be “very unpleasant”. He hoped that US lawmakers would take a responsible approach and said Russia would act in a “symmetrical” way to the United States.

“At the end of the day I am sure common sense will prevail,” Medvedev said. Obama has warned that failure to ratify the treaty would put at risk warming ties with Russia, which has helped impose tougher sanctions on Iran and allowed equipment destined for NATO forces in Afghanistan through its territory.

The treaty must be

LISBON: US President Barack Obama gives a media briefing at the end of a NATO summit, Saturday Nov 20, 2010. — AP approved by the Senate and the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, before it goes into force. Medvedev has urged the Duma not to ratify it until US Senate approval is certain.

The foreign ministers of four former Eastern Bloc countries, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary, along with Denmark and Norway, appeared together at the NATO summit to urge the US Senate to ratify the treaty.

“If the START treaty is not ratified, it would be a real setback for European security,” said Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen. “We urge and hope that the US Congress will be able to ratify the START treaty as soon as possible.” — Reuters

New Columbine link to Aussie suicide twins DENVER: One of the Australian twins who shot themselves in Colorado wrote letters to a Columbine High School student bullied by one of the killers in the 1999 massacre nearby, it emerged this weekend. The letters, copies of which were obtained by AFP, are the second link between Columbine and identical twins Kristin and Candice Hermeler, who had a copy of a magazine cover on the schoolboy killers in their hotel room. Local police have so far downplayed a possible connection with the massacre at the Columbine school, which is only a few miles away from the shooting range where the sisters shot themselves last Monday.

But this weekend it emerged that Kristin-who killed herself, while her sister Candice survived with gunshot woundswrote two letters to junior pupil Brooks Brown at the school in the Denver suburb of Littleton.

They were sent in June and July after the April 20, 1999, shooting rampage by students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold which killed 13 people. In the handwritten letters, sent just two months after the killings, Kristin Hermeler praised Brown for having forgiven Harris despite having been bullied by him in 1998.

In the first she referred to how “Eric (Harris) had threatened your life for a year at one stage and in spite of this you gave him a second chance. “As someone who has been rejected, victimized and ostracized in their life, I would like to thank you for giving him that chance,” she said, lamenting that Harris and Klebold had been “rejected and victimized by so many others.”

In the second letter she refers to the massacre, saying: “Not a day goes by that I do not think about what happened. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for you dealing with everthing. “Words could never tell you how sorry I am,” she adds.

The letters did not have a return

address on them. However, the Hermeler twins also made called the Brown family that year, said Randy Brown, Brooks’ father. “They called several times and we talked with them both. They were really nice,” Brown told AFP. “They were calling from California and from Australia,” he said.

Brown said his wife Judy heard the names on a news report, remembered talking with both women and found the letters. The family has contacted the hospital in hopes of being able to get the letters to the Hermeler family. “We did not hear from them this trip. I wish they would have called. It’s really sad,” Brown said. Police have downplayed the Columbine linkSheriff’s Captain Louie Perea reiterated Saturday that the surviving sister told investigators that the event “happened a long time ago and she didn’t care about it.”

No other information about Columbine or other mass shootings was found in the twins’ belongings, he said. The twin sisters, who were in the United States on cultural exchange visas, tried to kill themselves Monday at the Family Shooting Center in Cherry Creek State Park, east of Denver.

A surveillance video showed the women fall backwards simultaneously from the shooting stall, but not the actual shooting, said the Denver Post, which added they shot at targets for some 80 minutes before turning the guns on themselves.

The twins’ parents, Ernest and Kelsay Hermeler, arrived in Denver Friday to care for their remaining daughter, who remained in serious but stable condition at the Swedish Medical Center in nearby Englewood.

The Arapahoe County Coroner’s office has concluded its investigation into Kristin Hermeler’s death, while Perea confirmed the sheriff’s office probe was also finished, labeling the shootings as suicide and attempted suicide. —AFP

Two US women and boy stabbed, dismembered MOUNT VERNON: Two women and an 11year-old boy were stabbed to death and dismembered before their remains were placed in a hollow tree, a coroner said Saturday, confirming the fears of many in this tiny Ohio town where the three went missing. Preliminary autopsy reports show that Tina Herrmann, her son Kody Maynard and her friend Stephanie Sprang were attacked with a knife and stabbed multiple times in the back and chest, Knox County Coroner Jennifer Ogle said. “They were then placed inside large plastic garbage bags and later lowered into the hollow of a large tree,” Ogle said in a statement.

They were attacked on Nov. 10 and there were no signs of sexual assault, she said. The search began on Nov 12 after Herrmann failed to show up for work two days in a row and a coworker who went to check on Herrmann at home found the place spattered with blood.

Three days later, Herrmann’s 13-year-old daughter, Sarah Maynard, was found bound and gagged in the basement of a home. Matthew Hoffman, an unemployed tree-trimmer, is accused of kidnapping the girl and keeping her for nearly four days in the basement of his home in Mount Vernon, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Howard. —AP

INTERNATIONAL

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Monday, November 22, 2010

US scientist sees hundreds of centrifuges in N Korea Pyongyang wants to return to stalled talks WASHINGTON: A US nuclear scientist saw hundreds of centrifuges in North Korea this month, sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday, buttressing the case that Pyongyang has a uranium enrichment program giving it a second way to obtain fissile material for atomic bombs. Washington has believed since 2002 that Pyongyang had such a program but the apparent sophistication

of its effort could ignite fresh debate over how to deal with North Korea’s unpredictable leadership and whether to resume talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions. North Korean officials took the expert, Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University, to a plant at its Yongbyon nuclear complex where he saw hundreds and hundreds of centrifuges, the sources told Reuters.

WASHINGTON: In this file photo, Doctor Siegfried Hecker, senior fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, briefs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill. —AP

Underground inferno delays rescue attempt at NZ mine GREYMOUTH: Hopes of rescuing alive 29 men trapped in a New Zealand mine after an explosion dwindled yesterday as tests showed a fire burning underground was generating toxic gases. Police said they had “no idea” when it would be safe for rescuers to try to reach the men at the the Pike River colliery, who have not been heard from since the blast on Friday.

“This is not a quick fix, we’re into day two, we have no idea how long this will take but we are still focused on bringing these guys out,” police commander Gary Knowles told reporters.

Knowles added: “This is a search and rescue operation, with the emphasis on rescue,” although officals also said they were being realistic with the information they passed on to

the families of the missing men.Arrangements were being made to fly relatives of the five foreign nationals among the 29 to New Zealand as the news became more grim and people packed churches to pray for a miracle. “Samples we took do indicate that we’ve got a heating of some sort underground, that means that there’s some combustion of material generating the gases that go with that,” Pike River chief executive Peter Whittall said.

Knowles denied suggestions made at a news conference that rescue teams were showing a lack of urgency about entering the mine because he appeared to believe the chances of finding the miners alive were low. “No, I find that really repugnant,” he said, amid heated exchanges with reporters. “We’re talking

about people’s lives here and I find it upsetting to think you’d say that. My decision is made based on safety and what experts are saying.”

Tearful family members, who had been kept away from the disaster site since Friday’s explosion, were taken to the scene for a two-hour visit yesterday to view the rescue preparations. Whittall said the trip helped the families, some of whom have publicly questioned the delay, gain an understanding of the problems facing the rescuers. However, he conceded that the families’ concerns were mounting the longer their loved ones were underground.

“Obviously, it’s 36 to 48 hours that have gone by now, they’re starting to be very concerned and want as much information as they can,” the mine

GREYMOUTH: Grieving family members leave after another briefing from Pike River Coal management on the 29 miners and contractors trapped underground at their Pike River mine, yesterday. —AP

chief said. Earlier, Knowles described the chances of survival as “the six million dollar question. We’re looking at every possible outcome of this operation and we’re still remaining positive”. He maintained it was still too dangerous to send a rescue team into the mine.

“I am not going to put 16 guys underground and risk losing them to effect a half-arsed rescue. The risk is huge,” he said. Churches in the tight-knit West Coast region were crammed yesterday. “People still have faint hope for a miracle. All we can do is pray for those underground and their families,” said Catholic priest Monsignor Gerry O’Connor in the main town of Greymouth, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the isolated mine.

At the nearby Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Reverend Robin Kingston impressed on his congregation to keep their hopes up, while he also warned them to brace for the worst.

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn described the situation as desperate. “Everyday is crucial, it’s like a clock that’s ticking down,” he said. “There’s grieving people and it’s a desperate situation.” The miners, who range in age from a 17year-old, believed to be on his first shift, to a 62-year-old, include two Australians, two Britons and a South African.

They are thought to be only about 150 meters (500 feet) from the surface but 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the mine entrance in a tunnel. Whittall said the fire may only be shouldering coal, rather than large flames, but it was generating the poisonous gas carbon monoxide. He said analysis of air samples taken from the mine showed gas levels were “trending down” but it was unclear when rescue teams would receive a green light to go underground. The mine chief said rescuers planned to drill a hole into the shaft to get a clearer picture of the situation underground. —AFP

Flood in China’s coal mine traps 28 workers BEIJING: Water flooded a small Chinese coal mine yesterday, trapping up to 28 people as they did safety work to expand the mine’s capacity, an official and state media said. It was the latest mining accident for China, which has the world’s deadliest coal mines. Forty-one workers were underground at the Batian mine in the southwestern province of Sichuan at the time, said an official surnamed Xie with the provincial work safety bureau. He said 13 workers escaped and rescue work was continuing for the 28 missing. “We still have hope of finding them alive,” Xie said. It was not clear

what caused the flooding. Xie said pumps to remove the water were on the way to the mine in Neijiang city.

An official surnamed Lin with Weiyuan county, where the accident occurred, said it might take two and a half hours for the pumping equipment to reach the mine. An estimated 141,000 cubic feet (4,000 cubic meters) of water was in the mining pit, Xie said. A report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency had a slightly different account of the accident, citing the Weiyuan county information office. It said 35 workers were underground when the flood occurred and

13 escaped, then six workers entered the mine for rescue efforts. It said those workers were still underground, but it wasn’t clear if they were in danger.

The report said Batian, a licensed mine, had stopped production and was being upgraded to increase its capacity from 50,000 tons to 60,000 tons. It said workers had been underground yesterday for safety work. China depends on coal for 70 percent of its energy production. The country’s mines are the deadliest in the world, with more than 2,600 people killed in coal mine accidents in 2009 alone. —AP

The officials said they had 2,000 centrifuges in operation but the US team that visited the country was unable to verify that, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But it certainly looked like an operating facility (to the team),” one source said. Another source said Hecker was “stunned” by how modern and sophisticated the uranium enrichment facility appeared to be. Hecker was unable to spend enough time there to establish whether the plant was designed to produce only low-enriched uranium needed to make fuel for a power plant or the highly enriched uranium needed for bombs, he said.

The source said Hecker was told the facility was producing 3.5 percent enriched uranium, the level needed for a power plant. To produce bomb-grade fissile material, uranium must be enriched to more than 90 percent. It was not immediately clear why North Korea showed Hecker the centrifuges, which one source described as being of the P-2 type used in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Separately, the US State Department said Stephen Bosworth, an envoy responsible for policy toward North Korea, left on Saturday on a trip to South Korea, Japan and China for consultations on North Korean issues.

“It ups the ante” North Korea, which conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, is believed to have enough fissile material from its separate, plutonium-based nuclear program to make between six and 12 atomic bombs. Even though it has exploded nuclear devices, Pyongyang has not shown it has a working nuclear bomb.

Still, its nuclear program is seen as a direct threat to US allies Japan and South Korea as well as a proliferation risk given North Korea’s long history of selling missile technology abroad.

North Korea has said it wants to return to stalled aidfor-disarmament talks but Seoul and Washington have dismissed its pledges to denuclearize as insincere.

The United States had demanded tangible but unspecified steps to show Pyongyang’s seriousness about abandoning its nuclear programs.

A third person familiar with the matter said a confirmation of a uranium enrichment facility would likely make any deal with North Korea more expensive should the talks resume. “It ups the ante on whatever deal would be struck to try to get them to abandon their nuclear program because now you are bargaining for two fissile material pathways, not one,” said this source.

“The light water reactor, the uranium enrichment, pathway has greater commercial viability than the other. If you can enrich uranium for the (light water reactor) you can sell that fuel on the market ... So it ups the price they are going to demand if they ever abandon or forgo their nuclear program.” A senior Obama administration official said the United States has long suspected North Korea of having a uranium enrichment program but would not say whether what Hecker saw during his visit confirmed its existence.

“North Korea’s claim to have a uranium enrichment program is yet another provocative act of defiance and, if true, contradicts its own pledges and commitments,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said Bosworth’s team-which arrives in Seoul yesterday, travels to Tokyo today and Beijing tomorrow- would “begin to coordinate on a response to this news.” —Reuters

SHANGHAI: This photo shows a Chinese woman (center) carrying a photo of her mother as she and her family members attend a mourning ceremony for victims who were killed in a huge high-rise fire. —AFP

Thousands mourn China high-rise fire victims SHANGHAI: Tens of thousands of Chinese swarmed yesterday to the site of a high-rise fire that killed 58 people to mourn and quietly criticize a system that allowed illegal contracting and unsafe materials in the heart of China’s most modern city. Police were grabbing people by their collars and pulling them away from a designated mourning area if they tried to enter without carrying flowers. People at the scene said there appeared to be no sign of protest, though some groups of agitated locals were discussing the fire and its causes. “Shame on them! How dare they say the rescue was successful? We here feel so sorry for those miserable families, but not for the government,” said one witness to the fire, a man surnamed Yin. China’s officials are highly sensitive to any mass, emotional gathering that could swing into anger and social unrest. The fire swept through the 28-story building Monday after sparks from welding equipment set alight nylon construction netting and bamboo scaffolding. Some people scrambled down the scaffolding to escape. The Shanghai government said most of the victims died inside their own homes, overcome by smoke, toxic fumes and heat.

Another 71 were injured, and an unknown number of people are still unaccounted for.

“Shanghai Don’t Cry: Mourn the Victims of Shanghai’s Jiaozhou Road Fire,” said small blackand-white posters being handed out by some young people wearing badges that identified them as “volunteers.” Anguished family members and others angry over the government’s handling of the disaster are demanding answers.

Wang Yinxing, a resident of the building whose wife Wang Hao died in the fire, said by telephone that he and other survivors were not at the site yesterday because they were “not in the mood.

“The rescue was not timely or helpful enough,” he said. “I don’t believe anything the government says.” The seventh day is a traditional day of mourning in China, and the authorities seemed prepared for yesterday’s large showing. Quiet crowds filed past the building, which was blocked off by police baricades. Just before the building was a huge pile of flowers, stuffed animals, photos

of victims and offerings of cigarettes.

China’s work safety chief has blamed the fire on illegal contracting, unsafe materials and poorly supervised, unqualified workers. The official Xinhua News Agency said police have detained 12 suspects, including four welders who were allegedly working without proper qualifications.

Shanghai’s top officials bowed three times in a silent tribute and left flowers at the fire site early yesterday, the China News Service reported. A man surnamed Li answering the telephone at the main office for Shanghai’s downtown Jing’an district, where the fire occurred, confirmed that the leaders made no public comments. He called the day’s events orderly. District police did not comment. “We feel deeply about this,” Shanghai’s Communist Party chief Yu Zhengsheng told victim’s families on Friday, the Beijing Times reported. “We’ll do our best to help you overcome your difficulties.” The fire happened not long after the end of the six-month World Expo, which was meant to show off Shanghai’s development but came with an element of tension for residents who were often reminded to behave themselves. The city is one of China’s best-run, but its public services still lag far behind its often ultramodern infrastructure. The fire has raised alarm over China’s widespread efforts to meet energy efficiency targets by adding insulation to the outside of existing buildings - the project the welders were working on when the fire broke out.

Although the insulation meant for such work is supposed to be treated with fire retardant, it is nonetheless flammable. Many are now questioning if the energy savings are worth the risk.

Beijing, China’s capital, has ordered projects similar to the one struck by the fire stopped, pending reviews and “rectification” of any problems. But officials in the district where last Monday’s fire occurred said such projects would continue. Unsafe construction work is a huge problem for China, and residents of the destroyed Shanghai building complained that workers, lacking qualifications and working illegally for unlicensed subcontractors, were smoking on the job and leaving flammable materials piled up on the scaffolding. —AP

in the news Bomb attack on mayor in Philippines COTABATO: An estranged member of a powerful Philippine clan accused of the country’s worst political massacre was the target of a bomb attack yesterday that wounded two people, officials said.

Akmad Ampatuan, mayor of Datu Salibo town, also said a bomb that exploded on a roadside in the southern province of Maguindanao, scene of the bloody massacre of 57 people almost a year ago, was aimed at him. Some of the Ampatuan clan are now being tried for the murders, while the mayor has allied himself with their arch-rival, Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu. The bomb, planted in a motorbike, went off in Sharif Aguak town minutes after Ampatuan’s car had passed by. The blast injured two bystanders, said Maguindanao police commander Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac. “It was intended for the mayor, but he escaped unhurt including his six Army escorts,” said Pintac. Ampatuan said he received an anonymous cellphone text message earlier, warning him of a bomb attack. “There was a text saying ‘mayor, be careful because they will plant a bomb for you,’ but I did not pay attention to it,” he told reporters. There were no immediate suspects in the blast but the mayor split with other members of the Ampatuan clan by backing Mangudadatu when he ran successfully for governor in May. Six Ampatuan clan members, their private army and police allies are among 196 people accused of murdering Mangudadatu’s relatives and lawyers, accompanying journalists and bystanders last year. The group were killed to prevent them from registering Mangudadatu’s candidacy against an Ampatuan clan member in the gubernatorial elections.

Chinese worker saved after 80 hours in underwater pipe BEIJING: Chinese rescuers yesterday freed a man working on an offshore platform after a three-day ordeal trapped in a twisted steel pipe beneath the sea, state media reported. The 43-year-old, identified only by his surname Fan, was saved after being trapped for 80 hours in a one-meter- (3.3 foot-)

diameter steel pipe that sank 18 meters below the sea on Thursday. Fan was working at the bottom of the pipe off the coast of eastern Zhejiang province when tidal pressure suddenly crushed it “like a beverage can”, trapping him inside, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The upper part of the pipe was squeezed to three centimeters (one inch) at its narrowest part, the report said. While trapped, Fan received food and water through a tube and counseling from a psychiatrist. Footage on China Central Television showed workers cutting Fan out with a blowtorch after raising the section of pipe out of the sea. He was shown being lifted onto a stretcher and being rushed to hospital, but reports said he suffered no serious injuries. China is considered one of the world’s most dangerous places to work with an average of 187 people killed in workrelated accidents each day in the first half of this year, according to government figures.

Japan to deploy troops near disputed islands by 2015 TOKYO: Japan plans to deploy around 100 ground troops to an island near a group of disputed islets in the East China Sea by 2015, in response to Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the area, a report said yesterday. The troops on Yonaguni, which lies around 150 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of the disputed islands known as the Diaoyus in China and Senkakus in Japan, will monitor warships and planes, the Nikkei newspaper said. The deployment, scheduled to begin in the 12 months starting in April 2014, is expected to trigger angry reactions from Beijing and Taipei, which also lay claim to the potentially resource-rich rocky islets and surrounding waters. Japan is also considering sending troops to other nearby islands of Miyako and Ishigaki to bolster its military strength in the area, the Nikkei said. On Saturday, Japan’s coastguard spotted two Chinese ships near the Senkaku islands, which have been at the centre of a bitter territorial dispute between Tokyo and Beijing over the past three months.

INTERNATIONAL

Monday, November 22, 2010

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Pakistan cautiously backs NATO’s Afghanistan plans ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said yesterday it was satisfied with NATO’s plans to hand over control to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014, but cautioned against any withdrawal that doesn’t acknowledge “ground realities.” Pakistan is crucial for the US-led efforts to stabilize war-ravaged Afghanistan

because its border areas are sanctuaries, and training grounds, for AlQaeda and Taleban militants.

Western allies have been pressing Pakistan to take tough action against these havens.

At a conference in Lisbon, NATO agreed on Saturday to hand control of security in Afghanistan to Afghan

forces by 2014 as several Western nations seek an exit from almost a decade of war deeply unpopular among their people. NATO said it could halt combat operations by 2014 as well, if security conditions were good enough, a proviso that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said was key to

any pullout of foreign forces.

“It (the timetable) has been qualified and the qualification is that they begin the withdrawal in line with ground realities and the ability of the Afghan authorities to resume the responsibility of their security,” Qureshi told Reuters by telephone from Indonesia, where he is on an

official visit. A rise in violence in Afghanistan after any pull-out, or a collapse into chaos, is a major concern for Pakistan, which itself is fighting a growing insurgency by homegrown militants.

Memories of the United States walking away from Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989

and leaving the region in chaos are also still raw in Pakistan. “If the Afghan army fails to deliver and foreign forces leave Afghanistan, then there will be another civil war in Afghanistan and it will have a big impact on Pakistan,” Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on Taleban and tribal affairs said. US special repre-

sentative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke also has said that 2014 did not mark end of international presence in Afghanistan. “There will be continued economic assistance, there will be continued training of the Afghan army and police,” he told reporters in Islamabad last week. —Reuters

NATO withdrawal plan is ‘sign of failure’ for US Washington doesn’t rule out ‘hard fighting’ beyond 2014 KABUL: The Taleban yesterday called NATO’s plan to begin withdrawing troops from the Afghan battlefield next year and cede full control to local forces by 2014 a “sign of failure” for the US government. The hardline group said the agreement signed in Lisbon on Saturday showed that Washington

MUMBAI: Wasim Sheikh, Sabid Ali Sheikh’s son, holds rats he killed along with his father, a rat catcher. All around him, as India’s richest city quickly gets richer, Sabid Ali Sheikh and his sons remain trapped in a painfully slow cycle of aspiration. —AP

As India shines, its rat catchers toil in darkness MUMBAI: Sabid Ali Sheikh stands on a prairie of trash - old onions, excrement, animal bones - slowly rotting its way back into an earth riddled with rat burrows. Sometimes the ground gives way under his feet. It is after midnight, and Sheikh is after the rats.

He listens for them. He tries to catch their red eyes in the sweep of his flashlight. Some rat killers say they can smell them in the dark. Sheikh, 23, is a night rat killer, one of 44 employed by the city of Mumbai to wage its long, losing war against vermin.

Barely taller than the killing stick he uses to ply his trade, Sheikh is a clean man, dressed in elaborately embroidered jeans and a crisp shirt, who thinks himself lucky to have even this dirty work.

When he goes home, he will scrub his body down with soap. Sheikh’s father is also a rat catcher. His brothers sell vegetables from a cart and wish they could be rat catchers too. If he ever has children, he hopes they sit in an office from 9 am until 6 pm But given what modern India has to offer the Sheikh family, the children may well end up standing precisely where Sheikh stands now: ankle-deep in the soft earth of a stinking dump, wearing old flip-flops.

Even as India’s booming economy overflows with opportunities for the educated and well-connected, minting new millionaires by the dozen, some 800 million people toil on the dark side of the Indian dream. India’s boom has lifted many people out of poverty, but it has also worsened inequality. Put aside for a moment those stories about a great nation of engineering geniuses, billionaires and youthful promise, whose economy might one day outpace China’s. The Sheikh family does not live in that India. Instead, they curl themselves, all 15 of them, into a 13-square-meter (140-square-foot) space with peeling paint, tattered plastic bags to hold their clothes and a fan that leaves everyone sweating.

In this India, a job with the city, even if it involves killing rats, is a thing to fight for. It means security, more precious than wealth. The competition for rat catcher jobs in Mumbai is stiff. Only men aged 18 to 30 need apply. They must be able to lift a 50 kilogram (110 pound) sack and run a few kilometers (miles).

They must demonstrate their ability to catch and kill a rat in the dark within ten minutes. Each rat catcher must kill 30 rats a night, six nights a week. If he does not make the quota, he does not get paid. Arun Bamne of the city’s insecticide department, which oversees the rat-catching, says people badly need jobs. The last time the city recruited, he said, over 4,000 people, some with university degrees, applied for 33 rat catcher positions.

Joining the war on rats can lead, with time and diligence, to a desk job in a fan-cooled administrative office. After half a dozen years, a man might be moved to the day shift, laying traps and setting poison bait. But there is little else to look forward to. As a daily wage laborer, still hoping for a permanent job with the city, Sheikh says he makes 12,000 rupees ($271) a month, if he makes his quota. That is slightly less than a city bus driver, at 13,000 rupees ($293) a month, or an entry-level call center worker, 15,000 rupees ($338). His father, Jahed Gabul Sheikh, 56, has been a rat catcher for 30 years. He makes 17,000 rupees ($383) a month. “I am trying my best to get the city to hire my other sons,” he said. “All my kids know how to catch rats very well. But the city doesn’t employ them.” Sabid, his son, said his friends envy him his steady paycheck. “A government job is a very secure job,” he said. “Everyone wants to be famous and known. But this is my destiny.

Everything you wish will not come true.”

India seems to exist in multiple historical epochs simultaneously - nowhere more starkly than here, amid the crumbling stone walls and old goat bones of the Sathe Nagar housing colony in a northern suburb

of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, formerly called Bombay. One side of the neighborhood is edged by a high shining fence beyond which lies 21st century India: the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, the country’s premier nuclear research facility. On this side of the fence, people live in a vaguely medieval place where need outweighs hope and there is still talk of the plague. To the south is a 50-acre slaughterhouse, one of the largest in Asia. To the north is a city dump. In other words, rat heaven. The alleyways between buildings are frothy with trash. Look closer.

In the faint light of the windows, the ground is alive with rats. A twitching nose peeks from a crevice in the wall. A rat tail vanishes down a hole.

Sabid Sheikh waits. The trick is to catch the rat’s eye and shine a flashlight in its face. The rodent freezes like a deer in headlights. Thwack! If perfectly aimed, a single blow can kill a rat. But most do not surrender meekly. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

And so it goes until the rat lies windmilling its legs and expires in a final, furious shudder. If the rat catcher’s aim or courage fails, the rat may scurry into a hole or drain pipe, forcing the man to reach in, barehanded, and extract it by the tail. If the rodent ventures too far in, the catcher may daub the end of his killing stick with rat’s blood to lure it out. Sheikh’s favorite technique is to grab the rat by the tail and twirl it above his head like a whirligig before bashing its head against a wall. If it still does not die, he will grind its head into the ground with his heel. By 1:30 am, Sheikh and two other rat catchers have packed 94 dead and dying rats into two bloodied sacks to be carted away in a rickshaw, counted by the city, and samplings taken to be tested for bubonic plague.

They smell so bad that the rickshaw driver pulls over and vomits.

Sheikh’s youngest brother, Wasim, tagged along and killed a few rats too. He is about 14, and some months back his father made a cell phone video of him in action. There is young Wasim, dragging a rat as big as his forearm from a trap and smacking it to death. His mom giggles as she watches the video.

Such is the parents’ pride, they could be watching their son playing the heroic lead in a school play.

“Now he’s putting his hand in the burrow,” the father said, beaming. “I’m never worried about disease. I have faith in God.” He sees himself as a public servant, ridding the city of vermin for the greater good of its citizens. Besides, he had no choice.

At age 8, he set forth on a 36-hour train ride, alone, from his village to meet his father in Mumbai.

Before boarding he went to a mosque. “I prayed to God for a job in Bombay,” he said. “I prayed for money. I prayed for a settled life.” For 10 years he hawked peanuts and puffed rice to crowds at a commuter train station while his father did odd jobs, baking the flat bread called roti or collecting scrap metal.

They slept on footpaths. One day a woman came up to Jahed Sheikh and asked if he wanted to work for the city.

“She changed my life by giving me that job I desperately needed,” he said. “Now it’s my kids’ turn.”

Sometimes, drunks would tease him for having nothing in life. Once, he got beaten up. But he knows he has more than nothing: He has nine children and a daughter-in-law who makes excellent biryani. He has a stick-thin wife who sits quietly by his side. And he has a job, which is not a gift Mumbai gives easily to men like Sheikh. All around him, as India’s richest city gets richer, Sheikh and his sons remain trapped in a painfully slow cycle of aspiration. He only hopes his children get as lucky a break as he did. “I’m happy with what I have. I came to Bombay. I had nothing. I got this job,” he said. “Now I pray to God that all my sons get employed.” —AP

Blast kills 10 in India PATNA: A bomb planted under a bridge killed eight civilians yesterday a day after police found the crude device but left it under sandbags until it could be defused. Another bomb blamed on suspected rebels killed the eastern Indian state’s top disposal expert and a soldier as they were trying to dismantle it. The bomb planted under the bridge by suspected Maoist rebels had been found Saturday but could not be defused immediately, said Neelmani, a top police officer.

The area was cordoned and the bomb placed under sandbags.

But yesterday, teenage boys and

men pulled the bomb out from under the sandbags and “fiddled” with it, Neelmani said. All five teenagers and three men were killed, and two injured men were hospitalized. It happened in Pachokhar village in Aurangabad district of Bihar state. Neelmani also blamed suspected rebels for a bomb the exploded in the adjoining Gaya district Saturday, killing Bihar’s leading explosive disposal expert and a paramilitary soldier as they tried to defuse the bomb.

Aurangabad and Gaya districts held state legislative elections Saturday. More than 50

percent of voters turned out, defying a boycott called by the rebels. The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than three decades in several Indian states, demanding land and jobs for agricultural laborers and the poor. They frequently target police and government officials, whom they accuse of colluding with landlords and rich farmers to exploit the poor. Thousands of people, including police, militants and civilians, have died in the violence in recent years. —AP

“In the past nine years, the invaders could not establish any system of governance in Kabul and they will never be able to do so in future.” The statement-entitled “Response of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as regards Lisbon Meeting”-comes after the Taleban on Saturday scoffed at the alliance’s plan to bring the war in Afghanistan to an end within four years.

The group claimed that the agreement showed that foreign forces were “doomed towards the same fate as those that tread this path before them”, despite a massive troop surge earlier this year to quell fierce fighting in the south. The plan will see the 48 countries of the 150,000-strong NATO-led force in Afghanistan begin transferring parts of the battlefield to local police and military and move Western troops into a supporting role by the end of 2014.

Washington, however, warned that “some hard fighting remains ahead” and did not rule out combat operations continuing beyond 2014. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged that the allies would stand by Kabul after their combat mission ends. The Taleban yesterday repeated its call for the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces, calling the 2014 cut-off date an “irrational decision”, as it prolonged a “meaningless, imposed and (unwinnable) war”.

“They should not postpone withdrawal of their forces even be it for one day,” the statement added.

NATO commanders and officials have been upbeat about progress in Afghanistan, particularly in the volatile south, which is the Taleban’s spiritual home.

US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the NATO-led allies “are achieving our objective of breaking Taleban momentum” after committing extra resources to the war.

But violence remains a daily reality for both troops and ordinary Afghans, with military and civilian casualties at an all-time high in the nine-year war. In a sign of the difficulties of securing the war-torn country, four civilians were killed in two separate suicide bomb attacks in eastern Laghman province on Saturday.

NATO also admitted that its troops accidentally killed three civilians when they came under fire during operations in Kunar province, also in eastern Afghanistan, on Friday. A survey published late Friday gave a gloomy prediction that most people in southern Afghanistan thought the Taleban would return after NATO troops leave. The rebel group indicated yesterday it was eyeing a return to power, claiming in its statement that it had put together a “comprehensive policy for the future Afghanistan”. —AFP

had “failed to get additional military assistance of the NATO member countries” or a commitment to continue operations in the long term. “It is good news for Afghans and all freedom-loving people of the world and it is a sign of failure for the American government,” it said in an emailed statement.

LISBON: Protesters are pictured during an anti-NATO demonstration. —AFP

With Afghanistan control by 2014, Obama sees combat end LISBON: NATO leaders set 2014 as the date for moving Afghans into the lead role in fighting the Taleban, with President Barack Obama saying for the first time he wants US troops out of major combat in Afghanistan by the end of that year.

Allies had different interpretations of that target’s meaning. Capping a two-day summit of 28 NATO leaders in this Atlantic port city, Obama said Saturday that after a series of public disputes with Afghan President Hamid Karzai - and despite the likelihood of more to come - the US and its NATO partners have aligned their aims for stabilizing the country with Karzai’s eagerness to assume full control. “My goal is to make sure that by 2014 we have transitioned, Afghans are in the lead and it is a goal to make sure that we are not still engaged in combat operations of the sort we’re involved in now,” Obama told a closing news conference.

For some US allies, 2014 is more than a goal when it comes to shifting their troops from a combat role. “There will not be British troops in large numbers and they won’t be in a combat role” by 2015, British Prime Minister David Cameron said. But he added, however, Britain has no intention of abandoning Afghanistan any time soon. “We may be helping to train their army, we may still be delivering a lot of aid, in effect, because we don’t want this country to go back to being a lawless space where the terrorists can have bases,” Cameron told Sky News television.

Canada is ending its combat role in 2011. If Obama’s expectation about ending the US combat mission in 2014 holds, it would mark a turning point in a war now in its 10th year, a conflict that once appeared headed for success but that drifted into stalemate during George W Bush’s second term in the White House. Obama entered office in 2009 pledging to end the Iraq war, which he opposed from the outset, in order to shift forces, resources and attention to Afghanistan - a fight he says the US cannot afford to lose. It remains far from sure, however, that even an expanding and improving Afghan army will prevail without US combat support.

As the US experience in Iraq showed, insurgencies can prove more resilient than predicted and newly assembled government security forces can take longer than expected to become competent and experienced enough to stand on

their own. At their annual gathering, NATO leaders also proclaimed “a true fresh start” in relations with Russia. They agreed to construct a missile defense over Europe, signed a long-term partnership accord with Afghanistan and expressed hope that the US Senate would act quickly to ratify a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia that some Republicans oppose.

Before returning to Washington, Obama met with European Union leaders. They released a statement on cooperation across the Atlantic to create jobs, avoid protectionist trade policies, and promote innovation and investment. Afghanistan and its struggle against the Taleban dominated the NATO summit, which came just weeks before Obama is to receive an internal review of US war strategy. The report is expected to conclude that despite slower-than-expected progress against the Taleban, the current approach is largely on track.

Last December, Obama ordered an extra 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan, hoping to regain momentum from a resurgent Taleban, the radical Islamist group that harbored Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda lieutenants prior to the attacks on Sept 11, 2001, in New York and Washington. The US has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan; other countries have about 40,000.

Many European countries see the US as overemphasizing the value of military force in Afghanistan. They eagerly embraced Saturday’s agreement to begin handing off security responsibility in early 2011, with a full transition targeted for the end of 2014.

“Here in Lisbon we have launched the process by which the Afghan people will become masters in their own house,” NATO SecretaryGeneral Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark said after allied leaders reached a consensus on the handover date. “We will make it a reality, starting early next year,” he added. The allies appear not to have lined up a schedule for troop reductions to coincide with the phased turnover of security control to Afghan forces. But they do seem to agree that after this year the main military focus should be on training Afghans.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday in Chile that only a “fraction” of the current allied forces in Afghanistan are likely to remain past 2014. They probably will function as trainers and advisers instead of fighting, he said.

US Gen David Petraeus, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, gave the allied leaders a private briefing on how he foresees the transition to Afghan control unfolding, district by district and province by province, starting in 2011. In its public statement, NATO did not reveal the names of the first provinces expected to be transferred to Afghan control.

Karzai has aired a long list of grievances against NATO in recent years, including excessive killing of civilians and what he called US efforts to undermine his re-election campaign last year. He predicted the transition will succeed “because I found today a strong commitment by the international community. This will be matched by the people of Afghanistan.” The NATO leaders, after agreeing on Friday to build jointly with the US a missile shield to protect Europe, later invited Russia to become part of that effort. The allies made their pitch in private to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but he stopped short of accepting in full. He agreed to work with NATO on an assessment of missile threats, which Fogh Rasmussen said would enable both sides to get a better technical grip on what it would take to counter the most troubling missile threats.

Medvedev appeared less than impressed with the NATO venture. “It’s quite evident that the Europeans themselves don’t have a complete understanding how it will look, how much it will cost,” the Russian leader told reporters. “But everybody understands the missile defense system needs to be comprehensive.” He added: “It should also be a full partnership. Our participation has to be a full-fledged exchange of information, or we won’t take part at all.” Obama was more upbeat. “We agreed to cooperate on missile defense, which turns a source of past tension into a source of potential cooperation against a shared threat,” he said. The summit also was notable for decisions it did not make. It stuck to the status quo, for example, on US nuclear weapons in Europe. Germany and some other European allies want the US to withdraw the estimated 150-200 nuclear bombs stored in five NATO countries. Allied leaders chose instead to put off any action to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in NATO strategy. Obama said the US would host the 2012 NATO summit, but did not say where. —AP

US drone strike kills 6 in Pakistan MIRANSHAH: A US drone attack killed six suspected militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt yesterday, security officials said, a day after Islamabad rejected reports the covert missile campaign could expand. The officials said two missiles slammed into a compound in Khaddi village, 15 kilometers (10 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan and consid-

ered a hub for Taleban and AlQaeda-linked militants. “The compound and vehicle parked nearby were destroyed in the attack and at least six militants are dead,” a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The casualties were confirmed by an intelligence official as US President Barack Obama and NATO leaders wrapped up a summit in

Lisbon after announcing plans to hand control of security in Afghanistan to local forces in 2014. Washington has massively ramped up its drone campaign against militants in areas near the Afghan border over the past two months, and argues they are highly effective in the war against AlQaeda and its Islamist allies.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the US

was seeking to expand the areas inside Pakistan where Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) unmanned aircraft used for surveillance and to launch missile strikes-could operate.

But the US strikes are deeply unpopular among the Pakistani public, who see military action on Pakistani soil as a breach of national sovereignty and say some attacks have killed innocent civilians. —AFP

OPINION

12

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issues

China’s rise in Mideast

By David Schenker and Christina Lin

T

urkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in China this month touting the “new cooperation paradigm” between Ankara and Beijing. Just a week earlier, a top political adviser to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent five days in Syria signing deals and planting olive trees in the Golan Heights. The Middle Kingdom, it seems, is planting deep roots in the Middle East these days.

The reach of the People’s Republic is far and wide, extending from the Far East to Africa to Latin America, and its interest in the Middle East is neither new nor surprising: China gets more than a quarter of its oil imports from the Persian Gulf and has billions invested in Iran’s oil sector. Recently, though, Beijing appears to be making greater headway, a development fueled by Washington’s creeping withdrawal from the region.

Starting in the 1990s, China filled a void in Syria left by a decaying Soviet Union, providing the terrorist state with a variety of missiles. Today, Syrian President Bashar Assad is fulfilling his 2004 pledge to “look East” toward Asia to escape the Western hold on the Middle East. In addition to serving as an ongoing and reliable source of weapons, China has invested heavily in modernizing Syria’s antiquated energy sector. More striking, however, has been Beijing’s rapid inroads with the Islamist government in Ankara headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In October, Wen was the first Chinese premier to visit Turkey in eight years. Erdogan and Wen inked eight deals, including an agreement to transform the ancient SilkRoad into a “Silk Railway” linking China and Turkey.

Of more concern than the budding economic relationship, however, is the nascent military relationship between NATO partner Turkey and China. The most recent manifestation of these ties was the unprecedented inclusion in October of Chinese warplanes in the Turkish military exercise Anatolian Eagle, maneuvers that previously had included the US and Israel. Although Turkey reportedly left its modern US-built F-16s in their hangars during the exercises and instead flew its F-4s, which the US Air Force retired from service in 1996, the damage was done. Chinese participation in the exercise exacerbated the already extant crisis of confidence between Washington and its NATO

partner.

The joint announcement in October that China and Turkey had formally upgraded their bilateral relationship to that of a “strategic partnership” only makes matters worse.

Beijing did not choose Iran, Syria and Turkey as the focal point of its regional “outreach” by accident.

These northern-tier Middle Eastern states all have complicated if not problematic relations with the United States and increasingly close ties with one another. To complement this triumvirate, China appears to be looking to Iraq as the next target of its charm offensive.

China is the leading oil and gas investor in Iraq, and it is paying millions to protect its investment there.

That’s not surprising since Iraq has the world’s largest known oil reserves. China has also purchased extensive goodwill with Baghdad by forgiving $6 billion to $8 billion in Iraqi debt accrued during the Saddam Hussein era. And Beijing has gotten in on the sale of weapons worth in excess of $100 million - to the new government in Baghdad.

Given China’s extensive presence throughout the world - attributable at least in part to the fact that its foreign policy is devoid of moral concerns - it is unrealistic to expect that Washington could have somehow excluded Beijing from the Middle East.

Indeed, the very absence of considerations other than national interest makes China an appealing partner to states in a region where authoritarianism is rife.

Some Mideast states also likely view China as useful counterbalance against the West. What is of concern, however, is that the rapid rate of Chinese progress occurs amid a growing regional perception that the United States is withdrawing from the Middle East.

Although China holds a significant portion of US debt, and trade relations are strong, at the end of the day the two nations are competitors - both strategic and economic with profoundly differing worldviews. It may be that this great game will end with Washington and Beijing as allies. More likely, though, a modus vivendi will emerge between the two powers.

Until then, Washington should work to strengthen its remaining regional allies and reestablish a presence in the region.

Absent this kind of renewed commitment, China will continue to expand its footprint, sowing the seeds of a new and even less advantageous strategic role in the Middle East for the United States. —MCT

All articles appearing on these pages are the personal opinion of the writers. Kuwait Times takes no responsibility for views expressed therein. Kuwait Times invites readers to voice their opinions. Please send submissions via email to: opinion@kuwaittimes.net or via snail mail to PO Box 1301 Safat, Kuwait. The editor reserves the right to edit any submission as necessary.

Medvedev tries to rebrand Russia’s image on Iran

By Dmitry Zaks

R

ussian President Dmitry Medvedev has eased the diplomatic pressure off the Kremlin by adamantly telling Iran that it must “prove” to the world that its nuclear drive was entirely peaceful. Medvedev has recently taken on a series of cautious but consistent steps to reverse Moscow’s unwavering backing for its traditional ally-a policy that posed one of the main stumbling blocks to its relations with Washington. He met Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Thursday for a closed-door meeting that the Kremlin admitted was heated but focused on resolving the two sides’ ever-growing list of disputes.

But Medvedev made clear at a wideranging press conference in Lisbon on Saturday that his patience with the Islamic nations was ending and that he was now expecting “good will” from Ahmadinejad. “Iran has the right to the peaceful atom. But it must prove to everyone that its nuclear industry development program is peaceful and that it is ready to cooperate with international organizations,” the Russian leader said. “We are not indifferent ... as to who is an active member of the nuclear club (of nations) and who is only trying to make it into that clubwho is trying to legitimize themselves by saying that they have nuclear weapons and who is hiding them.”

Medvedev said that he spelled all this out to Ahmadinejad during their exchange. “We discussed the state of Russia-Iran relations-relations that for quite obvious reasons have not been the easiest as of late,” said Medvedev.

The comments came at the end of a high-profile Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon that the Alliance used to officially proclaim that it “poses no threat to Russia”. But it is Russia’s engagement with Iran-most notably through its construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant and steady supply of sensitive arms-that has led to the greatest

number of diplomatic questions. And Medvedev made a point of stressing that Russia and NATO were now combining their efforts on Iran.

“We will also be joining NATO countries to carefully examine how the various (nuclear) programs develop,” Medvedev said.He first altered his message in September 2009 following Iran’s disclosure that it had secretly built a second uranium enrichment plant.

Yet Medvedev at the time spoke of the need “to create comfortable conditions and a system of stimuli” that assure future Iranian cooperation.

Analysts detected a far more strident note in Medvedev’s latest message to Iran. “Russia is clearly irritated that Iran is not cooperating with the international community even though time is running out,” said Carnegie Moscow Center Deputy Director Dmitry Trenin.

He said that US President Barack Obama’s decision to welcome potential dialogue with Tehran has made it that much harder for Moscow to justify Tehran’s decision to stall on negotiations.”Iran no longer has the excuse of United States not willing to talk. And this has made Russia realize that there

must be a real reason why Iran is dragging things out.” Trenin added that both Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-who some analysts see as the real leader of Russia and who has held a much softer line on Iran-were now in complete agreement on the issue. “Russia-in the face of Medvedev but also in the face of Putin-believes that the time is right to put up a common diplomatic front on Iran.”

Medvedev’s message was picked up by a Russian state media that echoes the latest shifts in Kremlin tone.

“Iran must prove that it is willing to cooperate with the IAEA,” the Voice of

Russia state radio station said in reference to the United Nation’s nuclear inspection body. But some analysts said that Medvedev may yet regret his decision to drop support for a nation that provides Russia with vast opportunities to reap huge profits from various military and energy deals. “Russia has started using pedantic and I would almost say rude language in its latest dealings with Iran,” said Rajab Safarov of the Contemporary Iranian Studies Centre in Moscow. “This is a big mistake,” said Safarov. “We are permanent neighbors and this is where Russia’s real interests lie.” — AFP

Nuclear treaty row could harm US foreign policy

By Lachlan Carmichael

U

ncertainty over ratifying a landmark nuclear treaty not only throws into doubt the “reset” in US-Russia ties but also broader US policies on Iran, Afghanistan and arms control, analysts say. US President Barack Obama and his team have launched a counter-attack in support of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) since Republican Senator Jon Kyl suggested it may not be ratified in the Senate this year. The administration wants the treaty ratified before January when Republicans who won November 2 elections take their seats in a new Senate where the Democratic majority has been sharply narrowed.

James Collins, a former US ambassador to Russia who now heads the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia and Eurasia program, said it’s too early to predict what will happen to the treaty. “But I do think that there’s no question that a failure to ratify START in the (current) lameduck session is going to be seen as a setback for US-Russia relations,” Collins said. In Moscow, it will strengthen “the hands of those who

have questioned the reset from the beginning, those who are probably critical of what the Russian government has been doing with us on Iran, on Afghanistan and so forth,” he said.

“It will just be harder to have the trust that seems to have been building between the Americans and the Russians that has made it much easier to get common ground on some of these other issues,” he said. Since it took office in January last year, the Obama administration has enjoyed what it calls a “reset” in US relations with Moscow which plunged to a low with the Russian military intervention in Georgia in August 2008. For example, Russia voted for a tough fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions that was imposed on Iran in June over its nuclear program, which Western powers fear masks a drive for a weapon.

Russia also scrapped a deal to supply S-300 ground-to-air missiles to Iran. In Afghanistan, the United States and Russia have also stepped up cooperation. Under a deal signed last year, Russia allows US military planes to fly through its air space with supplies for the war zone. In his weekly radio address, Obama hit the same points.

“Without ratification, we put at risk

the coalition that we have built to put pressure on Iran, and the transit route through Russia that we use to equip our troops in Afghanistan,” the president continued. Linton Brooks, a former US under secretary of energy for nuclear security, expressed more general concern over the fallout on US foreign policy if the treaty is not ratified or delayed.

“Anytime the United States makes a major commitment and is unable to deliver, then the US overall ability to influence the international system is weakened,” Brooks said in a conference call with journalists.

And although the treaty is very specific-it cuts US and Russian long-range nuclear stockpiles and provides for mutual monitoring-it could complicate the Obama administration’s broader nuclear arms control agenda. “The path through anything runs through ratification of New START,” including that of hoped-for negotiations to control Russian tactical or so-called battlefield nuclear weapons, he said.

“The path to helping convince China to continue to maintain its minimum deterrent and not try to build up runs through New START,” Brooks said in the conference call hosted by The Consensus for American Security.

For Obama, failure to ratify jeopardizes the foundation of arms control. “And without ratification, we risk undoing decades of American leadership on nuclear security, and decades of bipartisanship on this issue,” Obama said in his radio address. Writing in the Daily Beast, Leslie Gelb expressed fears that the Republicans seem bent on killing the treaty in order to deny Obama a political victory.

Killing START “would totally undermine Moscow’s faith in Washington’s ability to carry out negotiated agreements,” wrote Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official. “It, thus, would undermine the administration’s ability to strengthen ties with Moscow, to find common ground to deal with the problems of the Middle East and South Asia-very serious problems indeed,” he said.

“It would also encourage others to doubt Washington’s ability to keep its word,” he argued. “It would undermine American efforts to convince signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that the United States had a serious intent to reduce its nuclear weapons. And this, in turn, would only increase those countries’ incentives to go nuclear.” — AFP

EU and the Israel-Palestine conflict

By Rory Miller

I

t is not difficult to understand the European Union’s determination to play a constructive role in solving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Generations of European policy-makers have believed that a permanent settlement of this conflict on the basis of a two state solution is not only vital for the Middle East but is, in the words of former European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, ‘fundamental to our own security’. They have also come to view Europe’s success in transforming its economic power into political influence in the Middle East conflict as a key indictor of its capacity to play a leading role on the international stage.

This has been very apparent in recent weeks when the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, rushed to the region from Washington to shore up the floundering peace talks following criticism that she failed to

raise the international profile of the recently launched European External Action Service (EAS) - a new mechanism designed to give the EU a stronger voice around the world.

Staying put in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy very publicly announced that after a decade of US failure to bring peace, the EU could no longer act as ‘spectators who watch time pass’ and could no longer ‘contribute money and then be outside the political process’.

Yet the reality is that both Israel and the Palestinians hold US diplomacy rather than European money as the key to achieving a final political settlement.

Time and again domestic political considerations and intra-European competition have prevented the consensus and common policy necessary for effective joint European action in the Middle East. Europe remains unable to convince Israelis or Palestinians that it has more to offer them than Washington in the role as mediator, sponsor and guar-

antor of peace.

On taking office in 1995,Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac, demanded that the EU develop a political role in the peace process independent of the US and he pressured Yasser Arafat to lend support to his proposal for restarting negotiations with the EU on an equal footing with the US. This diplomatic push had little practical impact.

Neither did the European Commission’s demand that the EU participate ‘alongside’ the US in political negotiations on the grounds that Europe was ‘dwarfing the efforts of all other donors’.

By 1998, the EU accounted for almost 55% of all aid to the PA compared to 11% from the United States.

But this was all but forgotten when US President Bill Clinton made an official visit to Gaza. Nabil Shaath, then Palestinian foreign minister, compared Clinton’s trip to Nixon’s visit to China and explained that it was the US special relationship with Israel, combined with

the US special relationship with the Palestinians, that was ‘best for the peace process’. It is not surprising that by mid-2000 the French press was quoting a gloomy Chirac bemoaning the fact that ‘the Europeans don’t count in these negotiations...we must not have any illusions. Clinton is running the whole thing’.

Little has changed in the post-Oslo era. If current US peace envoy Senator George Mitchell can’t keep the Palestinians and Israelis talking then it seems inconceivable that there is anything the EU can bring to the table that will. So what should Europe do?

Recently Marc Otte, the EU’s Special Representative for Middle East peace, looked forward to the day that the EU would be ‘a full player’ in the politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict. But the EU should stop measuring its success or failure in contributing to peace in terms of its ability to score political points over the United States or gain a political role in the process commensu-

rate with its economic weight.

Instead it should emphasize its longtime position as the international community’s lead donor to the Palestinians as well as Israel’s number one trading partner.

Though unglamorous, Europe’s budgetary support for Palestinian institutions and infrastructure, as well as its humanitarian, refugee and food aid has been hugely important to sustaining Palestinian society. It continues to be key to the state-building process currently underway. When a Palestinian state is finally established, the EU will play a crucial role in doing what it has done best in Europe over the last half century - promoting consensus and economic cooperation among former enemies in the interests of regional prosperity and long-term stability. Europe, Israel and the Palestinians would all be well served if the EU fully acknowledged the importance of this role not as a pretext for political influence but as an end in itself. — CGNews

ANALYSIS

Monday, November 22, 2010

13

Past haunts former K Rouge fighter at genocide museum

By Suy Se

S

tumbling across the photo of his twin brother who died more than three decades ago was the last thing former Khmer Rouge fighter Uch Sokhon expected on a visit to Cambodia’s genocide museum. “I feel shocked,” the 53-year-old said, gently wiping the dusty glass frame holding a black-and-white image of his brother, immortalized at the age of 20. “But it was a long time ago.”

The picture is one of hundreds of mugshots of condemned prisoners on display at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. Now a genocide museum, it was at the centre of the Khmer Rouge security apparatus between 1975 and 1979.

Some 15,000 inmates, including women and children, lost their lives and torture was routinely used to extract confessions from terrified prisoners at the facility, also known as S-21. Sokhon and some 300 other people, mainly former Khmer Rouge supporters and fighters, recently travelled all night on buses from the northwestern Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin to tour the prison for the first time. Pailin was one of the final refuges of the brutal regime, which was driven from power in 1979.

Soldiers and officials fled to the remote region to re-group and try to battle the new government The trip was organized by the UNbacked war crimes court-which was set up in 2006 to bring ex-regime leaders to justice-and aims to increase awareness among Cambodians about the ongoing trials. Confronting victims as well as former soldiers and cadres with the jail and the court’s work is a key part of bringing closure to the past, a court spokesman said. “We believe it is easier for people to understand the

PHNOM PENH: Former Cambodian Khmer Rouge fighter Uch Sokhon looks at a portrait of his brother he found at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh. — AFP mission of the tribunal when they see Tuol Sleng and the court with their own eyes,” Lars Olsen said. Former Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was the first to face justice at the UN-backed court.

In a landmark ruling in July, the tribunal sentenced him 30 years in jail, though the case is now under appeal.

Walking past the tiny cells that held some of the prisoners, including perhaps his own brother, and after inspecting the torture implements on display,

Sokhon says he regrets his own past actions.”I feel remorse and pain because I also used to be a fighter for Democratic Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge),” said the teary-eyed civil servant. Sokhon said he and his identical twin, Sokhan, both joined the hardline communist movement in 1971 aged just 15 because it was the only way to survive. Dedicated fighters, they quickly rose through the ranks to become mid-level military commanders. But the regime turned against

Sokhan when he tried to help a relative who had caused a minor accident in February 1976.

Sokhon had left the keys in the ignition of a bulldozer he had been using to dig irrigation channels, when his cousin Thein decided to take it for a ride. He accidentally turned the vehicle over-an arrestable offence in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge. Sokhon told his senior cadres his cousin was to blame for the incident, but when his twin heard the news he insisted on protecting their

relative. “I warned my brother not to help our cousin otherwise he would lose his position and be arrested,” Sokhon said. “But he said he must help him. “A few days later I was told that my brother was arrested... And I knew he had been sent to Tuol Sleng.”

Despite his brother’s detainment, Sokhon continued to fight for the Khmer Rouge-even after Vietnamese forces ousted them from the capital in 1979. He lost his right eye in 1989 when a grenade landed near him during a fight against government troops, and there are still more than 20 pieces of shrapnel lodged in his body. After years of combat, Sokhon defected to the government in 1996 alongside the regime’s foreign minister Ieng Sary. Two years later, the civil war ended. “Now, I hate the regime very much. I am glad that the regime leaders are standing trial,” he said.

Up to two million people died from starvation, overwork and execution during the four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge, led by “Brother Number One” Pol Pot, who died in 1998. The four most senior surviving regime leadersincluding Ieng Sary-are due to face trial next year for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for their part in Cambodia’s “Killing Fields” era.Cambodian and international prosecutors have disagreed on whether to pursue more suspects and Prime Minister Hun Sen told UN chief Ban Ki-moon last month that a third case was “not allowed” because it could spark renewed civil war. Sokhon said his own personal journey to face the past was over. “I don’t want to remember. I want it to end here. But that does not mean I still support the Khmer Rouge,” he said. — AFP

Use of English stirs fear of job loss for Japanese

By Kyoko Hasegawa

I

n the cafeteria at the headquarters of Japan’s top online retailer Rakuten, employees with furrowed brows can often be seen trying to comprehend the company’s strictly English language menus.

The online giant is swapping Japanese for English as its official language company-wide in preparation for an overseas expansion, a move “crucial for us to survive in this competitive industry,” said spokesman Hirotoshi Kato. It is not the only Japanese firm to eschew its native tongue as it searches for overseas growth beyond a moribund, shrinking domestic market.

As the population shrinks and a stronger yen boosts companies’ power for overseas acquisitions, the need for better international communication is growing in Japan as firms pin their survival on emerging markets.Fast Retailing, which operates the cheap-chic Uniqlo brand, also plans to evolve into a more global company, looking to increase its overseas sales ratio to more than 50 percent in five years from about 10 percent now.

“The Japanese market is shrinking while overseas markets are expanding,” said Hideki Yoshihara, professor of business management at Nanzan University.

The increasing use of English as a communication tool is “a natural consequence” as the number of non-Japanese coworkers grows, he said. But at home such moves have ignited a backlash amid fears for Japanese jobs and criticism that a drive to relegate the native language will be more of a disadvantage than advantage against overseas rivals more at home with English. “You have to have a clear goal of why you need to speak English” said Chikako Tsuruta, professor of interpretation studies at

TOKYO: Japanese electronics maker Sony employee Yuko Minami (back center) chats with her colleagues George Boyd (left), Christian Walker (2nd right) and Ayano Iguchi (right) at their office at the Sony headquarters building in Tokyo. As the population shrinks and a stronger yen boosts companies’ power for overseas acquisitions, the need for better international communication is growing in Japan as firms pin their survival on emerging markets. —AFP Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

“Speaking in your mother tongue is essential to convey information correctly and swiftly, and that’s crucial for doing business,” said Tsuruta. Debate was rekindled after a report last month that electronics maker Sharp will adopt English as its official language in its research and development division in Japan. Meanwhile, electronics giant Panasonic says about 80 percent of its global new recruits for

white-collar positions will be foreigners in the financial year starting next April.

A recent survey by the Mainichi Shimbun daily said 57 percent of Japanese are against the use of English as an official language in companies, compared with 43 percent who support the idea. “There is no more absurd thing than speaking English in business in Japan,” Honda Motor president Takanobu Ito said recently. But with the strong yen already prompting many

firms to shift production into countries with relatively weaker currencies, there are fears Japanese companies may even move their headquarters abroad.

Such moves would exacerbate an already stagnant employment picture. The ratio of new college graduates who immediately found a job hit a record low of 57.6 percent this year, the labor ministry said. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has stressed that his government will work to secure jobs at home to stave off

moves by companies to relocate their production bases and offices abroad that would threaten Japan’s growth.”White-collar jobs for Japanese companies used to be only for the Japanese... but not anymore,” said Kazuo Ichijo, professor of management at Hitotsubashi University. “It’s more efficient to hire local human resources than to educate Japanese employees to meet local needs,” he said.

Kentaro Kakihana, leader of Panasonic’s global recruiting team, said the company was seeing “demand for more foreign colleagues to help develop products that suit various local needs”. He cites the example of washing machines being used in parts of western China to wash potatoes instead of clothes. Japan has lagged behind its Asian rival China in promoting its language abroad. It is in the process of completing a threeyear project to increase the number of Japanese-language schools from 10 in 2007 to 100 this fiscal year across the world, including Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Hungary, Russia and Egypt.

China has rapidly increased state-backed Chinese-language schools from about 180 in 2007 to more than 550 as of November last year. However, some of Japan’s bigger firms are not planning such drastic moves to shun their native language, including the world’s largest automaker Toyota Motor, said vice president Atsushi Niimi.

Electronics giant Sony, which is headed by Welsh journalist-turnedCEO Howard Stringer, says it has aggressively recruited engineers in emerging countries such as China and India in recent years. But for Osamu Kishimoto, the general manager at Sony’s human resources development department, nationality is not an issue.

“We are just looking for excellent talent.” — AFP

NATO choreography can’t mask pressing problems

By David Brunnstrom

I

n terms of choreography, NATO’s Lisbon summit went to plan, with no unseemly public rifts and headline goals set, but closer inspection shows the alliance has kicked its most pressing problems into an uncertain future. At a two-day meeting on Friday and Saturday, NATO leaders set a timeline for an end to combat operations in Afghanistan, hailed a fresh start in ties with Russia, and agreed on a program to defend the alliance against missile attack. They also approved a new vision statement for the coming 10 years and agreed to slim down the alliance’s command structure and bureaucracy. Leaders of the 28 NATO states managed all this with none of the fits of public pique that can mar such high profile events. Fears of a repeat of riots seen at NATO’s 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg last year proved unfounded.

But the impressive list of what summit choreographers like to term “deliverables”, masks the fact the hard work

needed to turn plans into successful reality still has to be done, with no guarantees of such a tidy outcome. By far NATO’s worst headache is Afghanistan, where the war is widely perceived to be going badly for the United States and its allies despite the presence of 150,000 foreign troops and a nine-year effort costing billions of dollars a week. With defense budgets under pressure from the financial crisis, public opposition to the involvement growing, casualties at record levels and little evidence of progress, NATO governments have been looking ever more keenly for the exit. Their dilemma has been to find a way to extract themselves from what threatens to become an increasingly bloody quagmire while seeking to claim some kind of success from what analysts say could still become an embarrassing strategic defeat. In Lisbon, they agreed on a timetable aimed at handing control of security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014 and said the NATO-led force could halt combat operations by the same date if security conditions were good enough.

But some NATO officials fear a rise in violence could make it hard to meet the target date set by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the security handover, which would leave a vastly reduced number of foreign troops in a training and support role.

The Kabul government is widely seen as too corrupt, unstable and inept to survive long without foreign military support, and few analysts have much confidence that this perception can be changed even with several more years of foreign involvement and the hundreds of billions of dollars that will cost. The Taleban, which has widened its insurgency throughout Afghanistan despite big increases in NATO troop levels, has demanded the withdrawal of foreign forces as a condition for any political settlement to the conflict. The insurgents called the 2014 Lisbon timeline “irrational”. “Because until then, various untoward and tragic events and battles will take place as a result of this meaningless, imposed and unwinnable war.

They should not postpone withdrawal of

their forces even be it for one day,” they said in a statement.

In Lisbon, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the former Cold War enemies had made a “historic” new start in relations strained since Russia’s military intervention in Georgia in 2008. They agreed to expand their cooperation global security issues, including Afghanistan, but despite the warm words and mood music the challenge will now be to see how they can turn success into fruitful cooperation in practice. The two sides agreed to restart cooperation in missile defense suspended as a result of the Georgia war, but details as to whether this can be expanded to protect populations rather than just military forces still have to be worked out. Allaying Russian fears about the impact of the system on its strategic deterrent could still prove tough and NATO still has to sell its vision of how the command and control system should function to a skeptical ally in Turkey, as well as Moscow. NATO also faces a diffi-

cult effort to slim down its bloated command structure and bureaucracy and modernize its military capabilities to meet global challenges in an era of severe defense spending cuts brought on by the financial crisis. The difficulties faced in Afghanistan have greatly cooled allies’ willingness to consider similar operations in future.

And pressure on governments to protect jobs in a time of crisis is likely to obstruct efforts to encourage the collaboration needed to avoid duplication in defense projects and make best use of limited resources. NATO leaders spared their Portuguese hosts embarrassment at Lisbon and kept Turkey on board on issues like missile defense by avoiding announcements of base closures as part of command structure reforms outlined at the summit. But hard bargaining and some considerable public wrangling can be expected in the months leading to a decision date in June on closing four major NATO headquarters, with bases in Portugal, Italy and Turkey seen most under threat. — Reuters

focus

The Code Talkers’ legacy decoded

By Marisol Bello

K

eith Little and Frank Chee Willetto know time is no longer on their side.

That’s why the men, World War II veterans who used a code based on the Navajo language to stump the Japanese in battles, spend their days reminding the world of their contribution to ending the war. As the numbers dwindle - fewer than 100 Code Talkers of the 400 trained by the US military are believed to be alive - the Navajo veterans are being recognized. On Veterans Day, a group of them rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. New Mexico dedicated a 16-mile stretch of highway to them a day earlier.

Now, 65 years after serving mostly in the Pacific, the men are trying to establish their legacy on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Through a foundation, they are about to launch a $42 million fundraising campaign for a museum and veterans center. “We are all old, and we want to see the result of our efforts,” says Little, 86, a retired logger. The museum has been more than 10 years in the making, says Willetto, 85. The group had the land but no money. Their efforts were boosted in 2008 with a grant of about $900,000 from the Navajo tribal government to help them form the foundation, design the project and conduct geological tests on the land.

Yvonne Murphy, secretary of the Navajo Code Talkers Association and daughter of a Code Talker, says they are pressed to get started because the average age of the men is 86. Of the first group of 29 who devised the code for the Marine Corps in 1942, only two remain.

Murphy choked up recently when noting that a Code Talker who served with her father was hospitalized and not able to make any Veterans Day appearances. “For us, the descendants, the children of the Navajo Code Talkers, we want to see our fathers’ dreams come true,” she says. “We want to have a place to go to learn about these men and their historic feats.”

The foundation has a list of 45 Code Talkers who are still alive, but she says there could be as many as 70. “It’s hard to get a handle on how many are living,” Murphy says. “Most don’t want to talk about it.

People still don’t know what they did. We get calls from people saying they didn’t know their father was a Code Talker.

They found his uniform after he died.” It didn’t help that the men were told by the military not to talk about their service and their work remained classified until 1968, says Zonnie Gorman, the daughter of a Code Talker who has recorded an oral history of their work. Her father, Carl Gorman, was one of the original 29 who devised the

code.

“Twenty years ago, if you said ‘Navajo Code Talkers,’ the majority of people would say, ‘Who?’ “ Gorman says. “At least today the majority of people have at least heard of them.”

The idea for the Code Talkers is credited to Philip Johnston, the son of a Protestant missionary who grew up on the reservation and spoke the language. He convinced the Marines they could enlist the Navajo as messengers, using their language to allow platoons to communicate quickly and securely.

The Code Talkers devised a complex system assigning Navajo words for each letter of the English alphabet and for names of military weapons, equipment and other phrases.

Some phrases resembled the things they described. The Navajo word for tortoise, chayda-gahi, meant tank, and ne-hemah, which means our mother, meant America. Other words were spelled out using Navajo words to represent letters of the alphabet. “The military had to coordinate tactical operations on the fly, so they hit on an ingenious solution, to use a language that no one understands, that there are no books for,” says Geoffrey Wawro, who teaches military history at the University of North Texas.

He says the code was used mostly in the Pacific Theater, where platoons made hard landings on beaches and lacked the elaborate equipment that could protect secret communication.

The Japanese never broke the code. “It was one of the many ingredients for success,” he says. “It helped reduce Marine casualties.” Little enlisted in the Marines at 17 and served as a radioman in the battle of Iwo Jima. “Iwo Jima was tough during the landing. We had to run to the beach,” he says. “You were being shelled by aircraft and ships.” He says he spent about a month sending messages about troop positions, equipment needs and enemy movements to military ships and other platoons on the island.

After the war, he says, it was years before he knew the importance of the service he and other Navajo provided. The irony that their language helped win the war is not lost on some of the men who attended government-run boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak Navajo. “I had to chew yellow soap every time I got caught talking my own language,” says Willetto, who trained as a Code Talker but never used it in battle. “And then they used our language to come up with a code.” He says he isn’t angry, though. He wants Americans to know the Navajo did their part and says a museum will show that. “We want to leave something behind,” Willetto says. “The young people need to know what happened.”— MCT

An arctic Cold War?

By Kenneth Yalowitz and William Courtney

S

ome fear that melting Arctic sea ice could trigger a new “great game” between the United States and Russia as they and other Arctic coastal states race to extract newly accessible energy and minerals resources. These fears are exaggerated. There are few, if any, signs of military buildups or tensions, as states are pursuing diplomatic solutions to border delimitation issues. But new confidence-building measures could help avert future risks.

Russia, the United States and Canada, among others, have vital interests in the Arctic region. Russia can benefit enormously if it safely develops northern energy and mineral reserves, much of which lie in shallow water on its continental shelf. Moscow’s emerging Arctic strategy gives great weight to protecting this resource.

Russia and Canada are asserting national claims over the Northeast and Northwest sea passages, respectively, and monitoring the growth of international shipping close to their territory. US interests stem from Alaska’s location and keeping those seaways as international bodies of water. Sea ice, which has covered the Arctic Ocean for millennia, is receding and thinning rapidly, declining 10 percent per decade. There will be open water seasonally

across the Arctic Ocean in the near future. This will allow for significant increases in shipping, resource exploitation, and, consequently, risks to the environment. Rich Arctic fisheries could be endangered by uncontrolled fishing or accidental pollution. The stakes are great.

The US Geological Survey estimates that about 30 percent of the remaining world reserves of natural gas and 10 percent of oil reserves lie in the Arctic region.

The blow-out of the BP Deep Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the danger of oil extraction in water much less environmentally challenging than the Arctic Ocean, although deeper. While some projects are on hold due to the world economic downturn, global energy demand, sooner or later, will spur substantial Arctic resources development.

This prospect has led Canada, Russia, Norway and Denmark to push claims for extended jurisdiction over the Arctic Ocean’s continental shelves and their resources.

The international vehicle for adjudicating boundary claims is the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS), which all Arctic states accept as the forum for handling them.

Although the United States is gathering data for possible future claims, these will have no standing unless the Senate finally ratifies the convention. This step has enjoyed strong support from every president since Ronald Reagan and from Navy and Coast

NEWS

14

Monday, November 22, 2010

KIA ‘not buying’ GM shares Egypt dissent yet to move KUWAIT: Kuwait Investment Authority, the Gulf Arab country’s sovereign wealth fund, will not be taking part in General Motors’ initial public offering, a source said yesterday.

Earlier this month, KIA’s managing director, Bader Al-Saad, said the fund

was considering taking in GM’s initial public offering if it is feasible, but a person familiar with the matter at KIA said they had decided not to invest due to the increase in the share price. GM raised $20.1 billion last week, placing its shares at the top of a proposed range due to

massive investor demand. The IPO values GM at about $63 billion. Including an option that would allow underwriters to sell more shares, GM looks set to raise $23.1 billion, eclipsing the record $22.1 billion raised by Agricultural Bank of China in July. — Reuters

Sweden issues warrant for WikiLeaks founder Assange accused of rape, sexual molestation STOCKHOLM: Swedish police said they had issued an international arrest warrant for Julian Assange, founder of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, who is wanted on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation. “Late last night we gathered all the information and sent it out in the different systems,” Tommy Kangasvieri of the Swedish National Criminal Police said.

These are the Swedish system, the Schengen Information System (SIS) the massive security database for Europe’s border-free Schengen zone-and Interpol, Kangasvieri said.

“The prosecutor had already decided to issue an international arrest warrant.

We made sure that all the police forces in the world would see it,” Kangasvieri added. Interpol, based in Lyon in eastern France, said it had received an arrest warrant for the extradition of Assange.

Stockholm district court on Thursday ordered an arrest warrant for Assange, a 39year-old Australian, for questioning on “probable cause of suspected rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion” in Sweden in August.

The court order allowed prosecutor Marianne Ny, who had requested Assange’s detention, to prepare an international arrest warrant.

Assange is currently believed to be in Britain. WikiLeaks last month published an unprecedented 400,000 classified US documents on the Iraq war and posted 77,000 secret US files on the Afghan conflict in July. Ny insisted Thursday that arresting Assange was the only way she could be sure of questioning him about the allegations, which he has denied. Assange’s Swedish lawyer Bjoern Hurtig on Friday filed an appeal against

from Facebook to streets Emergency law shackles opposition, including Islamists CAIRO: Internet campaigns for political reform in Egypt are losing traction because opposition groups have failed to channel online voices into a grass-roots movement capable of challenging the authorities. Calls for constitutional change by presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, garnered quarter of a million supporters on a Facebook page earlier this year, but the campaign appears to have fizzled.

The web is among the few public platforms for angry voices in Egypt, where rights groups say an emergency law in place since 1981 has been used to silence critics of President Hosni Mubarak, 82, and his ruling National Democractic Party (NDP). Just a week before a parliamentary poll widely expected to produce a routine NDP victory, activists and analysts doubt that online dissent can provoke real change without the backing of a popular opposition leader or a unified opposition movement.

“There are (labor) strikes happening on the ground but has the organized opposition managed to interact with them or not? Unfortunately, I have to say, the opposition’s performance has been largely dismal,” said blogger Hossam Hamalawy. Facebook campaigns were credited by some for helping galvanize 2008 protests against rising prices and low wages that led to clashes with police in the Delta city of Mahalla el-Kubra. But Hamalawy says the Internet was not the catalyst. “It was people on the ground not

connected to Facebook who rioted...in Mahalla,” he said. “The Internet can just provide a platform for solidarity with that movement on the ground.”

In Iran, social networking sites such as Twitter helped draw huge crowds of protesters onto the streets after a disputed 2009 presidential election. No such scenario seems likely in Egypt for its Nov. 28 poll or its 2011 presidential vote.

“These youth movements are not really tied to any official party,” said Sarah Hassan, regional analyst at IHS Global Insight. “When we see one that has a manifesto and a more organised establishment, that could be a real leap.”

After initial media publicity for his prodemocracy demands, ElBaradei has mostly shunned the spotlight in recent months. “I voted for ElBaradei online, on his website,” said graphic designer Faris Hassanein, 27. “I even designed posters, but when he didn’t do anything for some time, I just lost interest.” The main opposition movement, the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood, faces tough restrictions. Police often round up its members without charge and detain them for long periods. Without openly confronting the state, the group has used the web to promote its rallying cry “Islam is the solution”, despite a ban on election candidates using religion-based slogans. Many Brotherhood members are young people and university students, said political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah. “They are the people who use these new (technology) tools the most.” In an Arab nation of 79

million people, about a quarter of whom are aged 18 to 29, government supporters have also entered the online arena.

They sponsor dozens of sites backing Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, who is tipped as a future president if his father opts not to run next year.

The government has said it will let Egyptian rights groups monitor the parliamentary vote but has barred foreign observers. The electoral process is fair and freedom of expression exists, incluing online, it says. Only up to a point, critics retort. “They don’t block websites, but they track them very closely,” said Ahmed Zidan, 23, editor of Mideast Youth, noting that Egypt features every year on the “Internet Enemies” report prepared by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. This month Egypt released Kareem Amer, a blogger who served a four-year prison term for criticising the president and Islam. A Facebook group entitled “We are all Khaled Said” rallied hundreds of Egyptians in July to protest in Cairo and other cities over the death of Said, a Web activist who rights groups say was killed as a result of police brutality.

Amr Hamzawy, research director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the main obstacle to political mobilization was not fear of state security agencies but the failure of opposition groups to latch onto the daily grievances of Egyptians, a fifth of whom live on less than $1 a day, according to UN figures. —Reuters

Qaeda vows to ‘bleed enemy to death’ Continued from Page 1

Founder of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange the arrest warrant court order, but the challenge did not suspend the Swedish order or delay the international warrant.

However, Swedish media reported the petition would likely be treated quickly by the appeals court, which could rule on the warrant’s legitimacy in days. Assange’s lawyer in Britain, Mark Stephens, said the hearing on the warrant was due on Monday, adding that he was “surprised” the Swedish authorities had filed it. “I am extremely surprised given that there is an appeal listed for Monday. It seems to me a comprehensive waste of time and smacks of desperation,” Stephens told AFP. He refused to give details of

Assange’s whereabouts on Saturday, but has previously said the Australian was in London as recently as Thursday.

Stephens said Assange had offered prosecutor Ny the opportunity to question the Wikileaks founder “at a Swedish embassy in London, at a police station or by videolink” but she had refused.

“The offer he made is still on the table-if Ms. Ny wants to avail herself of the opportunity.” He said that the international arrest warrant had not yet been received by Assange’s lawyers in Sweden or, as far as he was aware, by authorities in relevant countries. “The next stage is for the relevant authorities to see whether the presented docu-

ment is valid, and I will look to see if it is valid too,” Stephens said.

Ny would not tell Sweden’s TT news agency if she had been in contact with Assange’s lawyers, but defended the arrest warrant procedure as normal. “The only thing I can say is that we have conducted this investigation in a normal way. We follow the rules and the rulebooks,” she said.

Assange has been accused of raping one woman in Sweden and sexually molesting another. He has strongly denied the charges and hinted that they could be part of a “smear campaign” against his whistleblower website for publishing classified US documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. — AFP

‘Defiant’ Saudi woman dies behind the wheel RIYADH: A Saudi who defied a ban on women driving in the kingdom was killed along with three more of her 10 female passengers when her car overturned in a crash, an Internet news site repor ted yesterday. A Riyadh police official, Fawwaz Al-Miman, told Sabq website that the seven other women were all injured in Saturday night’s crash in a desert area where

young Saudis gather to stage car races. The unidentified woman, who was in her twenties, was driving a four-wheel-drive vehicle when she lost control and hit a barrier, the official said.

There have been several incidents reported in recent years of women being killed in accidents while driving despite the ban, one of a host of

restrictions imposed on women in ultra-conser vative Saudi Arabia.

Women’s rights campaigners have petitioned King Abdullah urging him to lift the ban. Women in the Muslim Gulf kingdom, which imposes strict Islamic law, are forced to cover themselves from head to toe in public, and cannot travel without written permission from a male guardian. — AFP

Ahmadinejad: Girls should marry at 16 TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the best age for girls to get married was between 16 and 18, Iranian newspapers reported yesterday.

Analysts say such announcements could be part of the government’s efforts to gain support among young voters. Iran’s parliament in 2004 raised the legally acceptable age of marriage for girls to 15 from nine. “The best age for marriage is between 16 to 18 for girls and 19 to 21 for boys,” the Mardomsalari newspaper quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Ahmadinejad’s popularity has been harmed since the disputed 2009 presidential vote, which the opposition says was rigged to secure his re-election. The authorities deny this.

The vote and its aftermath created a rift within the ruling hardline elite. “We have a parliamentary election in 2012 and hardliners want to win young people’s

votes in order to win the assembly vote,” said an Iranian political analyst who asked not to be named. Iranians struggle to cope with international sanctions and deepening economic uncertainty. The official inflation rate is about 10 percent and unemployment about 15 percent. Iran has been hit by foreign sanctions over its disputed nuclear work, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

The authorities have been encouraging marriage as a way to fight what they call the “spread of immorality among youth”.

Some hardline clerics and lawmakers have warned over increasing rates of divorce. “Divorces ... are increasing. High prices have caused problems for ordinary Iranians,” said prominent hardline cleric grand ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi

on Friday. Female activists criticize laws relating to women, including those that restrict women’s divorce and custody rights and forbid them from working or leaving the country without their husband’s permission.

A woman’s testimony and life, in blood money terms, are worth half that of a man’s in court. A woman cannot become president. Activists say women’s demands cannot be put on the back burner in a country where two-thirds of the population is under 30 and more than 60 percent of university graduates are women. Iranian women have made inroads into politics and business in recent years. Shirin Ebadi, a human rights activist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work on women’s and children’s rights in the Islamic Republic. — Reuters

execution. “On the other hand this... will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures. This is what we call leverage.

“From the start our objective was economic... It was determined that the success of the operation was to be based on two factors: The first is that the packages pass through the latest security equipment.

“The second, the spread of fear that would cause the West to invest billions of dollars in new security procedures. “We will continue with similar operations and we do not mind at all in this stage if they

are intercepted. It is such a good bargain for us to spread fear amongst the enemy and keep him on his toes in exchange of a few months of work and a few thousand bucks.”

The magazine says AQAP intends to pass on its know-how to other radical Islamists around the world, to encourage them to mount similar operations. “We are laying out for our enemies our plan in advance because... our objective is not maximum kill but to cause a hemorrhage in the aviation industry, an industry that is so vital for trade and transportation between the US and Europe.”

IntelCenter chief executive Ben Venzke said the level of operational detail AQAP had provided in the magazine marked a

departure for Islamists.

“We have never seen a jihadist group in the Al-Qaeda orbit ever release, let alone only a few weeks after, such a detailed accounting of the philosophy, operational details, intent and next steps following a major attack,” he said.

“This may represent a new level of interaction by jihadi groups following an operation and is a far cry from the days of shadowy claims and questions as to who was actually responsible.

“AQAP is a dedicated, unwavering and sophisticated group. It will continue to strike at the US in creative new ways and it is only a matter of time until one of their attacks results in thousands dead and/or severe economic damage.” — AFP

No Kuwait flag at Asian Games Continued from Page 1 from Arabic.“All other teams are participating under their own (national) flag while we are participating under the Olympic flag and that has a bad psychological effect on our players.” Husain Albahrani was the only Kuwaiti competing in the singles table tennis competition, and understood the benefits of being in Guangzhou, regardless of the flag. “It was an honor for me to represent my country alone,” Albahrani said after he was beaten in the event by China’s Wang

Hao. Albahrani won his first-round singles match before losing to the No 2 seed. He also competed in the men’s doubles competition, in which he and partner Mansour Alenezy lost to the Indian team of Sharath Achanta and Subhajit Saha. But Albahrani was happy to be one of the last 16 players in the men’s singles. “I represented my country very good,” Albahrani said. “We had some problems with the Olympic community, so to be one of the best 16 players, it was nice.” He also thought it was important for the Kuwaiti athletes to gain international experience,

even if it wasn’t under their own flag.

It wasn’t the large venue that was new to him - he’s played plenty of world tour competitions - rather, it was the highest caliber of his rivals that offered Albahrani a different experience. “It was the first time for me playing one of the Chinese players,” Albahrani said, after losing to Wang Hao. “It was good experience to know what’s my level against their levels. We’re always watching them on YouTube and sometimes we saw them in some competitions. To play against them was really a very nice experience.” — AP

PM, officials discuss gas leak Continued from Page 1 swif tly with the problems there.

Meanwhile, a number of MPs yesterday called on the government to find a comprehensive settlement for a number of Kuwaiti families living in Ahmadi and fac-

ing serious situation of gas leakage.

The families are living in old houses that were given by Kuwait Oil Company and which get their cooking gas supply through an underground network that has started to leak, endangering their lives.

The government held a special meeting

in Ahmadi to discuss the issue and the prime minister has ordered a quick solution to the problem.

But MPs have called in the government to purchase the houses in the area and provide the families with houses in other areas. — Agencies

Khorafi blasts US over human rights report Continued from Page 1 over 1,000 mosques for the majority Sunnis, and that Shiites do not have a special court to settle issues of personal status. Khorafi said that the Kuwaiti people are like one family and are keen to preserve national unity so they do not allow the United States or others to stir an internal conflict.

Speaking on the same issue, head of the legal and legislative committee MP Hussein Al-Huraiti, a former justice minister, said the reason that a Shiite court does not exist is because there is no law to regulate personal status issues for the Shiites. He said that when he was a minister, he held meetings with various Shiite groups to discuss this particular issue. Huraiti said that Kuwaiti Shiites enjoy the same constitutional rights as their Sunni fellow citizens, adding that releasing the report at this time only

aims at negatively impacting national unity and creating divisions in the Kuwaiti society.

In another development, independent MP Mubarak Al-Khrainej yesterday submitted a proposal calling in the government to deport all expatriates serving prison terms in Kuwait to their home countries. The proposal calls for deporting all non-Kuwaiti prisoners, except those convicted of murder and financial crimes, to serve the jail terms in their home countries in order for the state to save money spent on them throughout their imprisonment.

Around 69 percent of Kuwait’s population of 3.566 million are expatriates. In the meantime, the National Assembly observer MP Ali Al-Omair said the government has presented 21 issues as its priority issues during the current assembly term which opened last month. Omair said that the government has listed

amendments to the Audio-visual law, compulsory military service and others as top of its priorities which have been reduced from 102 to just 21.

He said the assembly bureau will discuss these issues along with those presented by MPs in order to prepare a joint list of priorities to be presented to the National Assembly.

MP Mussallam Al-Barrak meanwhile warned minister of public works and municipalities Fadhil Safar for signing into retirement three top Kuwaiti legal advisors at the municipality legal department, saying the decision violates the law. Barrak said the law allows Kuwaiti legal experts to continue in the government job until the age of 70 while the three advisors were sent into retirement before reaching the age. MP Huraiti on his part said he will demand launching a parliamentary probe into Safar’s decision which squarely violates the law.

Saudi seeks to prevent power vacuum Continued from Page 1 he went abroad for medical treatment. The deteriorating health of both king and crown prince serve notice of possible political changes looming for Saudi Arabia, a key political player in the Middle East.

Abdullah, king since 2005, had reduced his duties since June this year over health problems which were never officially disclosed. On November 12, the royal court said he was suffering from a herniated disc, a painful but treatable spinal ailment.”Doctors have advised him to rest as part of his therapy,” said a brief statement carried at the

time by SPA, which added that the announcement was in line with the monarch’s “principle of transparency.”

That statement on the status of King Abdullah’s health marked a shift toward more openness in the kingdom, where health problems of the sovereigns and princes are usually categorized as state secrets.

On Friday, the king underwent tests at King Faisal hospital in Riyadh after a new flare-up of pain. Official reports said he had an “accumulation of blood” around the spinal cord. In a television appearance last week in which he was seen to use a cane while walking, King Abdullah said he was in good health but

had something “bothering” him.

On Saturday, an expected-but never officially announced-visit by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak became a phone call between the two leaders instead.

The Saudi royals who have dominated the gover nment for 30 years or more are all aged and have been treated for various health problems, usually never defined, during the past year.

Prince Nayef, 76, Sultan’s full brother and considered second in line to the throne, has also undergone unspecified treatment in the past 12 months. He has been interior minister for 35 years. — AFP

SPORTS

Monday, November 22, 2010

15

NHL results/standings NHL results and standings on Saturday.

Los Angeles 4, Boston 3 (SO); Tampa Bay 2, Buffalo 1; Montreal 2, Toronto 0; Florida 4, NY Islanders 1; Philadelphia 5, Washington 4 (SO); Nashville 2, Carolina 1 (SO); St. Louis 3, New Jersey 2; NY Rangers 5, Minnesota 2; Colorado 4, Dallas 3 (SO); Chicago 7, Vancouver 1; Columbus 3, San Jose 0. (SO denotes shootout win) Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L OTL GF GA PTS Philadelphia 13 6 2 75 53 28 Pittsburgh 11 8 2 66 57 24 NY Rangers 11 9 1 63 59 23 New Jersey 5 13 2 36 65 12 NY Islanders 4 12 3 40 66 11

Montreal Boston Ottawa Buffalo Toronto

Northeast Division 13 6 1 51 11 5 2 54 9 10 1 49 8 11 3 58 7 9 3 43

39 35 65 68 54

27 24 19 19 17

Washington Tampa Bay Carolina Atlanta Florida

Southeast Division 14 5 2 74 11 7 2 62 9 9 2 63 8 9 3 63 9 9 0 50

59 64 68 69 45

30 24 20 19 18

Detroit St. Louis Columbus Chicago Nashville

Western Conference Central Division 12 3 2 61 11 5 3 52 12 6 0 53 11 10 2 71 9 6 3 47

44 51 44 67 49

26 25 24 24 21

Colorado Vancouver Minnesota Calgary Edmonton

Northwest Division 12 7 1 72 10 6 3 56 10 7 2 46 8 10 0 54 4 10 4 45

60 53 47 54 75

25 23 22 16 12

Pacific Division Los Angeles 13 6 0 59 46 26 Phoenix 9 5 5 54 57 23 Anaheim 10 9 3 55 65 23 San Jose 9 6 4 55 52 22 Dallas 10 7 1 56 53 21 Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L).

UNIONDALE: Goalie Tomas Vokoun No. 29 of the Florida Panthers makes a save against the New York Islanders during the third period of a hockey game at the Nassau Coliseum.—AFP

Flyers soar over Capitals, Kings march on WASHINGTON: Danny Briere scored the only goal in the shootout as the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Washington Capitals 5-4 on Saturday in a clash of the NHL Eastern Conference’s two top teams.

Flyers goalie Brian Boucher stopped all three Washington shootout attempts while Briere put the puck between Michal Neuvirth’s pads.

Philadelphia went ahead 4-3 with 6:07 remaining on Andreas Nodl’s goal from between the circles, but Washington’s Eric Fehr scored a one-timer from the right circle on a power play with 38 seconds left in regulation.

Claude Giroux, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter also scored for the Flyers, who handed the Capitals only their second home loss in 12 games. Marcus Johansson, Nicklas Backstrom and Jason Chimera had the other goals for Washington.

Kings 4, Bruins 3 In Boston, Michal Handzus scored in the sixth round of the shootout to give Los Angeles victory over Boston. Los Angeles goalie Jonathan Quick made 38 saves through overtime, helping the Kings win

their first game in four.

Boston goalie Tim Thomas — Quick’s Olympic teammate — made 23 saves before the shootout, but the Bruins’ three-game winning streak was broken.

Handzus, who also scored in regulation, beat Thomas with a wrist shot on the stick side. Jarett Stoll had his 100th career goal for the Kings, and Brad Richardson also scored. Patrice Bergeron’s power-play goal for Boston with 6:16 to play sent the game to overtime. It was the fourth straight game between the teams that needed extra time.

Blake Wheeler and Gregory Campbell added goals for the Bruins in the second period.

home in regulation for the first time this season.

Blue Jackets 3, Sharks 0 In San Jose, Rick Nash scored three goals as Columbus earned a rare win in San Jose. Nash extended his goal-scoring streak to five games and his point streak to eight as the Blue Jackets earned their seventh road victory in eight games, the quickest they’ve reached that win total in the team’s 10-season history. Mathieu Garon made 35 saves for the shutout as the Blue Jackets recorded their first win at San Jose since 2003-04.

The Sharks failed to record a point for the first time in eight games.

Blackhawks 7, Canucks 1 In Vancouver, Jonathan Toews, Troy Brouwer, Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp scored quick second-period goals to chase goalie to spark Chicago’s romp over Vancouver. Fernando Pisani scored twice early in the third, and Patrick Kane added a goal with 8:31 left. The Canucks only goal came from Mikael Samuelsson in the third.

The Canucks were coming off a fivegame trip of their own, and looked as though they left their legs on the road. They lost at

Rangers 5, Wild 2 In St. Paul, Minnesota, Marian Gaborik marked his first game as an opposing player in Minnesota with an assist during a threegoal second period to help New York beat the Wild. Gaborik, the Wild’s first draft pick and the 10-year-old franchise’s most productive and prolific player despite persistent injuries, got the second assist on Alex Frolov’s wraparound with 1 minute left in the second.

Over the last 12 minutes of that lopsided middle frame, Artem Anisimov, Michael Del Zotto and Frolov scored for the Rangers as the Wild went without a shot. Brandon Dubinsky and Ruslan Fedotenko tacked on goals for the Rangers in the third period, while Martin Biron finished with 26 saves.

Matt Cullen and Martin Havlat scored for Minnesota.

Avalanche 4, Stars 3 In Dallas, Kevin Porter scored in the fifth round of the shootout as Colorado recovered after wasting a three-goal lead and beat Dallas. Milan Hejduk had two power-play goals, and David Jones scored at even strength for Colorado, which is 5-1 in its past six against the Stars. James Neal’s power-play goal made it 3-3 in the third for the Stars, whose run of five straight home wins was ended. Adam Burish and Brenden Morrow scored 23 seconds apart in the second period to get Dallas’ rally started.

Lightning 2, Sabres 1 In Buffalo, New York, Mike Smith made 29 saves to lift Tampa Bay over Buffalo.

Smith, in his first start since Nov. 12, helped

the Lightning to their third straight victory, tying a season high. He turned aside all 12 shots he faced in the third period.

Teddy Purcell and Adam Hall scored for Tampa Bay. Thomas Vanek scored for the Sabres, who were without injured starting goalie Ryan Miller.

Canadiens 2, Maple Leafs 0 In Montreal, Carey Price made 30 saves for his fourth shutout of the season as Montreal beat Toronto. Jeff Halpern and Michael Cammalleri scored for the Canadiens, who have won five of six.

There was a moment’s silence for the passing of Pat Burns, who coached both clubs.

Predators 2, Hurricanes 1 In Raleigh, North Carolina, Martin Erat and Cal O’Reilly scored in the shootout to push Nashville past Carolina. After O’Reilly matched Carolina’s Jeff Skinner in the first round, each team failed on its second opportunity. Patrick O’Sullivan then missed for the Hurricanes, setting up Erat’s winner.

Carolina scored first on Joni Pitkanen’s first-period goal. Jerred Smithson tied it for

“Scotland made use of it much better than us on the night so well done to them.” The Scots enjoy playing in the rain and would have been delighted to see the heavens open before kickoff. It meant few try scoring chances and the hosts relied on the deadeye kicking of Parks to see them through.

Replacement flanker Willem Alberts scored a late try for South Africa, adding to Morne Steyn’s four penalties, but Scotland held on for a fourth win in its last five tests. “What a difference a week makes,” Robinson said. “The physicality was top drawer. We knocked them over; last week we let New Zealand run through us.

“They were tough conditions to play in — some people say they are Scottish conditions. I think the guys handled it very well.” It was only Scotland’s second victory over South Africa in 13 postapartheid matches, and it was the second time Scotland has ruined the Springboks’ Grand Slam dreams in four bids since their last sweep in 1960-61.

New Zealand flyhalf Dan Carter moved to within three points of surpassing England’s Jonny Wilkinson as the record test points scorer as he kicked 18 in his team’s ultimately convincing win over Ireland. Carter was on target until his match-ending eighth goalkick, a conversion which shaved the outside right post. His 18-point haul improved him to 1,176 points — two short

of Wilkinson.

“I wasn’t too sure how many points I had and how far away I was,” Carter said of overhauling Wilkinson’s record. “I was just happy to come out there and put in a good performance, especially in the second half.”

Ireland went 13-9 up after Stephen Ferris’ 32nd-minute try but the All Blacks clicked into gear and Anthony Boric, Kieran Read and Sam Whitelock all went over in an eight-minute spell bridging the break to send them clear.

“We scored tries at very important times in the game and defended well when we were under pressure,” said New Zealand coach Graham Henry, who clinched his 100th test victory.

Captain Richie McCaw, on the ground where he made his debut, and fullback Mils Muliaina became the most capped All Blacks in tests with 93, but celebrations were somewhat muted by lock Tom Donnelly damaging knee ligaments to likely end his tour.

Center and captain Brian O’Driscoll claimed a secondhalf consolation score for Ireland, which fought bravely but fell to its second defeat in three autumn tests. After beating England, Scotland and Ireland, New Zealand can claim a third Grand Slam of the home unions in five years by topping

Blues 3, Devils 2 In St. Louis, Brad Winchester scored the winning goal in the third period to lift St. Louis past slumping New Jersey.

Jaroslav Halak stopped 35 shots, while Alex Pietrangelo and Eric Brewer also scored for the Blues, who won their 12th in a row over an Eastern Conference opponent — including 7-0 this season. David Clarkson and Mattias Tedenby scored for the Devils, who dropped their third in a row.

Panthers 4, Islanders 1 In Uniondale, New York, Mike Santorelli scored two of Florida’s four goals in a 7:54 span of the second period as the Panthers sent New York to its 12th straight loss. The Islanders have gone 0-11-1 in their past 12 games, scoring only 11 goals in the last 10.

Even a coaching change hasn’t helped as New York has lost both games since Jack Capuano took over from the fired Scott Gordon. Matt Moulson scored the only goal for the Islanders), who have an NHL-worst 11 points. Marty Reasoner and Stephen Weiss also scored for the Panthers.—AP

‘Fans should savor Nadal-Federer show’

Springboks’ Grand Slam hopes end in Scotland LONDON: South Africa’s hopes of ending a miserable year with a rare Grand Slam of the home unions ended in the driving Edinburgh rain as Scotland claimed a memorable 21-17 win at Murrayfield on Saturday.

New Zealand was still on for a Grand Slam, however, thanks to a 38-18 victory over Ireland in Dublin.

With England and Australia claiming expected victories over Samoa and Italy respectively, it was left to the Scots to record the biggest surprise on the third weekend of autumn internationals, pipping Fiji’s 16-16 draw with Wales 16-16 on Friday.

Dan Parks kicked all of Scotland’s points, through six penalties and a drop goal, as a team which was crushed 49-3 by New Zealand last weekend earned its first win over the Springboks since 2002.

The world champions finished bottom of the Tri-Nations table this year after losing five of their six matches and hadn’t convinced during their end-of-year tour of Europe, scraping narrow wins over Ireland and Wales.

But they were still expected to beat Scotland, which had been embarrassed by the All Blacks just seven days ago. “It’s tough.

We were probably under pressure,” South Africa coach Peter de Villiers said. “Everyone wants us to play more expansive but with the weather the way it was it didn’t allow us to.

Nashville in the second.

EDINBURGH: Scotland’s Hugo Southwell (centre) runs into South Africa’s Juan Smith (left) and Bismarck du Plessis (right) during the international rugby match between Scotland and South Africa.—AFP Wales next weekend.

It would be the All Blacks’ fourth Grand Slam overall, matching the Springboks. Australia has done it only once, in 1984. The fireworks England produced in its 35-18 win over Australia last weekend weren’t on show against Samoa but its 26-13 win at Twickenham was never really in doubt.

Martin Johnson’s side lacked the cutting edge and fluency that marked the victory against the Wallabies and had only a 6-3 halftime lead against the islanders.

England, boosted by a dominant scrum, pulled clear after the

break and tries by winger-turnedcenter Matt Banahan and replacement flanker Tom Croft saw it home. Toby Flood hauled in 16 points off his boot.

“We ground our way to the win,” Johnson said. After backto-back defeats — to England then Munster in midweek — Australia got its tour back on track with a 34-12 win over Italy.

Winger Drew Mitchell and captain Rocky Elsom scored the Wallabies’ tries and Berrick Barnes kicked flawlessly, knocking over six penalties and two conversions for 22 points. Barnes booted Australia clear only after

the hour mark, though.

“We did a lot but didn’t conclude a lot,” Australia coach Robbie Deans said. “Like we anticipated, Italy used field position and a bit of cunning to hang in there.” In Montpellier, Morgan Parra kicked four penalties and Damien Traille landed a drop goal in France’s hard-fought 15-9 victory over Argentina.

Argentina captain Felipe Contepomi booted all of his side’s points, but France avenged a 4113 loss to the Pumas in the summer. In a match between World Cup teams, Georgia defeated Canada 22-15 in Tbilisi.—AP

LONDON: Tennis fans should savour every moment of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s domination of the sport because such champions do not come around very often, world number eight Andy Roddick has said.

The American is preparing for the ATP World Tour Finals where he will face world number one Nadal on Monday in his debut at London’s O2 Arena having had to sit out last year’s showpiece tournament at the spectacular indoor venue because of injury.

“Rafa has had an unbelievable year,” Roddick said of the 24-year-old Spaniard who has won three of the year’s four grand slams and could hold all the majors if he wins the Australian Open at the start of next year.

“What he has done is unreal.

To put it into context what Roger and Rafa have achieved for the past five years I would hope that people appreciate it because I guarantee people will be writing in 15 years time that these were the good old days.”

Looking ahead to his opening round robin clash with ninetimes grand slam champion Nadal, Roddick said he was just glad to be involved in the season finale after the second half of his season was dogged by illness and injury.

He is also looking forward to a warm welcome from the British fans who have taken the

Texas-based former world No.1 to their hearts after his three Wimbledon final defeats at the hands of Federer-most notably 2009 when he lost an epic encounter 16-14 in the deciding set. Roddick watched from the stands last year at the O2 and still remembers with pride the ovation he received when he was captured on the video screen inside the arena-a moment he described as one of his most memorable.

“It’s strange because it’s a polarising event for the crowd here, I normally get a really good reception but then a tournament like this comes along and I’ve got Rafa in the first round so I can’t take that for granted” Roddick, who beat Nadal in Miami this year, told reporters.

Roddick injured an adductor muscle in Shanghai in October and admits that he feared his hopes of qualifying for the yearend tournament for an eight time had gone.

“I felt pretty clean and played well at the beginning of the year but then I got sick and tried to play through it more than I should, then I got injured.

So to be here at the end is a little bit surprising.

“I feel fine now though. I didn’t know what I was going to bring to the table in Basle and Paris but I managed to sneak out some results and only lost to the guys that won the titles.”—Reuters

SPORTS

16

Monday, November 22, 2010

Poulter bags HK Open

ATLANTIC CITY: Sergio Martinez of Oxnard knocks out Paul Williams of Augusta in the second round of Middleweight Championship bout. —AP

Martinez KO’s Williams ATLANTIC CITY: Sergio Martinez knocked out Paul Williams in the second round Saturday to retain his WBC middleweight championship and turn a clash of two of the world’s top boxers into an anticlimax.

The bout was a rematch of the epic fight of December last year when they traded first-round knockdowns and went 12 rounds before Williams won a split decision. This one failed to live up to expectations, with the premature end leaving fans at The Boardwalk stunned.

“I started to attack, and when I did, we knew he was going to make a mistake, because he always makes mistakes,” Martinez said. “He left me a lot of room to come in and hit him.”

Williams was looking to land his own hook and instead walked into a left which landed flush on the chin and sent the American face-down onto the canvas.

Argentina’s Martinez immediately ran across the ring to celebrate while doctors rushed in to tend to Williams.

It took several minutes before he finally got to his feet, and by that point, ring announcer Michael Buffer was already announcing the end at 1:10 of the second round. “I got caught with a punch,” Williams said while being tended to by paramedics.

The decision for Williams in their previous bout was questioned by some, and Martinez was determined not to let this one go to the scorecards.

“I didn’t want the judges to rob me this

time,” said the 35-year-old Martinez, one of the rare fighters entering his prime this late in his career.

“He said, ‘I’m going to knock him out.

The fight is not going to go seven rounds, I’m going to knock him out,”‘ Martinez promoter Lou DiBella said, unable to contain a smile. “I was worried like a maniac and he said, ‘No, I’m knocking him out.

Relax.”‘ “That was one of the great knockout punches of another great fighter I’ve ever seen,” DiBella said. “Williams is a brilliant fighter, but Martinez’s speed and angles, that punch — that punch would have knocked anyone out.”

Despite their first fight becoming an instant classic, the rematch took plenty of time and patience to put together.

Martinez upped the ante by claiming the middleweight title from Kelly Pavlik in bloody decision earlier this year, while Williams held out hope of landing a big payday at welterweight against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Shane Mosley.

When it become apparent that those fights would never happen, promoter Dan Goossen agreed to the rematch with Martinez, getting his fighter back in the spotlight on an HBO telecast.

While neither Martinez nor Williams is fond of the other, there was more acrimony than usual in the lead-up to this one because Williams insisted on a catch weight of 158 pounds — two under the middleweight limit — since he’d been

training to fight at 147 pounds. Martinez countered by saying he’d be “ashamed” to ask for a catch weight if he was challenging for a world title.

Martinez looked faster and smoother than Williams, and landed several crisp punches in the opening round, including a flurry on the ropes that gave him the edge on the scorecards. Then he came out the next round and almost seemed to bait Williams into throwing a wide punch.

Martinez said he wants to fight two or three more times before retiring, especially after landing a payday of a little over a $1 million for barely 4 minutes of work.

He mentioned as possible candidates Pacquiao, considered the best fighter in the world, and Mayweather, who long held the same mantle. But most fans are hopeful that those two eventually will meet, and Martinez is a bad combination of a dangerous opponent who doesn’t yet possess his deserved name recognition.

“If you’re Pacquiao, would you go near him? You think Mayweather will fight him?” DiBella said. “We’re going to have a problem making the next fight because that’s how good he is.” DiBella floated the idea of another rematch with Williams, now that Martinez has squared the series at one win apiece.

There was discussion of a trilogy even before Saturday, and it could be the best opportunity available to either fighter. “I want to listen to all offers,” Martinez said, “and see what comes my way.”—AP

HONG KONG: Ian Poulter survived a final-round challenge from fellow Briton Simon Dyson to win the $2.5-million Hong Kong Open yesterday and move back into the world’s top 10.

Poulter, who began the final day with a two-stroke lead, recorded a three-under-par 67 to win by a stroke with a 22-under par total.

Dyson, winner of the tournament in 2000, started his round three shots behind Poulter but went into the lead when he birdied the seventh hole to go five under for the day.

A bogey at the eighth, however, checked his progress and he finished with a 65 to share second place on 21 under par with 17year-old Italian Matteo Manassero, who signed for a 62.

Poulter, 34, recovered from finding a greenside water hazard at the third hole to record three birdies in his next four holes before effectively sealing a 12th professional title with an eagle at the par-five 13th.

“It feels more than good to win because the last two weeks I’ve been really disappointed,” Poulter told reporters.

“In Shanghai (HSBC Champions) I was lying fourth with six holes to play, and last week (Singapore Open) I was in a position to again win and didn’t do it.

“But I’ve played great all week this week and today I actually played better to shoot three under than I did in shooting 10 under on Friday.

“I don’t think I have hit so many good shots...for a long time so it was nice. I felt calm all day. I felt as if I just kept going about my business, I’d make a few birdie putts and that would be enough to win. It’s very pleasing to do so.

“It’s nice to be back inside the top 10 on the rankings especially after being number five earlier this year in winning the MatchPlay Championship,” he said.

“The next goal is to get to number eight and then back up to number five.”

The 17-year-old Manassero won 157,093 euros to take his earnings to 846,705 since he turned professional in May and said he was looking forward to the season-ending Dubai World Championship which starts on Thursday. “It was a fantastic day for me as I started the day quite far behind. Poulter was at 19 under par and I was 13,” he said. —Reuters

KUWAIT: Fahaheel Brothers captain receives the Don Bosco Oratory winners trophy from Chief Guest Yusuf Mubarak.

HONG KONG: Ian Poulter of England celebrates with his trophy after winning the Hong Kong Open golf tournament.—AP

Rudisha, Vlasic named IAAF athletes of the year MONACO: Kenyan 800 metres runner David Rudisha, who set 2010’s only major world record, and world indoor high jump champion Blanka Vlasic of Croatia were named IAAF Athletes of the year yesterday. Rudisha, 21, twice eclipsed the 800 metres record, eventually running one minute 41.01 seconds, in a sparkling season of 11 consecutive victories.

Vlasic, 27, won 18 of 20 competitions in what she called one of her most challenging seasons. They were being honored at the annual World Athletics Gala in Monaco yesterday.

Rudisha broke a string of four consecutive years in which sprinters were athletes of the year-with Jamaican world record holder Usain Bolt winning for the last two. Rudisha’s run of 1:41.09 in Berlin in August ended Wilson Kipketer’s 13-year reign as the world record holder. Seven days later the Kenya came close to eclipsing the 1:41 barrier in Rieti.

“Running under 1:40 is far away,” Rudisha told reporters at a gathering of the past four 800 metres record holders on Saturday. “I think I was saying this year 1:40 might be possible and that is what I’m aiming for.” However, it might not happen in 2011, he said. “Next year we have the world championships (and) the Olympics the following year,” he said. “That might sort of hinder some forecast of a fast time. But I think myself 1:40 is possible.”

London Olympics boss Sebastian Coe, a former world record holder, said Rudisha could improve his

latest time. “I’m not going to say (Rudisha could run 1:40), because that’s unfair for him, but I think my gut instinct is that there is still some time to come out of David’s performance,” Coe said at the gathering.

Vlasic won often in 2010, including the European championships, but she said the victories were not easy. “I struggled a lot with my feelings,” the twice world champion said. “Every time I won I won against my weaknesses, against my demons and against the other girls.” She plans to skip the upcoming indoor season to recharge herself for the outdoor circuit.

Stefka Kostadinova’s 1987 world record of 2.09 metres was within reach, said Vlasic, who in 2009 came with a centimetre of the mark.

“The world record for me is like a pair of perfect shoes in the store when you are a little child and you want them so much,” Vlasic said.

“They look so nice but you know sometime, some day you will probably have the opportunity to buy them. It’s like a sweet worry.”

U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay, American hurdler David Oliver, Eritrean distance runner Zersenay Tadese and Norwegian javelin thrower Andreas Thorkildsen were the other male finalists. Vlasic succeeded American Sanya Richards as the top female athlete.

Other finalists were Jamaican sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown, US sprinter Allyson Felix, British heptathlete Jessica Ennis and Kenyan steeplechaser Milcah Chemos Cheywa.—Reuters

KUWAIT: Roshan of Magones receives the 4th place trophy

Fahaheel Bros win Don Bosco Oratory 7-a-Side Tournament KUWAIT: The day started at 6:30 am on a lovely cool morning the perfect weather to play soccer at the Digital Grounds in Kuwait City. Fahaheel Brothers had high expectations, and would settle for nothing less.

Their players were highly regarded as favorites to win the 7-a-side open soccer league cum knock-out tournament. This was the first 7 A Side soccer tournament organized by Don Bosco Oratory for season 2010-11.Many spectators believed it was a well organized tournament to the meticulous details. Teams like Real Betalbatim (white) and (Blue) / Librament Boys / Ruas / Veterans United /Feni 7 / Skynet / Magones and Fahaheel Brothers all living up to their high standards, entertained the holiday supporters.

A notable weekend of teams bonding after the mid-season breaks for the Indian

Football Federation Kuwait.

Interestingly, Fahaheel Brothers went on for a record second win in a 7 A side tournament.

They made it to the finals by beating: Veterans United by 1 goal, Ruas 1 goal, Real Betalbatim a draw; and Feni-7 in the Semi Finals. The second finals Real Betalbatim (White) the second team made it ahead of the Real Betalbatim (Blue) having the best selected players from the club.

Most of the games were ‘nail-biting’ finish. Talking to the committee member of Don Bosco Oratory, Christopher Fernandes on the strategy of the tournament. “Our plans were something special”, said Christopher. “There was a good response, but due to some unfortunate turn of events, some teams had to withdraw”. We have, like in the past, continue

to move forward, “once you start with this cool idea about organizing a tournament and spread the concept of friendship through soccer”.

The tournament ended on a high note and was really happy to see everyone enjoyed themselves. Thanks to all teams for their participating and the audience for their support.

Our appreciation for their support/ assistance from professional referees Indian Football Referee Association (IFRA), and to all, including the news media, newspapers and e-forums. In the thanksgiving speech, Don Bosco Oratory gratefully acknowledged the cooperation of all teams and the team officials.

The tournament Winners are Fahaheel Brothers, Runners’ up- Real Betalbatim (White), third place — Feni 7, fourth place — Magones were all awarded distinctive

trophies. Other awarded went to various categories including: Best Half - Fahaheel Brothers (Ismail), Best Keeper - Veterans United (Bernard Fernandes), Best Defender- Magones (Stevin), Fair team SkyNet, Player of the Final - Real Betalbatim (Robin). A special thanks to Mr. Stephen Fernandes Sports Secretary DBPPA and Mr. Y. Mubarak, the Guest of Honour, for taking the time and spending the day with us”. Christopher went on to say “Every defeat is a victory in itself “.

Kudos to the Don Bosco Oratory and Indian Football Federation (IFF-Kuwait).

The next tournament fixtures of the Indian Football Federation (IFF-Kuwait) 9-a-sides once again will be based on league cum knock out, giving all teams more matches to play during the weekend holidays, throughout the coming months, all for the love of the game, football.

KUWAIT: Bernard Fernandes is congratulated by Chief Guest Yusuf Mubarak as Best Goalkeeper of the tournament

SPORTS

Monday, November 22, 2010

17

Indian batsmen seize control of deciding Test KUWAIT: Winners Indian Strikers with the Chief Guests and other distinguished guests.

Indian Strikers emerge Champions KUWAIT: Indian Strikers emerged champions of the Eslinda Memorial Trophy 2nd Edition 7-a-side football tournament beating GOA Maroons in the finals by a tie-breaker.

The tournament organized by Churchill Brothers sponsored Kuwait Goan Association (KGA) was held on Nov 16, 2010 at Sabah Hospital (MOH) Grounds under the auspices of Kuwait Indian Football Federation (KIFF). A total of 14 clubs (15 teams participated) affiliated to KIFF took part in this tournament.

The tournament was sponsored

by Gulf Cable & Electrical Industries Co., Churchill Brothers, Goa; Mughal Mahal, Dana Optics Co., Bhasin Co., Al Zahem & Malhotra, Lipton, National Bustan Co., Lulu Hypermarket, Wire Control, Fitwell Tailors, M&M Confectionery, Al Qattan Travel Agency, Mahatta Stationery, Good News Group, Lara Productions, Kitco, etc.

Ms Sharon Alemao D’Costa was the chief guest on the occasion. She was accompanied by her husband Denis D’Costa. While the guest of honor was Dr. Wanda Alemao Dangle accompanied by her husband Dr. Pravin Dangle.

The chief guest and guest of honor are the grandchildren of late Eslinda Alemao in whose memory the tournament is being held.

Elvira Monica D’Souza was a special guest at the event. VicePresident of KGA Luis Cardoso, a strong supporter of the club and a football lover was conspicuous by his absence.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief guest Ms Sharon congratulated the winners and runners-up and applauded KGA for celebrating the 5th anniversary of their club.

President of KGA Mr. Salvador Dias thanked Churchill Brothers for sponsoring KGA for three consecutive years.

He also thanked all the participating teams, KIFF Managing Committee, Referees sub-committee, KIFF referees, Tome Gracias, Sales Manager — Canon, Tony Gracias, Al Ashriya Printing Press, Manoj Cardoso, Ranifa Dias Rodrigues, Amaldo Fernandes, Socorro Fernandes, Valerian Viegas, John Fernandes, Avinash Rogtao, Edwin Tavares, Peter Fernandes, Magno Goes, Michael Fernandes, Anthony Rebello, Manuel D’Costa, Bento Fernandes, Felix Fernandes, Vinod Talekar, Kenneth Fernandes, Ms Angela Monteiro,Joseph D’Souza, Luciano Fernandes, Reagan Mascarenhas, Xavier Mascarenhas, Sydney Menezes, Jose Pereira (Joeboy), Conceicao D’Souza, Laurent Pereira and all beloved spectators, distinguished guests and sponsors.

He also appreciated the publicity given to the event by Goa World, and the Indian Embassy.

The final match was played with great competition. Indian Strikers goalkeeper Nelson Victor shone for the winners throughout the tournament. Indian Strikers are coached by Robert Bernard and managed by William Stronach.

The event was compered by popular master compere Merwyn Pereira. DJ Cheslee D’Souza provided scintillating music and sound.

Dancing Shadows consisting of Tanya Fernandes, Jenesia Filipe, Sinatra Dias, Amanda D’Souza performed a choreographed dance during the break.

In a unique organization, spectators were treated to refreshments from the beginning to the end, fresh flowers were given to all ladies at the venue and quiz contest on football was also held.

Winners and runners-up were given glittering trophies apart from individual gifts for winners, runners-up and referees. Momentos were presented to the following

Second Edition Eslinda Memorial Trophy

Sharon Alemao D'Costa presenting Winners Trophy to Indian Strikers

Runners-up Goa Maroons with the chief guest and other distinguished guests.

Cutting the cake to commemorate 5th Anniversary of KGA.

NAGPUR: Half-centuries from each of India’s top-order batsmen gave the hosts control of the third and final Test after their bowlers had dismissed New Zealand for 193 on the second day yesterday.

At the close, India had reached 292 for two for a lead of 99 runs, with the experienced duo of Rahul Dravid (69) and Sachin Tendulkar (57) at the crease.

Dravid, with his 60th fifty in tests, and Tendulkar, who needed 43 more for his 50th Test hundred, have already added 100 runs for the unbroken third-wicket partnership.

Virender Sehwag (74) and Gautam Gambhir (78) combined for a quickfire opening stand of 113 after paceman Ishant Sharma and spinner Pragyan Ojha picked up the final three New Zealand wickets in the morning.

Sehwag flayed the New Zealand bowlers and brought up a run-a-ball half-century-his 26th in tests-with 12 boundaries and a six before falling to New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori caught and bowled.

The flamboyant right-hander played some delicate late cuts and audacious upper cuts and pulls as the visitors looked to attack him with shortpitched deliveries.

“The most important thing about batting with someone like Sehwag is that you should never try and match him,” Gambhir told Neo Cricket channel about his opening partner.

“He plays the way he plays.

There are not many batsmen in the world who play the same way in all three formats.”

Gambhir celebrated his appointment as India captain for the first two one-dayers against New Zealand with a confident knock, cut short when he poked at a Tim Southee delivery outside the off-stump to give Ross Taylor catching practice at slips.

“I was very disappointed with the way I got out. It was a loose shot on my behalf,” Gambhir said. New Zealand had resumed on their overnight score of 148 for seven but lasted just one hour with 45 runs added to their total.

Sharma snapped up the wickets of Brendon McCullum (40) and Andy McKay (5) to add to his scalps on the first day, Taylor and Vettori.

McCullum edged to captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni behind the stumps while trying to force Sharma off the back foot, then debutant McKay had his stumps uprooted by an off-cutter.

Paceman Southee (38) was left-arm spinner Ojha’s third wicket of the innings after a cameo during which he hit three huge sixes to move the visitors close to the 200-run mark. The series is tied at 0-0 after two draws.—Reuters

Windies support cited bowler

2nd Edition Eslinda Alemao Memorial Football Tournament individuals: Anthony Fernandes - for dedication in playing for CRC Chinchinim for the last 11 years as a goalkeeper. Joseph Correia - player of GOA Maroons. Lawrence Cardoso - for commendable service towards KGA. Sushant Naik - for supporting KGA. Conceicao Rodrigues (Connie) - dedicated goalkeeper of KGA right from the inception of the club. Jimmy Gouveia - dedicated player of KGA. Christovam Colaco - dedicated player of KGA. Jacob Dias - dedi-

KGA President Salvador Dias presenting a momento to James Go.

cated player of KGA. Tiago Fernandes - dedicated player of KGA. Anant Adonkar - KGA goalkeeper. Avinash Rogtao - for his great efforts and dedicated support for KGA. Agustino Fernandes, Agnello Borges, Xavier Fernandes and Vinod Talekar - dedication towards KGA. Following prizes were distributed: First scorer of the finals - Ian D’Souza (GOA Maroons). Best Goalkeeper of the finals - Nelson Victor (Indian Strikers). Best Goalkeeper of the tournament -

Martin Dias (UFC). Best Discipline Team - Rangers Football Club.

Oldest Player of the tournament Filipino Vaz (UFC). Best Defender of the tournament - Jacob Dias (KGA). Best Striker of the Tournament - Kennedy Ferrao (Goa Maroons). Highest Scorer of the Tournament - Bernard Pires (KGA) & Kennedy Ferrao (Goa Maroons). Man of the Match (Finals) - Nelson Victor (Indian Strikers). Player of the Tournament - Gabriel Fernandes (GOA Maroons).

Guest of Honor Dr. Wanda Alemao Dangle receiving a bouquet of flowers.

COLOMBO: West Indies head coach Ottis Gibson said the entire team were behind spin bowler Shane Shillingford af ter he was reported by International Cricket Council (ICC) officials for a suspected illegal bowling action on Saturday.

“I had a very good chat with Shane and he understands what is going on. We are 100 percent behind Shane,” said Gibson. The 27year-old bowler was reported after the first test against Sri Lanka, which ended in a draw in Galle on Friday.

“The entire team is behind him and he knows he has our full support,” Gibson said.

“Our job is to keep Shane focussed on the upcoming match and the series.

“From what we have been told, he can play and he comes into our thinking as normal as we look ahead to the match.

“As a team we are looking forward to the upcoming match. Shane bowled very well for us in the last test and he’s a key part of our bowling unit.”

The spinner, who took five wickets in the first test, was given 21 days to submit to an independent analysis of his bowling action. The second Test starts in Colombo on Tuesday. —Reuters

NAGPUR: India’s Sachin Tendulkar (right) and Rahul Dravid run between wickets during the second day of their last cricket Test match against New Zealand. —AP

Scoreboard Scoreboard at the close of the second day of the third and final test between India and New Zealand at Nagpur, India on yesterday.

4-43-4 (nb-2), Ojha 19.3-2-57-3, Harbhajan 17-2New Zealand first innings (overnight 148-7) 59-1.

T. McIntosh b Sreesanth 4 India first innings M. Guptill c Dhoni b Sreesanth 6 G. Gambhir c Taylor b Southee 78 R. Taylor lbw b Sharma 20 V. Sehwag c & b Vettori 74 J. Ryder c Raina b Harbhajan 59 R. Dravid not out 69 K. Williamson c Sehwag b Ojha 0 S. Tendulkar not out 57 D. Vettori b Sharma 3 Extras (b-8, lb-3, w-2, nb-1) 14 G. Hopkins c Raina b Ojha 7 Total (two wickets; 82 overs) 292 B. McCullum c Dhoni b Sharma 40 To bat: VVS Laxman, S. Raina, MS Dhoni (capT. Southee c Sehwag b Ojha 38 tain), H. Singh, S. Sreesanth, P. Ojha, I. Sharma.

A. McKay b Sharma 5 Fall of wickets: 1-113 2-192 C. Martin not out 2 Bowling (to date): Martin 13-0-58-0 (w-1, nb-1), Extras (b-1, lb-5, nb-3) 9 Southee 13-3-41-1, McKay 18-5-47-0 (w-1), Vettori Total (all out, 66.3 overs) 193 Fall of wickets: 1-11 2-16 3-42 4-43 5-51 6-82 7- 30-3-101-1, Williamson 3-0-18-0, Guptill 5-0-16-0.

The three-test series is tied at 0-0 after two drawn 124 8-159 9-165 Bowling: Sreesanth 12-4-28-2 (nb-1), Sharma 18- matches.

De Villiers record puts South Africa in charge ABU DHABI: AB de Villiers posted South Africa’s highest individual score to give them firm control of the second test on the second day against Pakistan at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium yesterday.

De Villiers scored 278 not out to pass Graeme Smith’s landmark of 277 against England in Birmingham in 2003, with captain Smith declaring their first innings closed on 584 for nine shortly afterwards.

Taufeeq Umar (16) and Azhar Ali (34) then took Pakistan to 59 for one before bad light stopped play and stumps were drawn with seven overs remaining in the day.

Mohammad Hafeez was the batsman out, playing across his front pad and being trapped lbw for two in the first over of the innings.

De Villiers came to the wicket with the score a parlous 33 for three on the first morning but immediately looked settled and occupied the crease for more than 11 hours, taking 418 deliveries and hitting 23 fours and six sixes.

South Africa had begun the second day on 311 for five and De Villiers showed excellent management of the lower order as he shared stands of 73 with Mark Boucher (45), 42 with Johan Botha (12), 59 with Steyn (27) and 35 with Paul Harris (19).

The 26-year-old De Villiers reached the record in a thrilling final hour of the innings, when he and last man Morne Morkel

ABU DHABI: South Africa’s AB de Villiers raises his bat and helmet after completing two hundred runs against Pakistan on the second day of their second cricket Test match. —AP (35 not out) added a record 107 runs in 13.4 overs.

South Africa’s previous best 10th-wicket stand was made in 1929 when Harold “Tuppy” Owen-Smith and Alexander “Sandy” Bell added 103 against England in Leeds.

Pace bowler Tanvir Ahmed, playing in his first test, was the best of the Pakistan bowlers with six for 120 in 27 overs.

De Villiers, who had a reputa-

tion for impetuous stroke play in his youth, batted with composure and maturity, before tearing into the bowling in the hour before tea.

De Villiers, whose double century was the second of this career, and Jacques Kallis (105) had added 179 for the fourth wicket on the first day. The first Test in the two-match series was drawn in Dubai last week. —Reuters

Scoreboard ABU DHABI: Scoreboard at the close of the second day of the second test between Pakistan and South Africa at Sheikh Zayed Stadium yesterday.

Bowling: Umar Gul 36-6-137-0 (nb-1, w-1), Tanvir Pakistan won the toss and elected to field.

South Africa first innings Ahmed 28-6-120-6 (nb-4, w-1), Mohammed Sami G. Smith c Akmal b Tanvir Ahmed 10 24-1-101-0, Younis Khan 3-1-11-0 (nb-1), Abdur A. Petersen c Misbah ul-Haq b Tanvir Ahmed 2 Rehman 50-9-150-2, Mohammad Hafeez 12-0-58-1 H. Amla c Akmal b Tanvir Ahmed 4 Pakistan first innings J. Kallis b Tanvir Ahmed 105 Mohammad Hafeez lbw b Steyn 2 AB de Villiers not out 278 Taufeeq Umar not out 16 Ashwell Prince c Shafiq b Hafeez 32 Azhar Ali not out 34 M. Boucher b Tanvir Ahmed 45 Extras (b 5, w 1, nb 1) 7 J. Botha b Abdur Rehman 12 Total (1 wicket; 18 overs) 59 D. Steyn Mohammad Hafeez b Abdur Rehman27 Fall of wicket: 1-2 P. Harris c Adnan Akmal b Tanvir Ahmed 19 To bat: Asad Shafiq, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, M. Morkel not out 35 Adnan Akmal, Abdur Rehman, Umar Gul, Extras (b 6, lb 1, w 2, nb 6) 15 Mohammad Sami, Tanvir Ahmed Total (9 wickets dec; 153 overs) 584 Bowling (to date): D. Steyn 7-0-27-1 (w-1), M. Fall of wickets: 1-2 2-6 3-33 4-212 5-268 6-341 7Morkel 7-3-15-0 (nb-1), J. Kallis 4-1-12-0.

383 8-442 9-477

SPORTS

18

Monday, November 22, 2010

Date misses out on gold

CHINA: India’s Preeja Sreedharan (right) shows the gold medal she won in the women’s 10000m event, flanked by India’s Kavita Raut, silver, at the 16th Asian Games. — AP

India grabs two gold on opening night of track GUANGZHOU: India’s long-distance runners dominated the track on the opening day of athletics at the Asian Games, capturing two gold medals yesterday while China’s women shot putters easily beat their competition.

India went one-two in an exciting, comefrom-behind finish in the women’s 10,000 meters. Sudha Singh added a second gold for India in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, digging deep in the last meters to hold off a late burst from a Chinese rival.

Elsewhere on the first day of athletics competition, gold went to China in the 20kilometer walk and to Tajikistan’s Dilshod Nazrov, who won the hammer throw gold with a toss of 74.44 meters. Ali Hasan Mahboob of Bahrain won the 5,000-meters in men’s.

In the 10,000 meters, world No. 10 Kayoko Fukushi led the pack until the 3,000-meter mark, when Shitaya Eshete Habtegebrel of Bahrain made a brief break for the front. Japan’s Hikari Yoshimoto then became the pacesetter, until Fukushi took over at the halfway mark. Japan’s runners sagged after that, but sped to the front again 26 minutes into the race.

Going into the bell lap, Habtegebrel, a former Ethiopian athlete, made a dash for the front along with India’s Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut that left the Japanese behind. Sreedharan, who was fifth in the 2006 Asian Games, sprinted on to take the win about 10 meters ahead of Raut at 31 minutes, 50.47 seconds, her personal best.

20-kilometer walk, the first athletics event of the games.

The 21-year-old World Cup champion finished in 1 hour, 20 minutes, 50 seconds, with Chu slightly more than a minute behind in 1:21.57. Kim Hyun-sub of South Korea took the bronze in 1:22.47.

Nine walkers started the race, but only eight finished after Park Chil-sung of South Korea was disqualified at the 16-kilometer mark for lifting. “I felt the passion of the spectators,” Wang said. “It’s an honor to win in China. I hope I can keep this up until the London Games, but the competition is going to be intense.”

With the first distance finals out of the way, all eyes were turning to China’s star hurdler Liu Xiang, though there was none of the fanfare or frenzy which preceded Liu’s buildup to the Beijing Olympics, where an Achilles injury forced the then world and Olympic champion to limp off the track after failing to start his first heat.

He moved into the athletes village overnight and used his microblog yesterday to post updates on how he’s settling in. “It is really boring in the athletes’ village. (The main thing is I’m afraid of going to crowded places),” Liu posted, referring to his concerns about being recognized and mobbed by fans. He later went out for a practice session.

“I just got back from a sweaty run at the training grounds in the athletes’ village. It feels good!” Liu races today and his coach has said he is in good shape for the event. — AP

Raut, the bronze medalist last month at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, finished at 31:51.44 and Habtegebrel was 31:53.27.

“I knew that in the last two kilometers I had to push myself,” Sreedharan said. “I didn’t get a medal in the Commonwealth Games, so I’m very happy. I thought I would be second, but I won.”

China’s Li Ling put in a personal best 19.94 meters on her fifth attempt to win the women’s shot put, edging out compatriot Gong Lijiao, who scratched in four of her six tries, and had to settle with 19.67. The bronze medal throw was two meters shorter, at 17.51 by South Korea’s Lee Mi-young.

“I’m still young, so I will have many more chances,” said Gong, who was world champion last year and is now ranked third in the world. “I had a cold, but that’s no excuse.” The hammer throw by Nazarov was good for gold in the second field event, but far short of Japanese athlete Koji Murofushi’s Asian best of 84.86.

Mahboob ran a season’s best in the 5,000, but was again well off the Asian record of 12:51.98 set in 2006. Finishing second and third were the Qatar pair James Kwalia C. Kurui, at 13:48.55, and Felix Kikwal Kibore, with 13:49.51.

Seeking to become Asia’s fastest woman, Chisato Fukushima of Japan ran the day’s best heat in the 100 meters, at 11.41 seconds. Oman’s Barakat al Harthi put in a personal best 10.26 to lead the men’s heats.

Earlier in the day, Wang Hao and Chu Yafei led China to a gold-silver finish in the

GUANGZHOU: Kimiko Date Krumm’s 40-year-old legs finally gave out on her yesterday at the Asian Games.

Date Krumm, the Japanese veteran who returned to the WTA Tour in 2008 after a 12-year break, lost 7-6 (6), 3-6, 6-2 in the semifinals to China’s Peng Shuai.

It ended the No. 1-seeded Date Krumm’s attempt to win Asian Games gold medals 16 years apart, her first having come in front of her home fans in 1994 at Hiroshima. “The season is almost over and my body is tired,” Date Krumm said.

“I came here mainly with the purpose of encouraging young Japanese players to improve their level.” She laughed off any prospect of competing at the next Asian Games at Incheon, South Korea in 2014. “I will be 44-years-old in four years’ time,” she said. “I am not a robot.”

She had a game point to hold service in the eighth game of the third set, but consecutive errors gave Peng the first of her three match points. Date Krumm saved two before dumping a backhand into the net to end the 2 hour, 45minute match.

She wasn’t helped by six double faults and 73 unforced efforts in the hot and humid match conditions. Still, she showed some flashes of brilliance — she won the second set with a deft backhand halfvolley drop shot.

In the final set, she helped set up a break point with a backhand volley from near the back of the court. Peng will play Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan in the gold medal final. Amanmuradova rallied to beat Indian star Sania Mirza 6-7 (7), 6-3, 6-4 in 2 hours, 49 minutes in the later semifinal.

Indian shooter Ronjan Sodhi won the double trap with 186 hits. Shaikh Juma Al Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates won the silver with 182 in one of four shooting finals yesterday.

Earlier yesterday, Wang Hao of China overcame the steamy conditions on the roads around Aoti Main Stadium to win the 20-kilometer walk. The 21-year-old World Cup champion finished more than a minute ahead of teammate Chu Yafei in 1 hour, 20 minutes, 50 seconds, while Kim Hyun-sub of South Korea was third.

“Chinese athletes have some advantages ... we are smaller and lighter than other nationalities and we are natural athletes,” Wang said. “This was the first gold medal in athletics and we could not afford to lose it.” China edged closer to its 166 gold total from the Doha games in 2006, moving to 146 in its games-long dominating fashion. South Korea was a distant second with 55 gold, while Japan had 30. — AP

David and Iskander win squash gold for Malaysia

CHINA: Abdvali Saeid of Iran (left) wrestles with Bayakhmetov Darkhan of Kazakhstan (right) during the men’s greco-roman 66-kilogram wrestling finals at the 16th Asian Games. — AP

Medals Table Nation China South Korea Japan Iran Hong Kong Thailand Taiwan India North Korea Malaysia Kazakhstan Indonesia Singapore Uzbekistan Kuwait Philippines

G 146 55 30 10 7 7 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 2 2

S 71 46 53 8 13 7 8 11 8 8 11 6 6 10 3 2

B 70 61 62 14 9 22 29 17 12 7 21 10 6 14 0 8

Total 287 162 145 32 29 36 43 33 25 20 36 20 16 27 5 12

Pakistan Jordan Macau Bahrain Tajikstan Vietnam Myanmar Mongolia Kyrgyzstan Qatar Lebanon Afghanistan Bangladesh UAE Laos Iraq

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

2 1 1 0 0 11 5 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0

1 1 0 1 1 11 1 6 0 3 2 1 0 0 2 1

4 3 2 2 2 22 6 8 2 4 3 2 1 1 2 1

GUANGZHOU: World champion Nicol David and Mohammad Azlan Iskander won gold medals for Malaysia yesterday in the Asian Games squash competition. David recorded an 11-8, 811, 11-6, 11-7 victory over Hong Kong’s Au Wing Chi for her third Asian Games gold.

“Au played well and I really had to dig deep and stay in,” Nicol said. “Anything could have happened had the match gone into the fifth game.” Last month in New Delhi, David won her first Commonwealth Games title in her fourth attempt. She now wants to finish the Asian Games with a team event gold.

Team competition begins Monday.

Iskander, who was beaten in the Asian Games final four years ago, defeated Pakistan’s Aamir Atlas Khan in straight games in the men’s singles final. World No. 15 Iskander overpowered Khan, the nephew of former world champion Jansher Khan, 11-6, 11-7, 11-6.

“I had to keep up the pressure and put the balls in right areas,” Iskander said.

Earlier, Au challenged David in the second game with some smart drop shots and several times wrong footed the world champion to level the match 11.

After David won the third game, both players matched each other to 7-7 before Au committed unforced errors trying to push the limits too far.

“It shows the level of (women) squash is coming up and I see her strong contender in the future international event,” David said of Au. David’s previous two Asian Games gold came Bangkong in 1998 and at Doha, Qatar four years ago.

“Playing for Malaysia is a pride to me and I am truly pleased to win a gold again,” she said. Iskander screamed and pumped his fists when he left Khan searching for a well placed shot at match point. “Every point felt so long and I have to keep myself focused all time,” Iskander said.

Khan had defeated defending champion Ong Beng Hee of Malaysia 3-1 in a tough semifinal and Iskander said he felt sorry for his countryman.

“Obviously it’s good that I have won gold for Malaysia, but perhaps he (Khan) did a bit of damage,” Iskander said. Khan engaged Iskander in long rallies in all the three games, but felt he had not enough energy left in him to compete in the final after playing Ong in the semifinals.

“Azlan played well and responded by picking the balls from all corners of the court,” Khan said. “But I feel good that after a long time we had won at least silver medal.” Pakistan, which ruled the squash world through Jansher and Jehangir Khan until the late 1990s, last time won gold in the Asian Games through Zarak Jehan Khan in 1998. — AP

CHINA: China’s Li Ling competes on her way to win the women’s Shot Put final, at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou. — AP

Pakistani women break taboos, win Games gold KARACHI: In the conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province of Pakistan, young women are expected to settle down to married life and raising a family.

Sana Mir, captain of the Pakistan women’s cricket team that won a gold medal at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, had other ideas.

“I belong to Abbotabad where girls are not encouraged to take up sports leave alone cricket but my family was supportive and made it possible for me to play cricket and study as well,” Mir told Reuters after a triumphant return home yesterday. “I hope our victory will serve as a catalyst for women’s sports in Pakistan.”

The women’s team, wearing their green team blazers,

were garlanded and showered with rose petals in a rousing welcome at Karachi airport after winning the gold medal in a one-sided final against Bangladesh on Saturday.

“This welcome is like icing on the cake after our victory,” Mir said. Pakistani media greeted the gold medal as a victory for women in the country.

“Looking for positive faces to show the world, Pakistan need go no further than its sportswomen,” the Dawn English daily newspaper said in an editorial.

“Despite the many restrictions they face, Pakistani women have done well in the field of sports from time to time.” “Unfortunately too little has been done to encourage these brave young

women,” the News daily paper said.

“We never dreamt one day women’s cricket would be acknowledged this way,” said Mir. “The day we won the medal I called up my family to thank them for their support.”

In a country where cricket remains a passion despite the spot-fixing allegations surrounding the men’s team, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been giving steady exposure to the women’s team.

“The fact that we have played regularly since last year in International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments and against better opposition has helped these girls gain confidence,” said Bushra Aitzaz who heads the women’s wing in the PCB. — Reuters

‘Super Dan’ tops Lee GUANGZHOU: Lin Dan stood on the medal podium and pointed at the gold hanging around his neck, signaling something new for his vast collection.

The Chinese superstar with an unprecedented three straight world titles secured a long-covered Asian Games gold medal yesterday, beating world No. 1-ranked Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in characteristic flamboyant style, 21-13, 15-21, 21-10.

“Both of us were under a lot of pressure in this final, so everyone will say that we played really hard,” Lin said.

“This year’s Asian Games might very well be my last, so I’m very happy that I was able to achieve my dream.”

It was a rematch of the 2008 Beijing Olympics final, which ended with the same result. Lin and Lee tried to outwit each other in this latest clash by mixing fierce, 185 kph (115 mph) smashes with feathery flicks that floated the shuttle just over the net.

The highly charged crowd at Tianhe Gymnasium screamed “Sha!!” - the Chinese word for smash every time Lin leapt with racket poised for a powerful forehand or just when they thought he was being too passive.

The final result became clear when Lin raced to a 6-1 lead in the final game, winning the point at the end of a long rally with a short, sharp shot aimed directly at Lee’s feet.

Lin pumped his fists as the crowd roared and waved Chinese flags, confident that the athlete known as “Super Dan” was pulling through.

Lin set the pace after that, leading by as many as 11 points and launching a variety of attacks while Lee mostly lunged at them.

“Honestly, in my heart I knew it would be very difficult for me to win the gold medal because of the challenge posed by Lee Chong Wei,” the Olympic champion said of his Malaysian opponent, who skipped the post-match news conference. “I just lost to him in Japan ... if you really want that gold, there will be a lot of pressure.”

As for his next goal now that he’s won every major badminton title, Lin said he hasn’t thought too much about it. He plans to take some time off to recuperate but plans to get back to training as soon as he can.

“I still have two years’ time, I hope to make the most of it and play my best for the Chinese badminton team,” he said, without mentioning the

London 2012 Olympics directly. Bronze medals went to China’s Chen Jin and South Korea’s Park Sung-hwan.

After the win, Lin stood on the court with both fists raised, then let out a scream.

He ripped off his shirt to reveal a chiseled physique that only enhances his popularity.

Lin later hurled his shoes into the crowd, followed by his sweaty yellow shirt that sent a scrum of fans in the stands diving for it.

“It shows my generosity. I don’t keep precious things for myself, I give them to my fans,” Lin quipped. Earlier yesterday, South Korea’s Shin Baek-cheol and Lee Hyo-jung dominated with a precise attacking game, winning gold in mixed doubles over China’s Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei.

The unseeded Koreans traded points with their opponents in the first game, but pulled away midway through the second to win 21-19, 2114.

Zhang and Zhao committed key errors by hitting the shuttle out of bounds and misjudging incoming shots to the perimeter that dropped just inside the line. Taiwan’s Chen Hung-ling and Cheng Wen-hsing, and China’s He Hanbin and Ma Jin took the bronze. — AP

CHINA: Bahrain’s Mahboob Ali Hasan Mahboob celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men’s 5000m event, at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou. — AP

SPORTS

Monday, November 22, 2010

19

Espanyol stop Hercules

SAN ANTONIO: Spurs’ George Hill (right) drives around Cleveland Cavaliers’ Daniel Gibson during the first half of an NBA basketball game. —AP

Jazz roll over Blazers PORTLAND: CJ Miles scored 25 points, hitting five 3-pointers during an electric fourthquarter comeback, as the Utah Jazz stunned the Portland Trailblazers 103-94 in the NBA on Saturday.

Al Jefferson had 20 points and 14 rebounds for the Jazz, who have been the NBA’s best comeback team this season, with six fourth-quarter comeback wins.

Miles, who finished with a career-high seven 3-pointers, had 17 points in the fourth.

LaMarcus Aldridge had 24 points and 11 rebounds for the Blazers, who have dropped five in a row to Utah.

Mavericks 98, Hawks 93 In Atlanta, Dirk Nowitzki scored 21 points, including the two free throws that sealed the result, as the Dallas Mavericks beat the Atlanta Hawks 98-93 in the NBA on Saturday.

Jason Terry added 15 for the Mavericks. Atlanta guard Joe Johnson couldn’t shake Tyson Chandler’s tight defense and misfired on a 3point attempt that would have tied it with 2.5 seconds remaining. Al Horford finished with 20 points and 20 rebounds for the Hawks.

Spurs 116, Cavaliers 92 In San Antonio, the hosts made it ten straight wins by comfortably beating Cleveland. Off to their best start in franchise history, the Spurs improved their NBAbest record to 11-1 while extending their longest winning streak in nearly three years. Tony Parker scored 19 points while rookie Tiago Splitter had 18 on 7-of-10 shooting.

Mo Williams scored 21 points for the Cavaliers, who played a night after losing on the road to New Orleans _ the only team to beat San Antonio so far.

Thunder 82, Bucks 81 In Milwaukee, Russell Westbrook made two free throws with 7.3 seconds left to lift Oklahoma City over Milwaukee. The Thunder again were without NBA scoring leader Kevin Durant, who

missed his second consecutive game with a sprained ankle. Jeff Green was also on the sidelines for a fourth straight game — seventh overall — with a sprained left ankle.

James Harden had 23 points and nine rebounds for Oklahoma City, while Westbrook finished with 18.

Brandon Jennings led the Bucks with 25 points.

Magic 90, Pacers 86 In Indianapolis, Jameer Nelson converted a go-ahead three-point play with 33 second left, leading Orlando over Indiana.

The Magic trailed 86-85 when Nelson was fouled by T.J. Ford on a 10-foot jumper and converted the resulting free throw.

Dwight Howard scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half, helping Orlando recover from a 52-49 halftime deficit.

Rashard Lewis made five 3pointers and finished with 21 points.

Howard also had 12 rebounds and blocked three shots for Orlando, which limited Indiana to 34 points in the second half. The Pacers had five players score in double figures but shot just 39 percent from the field. Roy Hibbert had 19 points and 10 rebounds.

Grizzlies 97, Heat 95 In Memphis, Rudy Gay hit a fadeaway jumper over LeBron James at the buzzer to give Memphis victory over Miami. James tied it for the 12th time, dunking against Gay with 5.5 seconds left. Gay came back with the winning 13-foot jumper in front of the Heat bench.

Memphis was without Dwayne Wade (sprained wrist), while Udonis Haslem was carried off with a sprained foot in the third quarter.

James finished with 29 points and 11 assists.

The Grizzlies won despite starters Zach Randolph and O.J. Mayo being benched for a quarter as punishment for being late to the pregame shootaround. Randolph led Memphis with 21 points and 13 rebounds.

Bobcats 123, Suns 105 In Charlotte, Stephen Jackson had 24 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for the first triple-double in Bobcats franchise history as Charlotte beat Phoenix. It was the second career tripledouble for Jackson, whose first also came against the Suns when he was with Golden State.

He hit 10 of 13 shots and led an efficient night for the Bobcats, who also got 26 points from Boris Diaw while shooting 58 percent from the field.

Playing its second straight game without Steve Nash (strained groin), Phoenix wilted in the second half and hit only five of 21 3pointers in its third straight loss. Grant Hill scored 23 points.

Nuggets 107, Nets 103 In Denver, Carmelo Anthony had 28 points and eight rebounds as Denver held off New Jersey. A threepoint play by Anthony with 5:55 left and two free throws

by Nene pushed the lead to 99-93.

The Nets missed four straight shots before Chauncey Billups found Nene underneath for a game-sealing layup. Nene scored 22 points to be among seven New Jersey players in double figures. Rookie Derrick Favors had 14 points and eight rebounds for the Nets.

Knicks 124, Clippers 115 In Los Angeles, New York completed an unprecedented three-game California sweep by beating hapless Los Angeles.

Amare Stoudemire had 39 points and 11 rebounds while Danilo Gallinari scored 17 of his career high-tying 31 points in the fourth quarter for the Knicks. New York, who ended a six-game losing streak with consecutive road wins over the Kings and Warriors, have won three games in California on the same trip for the first time.

Rookie Blake Griffin had career highs of 44 points and seven assists for the 1-13 Clippers, off to their worst start since opening the lockout-delayed 1999 season 0-17. —AP

NBA results/standings NBA results and standings on Saturday.

Orlando 90, Indiana 86; Charlotte 123, Phoenix 105; Dallas 98, Atlanta 93; Memphis 97, Miami 95; Oklahoma City 82, Milwaukee 81; Denver 107, New Jersey 103; San Antonio 116, Cleveland 92; Utah 103, Portland 94; NY Knicks 124, LA Clippers 115.

Boston NY Knicks Toronto New Jersey Philadelphia Chicago Indiana Cleveland Milwaukee Detroit Orlando Miami Atlanta Charlotte Washington

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT 9 3 .750 6 8 .429 4 9 .308 4 9 .308 3 10 .231 Central Division 7 4 .636 5 6 .455 5 7 .417 5 8 .385 4 8 .333 Southeast Division 9 3 .750 8 5 .615 8 5 .615 5 8 .385 4 7 .364

GB 4 5.5 5.5 6.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 1.5 1.5 4.5 4.5

Western Conference Northw est Division Oklahoma City 9 4 .692 Utah 9 5 .643 Portland 8 6 .571 Denver 7 6 .538 Minnesota 4 10 .286 Pacific Division LA Lakers 11 2 .846 Golden State 7 5 .583 Phoenix 6 7 .462 Sacramento 4 7 .364 LA Clippers 1 13 .071 Southw est Division San Antonio 11 1 .917 New Orleans 10 1 .909 Dallas 8 4 .667 Memphis 5 9 .357 Houston 3 9 .250

0.5 1.5 2 5.5 3.5 5 6 10.5 0.5 3 7 8

MADRID: Pablo Osvaldo scored a penalty and set up another goal as Espanyol beat Hercules 3-0 to provisionally go fourth in Spain.

The Argentine striker fed Joan Verdu to sidefoot home the 15th minute opener before stepping up to calmly score from the spot in the 81st. Osvaldo beat backup Unai Alba after goalkeeper Juan Calatayud was red carded for tripping him up moments earlier.

Luis Garcia’s injury-time penalty completed the victory at Cornella-El Prat stadium, where the Barcelona club has yet to drop a point through six games.

Espanyol has 22 points to move above Valencia, which has 21. Sevilla has 20 points and can claim fourth with a victory against Mallorca later yesterday.

In other 12th round matches, it was: Levante 3, Racing Santander 1; Deportivo La Coruna 3, Malaga 0; and Osasuna 1, Sporting Gijon 0.

Atletico Madrid plays Real Sociedad later.

Real Madrid stayed top of the standings with 32 points after a 5-1 win over Athletic Bilbao on Saturday, when Barcelona recorded a record 80 away win against Almeria to stay second with 31 points.

The Spanish rivals meet next week in the “clasico.” In Valencia, Levante striker Felipe Caicedo scored twice in three minutes, including the 27th to extend the lead to 2-0.

Domingo Cisma was shown a red card for running into Caicedo shortly after the striker scored his second with Santander striker Ivan Bolado on the ground. Cisma appeared to be angry that Caicedo did not stop play to allow Bolado to receive treatment.

Christian Stuani took advantage of poor defending for the third in the 44th as Levante snapped a threegame losing streak.

Mehdi Lacen scored a consolation goal for Santander with two minutes to play. Deportivo stayed unbeaten in four games with its third win in that span.

Adrian Lopez scored a 21stminute penalty after Sandro Silva was yellow-carded for bringing down Albert Lopo, and Diego Colotto headed home from a corner for 2-0 on the half-hour.

Pablo Alvarez completed Deportivo’s emphatic win in the 84th as Malaga slipped back to 18th in the standings and into the drop zone. Iran midfielder Masoud Shojaei coolly picked his spot after being played clear on keeper Juan Pablo Colinas to score the 54th-minute winner against Sporting, which stayed winless in five. New Zaragoza coach Javier Aguirre makes his debut against Getafe today. Villarreal, which is third with 24 points, drew 1-1 with Valencia on Saturday. —AP

GERMANY: Leverkusen’s Michal Kadlec of Czech Republic (left) and Bayern’s Thomas Mueller challenge during the German First Division Bundesliga soccer match. —AP

Podolski penalty lifts Cologne from bottom BERLIN: Germany striker Lukas Podolski netted a late penalty yesterday to lift Cologne off the bottom of the Bundesliga as they beat Vfb Stuttgart 10 while Borussia Dortmund stay clear at the top of the league.

Cologne picked up only their third win of the season after Podolski slotted home an 82nd-minute penalty after his forward partner Milivoje Novakovic was fouled in the penalty area.

Novakovic then squandered a superb chance to score his side’s second when he went one-on-one with Stuttgart’s goalkeeper, but fired wide in the 89thminute, as Stuttgart tried in vain to force the equaliser.

The hosts suffered only their third defeat in their last ten games, but the loss drags them back into the bottom three in 16th, while Cologne are 17th and Borussia Moenchengladbach are now 18th and last in the league.

St Pauli are 14th after they picked up

a point by holding midtable Wolfsburg to a 1-1 draw in Hamburg as defender Markus Thorandt headed his side into an early lead before Wolves striker Edin Dzeko equalised in the second half.

On Saturday, defending champions Bayern Munich were held to a 1-1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen and find themselves lagging 14 points behind Dortmund.

With the leaders earlier coming from behind to win 2-1 at Freiburg to pick up their 11th league win from 13 games, Bayern are leaving themselves a considerable gap to bridge with more than a third of the season now played.

Bayern are up to eighth in the league while Leverkusen are third. Gomez scored a superb goal on 34 minutes before Chile striker Arturo Vidal converted a 47th minute spot-kick.

Dortmund are seven points clear of second-placed Mainz 05 after Freiburg defender Mensur Mujdza slid the ball

into his own net on 78 minutes as Dortmund sealed their 11th win from 13 league games.

Mainz ended their three-game losing streak and are back up to second after they fought back with a 3-2 win over Moenchengladbach.

Schalke 04 hammered fellow Champions League side Werder Bremen 4-0 as former Spain and Real Madrid iconic striker Raul scored a hattrick.

Schalke host leaders Lyon in Group B on Wednesday, while Bremen travel to face Tottenham Hotspur the same day in Group A, but Bremen have now lost five of their last six games.

The win leaves Schalke 14th, while Bremen are 11th and in crisis. Hanover 96 are fourth after their 3-2 win at Hamburg and Hoffenheim are fifth after they enjoyed a 4-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt. Mid-table Kaiserslautern enjoyed a 3-1 win at Nuremberg. —AFP

Ohio State pound Iowa IOWA CITY: Dan Herron rushed for a 1-yard touchdown with 1:47 left as Ohio State beat Iowa 20-17 on Saturday to keep its Rose Bowl bid alive.

Terrelle Pryor threw for 195 yards and a touchdown for the Buckeyes, and had a 14-yard run on fourth down to keep the game-winning drive alive.

Iowa went ahead 17-10 early in the fourth quarter on freshman Marcus Coker’s 1-yard TD run. But Devin Barclay’s 48-yard field goal brought the Buckeyes within 17-13, and Pryor engineered a 76-yard drive despite DeVier Posey’s drop of a sure TD pass.

Michigan State 35, Purdue 31 In East Lansing, Michigan, Kirk Cousins lunged into the end zone from 3 yards out with 4:32 remaining as Michigan State also kept its Rose Bowl hopes alive by rallying to beat Purdue.

The Spartans trailed 28-13 after three quarters and 31-20 midway through the fourth, but Cousins threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to Mark Dell with 6:54 remaining, and a 2-point conversion made it 31-28.

Denicos Allen then blocked a punt, giving Michigan State the ball inside the 5 and setting up Cousins’ touchdown.

Wisconsin 48, Michigan 28 In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Montee Ball and James White combined for 354 yards rushing and six touchdowns, leading Wisconsin one step closer to its first Big Ten championship since 1999.

The Badgers, Ohio State and Michigan State are tied atop the Big Ten heading into the final weekend of the conference season.

If Wisconsin beat Northwestern next week at home, they’ll will win at least a share of the title and likely earn a trip to a BCS bowl.

LSU 43, Mississippi 36 In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jordan Jefferson passed for a career-high 254 yards, threw for one touchdown and ran for another as Louisiana State survived an upset bid by Mississippi.

LSU trailed 36-35 with 4:57 left when Patrick Peterson returned a kickoff 34 yards to midfield, setting up a game-winning drive that ended

with Stevan Ridley’s third touchdown rushing.

Stanford 48, California 14 In Berkeley, California, Andrew Luck threw two touchdown passes and led Stanford to scores on all eight possessions he played as the Cardinal beat California for its most lopsided win in the Big Game in 80 years. Luck came into this rivalry game looking to avenge the worst performance of his career in last year’s loss against the Golden Bears, when he completed 10 of 30 passes and threw a game-sealing interception deep in Cal territory with just over a minute left.

Texas A&M 9, Nebraska 6 In College Station, Texas, Cyrus Gray ran for a career-high tying 137 yards and Randy Bullock kicked the goahead field goal with about three minutes left. Gray added a career-high 65 yards receiving in his fifth consecutive 100-yard rushing game.

Oklahoma State 48, Kansas 14 In Lawrence, Kansas, Brandon Weeden passed for 389 yards and three touchdowns to lead Oklahoma State to a share of the Big 12 South title.

The Cowboys would have won the title outright if Baylor had beaten Oklahoma. The Sooners and Cowboys meet at Oklahoma State next Saturday.

GAINESVILLE: Florida wide receiver Chris Rainey (3) dives over the goal line in the first half for a 16-yard touchdown during an NCAA college football game. — AP threw a touchdown pass as Missouri turned a fake punt into another score.

Missouri sputtered offensively for most of the game. But the Tigers’ defense remained stout and they made just enough plays with the ball to deny Iowa State the victory it needed for bowl eligibility.

Virginia Tech 31, Miami 17 In Miami, Ryan Williams ran for 142 yards and two touchdowns, including a career-long 84-yarder in the fourth quarter as Virginia Tech won the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coastal Division title. Virginia Tech will play for the ACC title Dec. 4, with a spot in the Orange Bowl at stake.

Oklahoma 53, Baylor 24 In Waco, Texas, DeMarco Murray turned a short pass into a long touchdown and ran for another score in the opening minutes to get Oklahoma off to a fast start in a victory over Baylor that kept the Sooners’ Big 12 title hopes alive.Landry Jones threw for 325 yards and three touchdowns with a 5-yard score to Ryan Broyles, who became the first Oklahoma receiver with a 100catch season.

South Carolina 69, Troy 24 In Columbia, South Carolina, Marcus Lattimore had three touchdowns and 102 yards rushing by halftime as South Carolina scored its most points under coach Steve Spurrier.

Lattimore scored on runs of 17, 8 and 5 yards for a 21-0 lead less than 7 minutes in.

Missouri 14, Iowa State 0 In Ames, Iowa, Blaine Gabbert

Nevada 52, New Mexico State 6 In Reno, Nevada, Vai Taua ran for

Arkansas 38, Mississippi State 31 In Starkville, Mississippi, Ryan Mallett threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns, including the game-winner to Knile Davis in double overtime.

The Bulldogs had a chance to tie the game in the second overtime, but Chris Relf was hit hard as he tried to complete a fourth-down pass.

111 yards and two touchdowns and scored a third on a 79-yard pass to lead Nevada over New Mexico State.

Colin Kaepernick completed 15 of 27 passes for 251 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a third for the Wolf Pack, who won their 11th straight home game and ensured their first 10-win season since 1991.

Oregon State 36, S California 7 In Corvalis, Oregon, Ryan Katz threw for 154 yards and two touchdowns while Jacquizz Rodgers rushed for 128 yards and another score. The Beavers built a 20-0 lead by halftime and avoided their first three-game losing streak since 2002.

Utah 38, San Diego St. 34 In San Diego, Jordan Wynn threw for a career-high 362 yards and Greg Bird’s blocked punt set up the goahead score for Utah.

The Utes were trailing 34-31 in the fourth quarter when Bird blocked Brian Stahovic’s punt at the 10-yard line. Christian Cox recovered and ran to the 3-yard line.

Eddie Wide scored from the 1 three plays later to give Utah it’s first lead of the game. — AP

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Gulf Cup to open in violence-wracked Yemen

ADEN: Yemen, a country struggling with an upsurge in violence from al-Qaida fighters and separatist movements, will be the host for a regional football tournament starting today that offers authorities a rare chance to prove it is capable of hosting international events.

Security was extremely tight yesterday as all eight teams began arriving for the Gulf Cup, which runs until Dec. 4 in the southern port city of Aden. Some football federations early on had suggested the tournament might not happen because of safety concerns and worries that hotels and football facilities would not be ready.

Dozens of checkpoints were set up across Aden and security forces estab-

lished three rings of security around the city. Armored vehicles could be seen positioned just outside the city.

Gamal al-Yamani, a board member of the committee organizing the tournament in Aden, said there were upward of 30,000 troops protecting the teams and that a joint American-British security team checked all the stadiums to ensure they were safe. Each delegation has a security team and are escorted to and from stadiums and training sites by police vehicles, he said.

“The brotherly Arabian Gulf delegations were surprised with the level of security and safety in Aden,” Al-Yamani said. “Fear-mongering didn’t work.”

Teams seemed to be relieved with the

extensive security and yesterday were shifting their focus to preparing for training ahead of their first matches.

Yemen opens the tournament against Saudi Arabia at the May 22 stadium followed by a match between Qatar and Kuwait. Fans were already streaming into Aden, with hundreds of cars crossing the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Others cars flying flags from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia could be seen making their way amid heavy traffic in Aden.

“Everything is excellent. Everything is fine,” said Rashid al-Zaabi, a spokesman for the UAE Football Association in Aden, whose team has its

first match against Iraq Tuesday. “There are no problems. Everything is under control.” But not everyone was convinced. Several referees from Bulgaria, Russia and France pulled out of the tournament at the last minute, organizers said.

A group of hardline Muslim clerics in Yemen also issued a statement yesterday criticizing the Gulf Cup, calling it “lecherous and immoral.” The statement said the gender mixing, dancing and the alcohol that will be imported for the event goes against the spirit of a Muslim country. The tournament draw in August prompted leaders of a separatist movement in southern Yemen to demand that the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman,

Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq boycott the competition.

The Supreme Council of the Southern Movement said that participating in the 20th Gulf Cup would lend support to Yemen’s government at a time when “the south is bleeding.” There also are almost daily clashes between the military and suspected al-Qaida gunmen, including an attack by suspected militants last month that killed a security chief of a southern Yemeni town and triggered a series of clashes between soldiers and militants that killed eight people, mostly government troops. No group has threatened to attack the tournament or the teams. But sports teams and events have been among those terrorists recently have tar-

geted in other countries.

Togo pulled out of the African Cup of Nations in January after its team bus was attacked by gunmen in Angola two days before the start of the tournament. A separatist group claimed responsibility for the attack that left an assistant coach and spokesman dead.

Last year, gunmen in Pakistan killed six policemen and a van driver when they attacked a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers. Several Sri Lankan cricketers were injured in the attack, which resulted in Pakistan being dropped as co-host of the 2011 World Cup, and barred from hosting any international cricket. For any team traveling to Yemen, the threats are hard to ignore.—AP

City sweep Fulham aside Fulham 1

Man City 4

ITALY: Inter Milan’s Ivan Cordoba of Colombia (top) and Chievo’s Sergio Pellissier fight the ball during a Serie A soccer match between Chievo and Inter in Verona.—AP

Benitez faces axe, Eto’o escapes headbutt rap ROME: Inter Milan coach Rafael Benitez is teetering on the brink of being sacked after his Italian champions crashed 2-1 at Chievo to drop to sixth and nine points off leaders and city rivals AC Milan.

And to make matters worse he could lose star forward Samuel Eto’o to a suspension after the Cameroon captain’s blatant headbutt into Chievo centre-back Bostjan Cesar’s chest for which he was fortunate to stay on the pitch.

On 36 minutes Cesar was punished for a clash with Eto’o, who picked himself up, ran over to the defender and headbutted him in the chest.

TV replays showed Eto’o glancing over at Gianluca Rocchi before the headbutt, while another angle suggested the referee may have seen what took place. Eto’o did not receive any punishment at all, although if the incident is reported he would certainly face a two or three game ban from Football League chiefs.

And that will dismay Benitez who was already without the likes of Diego Milito, Walter Samuel, Thiago Motta, Maicon, Julio Cesar and Coutinho for

this match. However, the Spaniard may not be in the job long enough to suffer the fallout should Eto’o be banned if Italian press reports are to be believed as they claim anything other than a win against FC Twente in the Champions League on Wednesday will signal the end of his brief Inter tenure.

Benitez defended his team’s performance and also claimed that Cesar should have been punished for his initial challenge on Eto’o.

“It’s clear that after a defeat no-one is happy, the only thing I can say is that we worked very hard today and our reaction in the second half on a terrible pitch showed great character,” he said.

“I can’t say anything against my team, the work ethic and attitude is there. “We showed character, attacked all the time, took risks and if we’d have scored (at 1-0) that would have changed everything. “(Eto’o) was punched and his reaction is one of a team needing to win, of course it’s not nice to see.

“But there’s four officials at the game and if they don’t think it deserves punishment then that’s it.

Obviously he lost control a bit.” —AFP

Serie A results/standings Genoa 0 Juventus 2 (Eduardo 18-og, Krasic 23); Brescia 1 (Caracciolo 20-pen) Cagliari 2 (Matri 63, Conti 66); Catania 1 (Terlizzi 82) Bari 0; Cesena 1 (Bogdani 24) Palermo 2 (Ilicic 11, Miccoli 51); Chievo 2 (Pellissier 29, Moscardelli 82) Inter Milan 1 (Eto’o 90); Lecce 2 (Di Michele 72, Diamoutene 83) Sampdoria 3 (Pazzini 8, 40-

pen, 88); Parma 1 (Crespo 23) Lazio 1 (Floccari 45).

Playing later Napoli v Bologna Played Saturday Roma 2 (Menez 24, Borriello 56) Udinese 0; AC Milan 1 (Ibrahimovic 45) Fiorentina 0.

Italian Serie A table ahead of yesterday’s late match (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points): AC Milan Lazio Juventus Roma Napoli Inter Milan Palermo Sampdoria Chievo Catania

13 13 13 13 12 13 13 13 13 13

9 8 6 6 6 5 6 4 5 4

2 2 5 4 3 5 2 7 4 5

2 3 2 3 3 3 5 2 4 4

22 16 25 17 18 14 22 14 13 11

11 10 13 15 13 9 18 11 11 11

29 26 23 22 21 20 20 19 19 17

Udinese Genoa Fiorentina Parma Cagliari Bologna Lecce Brescia Cesena Bari

13 13 13 13 13 12 13 13 13 13

5 5 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 2

2 2 3 6 5 5 3 2 2 3

6 6 6 4 5 4 7 8 8 8

13 10 13 9 13 11 10 11 9 9

14 13 14 11 12 15 25 17 17 20

17 17 15 15 14 14 12 11 11 9

LONDON: Argentina striker Carlos Tevez scored two goals and set up another as Manchester City routed Fulham 4-1 yesterday to move within three points of the lead in the Premier League.

Watched by his former national team manager Diego Maradona, Tevez scored City’s first and last goals, in the fifth and 56th minutes, at Craven Cottage.

Pablo Zabaleta made it 2-0 in the 32nd with a swerving longrange effort, and Yaya Toure completed the first-half scoring after running onto Tevez’s throughball in the 35th.

Zoltan Gera grabbed a 70thminute consolation for Fulham, whose manager Mark Hughes endured a miserable day against the club that fired him last December. The top of the standings is now bunched, with the leading four teams — Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and City — separated by three points.

After consecutive scoreless home draws — to United and Birmingham — City manager Roberto Mancini, who replaced Hughes, had come under heavy criticism for his perceived negative tactics.

He reacted by giving the often-isolated Tevez a strike partner in Jo, who made his first start for City in the Premier League in more than two years after costing 18 million pounds in July 2008, and the team produced an attacking performance to savor in the first half.

Tevez opened the scoring by netting his eighth goal of the campaign, using his upper-body strength to beat Carlos Salcido to Gareth Barry’s pass before spinning and slipping a neat finish past goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer.

The early goal helped settle City, which dominated possession in midfield and looked lively going forward. Left back Aleksandar Kolarov was on the end of a flowing counterattacking move to force a smart save out of Schwarzer in the 23rd.

It came as no shock when the second goal arrived. A weak clearance by Fulham winger Damien Duff went straight to Zabaleta, whose first-time 25yard shot swerved beyond the reach of Schwarzer and into the corner.

It was all too easy for City, which made it 3-0 when Tevez fed Toure, whose first touch was sublime before he applied a low finish into the far corner from an angle. Fulham started the second half well but any hopes of a comeback were dashed by Tevez.

The former Manchester United striker became the league’s top scorer with nine goals by flicking a goal-bound shot by Zabaleta over Schwarzer and high into the net from inside the six-yard box.

The home crowd was given something to cheer about when a shot from Gera flew past City goalkeeper Joe Hart via a deflection off Kolo Toure, but the visitors comfortably saw the game out. —AP

LONDON: Blackburn Rovers’ David Dunn (right) keeps the ball from Aston Villa’s Jonathan Hogg during their English Premier League soccer match at Ewood Park Stadium.—AP

Rovers down Villa in front of new owners Blackburn 2

Aston Villa 0 BLACKBURN: Morten Gamst Pederson scored a goal in each half as Blackburn began life under its new Indian owners with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa in the Premier League yesterday.

The Norway winger opened the scoring in firsthalf injury time with a curling free kick that sailed over Villa goalkeeper Brad Friedel and sealed the points for Rovers by stabbing home a shot from close range in the 66th.

Villa, which brought new signing Robert Pires off the bench for the final 22 minutes, created more chances throughout but found Blackburn goalkeeper Paul Robinson in inspired form.

The win lifted the northwest club, who were bought on Friday by Indian poultry giant Venky’s which paid 23 million pounds ($36.8 million), above Villa and into 11th place in the table.

Blackburn’s new owners, Indian businessmen Balaji Rao and B. Venkatesh Rao, were at Ewood Park for the match and were given a generous reception by the home crowd before kickoff.

throws of Pedersen. It was the winger’s left foot that made the breakthrough, however, as his free kick from the right surprised Friedel, who flapped at a ball which soared over his head and into the top corner of the net.

The goal came somewhat against the run of play and at the start of the second half, Young first drew a diving save from Robinson before heading against the top of the crossbar seconds later.

Blackburn continued to look threatening on set pieces and it was from that route that the hosts doubled their lead in

They would have been impressed with their new side’s fighting spirit against a Villa team which looked the more sprightly going forward, especially down the left through Ashley Young.

The England winger was at the heart of most of Villa’s attacking moves and brought a sprawling save out of Blackburn goalkeeper Paul Robinson with a low, angled drive in the 14th minute.

Robinson had earlier kept out Stewart Downing’s fierce shot while at the other end, Friedel was being kept busy thanks to the dangerous long

the 66th.

A second corner in quick succession ended in Phil Jones flashing a shot across goal that Pederson stabbed home from a central position six yards out.

Villa manager Gerard Houllier threw on Pires, who joined on a free transfer last week, but the former France winger couldn’t inspire a comeback.

Downing and Young were defied by Robinson late on as Villa fell to its fifth defeat in seven away games this campaign.—AP

EPL results/standings Fulham 1 (Gera 70) Man City 4 (Tevez 6, 56, Zabaleta 32, Toure 35); Blackburn 2 (Pedersen 45, 66) Aston Villa 0.

Playing today: Sunderland v Everton Played Saturday: Arsenal 2 (Nasri 9, Chamakh 27) Tottenham 3 (Bale

50, van der Vaart 67-pen, Kaboul 85); Birmingham 1 (Bowyer 17) Chelsea 0; Blackpool 2 (Varney 3, Harewood 44) Wolves 1 (Doyle 86); Bolton 5 (Davies 18-pen, 90-pen, Lee 39, Elmander 50, 72) Newcastle 1 (Carroll 52); Liverpool 3 (Johnson 18, Kuyt 27-pen, Maxi 38) West Ham 0; Man Utd 2 (Evra 45, Hernandez 77) Wigan 0; West Brom 0 Stoke 3 (Etherington 55pen, Walters 85-pen, 90).

English Premier League table after yesterday’s matches (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, Chelsea Man Utd Arsenal Man City Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Stoke Liverpool Newcastle

14 14 14 14 14 14 13 14 14 14

9 7 8 7 5 6 4 6 5 5

1 7 2 4 7 4 7 1 4 3

4 0 4 3 2 4 2 7 5 6

28 28 28 19 26 21 15 18 16 22

9 15 15 11 20 19 13 18 17 21

28 28 26 25 22 22 19 19 19 18

Blackburn Blackpool Aston Villa Birmingham West Brom Everton Fulham Wigan Wolverhampton West Ham

14 14 14 14 14 13 14 14 14 14

5 5 4 3 4 3 2 3 2 1

3 3 5 7 4 6 8 5 3 6

6 6 5 4 6 4 4 6 9 7

17 21 15 15 16 14 14 10 14 11

18 27 20 17 25 13 17 23 25 25

18 18 17 16 16 15 14 14 9 9

Can cash-strapped Europe pay for NATO ?

Aston Martin Cygnet makes debut at Harrods Store

22

25

EU and US look to secure Doha trade deal in 2011

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Monday, November 22, 2010

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Ireland to ask for bailout from lenders FM Lenihan says corporation tax off agenda DUBLIN: Ireland will seek a bailout from international lenders, the Irish finance minister said yesterday, ending weeks of speculation that the country needs aid.

“I will be recommending to the government that we should apply for a program and open formal negotiations,” Brian Lenihan told public broadcaster RTE. He said a plan to restructure Ireland’s banks was likely to be a key feature.

However, changes to Ireland’s corporation tax were off the agenda and would inhibit the economy’s ability to grow, he said. The amount Ireland plans to apply for would not be a “three figure sum”, Lenihan said, knocking down a report yesterday that suggested Ireland would need as much as 120 billion euros.

Sources have told Reuters that Ireland may need 45-90 billion euros ($63-$126 billion), depending on whether it needs help only for its banks or for public debt too.

Officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Commission have been in Dublin since Thursday to thrash out a deal to help with Ireland’s banks. Concerns over the banks’ huge liabilities have sent Irish borrowing costs soaring. As well as the fouryear plan, the government will put forward a program for saving the country’s banks that will involve restructuring their balance sheets.

“The banks are well funded as part of the Eurosystem but they can’t remain in that state forever,” Lenihan said. “There have to be structural changes in the banks that put them back on the road,” he said.

Ireland’s banking sector, brought to the brink of collapse by exposure to a property and construction sector that slumped after the global financial crisis, has grown dependent on ECB funds and seen an exodus of deposits over the past six months. Calls are mounting for the government to stand down over its handling of the economic and financial crisis, but Lenihan said the Ireland should not be

Axiom Telecom aims to raise $382m in IPO

DUBLIN: A woman begs for money on a bridge in central Dublin. The euro is continuing to rise modestly against the dollar amid hopes of a resolution to Ireland’s debt crisis. Ireland appears headed toward taking a loan from the European Union to bolster its debt-crippled banks, helping take the edge off recent fears about the resurgence of Europe’s debt troubles. —AP plunged into a general election.

Politicians from within ruling Fianna Fail’s own ranks criticized the government yesterday, while commentators highlighted public anger that unions have warned could spill into

civil unrest. “You have lied, you have let us down. For Ireland’s sake, go now,” demanded the Sunday Independent newspaper under a front page picture of the cabinet. Public sentiment has reached boiling point in the past

week over the way the government presented its discussions with EU and IMF officials over a possible bailout. The government insisted publicly it was not in talks when informal discussions were in fact taking place. “...the gov-

ernment’s actions and comments over the past 10 days have fundamentally undermined public trust,” Fianna Fail politician and former defence minister Willie O’Dea wrote in the Sunday Independent.— Reuters

DUBAI: Mideast mobile phone retailer Axiom Telecom is seeking to raise as much as $382 million in the United Arab Emirates’ first initial stock offering this year.

The Dubai-based company said yesterday it plans to float up to a 35 percent stake next month, with shares being offered to institutional investors at a price of 80 cents to $1.15 apiece. At those rates, Axiom as a whole would be worth $760 million to $1.09 billion.

Unlike past stock sales in the Gulf, small-time retail investors won’t be able to participate in the initial public offering.

Chief Executive Faisal Al-Bannai said that and an “extremely attractive” offering price should help the company generate sufficient interest among banks and big institutional buyers such as investment funds. Those IPO investors stand to gain if the share price jumps once retail investors have a chance to buy as the stock begins trading.

“We want to make sure we leave something on the table for the investors,” AlBannai said. “More importantly, we want to make sure we have a very successful aftermarket trading once the share is public.”

Axiom sells cell phones in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries. It also has stakes in mobile handset companies in India and South Africa. It is controlled by family firm Al-Bannai Investment, which currently holds a 53 percent stake. Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by Dubai’s ruler that is struggling to restructure billions of dollars worth of debt, owns 40 percent. — AFP

NBK reports EGP 341.9m net profits from AWB for 9 months KUWAIT: NBK Group posted EGP 341.9 million from Al Watany Bank of Egypt AWB ‘s operations during the first 9 months of 2010 compared to EGP 329.3 million during the same period of the previous year, an increase of 4%.

NBK Deputy CEO & AWB Chairman Shaikha Al-Bahar said that consistent growth of AWB profits is a clear testament of the success of NBK Group’s expansion strategy, adding that “the growth of our international branches’ profits, particularly in Egypt and Qatar, has considerably helped NBK Group in achieving a total of KD 224.5 million net profits for the first 9 months of 2010. AWB has once again proved its ability to post record profits and unprecedented growth in the Egyptian market despite the unfavorable and challenging regional and international situation”.

AWB’s return on average assets reached 2.99% in the first 9 months of 2010, while the return on shareholders’ equity increased to 33.9%, from 32.9% during the same period of the previous year.

AWB total assets stood at EGP 15.3 billion compared to EGP 14.8 billion as of the end of 2009. Shareholders equity, including profits for this period, reached EGP 1.7 billion.

NBK Deputy CEO & AWB Chairman Shaikha Al-Bahar On his part, AWB CEO, Dr Yaser Hasan indicated that consistent growth in all sectors is a strategic goal for AWB, adding that “the positive results achieved by AWB are the outcome of focusing on service quality, enhancing risk management systems and implementing a business work model that meets the variable requirements of all customer categories”.

AWB, which is a member of NBK Group, was established in 1980 and has a

NEW YORK: General Motors Co CEO Daniel Akerson sits in the driver’s seat of a 2011 Chevrolet Camaro parked in front of the New York Stock Exchange following GM’s initial public offering in New York. Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext, is seated at right.—AP AWB CEO Dr Yaser Hasan

branch network comprised of 40 branches situated at strategic locations within the various Egyptian gover norates and cities, including Cairo, Al Jezza, Alexandria, Sharam AlShaikh, Al-Ghardaka, Tanta, 6th October, 10th Ramadan, Al-Mansoura, Dumyat and Souhaj.

NBK is the highest rated bank in the Middle East and also tops the list of Emerging Markets banks by major international rating agencies -

Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. The bank is also distinguished among Arab banks by its international network of branches, subsidiaries and representative offices located in the main inter national and regional financial centers such as New York, London, Paris, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Singapore, Vietnam, and China, with other ambitious plans for regional and global expansion.

Iran to issue bonds worth 5 billion euros TEHRAN: Iran will issue bonds worth some 5 billion euros ($7 billion) to help finance development of its giant South Pars gas field, the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted a senior official as saying yesterday.

“Soon we will issue international bonds worth ... 5 billion euros for the development of this field that Iran shares with Qatar,” Mehr quoted Ali Vakili, managing director of the Pars Oil and Gas Co (POGC), a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Co. “The bonds will be issued in 500 million euros in installments,” Vakili said. He did

not give further details. Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi said in May Iran needs investments of around $25 billion a year in its oil and gas industry and could turn into an importer of oil because of the lack of such funds.

One of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers, Iran has been hit by international sanctions that have frightened away international energy companies.

In April, an official said Iran aimed to raise $12.5 billion this year by selling state assets, including two refineries. But analysts say some of these assets may end up

being transferred within Iran’s vast public sector.

Iranian authorities say sanctions have not had any impact on the Islamic state, which has increasingly turned to Asian companies to implement oil and gas projects.

Vakili said the financing for the development of the South Pars field would not be halted because of the sanctions. “By the end of the current (Iranian) year (in March), Iran will be investing some $13 billion on the development of various phases of the field,” he said.— Reuters

GM’s Wall Street return marks revival of US auto industry NEW YORK: The triumphant return of General Motors to Wall Street less than 18 months after its bankruptcy marks a renaissance in the US auto industry, even though Detroit faces tough competition with Asian rivals and an uncertain outlook in Europe.

GM, Ford and Chrysler were among the hardest hit by the 2008 collapse in US auto sales amid the worst economic downturn in decades. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost at the Detroit Three automakers and their suppliers which had just begun to reap the rewards of years of painful restructuring when the crisis hit.

While Ford managed to stay afloat thanks to a massive loan it obtained shortly before the credit crunch, GM, Chrysler and a host of suppliers were forced to seek tens of billions in emergency aid from the US government. Crushed under the weight of their debts and a collapse in sales, GM and Chrysler were steered through government-financed bankruptcies in June and July of 2009.

GM emerged as an essentially nationalized company with the US government anxious to reduce its 61 percent stake.

Chrysler emerged under the direction of

Fiat-which obtained a 20 percent stake in exchange for sharing its technology-and the US government retained an eight percent stake. But while sales have remained at historically low levels, they have nonetheless begun to rebound. And radically lower cost-structures and a renewed focus on product design have allowed GM, Ford and Chrysler to make a sharp turn back to profitability.

“We may be at much lower sales volume than historically but health is much stronger,” said Jeff Schuster, a JD Power analyst. “It’s evident with earnings numbers, GM’s in particular.”

GM posted a profit of $4.8 billion through the first nine months of the year and is expected to end the year in the black for the first time since 1994 after having accumulated more than 86 billion dollars in losses from 2005 through 2008.

Ford’s share price is at its highest point in nine years after posting its sixth straight quarterly profit last month and Chrysler is expected to launch an IPO late next year.

The market reaction to GM’s initial public stock offering was resounding. Amid strong investor demand, the Detroit, Michiganbased firm priced its shares at $33 a piece

before the stock market opened, in a sale that could net as much as $23.1 billion across all stock classes.

Although the final value of the sale may not be known for weeks, strong-demand clauses could send it beyond the current IPO record of 22.1 billion dollars set by the Agricultural Bank of China in July.

The IPO will allow the US government to slash its stake in GM from 61 percent to as little as 33 percent, recouping $11.7 billion for US taxpayers.“It seems as if investors are viewing the auto stocks as a one-way bet right now because they think that the industry is at the bottom of the cycle and there is a lot of promise,” said Jeremy Anwyl, head of automotive site Edmunds.com. “Car companies have high fixed costs and profits could skyrocket as sales increase, given that they are already profitable.”

But Anwyl cautioned that several significant risks remain. “There is a gap in GM’s product introduction cadence because it squeezed the development pipeline to save cash during the financial crisis,” he said.

“GM’s management team is still untested and the company’s track record of profitability is anything but long.” —AFP

BUSINESS

22

Monday, November 22, 2010

Iraq 2011 budget proposal based on $73 oil: Official Exports of 2.3 million bpd expected BAGHDAD: Iraqi officials proposed a 2011 budget based on a $73-per-barrel oil price and exports of 2.3 million barrels a day, an oil ministry spokesman said yesterday. The export figure includes 150,000 bpd from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, spokesman Assim J ihad said. Exports w ere halted last year after a dispute betw een Kurdish officials and the central government and have yet to resume.

Aston Martin Cygnet makes debut at iconic Harrods Store Aston Martin’s new luxury city car; Cygnet - which will go into production in 2011 - is making its global debut at Harrods in Knightsbridge, the world’s most prestigious department store.

Occupying a prominent position in the store’s iconic Brompton Road window display in central London, Cygnet is perfectly placed in the heart of the city, an ideal spot to experience this ultracompact, high luxury city car in its production-ready form for the very first time.

Aston Martin’s characteristic design language is clearly referenced in Cygnet’s compact two-door body.

Signature details like the famous aluminium grille, side strake and inverted rear lights create a distinguished, neatly-proportioned form and a discretely stylish state-

ment. Painted, trimmed and assembled by the same technicians and craftspeople that create Aston Martin’s awardwinning range of sports cars, Cygnet is the ultimate way to explore the contemporary city.

Cygnet is highly appropriate for the environment for which it has been designed.

With ample performance and manoeuvrability for urban use, it is light, compact and fuel-efficient yet also capable of carrying up to four people, all while providing Aston Martin’s accomplished levels of luxury, comfort and quality. Cygnet, the tailor fit solution for the city, will help drive Aston Martin into an exciting future.

Harrods is a suitably central location for this important debut. Located in the heart of Knightsbridge, the

celebrated store has been at the forefront of luxury retail since it was founded in 1849.

Offering the finest merchandise from this most prominent of London locations, as well as from satellite sites around the world, Harrods provides unrivalled choice and a bespoke personal service that attracts loyal customers as well as a host of international visitors.

Harrods has over 360 departments, spread over seven floors of its iconic Knightsbridge building. The store’s vast selection of merchandise ranges from international haute couture to cutting edge technology, as well as an unrivalled choice of exquisite food and drink in the world famous Food Halls.

Harrods also offers exclusive services including By Appointment Personal

Shopping and Beyond to provide a total lifestyle experience. The Harrods ethos of ‘anything is possible’ sets out to surpass the desires and expectations of its customers.

The Aston Martin Cygnet will go into production in 2011 at the company’s global headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire in England. The car will be the eighth major production car Aston Martin has introduced at its state-ofthe art facility since 2004, offering further evidence of the company’s ongoing commitment to British manufacturing, backed-up by a dedicated local workforce and supplier network. Cygnet will be available to view at Harrods until Saturday 18th December with the car on sale now through Aston Martin’s European dealership network.

The figures were agreed by an Iraqi delegation that included Oil Minister Hussain AlShahristani and Finance Minister Bayan Jabor, as well as central bank representatives, during a meeting with World Bank officials to discuss Iraq’s budget, Jihad said.

“There was an agreement on the price of oil in the 2011 budget of $73 and exports of 2.3 million (barrels per day or bpd) including 150,000 from Kurdistan oilfields, which were halted and hopefully will be resumed in the coming period.

“The expected revenues from oil will be around $60 billion next year if the prices of oil stay as they are ... and the deficit will be $25 billion for next year,” Jihad said. Iraq is trying to rebuild after years of war and international economic sanctions. It depends on oil revenue to fund about 95 percent of its budget. The OPEC producer has signed deals with global oil firms that could boost its output capacity to 12 million bpd from the current 2.5 million, potentially rivaling top producer Saudi Arabia.

The assumed exports of 2.3 million bpd would represent a significant boost over current exports, which fell to 1.9 million bpd in October from 2.02 million the previous month.

Jihad said Iraq’s budget deficit was expected to “disappear” by 2013. — Reuters

Ahlia Holding loses KD 11.5m KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti investment firm Al Ahlia Holding Co incurred KD 11.5 million worth of losses at a rate of 14 fils per share in the first nine months of 2010, compared to the losses that amounted to KD 11.2 million, 13.7 fils per share, posted in the same period of 2009.

Shareholders equity amounted to KD 43.6 million in the first nine months of the current year, in contrast to KD 96 million of the same period of the past year, according to a company statement posted on the KSE website yesterday.

Assets reached KD 145.5 million, liabilities KD 93.5 million, compared to KD 108.2 million of the same time of the past year.

The company, listed in the national bourse in 1995, was founded in 1974 with a paid-up capital of KD 82.8 million. Its businesses include investment, funds and portfolios’ management, lending, brokerage and trade in precious gems. — KUNA

CBK awards Najma winner KUWAIT: The Commercial Bank of Kuwait (CBK) announced that Talal Al-Mutairi is their most recent Najma (Star) Account winner. The monthly KD 100 award winner was announced at a draw ceremony held at the bank’s headquarters.

Upon receiving the good news, Al-Mutairi said that he was very surprised that he actually won.

“At first I thought it was a joke set up by a friend,” Al-Mutairi said. He added that he was only convinced after contacting CBK’s call center to con-

firm that he was actually this month’s winner.

The winner was welcomed by the Acting General Manager of the bank’s service department, Simon Clemens, who awarded him the prize money. A Najma Account can be opened at CBK with a minimum of a KD 500 deposit.

Account customers are automatically eligible for the competition and are provided a raffle ticket for every additional KD 50 they deposit into their account.

Samsung showcases home appliances which enable smarter living at Gitex DUBAI: Samsung Electronics, a market leader in consumer electronics and world leader in Information Technology, is showcasing a number of home appliances at Gitex which are designed to embrace smart thinking and simple living.

The company has been investing in its R&D to discover ways to remove the mundane tasks and unnecessary challenges within everyday scenarios, when using a variety of appliances. Complicated devices which function for longer than they need to, are now a thing of the past, as Samsung’s new devices are energy efficient, simple to operate and remove unnecessary options and incorporate a stylish design to fit perfectly within your living environment.

Samsung’s HERMES Side by Side refrigerator One such product is Samsung’s HERMES Side by Side refrigerator. Inspired by consumers regularly serving to family and friends, the Samsung HERMES is designed to attract the growing number of styleconscious consumers. HERMES has a beautiful complexity from the inside out and has raised the bar and proven to be a ‘must-have’ refrigerator of the year for every modern home.

The HERMES combines Samsung’s two core elements; design innovation and advanced technology, to create the latest “must-have” appliance for the modern kitchen. Knowing this, Samsung created a completely new approach to the exterior and interior appearance of the refrigerator. At first glance, the sleek and sophisticated exterior and the Push and Catch Beverage feature is the star of the show. The Push and Catch Beverage’s name is as it sounds slightly push the door and grab any drink from inside the refrigerator without opening the door. The sleek, hidden hinges on the door also allows users to open and close the door without even noticing the hinges.

The aesthetically-pleasing Flat Door brings out a flawlessly flush design and its handle on the exterior brings smooth and easy access with simple opening mechanisms.

On the inside, the futuristic & brighter looking LED Tower Lighting makes it easier to find what you want as opposed to conventional light bulbs. Not only does the LED lighting provide easy access to food, it reduces the energy consumption and heat inside which allows your fruits, vegetables and meat to

remain fresher and tastier. True to its commitment to the environment and reducing carbon footprint, the Samsung Side by Side Refrigerator is Energy A+ rated, which ensures that the environment is protected and that consumers save money by reducing energy use.

Samsung’s Eco Bubble washing machine Samsung’s Eco Bubble washing machine uses bubbles to completely and efficiently dissolve washing detergent, helping it penetrate clothes 40 times faster than traditional detergent water. This is done by generating bubbles through dissolving detergent with air and water as the washing cycle begins. The perfectly dissolved detergent penetrates into the fabric quickly, evenly and deeply. In addition to penetrating clothes deeper and quicker, the bubbles created by the Eco Bubble washing machine help protect clothes by completely removing detergent residue as well as cushioning them from the effects of washing.

This means the Eco Bubble washing machine is especially effective in washing delicate items, such as wool and silk as well as difficult to maintain outdoor clothing, including clothing created from water repellant materials and Gore-Tex.

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

.276000 .4450000 .3810000 .280000 .2730000 .2740000 .0045000 .002000 .0760540 .7409710 .3920000 .0720000 .7263900 .0045000 .0480000

.2860000 .4550000 .389000 .2900000 .2820000 .2820000 .0075000 .0035000 .0768180 .7484180 .4100000 .0780000 .7336910 .0072000 .0570000

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

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2801500 .4477780 .3830770 .2824520 .2753180 .0513520 .0408070 .2762280 .0361290 .2161980 .0033540 .0000000 .0000000 .0000000 .0000000 .0762940 .7433010 .0000000 .0747370 .7282300 .0000000

.2822500 .4511340 .3859490 .2845690 .2773820 .0517370 .0411130 .2782990 .0364000 .2178190 .0033800 .0062720 .0025370 .0033210 .0040320 .0768650 .7488720 .3992220 .0752970 .7336890 .0065180

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar

3.501 6.334 3.270 2.508 3.968 218.810

Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

36.220 3.975 6.622 9.458 0.267 0.310

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

GCC COUNTRIES 74.865 77.139 729.380 745.660 76.451

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 51.550 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 48.948 Yemen Riyal 1.317 Tunisian Dinar 204.170 Jordanian Dinar 396.450 Lebanese Lira 187.700 Syrian Lier 6.140 Morocco Dirham 35.749 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 280.630 Euro 401.020 Sterling Pound 455.460 Canadian dollar 280.350 Turkish lire 200.450 Swiss Franc 292.020 Australian dollar 282.170 US Dollar Buying 279.895

Sterling Pound US Dollar

SELL CASH 281.100 748.360 4.260 280.200 552.700 14.100 52.400 167.800 51.860 389.400

397.740 0.189 93.040 3.910 220.900 730.760 3.305 6.450 77.410 75.130 218.210 42.790 2.516 452.300 286.200 6.300 9.590 76.680 281.400

TRAVELLERʼS CHEQUE 452.300 281.400

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 Euro Cash

36.830 6.210 0.032

GOLD 1,430.150

10 Tola

GOLD 259.000 131.000 67.500

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

36.980 6.540 0.033 0.264 0.252 3.470 399.620 0.190 93.040 46.600 4.410 222.400 1.914 48.000 730.940 3.390 6.640 77.840 75.130 218.210 42.790 2.680 454.300 41.900 287.700 6.300 9.810 198.263 76.780 281.800 1.360

SELL DRAFT 279.600 748.360 3.995 278.700

218.200 48.970 387.900

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 281.300 278.424 450.360 386.293 283.082 689.453 744.535 76.566 77.245 74.983 396.934 49.025 6.224

Pakistani Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees

3.288 2.514 3.990 6.428 3.365 9.374 6.136 3.974

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 Candaian Dollars

Rate per 1000 (Tran) 281.350 3.310 6.220 2.530 3.995 6.455 76.675 75.220 747.800 48.995 455.100 0.00003280 4.025 1.550 399.600 5.750 390.400 282.300

Al Mulla Exchange Currency Transfer Rate (Per 1000) US Dollar 281.200 Euro 387.500 Pound Sterling 451.900 Canadian Dollar 278.450 Japanese Yen 3.380 Indian Rupee 6.225 Egyptian Pound 48.960 Sri Lankan Rupee 2.513 Bangladesh Taka 3.985 Philippines Peso 6.455 Pakistan Rupee 3.286 Bahraini Dinar 747.050 UAE Dirham 76.640 Saudi Riyal 75.080 *Rates are subject to change

BUSINESS

Monday, November 22, 2010

23

Kuwait money supply grows, liquidity improves KUWAIT: Liquidity available in the economy and cash with local banks continued to post growth for the second month in a row seeing Kuwait’s broad measure of money supply (M2) increasing during September 2010.

The downward trend witnessed during the five consecutive months ending July-10 which came as a result of the economic slowdown, was broken as M2 gained momentum in the last two months to record a growth of KD 140 million to reach KD 25.2 billion at the end of Sep-10 indicating a gradual recovery driven by the government commitment to implement its development plan. The increase in M2 is mainly triggered by the increase in claims on the private sector which jumped by KD 138.4 mn.

Since the beginning of the year, M2 grew by a marginal 1.05 per cent or KD 262 mn, in big part driven by the increase of KD 697 mn in the KD sight deposits that recorded KD 4.64 bn at the end of September; nevertheless, this growth was in large part offset by the drop of 2.3 per cent or KD 461 mn in Quasi money. It’s worth to note that the growth in M2 since Dec09 is still much lower than the 12 per cent increase witnessed during the comparable period of 2009 where stock market volatility and low investors’ risk appetite played a key role in building up deposits with banks; this is in addition to the lack of sound long-term investment prospects in most markets as indicated by the weak corporate earnings due to the hold back in economic activities and high provisioning and impairments by the majority of banks and financial institutions.

KAMCO Monthly Money Market Report

Deposits with Local Banks Total residents’ deposit was almost flat compared to the level recorded at the end of August, grow-

restoration of the confidence in the market requires additional time; however, going forward, the positive performance of the local bourse as indicated by KAMCO TRW index adding as much as 15.8 per cent YTD-10, point towards positive prospects, with the banking sector and services sector together playing the key role seeing their index gaining a high of 27.8 per cent and 20.9 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Deposit figures for the first three quarters of the current year recorded a marginal increase of 0.46 per cent or KD 129 mn and hence giving positive cues that a gradual improvement in investors’ sentiment is on the way

KD 236 mn since the beginning of the year to record KD 24.4 bn.

Moreover, private sector deposits denominated in Kuwaiti Dinar compromised the majority of private sector deposits with a percentage contribution of 92 per cent or around KD 22.4 bn, whereas private sector deposits in foreign currencies constituted the remaining 8 per cent or KD 2 bn. Private sector deposits in foreign currencies, which grew by a marginal 0.9 per cent or KD 18 mn, have been following a downward trend since Dec-09 triggered by the volatility in major foreign currencies, heightened financial market volatility, US economic softness, renewed

ing by a mere 0.1 per cent or KD 20 mn, to end the month at KD 28.2 bn.

Private sector sight deposits in Kuwaiti Dinar added around 1.3 per cent or KD 57 mn, while on the other hand Private sector and Government time deposits saw a drop of KD 42 mn and KD 56 mn, respectively. The current year still has no clear trend in deposits with local banks which in turn gives an indication that investors’ risk appetite is still wavering and the

despite lack of various viable investment opportunities in the local bourse coupled with the general risk-aversion and capital preservation preference that has been prevalent in the market since Sep-2008.

Private sector deposits, holding a significant portion of local Banks’ deposit base with a percentage contribution of 86.3 per cent, witnessed an increase of KD 54 mn during Sep10 while registering an increase of

global risk aversion and delayed monetary tightening in core advanced economies.

Government deposits dropped by 0.9 per cent or KD 33.6 mn to record KD 3.88 bn at the end of the month, hence constituting around 13.7 per cent of banks’ deposit base; similarly, the first three quarters of 2010 saw government deposits dropping by 2.7 per cent or KD 107 mn compared to an increase of KD 449 mn in 2009.

Credit facilities Credit growth is still muted: Following a period of strong growth that fuelled non-oil sector activities, credit to the private sector slowed significantly in 2009 and 2010. The tightening of external financing conditions, stressed investment companies and contracting domestic demand (slow private sectors activities, notably in construction and investments), complemented banks’ heightened risk aversion and tightening of conditions for domestic credit extension, thus weakening credit growth even further. Growth in credit facilities slowed down to 7% in 2009 from 17% in 2008 and witnessed a negative growth of 0.23% during the first 9 months of 2009 to reach KD 25 billion. This slowdown is likely to weigh mostly on growth prospects where credit to GDP is the highest at around 68%.

During September-10, credit facilities extended by local banks to residents continued the sluggish upward movement to grow by a mere 0.1 per cent or KD 19 mn and reach KD 25 bn.

The major drop seen during June keeps on weighing on total credit facilities which recorded a marginal drop of 0.23 per cent or KD 59 mn over the first three quarters of 2010, hence still lagging behind the 17 per cent and 7 per cent growth rates recorded during 2008 and 2009, respectively. The drop in credit facilities, so far this year, is mainly as a consequence to the liquidity squeeze in the market, tight credit conditions, rise in default risk by stressed and highly indebted local firms along with the deterioration in the prices of financial assets which together pushed banks to implement conservative and strict lending policies particularly with the lack of attractive investment opportunities in the real economic sectors and the slowdown in the property market.

Following the downward trend seen during the first half of the year on the back of the strict lending policies implemented by local banks, personal facilities during the third quarter of the year grew by 1.2 per cent or KD 96.6 mn, compared to June’s level, to reach KD 8.41 bn at the end of Sep-10,

comprising around 33.6 per cent of banks’ total loan portfolios. Credit facilities for the purchase of securities represented around 32 per cent of personal facilities and recorded around KD 2.70 bn, up by KD 29.5 mn from June-2010 level. The structure of the distribution in credit facilities with the highest percentage being in the stock market has exposed banks to a high default risk by individual investors who have highly invested in the local and regional bourses, thus resulting in massive provisioning by Kuwaiti banks since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008 on the back of the surge in non-performing loans which reached an unprecedented level during 2008-2009.

market and unfavorable operating environment faced by real estate companies and contractors in Kuwait, local banks’ exposure to this sector which is considered to be one of the highest in the Gulf region represented around 32.9 per cent of local banks’ loan portfolios as of Sep10.

Loans extended to non-bank financial institutions (investment companies- ICs) sustained the downward movement for the third month in a row, falling by around 1.5 per cent or KD 42.9 mn during Sep-10 to reach KD 2.82 bn representing around 11.3 per cent of banks’ loan portfolios. Since the beginning of the year, loans to ICs saw a drop of 2.66

credit policies as a pre-cautionary measure taken by local banks to limit the default of loans extended across different sectors in the economy.

The following chart, which depicts the change in outstanding loans across the major economic sectors during the last twelve month periods ending Sep-09 and Sep-10, reflects the sluggish growth in credit facilities triggered by tight credit markets, economic slowdown and devaluation in asset prices.

For the TTM period ending Sep10, credit extended to the Real Estate sector registered a drop of KD 107 mn, lagging behind the KD 892 mn extended in the comparable period of 2009. Personal facilities wit-

Real Estate sector Loans to the real estate and construction sectors, which have together comprised an average of around 33 per cent of local banks’ loan portfolios since Dec-08, grew for the second month in a row by around 0.5 per cent or KD 41 mn to reach KD 8.24 bn at the end of September. Given the slowdown in the local property

per cent or KD 77 mn as local banks are following strict lending policies due to the deterioration in ICs’ asset prices along with unfavorable operating environment and insolvency issues faced by some major player in the financial services and investment sector. The global financial crisis has had a severe impact on Banks and other Financial Institutions leading to the implementation of stricter

nessed a moderate drop in credit over the comparable periods, while credit to construction sector added around KD 157 mn in comparison with a drop of KD 137 mn during the comparable period of 2009.

Personal facilities increased at a slower pace or by KD 213 mn in the TTM period ending Sep-10, compared to KD 421 mn over the comparable period of 2009.

US crude stocks drop Big Three ratings agencies face competition GLOBAL WEEKLY INTERNATIONAL REPORT KUWAIT: On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude for December delivery settled down 34 cents, or 0.42 percent, at $81.51 a barrel. For the week, front-month crude fell $3.37, or 3.97 percent.

NYMEX December RBOB settled at $2.1850 per gallon. It dipped 1.39 cents, or 0.63 percent for the week. NYMEX December heating oil closed $2.2712 per gallon. For the week, it dropped 8.88 cents, or 3.76 percent. ICE January Brent crude ended at $84.34 per barrel.

For the week, front-month Brent dropped $2.00, or 2.32 percent. International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka told Reuters in an interview in Tokyo, “we think if OPEC continues production at the current level, the oil market will be very well supplied towards the end of next year”. “There are certain uncertainties about the global economy, so we still maintain the low growth scenario,” Tanaka said. He added that he thinks that the impact of United States’ latest round of quantitative easing has already been factored into the crude market.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed US crude stocks fell unexpectedly by a sharp 7.29mn barrels to 357.6mn barrels in the week to November 12 while crude imports fell 226,000 bpd to 7.83mn bpd.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected crude stocks to rise by 100,000 barrels. Stocks of gasoline fell by a 2.66mn barrels to 207.68mn barrels, versus expectations for a smaller 800,000-barrel draw. Distillate stocks fell by 1.11mn barrels to 158.79mn barrels, compared with analyst expectations for a bigger 2.2mn barrel draw. Refinery utilization rose 1.6 percentage points to 84 percent, against analyst expectations for a 0.3 percentage point increase.

Inventories at the key Cushing, Oklahoma hub rose 1.27mn barrels to 33.07mn barrels.

US natural gas futures ended up 4 percent,

on Friday, November 19, backed by cold weather forecasts. The front-month gas contract climbed 15.7 cents, or 4 percent, to $4.164 per mmBtu. EIA data showed total domestic gas inventories climbed last week by 3 billion cubic feet (bcf) to an all-time high of 3.843 trillion cubic feet (tcf), the second straight weekly record. The EIA report showed stocks were well below the year-ago rise of 21 bcf. Early injection estimates for next week’s EIA report range from 22 bcf draw to 15 bcf build, versus a 5 bcf build for the same week last year and a five-year average draw of 13 bcf. The US dollar rose against most of its major peers as US Treasury yields made the biggest jump in almost a year, inciting demand for the US currency.

US US retail sales surged in October, topping expectations on robust car sales and solid spending for a broad array of merchandise going into the holiday shopping season. Retail sales rose 1.2 percent last month, the fourth consecutive increase and the biggest rise since March, although excluding autos, all other retail sales rose 0.4 percent, just shy of an expected 0.5 percent gain.

The strong auto sales helped boost shares of Ford Motor, which climbed 4.2 percent. Retail stocks also climbed on the report, with Office Depot up 3.6 percent, Coach up 2.5 percent and Polo Ralph Lauren up 2.5 percent.

Still, other data were less encouraging. The November reading of New York-area manufacturing activity from the New York Fed fell into negative territory, well below economists’ expectations for a reading of 13.00.

Meanwhile, investors fretted that a biggerthan-expected rise in inventories at US businesses in September could leave companies holding too much inventory if the holiday shopping season disappoints.

PARIS: The Big Three credit rating agencies, under fire for failing to anticipate the global financial crisis, have spurred new players to offer alternatives but the trio’s dominance of the sector seems secure for the moment, analysts said.

“It’s a matter of at the same time introducing more commaking while petition investors less sensitive to the ratings,” said Jerome Cazes, head of the French credit insurer Coface.

Coface and another French insurer, Euler Hermes, along with US entities Egan Jones, DBRS and Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, are all anxious to do battle with the Big Investors Three-Moody’s Service, Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s.

The Chinese agency, Dagon Global Credit Rating, has also attracted attention after it downgraded the United States for its massive debt overhang. “Anything that introduces more competition to the ratings is useful because more diversity is needed if the markets are to work better,” said economist Michel Aglietta.

Governments and companies trying to raise money on financial markets traditionally ask a ratings agency to assess their capacity to pay their debt. The rating then helps them in their appeal to investors, particularly those based in other countries.

The newcomer agencies seeking to bolster their posi-

tions want to evaluate the financial health of companies and certain public bodies rather than that of sovereign states. And unlike the Big Three, they are interested in concentrating on a specific region. Meredith Whiney has targeted the United States while Euler Hermes is focused on Germany.

“It is going to be difficult for them because the ratings business will never be a free market,” said Aglietta. But he noted that some of the new agencies that have made an impact in a specific sector, such as Coface in exports or Meredith Whitney in banking, are likely to do well.

“They already have a client base where they enjoy credibility.” Officially, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch appear to have welcomed the competition.

But it is also evident that the obstacles confronting the new players suggest that the trio can be confident about holding on to their top status.

The newcomers must first of all get the backing of regulatory bodies, which some analysts say is a major hurdle for them.

The European Union’s executive commission has said it supports the emergence of smaller ratings agencies in order to ensure greater transparency in the market.

Government authorities have argued that Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch aggravated the financial crisis

by assigning positive ratings to complex financial instruments that proved to be unreliable.

The agencies have also been faulted for possible conflict of interest in that they are sometimes paid by the enti-

ties they are asked to rate.

Nonetheless, the newcomers must still convince borrowers that there are indeed alternatives to the Big Three, whose stamp of approval is considered critical.

“All that is to say that con-

ditions are not yet ripe for a competitive market,” said Aglietta. Under the circumstances, analysts have called for the creation of public ratings agencies or even government support for the new players. — AFP

Obama felt S Korea trade deal fell short: Clinton WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama failed to seal a sweeping trade pact with South Korea because he felt it was not in the best interests of the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday.

“The president didn’t finalize a deal in Korea because he was not satisfied that the deal was in the best interests of America,” the top US diplomat told CBS. “And that’s what a president is supposed to do, and so he did the right thing.”

Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak said earlier this month that they needed more time to negotiate the accord, despite intense talks in Seoul. The failure to reach a deal during Obama’s high-profile visit to the country, and just ahead of a G20 sum-

mit in Seoul, was seen as embarrassing given the close ties between the leaders and their two countries.

The Obama administration has been pressing South Korea to give greater access to US cars and beef, but South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-Hoon has said the US hesitation is due to political considerations. “I think the US side raised its concerns over the auto trade for political reasons, not for economic reasons,” Kim said last week, quoted by Yonhap news agency, adding talks will continue on a compromise deal.

The pact was signed three years ago under the previous US administration but US automakers and beef exporters had demanded new concessions. Kim said the US

side during the latest talks demanded more time to scrap its tariffs on South Korean cars, and an easing of South Korean safety and emission standards.

Under the 2007 accord the US agreed to eliminate its 2.5 percent tariff within three years. In return, South Korea promised to immediately abolish its 8.0 percent tariff on US-made cars. The US also demanded the scrapping of socalled duty drawbacks, which allow refunds for tariffs on imported parts used by auto manufacturers, the minister said.

Washington is also urging South Korea further to open its beef market, an issue which Seoul says is not related to the trade deal.

South Korea imports beef only from cattle less than 30 months old due to fears of mad cow disease. — AFP

BUSINESS

24

KSE rallies on buying interest KUWAIT: Kuwaiti stocks gained upward momentum on the first trading session following the Eid holiday, buoyed by buying interest in Service and Investment stocks. With the end of the declaration period of profits for the nine months financial results, the stock market suspended 24 companies which did not disclose its third quarter financials, while the other released results were not so cheerful.

Global General Index (GGI) closed 0.63 points up (0.29 percent), at 218.17 point as the Market capitalization increased reaching KD35.33mn. On the other side, Kuwait Stock Exchange Price Index closed in the green zone adding 18 points (0.26 percent) from its value and closed at 6,968 point.

Market breadth During the session, 103 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards advancers as 42 equities advanced versus 28 that retreated.

Trading activities ended on a negative note. Volume of shares traded on the exchange decreased by 53.17 percent to reach 109.49mn shares, the value of shares traded decreased by 64.37 percent to stand at KD20.12mn.

The Investment Sector was the volume leader yesterday, accounting for 28.98 percent of total shares and the Services Sector was the value leader, with 28.71 percent of total traded value.

Company-wise, Al-Mal Investment Company was the volume leader, with a total traded volume of 13.76mn shares changing hands. Kuwait International Bank was the value leader, with a total traded value of KD2.97mn.

In terms of top gainers, Housing Finance Company (ISKAN) was the biggest gainer for the day, adding 9.80 percent and closed at KD0.112. On the other hand, Jazeera Airways Co came in as the biggest decliner, dropping by 8.33 percent and closed at KD0.110.

Sector-wise The advance was broad-based with five out of the eight sectors managing to eke out some gains. Food stocks spearheaded advancers, clocking 1.91 percent in sector gains. As measured by the Global Food Index, this sector has grown by 8.41 percent so far this year. The sector’s performance was bolstered by a KD0.100 increase in the equity prices of Kuwait

GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT

Monday, November 22, 2010

Aggregate profitability showed improvement GCC Banking Sector Global Quarterly Report KUWAIT: Aggregate profit of the GCC banking sector posted a decline of 5.2%YoY and an increase of 2%QoQ in 3Q10. Poor bottomline performance was exhibited by UAE and KSA banks that declined by 9.6%YoY and 9.7% YoY respectively. Qatari Banking sectors earned the spotlight with a stellar growth of 38%YoY. The aggregated net interest income of the GCC banks witnessed an increase of 1.8%YoY, which shows a stagnant top line.

As per our universe, loan growth remains unnoticeable, growing 1.1%YoY in 3Q10 and 2.4%YTD; and aggregate deposits grew 5.3%YoY and 5.8%YTD. Moreover, aggregate NIMs of our GCC banking remain under pressure.

Qatar leads Qatar at the opposite ends of the spectrum with a 5.3%YoY decline and a 25%YoY jump respectively. Qatar ‘s NII is still in the first place due to a 25%YoY jump is QNB’s top-line. NII of Kuwaiti banks have shown a

decline of 3.6% YoY, Meanwhile Omani banks and UAE exhibited a healthy growth of 12.0% YoY 8.1%YoY respectively.

GCC banking sector provisions is low er; only KSA w itnessed an increase...

Unlike the 2Q10, the aggregate provisions have shown some improvement in 3Q10.

Reversal of the loan loss provisions are the main reason behind the improvement of the net provisions. KSA was the only country witnessing an increase in of 45% YoY and 32% QoQ. Gauging a pickup in macro-economic activity across the GCC and certain country specific risks, we maintain our POSITIVE stance on Qatar, NEUTRAL on KSA, cautious on UAE and NEUTRAL on the banking sectors of the remaining GCC countries.

That said, We believe that most of the GCC banks have Banks have adequately provided for their loans portfolio, this will eliminate the element of surprise. GCC banks will once again concentrate on their top line growth taking advantage of the economies reviving.

Qatari bank provisions rise 2.9% m/m in Oct Foodstuff Company (Americana).

Service companies accounted for almost quarter of the market’s total volume yesterday. Out of the 109.49mn shares traded during the day, 26.95mn shares (24.61 percent) were attributable to service stocks. Trading was intense once again on the counter of Mubarrad Transport Co, with 11.62mn shares changing hands. The scrip was dropped by 7.55 percent. But it was a 1.96 percent gain registered by Agility that drove the Global Service Index up by 0.82 percent.

Agility was out with its earnings report during the day. However, results were disappointing.

The Global Real Estate Index was down by a dismal 1.34 percent. Kuwait

Real Estate Company stock price dropped by 1.59 percent.

Corporate news Kuwait’s M2 money supply growth decelerated to 1.9 percent at the end of October, from 2.7 percent in the previous month, the Gulf country’s central bank data showed yesterday. The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) has approved on November 11, 2010, the request of National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) to buy back or divest 10 percent maximum of its issued shares for further six months till May 23, 2011. NBK should abide by CBK buyback rules and regulations, in addition to the provisions of Article No. 115 bis of Corporate Law. It should also comply with

the provisions of Ministerial Decree No. 10/1987 and its amendments, by virtue of Ministerial Decrees No. 11/1988 and 273/1999.

Kuwait Finance House (KFH) has made a clarification about the news published in a local gazette as regards increasing the capital between 12.5 percent & 15 percent; the bank said that there is no arrangement regarding the capital increase at present.

Oil news The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at $81.09 a barrel on Thursday, compared with $81.90 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations..

DOHA: Provisions made by Qatar banks rose 2.9 percent month-on-month in October, in line with 2.2 percent growth in bank loans, data from the Gulf country’s central bank showed yesterday.

Total provisions in the world’s largest liquefied natural gas exporter increased to 6.78 billion riyals ($1.86 billion) at the end of October, up from 6.59 billion riyals in September.

Qatar’s central bank said in a stability review in October that the banking system was sound and banks had comfortable provisioning against bad loans.

Fitch ratings agency said in September that Qatari banks emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis with strong profitability, healthy assets, liquidity and capital.

Bank loans rose to 274.2 billion riyals in October, up from 268.4 billion riyals at the end of September, the data showed.

Qatar’s economy surged 20.4 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, after shrinking 4.1 percent in the first quarter.

It remains the Gulf region’s leader in economic growth, with real GDP growth of 15.5 per-

cent forecast for this year, according to a Reuters poll.

Major Qatari banks reported robust third-quarter results, with Qatar National Bank (QNB) posting a 41.5 percent jump in net profit on increased loans, and Commercial Bank of Qatar reporting a 28.9 percent increase in quarterly profit.

Banks in Qatar have also benefited from spending on infrastructure and related projects. Total assets in the OPEC member’s banking sector rose 3.3 percent month-on-month to 540.7 billion riyals in October, the data showed. — Reuters

BUSINESS

Monday, November 22, 2010

25

Can cash-strapped Europe pay for NATO’s ambition?

LISBON: NATO leaders agreed to stretch an anti-missile shield across Europe and deploy forces to protect the West from terror and nuclear threats. The big question now is: How on Earth to pay for it?

At a two-day summit in Lisbon, heart of one of Europe’s most fragile, heavily indebted economies, President Barack Obama and his military allies set out a “strategic concept” for the next decade: They vowed to maintain conventional, nuclear and missile defense forces, and to set up a phalanx of anti-missile batteries protecting the continent, hopefully linking up with Russia’s defense network.

“You can have whatever vision you want, but if you don’t have the resources it is just pointless,” said Frederick Kempe, chief executive of the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank.

Total defense spending in Europe fell in real terms to 218 billion euros ($299 billion) in 2009 from from 251 billion euros in 2001, according to the Centre for International and Strategic Studies.

By contrast, the US Department of Defence has requested 708 billion dollars (518 billion euros) in its topline budget for the next

financial year, up from 316 billion dollars in 2001, according to Pentagon papers.

“Ten years ago if you look at the combined defense budgets of all the NATO countries the US was roughly 50 percent of the combined defense budget. It is now 75 percent,” Kempe said.

The growing gap between US and European financial commitment to defense presented two dangers, he said.

“First of all: technology. As the US gets better and better military technology and its partners fall behind it becomes more difficult to work together,” Kempe said.

“And second: resentment.

The United States will basically start saying: Why are we footing the bill for all this?

And that is not a healthy alliance.” As European governments scramble to cut costs, analysts fear they may also be cutting essential capability.

“In practice there is a turning point when reductions in quantity effect quality,” said Joseph Henrotin, researcher at the Paris-based international risk analysis group CAPRI. “The European armies are now cutting numbers.” “The role of the US as the backbone of NATO has been reinforced while the European flesh has

been trimmed.”

In Britain, for example, Prime Minister David Cameron announced in October that by 2015, army numbers would be cut by 7,000 to 95,500; the navy would fall 5,000 to 30,000 and the Royal Air Force would decrease by 5,000 to 33,000.

As part of eight percent cuts to the Ministry of Defence’s budget, the flagship HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier was scrapped with immediate effect along with Britain’s fleet of Harrier jets.

As Europe scrabbles for savings to try to trim bloated deficits, it can avoid cutting to the bone of the defense network if nations align their strategies better, Kempe said.

“Europe has got to work better together to make more out of its combined defense budget. There is too much redundancy and too much waste,” the analyst said.

“Also, the reform part of what NATO decided is crucial.”

NATO leaders here cut the number of agencies dealing with everything from logistics to research from 14 to three, reduce military command centers from 11 to six or seven, and slash the bureaucratic commissions by three-quarters, saving tens of millions of dollars. — AFP

LISBON: Anti-NATO demonstrators march with giant puppets during a rally in central Lisbon, Portugal, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2010.

The feared violence seen at recent summits did not materialize amid a heavy police presence. — AP

Fed faces big challenge to authority in decades Bernanke accused of recklessly devaluing dollar WASHINGTON: The Federal Reserve is printing billions of dollars to aid the US recovery, but acting w hen politicians could not or w ould not has sparked the fiercest challenge to its authority in decades. In the w eeks since the Fed boldly began to pump $600 billion into the US economy, a sw irl of criticism has encircled the central bank.

In a new outreach to corporations, US President Barack Obama is considering giving a speech in January to the Chamber of Commerce.

Obama weighs lobby group speech to court business WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is considering giving a speech in January to the Chamber of Commerce, a major business lobby, as part of a new outreach to corporations, a White House official said on Saturday.

The White House and the chamber have tussled repeatedly during the first two years of Obama’s administration over policies that the group has portrayed as unfriendly to business.

After the Nov 2 congressional elections, which handed Republicans control of the House of Representatives and shrank Democrats’ majority in the Senate, Obama said he had to do a better job of making sure the business community knew it has a supporter in the White House.

The White House official said Obama, a Democrat, had been invited to speak to the chamber on Dec. 2, but that event had been canceled.

“The chamber has also invited the president to speak in January and we are considering the invitation to see if it will work in the schedule,” the official said. An Obama speech to the lobby group would be a high-profile way of trying to mend rela-

tions tested by disagreements over policies such as Obama’s failed attempt to enact a “cap and trade” system to limit industrial carbon dioxide emissions.

The organization said it would welcome an Obama visit. “The chamber doesn’t have anything currently planned but we’d always be happy to host the president to talk about jobs and the economy,” said Tom Collamore, the group’s senior vice president of communications and strategy, through a spokesman.

Stung by the election and public perception that Obama had not done enough to fight high joblessness, administration officials have signaled the White House plans to focus its message largely on efforts to improve the economy.

“Economic recovery is the most important goal for the president and working with all of the stakeholders, including the Chamber of Commerce, on export promotion, free and fair trade to grow the economy and create jobs is an important part of achieving that goal,” a White House spokeswoman said. — Reuters

Abroad, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has been accused of recklessly devaluing the dollardestabilizing global trade by making US exports cheaper-and of hypocrisy for criticizing similar moves by China.

At home critics, emboldened by congressional election victories, have accused the Fed of spurring long-term inflation and pushing up prices for ordinary Americans. The deference once shown to the Fed under former chairman Alan Greenspan is a distant memory, shot to pieces by the bank’s failure to prevent the Great Recession under his stewardship.

Former Fed officials agree the august institution is coming under more criticism now than at almost any time since the 1980s-when officials were assailed for focusing on inflation rather than exploding unemployment.

Today the Fed is criticized for the reverse: For focusing too much on jobs.

In a sign of how modish Fedbashing has become, possible Republican presidential candidate Sarah Palin has made a rare foray into the realm of monetary policy, accusing the bank of printing money “out of thin air” and cautioning it “shouldn’t be playing around with inflation.”

The independent central bank, much happier away from

the political limelight, has nonetheless come out swinging, vociferously arguing that fresh spending was necessary to underpin a still feeble economic recovery.

Wary of deepening a policy turf war, Bernanke has avoided an unspoken truth: The bank acted because hell would have frozen over before lawmakers approved more stimulus from taxpayer dollars.

But seasoned observers say the clash is still as much about political turf as it is about policy.

“The Fed’s latest action crosses the line from monetary policy into fiscal policy that is the role of Congress and the president rather than the Fed,” said former Fed economist Phillip Swagel. “Given that Congress has considered more fiscal stimulus and decided against it, it is not surprising that members of Congress are criticizing the Fed for taking this step.”

But if by crossing the line the Fed has irked Congress, it has also let elected representatives off the hook, according to former Fed official Vincent Reinhart.

“They are facilitating the bad behavior of the White House and the Congress, because they are thwarting some of the consequences of their inaction,” said Reinhart, now of the

China orders more measures to rein in rising inflation BEIJING: China yesterday announced a further series of measures to rein in rising commodity prices as it steps up efforts to combat rapidly rising inflation, state media said.

The State Council, China’s Cabinet, ordered local governments to boost agricultural production, stabilize supplies and reduce prices, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing a seven-page document.

It also instructed local officials to ensure oil, gas, coal, and power supplies were sufficient and provide temporary subsidies, Xinhua said. Local authorities were also ordered to coordinate social-security programs to provide a gradual rise in basic pensions, unemployment insurance and minimum wages.

The new order comes a day after China said it would will increase grain supplies, open up more land for planting vegetables and crack down on hoarding. The moves come after consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in two years, fuelled by soaring food costs after severe summer flooding and more recent cold snaps hit crop yields.

The nation’s consumer price index rose 4.4 percent year-on-year in

October, above the official full-year target of three percent and the fastest rate since September 2008. The agricultural ministry said on Saturday it would increase the area of land available for vegetable crops “to stabilize production and increase vegetable supplies during the winter,” Xinhua said.

Officials would also “seriously work” to prevent hoarding of agricultural products and other “speculative practices”, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce said on Saturday.

After one of the country’s worst years for natural disasters, the government estimates that more than 80 million people will need food relief this winter, Xinhua said last week.

In the first 10 days of November, average wholesale prices of key vegetables such as potatoes and cucumbers in 36 Chinese cities were 62.4 percent higher than a year earlier, official data showed.

High inflation has a history of sparking unrest in China and the nation’s stability-obsessed leaders have already taken a range of steps, including hiking interest rates last month for the first time since 2007. — AFP

BEIJING: China yesterday announced a further series of measures to rein in rising commodity prices as it steps up efforts to combat rapidly rising inflation. (File photo)

The Federal Reserve is printing billions of dollars to aid the US recovery even as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has been accused of recklessly devaluing the dollar.

American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

In recent days the criticism has snowballed further, its focus lurching away from critiques of

stimulus spending to questions about the bank’s very purpose and its independence.

High-profile Republican lawmakers Mike Pence and Bob

Corker this week called for legislation that would end the bank’s dual mandate by eliminating its mission to fight unemployment and focusing the central bank solely on price stability.

That would spell a dramatic change in policy that would likely preclude any additional moves to prime the recovery.

Although Corker and Pence’s drive is unlikely to succeed, former officials agree it could still have an impact on the Fed’s willingness to embark on new stimulus if needed.

“If they were in a box where they could not see any of this, then technocrats would say ‘we need to do more and already should have been doing more for some months now,’” said Joseph Gagnon of The Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“That is what the technocratic Fed policy mechanism would have done, I know, I was a part of it,” he said. “But they are not in a box isolated from the world, they see that almost nobody is asking them to do more, and a small but vocal minority is saying stop... They will err on the side of caution.”

Swagel agreed: “It will make the Fed somewhat more hesitant to engage in extraordinary policy in the future.” — AFP

Sri Lanka budget eyes foreign cash to rebuild economy COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will relax foreign exchange and investment rules in a budget to be presented Monday as it seeks to spur investment in the island recovering from a bloody civil war, analysts say.

Sri Lankan troops crushed a 37-year separatist revolt by Tamil Tiger guerrillas last year and the government hopes that the prospects of fast-paced economic expansion will woo foreign investors.

“We want to make it easier for foreigners to come here and do business and for our locals to do the same outside Sri Lanka,” Central Bank of Sri Lanka governor Nivard Cabraal told AFP. President Mahinda Rajapakse, who also serves as the island’s finance minister, will present the budget in parliament today. He vowed to turn his battle-scarred nation into the economic “wonder of Asia” when he was sworn in Friday for a second six-year term. “The plethora of exemptions aimed at attracting investment during the domestic conflict are expected to be streamlined (in the budget),” Citi Group Sri Lanka analyst Anushka Shah said.

The president, whose swearing in came 10 months after his re-election victory in January’s presidential polls, said last week his handling of the economy would replicate his military success in defeating the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lanka’s economy has been on a roll with the central bank forecasting

it will grow eight percent in 2010, up from 3.5 percent last year. Rajapakse has promised to double per capita gross domestic product to 4,000 dollars by the end of his second term in 2016. The president is also expected to announce in the budget measures to allow foreigners to buy local rupee corporate debt and open bank accounts in the country. Sri Lankans, in turn, will be allowed to invest overseas while Sri Lankan companies will get approval to list abroad, analysts forecast.

Foreign investors are hoping Rajapakse also opens up rebuilding work in war-torn areas and infrastructure projects to private capital. These areas are currently restricted to state firms, with help from friendly donors such as China and India.

Rajapakse has unveiled a series of ambitious infrastructure projects, including a Chinese-funded, $1.5-billion port in the southern town of Hambantota.

“Foreign investors have voiced concerns over the crowding-out of private capital from big-sized projects,” said Talaal Maruzook, research manager at CT Smith Stockbrokers.

Sri Lanka’s economy has bounced back since it sought an IMF bailout worth $2.6 billion in 2009 to avert a balance of payments crisis after the island’s foreign reserves slipped to under a billion dollars last year. — AFP

26

BUSINESS

Monday, November 22, 2010

Spain struggles to avoid link to Ireland MADRID: As debt-stricken Ireland heads for a Greek-style EU bailout, Spain is desperately trying to avoid being lumped in the same basket but analysts warn it will have to do more to keep investors happy.

There is “absolutely no reason” to compare Spain with Ireland, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said on Friday. “We are able to borrow fresh funds at practically the same (cost) as Italy and do much better than Ireland, Portugal and most certainly than Greece. “I think the markets believe in Spain ... (which) has no need of any extra austerity measures,” she said.

In May, the EU and the International Monetary Fund bailed out Greece to the tune of 110 billion euros ($150 billion) to prevent a likely debt default that could have torpedoed the entire euro-zone project.

On Friday, EU, IMF and European Central Bank officials began tough talks in Dublin whose public finances have been stretched to the limit by the billions of euros it has spent to keep its devastated banks afloat. As the Irish debt crisis has deepened, the rates it has to pay to raise fresh cash on the financial markets have risen sharply, with a knock-on effect on Portugal and Spain.

Analysts say an Irish deal is key to easing the immediate crisis and giving other euro-zone states some breathing room to put their finances in order before they too get sucked into the firing line.

As the Greek crisis unfolded earlier this year, these weaker euro-zone states, including Spain, came under increasing pressure, with the Socialist government

MADRID: Unemployed people queue outside an unemployment registry office in Madrid in this Sept. 2, 2010 file photo. forced to adopt tough austerity measures. Spending was cut, taxes hiked and the regional savings bank system-a weak pointrestructured, with the markets rewarding Madrid with an easing in tensions as a result. “I do not think that Spain is going to be the next Greece or Ireland,” JP Morgan strategist Robert Michele

told the Expansion daily on Friday.

“We are buyers of Spanish debt (bonds). I have confidence in the Spanish government and its policy on financial restructuring,” he added.

Nonetheless, Spain has seen interest rates on its bonds rise in recent days as the markets have fretted over the threat of conta-

gion from the Irish crisis, demanding higher returns to provide financing.

The markets “demand that we be consistent in the reforms that we have announced,” Salgado noted. The reforms so far mean “that Spain has been vaccinated (against the contagion) but ... it is only a small vaccination and we

could still get the flu,” said Rafael Pampillon, economist at IE Business School. “Now the markets want more,” he said, arguing that Spain will have to do more to encourage investors, especially on cutting regional spending and speeding up the restructuring of the savings banks.

The country’s weak point

could be a lack of growth coupled with the European Union’s highest unemployment rate at almost 20 percent, a potentially deadly combination as people without work mean domestic demand will struggle.

Spain’s timid economic recovery ground to a halt in the third quarter as the government cutbacks began to bite, official data showed Wednesday, with analysts warning of worse to come and possible debt risks returning.

“With the full force of the fiscal squeeze yet to be felt and global demand set to slow, it may not be long before activity begins falling again,” said a report by London-based analysts Capital Economics.

“Accordingly, concerns that Spain could suffer its own debt crisis are unlikely to ease,” it said.

Spain came out of a deep recession in the first quarter with growth of 0.1 percent followed by 0.2 percent in the second but it was flat in the third. Forecasts for next year and 2012 are not promising, variously with growth of around 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent. “The economy faces an uncertain future and the latest figures suggest it could flirt with recession (again) at the beginning of 2011,” said Raj Badiani, an analyst with IHS Global Insight.

He noted that the 17 regional governments, which enjoy a large degree of autonomy, are finding it hard to cut their budgets in line with Madrid’s plans.

Spain “could be forced to take on board a new series of austerity measures in order to meet its budget targets,” he warned. The markets will be watching carefully. —AFP

EU and US look to secure Doha trade deal in 2011 Europe’s debt problems figure in talks LISBON: The United States and the European Union promised on Saturday to use their considerable economic weight to try to secure a successful conclusion to the Doha round of global trade negotiations in 2011.

US President Barack Obama held two hours of talks with Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Lisbon, with both sides emphasizing the importance of their economic relationship.

They reaffirmed a commitment made at the G20 summit in Seoul this month to promote balanced growth and avoid competitive currency devaluations that can lead to global imbalances, and underlined the critical importance of bolstering trade.

“We highlighted our commitment to reject protectionism as a response to the challenges our economies face,” read a joint statement released after their first summit in a year.

“We reiterated our strong commitment to direct our negotiators to engage in across-the-board negotiations to promptly bring the Doha Development Agenda to a successful, ambitious, comprehensive and balanced conclusion. “We recognized that 2011 is a critical window of

WTO chief Pascal Lamy opportunity and that engagement among all negotiators must intensify and expand to complete an agreement that will expand trade and open markets.”

The EU’s chief trade negotiator has said he expects Doha, which is aimed at lowering global trade barriers to stimulate economic activity, will be successfully completed in 2011.

The EU and United States, with a combined population of more than 800 million people, are the two largest

Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission

trading powers in the world. The combined value of goods and services commerce between them is more than $4 trillion a year. Saturday’s summit, which was originally scheduled to take place in May but was postponed after US officials said there was no point in meeting if there was nothing to talk about, was billed by the EU as a high-level meeting of equals.

But coming after Obama had just completed a high-profile 10-day visit to Asia, and held on the sidelines of a

summit of NATO’s 28 leaders, the short EU-US meeting lacked moment. The EU and US leaders did not take questions from journalists.

“This summit was not as exciting as other summits because we basically agree on everything,” Obama said.

US and EU officials said afterwards that the meeting had been warm and open, and said the economic crisis in Europe, where debt problems that swamped Greece in May now threaten to deluge Ireland and spread to Portugal, was discussed.

“There were discussions on specific countries, including Ireland,” US ambassador to the EU, William Kennard, told reporters. “President Obama recognized that the EU has put in place a mechanism to address the situation.”

Earlier, during the NATO summit, Obama said the most important thing he could do for the European economy was to promote growth and jobs in the United States, saying that the quicker the US economy recovered, the better it was for all. —Reuters

Ecuador says two oil firms Yoplait chief sees Nestle as ‘ideal’ partner: Report GENEVA: The head of French will not sign new deals dairy food company Yoplait said Oil companies that do not ink new pacts to leave country QUITO: A pair of international oil firms are set to reject new contracts offered by Ecuador’s government as part of the OPEC member’s bid to increase state revenue from the sector, President Rafael Correa said on Saturday.

Tomorrow is the deadline for executives to sign new deals that would throw out profit-sharing arrangements in favor of flat-fee service contracts. The government says companies that do not sign the new pacts would have to leave the country.

“We have lost a pair of companies, what a shame,” Correa said, according to state media.

The leftist leader did not mention any companies by name, but several firms, such as Brazil’s Petrobras and two companies controlled by China’s top oil and gas company, CNPC, have balked at the terms being offered. “We will sign contracts with the grand majority of businesses that accept the new contracts, and maybe a pair of com-

panies that want to leave the country will have their concessions terminated,” he was quoted as saying on the state’s El Ciudadano news site.

Wilson Pastor, Ecuador’s minister for oil policy, said on Friday he hoped the differences could be worked out in time for the deals to be signed tomorrow.

Other oil companies involved in the negotiations include Spain’s Repsol-YPF and Italy’s Eni. The new contracts are key to Correa’s agenda as he fights to increase state revenue from energy and mining after a 2008 debt default restricted Ecuador’s access to international capital markets.

Chinese companies Andes Petroleum and PetroOriental, both controlled by CNPC, have threatened to seek arbitration, saying the talks have been “marked by a lack of transparency-in terms of take it or leave it, confiscatory measures and pressure to accept conditions.” —Reuters

in a newspaper interview yesterday that Swiss food giant Nestle would make an “ideal” partner, with major investment planned in China and India.

Yoplait, the world’s secondbiggest dairy food producer, is in the midst of a battle to take over a 50 percent stake in the company that investment group PAI wants to sell.

Chief executive Lucien Fa told the Swiss newspaper Le Matin Dimanche that he wanted to break with the company’s franchise system and take greater control of operations in local markets.

“That means big investments, especially for China and India, our priorities,” he explained.

Nestle is “in terms of the company profile, the ideal candidate,” Fa was quoted as saying.

“It has the money, the structures, the people. It’s everywhere and shares (our) concern for products that are good for health,” and would help “reduce

the gap with Danone,” he added.

Yoplait’s owners on Thursday rejected a 1.4-billioneuro ($1.9-billion) 100 percent takeover offer from French group Lactalis. Nestle and US

giant General Mills, which has made and distributed Yoplait products in the United States for nearly three decades, are seen as other possible investors.

Yoplait is present in 50 countries and employs 1,500 people, 1,300 of them in France, and has global sales of about 3.5 billion euros, second only sectorleader Danone. —AFP

Irish-euro-zone crisis

The fires behind smoke, mirrors PARIS: EU-euro-zone institutions are fighting the second debt crisis in six months and analysts now ponder openly how they would cope with a third and discuss how the single currency can be given a new lease on life.

There are concerns that the strains could become systemic across Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the socalled weaker PIGS members of the euro-zone, and infecting potentially even Italy.

There is uncertainty about the structure of expected help for Ireland, and concern about what happens when an underlying EU-IMF rescue scheme for euro-zone countries expires in two years’ time.

Unicredit bank chief economist Marco Annunziata, commenting that help for Ireland might calm markets temporarily, also referred to these broader issues of contagion to other countries and strains in the euro-zone.

“The real question which the markets are asking is what will happen after two years, at the end of the support programs? Will it be really possible to avoid a restructuring of debt for these countries as EU leaders say?” he observed.

There is a growing view that any follow-up scheme to shore up euro-zone countries in deep financial trouble would ensure that investors who had financed budget deficits with loans would end up losing a large part of their shirts because states would refuse to underwrite all the bills.

This is because some eurozone members are losing patience, and political popularity, over funding bailouts. It is the policy line stated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel three weeks ago, which many analysts, and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, say was the trigger which blew the latest fuse.

Regarding Ireland, the government insists, and analysts largely accept, that the state has funded its state borrowing requirements up to the middle of next year and has set in hand a robust framework of corrective measures.

Analysts agree also that the main problem is a medium-term but temporary cost of bailing out the broken banking system, that Ireland has a good record of correcting public finances, and that its economy is flexible and open and will benefit quickly from the corrective measures and from exports as world recovery picks up. This contrasts with the Greek debt crisis, the result of profound structural weaknesses throughout the economy.

This goes some way to explaining the irritation of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in insisting at the end of the week that much of the pressure for a rescue was driven by media assertions and was the result of the market behaving “irrationally”.

The reasons why Ireland has become the immediate lightening rod for storm release in the euro-zone are more complex. There is uncertainty over the extent to which Ireland has factored in all risks from guaranteeing the banks, and concern that a vicious circle of weakening confidence will weaken the whole economy.

Announcements that AIB bank has suffered an outflow of 13.0 billion euros ($17.8 billion) of deposits so far this year, and Bank of Ireland 10.0 billion euros or 11.0 percent of its deposit base in three months, illustrate this.

Barclays and UBS banks, for example, mapped the mix in notes to clients. Barclays said that the spark for a sudden rise in borrowing costs for Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy, was a “combination of common and country-specific factors.”

It said: “We think markets have reacted to press reports and wire agencies suggesting large potential losses and recapitalization needs for the Irish banking system.”

Markets had reassessed the budget implications of such costs and had apparently concluded that “sovereign solvency is at risk.”

This had occurred after Germany had proposed a permanent safety mechanism

to follow the current EUIMF scheme expiring in 2013 “which would include an explicit provision on investors’ ‘burden sharing’ in the event of insolvent countries.”

Barclays commented: “So far, lack of clarity on the proposal has left the market guessing whether the mechanism would make sovereign default more likely.”

UBS said: “This time Ireland is the focal point, though concerns are spreading to Portugal as well. Jitters stem from concerns that banking losses will swell Ireland’s debt burden at a time when the political resolve to impose austerity is coming into question and when the European Union may take a tougher stand on sovereign risk.”

UBS said that although the Irish government “doubtless” had enough funding until next year “Ireland requires the confidence of the markets to fund a whole host of private-sector activities too.

“Even if funding is available at current elevated levels, these are unaffordable for most businesses and, indeed, the government as well.” UBS stressed that the governing Fianna Fail and Green coalition held only “a very slim majority” with by-elections pending and a high probability that the government would be dislodged.

The government might not be able to pass its budget for 2011 on December 7. A general election would “damage Ireland’s prospects further, in our view,” UBS said.

Regarding Portugal, UBS said that if it wanted to “square the circle” of correcting public finances “it needs external support to take the borrowing rate back to a ‘reasonable’ level.”

At ING bank, debt strategy analyst Padhraic Garvey said that Ireland, ironically, had a strong bargaining chip because one of the arguments from within the euro-zone, including Portugal, why it should accept help held that this would minimize contagion to other euro-zone countries.

Ireland might then be viewed as “doing the right thing for the greater good”, and could use this to defend a red line the Irish government has drawn: refusal to accept help if a condition is that it raise its 12.5-percent rate of corporate tax.

Several EU countries have long objected that this is unreasonable tax competition, but an increase would strike at the heart of the lowtax, inward-investment policies behind the now wounded “Celtic Tiger” and would therefore compromise recovery.

On Saturday French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the “unprecedented effort” being made by Ireland to sort out its budget but said he could not imagine that Dublin would not raise tax rates.

At BGC Partners in London, senior strategist Howard Wheeldon asked: “Are the markets right to be so troubled about Ireland’s plight? With the problems of Greece far from over yet, and given that the euro is increasingly being seen as a powder keg waiting to blow up, it seems to me that unless the fast-growing heat can suddenly be doused the answer to that question can only be yes.”

He said that the key issue about Ireland now was “getting this dangerous problem off the books.”

The OECD said that a decision by Ireland to opt for help would send an “extremely beneficial” message. But there was a deeper problem. The EU now had to enforce budget discipline with penalties, make the support system permanent, but make clear that countries with solvency problems would not be bailed out and that bond holders would lose money.

The week ended with the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, saying he had “grave concerns” about how economies in the euro-zone have been managed, and that the ECB was “calling for a quantum leap of governance.” —AFP

TECHNOLOGY

Monday, November 22, 2010

27

Social media ‘one part’ of Google strategy: CFO Microsoft a ‘formidable’ competitor

Jobs action figure looks amazingly real If there’s one more thing a true Apple fan should have on his or her desk besides an iMac and an iPhone dock, then it’s this wonderfully crafted Steve Jobs action figure. Jobs’ trademark black turtleneck, blue jeans, and (removable) rimless glasses are all there, of course, but the tiny details like the faithfully replicated New Balance 991 sneakers Steve wears make this one a real winner. Action figure Steve even has a tiny

iPhone in his left hand (he’s holding it wrong, we think), but perhaps the most amusing parts of this cute toy are the speech bubble cards which you can stick to Steve’s head and write your favorite stevejobsian catch phrase on it. The price is $79.90, but we won’t comment on whether that’s too much for Apple’s boss, immortalized in plastic. Just let your heart decide.—Mashable

Facebook-banning pastor acknowledges threesome NEW JERSEY: A pastor who said Facebook was a “portal to infidelity” and told married church leaders to delete their accounts or resign once testified that he had a three-way sexual relationship with his wife and a male church assistant.

The Rev. Cedric Miller confirmed the information reported Saturday by the Asbury Park Press of Neptune, which cited testimony he gave in a criminal case in 2003. The relationship had ended by that time. Miller gained national attention when he issued the Facebook edict this week. He said it came about because much of the marital counseling he has performed over the past year and a half has concerned infidelity stemming from the social-networking website.

The 48-year-old leader of Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune Township had claimed Facebook ignites old passions, and he ordered about 50 married church officials to delete their accounts with the social networking site or resign from their leadership positions. Miller had previously asked married congregants to share their login information with their spouses, as he does, and now plans to suggest that they give up Facebook altogether. The minister also said he would leave the site this week.

In court testimony he gave in April 2003, Miller said his wife had an extramarital affair with the church assistant. Miller said he participated in many of the sexual encounters and said the assis-

tant’s wife was sometimes present, too. Miller said the dalliances , which occurred in the Millers’ home, sometimes took place during Thursday Bible study meetings and Sundays after church.

But the minister said the encounters “came to a crashing halt” when several women in the church accused the assistant of having sex with them.

The testimony was given in connection with a criminal case against the assistant that was eventually dismissed. The names of the church assistant and his wife were not disclosed, and Miller told the newspaper that he was concerned that revisiting the incident would “irreparably” hurt some people.

“It has come to my attention that a very painful part of my past has resurfaced,” Miller wrote in an e-mail sent Friday. Noting that his court testimony was mailed to his church leaders and other pastors several years ago, Miller said, “This was resolved at that time and accordingly we will not allow it to detract from our mission at hand to save as many marriages as we can.” Miller said people must look at his Facebook directives in the proper context.

“My life as a minister, husband, father and friend has led me to the conviction that I must do all that I can to help as many people strengthen, preserve and repair the often times fragile cords of marriage,” Miller wrote. A message left by The Associated Press for the church’s pastor was not immediately returned Saturday.— AP

Facebook credits go on sale in UK LONDON: Online currency, with which Facebook users can purchase pixel-based virtual farm animals or pay to attend virtual events, might seem small beer. But now the online goods economy may be about to boom in the UK, as Tesco and the games retailer Game start selling Facebook credits in more than 1,000 high street stores.

The UK’s 33 million Facebook users will be able to buy so-called “Facebook credits” in the non-pixellated world. The gift cards, costing £10 or £20, will only be redeemable on Facebook, where users can spend the converted currency on any number of nonexistent objects.

The virtual goods economy, where money is spent on items that only exist on the internet, is expected to exceed £550m for social gaming such as Zynga’s Farmville by the end of this year, according to a recent Inside Virtual Goods report. Other estimates show that the total US market for virtual goods will reach $1.6bn this year, up $500m from last year, as the virtual economy worldwide hits more than $6bn. Many of the biggest virtual economies centre around online games such as World of Warcraft.

Now, Facebook credits will be sold in more than 650 Game and Gamestation outlets and 600 Tesco stores in the run-up to Christmas, having been available to purchase online since the beginning of this year. More than 200 apps and games currently accept Facebook credits, a figure sure to increase as the site expands its reach.

The currency has quickly found favour among the growing and increasingly engaged online gaming community - and not just inside Facebook, the world’s most popular social network. Flirtomatic, a social network with 1.8 million users in the UK, sold more virtual roses last year than Interflora sold real roses. Earlier this month, more than 100,000 Flirtomatic citizens “attended” its virtual firework display - online.

Though Facebook retains 30% of the value of sales made using its currency, credits create a new and simple source of income for the developers behind increasingly popular social games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars.

Euan Ballantyne, head of cards at Tesco Bank, said: “Social gaming is becoming increasingly popular, so we are pleased to offer what might be an ideal Christmas present for those who enjoy playing social games on Facebook.”

Asda, the second-biggest supermarket in the UK, said it had no plans to sell Facebook credits, even though its US parent Wal-Mart was the first to sell them in the US.—Guardian

SYDNEY: Internet giant Google yesterday said social media was “absolutely” part of its strategy and would be embedded in “many of our products” but played down its rivalry with networking icon Facebook. Chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said Google was at the centre of an exploding digital economy where computer power was “relentlessly, dramatically increasing” and innovation was crucial to survival. “Search is clearly the core product of Google but many of our other products are having phenomenal trajectories,” Pichette told Australian public television.

“The first driving principle of Google is in fact not moneythe first driving principle of Google is understanding that the Internet is changing the world,” he added.

Pichette said Amazon and Apple were “winning” in the new technology race and Microsoft was a “formidable” competitor, but played down as media hype suggestions that Facebook was Google’s next big rival. “The digital world is exploding and it has so many chapters-it has cloud computing, it has mobile, it does have social, it has searches, it has so many elements. Within that... social (networking) is just one chapter,” said Pichette.

“Yes, absolutely it will be part of our strategy, yes it will be embedded in many of our products. But at the same time remember it’s one chapter of an entire book.” It follows Facebook’s launch of a nextgeneration messaging service this month, seen as a major challenge to Google’s Gmail and fellow web-based email providers Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Hotmail currently has the most users, 361.7 million as of September, according to online tracking firm comScore, followed by Yahoo! with 273.1 million and Gmail with 193.3 million.

Pichette said Google’s Android platform for mobile devices was a “fantastic opportunity” for the company, powering 200,000 handsets every 24 hours.

Android users also performed searches 50 times more frequently than people using other mobile devices, with obvious benefits for Google, he added. “Now that everybody has a smartphone everybody searches, so these few hundred engineers (who developed Android) have accelerated (a market that) would have taken 10 years to develop into a few years,” he said. “My payback is absolutely unreal.”—AFP

News Corp set to unveil iPad newspaper, ‘The Daily’ WASHINGTON: After months of top secret development, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. appears poised to take the wraps off a digital newspaper for the iPad called “The Daily.” News Corp has been tight-lipped about the project but the Australian-born media mogul acknowledged its existence for the first time in an interview last week with his Fox Business Network.

Asked what “exciting projects” his sprawling media and entertainment company was working on, the 79-yearold Murdoch cited The Daily but offered no further information about the tabloid for Apple’s touchscreen tablet computer.

Details about the project have been dribbling out in the US media for weeks, however, and The New York Times, citing two employees who requested anonymity, said News Corp. intends to launch The Daily before the end of the year.

The Times said Sasha Frere-Jones, music critic at The New Yorker magazine, would become its culture editor.

Others reported to be involved include Jesse Angelo, executive editor of Murdoch’s New York Post, Richard Johnson, former editor of the Post’s gossip page, and Greg Clayman, the former head of Viacom’s digital division, who has been tapped to head business operations at The Daily.

Forbes magazine put the total staff

on the project at around 150 and said News Corp. has budgeted 30 million dollars for the first year of the launch.

The Daily brings together three of Murdoch’s passions-newspapers, the iPad and finding a way to charge readers for content online in an era of shrinking newspaper circulation and eroding print advertising revenue.

Murdoch began his career with a single newspaper in his native Australia and while he has expanded into television, movies and book publishing, the News Corp. chairman has always been clear that newspapers are his obsession. At the same time, Murdoch has a serious crush on the iPad, calling it a “game-changer” and potential savior of the struggling newspaper industry.

In an interview in April with The Kalb Report, Murdoch called the iPad a “glimpse of the future.” “There’s going to be tens of millions of these things sold all over the world,” he said. “It may be the saving of newspapers because you don’t have the costs of paper, ink, printing, trucks. “I’m old, I like the tactile experience of the newspaper,” Murdoch admitted, but “if you have less newspapers and more of these that’s OK.” “It doesn’t destroy the traditional newspaper, it just comes in a different form,” he said. Whether Murdoch plans to charge readers a subscription fee for The Daily is not yet known but the

News Corp. chief has made making consumers pay for news online his personal crusade. The Wall Street Journal requires a subscription for full access to WSJ.com and Britain’s The Times and The Sunday Times, two other News Corp. newspapers, recently erected pay walls around their websites.

Murdoch has vowed to begin charging for online access to all of his titles and said in August that he believed most US newspapers would eventually end up doing the same. “You’ll find, I think, most newspapers in this country are going to be putting up a pay wall,” he said, dismissing arguments that readers used to getting news on the Internet for free would be reluctant to pay.

News Corp. chief digital officer Jon Miller told top technology and media executives at a gathering in Aspen, Colorado, in July that the iPad may allow the news industry to start charging for content online after years of giving it away for free. “I think we’re seeing a fundamental shift in where content is consumed and it’s on to these kinds of devices,” he said. “These tablets are heavy media consumption devices, much more than the Web by itself and even smartphones.” He said the iPad and other tablets being developed offer “very media rich experiences that I think do allow a re-set, perhaps a do-over for the media industry, a chance to get it right.”—AFP

Need for speed: Hot Pursuit review In generations to come, when futuristic space children put their hands up in class and ask, “what was the first truly 21st century arcade racing game?” the answer they’ll receive from their robot teachers will be Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.

While the under-rated Blur dabbled in social networking functionality and Disney’s showy Split/Second reveled in cutting edge automotive destruction, it is Criterion’s game that successfully fuses those elements together into one exhilarating ride.

The action takes place in the fictitious coastal country of Seacrest, where petrol-head nutjobs are engaged in turbocharged battle with the traffic cops. Through a series of un-lockable events and challenges, players swap between the two sides, earning points and unveiling shiny new vehicles as they go.

One minute you’ll be competing in a four-car Hot Pursuit, angling for first place as the cops attempt to shunt you all off the road; the next you’ll be in a squad car on an Interceptor mission, desperately trying to smash boy racers into trackside barriers. As you progress, more areas of the map open up, each offering a range of new missions - including against-the-clock time trials, duels against single enemies and the mouth-watering preview sessions where you get to try out scorching hot exotics like the McLaren F1 and Pagani Zonda

Roadster ages before you’re able to unlock them for real.

Typically for a Criterion racer, players are free to attempt unlocked events in any order they like. Racers get a gold, silver or bronze medal at the end of each task depending on their performance, while cops get a distinction, merit or pass - so there’s always room to come back and try for a better rating if you’ve only just scraped through. Better still, connect the console to the net and the game monitors all of your Xbox Live or PSN friends, showing your best times against theirs and letting you know when a pal performs better.

The neat “Autolog Recommends” mode also picks out key times achieved by mates and lets you go straight in to challenge them; this creates a beautifully seamless sense of competitive multiplayer action, even if you’re never all online at the same time.

But if you do manage a synchronised cyberspace get-together, Hot Pursuit really comes alive.

Via a vast range of customizable race options, drivers can engage in thrilling multiplayer road fights, ranging from straight-up eight-car races to four-vs-four challenges, where police squads face racer gangs.

The latter are just ridiculously enjoyable. Cops must work together to shut down racers, while the racers themselves are competing for first place while

occasionally teaming up to see off squad cars. The perfectly judged power-up system provides both sides with spike strips that can be dropped to pop the tyres of pursuers, as well as electromagnetic pulse systems that target vehicles just ahead of you with a systemcrashing boost of energy.

The police also get to call in

road blocks and helicopter support, while racers get a one-off turbo boost that sends their vehicles scorching into hyperspace.

These power-ups can also be gradually unlocked through the career mode, and they add a hugely satisfying competitive twist to the events. They’re not as visually captivating as the weapons in

Blur or WipEout HD, or as entertainingly destructive as the scenic special moves in Split/Second, but they’re certainly better balanced and less intrusive, providing an augmentation to good, solid driving rather than a scene-stealing get-out-last-place-free card for slow coaches.

This certainly isn’t the bruis-

ing smash-happy joyride some misguided fools may expect from the catchall term “arcade racer”.

With a handling model that nudges in somewhere between the Burnout series and the more sim-like Need For Speed: Shift, it’s a technically demanding racer that takes its array of beautiful motors seriously.—Guardian

HEALTH & SCIENCE

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Oklahoma hospital invokes Native American healing arts Blending sacred healing traditions with cutting-edge medicine ADA: Nestled amid green fields and stream-filled w oodlands, a new hospital opened by the Chickasaw Nation blends sacred Native American healing traditions w ith cutting-edge medicine. It is one of a grow ing number of medical centers in the United States that recognize healing is about more than just drugs and IV drips. Instead, they take an approach based on the belief that patients can recover more quickly w hen their cultural and spiritual beliefs are accommodated. “Although w e rely on conventional medicine, there are still folks w ho believe that healing is not just for your physical body... it’s for your spirit as w ell,” said Bill Anoatubby, governor of the Chickasaw nation that numbers more than 49,000 citizens.

ADA: This undated photo shows the front view of the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center, a 358,000-squarefoot (33,259-square-meter), 72-bed medical center on 230 acres (93 hectares) of tribal lands. —AFP

Indonesia declares protected zone to save the coral reefs NUSA PENIDA: Indonesia yesterday declared the coral-rich waters around Bali-a popular scuba diving spot which is home to the giant Mola-Mola ocean sunfish-a protected zone.

The 20,000-hectare area around Nusa Penida, Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Lembongan islands will be protected from destructive fishing, waste dumping and coral mining, project leader Marthen Welly said.”Destructive fishing is carried out by fishermen using cyanide and explosives,” Welly of the conservation group The Nature Conservancy (TNC) said.

“Many ships also throw anchors on the coral reefs and hotels and households dump wastes causing water pollution.

Now they can’t do these anymore,” he said. Guidelines for marine tourism will also be drawn up and zones carved out for various activities including fishing, tourism and seaweed

NUSA PENIDA: A diver of the nature Conservancy inspect coral at Nusa Penida sea in Klungkung, Bali island, yesterday. — AFP mining, Welly said. “We’ll need to consult the community further and we hope to do this within six months,” he added.

The islands are part of Coral Triangle, considered the

world’s richest underwater wilderness which stretches across six nations between the Indian and Pacific oceansIndonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, East Timor, Papua

New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Divers from all over the world arrive at the islands between July and September in the hope of seeing the MolaMola, a rare two-metre-long ocean sunfish. The district government will provide 300 million rupiah (33,600 dollars) and aid agency USAID and TNC will each provide 50,000 dollars a year to run the project, TNC Indonesia director Arwandrija Rukma said.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad said the project will contribute to the government’s target of creating 20 million hectares of maritime conservation parks by 2020, up from around 13 million currently. “The establishment of MPA (Marine Protected Area) is a concrete step taken by the government to implement the plan of action under the Coral Triangle Initiative,” he said. — AFP

Countries agree on tobacco controls at the WHO summit PUNTA DEL ESTE: Representatives of 172 countries on Saturday agreed at a World Health Organization meeting on guidelines to control the use and sale of tobacco products. At the meeting, the signatories of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control agreed to link the controls to broader economic development issues, said event president Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku of South Africa.

The event, known as the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the global tobacco treaty, approved guidelines on controlling tobacco flavorings and additives despite lobbying from the tobacco industry.

Control supporters say that tobacco companies use the flavorings to attract young smokers. “There are hundreds of chemical substances that are used in tobacco products to make them more attractive and are aimed especially at the young public,” Antoon Opperhuizen, a top COP official said. The countries agreed to integrate smoking cessation programs into national health systems, and support programs aimed at educating people about the health risks of smoking, the WHO said in a statement. “These guidelines will help countries adapt their laws to meet the false arguments of the tobacco industry,” said Canadian Cancer Society senior policy analyst Rob Cunningham.

The COP also formed a working group to draft guidelines on taxing tobacco products, which supporters say is the most effective short-term measure to

reduce consumption. “This has been a very successful week concerning tobacco control policies,” said Uruguayan Public Health Minister Daniel Olesker.

The treaty signers have demonstrated “a willingness to protect the health of the citizens of the world rather than the interests of the tobacco industry,” said Laurent Huber, Director of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), an NGO that represents more than 350 groups worldwide supporting tobacco controls. Also at the press conference was Uruguay’s Ricardo Varela, the president-

elect of the next COP that will take place in 2012 in South Korea.

Representatives of the tobacco industry, which fiercely opposes the regulations, pitched a tent outside the hotel during the week-long conference where the WHO meeting was taking place to present their views.

Producers claim flavored tobacco products represent half of global consumption, and worry that the regulations would trigger bans of some of their most popular products. “If we prohibit production of the American blend, which is made with a mix of Virginia,

Burley and Oriental leaves, it will impact more than six million producers worldwide,” said Antonio Abrunhosa, a Portuguese tobacco-farmer who serves as chief executive of the International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA).

COP members on Thursday showed their support for Uruguay, which is facing a lawsuit from tobacco giant Philip Morris for its strict tobacco control measures that include graphic warnings covering 80 percent of tobacco packages, and bans smoking in all enclosed public spaces. — AFP

URUGUAY: A young man walks through an installation set up by the Uruguayan National Fund of Resources to warn against the harmful effects of smoking tobacco. — AFP

Chickasaw traditions include deep ties to nature and family, so the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center was designed to provide a peaceful environment with space for healing ceremonies and plenty of visitors. Large windows eliminate the need for artificial lighting on sunny days and provide patients with soothing views of the prairie sky and 230 acres of green fields and woodlands from their spacious rooms. “It cheers you up-you don’t feel trapped in this box,” said Larry Speck, lead architect on the project with Austin, T e x a s - b a s e d PageSoutherlandPage. Trails of crushed granite lead from the back of the hospital to a seating area in a “dry-creek” motif that will be used for healing ceremonies.

And since the 370,000square-foot center-the largest Native American hospital in the United States-serves members of all federally recognized tribes, it was also designed to accommodate other tribal practices. Plans are already underway to build a smudge pit-a smoke pit for ceremonies-and officials are eager to learn more about the needs of neighboring tribes who may use the center.

In the state of Oklahoma alone, there are more than 40 tribes.

Native Americans have struggled against a neglectful and at times oppressive federal government since the founding of the republic, and to this day the nation’s 1.9 million Native Americans in 565 federally recognized tribes still suffer from discrimination and higher rates of poverty.

Chickasaw art makes them comfortable-The hospital replaces an outdated facility that was surrounded by fastfood restaurants on a busy street in nearby Ada, Oklahoma, and brings more sophisticated medical equipment to the underserved Native American population.

The 145 million-dollar center was paid for with revenues from casinos and other business ventures like chocolate factories, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Health Service pays for the staff. The center includes a 72-bed hospital, an emergency department, a diabetes care center, a women’s health center, a dental clinic, a diagnostic imaging center and tribal health programs.

A centrally located “town center” bridges the patient care centers and administrative offices. “The setting is very calm and peaceful,” said Dr Judy Parker, the hospital’s administrator. “We’re having more patients requesting that they stay another day,” she said. “That didn’t happen before.” The facility also houses the region’s only 256-slice CAT scan and the imaging department will also provide mammography, ultrasound, bone scan and MRI services.

The facility’s architects worked to embody Chickasaw traditions in all aspects of the building, finding inspiration in the tribe’s traditional jewelry and art. Long diamond patterns on the floors and ceilings echo a stunning Chickasaw beaded necklace displayed in the hospital’s lobby.

Four graceful canopies modeled on traditional woven baskets line the entryways to the hospital and clinic areas, while limestone from four area quarries and local copper panels bring earth elements into the design. Chickasaw art lines the walls, including a walkway leading to the surgical waiting area, which displays paintings of Chickasaw elders by renowned tribal artist Mike Larsen. One of the paintings is of Pearl Carter Scott, who became the nation’s youngest licensed pilot in 1928 at the age of 13. “So many of the people who come through here know these people,” said Debbie Jackson, Chickasaw director of customer relations. “It makes people comfortable to have the arts and the crafts.” — AFP

ADA: File photo shows the entry lobby of the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center. — AFP

Russia hosts ‘tiger summit’ ST PETERSBURG: Global wildlife experts and officials from 13 countries opened a “tiger summit” yesterday to discuss how to save the big cats whose numbers have shrunk so sharply they could become extinct if quick measures are not taken.

The World Wildlife Fund and other experts say only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild, a dramatic plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago. James Leape, director general of the World Wildlife Fund, told the meeting in St Petersburg that if the proper protective measures aren’t taken, tigers may disappear by 2022, the next Chinese calendar year of the tiger. Their habitat is being destroyed by forest cutting and construction, and they are a valuable trophy for poachers who want their skins and body parts prized in Chinese traditional medicine.

The summit, which lasts through Wednesday, is hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has proficiently used encounters with tigers and other wild animals to bolster his image.

It’s driven by the Global Tiger Initiative which was launched two years ago by World Bank

President Robert Zoellick. The summit plans to approve a wideranging program with the goal of doubling the world’s tiger population in the wild by 2022 and to produce a declaration of commitment signed by government leaders from all countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia.

“I hope we will take all efforts to double the population of tigers,” Leape said. The summit will be seeking donor commitments to help governments finance conservationist measures. A draft of the Global Tiger Recovery Program, expected to be approved at the meeting, estimates the countries will need $330 million in outside funding over the next five years to fulfill the plan. About 30 percent of that estimate would go toward programs to suppress the poaching of tigers and of the animals they prey on.

For advocates, saving tigers has implications far beyond the emotional appeal of preserving a graceful and majestic animal.

“Wild tigers are not only a sym-

bol of all that is splendid, mystical and powerful about nature,” the Global Tiger Initiative said in a statement. “They are also a beacon of biodiversity, linking together the forests they inhabit and the natural resources and ecosystem services that their habitats produce for people.”

“The loss of tigers and degradation of their ecosystems would inevitably result in a historic, cultural, spiritual, and environmental catastrophe for the Tiger Range Countries.” Three tiger subspecies - the Bali, Javan, and Caspian - already have become extinct in the past 70 years.

Over the past two decades, much has been done to try to save tigers, but conservation groups say their numbers have continued to fall markedly, by about one-third just since 1998.

In part, that decline is because conservation efforts have been increasingly diverse and often aimed at improving habitats outside protected areas where tigers can breed, according to a study published in September in the Popular Library of Science Biology journal. Putin has done much to draw attention to tigers’ plight. — AP

ST PETERSBURG: Ministers of Forestry and Natural Resources from tiger range countries leave a news conference at the International Tiger Forum at Mariinsky palace in Russia yesterday. —AP

No letup in carbon emissions, scientists warn PARIS: Emissions of fossil-fuel gases that stoke climate change edged back less than hoped in 2009 as falls in advanced economies were largely outweighed by rises in China and India, scientists said yesterday.

For 2010, emissions are likely to resume their upward track, scaling a new peak, they warned.

Annual emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of oil, gas and coal were 30.8 billion tons, a retreat of only 1.3 percent in 2009 compared with 2008, a record year, they said in a letter to the journal Nature Geoscience.

The global decrease was less than half that had been expected, because emerging giant economies were unaffected by the downturn that hit many large industrialized nations. In addition, they burned more coal, the biggest source of fossil-fuel carbon, while their economies struggled with a higher “carbon intensity,” a measure of fuel-efficiency. Emissions of fossil-fuel gases in 2009 fell by 11.8 percent in Japan, by 6.9 percent in the United States, by 8.6 percent in Britain, by seven percent in Germany and by 8.4 percent in Russia, the paper said. In contrast, they rose

by eight percent in China, by 6.2 percent in India and 1.4 percent in South Korea. As a result, China strengthened its unenvied position as the world’s No 1 emitter of fossil-fuel CO2, accounting for a whopping 24 percent of the total. The United States remained second, with 17 percent. Fossil fuels account for 88 percent of all emissions from CO2, the principal “greenhouse gas” blamed for trapping the Sun’s rays and causing global warming, the driver of potentially catastrophic changes to Earth’s climate system. Concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere from all sources reached a record high of 387 parts per million (ppm), the study said. “The 2009 drop in C02 emissions is less than half that anticipated a year ago,” said Pierre Friedlingstein, a professor at the University of Exeter in Britain, which led the study.

“This is because the drop in world gross domestic product was less than anticipated and the carbon intensity of world GDP, which is the amount of CO2 released per unit of GDP, improved by only 0.7 percent in 2009 — well below its long-term average of 1.7 percent.” — AFP

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WHATʼS ON IN KUWAIT

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Indian Doctors Forum conducts ‘Diabetes Awareness Campaign’ iabetes is a major public health issue.

Everybody should join hands to combat this D life style disorder. In commemoration of World

Dr Ahmed Al-Shatti

Dr Abdulla Ben Naqi

Arpan to present ‘Tune & Taste-2010’ rpan Kuwait will present ‘Tune & TasteA 2010’-a festival of food, music and heritage-to mark the 11th anniversary of the association at the Indian Community School (Senior Girls), Salmiya on December 3. The celebration presenting a potpourri of cultural programs will start at 9:30 am and conclude at 6.30 pm.

Rajkalesh, the versatile television anchor and the producer of popular TV show, “Taste of Kerala” and “Taste of Dubai” will supervise cookery shows and competitions as part of the celebration.

Rajkalesh, who presented stage and television shows in and outside India, will adjudge the winners of the cooking competitions that will be held in major cen-

ters in Kuwait prior to the final on December 3. Also a magician, trained under world famous magician Gopinath Muthukad, Rajkalesh will mesmerize the audience with his spellbinding ‘Magic and illusions’ show.

The added attraction of the day-long celebration will be a musical extravaganza to be presented by well-known Idea Star singers Roshan, William Issac and Neelima along with upcoming playback singer Uma. Classical and folk dance performances, folk song presentations etc will add spices to the unique program ‘Tune & Taste -2010’.

For details and participation in cooking competitions, email to: arpankwt@yahoo.com

Comedy night at AUK he American University of Kuwait (AUK) Drama Club is hosting a comedy program entitled Sketches and Sets; an Tevening of original standup and sketch comedy on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 7 pm at AUK Auditorium. All the performers are students and staff of AUK. For further information please contact Zaid Al-Kazemi at 99666153 or emails00012695@auk.edu.kw.

Indian Ambassador Ajai Malhotra

Diabetes Day on Nov 14, Indian Doctors Forum conducted a diabetes screening and seminar at Kuwait Medical Association hall last Friday. More than 200 individuals were screened for diabetes and free spot consultation was offered by a group of doctors comprising of Dr Arjith, Dr Yousuf Dar, Dr Shankar, Dr Ramaswamy, Dr Sanjay, Dr Thinaker Vel, Dr Sreekumar and Dr Amir Ahmed.

Dr Ahmed Al-Shatti ,WHO expert on Health Promotion and Director of Occupational Health under the Ministry of Health and prominent health activist in his address emphasized the role of prevention, and the role of creating awareness . He appreciated the initiative taken by IDF for prevention of this life style disorder.

Deputy Director of Dasman Centre for Diabetes Research and prominent Diabetologist, Dr Abdulla Ben Naqi in his presentation outlined the growing problems of diabetes, and the gross economic burden on the individual and the state at large. He informed that the incidence of diabetes among children was increasing at an alarming rate & announced a plan by Dasman Diabetic Research Center to educate as well as screen all school children in Kuwait.

Dr Noble Zackaria, prominent Diabetologist from Al Dhamar Hospital gave an overall review of diabetes with emphasis on medical nutrition therapy and dietary modifications. Dr Unnikrishnan, specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation spoke on the role of exercise

ICSK celebrates Hindi Diwas he love for one’s language is a special quality of Thuman beings. A civilization is also known by the beauty and charm of its language.

As Indians we are blessed with a language which incorporates a great culture and tradition of literary works which we call as our National language - Hindi.

September 14 every year is celebrated as Hindi Diwas by the Indians. At ICSK Amman, a rich tribute was paid to the language through a series of special assemblies from November 2-4.

The children of our branch showcased their knowledge of Hindi through speeches, songs and skits on all three days. It was an out of the world experience that made everyone present to be aware of the intense legacy that we belong to as Indians.

The Principal Sridevi Pradeep, too addressed the assembly in Hindi and it was a cherished moment. All the three days that commemorated the greatness of our “Rashtriya Basha” revived the desire in each one of us to learn and know more about this versatile language.

Sivaranjini Fine Arts

Relief Efforts elief Efforts Kuwait is hosting a R dinner for Abrar-Ul-Haq to help rehabilitate the Pakistani flood victims on Friday, December 3, 2010. Please call 65840229 for more information.

Aware he AWARE Management is glad to inform you that Winter 1 Arabic language courses will begin on November 21st until December 29th, 2010. AWARE Arabic language courses are designed with the expat in mind. The environment is relaxed & courses are designed for those wanting to learn Arabic for travel, cultural understanding, and conducting business or simply to become more involved in the community. We cater to teachers, travelers & those working in the private business sector.

AWARE Arabic courses highlight: • Introductory to Level 4 Arabic language basics • Better prepare you for speaking, reading and writing Arabic • Combine language learning with cultural insights • Taught in multi-nationality group settings • Provide opportunities to interact with Western expatriates and native Kuwaitis/Arabs.

For more information, call 25335260/80 ext 105 or 104 or e-mail: Htaware.hassan@gmail.com or log onto: www.aware.com.kw.”

“T

in diabetes both as a preventive measure and as a part of management.

Dr Nampoory , President of IDF stressed on the community welfare activities of IDF .

He announced that IDF Health Guide - Volume 6 to be released in Feb 2011 will solely be devoted to ‘Diabetes’. Furthermore as a part of creating awareness among public, IDF is cosponsoring the walkathon organized by CENTREPOINT on Nov 27 along with the Ministry of Health, Dasman Diabetes Research Centre & Kuwait Diabetes Society.

Indian Ambassador to Kuwait Ajai Malhotra in his address lauded the role of IDF in promoting health awareness among the community.

The embassy has joined hands with IDF to reach out to different communities by forwarding awareness promotional leaflets on ‘dos and don’ts’ of diabetes in different regional Indian languages.

The final session was a highly interactive Question & Answer session. More than 50 questions related to different aspects of diabetes was addressed by a panel of experts from different specialities comprising of Dr Nampoory (Nephrologists), Dr John Alexander (Neurologist), Dr Arjith Chatopadhya (Endocrinologist), Dr Syed Belgrami (Surgeon), Dr Arun Narayanswamy (Urologist), Dr Ganga Devi (Gynecologist), Dr Arun Joshi (Dermatologist), Dr Niranjan Kumar (Ophthalmologist), Dr Unnikrishnan (Physical Medicine) & Dr Noble Zackaria (Diabetologist). The meeting was conducted by Dr Amir Ahmed (Vice President - IDF) & the vote of thanks was proposed by Dr Murali Gopal (General Secretary - IDF).

ivaranjani Fine Arts is organizing a culS tural evening with students and a memorable evening with the world famous profesEMBASSY 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 24913204).

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, AlMutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca.

The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. Consular Ser vices for Canadian Citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00 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 infor m

Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Gover nment 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.

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.

The increased fees are to take effect June 4, 2010. Under the new rule, applicants for all visas that are not petitionbased, 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.

EMBASSY OF THE US 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.

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.

sional troupe of Rajhesh Vaidhya from Chennai. Rajesh was awarded the title ‘Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peeta Aasthana Vidwan’, for his splendid rendering on the VEENA. Rajhesh Vaidhya and his troupe from Chennai will perform on Friday, the 3rd of December, 2010 at Carmel school auditorium, Khaitan along with variety of musical rendering by the students of the fine arts.

All are welcome. But if you would like to be a special invitee and have the privilege of meeting and dining with Shri Rajesh Vaidya, please send the names of the person who will attend the program along with you to info@shivaranjanifinearts.com for further details.

Rajhesh Vaidhya was brought up in a rich musical environment. His father Sri K M Vaidyanathan was a stalwart both in Mridangam and Ghatam. His tutelage under Smt Jeyalakshmi started at the tender age of six. He continued learning the finer nuances of music from Smt Rama Nambinarayanan and his advanced training from the worldrenowned carnatic veena maestro Shri Chitti Babu. Rajhesh Vaidhya is not only a renowned musician in India, his fame and popularity spreads in all the musical stages around the world including Europe, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius, Canada, USA and many more.

RajheshVaidhya was introduced as a Film Music Director in the movie “VEGAM” by Shri.S.Ve.Shekher, starring Ashwin Shekher.

Many Albums and Audio CD’s re composed and recorded by Rajhesh himself like, Temptations, Hurricane, Rampage etc. He has also composed music for some of the famous Tele serials. His website: www. http://www.rajheshvaidhya.com/profile.php

Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

Monday, November 22, 2010

WHATʼS ON IN KUWAIT

Indian Ambassador Ajai Malhotra receives books on Goa for the library from Former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro and Goa Chief Secretary SK Srivastava at India House.

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Indian Ambassador Ajai Malhotra and his spouse Ira Malhotra are seen with other Goan officials.

Indian ambassador hosts Goan representatives he Ambassador of India Tresentatives Ajai Malhotra hosted repof the Goan community in Kuwait to interact with former Chief Minister of Goa and Member of the Congress Working Committee, Luizinho Faleiro, Goa Chief Secretary S K Srivastava, alongside prominent Goans from a dozen countries, including India.

Also present at the meeting were eminent authors, poets, educationists, and other Konkani speakers from Goa who were visiting Kuwait for the fifth Global Goans Convention held in Kuwait from November 16-17, 2010.

Addressing the gathering, Ambassador Malhotra noted that Kuwait is a home away

from home for nearly 50,000 Goans. They are a vibrant part of the Indian community in Kuwait, which is acknowledged as being sincere, hardworking, talented, and disciplined. He complimented Goans in Kuwait for nurturing their culture, including through music, dance, theater, and football, while extending humanitarian support to the needy. Faleiro and Chief Secretary Srivastava thanked the ambassador for support and assistance to the community.

Faleiro also gifted his autobiography, “My Goa”, to the Ambassador, while the Chief Secretary presented books on Goa for the embassy library.

Aware center announcements o you have moved to Kuwait. Are you feeling Disoriented, Disgruntled or Disillusioned? Are you experiencing “Culture Shock”? You are not alone. If you or someone you know has experienced the uncertainty of an extended stay abroad, you may be dealing with the reality of “culture shock.” Is this a hackneyed, overdramatic term or a legitimate state of mind? Come share your story with Dr Linda Fouke as she leads a discussion entitled, “Clueless in Kuwait - 9 Helpful Habits while in Kuwait plus 1 more.”

At this presentation you will learn more about the phases of culture shock and 10 essential keys to helping you cope with the stresses of relocation. If you are interested, the AWARE Center is the best place to visit tomorrow at 7:00 pm. For more information, please call 25335260/70 ext 105 or 104 or e-mail: Htaware.hassan@gmail.com

S

KNES observes Remembrance Day uwait National English School held a special assembly for Remembrance Day. The event was K celebrated using a video putting the event in a historical context; students lit candles for peace and sang special songs. Power Point presentations explained the historical significance of Remembrance Day and

German Board of Oral Implantology n cooperation with Kuwait Dental Association in its third year, and after graduating 33 dentists in the past two years from Kuwait and abroad, with Kuwait becoming the regional center for the German Board of Oral Implantology (GBOI) in the Gulf. We like to announce to all dentists in Kuwait and abroad that registration for the third batch 2010 - 2011 is being held at Kuwait Dental Association to begin study on December 3, 2010.

I

of the wearing of poppies from the end of the First World War. Two minutes of silence were observed.

An emphasis was put on the importance of paying respect to the visionary soldiers of mankind who gave their lives for the freedom of others. Kuwait National English School takes pride in promoting the

values of Respect, Tolerance, Justice and Freedom, values which are essential to the students. To officially commemorate November 11, Remembrance Day, Kuwait National English School, at the invitation of her Majesty’s Ambassador, Frank Baker, went to the British Embassy. Some primary and secondary stu-

dents and staff attended the ceremony and were able to put flowers at the cenotaph and hold a minute of silence. Embassy staff then showed them around the beautiful garden and the Ambassador’s residence, where they presented a bouquet of flowers to Baker’s spouse.

NPIS Hawally celebrates Allama Iqbal Day

Lecture Aware Center holds dinner and lecture on “The GCC: Achievements, Ambitions and Challenges” which will be presented by Abdullah Yaccoub Bishara, President of The Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies. The event will be held on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 7:00 pm at the Aware center. For reservations, contact us on 25335280 or e-mail info@aware.com.kw.

Indian Ambassador Ajai Malhotra is seen with the Goan diaspora members at India House.

llama Iqbal Day was celebrated on November 9, 2010 to pay homage to this great poet who changed the destiny of the Muslims of Sub-Continent with his revolutionary poetry. The Pakistani students from Class 5A-10P enthusiastically manifested the great services of Allama Iqbal through poems, speeches, debates, quizzes and a performance on Pakistani National Song and tableaux. The students clad in traditional Pakistani dresses maniA folded the rapture of the occasion. Anita Bukharey, the school’s Director honored the occasion and appreciated the efforts of the students as well as the teachers who highlighted the importance of the day in an impressive and motivating way.

TV PROGRAMS

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Orbit / Showtime Listings Morgan Freeman 23:00 Mega Builders 23:50 Superships 00:00 Ellen de Generes 01:00 Kathy Griffin 02:00 GMA Live repeat 03:00 Momma’s Boys 04:00 The Invisible Man 05:00 Ghost Whisperer 06:00 GMA Live repeat 07:00 Kathy Griffin 08:00 Eureka 09:00 Criminal Minds Scoundrels 10:00 Ellen de Generes 11:00 Damages 12:00 The Invisible Man 13:00 Momma’s Boys 14:00 Eureka 15:00 GMA Live 17:00 Criminal Minds Scoundrels 18:00 Ellen de Generes 19:00 Royal Pains 20:00 Big Love 21:00 Rescue Me 22:00 Dollhouse 23:00 Janice Dickinson

00:50 Sharkbite Summer 01:45 Untamed And Uncut 02:40 The Most Extreme 03:35 Untamed And Uncut 04:30 I Was Bitten 05:25 Animal Cops Philadelphia 06:20 Untamed And Uncut 07:10 Wildlife SOS 07:35 Sspca: On The Wildside 08:00 Corwin’s Quest 08:50 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 09:40 Groomer Has It 10:35 In Too Deep 11:55 Monkey Life 12:20 Sspca: On The Wildside 12:50 Animal Precinct 13:45 E-Vets: The Interns 14:10 Pet Rescue 14:40 Animal Cops Houston 15:35 Wildlife SOS International 16:00 Sspca: On The Wildside 16:30 Dogs 101 17:25 Project Puppy 18:20 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 19:15 Wildest Africa 20:10 Shark After Dark 21:10 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 22:05 Rogue Nature With Dave Salmoni 23:00 Maneaters 23:55 Animal Cops Houston

00:25 Life On Mars 01:20 The Jonathan Ross Show 02:05 Casualty 02:55 Casualty 03:45 The Weakest Link 04:30 The Roly Mo Show 04:45 Fimbles 05:05 Penelope K, By The Way 05:15 Tellytales 05:25 Me Too 05:45 Forget Me Not Farm 06:00 The Roly Mo Show 06:15 Fimbles 06:35 Penelope K, By The Way 06:45 Tellytales 06:55 Me Too 07:15 Forget Me Not Farm 07:30 The Roly Mo Show 07:45 Fimbles 08:00 Penelope K, By The Way 08:10 Tellytales 08:20 Me Too 08:45 Forget Me Not Farm 09:00 The Roly Mo Show 09:15 Penelope K, By The Way 09:25 Fimbles 09:45 Tellytales 09:55 Me Too 10:15 Forget Me Not Farm 10:30 Mastermind 2006 11:00 Last Of The Summer Wine 12:00 The Weakest Link 12:45 Heart And Soul 13:35 Doctors 14:05 Mastermind 2006 14:35 Michael Palin’s New Europe 15:35 Last Of The Summer Wine 16:35 Heart And Soul 17:25 The Weakest Link 18:10 Doctors 18:40 Mastermind 2006 19:10 Michael Palin’s New Europe 20:10 Heart And Soul 21:00 The Weakest Link 21:45 Doctors 22:15 Eastenders 22:45 Holby City 23:45 Conviction

00:20 Masterchef 01:20 Masterchef 01:50 Masterchef 02:20 Saturday Kitchen 2008/09 02:45 Living In The Sun 03:35 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 04:20 The Home Show 05:05 Cash In The Attic 05:50 Fantasy Homes In The City 06:30 Masterchef 07:00 Masterchef 07:30 Cash In The Attic 08:15 Antiques Roadshow 09:05 What Not To Wear 09:55 Antiques Roadshow 10:50 Hidden Potential 11:10 Cash In The Attic USA 11:35 Cooked 12:00 What To Eat Now - Autumn 12:30 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is 13:20 Fantasy Homes In The City 14:10 The Restaurant UK 15:00 What Not To Wear 15:50 Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is 16:40 Cooked 17:10 Bargain Hunt 17:55 Masterchef 18:25 Cash In The Attic USA 18:50 Daily Cooks Challenge 19:20 Daily Cooks Challenge 19:50 The Restaurant UK 20:40 Masterchef 21:10 Glamour Puds 21:35 Chef At Home 22:00 Home For Life 22:50 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 23:40 The Restaurant UK

00:40 Destroyed In Seconds 01:35 Motor City Motors 02:30 Wheeler Dealers 03:25 X-Machines 04:20 How Stuff’s Made 04:50 How Do They Do It? 05:15 Destroyed In Seconds 06:05 Extreme Engineering 07:00 Fifth Gear 07:25 Extreme Engineering 08:15 American Chopper 09:10 Mythbusters 10:05 Ultimate Survival 10:55 Overhaulin’ 11:50 The Gadget Show 12:20 How Stuff’s Made 12:45 How Do They Do It? 13:15 Mythbusters 14:10 Miami Ink 15:05 Ultimate Survival 16:00 Dirty Jobs 16:55 Overhaulin’ 17:50 Mythbusters 18:45 Cake Boss 19:10 Border Security 19:40 The Gadget Show 20:05 How Do They Do It? 20:35 How Stuff’s Made 21:00 Dual Survival 21:55 Deadliest Catch 22:50 Swamp Loggers 23:45 Undercover

00:40 Perfect Disaster 01:30 Engineered 02:20 Stephen Hawking’s Universe 03:10 Nasa’s Greatest Missions 04:00 The Colony 04:50 The Colony 05:45 Weird Or What?

06:40 How Does That Work?

07:10 The Future Of...

08:00 Thunder Races 09:00 Sci-Fi Science 09:30 Sci-Fi Science 10:00 What’s That About?

10:55 Stunt Junkies 11:20 The Gadget Show 11:50 The Future Of...

12:45 How Does That Work?

13:15 Da Vinci’s Machines 14:10 Weird Connections 14:35 What’s That About?

15:30 Nextworld 16:25 The Gadget Show 16:55 Sci-Fi Science 17:20 Sci-Fi Science 17:50 Building The Biggest 18:45 Brainiac 19:40 Mega Builders 20:30 Superships 21:20 How It’s Made 21:45 The Gadget Show 22:10 Through The Wormhole With

00:40 Dr 90210 01:30 E! Investigates 03:15 Extreme Hollywood 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Battle Of The Hollywood Hotties 05:30 Streets Of Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:45 Behind The Scenes 08:10 Fashion Police 08:35 E! News 09:25 Giuliana And Bill 09:50 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 10:15 40 Smokin’ On Set Hookups 12:00 E! News 12:50 Fashion Police 13:15 Pretty Wild 13:40 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:05 Kendra 14:30 E!es 15:25 THS 16:15 Behind The Scenes 17:10 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 18:00 E! News 18:50 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 19:15 Pretty Wild 19:40 E!es 20:30 Kendra 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:20 The Spin Crowd 22:10 E! News 23:00 Fashion Police 23:25 Kendra 23:50 Kourtney And Khloe Take Miami

00:00 M1 Challange 01:40 Strikeforce 02:25 High Life 03:45 Roxy Jam 04:10 Winter Dew Tour 09/10 05:50 Winter X Games 13 07:30 I-Ex 09:00 Fim World Motocross Championships 2009 09:50 Winter Dew Tour 09/10 11:30 Flipside 11:55 Fim World Motocross Mx1 = Mx2 12:45 Fantasy Factory 13:10 Fantasy Factory 13:35 Mantracker Series 3 14:25 Untracked Series 2 15:15 Alpine Adventurer 16:05 Fim World Motocross Mx1 = Mx2 16:55 Fantasy Factory 17:45 Fim World Motocross Championships 2009 18:35 Winter Dew Tour 09/10 20:15 Flipside 20:40 Mantracker Series 3 21:30 Fantasy Factory 22:20 Fim World Motocross Mx1 = Mx2 23:10 Alpine Adventurer

00:00 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 00:30 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:00 Food Network Challenge 02:00 30 Minute Meals 02:30 Tyler’s Ultimate 03:00 Food Network Challenge 04:00 Barefoot Contessa 04:30 Unwrapped 05:00 Iron Chef America 06:00 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 07:00 Chopped 08:00 Paula’s Best Dishes 08:25 Good Deal with Dave Lieberman 08:50 Guys Big Bite 09:15 Barefoot Contessa 09:40 Everyday Italian 10:05 30 Minute Meals 10:30 Tyler’s Ultimate 11:00 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 11:30 Barefoot Contessa 12:00 Unwrapped 12:30 Paula’s Party 13:30 Guys Big Bite 14:00 Good Deal with Dave Lieberman 14:30 Paula’s Best Dishes 15:00 Barefoot Contessa 15:30 Everyday Italian 16:00 30 Minute Meals 16:30 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 17:00 Iron Chef America 18:00 Barefoot Contessa 18:30 Unwrapped 19:00 Paula’s Best Dishes 19:30 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 20:00 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 21:00 Food Network Challenge 22:00 Barefoot Contessa 22:30 Everyday Italian 23:00 Iron Chef America

My One And Only on Show Movies

01:15 Frenzy-PG15 03:15 Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown-PG15 05:15 Diamond 13-18 07:15 Gifted Hands-PG15 09:00 December Boys-PG15 10:45 Broken Lines-PG15 12:45 The Secret Life Of Bees-PG15 14:45 Frame Of Mind-PG15 16:15 Australia-PG 19:00 The Hi-Lo Country-18 21:00 Ceux Qui Restent-PG15 23:00 The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three-PG15

00:40 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 01:30 I Almost Got Away With It 02:20 Ripped From The Headlines 03:10 On The Case With Paula Zahn 04:05 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 05:00 I Almost Got Away With It 05:55 Ghosthunters 06:20 Ghost Lab 07:10 Real Emergency Calls 07:35 Real Emergency Calls 08:00 Mystery Diagnosis 08:50 Real Emergency Calls 09:15 Real Emergency Calls 09:40 Forensic Detectives 10:30 Impossible Heists 11:20 Murder Shift 12:10 FBI Files 13:00 Ghost Lab 13:50 Disappeared 14:40 Mystery Diagnosis 15:30 Real Emergency Calls 15:55 Real Emergency Calls 16:20 Murder Shift 17:10 Forensic Detectives 18:00 Impossible Heists 18:50 FBI Files 19:40 Mystery Diagnosis 20:30 Real Emergency Calls 20:55 Real Emergency Calls 21:20 Ghost Lab 22:10 Disappeared 23:00 Ripped From The Headlines 23:50 FBI Case Files

00:00 Kath and Kim 00:30 The Simpsons 01:00 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (repeat) 01:30 The Colbert Report (repeat) 02:00 Entourage 02:30 Curb your Enthusiasm 03:00 Saturday Night Live 04:30 Entourage 05:00 Curb your enthusiasm 05:30 Eight simple Rules 06:00 Hope & Faith 06:30 Ten things I hate about you 07:00 Best of Late night with Jimmy Fallon 08:00 The Simpsons 08:30 Eight simple Rules 09:00 Hope & Faith 09:30 Ten things I hate about you 10:00 Will & Grace 10:30 Better off Ted 11:00 Eight simple Rules 11:30 Hope & Faith 12:00 Best of Tonight Show with Jay Leno 13:00 The Simpsons 13:30 Eight simple Rules 14:00 Hope & Faith 14:30 Kath & Kim S1 15:00 Better Off Ted 15:30 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (repeat) 16:00 The Colbert Report (repeat) 16:30 Ten things I hate about you 17:00 Best of Late night with Jimmy Fallon 18:00 The Simpsons 18:30 Will & Grace 19:00 Better Off Ted 19:30 Kath & Kim 20:00 Cougar Town 20:30 Cougar Town 21:00 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Global Edition) 21:30 Colbert Report Global 22:00 Monday night Stand Up 23:00 Family Guy 23:30 Better Off Ted

07:00 Lazytown 07:25 Imagination Movers 07:50 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 08:15 Handy Manny 08:40 Jungle Junction 08:50 Special Agent Oso 09:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 09:25 Handy Manny 09:50 New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 10:15 Little Einsteins 10:40 Special Agent Oso 11:05 Imagination Movers 11:30 Lazytown 11:55 My Friends Tigger and Pooh 12:20 Handy Manny 12:45 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 13:10 Little Einsteins 13:35 JO JO’S CIRCUS (SCANDI YR1) 14:00 Higglytown Heroes 14:25 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 14:50 Special Agent Oso 15:05 My Friends Tigger and Pooh 15:30 Imagination Movers 15:55 Little Einsteins 16:20 Handy Manny 16:45 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 17:10 New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 17:35 Special Agent Oso 17:45 Imagination Movers 18:10 Handy Manny 18:35 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:00 New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 19:25 Handy Manny 19:40 Special Agent Oso 19:50 Jungle Junction

00:35 Dennis The Menace 00:45 Nancy Drew 01:10 The Hardy Boys 01:30 Inspector Gadget 02:00 Rescue Heroes Marathon 07:00 Dennis The Menace 07:25 Beverly Hills Teen Club 07:45 Pelswick 08:10 Jass Time 08:12 Boo And Me 08:15 Fat Dog Mendoza 08:40 The Fairly Oddparents 09:05 The Beach Crew 09:10 Cyberchase 09:35 Birdz 10:00 The Beach Crew 10:05 Heathcliff 10:30 Ned’s Newt 10:55 New Adventures Of Madeline 11:20 Rupert 11:45 Babar 12:10 Max And Ruby 12:30 Corduroy 12:55 Rupert 13:20 New Adventures Of Madeline

13:45 Ned’s Newt 14:10 Corduroy 14:35 Max And Ruby 15:00 Babar 15:25 Rupert 15:50 Ned’s Newt 16:15 Beverly Hills Teen Club 16:40 Sabrina The Animated Series 17:05 The Beach Crew 17:10 Boo And Me 17:15 New Adventures Of Ocean Girl 17:40 Dino Squad 18:05 The Future Is Wild 18:30 Rescue Heroes 18:50 Even Stevens 19:15 The Beach Crew 19:20 Boo And Me 19:25 Dennis The Menace 19:35 Fat Dog Mendoza 20:00 Sonic Underground 20:20 Dino Squad 20:45 The Future Is Wild 21:10 Rescue Heroes 21:30 Ace Lightning 22:00 Even Stevens 22:25 Sabrina The Animated Series 22:50 Tales From The Cryptkeeper 23:10 Rescue Heroes 23:35 Ace Lightning

00:05 NFL TBA at TBA 03:00 NHL Washington Capitals at New Jersey Devils 03:30 Golf Central International 04:00 Golf Channel - TBA 06:30 Inside the PGA Tour 07:00 FEI Equestrian World 07:30 NFL Game Day 08:00 ACC: TBA at TBA 11:00 NFL TBA at TBA 14:00 Golf Central International 14:30 World Sport 2010 15:00 ASP Surfing World Championships Hurley Pro Trestles, California 16:00 NFL TBA at TBA 19:00 NFL TBA at TBA 22:00 Prime/Time Boxing

00:15 Out Of Jimmy’s Head 00:40 Chowder 01:05 Cow And Chicken 01:30 Cramp Twins 01:55 George Of The Jungle 02:20 Adrenalini Brothers 02:45 Eliot Kid 03:10 Ed, Edd N Eddy 03:35 Ben 10: Alien Force 04:00 The Powerpuff Girls 04:15 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 04:40 The Secret Saturdays 05:05 Codename: Kids Next Door 05:30 Ben 10 05:55 Best ED 06:20 Samurai Jack 06:45 Cramp Twins 07:10 Eliot Kid 07:35 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 08:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 08:25 Chowder 08:50 Best ED 09:15 Chop Socky Chooks 09:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 10:05 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 10:30 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 10:55 Eliot Kid 11:20 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 11:30 Squirrel Boy 11:55 Robotboy 12:20 Camp Lazlo 12:45 The Powerpuff Girls 13:10 Class Of 3000 13:35 Ed, Edd N Eddy 14:00 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 14:25 Codename: Kids Next Door 14:50 Ben 10 15:15 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 15:40 Squirrel Boy 16:05 Eliot Kid 16:35 Casper’s Scare School 17:00 Skunk Fu! 17:25 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 17:50 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 18:15 The Secret Saturdays 18:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 19:05 Hero 108 19:30 Chop Socky Chooks 20:00 Best ED 20:25 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 20:50 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 21:05 The Powerpuff Girls 21:30 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 21:45 Ben 10: Alien Force 22:10 Ed, Edd N Eddy 22:35 Robotboy 23:00 Camp Lazlo

00:15 The Guitar-18 02:00 Shoot The Hero-PG15 04:00 Prisoner-PG15 06:00 Cairo Time-PG15 08:00 My One And Only-PG15 10:00 One Week-PG 11:45 Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen-PG15 14:15 From Mexico With Love-PG15 16:00 My One And Only-PG15 18:00 X-Men Origins: Wolverine-PG15 20:00 Man On Wire-PG15 22:00 In The Electric Mist-PG15

01:00 Predator 2-18 03:00 The Incredible Hulk-PG 05:00 Daylight-PG15 07:00 The Least Of These-PG15 09:00 Ghost Image-PG15 11:00 Midnight Bayou-PG15 13:00 House Under Siege-PG15 15:00 Ghost Image-PG15 17:00 Noble Things-PG15 19:00 The Tournament-18 21:00 The Italian Job (1969)-PG 23:00 Dog Pound-18

00:00 The Break-Up Artist-PG15 02:00 The Foot Fist Way-PG15 04:00 Daddy Day Care-PG 06:00 Chatterbox-PG 08:00 The Cable Guy-PG15 10:00 The Associate-PG15 12:00 Ghost Town-PG15 14:00 Black Sheep-PG15 16:00 The Break-Up Artist-PG15 18:00 Fever Pitch-PG15 20:00 Semi-Pro-PG15 22:00 How To Be A Player-18

00:00 Hua Mulan-PG 02:00 Sunshine Barry And The Disco Worms-PG 04:00 Robotech - The Shadow ChroniclesFAM 06:00 Young Fisherman-PG 08:00 Legend Of Sleeping Beauty-PG

The Missing Person on Super Movies 10:00 Robotech - The Shadow ChroniclesFAM 12:00 Ramses Of Egypt-PG 14:00 Sunshine Barry And The Disco Worms-PG 16:00 The Prince Of Dinosaurs-PG 18:00 Igor-PG 20:00 Scruff In Midsummer Night’s Dream-FAM 22:00 Ramses Of Egypt-PG

00:00 CSI: NY 01:00 Kings 02:00 Martha Stewart 03:00 House 04:00 The View 05:00 Downsize Me 06:00 Emmerdale 06:30 Coronation Stree 07:00 House 08:00 Martha Stewart 09:00 Downsize Me 10:00 House 11:00 The View 12:00 Emmerdale 12:30 Coronation Stree 13:00 Martha Stewart 14:00 CSI: NY 15:00 Kings 16:00 What’s Good For you 17:00 The View 18:00 Emmerdale 18:30 Coronation Street 19:00 CSI: Miami 20:00 Desperate Housewives 21:00 House 22:00 The View 23:00 What’s Good For you

00:00 International Rugby Union 02:00 Premier League Snooker 05:30 Brazil League Highlights 06:00 Futbol Mundial 06:30 World Sport 07:00 Scottish Premier League 09:00 Aviva Premiership 11:00 International Rugby Union 13:00 Premier League Snooker 16:30 Spirit of a Champion 17:00 Spirit of Yachting 17:30 International Rugby Union 19:30 Futbol Mundial 20:00 ICC Cricket World 20:30 Live Goals On Monday 21:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 22:00 Scottish Premier League

00:00 Scottish Premier League 02:00 International Rugby Union 04:00 Aviva Premiership 06:00 Spirit of a Champion 06:30 Spirit of Yachting 07:00 European PGA Tour 11:30 Spirit of a Champion 12:00 Spirit of Yachting 12:30 World Sport 13:00 Scottish Premier League 15:00 International Rugby Union 17:00 World Sport 17:30 Brazil League Highlights 18:00 Futbol Mundial 18:30 ICC Cricket World 19:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 20:00 International Rugby Union 22:00 ICC Cricket World 22:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 23:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights

01:00 Prizefighter 04:00 UFC 123 07:00 WWE Bottom Line 08:00 Red Bull X-Fighters 09:30 Le Mans Classic 10:00 Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge 11:00 V8 Supercars Championship 13:00 Planet Power Boats 13:30 Red Bull X-Fighters 14:30 Le Mans classic 15:00 WWE Smackdown 17:00 UFC123 Prelims 18:00 UFC 123 21:00 UFC Unleashed 22:00 UFC Unleashed 23:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter

01:00 The Stepfather-18 03:00 Inconceivable-PG15 05:00 2012: Startling New Secret-PG 07:00 Beauty And The Briefcase-PG15 09:00 Witness: The Kidnapping Of Patty Hearst-PG15 11:00 The Missing Person-PG15 13:00 Capitalism: A Love Story-PG15 15:15 Racing For Time-PG15 17:00 Witness: The Kidnapping Of Patty Hearst-PG15 19:00 The Missing Person-PG15 21:00 Cadillac Records-18 23:00 I Love You Beth Cooper-PG15

01:00 Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams 02:25 The Screening Room 02:50 A Man For All Seasons 05:00 The Screening Room 05:30 The Killer Elite 08:00 The Philadelphia Story 09:50 Two Weeks In Another Town 11:35 The Screening Room 12:05 A Patch Of Blue 13:50 On The Town 15:30 A Man For All Seasons 17:30 The Screening Room 18:00 Ride The High Country 19:35 Seven Brides For Seven Brothers 21:20 Singin’ In The Rain

00:40 MysteryQuest 01:30 Cities of the Underworld 02:20 The Universe 03:10 How the Earth Was Made 04:00 America: The Story of the US 04:55 Life After People 05:50 Clash of the Gods 06:40 MysteryQuest 07:30 Cities of the Underworld 08:20 The Universe 09:10 How the Earth Was Made 10:00 America: The Story of the US 10:55 Life After People 11:50 Clash of the Gods 12:40 MysteryQuest 13:30 Cities of the Underworld 14:20 The Universe 15:10 How the Earth Was Made 16:00 America: The Story of the US 16:55 Life After People 17:50 Clash of the Gods 18:40 Modern Marvels 19:30 Cities of the Underworld 20:20 The Universe 21:10 How the Earth Was Made 22:00 Life After People 22:55 The Universe 23:50 Modern Marvels

00:00 The Dish 00:30 Fashion Police 01:00 Clean House 02:00 My Celebrity Home 03:00 How Do I Look?

04:00 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

05:00 Married Away 06:00 Style Her Famous 06:30 Area 07:00 How Do I Look?

08:00 Millennium Fashion: The Year In Fashion 09:00 My Celebrity Home 10:00 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

11:00 Married Away 12:00 Peter Perfect 13:00 Ruby 13:30 Ruby 14:00 Clean House 15:00 Clean House Comes Clean 15:30 Style Her Famous 16:00 Jerseylicious 17:00 Ruby 18:00 How Do I Look?

19:00 How Do I Look?

20:00 Peter Perfect 21:00 Clean House 22:00 How Do I Look?

23:00 Momster Of The Bride

00:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 01:00 Down The Line 02:00 Word Travels 02:30 Travel Today 03:00 Travel 360 04:00 Globe Trekker 05:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 06:00 The Thrillseekers Guide 06:30 Surfari 07:00 Globe Trekker 08:00 48 Hours In 08:30 Top Travel 09:00 Word Travels 09:30 Essential 10:00 Chef Abroad 10:30 The Thirsty Traveler 11:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 12:00 Globe Trekker 13:00 Planet Food 14:00 Panasia 14:30 Top Travel 15:00 Word Travels 15:30 Essential 16:00 Globe Trekker 17:00 Culture Shock 17:30 Chef Abroad 18:00 Panasia 18:30 The Thirsty Traveler 19:00 Globe Trekker 20:00 Planet Food 21:00 Hollywood And Vines 21:30 The Thirsty Traveler 22:00 Working Holiday 23:00 Globe Trekker

01:05 Romeo Is Bleeding 02:55 Object Of Beauty, The 04:35 The Donor 06:10 Chattahoochee 07:40 Movers & Shakers 09:00 Napoleon 10:20 Making Mr. Right 11:55 Bigger Than The Sky 13:40 Impasse 15:20 Spikes Gang 16:55 Where Angels Fear To Tread 18:45 Star For Two 20:20 Mechanic 22:00 Stay Hungry 23:40 100 Films & A Funeral

00:00 VH1 Rocks 00:30 Smells Like The 90s 01:00 Music For The Masses 02:00 VH1 Music 06:00 Chill Out 08:00 VH1 Hits 10:00 Aerobic 11:00 VH1 Hits 12:00 Music For The Masses 13:00 Top 10 14:00 Music For The Masses 15:00 VH1 Pop Chart 16:00 VH1 Hits 18:00 Music For The Masses 20:00 Guess The Year 21:00 Music For The Masses 22:00 Robbie Williams Top 20 23:00 Robbie Williams Top 20

00:00 Fareed Zakaria Gps 01:00 The Best Of Backstory 01:30 World Sport 02:00 World Report 04:00 World Business Today 04:45 CNN Marketplace Middle East 05:00 World View 05:30 Mainsail 06:00 News Special 06:30 I Report For CNN 07:00 World Sport 07:30 Revealed 08:00 World Report 08:30 The Best Of Backstory 09:00 World Report 11:00 World Business Today 12:00 World Report 12:30 World View 13:00 Larry King Live 14:00 World Report

Monday, November 22, 2010

33 FLIGHT SCHEDULE

FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION 161

In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines KLM WAN WAN GFA ETH THY JZR UAE QTR DHX ETD RBG JZR JZR KAC JZR FCX BAW KAC JZR KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD GFA WAN JZR WAN JZR JZR MEA MSR IRC MSR JZR KAC FDB UAL OMA KAC SVA KAC KNE QTR KAC KAC ETD UAE KAC GFA SVA JZR JZR RJA JZR ABY RBG ALK JZR WAN WAN KAC KAC WAN KAC KAC KAC KAC IAC KAC KAC FDB OMA JAI WAN DHX VOS GFA MEA QTR UAE KLM JZR MSR JZR UAL WAN DLH TAR BBC WAN PIA

Arrival Flights on Monday 22/11/2010 Flt Route 447 AMSTERDAM / BAHRAIN 306 CAIRO 646 VIENNA / BEIRUT 211 BAHRAIN 620 ADDIS ABABA 772 ISTANBUL 553 ALEXANDRIA 853 DUBAI 138 DOHA 370 BAHRAIN 305 ABU DHABI 3557 ALEXANDRIA 529 ASSIUT 207 DAMASCUS 564 AMMAN 503 LUXOR 201 DOHA 157 LONDON 412 MANILA / BANGKOK 555 ALEXANDRIA 352 COCHIN 204 LAHORE 53 DUBAI 382 DELHI 302 MUMBAI 676 DUBAI 284 DHAKA 362 COLOMBO 855 DUBAI 123 SHARJAH 132 DOHA 301 ABU DHABI 213 BAHRAIN 182 BAHRAIN 151 DOHA 102 DUBAI 121 BAHRAIN 165 DUBAI 404 BEIRUT 623 SOHAG 6521 LAMERD 610 CAIRO 257 BEIRUT 672 DUBAI 57 DUBAI 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 645 MUSCAT 618 DOHA 500 JEDDAH 552 DAMASCUS 745 JEDDAH 134 DOHA 546 ALEXANDRIA 550 SOHAG 303 ABU DHABI 857 DUBAI 118 NEW YORK 215 BAHRAIN 510 RIYADH 213 DEIREZZOR 777 JEDDAH 800 AMMAN 239 AMMAN 127 SHARJAH 3555 ALEXANDRIA 227 COLOMBO / DUBAI 177 DUBAI 304 CAIRO 204 JEDDAH 502 BEIRUT 542 CAIRO 106 DUBAI 786 JEDDAH 614 BAHRAIN 744 DAMMAM 674 DUBAI 575 CHENNAI / GOA 104 LONDON 774 RIYADH 61 DUBAI 647 MUSCAT 572 MUMBAI 402 BEIRUT 372 BAHRAIN 81 BAGHDAD 217 BAHRAIN 402 BEIRUT 136 DOHA 859 DUBAI 445 AMSTERDAM 157 DOHA 612 CAIRO 135 BAHRAIN 981 BAHRAIN 186 BAHRAIN 636 FRANKFURT 327 TUNIS 43 DHAKA 108 DUBAI 239 SIALKOT

Time 0:10 0:40 1:35 1:40 1:45 2:15 2:30 2:35 2:45 2:45 3:10 3:15 3:45 5:05 5:10 5:20 6:15 6:40 6:45 7:00 7:35 7:40 7:45 7:50 7:55 8:10 8:15 8:20 8:30 9:05 9:05 9:30 9:35 10:50 10:55 11:05 11:10 11:20 11:55 12:30 12:35 12:55 13:00 13:25 13:50 14:10 14:15 14:25 14:30 14:35 14:50 15:00 15:30 15:35 16:50 16:55 16:55 17:05 17:20 17:25 17:30 17:30 17:40 17:45 17:55 18:10 18:15 18:25 18:25 18:45 18:50 18:55 19:10 19:20 19:25 19:25 19:30 19:35 19:40 20:05 20:10 20:15 20:50 21:00 21:15 21:15 21:20 21:35 21:40 21:40 22:10 22:45 22:55 23:00 23:10 23:35 23:35 23:40 23:55 23:55

Airlines AFG UAL AXB IAC PIA KLM DLH ETH THY DHX UAE RBG ETD QTR WAN JZR JZR RJA JZR GFA WAN JZR FDB KAC BAW KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD GFA KAC JZR KAC JZR KAC JZR KAC MEA WAN KAC MSR IRC KAC JZR MSR FDB WAN KAC OMA WAN UAL KNE SVA KAC KAC QTR KAC ETD VOS GFA UAE RJA ABY RBG JZR SVA ALK KAC JZR KAC FDB KAC JZR OMA JAI KAC DHX KAC GFA MEA JZR KAC FCX QTR KLM KAC JZR UAE KAC JZR MSR KAC

Departure Flights on Monday 22/11/2010 Flt Route 406 DUBAI / KABUL 981 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 390 MANGALORE / KOZHIKODE 982 AHMEDABAD / CHENNAI 206 PESHAWER / LAHORE 447 AMSTERDAM 637 FRANKFURT 620 BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA 773 ISTANBUL 371 BAHRAIN 854 DUBAI 3558 ALEXANDRIA 306 ABU DHABI 139 DOHA 101 DUBAI 164 DUBAI 256 BEIRUT 803 AMMAN 150 DOHA 212 BAHRAIN 181 BAHRAIN 120 BAHRAIN 54 DUBAI 545 ALEXANDRIA 156 LONDON 671 DUBAI 551 DAMASCUS 549 SOHAG 856 DUBAI 124 SHARJAH 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 617 DOHA 212 DEIREZZOR 165 ROME / PARIS 776 JEDDAH 541 CAIRO 238 AMMAN 103 LONDON 405 BEIRUT 203 JEDDAH 501 BEIRUT 624 SOHAG 6522 LAMERD 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 611 CAIRO 58 DUBAI 105 DUBAI 673 DUBAI 646 MUSCAT 401 BEIRUT 982 BAHRAIN 746 JEDDAH 501 JEDDAH 613 BAHRAIN 773 RIYADH 135 DOHA 743 DAMMAM 304 ABU DHABI 82 BAGHDAD 216 BAHRAIN 858 DUBAI 801 AMMAN 128 SHARJAH 3556 ALEXANDRIA 156 DOHA 511 RIYADH 228 DUBAI / COLOMBO 285 CHITTAGONG 134 BAHRAIN 283 DHAKA 62 DUBAI 331 TRIVANDRUM 528 ASSIUT 648 MUSCAT 571 MUMBAI 543 CAIRO 373 BAHRAIN 675 DUBAI 218 BAHRAIN 403 BEIRUT 206 DAMASCUS 381 DELHI 102 BAHRAIN 137 DOHA 445 BAHRAIN / AMSTERDAM 301 MUMBAI 554 ALEXANDRIA 860 DUBAI 205 ISLAMABAD 502 LUXOR 613 CAIRO 411 BANGKOK / MANILA

Time 0:05 0:45 0:45 1:05 1:10 1:25 1:30 2:30 3:15 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:00 4:55 6:50 6:55 7:00 7:00 7:10 7:15 7:55 8:20 8:25 8:50 8:55 9:00 9:10 9:20 9:40 9:45 10:15 10:20 10:25 11:10 11:45 11:45 12:00 12:00 12:10 12:30 12:55 13:00 13:00 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 13:55 14:35 14:35 15:10 15:15 15:15 15:25 15:40 15:45 16:20 16:25 16:30 16:40 17:40 18:00 18:05 18:10 18:15 18:25 18:30 18:30 18:35 19:10 19:15 20:05 20:15 20:50 21:00 21:00 21:10 21:15 21:55 22:00 22:10 22:15 22:20 22:20 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:40 22:45 22:45 22:50 22:55 23:45 23:45 23:55

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

ACCOMMODATION Room for rent (partition), for couple or working ladies.

Near big jamiya Farwaniya, available from November 23, 2010.

Contact: 66826412.

22-11-2010 Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya for one or two working ladies or married couple with Keralite family. Contact: 66013882.

(C 2874) Room for rent, big room in Farwaniya, block - 1, near Canary, near Fire station.

Contact: 99035093. (C 2875) Sharing accommodation available in Abbasiya for an executive bachelor from December 2010 onwards.

(Keralites only) Contact: 66725048.

(C 2877) Furnished 2 BR apartment in Mangaf, Street 100, from January 2011. Rent KD 200, furniture KD 450, sharing possible.

Contact: 66601523 / 23728467.

(C 2876) 21-11-2010 Sharing accommodation available in New Riggai (CA/C building) for family or working ladies. Only Keralites. Contact: 99874350.

(C 2872) 20-11-2010 SITUATION WANTED

Need a job as accountant. I am B.Com + MBA, 4 years experience in Kuwait, good

reporting & software skills, hard worker & good organizational behavior. I have car & driving license. Contact: 55355954. (C 2878) 22-11-2010

FOR SALE 2009 model Nissan Altima, full option, red color, mileage 25000 km, accident free, cash KD 1000 (negotiable). Installments to be carried over with financing company (43 months x KD 95/month).

Contact: 66774928. (C 2879) 22-11-2010 Toyota Corolla, model 2009 XLi, green color, excellent condition, cash price KD 3,400. (Installment possible). Contact: 55271217.

No: 14916

SPECTRUM

34

Monday, November 22, 2010

Calvin

CROSSWORD 146

Aries (March 21-April 19) Strong beliefs are keynotes to your power. Religious, cultural or philosophical controversies and crusades have a way of stirring your blood. You enjoy new ideas and see yourself as being able to enjoy an open mind. You could find you are interested in research, article writing or perhaps creating some poetry. You may enjoy talking about your experiences and asking the advice of an older and more experienced person.

Your innate intensity and seriousness are visible to all. You look for new and different ways of self-discovery and transformation. In a bazaar or art festival type of atmosphere this afternoon, you enjoy the live music and outdoor fun, especially with someone you love. This may be a good time for a photo session.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Meandering through the art

show or the community fair with young people today, you find ways to spend as little as possible of your energy or your money. Today presents good opportunities to teach young people about allowances, paychecks and budgeting. You get many new ideas for upcoming holiday gifts. Later today, among friends and relatives, you enjoy expressing your ideas as well as listening to new ideas regarding subjects you like particularly well. Political, lecturing or teaching concerns could be involved with this need to communicate. You may find yourself running an errand for a family member this evening. You can demonstrate great understanding of the needs of others. The beauty of a sunset is enjoyed this evening.

Pooch Cafe

ACROSS 1. Characteristic of a mob.

4. The superior of a group of nuns.

10. The compass point that is one point south of due east.

13. Any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all.

14. Relating to or characteristic of the Celts.

15. (Scotland) A small loaf or roll of soft bread.

16. Having leadership guidance.

17. Wear away through erosion or vaporization.

18. The compass point that is one point east (clockwise) of due north.

19. The act of scanning.

21. Belonging to or on behalf of a specified person (especially yourself).

22. A state in New England.

24. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

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

28. Type genus of the Todidae.

31. United States lawyer and politician who formulated a production code that prescribed the moral content of United states films from 1930 to 1966 (18791954).

35. South American armadillo with three bands of bony plates.

37. Of or relating to the cranium which encloses the brain.

39. A town in western Kentucky on the Ohio River.

41. That is to say.

42. A nucleic acid consisting of large molecules shaped like a double helix.

43. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism.

44. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

45. Bright with a steady but subdued shining.

49. A state in midwestern United States.

50. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

58. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

59. An abnormally large amount of this fetoprotein in the fetus can signal an abnormality of the neural tube (as spina bifida or anencephaly).

60. King of Saudi Arabia since 1982 (born in 1922).

61. A complex red organic pigment containing iron and other atoms to which oxygen binds.

64. The cry made by sheep.

65. Acute lung injury characterized by coughing and rales.

66. Ox of southeast Asia sometimes considered a domesticated breed of the gaur.

67. A human limb.

DOWN 1. A master's degree in library science.

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

3. English monk and scholar (672-735).

4. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

5. An imaginary elephant that appears in a series of French books for children.

6. Be in contradiction with.

7. A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause).

8. Be seated.

9. Rise or heave upward under the influence of a natural force, as on a wave.

10. The compass point that is one point north of due east.

11. A small cake leavened with yeast.

12. A detailed description of design criteria for a piece of work.

20. An island republic on Nauru Island.

23. German chemist who was co-discoverer with Lise Meitner of nuclear fission (1879-1968).

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

27. A weekday on which no feast is celebrated.

29. A translucent mineral consisting of hydrated silica of variable color.

30. An informal term for a father.

32. An officer who acts as military assistant to a more senior officer.

33. A member of an extinct North American Indian people who lived in the Pit river valley in northern California.

34. Winning all or all but one of the tricks in bridge.

36. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

38. A high wave (often dangerous) caused by tidal flow (as by colliding tidal currents or in a narrow estuary).

40. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

46. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

47. American Revolutionary patriot.

48. Chewy candy of sugar or syrup boiled until thick and pulled until glossy.

51. Dearly loved.

52. In bed.

53. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

54. The capital of Western Samoa.

55. An amino acid that is found in the central nervous system.

56. A human female who does housework.

57. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology.

62. A soft white precious univalent metallic element having the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal.

63. Being ten more than thirty.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) This morning you become absorbed in reviewing the job search part of the newspaper. Your career should be mentally stimulating and should allow you to express your originality. You may not be ready to change jobs just now but you certainly check out the listings each week. Who knows, there may be some stimulating profession out in the world, just waiting for your expertise. Your energies are up and there are many projects in which you will want to involve yourself. You enjoy cooking, you dive into an art project and you visit and keep in-touch with friends. This afternoon you have lots of fun with animals. This may mean a new animal has come into your life or you are tending to a neighbor’s animal(s) for a few days.

Non Sequitur

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You are open-minded, democratic and enthusiastic; you have a definite sense of mission now. You are at home with different cultures, peoples and lands. You love to work with, and in, groups and will find your day full of interaction with all different types of people. This could be a day that was set aside for a special guest with regard to your family, church or temple. Your general outlook on life is attractive—people seek you out to help them with their problems. You are a natural counselor and may find yourself involved in deep discussions concerning the lifestyles of others. After the weekend chores are done, you enjoy time alone with a special friend, perhaps a loved one. Romance is possible this evening.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Funny, upbeat and positive are the words that fit you now. You particularly enjoy this frame of mind today. You are able to see ahead—at least you see some difficult project coming to completion. An intense training period is also about to end and there is a new door of beginnings about to open. You will soon be expressing more of your talents to others. You could be a surgeon, scientist, detective of crime, fire-fighting services or professional sports. You know the last few hours of training are ahead of you and you move into this, almost trance-like. Today, you allow someone to help you look at new living quarters. As this new cycle takes hold in your life, romance and social interaction take on a greater importance.

Zits

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You have a lot of energy and drive—perfect for starting something new or taking care of things around the house. Communications, however, may tend to be short and to the point this morning. You are deliberate at whatever you choose to do today. This is a great time to get things accomplished. You are entering a phase of emotional directness now—one marked by powerful feelings.

Emotional beginnings, a fresh start, perhaps the establishment of new habit patterns are in the making. You could be most determined to stop smoking or change some other part of your life. You will do well in this endeavor to change. A strong urge for the social life may find you out and about this afternoon. Very physical too—exercise or romance is in order.

Libra (September 23-October 22) Communication is at a high just now, although it may not go the way you wish it would. On the home front there is an urge to try new things that could be challenged. In this case, you may rebel and act at cross-purposes to those who care for you—do not push. Do not depend on others for your happiness. Create an attitude of gratitude and believe it or not, frustrations will be short lived.

Two wonderful riches are money and love and you have them both. You may desire to choose something flashy for your loved one this afternoon. Be wise however, and give yourself time before purchasing an expensive trinket too quickly. You certainly have time for young people this afternoon and may enjoy an out-of-doors game. Enjoy dinner out this evening.

Mother Goose and Grimm

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) A newspaper article that you may be privy to today puts a challenge in your mind to know more. A new idea or experiment may be published just to present a challenge or to interest the reader into researching the subject further and perhaps prove the writer wrong—or right.

The conclusion of some experiment or project has been an eyeopener to new and important break-through information that will help many people. You may decide to test the findings or at the least, you will discuss the findings of the writer with an associate of yours. The late Carl Sagan once said, ?Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,? and you are ready to do some research today. Since you are able to see these stories as a part of a larger story, you enjoy new ideas and studies.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You are full of energy today and when asked to volunteer to help a friend, you jump right in with lots of enthusiasm. You have a great deal of confidence and perseverance and are a good friend to anyone that desires your friendship.

This afternoon you show your competitive side while playing some sort of trivia or a board game—perhaps even pushy. Your determination to win proves successful. Your ambitions go hand-in-hand with communication and using the mind and the two should never be far apart. You will receive support and affection from your family or partner whether you are married or not. You create opportunities for people to like themselves. This behavior endears you to others and others to you in many ways.

Yesterdayʼs Solution

Capricorn

(December

22-January

19)

Independence, as well as anything unusual or different, is valued. You may enjoy getting away from routine and doing something unusual for a change this Sunday. Someone near you, a neighbor, friend or relative may have added responsibilities this weekend.

Volunteer some of your time; he or she will be appreciative. When it comes to finances, you always seem to have an angel watching over you. Of course, this does not mean you can throw caution to the wind and take risks. If you wanted to shop for a new winter coat or begin to purchase gifts for the upcoming holiday celebrations, this afternoon would be a good time to shop.

Your dreams and ideals are the number-one component for action in your chart. Dare to dream today!

Yesterdayʼs Solution

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) There is a natural drive to probe and penetrate—to solve problems. The young people that come to you with questions today will find easy answers when they seek your input. In a relaxed mood this afternoon, one might find you under a tree at the park with a notebook and pen in your hand—writing or sketching. Personal assertiveness, sensitive observations and social commentary are all present in your ability to write well. Today you may even decide to write an outline for a new story or idea for a musical or a play. So what if you do not think you can write? Try it anyway and then keep in a file with a creative sort of heading. You can be a positive influence on others today. You are cheerful and helpful this evening as everyone tends to home and personal chores.

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) Lovely words and a flair for description—the artistic in all its many forms is where you excel above any other today. This talent is good for working on an easel as well as helping a friend solve problems. You have an inner sense of warmth and goodness with the ability to express this. You are kind and easy to be with, which people enjoy. This is a time for imagination and creativity when it comes to ideas and thinking and problem solving. It is often difficult to understand why people do or say certain things but you display a lot of patience with much good will and this heals any resentment. You know how to put things into perspective and stay within the main idea. Suggestions for travel are met with a positive response this evening.

INFORMATION

Monday, November 22, 2010

35 FIRE BRIGADE Operation Room 112 Al-Madena 22418714 Al-Shohada始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始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

Paediatricians: Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed 25340300

Rheumatologists: Dr. Adel Al-Awadi 25330060 Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah 25722290

(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:

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

Kuwait Airways Wataniya Airways Jazeera Airways Jet Airways Qatar Airways KLM Air Slovakia Olympic Airways Royal Jordanian Reservation British Airways Air France Emirates Air India Sri Lanka Airlines Egypt Air Swiss Air Saudia Middle East Airlines Lufthansa PIA Alitalia Balkan Airlines Bangladesh Airlines Czech Airlines Indian Airlines Oman Air Turkish Airlines

22433377 24379900 177 22924455 22423888 22425747 22434940 22420002/9 22418064/5/6 22433388 22425635 22430224 22425566 22438184 22424444 22421578 22421516 22426306 22423073 22422493 22421044 22414427 22416474 22452977/8 22417901/2433141 22456700 22412284/5 22453820/1

INTERNATIONAL CALLS Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antiga Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Cyprus (Northern) Czech Republic Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador England (UK)

0093 00355 00213 00376 00244 001264 001268 0054 00374 0061 0043 001242 00973 00880 001246 00375 0032 00501 00229 001441 00975 00591 00387 00267 0055 00673 00359 00226 00257 00855 00237 001 00238 001345 00236 00235 0056 0086 0057 00269 00242 00682 00506 00385 0053 00357 0090392 00420 0045 00246 00253 001767 001809 00593 0020 00503 0044

Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guyana Haiti Holland (Netherlands) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Ibiza (Spain) Iceland India Indian Ocean Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Liberia Libya Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Macedonia

00240 00291 00372 00251 00500 00298 00679 00358 0033 00594 00689 00241 00220 00995 0049 00233 00350 0030 00299 001473 00590 001671 00502 00224 00592 00509 0031 00504 00852 0036 0034 00354 0091 00873 0062 0098 00964 00353 0039 00225 001876 0081 00962 007 00254 00686 00965 00996 00856 00371 00961 00231 00218 00370 00352 00853 00389

SPECTRUM

36

Monday, November 22, 2010

Kate Winslet splits from

boyfriend he ‘Revolutionary Road’ actress - who separated from her film director husband Sam Mendes in March - has reportedly called time on her romance with male model Louis Dowler after just four months of dating. Despite being “very grateful” to the 35-year-old hunk for allowing her to get over the breakdown of her marriage, Kate is said to have ended the relationship to “concentrate on her career and children”. A friend of the star told MailOnline: “Louis was just the tonic Kate needed after her painful split from Sam and they had a wonderful time. However, they have realized their relationship isn’t working and Kate needs space to be on her own.

“She is very grateful to Louis for helping her pick her life back up after her marriage ended and they had a lot of fun together, but she felt it had come to an end and wants to concentrate on her career and children.” Prior to

fairytale life achel Weisz thinks her life is like a “fairytale. The 40-year-old actress who recently split from her long-term partner, film director Darren Aronofsky - still loves having to get dressed up for red carpet events and promotional opportunities, and

R

insists no part of her work feels like real life.

She said: “Promoting a movie is part of the job and it’s fiction as much as the movie is.

“It’s like a fairytale. You get lent a dress and someone does your hair, does your make-up, it’s like dressing up and it’s not real - nobody

looks like that when they wake up in the morning! “It’s fantasy, it’s not real life, it’s work and it’s not unpleasant. I like it.”

Despite utilizing other people to help recreate the “fairytale “image on the red carpet, Rachel - who has a four-year-old son, Henry,

with Darren - makes sure she leads a healthy lifestyle in order to keep her slim figure. She said: “I’m very healthy. I eat well and exercise. Like being an athlete you have to be somewhat in shape because this is what you have got.”

Ewen is obsessed with shoes

Mel B starstruck meeting Lopez M

he Sugababes singer admits she has spent thousands of pounds buying beautiful footwear but tries not to worry about the cost as she has few other indulgences. She said: “I’m obsessed with shoes. I have about 125 pairs. “I love Miu Miu, Givenchy, and Christian Louboutin heels. It’s an expensive habit, but they’re my one indulgence.” As well as her love of shoes, 22-year-old Jade is also a big fan of strapless dresses as she has found they suit her petite frame best. She explained: “I have a really short torso, which means I have to try and elongate my body. I’ve learned to do this by choosing strapless dresses to show off my neckline and legs. “It was only when I joined the Sugababes that someone pointed it out. Before I always needed to alter clothes to get them to fit.” Jade is not the only star to confess to an obsession with footwear. Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie has previously admitted

T

el B was starstruck when she met Jennifer Lopez. The former Spice Girls star did her best to be “cool” when the ‘Get Right’ singer and her husband Marc Anthony approached her and spouse Stephen Belafonte, but inside she was really nervous about meeting the ‘American Idol’ judge. She said: “I was staying in the Beverly Hills Hotel recently and Jennifer Lopez and her husband, Marc Anthony came over to say hello. I played it cool, but inside I was like, ‘oh my God!’ “And Marc is so nice. We spent the whole night chatting to him at Alicia Keys’ party.”

Stephen added: “He was hanging out with us and he’s got such a great sense of humor. He’s really funny.” Although Mel was starstruck when she met Jennifer, the pair have a mutual friend in common in the British singer’s former bandmate Victoria Beckham. Though the Spice Girls are no longer together, Mel loves to meet up with her pal, who is now a fashion designer, because she is such good company. She said: “Victoria is very funny, she’s got a dry sense of humor.”

to owning over 500 pairs of shoes. She said: “I’m a girl, and I love accessories. It’s one of the reasons I have huge closets, and we keep making room in the house for more closets. I don’t like to throw anything away.” Kate Hudson recently admitted she is unable to stop herself from buying fancy footwear. She said: “I’m a total shopaholic! I’ve tried to stop, but I love clothes and fashion way too much! I probably own more than 400 pairs of shoes. That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

Keira Knightley is another star unable to control herself when she is near a shoe shop. She admitted: “If I see a pair of shoes that I adore and they haven’t got them in my size, I still have to have them.”

plating marriage with the British model. A pal recently said: “As far as Kate is concerned, they could go all the way together - get married, have kids. She’s the happiest we’ve ever seen her, he really brings out a wonderful, carefree side to her that we haven’t seen for years.”

eter Andre’s son is to appear on stage with him. The ‘Behind Closed Doors’ hitmaker begins his UK tour next week and revealed he has created a special sequence involving five-year-old Junior, his eldest child with ex-wife Katie Price. He said: “I’m excited because Junior is going to be involved in my forthcoming tour, and we’re working on a little surprise. I don’t want to give it away, but if you’re coming to one of my gigs, you are in for a real treat.” While Junior is preparing to make his stage debut, Peter’s daughter, three-year-old Princess Tiaamii, has been amusing herself by preparing special culinary treats for her father. Peter explained: “Princess has taken to mixing water with flour to make ‘pizza dough’ which, as you can imagine, is a bit messy. She loves it, though. I haven’t got the heart to tell her that I think there’s a bit more to the pizzamaking process than that!” Peter has previously admitted he expects Junior to be a bigger star than he is. Asked if his children are fans of his music, Peter said recently: “Junior loves it. He’s like a mini Michael Jackson, doing all of the moves. He puts me to shame. He thinks of songs in term of the whole package and will do a little routine to the song. I’m telling you, he’s going to be a star. “He’s got a plan!

I’m always like, ‘You’re going to be playing the O2 before I am.’ “

P

Schwarzenegger to return to acting

Rodriguez prefers having low budgets obert Rodriguez is more creative when he is working with a low budget. The director - best known for his work on the ‘Spy Kids’ franchise admitted having less money available to make a film allows him to use his “gut instinct”, rather than getting carried away with sets and equipment. He explained: “Low budgets force you to be more creative. Sometimes, with too much money, time and equipment, you can over-think.

My way, you can use your gut instinct.”

Although he prefers having a low budget, Robert has admitted he lied about how much thriller ‘Machete’ - which stars Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Alba - cost to make as he wanted to ensure it was given the promotional push it deserved. He said: “We told the studio it cost $20 million to $25 million. But it was much less.

Still, you don’t want to tell them that, because they won’t sell it as hard. And that’s how I conduct my business!”

Andre’s to perform with son

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the split, Kate - who has a six-year-old son Joe with Sam, as well as ten-year-old Mia from her first marriage to director Jim Threapleton had reportedly been contem-

he former movie star whose tenure as Governor of California will come to an end in January next year - admitted he is weighing up his options for next year and a return to his action star days could be a possibility.

Arnold - who made a cameo is Sylvester Stallone’s ‘The Expendables’ earlier this year said: “It could be that fighting climate change would be the main thing. It could also be that it would be one of five things that I would do. It could be showbusiness. It could be business in general.” The ‘Terminator’ actor has had successful careers in movies, politics and bodybuilding and thinks he has thrived in each of these areas because he knows where his strengths lie. The 63-yearold star said: “My whole life I was always very ambitious but I was smart enough to always look, what is my talent, what do I have to offer the world? Then you go with that.” Along with

T

R

Grint wants

to be artist

he ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ star is a big fan of “disturbing” painters and admits he would have pursued a creative career path if his acting career hadn’t taken off.

He said: “If it wasn’t for ‘Harry Potter’ I’d probably be doing art, because I’ve always been into it. I’m regularly drawing, painting, sketching or doodling. It’s pretty much a hobby of mine. “I quite like surreal artists, like Salvador Dali or Otto Dix. Otto’s paintings are quite disturbing,

T

which is probably why I like them!” As well as enjoying art, Rupert - who plays Ron Weasley in the film series - also likes to play golf in his free time, and enjoys playing against his ‘Harry Potter’ costars. He explained: “I first got into golf because my dad and a couple of friends played it. A lot of the people on the ‘Harry Potter’ set play golf too, like the twins James and Oliver Phelps - so I’ve played with them a few times. It’s a really good way of chilling out.” — Bang Showbiz

considering a return to acting, Arnold is currently launching a global war on climate change and admitted while it is difficult to interest people in environmental issues, he has a plan. He said: “People get stuck and fall in love with their slogans and with their little agendas. You’ve got to make it hip. You’ve got to make it sexy to be part of this movement. “I think that I have the talent of speaking the language in such a way so that the world understands it rather than making it complicated.”

SPECTRUM

Monday, November 22, 2010

37

Music & Movies

Britain leads International Emmys with 9 nominees

By Charles J Gans imon Cow ell’s kinder side will be spotlighted when the former “American Idol” judge is honored at the 38th Annual International Emmy Awards.

Cowell, who left “Idol” earlier this year to launch an American version of his hit British Simon Cowell singing competition “The X Factor” next year, will be presented the International Emmy Founders Award in recognition of both his television achievements and extensive charitable work at tonight’s awards ceremony at the Hilton New York Hotel.

“Here’s a guy who has really changed television,” said Bruce L Paisner,” president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. “He has taken the form of the television talent show, reinvented and repositioned it, and made it must-view television.” The presentation to Cowell will be the centerpiece of the awards show, hosted by former “Beverly Hills 90210” star Jason Priestly, in which 39 nominees from 15 countries will be vying in 10 categories for International Emmys, honoring excellence in TV programming outside the US British television productions garnered a leading nine nominations, including two for “The Street,” the BBC1 series about the lives of different residents on a road in northwest England. “The Street” is in contention for best drama series and best actor for Bob Hoskins in his role as a reformed alcoholic who runs a pub and stands up to the neighborhood mobster.

Helena Bonham Carter is among the nominees for best actress for the biopic “Enid,” on BBC4, in which she portrayed the popular British children’s writer Enid Blyton, who had a troubled personal life. The Argentine crime mini-series “Epitafios,” produced by HBO Latin America, also received two nominationsfor best drama series and best actor, with Leonardo Sbaraglia cited for his role as an assassin. The Argentine satirical comedy “CQC” is a contender in the non-scripted entertainment category, still looking for its first Emmy on its ninth nomination since 1999.

Other contenders for best drama series include “Clouds Over the Hill” (Japan) and “The Killing II” (Denmark). The comedy nominees are “Los Simuladores” (Mexico), “Peep Show” (Britain), “Talok Hok Chak” (Thailand) and “Traffic Light” . Brazil received five nominations, all for TV Globo productions, including a best actress nod to Lilia Cabral for her role as a former model coping with a painful divorce in “Seize the Day.” Japan and Argentina each had four nominations, followed by Germany and the Netherlands with three apiece. The other contenders for best actor were Germany’s Sebastian Koch for “Sea Wolf” and the Philippines’ Sid Lucero for “Dahil May Isang Ikaw” (“Because There Is Only You”), which was also nominated for best telenovela. The other actress nominees include Germany’s Iris Berben for “The Krupps-A Family Between War and Peace” and South Africa’s Lerato Moloisane for “Home Affairs.”

Paisner said some eyebrows were raised among members of the special awards committee when Cowell was first proposed for the Founders Award, which recognizes “significant achievements in television that cross cultural boundaries and contribute to our common humanity.” But any doubts were quickly dispelled upon a closer look at his career. The British music executive became a global celebrity for his caustic comments as an “Idol” judge, and then went on to create “The X Factor” and “Got Talent” franchises, which have been adapted by television broadcasters in dozens of countries around the world.

As an “Idol” judge, he helped raise more than $180 million for charities in three seasons of “Idol Gives Back.” He also has used his position in the entertainment industry to raise millions more for children’s, animal welfare and other charities worldwide, recently recording REM’s ballad “Everybody Hurts” with an allstar cast from Mariah Carey to Susan Boyle to benefit Haitian earthquake relief.

“The man is actually rather amazing in terms of the things that he supports and lends his personal presence to,” said Paisner. “The more you look at this guy the more impressed you become with what he’s done and he kind of hides it all under that rather gruff stage personality of his.” Jimmy Fallon will present the honorary International Emmy Directorate Award for longtime achievements by a television professional to his “Late Night” executive producer, Lorne Michaels, who created and produced “Saturday Night Live, launching the careers of several generations of film and TV comic stars.

“There was nothing like ‘Saturday Night Live’ before he invented it, and he’s kept it going, and kept it fresh and topical for 36 years,” said Paisner. “That in and of itself is stunning.”

Paisner said the academy received 870 entrees from 53 countries this year-up nearly 40 percent from five years ago-for International Emmys in entertainment, news and digital categories-a reflection of the improving quality of television programming all over the world.

“Our goal has been to make the International Emmy as prominent and coveted among TV entities outside the US” as the Emmy Awards are inside the US, said Paisner.”Last year and this year gave me a real sense that that is happening.”—AP

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Bollywood actress Hema Malini poses with her daughters Esha Deol and Ahna Deol perform during the Indian National Music and Dance Festival in Mumbai on November 20, 2010. —AFP

Taiwan is big winner at Golden Horse film festival he Taiwanese family drama “When Love Comes” won the best film award Saturday at the Chinese-language Golden Horse Film Festival.

The low-budget movie about the lives of four women, by Taiwanese director Chang Tso-chi, beat Hong Kong martial arts epic “Bodyguards and Assassins” and China’s “Judge” to win the top award.

The best director award went to Taiwan’s Chung Mong-hong for “The Fourth Portrait” about a forlorn child using paintings to express his inner world. The film also won Hao Lei the best supporting actress award. China’s Lu Liping defeated fellow Chinese

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actress Xu Fan to win the best actress award for her role as a tough working class mother in “City Monkey.”

Taiwan’s Ethan Juan won the best actor’s award for his role in the gangster movie “Monga,” beating veteran Chinese actors Ni Dahong and Wang Xueqi.”

Spring Fever,” a Chinese film about gay romance, won the best editing and best original film score awards. Liu Jie shared the best original screen play award with Gao Shan for “Judge,” a film he also directed. “Bodyguards and Assassins,” by Hong Kong director Teddy Chen, won only the best makeup and costume design award out of a total of nine nominations.

Award winners

(From right) Best Leading Actor Taiwanese actor Ethan Juan and Chinese actress Lv Li-Ping hold their awards after their film ‘MONGA’ and ‘City Monkey’ at the 47th Golden Horse Awards. — AP photos

Hong Kong actor Sammo Hung holds his award for Best Action Choreography.

Taiwanese director Chung Mong-Hong holds his award for Best Director for his film ‘The Fourth Portrait’ and ‘Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year’.

Day-Lewis in US to prepare for ʻLincolnʼ

Lovelace not in the stars for Lindsay Lohan

cademy Award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis is preparing for his role as Abraham Lincoln by visiting the state where the former president began his political career. DreamsWorks Studios says Day-Lewis will star in the Steven Spielberg-directed film “Lincoln.”

The movie is based on the book “Team of Rivals”

by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who joined Day-Lewis on his tour in Illinois. The State Journal-Register reports the actor toured several historic sites Friday in Springfield, including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, the Lincoln Home and the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln served as a legislator.

Filming is expected to begin next fall, and the movie is to be released in late 2012. — AP

indsay Lohan won’t be playing 1970s porn star Linda Lovelace in “Inferno.” Writerdirector Matthew Wilder says his production team is in negotiations with another actress and will make an announcement soon. Some media reports say the 24-year-old starlet quit tofocus on her courtordered rehab for drug addiction; others say Wilder wanted her replaced. The “Mean Girls” star is expected to be in rehab in southern California until at least Jan 3.

The actress has become more of a tabloid mainstay than box office draw since a pair of high-profile arrests in 2007 led to a drug and drunken driving case. A judge last month ordered Lohan to rehab. It was her fifth time in court since May. The ruling allowed her to avoid a fourth trip to jail. —AP

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Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Feature Film When Love Comes - Chang Tso Chi Film Studio Best Director Chung Mong-Hong - The Fourth Portrait Best New Director Ho Wi-Ding - Pinoy Sunday Best Leading Actor Ethan Juan - Monga Best Leading Actress Lv Li-Ping - City Monkey Best Supporting Actor Wu Peng-Fon - Seven Days in Heaven Best Supporting Actress Hao Lei - The Fourth Portrait Best New Performer Lee Chien-Na - Juliets Best Original Screenplay Gao Shan, Liu Jie - JUDGE Best Screenplay Adaptation Essay Liu - Seven Days in Heaven Best Cinematography Chang Chan - When Love Comes Best Visual Effects Nan Xiang-Yu - Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame Best Art Direction Peng Wei-Min - When Love Comes Best Makeup & Costume Design Dora Ng - Bodyguards and Assassins Best Action Choreography Sammo Hung - IP MAN 2 Best Film Editing Florence Bresson, Robin Weng, Zeng Jian - SPRING FEVER Best Sound Effects Tu Duu-Chih - MONGA Best Original Film Score Peyman YAZDANIAN - SPRING FEVER Best Original Film Song Taipei Exchanges Best Documentary Hip-Hop Storm - Professor Jean May Tsiang Foundation (CNEX) Best Short Film Magabahai - Patrick Tu Outsta nding Ta iw a nese Film of the Year The Fourth Portrait - 3 NG Film, Cream Production O u t st a n d in g Ta i w a n e s e Filmmaker of the Year Lee Lieh Niu Chen-Zer Lifetime Achievement Aw ard Hsu Li-Kong Special Contribution Aw ard Sun Yueh

‘Deathly Hallows’ conjures up $61.2m Friday

By Carl DiOrio arner Bros “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” found a pot of gold on its first full day in theaters, collecting an estimated $61.2 million in the United States and Canada Friday. That includes $24 million in box office from a record 3,700 locations offering midnight

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Thursday performances of the seventh Potter movie. The first of two films based on the final book in the Potter book series, “Hallows: Part 1” is now on track to ring up $150 million or more through yesterday from 4,124 theaters in the US and Canada this weekend.

Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” stands as the best opening ever after bowing with

$158.4 million in July 2008. The last Potter release, July 2009 opener “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” conjured $77.8 million during its first three days and $302 million in total US and Canadian ticket sales. The franchise marked its best opening to date in November 2005, when “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” debuted with $102.7 million.

The $317.6 million fetched by the original “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” stands as its biggest cumulative total in the US and Canada, and many consider “Hallows: Part 1” will likely fetch $400 million or more in domestic box office by the end of its theatrical run.

Elsewhere among the daily rankings, Lionsgate’s Russell Crowe starrer “The Next Three

Days” collected $2.5 million in fifth place in its first day of release Friday. Helmed by “Crash” director Paul Haggis, the action thriller could be limited to the middle to high singledigit millions through Sunday.

“Megamind” from DreamWorks and Paramount grossed $4.5 million in the first day of its third weekend session for $97.8 in cumulative box

office and a second-place ranking Friday.

Denzel Washington starrer “Unstoppable” fetched $4.1 million to rank third Friday with eight-day total ticket sales of $32.9 million, while Warners comedy “Due Date” was fourth with $2.9 million and $66.4 million domestic box office at the start of its third weekend. — Reuters

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Fashion

Gap Milan store key to International expansion I

Models display creations from the collection “The Empire” by the Serbian designer Olga Olja Ivanjicki, presented by Serbian fashion house Mona, in Skopje, Macedonia, on Saturday.—AP

Gap’s European division, said on a tour of the new store on the eve of the opening. The 3,500-square-meter (25,500square-foot) Gap store was built around a stunning pair of winding marble staircases, now enclosed but which once graced an outdoor passageway on Milan’s Corso Vittorio Emmanuele steps from the famed Duomo cathedral.

Officials during World War II covered the marble to prevent it from being looted.

Next door is Banana Republic, a brand that executives have acknowledged had lost its way. It is regaining some fashion ground with the recent line based on the successful TV 1960s period drama “Mad Men.” Gap is hoping to tap Italians’ penchant for fashion-clearly at lower prices than Milan runway mainstays Dolce&Gabbana, Armani, Prada,

An internal view of a Gap store in Milan, Italy, Friday. —AP

Versace, Bottega Veneta and Ferre.

“Italians spend three times as much on fashion as in the United States,” said Sunnucks. “Fantastic Italy!” Fashion writer Roberta Filippini said the American casual of Gap will find fans among Italians, who already know the brand well from trips to Britain and the United States.

“American sportswear for yound people is normal,” said Filippini, noting the success in Italy of Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch, which also have stores in Milan. “It will do very well. In the end, Gap is not an American brand but an international brand. Youth is globalized.

There is no difference.” The Gap brand is competing with the likes of fastfashion icons H&M and Zara, while

Tbilisi Fashion Week

t may sound like coals to Newcastle, but the maker of American casualwear Gap Inc, opened flagship Gap and Banana Republic stores in Italy’s fashion capital yesterday. And to draw fashion-loving Italians-An exclusive limited-edition seven-piece line designed by the Valentino fashion house for Gap to herald the Milan opening. The Milan store is a key part of Gap’s strategy to go after a bigger piece of the $1.4 trillion global apparel market. To date, it has been heavily slanted toward North America, a 26 percent share, while the rest of the world represents a full 74 percent.

“If you look at our business, we’re the reverse, only 12 percent is out of the United States and Canada,” Stephen Sunnuks, the London-based head of

Banana Republic looks a bit more up market.

Sunnucks said they are pricing Gap items to the Italian market, with jeans starting around euro60 ($82). The Valentino line features classic gray Gap T-shirt and sweat-shirt cotton and also heavier khaki-green cotton jackets, graced with vintage Valentino bows and ruffles.

The limited edition line range, which also will be sold in Paris and London, are priced from euro70 to euro150. After Milan, Gap and Banana Republic will open flagship stores in Rome next year.

The brands will then be brought to smaller cities and outlet stores will follow, completing the multi-channel strategy, Sunnucks said. An online retail site for Italy has just opened. —AP

Models display creations

by Georgian fashion designer Lika Aladashvili during the Fashion Week in Tbilisi yesterday. Georgian fashion designers show their Spring-Summer, 2011 women’s collections. —AFP

SPECTRUM

Monday, November 22, 2010

39

Travel

Skiing Californiaʼs

June Mountain the flip side of Mammoth

By Gary A Warner JUNE LAKE: June Mountain is everything that its big sister resort down the road is not. Mammoth is huge, humming, chic, expensive and challenging-with ski runs carrying hyperbolic names like “Paranoid Flats” and “Wall Street.” June is small, lowkey, casual, cheaper, and beginner friendly.

The hardest “black diamond” runs have names like “Schatzi” and “Gull Canyon.”

While it will never compete with the megaresort, June has its squadrons of ski and snowboard fans. Denise Perpall has been teaching skiing at Mammoth for 27 years. But when she hits the slopes for fun, it’s often at June Mountain. “It’s our secret.

June is awesome,” Perpall said. “So quiet, so peaceful, and so much fresh powder. It’s really a throwback to how ski resorts used to be.”

The frustrations of being a throwback are part of the reason June Mountain is

If you go

avoided by skiers in a hurry. The pace of June Mountain is set right at the start, when skiers get on the old J1 two-seat open-air chairlift. You slooooowly pass between the trees in total silence. It’s beautifully retro-unless a sharp sleet is hammering you in the face. The more hyperactive personalities in skiing are likely counting the number of extra runs they could get in a day if J1 was a high-speed quad.

On a late winter day earlier this year, June Mountain was on cruise control, the parking lot still capable of handling hundreds of cars. It reminded me of a larger version of Badger Pass, the pioneering resort near Yosemite, or some of the Big Bear ski resorts on a slow day.

June Mountain is popular with families, beginners and powder fans. It’s easy on the heads and tails of learners falling down-and on

GETTING THERE: June Mountain is a bit less than 350 miles from Southern California. It’s 20 miles north of the Mammoth turnoff on Highway 395 and can be reached via the 16-mile loop road. Even if you are not planning to ski at June Mountain, it’s a pretty drive that passes four lakes.

Horizon Air offers seasonal service to Mammoth-Yosemite Airport from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Mammoth properties have free shuttles, but if you are staying at June Lake, you’ll need to arrange for a taxi or shuttle.

the sometimes cranky knees, thighs and backs of their elders. About 80 percent of the runs are rated beginner or moderate and the relatively compact 500 acres of the ski area means it’s easier to keep track of your family. Because there are fewer skiers, you are more likely to find fresh powder.

At Mammoth, ski tracks crisscross much of the mountain by midday. Even June’s onmountain eateries tend toward the funky, with places like Stew

Pot Slim’s and The Antler Bar. Unlike Mammoth’s rising restaurant scene, June lacks any hint of trendiness. Finally, there is the price-a day pass at June Mountain is $69 for an adult, $52 if you arrive in the afternoon. Mammoth is $92.

Nature determines June Mountain’s schedule. While Mammoth can open in November and sometimes closes as late as July 4, June’s window is smaller. It usually opens in December and closes in April. Once upon a time, June Mountain was supposed to be akin to Mammoth’s twin, with its

own lodges, condos and built-out ski trails.

But environmental and economic concerns have put the brakes on the plans. Even without the development, the difference between Mammoth and June has become more pronounced as Mammoth has upgraded slopes and amenities to more closely resemble resorts like Whistler Blackcomb outside Vancouver or Steamboat Springs in Colorado.

The before and “apres” ski scene at June Mountain is decidedly more casual than Mammoth. Most of the lodges in the area were

y, e Cit pipe n y o er fB rd, o The Sup a w d n o out o in. n Wo Aaro n, works Mounta iga at June Mich

located to take advantage of the summer tourist trade visiting the lakes on the June Loop. The Eagle Resort and Lodge has some of the feel and extra touches that you might expect to find at mid-priced resort lodgings in Vail or Aspen. But overall, the choices are mostly simple or rustic. Same with the restaurant scene. Silver Lake Cafe has hearty breakfasts, and I like The Tiger Bar & Cafe, a local hangout since 1932, for beers, a burger and shooting some pool.

If you want lift-side lodges and an international cuisine scene, you’ll have to head back to Mammoth.

But that’s the point.

Mammoth is rushing into the future.

June Mountain stays more than a bit stuck in the past. And that is just fine by its fans. —MCT

y, e Cit ipe n y o p , of B e Super d r a h odw eT n Wo ars abov ntain. o r a u o A an, s June Mo g i h c at Mi

SKIING: Opening Day for the 2010-11 winter season at June Mountain is Dec 18.

WHERE TO STAY: June Mountain does not have on-site accommodations like Mammoth. About a mile away is Big Rock Resort, with cabins of various sizes.

J une mountain specs Average Snowfall: 250 inches Length of Season: December-April Elevation: Base 7,545 feet Vertical Rise: 2,590 feet Summit: 10,090 feet Number of Lifts: 7 — 2 Quads, 4 Doubles, 1 carpet Number of Trails: 35 named trails Uphill Capacity: 10,000 rides per hour Longest Run: 2 miles Terrain: 20 percent advanced 45 percent intermediate 35 percent beginner Chair hours: Variable, but some open 7:30 am to 5 pm.

Beautiful mountain vistas and wide open ski runs make June Mountain a favorite for many local Mammoth area skiers. —MCT photos

Panthertown Valley is vast outdoor playground

By Bob Downing he Panthertown Valley really does look like Yosemite. The granite domes and sheer cliffs offer an Eastern reminder of California’s iconic Yosemite National Park. The cliffs in Panthertown Valley are not as tall or as dramatic, at only 200 to 300 feet high. But they create a Yosemite-like valley that is heavily forested and wild country.

The similarity is striking and even more surprising. It’s a dramatic landscape that dazzles visitors to the southern Appalachians. Yet most people have never heard of Panthertown Valley, a mountainous backcountry pocket of 6,300 acres in western North Carolina.

With the addition of the Bonas Defeat Gorge to the north and Big Pisgah Mountain to the east, the backcountry has grown to 12,000 acres. The Panthertown Valley is part of Nantahala National Forest, once home to the Cherokees and located not far from where North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia come together. The valley has been designated a Blue Ridge Natural Heritage Site and Mountain Treasure Area. It has survived as wild country in an area dominated by mountain vacation homes and resorts.

Today the valley in both Jackson and Transylvania counties is a popular outdoor playground frequented by backpackers, equestrians, mountain bikers, rock climbers, anglers, bird watchers and nature lovers.

Wilderness camping is permitted.

They travel via a befuddling maze of official and unofficial trails, some of which are signed and many of which are not. The main trails are old logging roads. Maps and compasses are essential.

According to oral history, the valley was once so wild it was said to be the home of “a town of painters” or panthers. There are no large cats there today. The granite domes,

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uncommon in the southern Appalachians, offer spectacular longrange vistas. They are plutons, mountain-sized nuggets of buried rocks that were later exposed as the overlying Appalachian Mountains eroded away.

The main rocks on the floor of the valley-a banded gneiss-date back 750 million years. The valley at 3,600 feet in elevation is also known for its waterfalls, its trout streams, its rare high-altitude bogs and its biological diversity. There are eight major waterfalls in the valley and numerous smaller falls, plus holes for a summer swim. The rugged gorges within the valley contain old-growth forest, mostly eastern hemlock now under attack by the wooly adelgid, and the yellow birches.

The headwaters of the East Fork of the Little Tennessee River and the Tuckasegee River and 20 miles of native brook trout streams including Panthertown, Greenland and Flat creeks are found within Panthertown Valley. The streams are stained brown with tannic acid from leaves that fall into the water. The flat main valley is home to 11 unique plant communities, including the rare southern Appalachian bog and the swamp forest-bog.

Visitors are asked to stay on trails to minimize ecological damage. Rare ferns, mosses and liverworts thrive in the wet microclimates around waterfalls and are easily disturbed.

The waterfalls support the highest concentration of rare plants in the valley. The trail system in the Panthertown Valley is unique. None are blazed and few are signed. Not all the trails show up on maps.

The Forest Service has established an official trail system marked with carsonite markers. But Panthertown is filled with numerous unofficial trails, many lovingly built in the early 1990s by the late volunteer Carlton McNeill. It is very easy to get lost on the myriad trails. Enter

Falls on Greenland Creek is the bestknown waterfall. The west entrance to the valley is closest to Granny Burrell and Frolictown Creek falls and offers great vistas from Blackrock and Big Green mountains.

Rhododendron and mountain laurel thickets are everywhere, along with berry patches. The valley was purchased in the late 1890s by RG Jennings of Pittsburgh for hunting

local outfitter Burt Kornegay, who has combined the official and unofficial trails onto one map: A Guide’s Guide to Panthertown ($12).

Using Kornegay’s map and a compass, I didn’t get lost on a day hike but I did lose two trails and was forced to backtrack. The main trail in the valley is the 3.25-mile east-west Panthertown Valley Trail that connects two trailheads. Schoolhouse

The trail system in Panthertown Valley in North Carolina, can be confusing, with main trails such as this on old logging roads.

Panthertown Valley in North Carolina is known for its cliffs, domes, waterfalls, trout streams, rare high-altitude bogs, trails and biological diversity. —MCT photos

and fishing. It was heavily logged from the 1920s into the 1930s by the Moltz Lumber Co In the 1960s, it was sold to a private development company that had plans to turn the valley into a mountain lake resort with a lodge, golf course and houses.

When those plans failed, the Duke Power Co. (now Duke Energy) in 1987 purchased the main Panthertown Valley in order to construct a transmission line spanning the width of the valley.

In 1989, the Nature Conservancy purchased the entire 6,300-acre main valley (except for the Duke Energy right of way) for $8 million. Later it was sold to the federal government and added to the Nantahala National Forest. In 2003, Congress named the Panthertown Valley after James McClure Clarke, who served in Congress from 1983-85 and 19871991. The Democrat, who died in 1999, fought to get the funds allocated for the Forest Service to acquire the valley. The main valley lies between Sassafras Mountain to the north, Toxaway and Hogback mountains to the south, Cold Mountain to the east and Laurel Knob to the west.

It runs up to 5 { miles east-towest and up to 7 { miles north-south, although its dimensions are generally smaller. The US Forest Service in 1981 acquired an additional 3,600acre Bonas Defeat tract to the north along the headwaters of the Tuckasegee River. The Bonas Defeat Gorge takes its unusual name from a pioneer dog, Bonas, that was reputedly trained to chase wildlife over a cliff for its owners. One day, Bonas failed to stop at the cliff. It was Bonas’ Defeat.

The story could be whimsical but the gorge is serious stuff. Some consider it a world-class day hike for the very dedicated. It’s been called the wildest trail in the East. There is no trail, just a daunting trek down a stream bed. —MCT

www.kuwaittimes.net

‘Marie Antoinette’:

A modern baroque ballet for Vienna

By Sim Sim Wissgott aroque mixed with contemporary in German choreographer Patrick de Bana’s new ballet “Marie Antoinette,” which premiered yesterday at Vienna’s Volksoper theatre... and the result was electrifying. Specially created for the Vienna Ballet, this was a tortured “Marie Antoinette,” retelling the tragic story of the Austrian-born queen who perished under the French Revolution’s guillotine.

And the ballet began ominously, with a twitching black-clad character called “Fate” and a ghostlike “Shadow of Marie Antoinette” setting the tone for the dreary events to follow. Set predominantly to music from the period-from George Philipp Telemann and Vivaldi to Mozart and Jean-Philippe Rameau-this

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Vienna state ballet dancer Ketevan Papava performs during the general rehearsal of the new ballet “Marie Antoinette” in the Volksoper in Vienna.

—AFP photos Handout photo shows Olga Esina (Marie Antoinette), and Roman Lazik (Ludwig XVI.) performing.

Vienna state ballet dancer Olga Esina performs. was a resolutely modern choreography, with no pointe-work but with a fair share of classical thrown in. And it worked.

Wonderful lifts and graceful contortions made for some beautiful dancing, performed exquisitely by the fantastic Olga Esina, first solo dancer of the Vienna Ballet and the story’s Marie Antoinette. Playful at first, then tragic and fragile, Esina was undoubtedly the star of the evening. Kirill Kourlaev and Elisabeth Golibina however threatened to upstage the rest of the ensemble from the very beginning with their riveting performances as Fate and Marie Antoinette’s blank-faced shadow: the only scenes set to contemporary music-a sinister, atmospheric piece commissioned from Spanish composer Luis Miguel Cobo. In secondary roles, Kamil Pavelka, whose pas-de-deux with Esina were among the highlights of the evening, and Ketevan Papava as Marie Antoinette’s confidante, also deserved honorable mentions. First solo dancer Roman Lazik disappointed on the other hand, never seeming quite at ease with the movements and presenting a rather clumsy Louis XVI. Contributing to a futuristic feel on stage, Marcelo Pacheco and Alberto Esteban built sleek sets with mirrored walls, cascades of crystal and suspended steel bars representing Marie Antoinette’s prison.

The costumes-opulent yet light-were designed by Paris Opera etoile dancer Agnes Letestu, again weaving baroque and modern to stunning effect.

De Bana initially created “Marie Antoinette” as a pas-de-deux for Letestu and himself in 2009, but was then asked to develop the idea further for the Vienna Ballet by its new director Manuel Legris. Saturday evening, a few uncoordinated moments, especially in set pieces, revealed the ensemble’s struggle to perfect a choreography still tweaked days before the premiere. But half a dozen curtain calls and loud applause from the Volksoper audience proved this new “Marie Antoinette” was a hit, for de Bana and for the Vienna Ballet. — AFP

Olga Esina and Roman Lazik perform.

Hollywood baffled by real-life crime drama

By John Rogers n a world where people are paid handsomely to create make-believe drama that mimics real-life horror, the true-crime story of a Hollywood publicist killed by a fusillade of bullets as she drives home from a movie premiere has left her friends stunned and searching for a script that can somehow help them make sense of a senseless act.

Officials in Beverly Hills, where veteran publicist Ronnie Chasen was gunned down shortly after midnight last Monday, have offered few theories about her death other than to say police believe someone opened fire on her late-model Mercedes from another vehicle.

But that hasn’t stopped Chasen’s friends in Hollywood’s tight-knit community of publicists and other behind-the-scenes people who help bring us the movies we watch from working overtime to develop their own theories: Was Chasen’s killing the result of a bungled carjacking by someone who stalked her through a rougher neighborhood until she reached a quiet Beverly Hills street?

Or did Chasen, with fatigue setting in after attending a premiere and party for the movie “Burlesque,” simply cut off the wrong person in traffic? “I’m not a detective, I’m a songwriter. But I can’t see it being road rage,” said Carol Connors, a two-time Oscar nominee who cowrote the theme to “Rocky,” and who was a friend of

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Vienna state ballet dancer Dagmar Kronberger and Roman Lazik perform.

Chasen’s for more than 30 years. “Who would you really aggravate in traffic at that hour?” Connors asked, her voice breaking. “Maybe it was a gang thing and one of the initiations is to find a really pretty blonde lady in a really high-powered car and take her out.” L augh Factory nightclub owner Jamie Masada said Chasen’s killing was the subject of dinner-table conversation when he met with TV executives earlier in the week.

Others put forth road-rage theories, but he disagrees.

“Maybe I’m watching too much television, but you see all those shows like ‘48 Hours’ where someone hires a hit man to kill their wife,” he said.

“Maybe someone hired a hit man. He says, ‘My wife drives a Mercedes, she comes by here.’ And the hitman mistook her for his wife.” With all the speculation, it’s likely that sometime after Chasen’s funeral on Sunday at Hillside Memorial Park - final resting place for such Hollywood notables as Milton Berle, Jack Benny and Al Jolson - her killing will be the subject of a crime show. The producers of “Law and Order: Los Angeles” declined to comment about that possibility Friday out of respect for Chasen’s family. But the show’s executive producer, Dick Wolf, did note that the case “sure is a fascinating headline.” The 64-year-old Chasen, who was unmarried and had no children, was a virtual unknown outside the Hollywood community. —AP

Auction marks coming of age of Africaʼs photography

By Claire Rosemberg s shots of Marilyn Monroe by glam snapper Richard Avedon go on sale for tens of thousands of euros at Paris’ annual photo show, a collection of lesser cash but greater historical value goes under the hammer in Brussels. In what is billed as the first auction yet held of African photography, some 300 lots of pictures spanning more than a century are up for sale Tuesday for an estimated 340,000 euros

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datelined from the North African countries of the Maghreb to the southern Cape of Good Hope.”These are the beginnings of a recognition of African photography,” Freddy Denaes, head of the prestigious Editions de L’Oeil artbook publishers and a collector of art photography, told AFP.”It’s a very good thing for African photographers to be able at last to see how their work is valued by the market,” he added.

Among works up for auction

by Pierre Berge, former partner

People look at African pictures displayed before going under the hammer in Brussels. —AFP photos

(464,000 dollars).From dusty World War II battlefields in Libya, to a 1935 snap of Ethiopia’s royal Negus, and shots from the 1950s of Miriam Makeba or Nelson Mandela laughing during his treason trial, the pictures freeze people and places right across the continent.

Alongside dog-eared snaps dredged from dusty drawers are poster-sized contemporary works

of the late Yves Saint-Laurent, are some by the continent’s most celebrated snappers-Malians Malick Sidibe and Seydou Keita, South Africans David Goldblatt, Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko and Jurgen Schadeberg, and Mozambique’s Ricardo Rangel.

Early works by Sidibe, now in his 70s, show picnics on the banks of the sweeping Niger, lovers, boxers and studio snaps.”There are few photographs of the country-

side, of nature,” said Vincent Godeau, a specialist on the topic who gathered the pictures up for auction. “African photographers, on the other hand, love to do por-

traits.”

A bunch of yellowing studio snaps, featuring children, couples and families all turned out in Sunday best, is the most highly-

priced item for sale-an assortment of 14 smallish snapshots pinned on a board with colored drawing-pins going for 15,000 euros. The vintage photos are by Central African Samuel Fosso and were originally stuck on the door of his first studio, opened as a teenager in the 1970s.One of Africa’s most celebrated portrait photographers, Sudan’s Al Rashid Mahdi, who died two years ago in his late 80s, worked much like Avedon and other celebrity photographers when he began shooting in the 1950s.

He used make-up to snap Khartoum high society, touched up negatives and fiddled with prints to wipe away wrinkles and spots. Among 21 of his rarelyseen portraits on sale is an iconic 1970s shot of a young officer in a cap with two etched tribal scars on his cheeks. —AFP