Emir patronises Military College graduation event education students, pre-paratory education...

Volume 22 | Number 7418 | 2 RiyalsFriday 26 January 2018 | 9 Jumada 1 | 1439 www.thepeninsula.qa

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Emir condoles with Kuwait EmirDOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent a cable of condolences to the Emir of the fraternal State of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah on the death of Sheikh Abdullah Al Hamad Al Mubarak Al Sabah.

Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani and the Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also sent cable of condolences to the Emir of Kuwait on the death of Sheikh Abdullah Al Hamad Al Mubarak Al Sabah.

SANAULLAH ATAULLAH

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The organising committee of the Scientific Excellence Awards announced the winners of 11th edition of the award. This year 64 students, research scholars, teachers and education institutions have won the coveted award. More cate-gories were added to this year’s edition as there were 18 more winners this year.

The winners of the Scientific Excellence Awards-2018 will be honoured during a special cer-emony on March 4, said the com-mittee in a press conference held here yesterday.

The winners were picked up from nine categories including primary education students, pre-paratory education students, high school certificate holders, university graduates, master’s degree holders, PhD holders, excellence in teaching, excellent

school, excellent scientific research.

The 64 winners included 17 students from primary schools for platinum medal, five students from primary schools for gold medal, four students from prepar-atory schools for platinum medal, and five students from prepar-atory schools for gold medal.

Three students are from sec-ondary schools for platinum medal, seven students from pre-paratory schools for gold medal,

four university students for platinum medal and ten university students for gold medal, one research scholar for gold medal.

Two school teachers, two master degree holders, two PhD holders and two schools one public and one private school were also selected for the awards. The total number of par-ticipants for this year’s awards reached 291 and the highest number of nominees came from primary schools with 100 entries,

preparatory schools with 36 entries, and 15 entries from high schools and 36 from universities.

The organising committee also received 16 entries for the ‘Outstanding scientific research, 18 excellent teachers, 49 nomina-tions from master degree holders and 14 from PhD holders and seven entries for the category of the ‘Outstanding School Award’.

→CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

64 named for Scientific Excellence Awards

QNA

DOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani patronised the graduation ceremony of the 13th class of officer cadets of Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College, held at the College field yesterday morning.

The Qatari national anthem was played upon the Emir’s arrival. The commander of the parade then requested the Emir to review the parade staged by 173 graduates.

The graduation ceremony was attended by First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the State of Kuwait, H E Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, a number of Their Excellencies Ministers and ranking officers of the Qatari Armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior, as well as a number of senior officers of military col-leges from some brotherly and friendly countries.

Delivering a speech on the occasion, Commander of Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College Brigadier Abdullah Abdulrahman Al Kaabi expressed pride of the 13th batch for the patronage and

honour of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of the graduation ceremony.

Al Kaabi said that the batch of 173 graduates are distributed to the armed forces, the Interior,

Lekhwiya, the Emiri Guard and the State Security Service, in addition to colleagues from Kuwait, Sudan and the Comoros.

He noted that the College,

under the patronage of the Emir, seeks to continue development and modernisation in various military and academic programmes.

After that, the graduates

staged a military parade with slow and normal march before the Emir.

The Emir then honoured the outstanding graduates. The 13th batch handed over the flag to the

14th batch. An order for promo-tions was read out and the grad-uates took the oath, and the Qatari national anthem was played.

→SEE ALSO PAGE 2

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani during the graduation ceremony of the 13th class of officer cadets of Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College, yesterday.

Emir patronises Military College graduation event

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Rail has accom-plished another milestone with the completion of the manufac-turing of the first, out of 28, trains for the Lusail Tram project. The Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) took place at Alstom Factory in the French City of La Rochelle. The first batch of trains is expected to arrive in Doha this March.

Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti visited Alstom Factory in France in the presence of Dr Khalid Al Mansouri, Qatar Ambassador

& Abdulla Al Subaei, MD & CEO of Qatar Rail to review the progress in Lusail tram manufacturing & the testing of the first tram.

During the visit, the del-egation took a tour at the factory of Alstom, one of the largest companies working in the manufacture of tram trains. Alstom is currently working on manufacturing 28 Citadis trams and power gen-eration equipment, in addition to signage works and railways. The integrated low-floor train cars are very con-venient for passengers, being designed to withstand harsh

weather conditions. The Minister said: “We are

very pleased to be here to witness yet another signif-icant milestone in Qatar Rail’s projects, namely the Lusail Tram project which is one of the pillars of the integrated transport system that we seek to achieve. And through all those consecutive achieve-ments, we confirm that our projects are very well on track according to schedule and Qatar can look forward to an advanced future transport system.”

→CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

Qatar Rail to get first batch of trains for Lusail Tram in March

Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti during his visit to Alstom Factory in France to review the progress in Lusail Tram manufacturing & the testing of the first tram.

World Cup on track despite blockadeDAVOS: Qatar is confident that it can host a successful World Cup in 2022 and prep-arations are fully on track after a siege by Gulf neighbours briefly disrupted supply lines last year, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told Reuters.

He said Qatar’s economy was now growing much faster than anticipated and the major gas exporter was well prepared to withstand the crisis in relations with its neighbours.

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani reviewed the parade staged by 173 graduates of Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College.

02 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018HOME

Emir meets heads of military colleges

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met heads of a number of military colleges from sisterly and friendly countries, who called on the Emir to greet him on the occasion of their visit to the country to attend the graduation ceremony of the 13th batch of officer cadets of the College, at Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College, yesterday. The Emir and the leaders of the colleges reviewed a number of topics of mutual interest.

Emir patronises graduation of military college

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani patronised the graduation ceremony of the 13th class of officer cadets from Ahmed bin Mohammed Military College, which was held in the College field yesterday. The ceremony was attended by First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the State of Kuwait, Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, a number of Their Excellencies Ministers and ranking officers of the Qatari Armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior, as well as a number of senior officers of military colleges from some brotherly and friendly countries.

Ashghal to close south exit on Landmark InterchangeTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Public Works Authority (Ashghal) announced yesterday that the south exit on Umm Lekhba (Landmark) inter-change, which leads to Al Shamal Road will be closed starting from tomorrow.

Road users coming from Al Markhiya Interchange on Al Markhiya Street and heading towards Doha should continue straight on Al Markhiya Street until reaching the newly con-structed U-turn as part of the traffic diversion, make a U-turn

and follow the traffic signs to reach Al Shamal Road and from there to the desired destination.

Road users on Al Markhiya Street in the opposite direction, coming from Al Gharrafa inter-change and heading towards Doha, can use the alternative route by following the traffic signs to reach Al Shamal Road and from there to their desired destination. This closure is required to enable the con-struction works of multiple bridges and overpasses to reduce the traffic congestion on

Al Shamal Road and Umm Lekhba Interchange.

A s h g h a l will install road signs pro-v i d i n g motorists with advance notice of the new road layout.

03FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 HOME

Al Hammadi meets German envoy

Al Sulaiti, French counterpart discuss tiesDOHA: Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti met with Minister of Transport of France, Élisabeth Borne, in Paris yesterday.

The Ministers discussed a number of issues of common interest and means of further enhancing them.

They also discussed cooper-ation in the fields of aviation, marine transport, ports, railroads, smart mobility, and integrated transport systems, as well as encouraging cooperation with French companies specialised in the field of transportation. The meeting was attended by Qatar’s Ambassador to France Khalid bin Rashid Al Mansouri.

Kuwait’s First Deputy PM visits MIATHE PENINSULA

DOHA: As part of his official visit to Qatar, Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime M i n i s t e r a n d Defence Minister Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah visited the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) for a tour of the museum’s exhibitions.

He was accom-panied by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin M o h a m e d A l Attiyah.

They were wel-comed by Mansoor bin Ebrahim Al Mahmoud, Chief Executive Officer and Special Advisor to Qatar Museums’ Chairperson H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as

well as members of the senior management team.

The tour highlighted the world-class collections housed at the museum, as well as the

special exhibitions currently on show including the popular “Imperial Threads: Motifs and Artisans from Turkey, Iran and India.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah with Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah at the Museum of Islamic Art during a tour of the museum’s exhibitions.

Qatar Rail to get first batch of Lusail Tram trains in March

→CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1The Lusail Tram project

progress currently stands at 71 percent.

Engineer Abdulla Al Subaie, Qatar Rail’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer said, “We have been working closely with Alstom over the past few months to ensure the comple-tion of the manufacturing of Lusail tram trains and the FAT and take place as scheduled”.

“The testing completion of the first Lusail Tram train is a great testament to the joint efforts spent on both ends. We will be looking forward to receiving the first batch of the Lusail Tram trains this March,” he added.

Lusail Tram connects to the Doha Metro through two inter-change stations at Lusail and Legtaifiya. The Lusail Tram Net-work, which will launch in 2020, is 28km long. The net-work includes three lines and 25 stations aboveground and

underground. The design of the Lusail

Tram was inspired by “Al Mehmel”, which signifies “The Dhow” — the old traditional Qatari boat used for pearl fishing. The design concept focused on the sea representing dhow pearl fishing and bringing

in the calm, cool, elegant and tranquil elements of that medium to the design. All these features will be depicted in the design of the trams. Trams are much more efficient in terms of road usage as one train replaces about 40 cars which take up a far larger area of road space.

SC takes part in European Stadium and Safety Management SummitQNA

DOHA: A delegation from the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) participated in the 2018 European Stadium and Safety Management Association (ESSMA) Summit, held in Dublin, Ireland.

The event, organised by the association in cooperation with the European Professional Foot-ball Leagues and the European Club Association, aims to share experiences and views on various issues related to stadium devel-opment, sustainability, security and safety of fans, stadium man-agement, and different other issues. This year’s summit attracted speakers from world’s top clubs such as Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Valencia and others. The summit, which was launched in its first edition in 2015, was attended by more than 375 participants from clubs, sta-diums, and football associations from around the world.

The SC’s Landscape and Sport

Turf Management Senior Man-ager Yasser Al Mulla, told dele-gates at the 2018 ESSMA Summit that all eight venues would be completed well in advance of the tournament.

“All the stadiums will be com-pleted two years before the tour-nament starts,” Al Mulla informed attendees at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.Al Mulla said that “Khalifa International Stadium is already completed and was opened by HH the Emir last May. The other seven stadiums are currently being constructed, with two Al Wakrah Stadium and Al Bayt Sta-dium close to completion.”

Al Mulla also discussed the opportunities offered by the hosting of major events such as the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 for the region, saying: “The event is helping to accelerate progress across Qatar. It is also helping to break down social barriers. We know that sport has the power to bring people together and help them understand different cultures.”

“Hosting the first World Cup in the Middle East is a huge responsibility and we are deter-mined to make the whole region very proud.

“We have developed signifi-cant turf development knowledge for Qatar’s conditions,” said Al Mulla. “We have created a state-of-the-art research and develop-ment centre one of only two in the world which aims to deliver the perfect pitch for 2022. Our aim is to develop a signature pitch that can be used in winter or summer, in shade or in sunlight.”

Al Mulla revealed that the SC had tested 24 different types of grass during its research and also broken a world record by relaying the pitch at Khalifa International Stadium in just 13.5 hours.

“Our trials have provided insightful data on grass resilience for different weather conditions and soil types. We will soon reveal the signature design grass species to be used during the tourna-ment,” he added.

Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti during a test run of a tram in the French City of La Rochelle.

Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti with Minister of Transport of France, Élisabeth Borne, in Paris, yesterday.

QNA

DOHA: Chief of Staff Major-General (pilot) H E Ghanem bin Shaheen Al Ghanem met with Rear Admiral Didier Piaton, Commander of the French forces in the Indian Ocean, and the accompanying delegation, yesterday.

During the meeting, the two sides reviewed a number of regional and international issues of mutual interest, and discussed a set of bilateral fields and means of enhancing and developing them, especially in the military area.

Commander of the Emiri Navy Forces attended the meet-ing along with the acting head

of the military cooperation authority and the French mili-tary attache in Doha.

QNA

DOHA: A new book, entitled “From the Dialogue of Strength to the Power of Dialogue” for the researcher Hind Mohammed Al Hammadi, highlighted Qatar’s efforts in the field of interfaith dialogue and the dissemination of the culture of peace.

The book said that the State of Qatar considers dialogue and peace as part of its domestic and foreign policy, and is keen to

promote the values of tolerance and cooperation between religions and cultures. Qatar also seeks to build national institutions to spread the culture of peace and acceptance of the other, to fight extremism and to renounce vio-lence at the national, regional and international levels. Through dia-logue, the State of Qatar has adopted a policy of spreading peace among the conflicting peo-ples, and has made great efforts to resolve disputes through

mediation based on the Charter of the United Nations.

In her 244-page book, Hind Al Hammadi cited the articles in the Qatari Constitution that aim at promoting the purposes of dia-logue, noting the articles (35) and (50), which stipulate acceptance of religious pluralism and accept-ance of the other and the right to a dignified life. In its statement before the UN General Assembly in 2016 on the culture of peace, the State of Qatar affirmed its

commitment to supporting efforts to promote dialogue, intercultural and interreligious cooperation and the culture of peace.

The writer noted that there are many national institutions that play this role, including Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue, Hamad Bin Khalifa Civ-ilisation Centre in Copenhagen, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar Committee for Alliance of Civili-zations, the Ministry of Awqaf, the Ministry of Education and Higher

Education, Qatar Debate center and Hamad Bin Khalifa Univer-sity, as well as the establishment of the ISESCO Chair in the Alliance of Civilizations in the Faculty of Sharia and Islamic Studies, the Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Cultural Center and other institu-tions. The researcher shed light on a number of results, the most important of which was the sci-entific and intellectual status achieved by Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue at

the global level, and the Center’s keenness on increasing the number of influential participants in the field of interfaith dialogue and enriching the Arab library with many researches.

The writer called for activating the role of religious leaders and religious institutions in turning recommendations into practical programs to contribute to conflict resolution. She proposed the adoption of the idea of a global union for interfaith dialogue.

New book on Qatar’s role in Interfaith Dialogue released

→CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1The award aims to create aware-

ness about knowledge and scientific research, enhancing the spirit of inno-vation among students, researchers and educational institutions, to increase the spirit of competition among individu-als and educational institutions. Mona Mohammed Al Kuwari, Executive Vice-President of the Scientific Excellence Awards said that the winners are a dis-tinguished group of Qataris and their enthusiasm for the country’s progress has motivated them to achieve excel-lence, highlighting the efforts of parents, which reflects the partnership between the educational institution and the family.

“The award has become a goal that excellent people aspire to, especially with the high level of awareness among Qatari families, educators, students and researchers of the value and impor-tance of the award,” Al Kuwari said.

Hassan Abdullah Al Mohammadi, Chairman of

the executive committee of the award, said: “The spread of the culture of the award in the Qatari society resulting in the intensive efforts made to introduce it in educational circles as well as the work of the jury bench, which were based on strict criteria so as to ensure that transparency”.

Chief of Staff meets French Commander

Chief of Staff Major-General (pilot) H E Ghanem bin Shaheen Al Ghanem with Rear Admiral Didier Piaton, Commander of the French forces in the Indian Ocean, and the accompanying delegation.

64 named for Scientific Excellence Awards

Mona Mohammed Al Kuwari (right), Executive Vice-President of the Scientific Excellence Awards, with Hassan Abdullah Al Mohammadi, Chairman of the executive committee of the award, at the event. PIC: ABDUL BASIT / THE PENINSULA

Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, H E Dr Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, met with Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hans-Udo Muzel. The meeting reviewed bilateral relations and means of boosting and developing them, in addition to issues of mutual interest.

04 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018ISLAM

“He is the one who has set free the two kinds of water, one sweet and palatable, and the other salty and bitter. And He has made between them a barrier and a forbidding partition.” (Quran 25:53)

ZAID SHAKIR

We are living in a world where there could obviously be more peace. As Muslims, we realise

this fact more than most people, as the peace of many of our brothers and sis-ters in various parts of the globe has been tragically disrupted: Palestine, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and other locales. Similarly, we are living in a world where there could be more jus-tice. We read almost daily of assassina-tions in various parts of the world where terrorist groups, military forces, or intel-ligence services, oftentimes in summary fashion, declare victims guilty and then proceed to execute them. Unfortunately, such unprincipled political behavior has become increasingly common in both the foreign and domestic policies of this country, causing untold damage to her image and credibility abroad.

These two issues, peace and justice, are joined in the slogans we hear from many activists, especially here in the United States, “No Justice, No Peace!”1 This linkage is logical, as justice must be con-sidered one of the indispensable prereq-uisites of any lasting peace. This article intends to briefly look at the ideas of peace and justice in Islam and explore their deeper significance in the life of a Muslim.

PeaceIn the Arabic language, the word

peace is derived from the radicals S-L-M. The scholars of language men-tion four closely related terms that can be derived from this origin: Salam, Salamah, Silm, and Salm. Raghib al-Isfa-hani says in his lexicon of Qur’anic terms, “As-Salm and as-Salamah mean freedom from any external or internal ruination.”2 Based on that, he mentions that true peace will only exist in Para-dise, for only there will there be perpe-tuity with no end, complete satisfaction with no need, perfect honor with no humiliation, and perfect health with no disease. In this regard, God is known as As-Salam, because He alone is described as being totally free from any defects or flaws.3 This understanding of true peace being a reality associated with a trans-formed world is also understood in both Jewish and Christian theology.4

At the level of interstate relations, if we ponder the above definition, we can consider peaceful relations between nations as a condition where violence, a state inevitably involving both internal and external ruination, is absent. In this sense, war can be viewed as an aberra-tional state. The aberrational nature of war is made clearer if we consider that murder, the ultimate consequence of war, is con-sidered an innovation that destroyed the peace formerly existing among the human family. It is stated in a prophetic tradition, “No soul is killed unjustly, except that the elder son of Adam (Cain) shares in the stain of the crime. That is because he was the first to innovate murder [in the human family].”5

At the individual level, peace can be viewed as an absence of the ruinations of the heart. One free from such ruina-tions will succeed, God-willing, when he/she meets his/her Lord. Therefore, he/ she will enter safely into the Abode of Peace (Dar as-Salam). God says in that regard, [On] the day no amount of wealth or children will be of any ben-efit. [The only one benefited] will be one who comes before God with a sound (salim) heart. [Quran 26:89]

If one reflects on these meanings, it should be clear that the wars that Mus-lims have been involved in throughout

our long history do not nullify the validity of the statement, “Islam is the religion of peace.” what is meant by that expression, and God knows best, is that Islam pro-vides a path for the human being to enter Paradise (Dar as-Salam), and there he/she will know true peace.

Peace has meanings wider than those mentioned above. One of the loftier objectives of our religion is to introduce into the world an ethos that facilitates the spreading of peace at every level. Our personal relations with our fellow Muslims should begin with the implementation of the Prophetic order “Spread peace between you all.”6 This order is so pressing that the Beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) — advised its indiscriminate imple-mentation. He said at the end of a tra-dition in which he described one of the best forms of Islam, “Extend the greeting of peace, to those you know and those you know not.”7 This is a very weighty matter that calls for our deeper reflec-tion. Its weightiness is illustrated by the fact that it is mentioned as being one of the things that completes our faith. The Prophet (PBUH) said in that regard, “You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Shall I indicate to you something that will surely lead to your mutual love? Spread the greeting and spirit of peace between yourselves.”8

Our relations with our spouses should also be characterized by peace. God admonishes us concerning those relations, And peace is best. [Quran 4:128] Similarly, in our relations with other nations, God commands us, If they (the enemy) incline towards peace, then you should similarly incline, and place your trust in God. [Quran 8:61] As men-tioned above, peace is the original state that prevailed in relations between indi-viduals and societies. This opinion is based, among other narrations, on the saying of the Prophet (PBUH) that Jesus “will return the world to a state of peace” (Yurji’ as-Salim) after his appearance at the end of time.9

JusticeOur lexicographers define justice,

variously, as “to rule based on that con-tained in the Book of God and the tradi-tion (Sunna) of His Messenger and refraining from ruling based on empty opinion.” It is also defined as “extending inherent rights [to their possessors] equi-tably.”10 This latter definition emphasizes the importance of equity as an essential aspect of distributive justice.

The concept of justice is one of the essential pillars in the maintenance of both the natural and social orders. God, be He Exalted, has said, He has estab-lished the scale, therefore, do not trans-gress in the scale [of justice]. Undertake the measuring with justice and do not

cheat concerning the scale. [55:7-8] Jus-tice, as many of our scholars point out, is one of the underpinnings of the order that has been established by God. This reality is also a foundation of a healthy social order. God says in that regard, O, You who believe! Be upright for God, witnesses to justice; and do not let your hatred of a people move you to a posi-tion where you are unjust. Be just, that is closer to piety. Be mindful of God! Verily God is well informed concerning all that you do. [Quran 4:135]

This social aspect of justice has been beautifully summarized by Imam al-Qur-tubi. He says, discussing the relationship between two words that are usually trans-lated as justice (al-’Adl), and distributive justice (al-Qist), “Justice is the basis of all human relations and a foundation of Islamic rule.”11 This saying is illustrative of the meaning conveyed by the saying of God, Verily, we have sent Our Messengers with clear proofs, and we have revealed unto them the Scripture and the Balance in order that they lead people with jus-tice... [Quran 57:25]

Imam al-Mawardi has summarised the social implications of distributive jus-tice in the following way: One of the things that reforms worldly affairs is the principle of distributive justice. It facil-itates amicable relations between people, engenders obedience to the Divine Law, and brings about the prosperity of coun-tries. It is the basis of a thriving economy, strong families, and stable government. Nothing devastates the land nor corrupts the mind as quickly as tyranny. That is because there are no acceptable limits [to regulate tyranny].12

For this reason, Ibn Taymiyya sees the responsibilities of Islamic govern-ment emanating from a single verse in the Qur’an, God enjoins that you deliver the Trusts to their rightful possessors. And when you rule over [or judge between] people, that you do so with justice... [Quran 4:58]13 The Noble Prophet (PBUH) has said in this context, “Surely the most beloved of people with God and the closest to Him on the Day of Resurrection will be a just leader. And the most hated of people and the fur-thest removed from Him will be a tyran-nical leader.”14

Clearing himself from even an inad-vertent association with oppressive, unjust acts, our beloved Prophet (PBUH) is reported to have said: You bring your disputes to me for adjudication; perhaps

one of you is less eloquent than another, and I rule against the wronged party on the basis of what I have heard. There-fore, if I inadvertently grant one of you something owed to his brother do not take it, for I am granting him something that constitutes a piece of Hellfire.15

Our impeccably just Khalifa ‘Umar b. al-Khattab uttered the following pen-etrating words: Verily, God sets forth parables for you, and He directs admo-nition towards you in order that hearts will be quickened. Surely, the hearts are dead until God quickens them. Justice has signs and portents. As for its signs, they are shyness, generosity, humility, and gentleness. As for its portents, they are embodied in mercy. He has [like-wise] made for every affair a gate, and He has made that gate accessible by pro-viding a key. The gate of justice is a deep consideration of consequences, and its key is otherworldliness. Consideration of consequences ultimately involves remembering death and preparing for it by freely parting from one’s wealth. Otherworldliness involves dealing justly with everyone and being satisfied with what suffices. If one is not satisfied with what suffices him, no abundance will every enrich him.16

Much of this discussion has focused on distributive justice. However, the Qur’an also places great emphasis on commutative justice. God commands us, Do not be moved by partiality to dis-criminate in meting out divinely legis-lated punishments. [Quran 24:2] The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) mentioned that one of the reasons behind the ruin-ation of a nation is a lack of commuta-tive justice.17 In this context, he men-tioned that if his very daughter were to steal, he would not hesitate to punish her to the full extent of the law.18

In summary, this brief discussion should make it clear to any Muslim that peace and justice are comprehensive concepts with deep implications and we have to be people committed to peace and justice. We must clearly illustrate to the world that our religion is indeed the religion of peace. However, our striving for peace must never allow us to be unjust, nor should it allow us to passively accept injustices. We must take a stand for justice, as we are ordered in the Quran, Be you upright supporters of justice... [4:135] However, that stand must go far beyond slogans, such as the one mentioned at the beginning of this

article, and move into the realm of pos-itive action; action inspired by the Quran and the words and deeds of our illus-trious Prophet (PBUH).

Excerpted from the book “Scattered Pictures”, by Imam Zaid Shakir

Notes1. This slogan has been particularly popu-

larized by the New York-based activist Rev. Al

Sharpton and his followers.

2. Raghib al-Isfahani, al-Mufradat fi Gharib

al-Qur’an (Beirut: Dar al Ma’rifa, no date), 239.

3. Al-Isfahani, 239.

4. See The Holy Bible, Isaiah, 9:6-7; and John 14:27.

5. Ibn Hajar al-’Asgalani, Fath al-Bari, 13:369, no. 7321.

6. This Hadith is related by Muslim, Abu Dawud,

and at-Tirmidhi in their collections. Quoted in

an-Nawawi, Riyaz as-Salihin, 289-290. Ibn Hajar

al-’Asgalani, Fath al-Bari, 11: 26-27. The full text

of the Prophetic Tradition follows: A man asked

the Prophet (PBUH) “Which Islam is best?” He

replied, “That you provide food, and extend the

greeting of peace, to those you know and those

you know not:”

8. This is the full narration of the Prophetic

tradition mentioned in note no.4 above.

9. This meaning is narrated in prophetic tra-

ditions that are related by al-Bukhari, Muslim,

and Ibn Majah. See for example, Fath al-Bari,

6:599-600. The above quote is the version of

Ibn Majah. Al-Bukhari’s version mentions that

Jesus will “put an end to war.”

10. These and other definitions of justice

are mentioned in Salih b. ‘Abdullah b. Humayd,

Nadra an-Na’im fi Makarim Akhlaq ar-Rasul al-

Karim (Jeddah: Dar al-Wasila, 2000), 7: 2792.

11. Quoted in Ibn Humayd, Nadr al-Na’im,

8:3153.

12. Quoted in Ibn Humayd, Nadr al-Na’im, 7:2793.

13. See Ahmad b. Taymiyya, As-Siyasa Ash-

Shar’iyya (Beirut: Dar al-Afaq alJadida, 1983), 4-5.

14. At-Tirmidhi, no. 1329.

15. Ibn Hajar al-’Asgalani, Fath al-Bari, 5:354.

16. Quoted in ibn Humayd, Nadra an-Na’im, 7:2811.

17. This concept is mentioned at the beginning

of the tradition where a lady from Bani Makhzum,

one of the most aristocratic Arab tribes, stole

something and the companions were moved to

intervene for a lessening of her punishment. The

Noble Prophet (PBUH) responded, “O people!

Those before you were ruined in that if a noble

person among them stole something, they left

him alone. On the other hand, if a lower class per-

son stole something, they punished him!” See this

narration in its entirety in Abi Zakariyya Yahya b.

Sharaf an-Nawawi, al-minhaj: Sharh Sahih Mus-

lim (Beirut: Dar at-Ma’rifa, 1419 AH/1998 CE),

11;186-187, no. 4386.

18. An-Nawawi, Al-Minhaj, 11:186-187, no. 4386.

www.islamicity.org

Peace and justice in Islam

Modern Science has dis-covered that in the places where two dif-

ferent seas meet, there is a bar-rier between them. This barrier divides the two seas so that each sea has its own temperature, salinity, and density. For example, Mediterranean sea water is warm, saline, and less dense, compared to Atlantic ocean water.

When Mediterranean sea water enters the Atlantic over the Gibraltar sill, it moves several hundred kilometres into the Atlantic at a depth of about 1000

meters with its own warm, saline, and less dense character-istics. The Mediterranean water stabilises at this depth.

Although there are large waves, strong currents, and tides in these seas, they do not mix or transgress this barrier.

The Holy Quran mentioned that there is a barrier between two seas that meet and that they do not transgress. God has said:

“He has set free the two seas meeting together. There is a bar-rier between them. They do not transgress.” (Quran 55:19-20)

But when the Quran speaks about the divider between fresh and salt water, it mentions the existence of “a forbidding parti-tion” with the barrier. God has said in the Quran:

“He is the one who has set free the two kinds of water, one sweet and palatable, and the other salty and bitter. And He has made between them a bar-rier and a forbidding partition.” (Quran 25:53)

One may ask, why did the Quran mention the partition when speaking about the divider between fresh and salt water, but

did not mention it when speaking about the divider between the two seas?

Modern science has discov-ered that in estuaries, where fresh (sweet) and salt water meet, the situation is somewhat different from what is found in places where two seas meet. It has been discovered that what distinguishes fresh water from salt water in estuaries is a “pyc-nocline zone with a marked density discontinuity sepa-rating the two layers.” This partition (zone of separation) has a different salinity from the

fresh water and from the salt water.

This information has been discovered only recently, using advanced equipment to measure temperature, salinity, density, oxygen dissolubility, etc. The human eye cannot see the dif-ference between the two seas that meet, rather the two seas appear to us as one homoge-neous sea. Likewise, the human eye cannot see the division of water in estuaries into the three kinds: fresh water, salt water, and the partition (zone of separation).

Holy Quran on seas and rivers

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Shall I indicate to you something that will surely lead to your mutual love? Spread the greeting and spirit of peace between yourselves.


EZDAN HOLDING GROUP Q.S.C.www.ezdanholding.qa

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Out of its belief in its national role as a leading investment organization in Qatar, Ezdan Holding Group was able, during 2017, to demonstrate its capability to meet challenges through its �� responding effectively to changes occurring in the investment landscape. Thanks to Allah the almighty, we have been able to translate our vision into steady steps and effective crisis management. We have been able to be active contributors to the nation building of our beloved country and keen to be part of its renaissance.

Thanks to unremitting devotion, hard work and diligence, the Group has managed to complete last year and maintained safe and positive performance. We have been able to ensure its successful journey, despite the regional volatility and conditions that have

affected the investment markets in the area and the Qatari market in particular. The Group has consolidated its efforts to enhance �� !�� "�� conditions.

#��$��!�� "��"�� successfully pursuing our goals and enhance our role as a partner in �� %��!��"�� &�� $�� indicator that national economy is robust and will continue to thrive.

In conclusion, we look forward to continuing our progress and success in the coming year. Ezdan Holding Group will carry on to achieve further accomplishments at all levels and in various �� "��"�� the renaissance of our beloved country under the wise leadership and vision of the Emir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani

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Invitation to the Shareholders to attend the Ordinary Annual General Assembly Meeting of Ezdan Holding Group��(��

2017

QR’000

2016

QR’000

ASSETS

Cash and bank balances 371.120 426.177

Receivables and prepayments 307.313 353.581

Inventories 22.265 19.208

Available-for-sale financial assets 2.470.953 6.553.307

Investment properties 43.819.785 38.919.798

Investments in associates and joint ventures 1.425.907 3.279.040

Property and equipment 832.413 41.756

Intangible assets - 235.925

TOTAL ASSETS 49.249.756 49.828.792

LIABILITIES AND EQUITY

LIABILITIES

Payables and other liabilities 2.822.431 3.328.171

Sukuk and Islamic financing borrowings 16.270.461 15.926.929

TOTAL LIABILITIES 19.092.892 19.255.100

EQUITY

Share capital 26.524.967 26.524.967

Legal reserve 1.572.678 1.403.358

Fair value reserves 17.326 329.580

Foreign currency translation reserve 154 1.954

Retained earnings 2.037.602 1.882.299

Equity attributable to equity holders of the parent 30.152.727 30.142.158

Non-controlling interests 4.137 431.534

TOTAL EQUITY 30.156.864 30.573.692

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY 49.249.756 49.828.792

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION As at 31 December 2017

2017

QR’000

2016

QR’000

Rental income 1.487.555 1.605.044

Dividends income from available-for-sale financial assets 241.848 226.892

Net gain on sale of available-for-sale financial assets 500.221 755.976

Net gain on sale of investments in associates 177.777 210.334

Other operating revenues 228.769 83.549

Operating expenses (352.763) (336.135)

OPERATING PROFIT FOR THE YEAR 2.283.407 2.545.660

Share of results of associates and joint ventures 141.354 189.804

Gain on acquisition of a subsidiary - 41.241

Gain on acquisition of an associate - 37.371

Gain (Loss) on revaluation of investment properties 427.748 (28.173)

Other income 57.461 15.569

Loss on disposal of subsidiaries (33.895) -

General and administrative expenses (241.984) (297.882)

Depreciation (15.596) (14.696)

Impairment loss of available-for-sale financial assets (67.487) (51.286)

Impairment loss of investments in associates (162.194) -

Finance costs (703.264) (623.253)

PROFIT FOR THE YEAR FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS 1.685.550 1.814.355

DISCONTINUED OPERATIONS

Loss for the year from discontinued operations (3.549) (9.411)

PROFIT FOR THE YEAR 1.682.001 1.804.944

Attributable to:

Equity holders of the parent 1.693.201 1.812.456

Non-controlling interests (11.200) (7.512)

1.682.001 1.804.944

BASIC AND DILUTED EARNINGS PER SHARE 0.64 0.68

BASIC AND DILUTED EARNINGS PER SHARE FOR CONTINUING OPERATIONS 0.64 0.69

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF INCOME For the year ended 31 December 2017


CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS For the year ended 31 December 2017

EZDAN HOLDING GROUP Q.S.C. www.ezdanholding.qa

2017

QR’000

2016

QR’000

OPERATING ACTIVITIES

Profit for the year 1.682.001 1.804.944

Adjustments for:

(Gain) loss on revaluation of investment properties (427.748) 28.173

Depreciation 15.596 15.732

Gain on acquisition of a subsidiary - (41.241)

Gain on acquisition of an associate - (37.371)

Loss on disposal of subsidiaries 33.895 -

Provision for employees’ end of service benefits 11.635 11.426

Share of results of associates and joint ventures (141.354) (193.198)

Allowance for impairment of receivables 1.565 37.552

Provision for inventory slow moving items 4.683 -

Reversal of allowance for impairment of receivables (9.391) -

Government compensation (171.971) -

Impairment loss of available-for-sale financial assets 67.487 51.286

Impairment loss of investment in associates 162.194 -

Profit on Islamic bank accounts (42.872) (12.599)

Net gain on sale of available-for-sale-financial assets (500.221) (755.976)

Net gain on sale of investments in associates (177.777) (210.334)

Finance costs 703.264 623.253

1.210.986 1.321.647

Working capital changes:

Receivables and prepayments 69.509 189.181

Inventories (7.740) 1.072

Payables and other liabilities 221.806 1.216.864

Cash from operations 1.494.561 2.728.764

Employees’ end of service benefits paid (7.569) (2.647)

Net cash flows from operating activities 1.486.992 2.726.117

INVESTING ACTIVITIES

Purchase of property and equipment (32.309) (29.524)

Payments for development of investment properties (254.459) (1.853.213)

Payments for purchase of completed investment properties (3.064.117) (151.306)

Purchase of available-for-sale-financial assets (300.261) (4.290.020)

Proceeds from sale of available-for-sale-financial assets 3.171.350 3.729.654

Proceed from sale of investments in associates 533.210 586.724

Payments for purchase of investments in associates and joint ventures - (342.451)

Acquisition of a subsidiary net of cash acquired - (151.766)

Dividends received from associates 109.624 205.633

Profit on Islamic bank accounts received 42.872 15.329

Net movement in restricted bank balances (1.465) (1.582)

Net cash flows from (used in) investing activities 204.445 (2.282.522)

FINANCING ACTIVITIES

Proceeds from Sukuk and Islamic financing borrowings 1.992.865 3.821.699

Payments for Sukuk and Islamic financing borrowings (2.402.140) (3.522.113)

Dividends paid (952.379) (937.088)

Net movement non-controlling interest (384.505) (1.313)

Net cash flows used in financing activities (1.746.159) (638.815)

NET DECREASE IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS (54.722) (195.220)

Net foreign exchange difference (1.800) -

Cash and cash equivalents as of 1 January 423.072 618.292

CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS AS OF 31 DECEMBER 366.550 423.072

Attributable to the equity holders of the Parent

Share

capital

QR’000

Legal

reserve

QR’000

Fair

value

reserves

QR’000

Foreign

currency

translation

reserve

QR’000

Retained

earnings

QR’000

Total

QR’000

Non-

controlling

interest

QR’000

Total

equity

QR’000

Balance at 1 January 2017 26.524.976 1.403.358 329.580 1.954 1.882.299 30.142.158 431.534 30.573.692

Profit (loss) for the year - - - - 1.693.201 1.693.201 (11.200) 1.682.001

Other comprehensive loss for the year - - (312.254) (1.800) - (314.054) - (314.054)

Total comprehensive

income (loss) for

the year - - (312.254) (1.800) 1.693.201 1.379.147 (11.200) 1.367.947

Movement in non-controlling interest - - - - - - (416.197) (416.197)

Transferred to legal reserve - 169.320 - - (169.320) - - -

Dividends for 2016 - - - - (1.326.248) (1.326.248) - (1.326.248)

Transferred to Social and Sports Activities Fund - - - - (42.330) (42.330) - (42.330)

At 31 December 2017 26.524.976 1.572.678 17.326 154 2.037.602 30.152.727 4.137 30.156.864

Attributable to the equity holders of the Parent

Share

capital

QR’000

Legal

reserve

QR’000

Fair

value

reserves

QR’000

Foreign

currency

translation

reserve

QR’000

Retained

earnings

QR’000

Total

QR’000

Non-

controlling

interest

QR’000

Total

equity

QR’000

Balance at 1 January 2016 26.524.967 1.222.112 605.559 1.954 1.622.648 29.977.240 403.991 30.381.231

Profit (loss) for the year - - - - 1.812.456 1.812.456 (7.512) 1.804.944

Other comprehensive loss for the year - - (275.979) - - (275.979) - (275.979)

Total comprehensive income (loss) for the year - - (275.979) - 1.812.456 1.536.477 (7.512) 1.528.965

Movement in non-controlling interest - - - - - - 35.055 35.055

Transferred to legal reserve - 181.246 - - (181.246) - - -

Dividends for 2015 - - - - (1.326.248) (1.326.248) - (1.326.248)

Transferred to Social

and Sports Activities

Fund - - - - (45.311) (45.311) - (45.311)

At 31 December 2016 26.524.967 1.403.358 329.580 1.954 1.882.299 30.142.158 431.534 30.573.692

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME For the year ended 31 December 2017

2017

QR’000

2016

QR’000

PROFIT FOR THE YEAR 1.682.001 1.804.944

Other comprehensive income

Other comprehensive income to be reclassified to profit or loss in subsequent periods:

Net loss on available-for-sale financial assets (326.785) (283.232)

Gain on cash flow hedges 17.198 6.267

Share of net movement in Fair value reserves of associates (2.667) 986

Movement in foreign currency translation reserve (1.800) -

Total other comprehensive loss for the year (314.054) (275.979)

TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE INCOME FOR THE YEAR 1.367.947 1.528.965

Attributable to:

Equity holders of the parent 1.379.147 1.536.477

Non-controlling interest (11.200) (7.512)

1.367.947 1.528.965


EZDAN HOLDING GROUP Q.S.C.www.ezdanholding.qa

INDEPENDENT AUDITORS’ REPORT TO THE SHAREHOLDERS OFEZDAN HOLDING GROUP Q.S.C.

>��9��?�=��'��@��9"�-B2��4�-3�F��!�-/+2Doha

Key Audit Matters

Valuation of Investment Properties:

The Group records its investment properties at fair value, with changes in fair value being

recognised in the consolidated statement of income. The fair values are determined by external

real estate valuation expert appointed by management. These valuations are based on estimates

such as estimated rental revenues, occupancy rates, discount rates and market indicators. Since

investment properties represent 91% of the total assets of the Group, and its valuation involves

computations dependent on estimates, we consider the valuation of investment properties as a

key audit matter.

As part of our audit, we:

• Evaluated the objectivity, independence and expertise of the external valuation expert

appointed by management.

• Tested the accuracy and completeness of the underlying data used as inputs for the

valuation.

• Evaluated the appropriateness of the underlying assumptions and methodology used by

the valuators by comparing them to the previous years and market practice.

• Involved our internal specialist to evaluate the appropriateness of the underlying

assumptions used by the valuator by comparing the assumptions used to internal and

external data.

• Assessed the adequacy and completeness of the disclosures on the valuation of

investment properties, presented in Note 12 of the consolidated financial statements.

Impairment of available for sale financial assets:

As mentioned in Note 11 to the consolidated financial statements, the Group’s available for sale

financial assets (AFS) consist of quoted shares and unquoted shares. The quoted shares are

carried at market value depending on Qatar Exchange prices at each reporting date.

International Financial Reporting Standards require assessment at each reporting date to

determine whether there is objective evidence that an investment or a group of investments is

impaired. In the case of equity investments classified as AFS, an objective evidence would include

a significant or prolonged decline in the fair value of the investment below its cost. ‘Significant’ is

evaluated against the original cost of the investment and ‘prolonged’ against the period in which

the fair value has been below its cost.

Identifying impairment indication and determination of what is ‘significant’ or ‘prolonged’

requires management judgement. In making this judgement, management evaluates, among

other factors, the duration or the extent to which the fair value of an investment is less than its

cost.

Due to the subjectivity in assessment of impairment indicators, use of estimations and

assumptions in measuring impairment losses and the magnitude of the account balance, this is

considered to be a key audit matter.

As part of our audit, we:

• Reviewed management’s impairment assessment on investment AFS to determine

whether there was objective evidence of impairment on these assets.

• Recalculated the impairment allowance computation to assess whether impairment

losses for AFS were reasonably determined in accordance with the requirement of IFRS.

• Reviewed the related disclosures in the consolidated financial statements to assess

whether they are adequate and in accordance with IFRS.

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R �� "�� other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent "�� "�� "��appears to be materially misstated. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information; we are required to report that fact. We have nothing to report in this regard.

�@��)��:�� @�� !�@�6��F�� $�� "�� statements comply with the Qatar Commercial Companies› Law No. 11 of 2015 and the Company›s #��#�� &�� "��<��purpose of our audit, and are not aware of any violations of the above mentioned law or the Articles of Association having occurred during the year, which might have had a material adverse effect on ��(�� !��

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#�� "�� R;#�� "�� K�� professional skepticism throughout the audit. We also:

• R�� whether due to fraud or error, design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks, �� risk of not detecting a material misstatement resulting from fraud is higher than for one resulting from error, as fraud may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal control.

• Obtain an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit in order to design audit �� $��!��

• Evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates and related disclosures made by management.

• (� �� !�� "�� $��!�� R��"�� "��<��"�� !�� disclosures are inadequate, to modify our opinion. Our conclusions are based on the audit �� !��L�"�� may cause the Group to cease to continue as a going concern.

• �� "�� underlying transactions and events in a manner that achieves fair presentation.

• V�� "�� $�� statements. We are responsible for the direction, supervision and performance of the group audit. We remain solely responsible for our audit opinion.

We communicate with those charged with governance regarding, among other matters, the planned �� internal control that we identify during our audit.

We also provide those charged with governance with a statement that we have complied with relevant ethical requirements regarding independence, and to communicate with them all relationships and other matters that may reasonably be thought to bear on our independence, and where applicable, related safeguards.

F�� "��"�� "�� "�� &�� !�� "�� "�� circumstances, we determine that a matter should not be communicated in our report because the �� <�� "�� "��

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R �� $��!��to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless management either intends to liquidate the Group or to cease operations, or has no realistic alternative but to do so.

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&�� #��!�� Accordingly, our audit included the performance of procedures designed to respond to our �� results of our audit procedures, including the procedures performed to address the matters below, ��

Qatar economy witnessed smooth sailing last year compared to the year before despite the roadblocks created by some neighbours.

Whatever little hiccups caused by the illegal siege imposed by Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt

on June 5, Qatar managed to overcome it in a very short time.

Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani said, in an interview with a media outlet in Davos, that Qatar’s economy required “minimal” government support to blunt the effects of the siege.

“We opened new routes, we opened new markets, and we are trading with the whole world. The world is not only these four countries,” he said. “From an economic point of view we can live forever without those countries.”

The economy is expected to grow at a much faster pace this year as many projects will come online through the year.

The Gulf crisis has opened up new opportunities by spurring domestic industries to come up with unique solutions and become more self-sufficient. Many private players are in the process of setting up projects covering a whole spectrum of sectors like packaging, electrical, agriculture, poultry, construction materials, etc.

The positive outlook about Qatar’s economy is evident from the fact that many US and European oil majors are queuing up to help Qatar develop new gas projects.

Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada said that D o h a h a s s e e n unprecedented interest from majors as Qatar seeks to expand its gas capacity to 100 million tonnes a year from the current 77 million.

“Both US and EU majors have shown great interest. We did expect this, but they surprised us on the upside by the degree of keenness,” the minister said.

It is worth noting that Qatar’s gas exports have not stopped at any time despite the dirty tactics by the siege countries and Doha was able to fulfil all contractual obligations. This showed the strength of Qatar’s oil and gas industry and made partners and customers repose faith in the economy despite the Gulf crisis.

Government and various public agencies are proactively promoting entrepreneurship and offered many incentives and exemptions for setting up industrial projects. This has attracted many investors from friendly countries flocking in to invest in factories and production units. These efforts have paid off as more and more locally made products are entering into the market.

This proves that siege not only failed to dent the vibrant economy of Qatar, but helped change the dynamics of the market by charging up the local industry.

The siege not only failed to dent the vibrant economy of Qatar, but helped change the dynamics of the market by charging up the local industry.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

[email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

[email protected]

08 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018VIEWS

EDITORIAL

Booming economy

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Denuclearisation of North Korea must be a fundamental

goal... and if it is not reached, we must

prepare ourselves for proliferation of nuclear

weapons to other countries.

Henry Kissinger Former US Secretary of State

What is next for Palestine?

RAMZY BAROUD

AL JAZEERA

IT is time for a new beginning. US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital came as no surprise to most

Palestinians, for, after all the US’ political backing and military funding of Israel is older than the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Trump’s decision, however, has exposed the “peace process” for the last time as a complete charade. It also exposed the Palestinian leadership as corrupt, subservient and politically bankrupt.

If the Palestinian leadership had a minimal degree of accountability, it would immediately undertake a total overhaul within its ranks and activate all Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) institutions, bring all factions together under the umbrella of the PLO and declare a unified strategy inspired by the aspirations and sacrifices of the Palestinian people.

And if Palestinians are to start anew, they have to commence their journey with fresh political discourse, with new political blood, and a new future outlook that is based on unity, credibility and competence. None of this can ever take place with the same old faces, the same tired language and the same dead-end politics.

Since Trump signed the Jerusalem Embassy Law on December 6, many Palestinian intellectuals voiced their ideas about the proper course of action for their leadership and their people.

There has been much talk about a new Palestinian strategy. Palestinian officials have “threatened” to shift the struggle to a one-state solution — as opposed to continuing to pursue the defunct “two-state solution”, to exclude the US from the “peace process” and so on; but there are few indications that their discourse is anything but transient and opportunistic.

In this article, I sought the opinion of independent Palestinian intellectuals from across Palestine and the diaspora. Although

they subscribe to different ideological schools of thought and come from different generations and locations, they shared a lot of ideas. Palestin-ians are demanding change, or, in the words of renowned Palestinian historian Salman Abu Sitta —

interviewed below — they want to “go back to the roots”.

Going back to the roots Salman Abu Sitta — historian and

president of the Palestine Land Society.The 26-year-old Oslo disaster should

have taught those who started the process a lesson or two about proper leadership. It should have taught the Palestinian people that they should stand up in defence of their inalienable rights in their country, Palestine. Neither have learned their lessons.

In the past 70 years, the major achievement of the Palestinian people was to show that we are not pitiful refugees who need food, shelter and work. We are the people of Palestine from Ras Al Naqura to Umm Rashrash. We have the Palestine National Council (PNC), whose members are elected according to the National Charters of 1964 and 1969. We also have the PNC-elected PLO executive.

Today we do not need to invent a new Palestine or a new national strategy. We need to go back to the roots. We need to wipe out the sins of Oslo, which has been more detrimental to the Palestinian cause than the Balfour Declaration.

We need to have 13 million Palestinians, half of whom were born after Oslo, represented in a newly elected PNC, from which a new, young, efficient and clean leadership can blossom. We need to put our support behind the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad, which was formed in Istanbul in February 2017, for the same purpose. Let us go back to the roots. Complaining and blaming others is useless. This is the time to act, not to talk. Let us do just that.

Rallying the people Lamis Andoni - writer and journalist

based in Amman, Jordan.

The immediate task ahead is to unify the Palestinian people, inside Palestine and in the diaspora, against US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” that is swiftly unfolding before our eyes. Trump’s deal is nothing more than another attempt to legitimise Israeli control over all Palestinian territories and delegitimise the Palestinian people’s historic, national and legal rights - especially the right of return.

We should not focus on whether we want a two-state or one-state solution. Instead, we need to focus on uniting Palestinians around the goal of freeing Palestine by dismantling the Zionist colonial project that employs brutal methods to keep them under control, including apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

We cannot ignore the urgency of the reconstruction of the PLO. The Israeli and US governments have been bent on its destruction, and they are being successful. Let us work towards its revival on a wider, more inclusive basis, and its transformation into a body that represents all Palestinians. We should also not accept the criminalisation of armed resistance.

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a crucial tool in this struggle, but it cannot be the only form of resistance. We must take Israeli officials to the International Court of Justice and try them for war crimes. We need to delegitimise the occupation and all its practices, challenge the US at the UN Security Council and use all legal tools to resist Israeli and US pressure.

But first, we must halt our heavy reliance on foreign aid, particularly US aid, which is being used to tame the NGOs and maintain the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a policeman for the Israelis.

Defeating Zionism Mazin Qumsiyeh — West-Bank-based

author, scientist and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History.

Someone once told me that “we are kicking the dead horse of a two-state solution”. I explained that this was an “illusionary” horse invented by David Ben-Gurion in the 1920s for propaganda purposes. I believe there are only three possible scenarios for the anti-colonial struggle:

• The Algerian model, which is very costly, rarely successful and unlikely to be implemented in Palestine.

• The Australian model, which is a relative win for the colonisers. This model also comes at great cost — in Australia’s case — genocide of the native population.

• The “rest of the world” model which was successful in South America, Central America, Canada, South East Asia and South Africa. In this model, one shared country is created for all the peoples of the land after ending colonialism.

Only the third model can be implemented in Palestine and has the capacity to bring an end to Zionist oppression. I am very optimistic that Zionism will end. We, 12 million Palestinians and millions of others, will make sure this happens sooner than expected. It is time to reclaim the liberation struggle from those who hijacked it.

Resurrecting the PLO Samaa Abu Sharar —journalist and

activist based in Beirut, Lebanon.Palestinians everywhere should

adopt a new approach to give more honour to their cause. They should:

• Unite all Palestinian think tanks under one umbrella to assess, evaluate and draw up a new strategy capable of

dealing with the current Palestinian situation.

• Dismantle the Palestinian Authority and revoke the Oslo Accords.

• Elect an alternative young leadership under the PLO, representing Palestinians everywhere, capable of uniting Palestinians and working towards a one-state solution with equal rights for Palestinians.

• Encourage all forms of resistance in occupied Palestine including armed resistance (which is consistent with international law) until the demise of the occupation.

• Mobilise affluent Palestinians abroad to establish a support system on the moral and financial level for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, includingJerusalem, and refugees abroad.

‘A third Intifada is a must’ Ibrahim Sa’ad — writer and academic

based in the UK. “The game has changed”, PA official

Saeb Erekat said. When the game changes, the players must also change. In Palestine, obsolete players should retire, and a brave new generation must take over.

If Abbas and the group clustering around him want to go down in history as courageous men, they should pull out of the political arena, leaving behind administrative personnel to run the Palestinians’ day-to-day matters.

I realise that this act may create mayhem — particularly when a third Intifada is about to materialise - but it must be done. Also, the Israelis should suffer the sour consequences of their actions if they refuse to adapt to the one-state-solution.

A third Intifada is a must. I believe it will be a step towards building one democratic state with equal rights for all and guaranteeing the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Internationally-aligned strategy Sam Bahour — Chairman of Americans

for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, based in Occupied Palestine.

I view Trump’s ill-fated Jerusalem declaration through two vantage points.

As an American, I think the declaration could not have done more damage to America’s already deteriorating standing in the region. This single act has reignited distrust and condemnation from every corner of the globe, brought violence back to the streets of Palestine, and left the door wide open for other regional players, like Turkey and Iran, to fill the policy vacuum.

On the other hand, as a Palestinian, I see Trump’s declaration as a confirmation of what Palestinians have been saying for decades: the US is on the wrong side of this conflict, and has been for 70 years. The opportunity that Trump has provided is for the world to finally act to hold Israel accountable.

Palestinians have shown tremendous political maturity in all of this by not knee-jerking away from their internationally aligned strategy for freedom and independence in the State of Palestine.

Since Trump signed the Jerusalem Embassy Law on December 6, many Palestinian intellectuals voiced their ideas about the proper course of action for their leadership and their people.

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

If Palestinians are to start anew, they have to commence their journey with fresh political discourse, with new political blood, and a new future outlook that is based on unity, credibility and competence.

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Trump has taken credit for recent military gains against the Islamic State, furthering the narrative that he’s responsible for turning things around. In reality, his administration has wisely picked up where Obama’s administration left off and stayed the course.

ILAN GOLDENBERG & NICHOLAS A HERAS THE WASHINGTON POST

LAST week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered a speech that after a year in

office finally laid out a new strategy for Syria. The part that’s getting the most attention is his unequivocal declaration that the United States would maintain an indefinite military presence in Syria, stating, “The United States will maintain a military presence in Syria focused on ensuring ISIS cannot reemerge.”

It doesn’t square with President Donald Trump’s “America first” posture, but it’s the right call. It also represents an acknowledgment that in Syria, Trump is using President Barack Obama’s playbook. So far, it’s working out pretty well for him. President George W Bush deployed hundreds of thousands of troops during the Iraq War. It was costly, took years to bear fruit and was politically unsustainable. Early in his presidency, Obama sought to disengage militarily from Iraq altogether, which backfired by contributing to the governance vacuum that facilitated the rise of the Islamic State.

Trump campaigned

against both in 2016, deriding Bush as too eager for war — “Iraq was a big, fat mistake” — and casting Obama as weak, and the “founder of ISIS.” But over the past three or four years, Obama and Trump have inadvertently teamed on a strategy in Iraq and Syria that has it right: Muddle through with a smaller US investment that keeps the worst from happening but also keeps America out of Middle Eastern quagmires. This is far from a perfect solution. But it happens to be the best one that we have.

Trump has taken credit for recent military gains against the Islamic State, furthering the narrative that he’s responsible for turning things around. In reality, his administration has wisely picked up where Obama’s administration left off and stayed the course.

Their combined approach can keep Syria stable enough to stem the flow of refugees, which has brought tremendous political pressure and instability to US partners in the Middle East and Europe. And it can prevent the reemergence of the Islamic State or similar groups, which would again threaten Western nations

and necessarily draw us back to the Middle East in larger numbers.

What the United States has found since 2014 is that a small force of a few thousand US troops can make a meaningful difference. It acts as a force multiplier by training and mentoring local forces, providing them with air and logistical support, and maintaining a forward operating presence for difficult counterterrorism missions.

The capture of Raqqa, the culmination of a three-year campaign in Syria, required a US force level that ranged from about 500 to 2,000 troops, with local partners, which has been estimated at around 50,000 fighters, carrying much of the load. Local Syrian partners provided the bulk of the force that ripped territory away from the Islamic State, with US-led coalition advice, air power and artillery support. This model partnership has been so successful that Gen. Raymond Thomas, who leads the US Special Operations Command, stated in July, “this thing rolled from just a couple thousand that we knew early on to now a 50,000 person force that . . . has taken every March objective we’ve had so far.”

The United States has successfully marshaled a broad international coalition of 73 nations that provide support for military activities against the Islamic State, work to counter pathways for terrorists to finance, recruit and mobilise, and to assist in the rehabilitation of areas that had been conquered from the Islamic State and humanitarian assistance to their local populations. Last year, for example, the Global Coalition against Daesh (the Islamic State) announced that France would contribute $12.4

million to provide clean water, remove land mines, provide health care and distribute food assistance to the population of the devastated city of Raqqa. But that support will quickly wane if the US commitment is perceived as fleeting.

The massive task of stabilisation, rehabilitation and reconstruction in Syria after seven years of civil war will require time and patience. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — America’s most important partner in this struggle - don’t have the capacity or resources to address all the challenges of building stability, by themselves, in territory previously occupied by the Islamic State. No matter what, Syria won’t be transformed into a Jeffersonian democracy overnight, but an American presence can meaningfully improve the situation.

Already the United States and its partners have set to rebuilding Raqqa and supporting the nascent system of governance being established there, and in the strategic city of Tabqa, by the SDF in the zone it now administers. This can only take place under the shield provided by the presence of the US military, which is helping form a proposed 30,000-person Syrian security force constructed from the building block of the SDF.

This may sound a lot like traditional, expensive and impractical nation-building - and in some ways it is. But it is being done in a more circumspect, pared-down fashion, with a significantly smaller military requirement that doesn’t seek to remake Syrian society but simply ensure a baseline level of stability that prevents a reversion to civil war. As one British general told The Washington Post’s David

IT seems like only yesterday that journalism faced existential challenges from technology platforms that helped anyone

publish whatever they wanted, took over the distribution of news, and usurped the advertising market with promises of precise targeting. It turns out that the news profession can be quite successful at repelling those challenges. The enemy is in retreat; the news business just needs to be bolder about claiming the spoils.

In the past week, the Huffington Post scaled back its platform for unpaid bloggers and Facebook decided to ask

users to rank news sources by trustworthiness. Both represent a clear preference for traditional journalism — in which people get paid for producing stories for good reason.

The just-released 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer shows rising confidence in traditional media: In the 28 countries where the survey was conducted, 59 percent now trust journalism, up from 54 percent a year ago, while trust in social media platforms has declined from 53 percent to 51 percent. Pretty much everywhere in the Western world, professional media are considered to be more reliable sources of information than online platforms.

Facebook’s announcement is an admission that the company can’t completely replace professional output with user-generated content.

“News will always be a critical way to start conversations on important topics,” Chief Executive Officer Mark

Zuckerberg wrote. But it’s more than that. Facebook is telling users that consuming the product of certain news organizations is better for their well-being than being indiscriminate.

That’s why the Facebook announcement drove up The New York Times’ stock price.

Left scrambling are “social-first” media companies, which are cutting staff as they discover that trying to piggyback on the growth of greedy and vulnerable internet giants wasn’t a great bet. At this rate, news outlets could even find themselves asking why they aren’t putting more resources into managing their home pages rather than social media.

Survival is good, but being properly valued is better. Now that tech platforms are realising they have no good replacement for quality journalism, it’s time for them to start paying for it. That, in a nutshell, is the meaning of a statement released on Monday by News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch. He accused Facebook and Google of popularizing “scurrilous news sources,” praised them for recognising the problem and made a demand:

“If Facebook wants to recognise ‘trusted’ publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies. The publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services. Carriage payments would have a minor impact on Facebook’s profits but a major impact on the prospects for publishers and journalists.”

Given Zuckerberg’s recognition of the value of news for his company’s stated purpose — connecting people and building communities — that’s a fair suggestion. News publishers should be prepared to fight the re-publication of their content. It worked for the

music industry: Facebook is paying license fees for music used in home videos. If “trusted” news outlets pressure Facebook, it will pay them, too.

News publishers shouldn’t stop there, though. It’s an aberration that social media and search engines have become top distribution channels for many of them, supplanting their own websites and undermining both advertising and subscription revenues. Because of this, any strategy change by Facebook and Google requires tweaks, sometimes even major changes, to the way content is displayed and packaged. Publishers need to pay more attention to projects such as the Brave browser, designed to help them get paid both directly and through ad revenue sharing.

They also need to work doggedly on changing online ad industry standards, shifting them from a dishonest trade in quietly harvested personal data to conscious arrangements in which people are paid, in cash and in quality content, for viewing ads.

It’s also time for industry-wide agreements on better paywalls that aren’t easily bypassed by a cache cleanup or by opening an incognito window in a browser. They would, at the very least, help bargain with internet platforms over carriage fees.

Until recently, all these important fights were complicated by widespread defeatism in the news industry and by the willingness of upstart “news organisations” to give content away for free in hopes of picking up a few crumbs from the tech giants’ advertising feast. It should be clear now that the defeatism was misplaced and the dumping didn’t work for anyone. Good content can’t be free. It’s time for a counterattack.

The writer is a Bloomberg view columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru..

Obama’s ISIS policy is working for Trump

Tech is losing its war on journalism

LEONID BERSHIDSK

BLOOMBERG

09FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 OPINION

Facebook’s announcement is an admission that the company can’t completely replace professional output with user-generated content. News will always be a critical way to start conversations on important topics.

Ignatius: “This is not a work of beauty. This is pragmatism.”

Despite losing control of Raqqa and Mosul, the Islamic State, now concentrated in a few small pockets in Syria and Iraq, is still capable of a range of attacks, including against local governing councils, security forces and critical infrastructure, including roads, dams and oil and gas wells. The last several months have seen terrorist attacks in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State has signaled that attacks of this kind will be part of its strategy in its effort to sustain an insurgency.

Without continued US support, Syrian and Iraqi forces won’t be able to contain this threat. Particularly in Syria, where government forces are absent from large parts of the country and local militia dependent on the United States provide most of the security. The investment in building up the capacity of these local partners will probably take years of a small but meaningful US footprint, but if we leave prematurely, as we did in Iraq in 2011, the conditions will exist for the Islamic State to reconstitute its strength, forcing Western powers back into Syria in larger numbers for a much more difficult and expensive military campaign.

The United States has a vested interest in a viable political agreement that ends the Syrian civil war. Only such an arrangement can close the security and governance vacuums in Syria that create the terrorist safe havens and refugee outflows that threaten our interests. But shaping that outcome requires leverage, and a precipitous withdrawal would leave Trump or a future president with very little in their dealings with Russia, Iran and Syria.

10 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018MIDDLE EAST

Saudi jails two human rights defendersLONDON: A Saudi court yesterday issued harsh jail terms against

two human rights defenders despite reforms touted by the kingdom’s

crown prince, Amnesty International said. The court in Riyadh sen-

tenced Mohammad Al Otaibi and Abdullah Al Attawi to 14 and seven

years imprisonment, respectively, the rights group said.

“The harsh sentencing... confirms our fears that the new leader-

ship of (Crown Prince) Mohamed bin Salman is determined to silence

civil society and human rights defenders in the kingdom,” said Samir

Hadid, director of campaigns for the Middle East at Amnesty.

“The crackdown on members of the human rights community has

continued unabated, with almost all the country’s most prominent

human rights defenders now behind bars,” she said.

Otaibi and Attawi were charged with participating in setting up

an organisation and announcing it before securing an authorisation.

They were also accused of dividing national unity, spreading chaos

and inciting public opinion by publishing statements harmful to the

kingdom’s image and its judicial and security agencies, Amnesty said.

Interpol hands wanted ex-minister to IraqBAGHDAD: Interpol yesterday handed over to Iraq a former minister

arrested in Beirut over a conviction for corruption, in a first such collab-

oration with the international police body, a government source said.

“Former trade minister Abdel Falah Al Sudani has landed in Bagh-

dad after having been handed over by Interpol,” the source said.

“It’s the first time that Interpol responds to a government request

at that level.” Sudani, who is now aged 70 and also holds citizenship

of Britain where he studied, served as trade minister from 2006 to

2009, following the 2003 US-led invasion which toppled dictator

Saddam Hussein. Placed on an Interpol wanted list in June 2014, he

was arrested at Beirut airport in September last year.

In 2012, the former minister, who belongs to the Dawa party of

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, was sentenced in absentia to seven

years imprisonment for corruption. He was linked to a scandal over the

import of adulterated tea products during his mandate. In 2009, he was

arrested as he tried to flee the country after having been sacked and

charged. He was released on payment of a bail of $43,000 but again fled.

Landmine kills 13 civilians in MaliBAMAKO: Thirteen civilians travelling from Burkina Faso were killed

yesterday when their vehicle ran over a landmine in central Mali, local

officials and a security source said, giving a provisional toll.

“Thirteen Malian and Burkinabe civilians were killed near the town

of Boni when their vehicle struck a mine,” local official Mahmoud Traore

said, as a Malian security source blamed “terrorists” for the blast.

“Terrorists uses these mines to spread fear,” the source said, add-

ing that the victims of Thursday’s blast were killed instantly.

Those wounded are in a “critical” condition, according to the source.

Another unnamed local official said that the vehicle was carry-

ing seven traders from Burkina Faso as well as Malians travelling to a

weekly market. Witnesses said police, military and emergency serv-

ices were all on scene.

In November, five civilians including a teenage girl were killed

when the bus they were travelling on struck a mine. No group claimed

responsibility for that incident.

Islamic extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the desert

north of Mali in early 2012, but were largely driven out in the French-

led military operation launched in January 2013.

Large tracts of the country remain lawless, however.

NEWS BYTES

AFP

KIRIKHAN, TURKEY: Tensions between Ankara and Wash-ington over the Turkish army’s operation in Syria escalated further yesterday as Turkey accused the White House of misrepresenting a phone call between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday vowed Tur-key’s campaign against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria would press on for as long as required, after telephone talks with Donald Trump failed to douse soaring tensions with Washington.

The assault by Turkish troops against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria has seen Washington’s fellow Nato member Ankara attacking a US-allied force, even raising fears of military confrontation between the two Alliance powers.

Turkey says it has made gradual progress in the offen-sive against Syrian Kurdish Peo-ple’s Protection Units (YPG) militia but has refused to give any time limit for the campaign.

After the Turkish and US presidents spoke late on Wednesday, the White House said Trump had urged Turkey to “to de-escalate, limit its

military actions”, expressing concern that the assault could harm the fight against jihadists. But a Turkish official said the US statement did “not accurately reflect the content” of the call, adding that Trump did not share any concerns regarding “esca-lating violence”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu suggested that the US statement “had been pre-pared before the call, thus it did not reflect the truth”.

With Europe also concerned, Germany has asked for talks at Nato over the campaign and also put a temporary halt on arms deals with Turkey, Foreign Min-ister Sigmar Gabriel said.

Turkey launched an offen-sive against the YPG militia on Saturday in their enclave of Afrin, supporting Syrian rebels with air strikes and ground troops.

Ankara views the YPG as a terror group linked to the out-lawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) inside Turkey. The PKK is blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies.

But the YPG is still working closely with Washington against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Syria.

Further raising the stakes, Ankara has also floated an oper-ation on Manbij, a YPG-held town to the east where there is a US military presence, and even to areas east of the Euphrates up to the Iraqi border.

“(YPG) presence is equal to PKK presence... So wherever the YPG is, (Ankara) sees it as a threat to Turkish security, thus it will eliminate this threat from its borders,” Erdogan’s senior advisor Ilnur Cevik said.

“The second phase will be Manbij and after that, the east of the Euphrates,” he added.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim hit out at the US, saying “the country we call an ‘ally’ in Nato is in cahoots with terror organisations.”

“This is a grave and very painful situation,” he said in a speech in Ankara.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said that if the US wanted to “avoid a confronta-tion with Turkey -- which nei-ther they nor Turkey want -- the way to this is clear: they must

Turkey accuses US as tensions escalate

cut support given to terrorists”.Following the Erdogan-

Trump telephone talks, the US envoy to the coalition against IS, Brett McGurk, said on Twitter the “prolonged operation risks giving life to ISIS (IS) as it’s on verge of defeat”. Washington has more than 2,000 special forces and support troops inside Syria, mainly east of the Euphrates in an area also controlled by the YPG but separate from Afrin, which is west of the river.

Cevik said Turkey “has no intention of staying” in Afrin once the YPG had been dislodged and wanted it to be controlled by Syrian rebels. As the operation

entered its sixth day, a corre-spondent saw tanks on the Turkish side of the border and soldiers ready to go into Syria amid tight security.

Turkish artillery fire pounded the Afrin region, state-run news agency Anadolu said.

Two people, a Turk and a Syrian, were killed on Wednesday after two rockets fired from Syria by the YPG landed in the border town of Kilis.

Hundreds of people were present for their funeral. Three Turkish soldiers have been killed since the start of the offensive while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said 48

Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and 42 US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and YPG fighters had been killed. The SDF is an umbrella grouping composed mainly of YPG.

The Turkish military said over “at least 303 terror organisation members were neutralised”. Yildirim vowed Turkey would not allow a “terror structure on its southern border... whether it is east or west of the Euphrates”.

The Observatory has said at least 30 civilians have been killed but Ankara strongly rejects such claims, saying that it is doing eve-rything to avoid civilian casualties.

AP

BERLIN: A United Nations’ review of human rights issues in Israel has issued 240 recom-mendations, including that it end settlement expansion.

Israel said it would need time to review 232 recommen-dations made by individual countries in the Human Rights

Council working group in Geneva. It “noted” eight recom-mendations submitted by the “State of Palestine,” saying the entity doesn’t “satisfy the criteria for statehood under interna-tional law.”

Britain urged “immediate action to cease the policy of demolitions of Palestinian prop-erties and buildings” and for

Israel “to reverse policy on set-tlement expansion in the occu-pied Palestinian territories.”

Germany said Israel should end “practices of collective pun-ishment such as the demolition of homes, revocation of resi-dency permits in East Jerusalem, and the closure of entire areas.”

The US made no recommen-dations in yesterday’s report.

REUTERS

ABUJA: Nigeria will protest to the United States over conditions imposed on its planned $494m purchase of 12 A-29 Super Tucano fighter planes, Defence Minister Mansur Dan Ali said yesterday.

Those conditions include the 2020 transfer date for the aircraft and that Nigerian technicians will not be trained by US staff, be part of main-tenance crews, nor can they study the production of the planes, he told reporters at a briefing in Abuja.

The sale of the planes has been dogged by controversy. Under Barack Obama, the former US president, the air-craft deal had been held off due to concerns about the Nigerian military’s human rights abuses. In one instance, up to 170 people died last January after the air force bombed a refugee camp in the northeastern town of Rann.

But President Donald Trump’s administration approved the sale to support Nigeria’s efforts to fight Boko Haram militants and to boost US defence jobs, sources told Reuters last April.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left), shaking hands with Hatay Governor Erdal Ata, on his arrival for a visit to the Operating Base in Hatay, on the sixth day of ‘Operation Olive Branch,’ yesterday.

Israel urged to end settlement expansion in UN review

Nigeria to protest US conditions on fighter plane purchase

Humanitarian PlanUN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya Maria Ribeiro (left), UN special representative and head of the UN support mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Ghassan Salame (centre) and Libya’s unity government Prime Ministe Fayez Al Sarraj attend an event to announce the official launch of the 2018 Libya Humanitarian Response Plan, in Tripoli, yesterday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Turkey’s campaign against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria would press on for as long as required, after telephone talks with Donald Trump failed to douse soaring tensions with Washington.

REUTERS

VIENNA: UN-brokered peace talks with the Syrian govern-ment and opposition began yesterday, a few days before separate negotiations hosted by Damascus’s close ally Russia that the West views with suspicion.

“The meeting was good,” the head of the Syrian government delegation, Bashar Al Ja’afari, told Reuters as he left the UN offices in Vienna in the after-noon after talks with UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mis-

tura. He declined to elaborate.An opposition delegation

arrived shortly before he left, but there was no sign the warring sides had met. The discussions ended by the early evening and were due to resume today for a second and final day.

Previous rounds of UN-spon-sored talks have made little progress while Syrian government forces backed by Russia and Iran have gained significant ground since 2015, recovering swathes of the country from rebels.

Government forces are

pursuing offensives against two remaining rebel pockets, Idlib in the northwest and eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Turkey has poured troops into the north to fight Kurdish militias that have established regional autonomy and are seen by Ankara as a menace to its security.

Having regained the upper hand in the almost seven-year-old civil war, President Bashar Al Assad appears far from ready to negotiate with his enemies at all, let alone step down as part of any peaceful solution as rebel

groups have demanded. Few expected a breakthrough at the Vienna talks aimed at addressing issues related to a new consti-tution, but de Mistura has con-tinued to express optimism. “It’s a very critical moment. Very, very critical,” he said.

In eight rounds of talks before this weeks, de Mistura has not managed to coax the two sides into speaking face to face. It was only at the last round in December that the rebel opposition united in one delegation, raising modest hopes for direct talks.

Syrian peace talks resume in Vienna

11FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 ASIA

Kovind asks rich to give up for less privilegedIANS

NEW DELHI: President Ram Nath Kovind yesterday asked the rich to renew India’s age-old culture of philanthropy by volun-tarily giving up their entitlements for those with greater need.

In his first Republic Day eve address to the nation, the Presi-dent also spoke of the need to move ahead rapidly on sustain-able development goals like housing for all and the obligation to eliminate the curse of poverty in the shortest possible time.

Kovind utilised the opportu-nity to stress on the need to reform, upgrade and enlarge the education system to make it rel-evant to 21st Century realities of the digital economy, genomics, robotics and automation.

He said a nation with a sense of selflessness is built by citizens and by a society that embraces selflessness not because anybody has asked them to but because of a call from within.

“Where a better-off family vol-untarily gives up an entitlement — it could be subsidised LPG today and some other entitlement tomorrow — so that another family, which has a greater need, can avail it.”

He urged all citizens to col-late privileges and entitlements and “then look at less-privileged members of a similar background, those who are starting off from where we once started off.

“And let each of us introspect

and ask: Is his need or her need greater than mine? The spirit of philanthropy and of giving is part of our age-old culture. Let us renew it.”

The President said the highest stage of India’s nation building project lied in contributing towards building “a better world, a composite and cohesive world, a world at peace with itself and at peace with nature”.

He said this was the ideal spirit of “Vasudhaiva Kutum-bakam — of the world being one family”.

“It is an ideal that may sound impractical in today’s times of tensions and of terrorism. But it is an ideal that has inspired India for thousands of years - and that ideal can be felt in the very tex-ture of our constitutional values.

“The principles of compas-sion, of assisting those in need, of building capacit ies of

our neighbours, or even of those further away, underpin our society. These are the very prin-ciples that we bring to the inter-national community.”

He said the country needed to further improve the lives of its farmers who “like mothers toil to feed us”.

The President stressed on the need to modernise and strengthen India’s strategic manufacturing sector “to provide the valiant per-sonnel of our Armed Forces, and our police and paramilitary forces, the equipment that they need”.

“We need to move ahead rap-idly on the Sustainable Develop-ment Goals that commit us to eliminating poverty and hunger, to universal access to quality edu-cation and healthcare, and to giving our daughters equal oppor-tunity in every field.

“We need to make clean, green, efficient and affordable energy reach our people. We need to ensure that housing for all becomes a living reality for the millions of families who await their own home. We need to craft a modern India that is both a land of talent - and a land of unlimited opportunities for that talent.”

Kovind said while India has achieved a lot as a nation but much remained to be done before the country turns 70 year old republic in 2020 and celebrates its 75th Independence anniver-sary in 2022.

A vendor waits for customers along a road to sell national flags on the eve of India’s 69th Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, yesterday.

Illaiyaraja, Ghulam Mustafa among 85 honoured with Padma awardsIANS

NEW DELHI: Famous south Indian film composer and musi-cian Illaiyaraja, classical musi-cian Ghulam Mustafa Khan and thinker Parameswaran Para-meswaran have been selected for Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honour, the government announced yesterday.

Billiards player Pankaj Advani, cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Metropolitan Bishop of the Mar Thomas Syrian Church of India Philipose

Mar Chrysostom, former Rus-sian Ambassador to India Alex-ander Kadakin (1999-2004) were among the eminent per-sonalities selected for Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour. Kadakin has been honoured posthumously.

Archaeologist Ramachan-dran Nagaswamy, littérateur and educationist Ved Prakash Nanda, who is an Overseas Cit-izen of India in USA, painter Laxman Pai and musicians Arvind Parikh and Sharda Sinha were among others to be named for the Padma Bhushan.

A total of 85 persons have been selected for Padma awards this year, including three Padma Vibhushan, nine Padma Bhushan, and 73 Padma Shri. Fourteen awardees are women, and 16 are foreigners or Non-Resident Indians. Three persons have been honoured posthumously.

The awards are given in var-ious disciplines and activities like arts, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports and civil service.

Prosecutors seek life in jail for Khaleda Zia

AFP

DHAKA: Bangladesh prose-cutors yesterday demanded life imprisonment for oppo-sition leader Khaleda Zia for corruption.

The two-time prime min-ister and head of the Bangla-desh Nationalist Party could be banned from standing in a national election this year if she is convicted. Zia has said the case is politically motivated.

The trial of Zia and her son Tarique Rahman before a spe-cial anti-corruption court ended Thursday and a judge said a verdict would be given February 8. “We hope all the accused of this case will be sentenced to life in jail,” lead prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain Kazal told reporters after the final arguments.

Prosecutors have accused Zia, her son and aides of stealing some 21m taka ($252,000) from a trust cre-ated for an orphanage.

Hearings have been delayed for years by numerous petitions to higher courts.

India committed to boost maritime ties with Asean: ModiIANS

NEW DELHI: With Asean leaders by his side, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a strong pitch for nations to follow international law of the seas in the Indo-Pacific region — in a

veiled attack on China which has been accused by most of its neighbours of violating the rule of law in the South China Sea.

“India shares the Asean vision for rule-based societies and values of peace,” Modi said in his opening remarks at the

plenary session here of the Com-memorative Summit to mark 25 years of the India-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Dialogue Partnership.

He said India is committed to enhancing cooperation in the maritime domain with the Asean

regional bloc. “We are com-mitted to work with Asean nations to enhance collaboration in the maritime domain,” he said

The Asean comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philip-pines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam and heads of state or government of all these coun-tries are participating in the Commemorative Summit, themed “Shared Destiny, Common Values” . The heads of government and state from these 10 countries are here as guests of honour at the Republic Day celebrations today.

Modi also called for respect for international law, especially the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), while stating that the Asean is at the centre of New Delhi’s Act East Policy.

Modi’s comments assume sig-nificance given China’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and India’s keenness to play a more influential role in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Prime Minister said that the nature of Asean-India part-nership has evolved significantly.

“Our trade has grown 25

times in 25 years. Investments are robust and growing,” he said.

“We will further enhance trade ties and work towards greater interaction among our business communities.”

On his part, Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, which has assumed the Asean chair this year, said that India and the regional bloc have to increase trade and economic cooperation.

“The RCEP (Regional Com-prehensive Economic Partner-ship) being negotiated represents a historic opportunity to estab-lish the world’s largest trading region,” he said.

The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the 10 Asean member states and the six countries with which Asean has FTAs — Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Lee also stressed on boosting land, air and maritime connectivity between India and Southeast Asia.

Earlier on Thursday, the Commemorative Summit started with a luncheon banquet hosted by President Ram Nath Kovind in honour of the visiting dignitaries.

China to show goodwill towards TaiwanREUTERS

BEIJING: China is willing to show utmost goodwill towards self-ruled Taiwan but won’t allow its separation from China, the coun-try’s defence ministry said yesterday after Taiwan’s presi-dent said she does not rule out the possibility of a Chinese attack.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said this week she does not exclude the possibility of China attacking them, amid height-ened tensions between the two sides including an increasing number of Chinese military drills near Taiwan.

Beijing has taken an

increasingly hostile stance towards Taiwan, which it con-siders a breakaway province, since the election two years ago of Tsai of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.

China suspects Tsai wants to push for formal independ-ence, a red line for Communist Party leaders in Beijing, though she has said she wants to main-tain the status quo and is com-mitted to ensuring peace.

Asked about Tsai’s attack remarks, Chinese Defence Min-istry spokesman Wu Qian said China is willing to show the greatest amount of goodwill to seek “peaceful reunification”.

Myanmar terminates position of RichardsonAFP

YANGON: Myanmar yesterday said it made the decision to dump US diplomat Bill Richardson from an advisory panel on the Rohingya crisis, accusing the veteran poli-tician of a “personal attack” on Aung San Suu Kyi in his stinging resignation letter.

The war of words has heaped embarrassment on Suu Kyi whose star as a rights defender continues to plummet over her failure to speak out for the Rohingya in the face of over-whelming evidence of the Muslim minority group’s suffering.

Suu Kyi’s office said that during discussions in Myanmar’s capital on January 22, “it became evident” that Richardson was not

interested in providing advice as one of five international members of a new panel on a crisis that has seen nearly 690,000 Rohingya flee a mili-tary crackdown to Bangladesh.

“In view of the difference of opinion that developed, the gov-ernment decided that his con-tinued participation on the board would not be in the best interest of all concerned,” the office said in an English statement posted on Facebook.

The Burmese-language ver-sion said they decided to “ter-minate” his participation.

Myanmar’s explanation stands in stark contrast to Rich-ardson’s, who after his three-day visit to the country said he could not in “good conscience” sit on a panel he feared would only

“whitewash” the causes of the Rohingya crisis.

He tore into Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi for an “absence of moral leadership” over the problem, and described her “furious response” to his calls to free two Reuters journalists arrested while covering the crisis.

A Myanmar government spokesman hit back earlier on Thursday, accusing the former New Mexico Governor of over-stepping the mark.

“He should review himself over his personal attack against our State Counsellor,” govern-ment spokesman Zaw Htay said, using Suu Kyi’s official title.

Urging understanding instead of blame, Zaw Htay said the issue of the arrests was beyond Richardson’s mandate

and he should not have brought it up at his meeting with Suu Kyi.

The heated discussion left Myanmar’s leader “quivering” with rage, Richardson told the New York Times.

The Reuters journalists, Myanmar nationals Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, face a possible 14 years in prison under the Offi-cial Secrets Act for allegedly pos-sessing classified documents that they say were given to them by two policemen.

They had been reporting on the crisis in Rakhine state, where Myanmar troops are accused of waging a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya that has prompted accusations of murder, rape and arson at the hands of troops and vigilante mobs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a retreat meeting with the Asean Heads of State and Governments, at President’s Palace in New Delhi, yesterday.

In his first Republic Day eve address to the nation, the President also spoke of the need to move ahead rapidly on sustainable development goals like housing for all and the obligation to eliminate the curse of poverty in the shortest possible time.

12 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018ASIA

Aftermath of Jalalabad attackAfghan security officials inspect the scene, a day after an attack on the headquarters of the non-governmental organisation Save the Children in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Imran’s claim over resignation contradicted INTERNEWS

ISLAMABAD: Just after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan confirmed that his party lawmakers have submitted their resignations to him, an internal debate is on within the party that what forced Imran to make a claim which according to the party members is not true.

After a Central Executive Committee meeting of the party in the capital, the PTI chairman had confirmed that lawmakers of his party have submitted their resignations to him and that he would make a final decision in this regard after due consultation.

The party leadership has been consulting on whether to

step down en masse, as some within the ranks fear it would rather be counterproductive in view of the ongoing campaign against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) over alleged corruption.

However, not even a single elected PTI representative has handed over his resignation to Imran Khan as confirmed by several PTI members of the par-l iament and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly said.

Some of the PTI lawmakers also said that the very issue of their resignation was not even a part of the agenda of the CEC meeting.

“The issue was discussed for less than a minute and once the

formal proceedings of the CEC meeting concluded and as per a routine practice, Imran Khan told the committee members to ask questions if they have any,” a senior parliamentarian who attended the meeting said on a condition of anonymity.

He added, “It started when

a K-P Minister Ali Amin Gan-dapur, after the meeting offered his resignation to Imran Khan which he had brought along with him. To that, Imran asked Gan-dapur that he will let him and others know when and if he needed resignations.” This was the only discussion, he added, that happened about the resigning.

Soon the meeting concluded and Imran Khan appeared before the media and claimed that he has resignations of the PTI members.

A number of PTI MNAs, sen-ators and MPAs rejected the impression that they submitted their resignations to the party chairman. A majority of them also added they would hand

their resignations over to party leadership whenever he would ask for it.

On January 17, while addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Imran Khan had said that a “debate over resig-nation from the parliament is on within the party but a final deci-sion would be taken following discussion.”

“An overwhelming majority of the PTI lawmakers are against tendering resignations from the parliament. It will be a futile exercise that will serve no pur-pose,” a senior PTI lawmaker said.

He continued that there were some voices within the party who support the move but they were in a minority and not

part of the parliament. The res-ignation debate by the PTI started when the Awami Muslim League (AML) Chief Sheikh Rashid announced his resigna-tion from the National Assembly during a multi-party opposition gathering in Lahore against the ruling PML-N recently.

Rashid later also forced the PTI chairman to take a similar decision, but the senior PTI lead-ership was against any such move.

“The PTI has no plan to resign en masse. At least not in the near future,” a senior leader said adding that “we should resign if all the provincial assem-blies resign and the government falls, otherwise it makes no sense.”

Some of the PTI lawmakers said that the very issue of their resignation was not even a part of the agenda of the CEC meeting.

US denies hitting Afghan camp in PakistanAFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s claim that the US hit an Afghan refugee camp in a drone strike is ‘false’, a US spokesman said yesterday, as tensions between the uneasy allies ratchet higher over Islam-abad’s alleged support for mili-tants.

The drone strike, which took place well inside Pakistani terri-tory on Wednesday, killed a mid-level commander from the Tal-iban-affiliated Haqqani network, local officials and a source close to the IS group said.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry has twice condemned the “uni-lateral action”, saying the strike hit an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram agency, one of the dis-tricts in the country’s semi-auton-omous tribal region, but making

no mention of casualties. “The claim in (a foreign ministry) state-ment yesterday that US forces struck an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram Agency yesterday is false,” a spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad said.

But later yesterday the Paki-stani military contradicted the foreign office’s claim, saying that the strike had in fact hit an Afghan refugee settlement in Hangu, a district in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) which borders Kurram agency.

There are 43 refugee settle-ments in KP, the military said, including one in Hangu which had been hit in the strike.

It was not clear which 43 camps the statement referred to. Neither the foreign ministry nor the military has elaborated on the nature of the refugee camp they

say was hit. The UN refugee agency runs 43 Afghan refugee settlements in the province, but a spokesman said yesterday: “There has been no drone strike on any of the UNHCR refugee camps in KP.”

The US said it had no fur-ther comment on the Pakistani military’s claim.

The tribal region and parts of KP bordering them are largely off-limits to foreign journalists.

The US and Afghanistan have long accused Pakistan of ignoring or even collaborating with groups that attack Afghan-istan from havens inside Paki-stan, a claim Islamabad denies.

Washington froze aid to Pakistan worth almost $2bn this month, in a move designed to force Pakistan’s military and

intelligence apparatus to cut support for IS groups. The US and Afghanistan have long accused Pakistan of ignoring or even collaborating with groups that attack Afghanistan from havens inside Pakistan, a claim Islamabad denies.

Washington froze aid to Pakistan worth almost $2bn this month, in a move designed to force Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus to cut support for IS groups.

The freeze had sparked speculation that the US could resume drone strikes or launch operations along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military has said US Central Command had assured them Washington “is not contemplating any unilat-eral action” inside Pakistan.

Military option ‘unacceptable’ on North Korea crisis: SouthREUTERS

DAVOS: South Korea’s foreign minister said yesterday the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear programme must be resolved diplomatically, and she was certain Washington would consult her government first if a military option were to be considered.

“The nuclear issue has to be solved through negotiations and diplomatic endeavors. This idea of a military solution is unac-ceptable,” Kang Kyung-wha said at a news briefing on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Trump administration has said all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea, and officials say the pres-ident and his advisers have

discussed the possibility of a limited strike. But debate on mil-itary options has lost some momentum in recent weeks after North and South Korea resumed talks ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.

“I’m assured that anything the US administration does on this front is done in close con-sultation with us,” Kang said.

She declined to comment if Washington had given Seoul clear assurance but added: “This is our fate that is at stake. Any option that is to be taken on the Korean peninsula, cannot be implemented without us going along.”

In an earlier interview with Reuters, Kang said South Korea was prepared for “all contin-gency scenarios” in case North

Korea stages another weapons test, even as the two countries conduct talks and mutual visits relating to the Olympics.

“We go into these discus-sions with a clear understanding of what might be possible,” Kang said, adding, “another provoca-tion is always a possibility.”

Kang, who was in Davos to discuss recent progress in inter-Korean talks and to boost awareness of the Olympics, did not discuss details of the sce-narios that South Korea was pre-pared for.

After their first formal talks in more than two years this month, officials from the two Koreas have been visiting each other to facilitate the North’s participation in the Olympics, to be held in the South’s alpine resort town of Pyeongchang.

Kabul hotel attack killed at least 25AFP

KABUL: An Afghan official said yesterday at least 25 people were killed in the attack on a Kabul hotel, as confusion reigned over the true toll with conflicting figures given and Afghan media reporting higher numbers.

The health ministry offi-cial said at least 25 people had been killed, including 13 for-eigners. But there has been independently verified that 15 foreigners—seven Ukrain-ians, four Americans, two Venezuelans, one German and one Kazakh—died in the massacre.

“We have 25 deaths from the Intercontinental Hotel attack in Kabul—seven Afghans, 13 foreigners and five suspected attackers,” health ministry spokesman Wahid Majrooh said.

That was hours after he gave a different toll, saying that 25 Afghans had been killed and that “we don’t know about the foreign fatalities.”

An Afghan security offi-cial also said 25 people had been killed in the 12-hour attack on Saturday night but that figure included three badly burned bodies “which we believe are of foreigners”. “To be honest I am not very sure about the final death toll yet,” he said on the condition of anonymity.

Adding to the confusion, the interior ministry said that the official death toll still stood at 22 but suggested that figure could change in the coming days.

Manila to force evacuating people from erupting volcanoREUTERS

LEGAZPI CITY: Philippine authorities said yesterday they will remove by force people who have refused to leave a no-go zone around an erupting volcano, as they seek to avoid casualties after tens of thousands of others fled to safety.

There have been no deaths in the 10 days since Mount Mayon began belching flaming lava, superheated rocks and ash, causing 75,450 residents to flee surrounding farms and communities, civil defence officials said.

However they said people have been leaving the shelters in daytime to tend to their farms and livestock inside the danger zone that now extends to 9 km from the crater. Akim Berces, operations officer of the regional civil defence office in Legazpi city, said police patrols are guarding the abandoned farms and homes, so people should not go back, adding there have been no reports of looting. A number of residents

there were also refusing to leave, he said.“The security (officials) are already

talking about it, how they will ensure that it should be a no-man’s land,” he said, adding officials are mulling ‘forcing’ residents to head for the shelters. Berces said the author-ities had prepared a designated evacuation centre for farm animals and wanted cattle, pigs, goats, and chickens to be moved there.

With 51 eruptions in the past four cen-turies, Mayon, a near-perfect 2,460-metre cone about 330 km southeast of Manila, is the most active of the country’s 22 volca-noes. Authorities have closed airports in the region, while periodic ash showers have made driving on some roads nearly impos-sible. Local governments have advised res-idents to wear facial masks and goggles.

Mayon continued hurling red-hot lava, and ash plumes into the sky in the past 24 hours, accompanied by hot ash, lava and rocks rolling down its flanks, the state vol-canology office said.

Pakistanis abroad allowed to vote onlineWITH the Pakistani Supreme Court’s approval, the country’s biggest database manager has started working on the devel-opment of an integrated internet voting system aimed at extending the right of fran-chise to over seven million Pakistanis living abroad in time for the next general elections.

According to a presentation given by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to the apex court yes-terday, a three-tier electronic mechanism will be developed. The three-tier internet voting mechanism includes voter reg-istration and verification, vote casting procedures, and results compilation and audit.

Lava flows from the crater of Mount Mayon volcano during a new eruption in Legazpi City, Albay province, Philippines, yesterday.

13FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 EUROPE

Facing trial Defendant Marcel H (centre) stands next to his lawyer Michael Emde at the court in Bochum, western Germany, ahead of his trial yesterday. Marcel is accused of stabbing to death a nine-years-old boy and a 22-year-old man in March last year.

Merkel bloc rules out immigration concessionsREUTERS

BERLIN: Senior members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc said yesterday they would not give ground to the Social Democrats (SPD) on immigration as the two parties prepare to launch make-or-break negotiations on forming a government.

The SPD voted by a whisker on Sunday to start coalition talks with the conservatives, but many members are sceptical about a re-run of the “grand coalition” that has ruled Germany since 2013. The SPD got its worst elec-tion result in the post-war era in September and many members fear a further fall in votes.

Immigration will be one of the most controversial issues in the talks, with the conservatives keen to take a tough line to pre-vent further losses to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) while the SPD takes a more migrant-friendly approach.

Merkel, SPD leader Martin Schulz and Horst Seehofer, leader of the CSU Bavarian con-servatives, are due to meet at 0800 GMT this morning to kick off coalition talks after four months of political deadlock

since a September 24 election.Julia Kloeckner, deputy of

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said the benchmark of 180,000 to 220,000 refugees per year laid out in a coalition blue-print agreed between the parties after exploratory talks earlier this month was crucial.

“We don’t want more immi-gration and certainly not uncon-trolled immigration — the Jusos must accept that,” Kloeckner told Focus magazine, responding to the SPD’s youth wing, which dismisses the benchmark as being equiva-lent to a migrant cap and opposes a repeat of the grand coalition.

Dorothee Baer, deputy chair of Merkel’s Bavarian CSU allies, said her party could not give the SPD any concessions on family reunification for refugees, with all possible wiggle room for this exploited during exploratory talks.

She told broadcaster ARD the parties had already negotiated that issue, adding: “We won’t reopen issues that have already been negotiated.”

The coalition blueprint said the parties would cap at 1,000 a month the number of people allowed to join their family now living as refugees in Germany. But the SPD wants to add a “hardship provision” to that. The SPD was meeting yesterday to prepare for the coalition nego-tiations that are expected to last for around two weeks.

On her way into that meeting, senior SPD member Manuela Schwesig said: “We want to have good, detailed negotiations now. They need to be swift but we also need to take the time we need so something good comes out of it.”

The aim is to strike a deal before the carnival season gets underway in earnest on February 8 and some regions take public holidays. A new

government is expected to be place by Easter but that is dependent on the SPD getting backing from its 443,000 members who will vote on a final deal.

Kevin Kuehnert, head of the

Jusos who is spearheading attempts to prevent a grand coa-lition, told broadcaster n-tv: “We’ve had some extremely bad experiences working with the conservatives.”

He added that some of the projects laid out in the coalition blueprint had already been agreed on by the parties in 2013 but not carried out during the last legislative period.

German Family Minister Katarina Barley (centre) arrives for a leadership meeting at the headquarters of Germany’s Social Democratic party in Berlin, yesterday.

Germany freezes decision on tanks upgrade for Turkey

REUTERS

BERLIN: Germany’s care-taker government has decided to put on hold any decision on upgrading German-made tanks in Turkey as requested by its Nato ally Ankara.

Turkey’s use of the Leopard 2 tanks in an offen-sive in northern Syria has fuelled a debate about Ber-lin’s approval of arms exports, a domestically sensitive issue given the country’s World War Two history.

A government spokesman said centre-right Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, had agreed Berlin would not decide on the Turkish request before both party blocs had sealed a new coalition deal.

Gabriel said in a state-ment that arms exports would be a big topic for discussion in negotiations on forming a new German coalition gov-ernment, due to begin on Friday. “For this reason, we in the caretaker government agree we don’t want to anticipate the results of the current coalition negotia-tions, and we will wait for the formation of a new gov-ernment before weighing up critical projects.”

Gabriel said that Ger-many, the world’s third big-gest arms exporter, was very concerned about the mili-tary conflict in northern Syria and had asked the Nato secretary general to advise Nato members on the situation there.

French lawmakers banned from wearing religious symbolsAFP

PARIS: France’s parliament has banned lawmakers from wearing any religious symbols under a new “neutral” dress code, an extension of the coun-try’s strict secular rules that is seen as going too far by some critics.

Under the change approved late on Wednesday, members of the National Assembly must avoid “the wearing of conspic-uous religious symbols, uni-forms, logos or commercial mes-sages or political slogans.”

The regulation was brought in following an outcry over an MP wearing a football shirt in the

parliament, but the inclusion of religious symbols in the new rules quickly became a talking point and a focus of attention.

Until now, lawmakers were instructed to simply “respect the institution”, which generally meant women wearing smart clothes and men sporting a suit and tie, though this latter requirement was relaxed last year.

Some 20th-century law-makers included priests in reli-gious garb, such as Henri Groues, better known as Abbe Pierre, and several Christian faith leaders were critical of the new restric-tions on Wednesday.

The head of the Protestant

Federation of France, Francois Clavairoly, said the change had been made “in the spirit of obsessive radical secularism.”

The speaker of the parlia-ment, Francois de Rugy, defended the changes, saying they were in line with a 2004 law that banned schoolchildren and teachers from wearing conspic-uous religious symbols.

That was seen by critics as penalising Muslims in particular by banning headscarves and veils, but Jewish kippas were also covered by the regulations.

“We’re adopting a frame-work and limits... to avoid any sort of provocation,” de Rugy said.

Schoolchildren, teachers — and now lawmakers — are allowed to wear small Christian crosses around their necks, while Jews are permitted to wear a Star of David and Muslims can carry a Hamsa amulet.

The laws and rules are intended to underline France’s commitment to the principle of secularism — the separation of church and state — which was enshrined in a flagship 1905 law.

Some politicians support extending the ban on religious symbols to universities and even to the workplace, while some see secularism as cam-ouflage for an Islamophobic

campaign against the veil.Lawmakers will be allowed

to deviate from the new dress rules if they can justify their appearance as traditional clothing, however.

Moetai Brotherson, an MP from the French Pacific island of Tahiti, will be authorised to con-tinue wearing his lavalava, a tra-ditional Polynesian skirt.

Far-left MP and documen-tary maker Francois Ruffin sparked the dress code by wearing the green-and-black shirt of amateur football club Olympique Eaucourt in par-liament last year during a debate about taxing soccer transfers.

Rain across France keeps Seine risingAFP

PARIS: The Seine continued to rise yesterday, covering quays in muddy water and putting museums on an emergency footing as record rainfall pushed rivers over their banks across northeastern France.

The Seine is expected to reach a peak of up to 6.2 metres in the capital this Saturday on a scale used to measure its levels, four to five metres above its normal height.

The December-January period is now the third-wettest on record since data started being collected in 1900, according to Meteo France.

Many regions have seen double the rainfall than normal, including Paris where 183 mil-limetres have been dumped since December 1. More rain was forecast for yesterday.

While the Seine is set to reach levels last seen in 1982 at its peak on Saturday, it flows in a deep channel through the heart of the capital, posing a danger only to riverside build-ings and infrastructure.

Areas on the outskirts are under water, however, including the southern suburb of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges where residents are using boats to get around flooded streets. Parked cars were nearly com-pletely submerged.

“After the floods of 2016 it took us nearly two years to repair the damage. We just

finished, and now we’re going to have to start all over again,” said Akca, 31.

Just down the street, 21-year-old Carlos said his basement was already com-pletely full. “It’s a swimming pool,” he explained.

All boat traffic on the Seine in Paris and upstream has been stopped, keeping tourists off the capital’s famed sightseeing boats.

Debbie Komorowski from Adelaide, Australia, was visiting the city for the fifth time with her husband and was left disap-pointed. “Two years ago we had our wedding anniversary here, on the bench over there,” she said on the Ile de la Cite island in the heart of the capital. “And now it’s gone! We can’t believe it. It’s amazing and sad to see.”

Metro stations might be closed as the Seine keeps rising, and services have been halted on the busy RER C suburban line until next Wednesday as workers seal off ventilation ducts to keep water out.

“It’s likely that the Seine will stay high for several days next week,” said Marc Mortureux, risk prevention director at the French environment ministry.

Three riverside museums — the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay and the Orangerie —have said they are preparing for flooding, though only the Louvre has had to close off a wing, to move works from its Islamic art department to higher ground.

Austria probes break-in at leader’s officeREUTERS

VIENNA: The office of Austrian far-right leader and Vice-Chan-cellor Heinz-Christian Strache was broken into this week, shortly after bugging devices were discovered there, and a criminal inquiry has been launched, prosecutors said yesterday.

The break-in occurred on Wednesday night while Strache, whose Freedom Party entered

the governing coalition after elections in October, was out for dinner, his spokesman said, confirming an earlier report by broadcaster Oe24.

The spokesman said the electronic surveillance devices had been discovered last week behind a mirrored wall by intel-ligence service specialists. “This was a routine check after moving into a new office,” he said.

Strache, who has vowed to

fight political Islam, moved into his office at the baroque Palais Dietrichstein after joining the government a month ago.

“We have launched an investigation and are waiting for a police report,” a spokes-woman for Vienna prosecutors said. The motive for the bug-ging devices and break-in were not yet known, according to the FPO-run interior ministry.

The revelations coincided with a scandal involving the

Freedom Party’s leadership candidate, Udo Landbauer, in elections in the province of Lower Austria. Landbauer sus-pended his membership of a student fraternity he helped lead when it emerged the group had distributed song books with Nazi content.

Today, thousands of people are expected to stage a protest against a far right ball hosted by the FPO in Vienna’s impe-rial-era Hofburg Palace.

Immigration will be one of the most controversial issues in the talks, with the conservatives keen to take a tough line to prevent further losses to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) while the SPD takes a more migrant-friendly approach.

14 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018EUROPE

EU seeks to overhaul asylum rules by JuneAFP

SOFIA: EU ministers stuck yesterday to opposing east-west camps as they launched talks to try and overhaul Europe’s asylum rules by June when the three-year-old migration crisis could flare anew.

Bulgaria, which holds the six-month rotating EU presi-dency ending June 30, offered proposals, not yet disclosed, to bridge the gap over refugee quotas opposed by Hungary and other eastern countries.

But there was no immediate sign of progress.

“I heard very moderate voices today from my eastern European colleagues,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters after more than 90 minutes of talks with his EU counterparts.

But he added that there was “no substantial change in their positions.”

De Maiziere, whose country has admitted the largest number of asylum seekers in the bloc, said he cannot imagine reform without the principle requiring every member country to take in refugees.

Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have either refused outright or resisted taking in refugees since the European Commission, the

EU executive, first pushed through temporary quotas in 2015 as a way to ease the burden on frontline states Italy and Greece.

The summer of that year saw a surge in mass drownings in the Mediterranean as Europe’s worst migration crisis since the Second World War peaked with hundreds of thou-sands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Under an emergency plan, EU member countries agreed to relocate to other parts of the bloc 160,000 Syrians and other refugees from Italy and Greece within two years.

Only 33,000 people have been relocated as most people made their own way to Ger-many and other wealthy northern countries amid the

chaotic EU response to the crisis.Little, if any progress on

quotas has been made since talks on asylum reform began in 2016.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels last month set a June deadline for an overhaul of the so-called Dublin rules to create a permanent mech-anism for all member states to admit refugees in the event of a new emergency.

June is when migrant flows across the Mediterranean tend to increase with the warmer weather.

Under existing rules, coun-tries where migrants first arrive are required to process asylum requests, putting a heavy burden on Greece and Italy, the current main entry points to Europe.

EU cooperation deals with Turkey and Libya, the main transit countries, have helped to slow, at least for now, the flow of migrants to Europe since its 2015 peak.

But European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos warned that the crisis could flare anew along the EU’s long external borders.

“Let’s do something to get out of this stalemate, because it is not a real one,” Avramopoulos told reporters on arrival, adding politicians were addressing a “domestic audience” rather than broader interests.

Austrian President addresses Council of Europe meet Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen addresses the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, yesterday.

Camilla visits Metropolitan Police Service Base Britain’s Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall, is accompanied by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick as she visits the Metropolitan Police Service Base to learn about TecSOS, a technological innovation used to protect victims of domestic violence, in London, yesterday.

Spanish govt acts to block Puigdemont’s electionREUTERS

MADRID: Spain’s govern-ment has taken a first step towards preventing the elec-tion of ex-Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont as head of the Spanish region, the deputy prime minister said yesterday as tensions rose again between Madrid and Barcelona.

Puigdemont has been living in Brussels since he fled there in late October to avoid arrest on charges of sedition and rebellion for organising an illegal referendum and unilaterally declaring Catalan independence from Spain.

Catalonia’s newly elected parliament speaker, Roger Torrent, nominated Puigde-mont on Monday as the sole candidate to be the regional president again, defying Spanish government warn-ings against such a move.

“Current circumstances do not permit his investiture,” Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told a news conference in Madrid, referring to the fact that there is an arrest warrant against Puigdemont in Spain.

She said the government had asked the council of state to give its opinion on the pos-sibility of appealing against the Catalan parliament speaker’s nomination of Puig-demont to the constitutional court.

If the council’s opinion echoes that of the Madrid government, the appeal will be filed immediately, she said. “The parliament speaker has put forward as candidate someone who does not enjoy his full rights, who has no right to freedom of move-ment,” Saenz de Santamaria said. “Mr Torrent must have known that Mr Puigdemont could not enter Spain without being detained.”

The Catalan parliament must hold its first round of voting a new regional leader no later than January 31.

Britain looking for sites to host radioactive wasteREUTERS

LONDON: Britain wants to develop a geological storage site for high level radioactive waste and launched a public consulta-tion yesterday to solicit commu-nities prepared to host the facility.

Around 20 percent of Brit-ain’s electricity comes from nuclear plants, which produce radioactive waste that can remain harmful for thousands of years and must be stored safely.

Britain also plans to build a

new fleet of nuclear plants, starting with EDF’s Hinkley Point C project, to replace ageing nuclear reactors and coal plants coming offline in the 2020s.

A geological site would see radioactive waste buried at least 200 metres underground in a rock formation that pro-tects it and acts as a barrier against the radioactivity escaping.

“We owe it to future gener-ations to take action now to find a suitable permanent site for the safe disposal of our radioactive waste... Planning consent will

only be given to sites which have local support,” Richard Har-rington, a minister at the Depart-ment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), said in a statement.

Around 80 percent of Brit-ain’s nuclear waste is currently stored at the Sellafield nuclear plant site in Cumbria, in the northwest of England.

A new geological disposal facility could create up to 2,000 jobs and bring at least £8bn ($11bn) to the economy over its lifetime, BEIS said.

The consultations, which

apply to England, Northern Ire-land and Wales, are open to eve-rybody and will run for the next 12 weeks, BEIS said.

The Sellafield plant is over 60 years old and some nuclear experts have said geological storage sites are a better storage solution for the future.

“A geological disposal facility is widely accepted as the only realistic way to dispose of higher activity nuclear waste for the long term,” Iain Stewart, Director of the Sustainable Earth Institute, Plymouth University said in the BEIS statement.

Environmentalists criticised the plan. “Since there is no per-manent solution for the dis-posal of spent nuclear fuel, the responsible thing to do would be to stop producing more of it instead of just passing the radi-oactive buck to future genera-tions,” Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr said.

Scotland is excluded from the consultation as its devolved government has a policy that radioactive waste should be stored in near-surface sites, rather than be buried underground.

Italy arrests 31 in mafia blitzREUTERS

ROME: Police in Rome said yesterday they had arrested 31 people on suspicion of mafia activity in Ostia, a seaside suburb that has been one of the hotspots in a major anti-mafia investiga-tion in the Italian capital.

Thirty-one members and affiliates of a suspected clan allegedly run by the Spada

family were picked up in raids starting at dawn in the Ostia coastal neighbourhood, a police official said, while one suspect remained at large.

Ostia was the only one of Rome’s 15 districts to be put under direct government control because of alleged mafia infiltra-tion after a wide-ranging inves-tigation dubbed “Mafia Capital” led to dozens of arrests in 2014.

The spotlight returned to Ostia in November when Rob-erto Spada, gym owner and brother of a convicted mob-ster, was filmed headbutting a journalist who asked whether he supported a far-right group.

The city’s mayor Virginia Raggi thanked police, prosecu-tors and the Interior Minister for the arrests.

Three dead as train derails in ItalyAFP

MILAN: At least three people were killed and 10 seriously injured after a packed Italian commuter train derailed yesterday near the northern city of Milan.

Italian media quoted wit-nesses as saying that the regional train began to shake heavily as if it was travelling over rocks, before braking sud-denly and derailing.

One of the carriages jack-knifed across the track, bent almost at a right angle.

“Unfortunately the train was full, and if the current toll ends up staying as it is it would almost be a miracle. The train was packed with commuters and stu-dents,” said Milan’s police com-missioner Marcello Cardona.

Milan prosecutors have opened a probe, and investiga-tors have begun questioning the driver, Italian media said.

Rescuers spent the morning searching the wreckage for vic-tims and firefighters said 10 people were seriously injured, including five in a life-threat-ening condition.

According to regional emergency services in Milan, another 100 people sustained light injuries in the incident, which took place at around 7am

(0600 GMT) near Segrate in Milan’s northeastern suburbs.

The derailment is the most serious rail accident in Italy since 23 people were killed in a high-speed head-on collision between two passenger trains in July 2016 in the southern Puglia region.

One woman told the news-paper La Repubblica that her daughter had called her on her phone to say “Mummy, help, the train is derailing” as the acci-dent happened.

Pictures issued by the Italian fire service showed at least one passenger stuck in his seat, closed in by the wreckage. Firefighters were seen carrying victims into a waiting helicopter.

The regional train was trav-elling between the town of Cre-mona and Italy’s business and finance capital. “We are inves-tigating the dynamics of the incident, the rail structure... everything has to be checked piece by piece,” Cardona said.

An official from Rete Fer-roviaria Italiana (RFI), which manages the rail network, said that one of the potential causes of the incident could be a 20-centimetre rupture in the track, but that it was still working to establish whether that was “the cause or a conse-quence of the incident”.

Schroeder to tie the knot for 5th timeAFP

SEOUL: Former German Chan-cellor Gerhard Schroeder will marry a South Korean translator 26 years his junior after his fourth marriage fell apart, he said yesterday.

The 73-year-old former

German leader — whose colourful private life and multiple mar-riages earned him the nickname “Audi man”, a reference to the German carmaker’s four-ring symbol — said that he would wed Kim So-Yeon this year.

“I’ve already met her family,” he told a press conference in

Seoul where the smiling couple stood arm-in-arm in front of the cameras.

Kim, 47, is a Seoul represent-ative of the Economic Develop-ment Agency of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and has worked as a Korean trans-lator for Schroeder.

Bulgaria, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency ending June 30, offered proposals, not yet disclosed, to bridge the gap over refugee quotas opposed by Hungary and other eastern countries.

15FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 AMERICAS

FROM LEFT: Former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, senator Gleisi Hoffmann, and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at a campaign rally to launch Lula’s presidential candidacy for the upcoming October elections, at the Workers Central Union headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, yesterday.

Gearing up for second term Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores during an official government event in Caracas, Venezuela, yesterday. Maduro confirmed he will seek a second term as president of Venezuela.

Trump offers ‘Dreamer’ citizenshipREUTERS

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump yesterday previewed his outline for an immigration bill that he will promote next week, saying he wants $25bn to build a border wall and is open to granting citi-zenship to illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Trump said he was optimistic he could come to an agreement with both Republicans and Dem-ocrats in the US Congress that would appeal to hardliners seeking tougher rules for immi-grants while also preventing the roughly 700,000 “Dreamers” from being deported.

“Tell them not to be con-cerned, ok? Tell them not to

worry. We’re going to solve the problem. It’s up to the Demo-crats, but they (the Dreamers) should not be concerned,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu question-and-answer session at the White House.

Trump campaigned for pres-ident in 2016 promising tougher rules for immigration. In Sep-tember, he announced he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) pro-gram created by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, effective in March - unless Con-gress came up with a new law.

The program currently pro-tects about 700,000 people, mostly Hispanic young adults, from deportation and provides them work permits.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the lead law-makers in the immigration nego-tiations, said Trump’s comments signaled a major breakthrough.

“President Trump’s support for a pathway to citizenship will help us get strong border secu-rity measures as we work to modernize a broken immigra-tion system,” Graham said in a statement. “With this strong statement by President Trump, I have never felt better about our chances of finding a solution on immigration.”

Graham was part of a bipar-tisan group of three dozen sen-ators who met on Wednesday on Capitol Hill to discuss moving forward on immigration legislation.

After the meeting, Demo-cratic Senator Claire McCaskill expressed cautious optimism to reporters about Trump’s frame-work, saying “that could go either way,” when asked if it will

be helpful to lawmakers.Trump’s chief of staff, John

Kelly, was slated to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday, a senior White House official said.

Trump so far has rejected bipartisan proposals to continue DACA, leading to the standoff between Republicans and Dem-ocrats in the Senate that resulted in a three-day government shut-down that ended on Monday.

Congress agreed to extend funding to Feb. 8, but Republi-cans promised to allow debate on the future of the young illegal immigrants. Senators began meeting to discuss their pro-posals on Wednesday.

The White House plans on Monday to unveil a framework for immigration legislation that

it believes can pass muster with both parties. Trump will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night.

For immigration legislation to be enacted into law, the House of Representatives ultimately would have to pass a bill iden-tical to whatever the Senate approves.

Trump said his proposal would include a request for $25 billion for the border wall, $5 bil-lion for other border security programs, measures to curb family sponsorship of immi-grants, and an overhaul of or end to the visa lottery system.

In exchange, he said he wanted to offer the Dreamers protection from deportation and an “incentive” of citizenship, per-haps in 10 to 12 years.

Lula loses appeal against convictionAFP

PORTO ALEGRE: A Brazilian appeals court yesterday upheld ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s conviction for corruption, dealing a body blow to his hopes of running for re-election this year.

The three-judge panel sitting in the southern city of Porto Alegre unanimously ruled that his original 9.5-year jail sentence be extended to more than 12 years.

Thousands of Lula supporters rallied in Sao Paolo to protest the verdict.

Wearing a short-sleeved black T-shirt, the 72-year-old was defiant, telling the crowd of around 10,000 that he intended to run for the presidency despite the court setback.

“Now I want to run for the presidency,” he said to wild

cheers. “They can take away my rights; no big deal. What I’d like to differ with them on is the conscience of the Brazilian people.

“Mandela was put in prison and then he came back and became president of South Africa,” he added, comparing himself to the great African statesman.

One of the judges, Joao Gebran Neto, said in his ruling that during his 2003-2010 presidency, Lula was one of the architects “of a sophisticated scheme of fraud and corruption” that had weakened Brazil’s entire political system.

A defiant Lula said before the judgment he would continue to fight “for the dignity of the Bra-zilian people” and insisted he had committed no crime.

Lula is likely to remain out of prison for many months.

FBI officials’ missing text messages recoveredREUTERS

WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department’s internal watchdog said yesterday it recovered five months of missing text messages between two Federal Bureau of Investigation officials whom Republicans have accused of bias against Pres-ident Donald Trump.

In a letter to several key Republican lawmakers, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said he would not object if the Justice Depart-ment shares with congres-sional committees the mes-sages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that were recovered using forensic tools.

In texts that were previ-ously released to Congress, Strzok and Page referred to Trump as an “idiot” and a “loathsome human.” After news reports about the mes-sages, lawmakers demanded to see them amid Republican concerns that agency officials were biased against Trump.

Strzok and Page both worked on the FBI’s investiga-tion into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and they also each briefly worked on Special Counsel Robert Muel-ler’s ongoing probe into whether the 2016 Trump cam-paign colluded with Russia.

Their cellphones are just two of “thousands” whose texts were not backed up and stored on the FBI’s systems between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017, according to a Justice Department official.

Top lawmaker wants to release Trump-Russia interview transcriptsREUTERS

WASHINGTON: The Republican chairman of the U S Senate Judi-ciary Committee said yesterday he wanted to start releasing the transcripts of interviews the committee has done about a meeting at Trump Tower seen as central to investigations of Russia and the 2016 U S election.

Among others, the Judiciary panel has interviewed Repub-lican President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

“Let’s get them out there for everyone to see,” Senator Chuck Grassley said during a meeting of the committee, one of three

congressional panels conducting investigations, as is Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Grassley’s statement came amid increasing partisan rancor in Congress over the investiga-tions of the intelligence commu-nity’s finding that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 election to boost Trump, and whether Trump associates colluded with Moscow.

Russia denies trying to influ-ence the election. Trump dis-misses any talk of collusion.

The Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein, angered

Grassley this month by releasing the transcript of the panel’s inter-view with Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of Fusion GPS, which researched Trump’s ties to Russia and produced a dossier denounced by the White House.

Feinstein commented yes-terday that she agreed that com-mittee transcripts should be released to Mueller, and to the public if it does not interfere with the investigation.

“I hope this means Chairman Grassley will move forward with public hearings for Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner, which we agreed to pursue last year,” she said in an emailed statement.

Grassley said yeserday Feinstein’s action “spooked” other potential witnesses, including Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner.

“As a result, it looks like our chances of getting a voluntary interview with Mr. Kushner have been shot,” Grassley said.

According to a person familiar with the exchange, Kushner’s legal team did not decline an appearance with Senate Judiciary but asked for guidance on when committee members are allowed to disclose information.

A Grassley spokesman did not immediately respond when

asked for comment.Attorneys for Kushner did not

immediately respond to request for comment. A lawyer for Trump Jr declined comment.

Grassley said he felt his com-mittee’s investigation of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, attended by Russians and close Trump associates, was complete, so it was time to start releasing the transcripts.

“That can hopefully be done through agreement with the Ranking Member, but if not, pos-sibly through a committee vote. I’d like to work on getting that done as soon as possible,” Grassley said.

Canada provincial opposition leader quits months before pollsAFP

OTTAWA: The conservative opposition leader of Canada’s most populous province quit early yesterday over sexual misconduct allegations, three months before Ontario elec-tions.

Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown held a press conference late Wednesday to deny the allega-tions raised by two women in the local media.

Then hours later, just before 1.30am, he issued a statement announcing his resignation as party leader, becoming the second provincial Tory leader to quit over misconduct in the past 24 hours.

“I take this issue very seri-ously,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in calling for

society to “change our approach... to sexual harass-ment and sexual misconduct.”

“It’s extremely important that we make absolutely clear that sexual harassment, sexual assault, is unacceptable.”

Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was equally critical. “Sexual misconduct and sexual harassment have no place in Canadian society, espe-cially within our political system,” he said.In a statement, Brown called the allegations “false” and “difficult to hear.”

However defeating Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne in 2018 “is more important than one individual,” he said. “For this reason, after consulting with caucus, friends and family I have decided to step down as leader of the Ontario PC Party.”

He said that he would

remain a member of the pro-vincial parliament “while I definitively clear my name from these false allegations.”

With an election scheduled in May, observers were shocked by the sudden departure. Pun-dits were split over whether Brown’s exit would help or hurt the Tories in their bid to unseat the faltering Liberals after 14 years in power.

Brown built up the Tories since taking over the party leadership in 2015 to a wide lead in opinion polls, attracting new members and topping other parties in fundraising.

But his personal popularity has wavered. In interviews with broadcaster CTV, Brown’s accusers said the incidents occurred a decade ago when he was a member of parliament in Ottawa.

Trump said he was optimistic he could come to an agreement with both Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress that would appeal to hardliners seeking tougher rules for immigrants while also preventing the roughly 700,000 “Dreamers” from being deported.

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Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2D/Action) 10:00, 10:15, 11:30am, 1:00, 3:00, 3:45, 6:30, 8:00, 9:15 & 11:55pmJumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2D/Action) 12:45, 5:45 & 10:45pm The Commuter (2D/Action) 12:30, 5:10 & 9:50pm All The Money In The World (2D/Drama) 10:00am, 12:45, 2:30, 3:30, 6:15, 8:30, 9:00 & 11:45pm 12 Strong (2D/Action) 10:00am, 2:40, 7:20pm & 1200am The Pirates Of Somalia (2D) 10:00am, 2:45, 7:30pm & 12:10amThe Breadwinner (2D/Animation) 10:00am, 2:00, 6:00& 10:00Guardians Of The Tomb (2D/Action) 12:00noon, 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnigh Dead Awake (2D/Horror) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00pm & 12:00midnight The Post 10:30am, 3:30 & 8:30pmDownsizing (2D/Comedy) 12:45, 5:45 & 10:45pmPadmaavat (2D/Hindi) 10:00am, 1:30, 5:00, 8:30pm & 12:00midnightPadmaavat (3D IMAX/Hindi) 1:15 & 7:30pmMaze Runner: The Death Cure (2D IMAX/Action) 10:30am, 4:45 & 11:00pm

The Breadwinner (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 4:30pmStreet Lights 2:30 & 9:15pm Nimir (Tamil) 3:00pmBagamathi (2D/Telugu) 3:00pm Guardians Of The Tomb (2D/Action) 5:30 & 9:45pmJumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2D/Action) 6:30pm Habet Caramel (2D/Arabic) 7:15pm All The Money In The World (2D/Drama) 7:30pm Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2D/Action) 8:30 & 11:00pm Dead Awake (2D/Horror) 11:30pm Bagamathi (2D/Tamil) 11:30pm

ROYAL PLAZA

Bagamathi (2D/Telugu) 2:30pm The Breadwinner (2D/Animation) 3:00 & 4:45pm Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2D/Action) 3:00pmHabet Caramel (2D/Arabic) 5:00pm Street Lights 5:30 & 11:15pm Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2D/Action) 6:30 & 9:00pm All The Money In The World (Drama) 7:00 & 9:15pm Guardians Of The Tomb (Action) 8:00 & 11:30pmDead Awake (2D/Horror) 9:30pm Bagamathi (2D/Tamil) 11:30pm

Bagamathi (2D/Tamil)) 5:00 & 11:30pm Nimir (Tamil) 2:15pmThe Commuter 7:00pm Street Lights 2:30 & 9:00pm The Breadwinner (2D/Animation) 2:15 & 3:45pmMaze Runner: The Death Cure (2D/Action) 4:30 & 7:30pm Habet Caramel (2D/Arabic) 5:30 & 7:00pm All The Money In The World (2D/Drama) 7:30 & 9:15pm Dead Awake (2D/Horror) 9:45pm Nimir (2D/Tamil) 11:30pmGuardians Of The Tomb (2D/Action) 10:00 & 11:30pm

Street Lights (Malayalam) 1:00, 3:00, 6:00, 8:30, 11:00pm & 01:30am Aadu 2 (Malayalam) 12:15 & 9:00pm Pamaavat (Hindi) 3:000, 6:00 & 11:45pm Bhaagmathie (Tamil) 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30pm & 02:00am Bhaagmathie (Telugu) 12:30, 3:15 & 8:45 Nimir (Tamil) 6:00, 11:30pm & 02:00am

Padmaavat (Hindi) 11:00am, 2:15, 5:20, 8:45pm & 12:00midnight Maze Runner (2D/Action) 11:15am, 5:15 & 11:15pm Bagamathi (2D/Tamil) 12:30, 6:00 & 11:30pm Street Lights (Malayalam) 2:15 & 8:15pm

Bunya And Babe (Animation) 10:30am, 12:30, 2:30, 4:30pm Street Lights (Action) 10:30am, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 & 10:30pm

Maze Runner (Action) 10:30am, 1:10, 3:50, 6:40, 9:20 & 11:55pm

Padmaavat (2D/Drama) 10:30am, 1:40, 4:50, 8:00 & 11:10pm

Habet Caramel (2D/Arabic) 6:30, 8:50 & 11:10pm

The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother to convince his billionaire grandfather Jean Paul Getty to pay the ransom.

DPS-MIS celebrated School Safety DayTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: As a part of school’s safety awareness program, DPS-Modern Indian School celebrated the ‘School Safety Day’ recently with an array of activities.

Principal, Asna Nafees, highlighted the importance of safety and advised the students

to remain alert, maintain dis-cipline and follow rules and regulations.

All the students, teaching and non-teaching staff took a pledge and placards display reminded the attendees of their responsibility.

The students of Grade V conducted a special assembly and the students of Grade I &

II participated in a colouring activity.

A workshop on the topic ‘Cyber Safety’ was conducted by Mustafa Huneyd, Head of Corporate and Information Security, Office of the CEO, Ooredoo, Qatar.

It was also attended by Vice President, DPS-MIS, Yasir Nainar.

QRF’S National Rugby Competition heats upTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Qatar Rugby Feder-ation’s (QRF’s) National Club Rugby Championship continues to heat up with Doha Maroon topping the scoreboard and only two rounds left before the start of the highly-anticipated semi-final matches.

Doha Maroon – Doha RFC’s men’s first team – is currently sit-ting in first place with 20 points, followed closely by the Camels,

who trail just three points behind. As part of the QRF’s drive to engage with local clubs and pro-mote the sport at a grassroots level, a number of sevens matches also took place on Friday after-noon at the Doha Rugby Football Centre (DRFC), including a selec-tion of U17 boys and girls games, and a women’s game.

Yesterday, Doha Gold – Doha RFC’s men’s second team – and Doha Vets went head to head in the sixth round of the

competition. The teams, currently placed fourth and fifth respec-tively, played at DRFC at 7pm. The games are open to the public, and visitors are required to pay an entrance fee of QR50.

The QRF’s National Club Rugby Championship is set to conclude in March 2018. The matches are being played in three different venues across the country, including Al Khor, DRFC, and Aspire Zone’s Warm-Up Track.

Anti-bullying campaign held at Al Mahd International SchoolTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Al Mahd International School ’ s ant i-bul ly ing campaign day took place recently and left an impact on all the children from year 1 to 6.

The students, staff members

and parents who participated made the event successful in raising awareness for such an important topic like bullying that touches everyone each day.

During the anti-bullying campaign day, the school addressed all different types of bullying including physical,

v e r b a l , s o c i a l a n d cyberbullying.

The event included an anti-bullying awareness speech along with students anti-bul-lying songs, performances, dances and some beautiful school and homemade anti-bullying T-shirts.


Shop Qatar nurturing Qatari entrepreneursRAYNALD C RIVERA

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Shop Qatar 2018 is helping nurture Qatari entrepreneurs by giving them a platform to showcase their products and services at the 32-day festival.

Local entrepreneurs are able to reach out to more people through the pop-up shops which have been set up at the Mall of Qatar and are operating throughout the festival period.

“There are 30 pop-up shops at Mall of Qatar which benefit around 50 entrepreneurs displaying Qatari brands,” Alshaima Alshaikh, QTA Head of Tourism Events and Festival Organ-isation Section, told the media recently.

There are new products every week as entrepreneurs rotate regu-larly providing opportunity to more entrepreneurs as well as variety to mall-goers. “Every week, there are new entrepreneurs to give more chance to them. They rotate, so there are new designers and products weekly, although some of them stay for two weeks,” explained Alshaikh.

Shop Qatar has also partnered with Qatar Development Bank (QDB) to pro-vide several of the 30 pop-up shops to SMEs incubated and it supports.

QDB considers Shop Qatar an ideal platform to support home-based projects, motivating young entrepre-neurs to access the Qatari market, engaging with competitors, identifying the mechanism of the market and gaining practical experience to help them develop their business, and e x p l o r i n g n e w b u s i n e s s opportunities.

Through the pop-up shops, small

businesses benefit from the high foot-fall generated by the festival while pro-viding the mall’s visitors with an authentic Qatari experience.

For authentic shopping experi-ences, Shop Qatar has tapped local Qatari company Embrace Doha, which specialises in cultural events and ses-sions, to lead shopping tours at Souq Waqif throughout the festival. The Women’s, Men’s and Family tours let residents and tourists experience shop-ping the Qatari way learning about

spices, incense, traditional food, art and clothes.

Alshaikh was optimistic this year’s Shop Qatar will be better than last first edition with the huge interest gener-ated by the various activities in the past weeks.

“It’s progressing really well. There are many activities this year with high public engagement. The level of interest among the people is evident in the high attendance at the activities during the Bollywood Week,” she said.

The fashion shows and concerts which took place in the first three weeks of the festival had succeeded in drawing interest among many fashion aficionados and music lovers who watched the shows and talked about them via social media.

Meanwhile, malls have been wit-nessing high footfall with people thronging the retail outlets for the big promotions and discounts as well as witness a number of entertainment and activities.

One of the Shop Qatar pop-up shops at Mall of Qatar.

Chocolate, Coffee and Tea Festival begins with fanfareAMNA PERVAIZ RAO

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Chocolate, Coffee and Tea Festival began yesterday with more than fifty stalls, trucks and carts offering vari-eties of tea, coffee and chocolates at Hotel Park.

The 10-day long festival will run until February 3 and is being organised by Four and One, a leading business agency, and it brings together more than 40 exhibitors, who will be displaying and providing free tasting of their finest choc-olates, tea and coffee while introducing the latest award winning technological products. The opening ceremony was attended by Qatar Tourism Authority Director of Exhibitions, Ahmed Al Obaidli; Australian Ambassador to Qatar, Axel Wabenhorst; Four and One Chairman Omran Al Sherawi, Four and One Chief Executive Officer Fernando De Guama; and other dignitaries.

While inaugurating the festival, SNS Chief Executive Officer Saleh Al Eida urged organisers to make the event an annual celebration with a focal point for culture, business and tourism.

Talking to The Peninsula, Fernando De Guama said: “Chocolate, Tea and Coffee is a lifestyle for all of us, we have these three things on daily basis. There is a lot of local creativity in Doha, we are here to give them an opportunity to showcase their ideas for next nine days.

We have total of forty-five exhibitors here today, we are expecting many people to come and enjoy their favorite combina-tion and relish the exclusive taste.”

The opening night attracted well over 5,000 people and featured different live presentations and classical performances as well as a painting competition hosted

by renowned Qatari Fahad al Maadeed.

Thousands of coffee, tea and choco-late enthusiasts thronged to the venue to sense of taste of mouth-watering choc-olates with hot tea and coffee.

“I am feeling extremely excited to participate in this festival, as Ever-Green

organics (the only vegan Café in Qatar). We will be offering healthy alternatives to chocolate, coffee and tea. We look for-ward to such festivals that bring more liveliness to the community,” said Ghanim Al Sulaiti, Founder of Ever Green Oganics.

Coffee trucks and carts are also

participating in the festival. At Tamrcafe cart, the owner of said: “I created this coffee from the seeds of dates which is caffeine free. I have made two types of coffees , one created by the seeds of dates and the other is combination of Arabic coffee. I have recently come up with this business idea, I hope everyone in country loves this.”

Bedaya Center has given an oppor-tunity to new entrepreneurs to display their brand-new ideas at Festival.

Omran Al Sherawi said, “We are delighted to organise the festival which is the first of its kind in Qatar. The fes-tival marks the beginning of a long story in the development of the industry in the country. CTC Festival will not only create more awareness about the beverages but also help to introduce new variants to the delights of consumers in the country.”

Fernando De Guama said, “Qatar is known for its fine taste in tea, chocolate and coffee and bringing together the cal-ibre of exhibitors at the festival show-cases the extent of the importance of such an event. For 10 days, attendees will have the opportunity of sampling some of the best brands while at the same time enjoy the best of interactive entertainment.

There will be ongoing live entertain-ment, bloggers lounge, and various com-petitions involving professionals and members of the public,” he added. The entry-free festival opens each day from 5.00pm – 12 midnight.

Visitors at the Chocolate, Coffee and Tea Festival at Hotel Park, yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

20 female students from QU begin ROTA-sponsored Nepal tripTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Education Above All (EAA) Foundation’s programme, Reach Out to Asia (ROTA), in collabora-tion with Qatar University, organised a 10-day trip to Nepal for the University’s 20 female volunteer students. The trip will take participants to Bardiya and Banke rural districts in Western Nepal with the aim to develop leadership skills among youth and prepare them for potential economic and social challenges.

The trip that kicked off on January 19 is organised in collaboration with Rural Education And Develop-ment Global (READ) Nepal, a non-profit organisation operating in rural South Asia that seeks to build literacy and empower rural communities through Community Libraries and Resource Centers (CLRCs).

This ROTA project, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, intends to expand educa-tion and livelihood resources for communities in gen-eral and for youth in particular in four districts of Nepal. With a special focus on Information and Communica-tion Technology (ICT) skills, the project aims to

establish and upgrade 11 community centers which will create educational, social and economic opportu-nities for communities through community engagement.

Mohammed Al Saleh, National Programme Director at EAA’s ROTA, said: “During the trip, the selected stu-dents who have passion in leadership and youth devel-opment, and have the required skills in IT, business and leadership, will be exposed to the reality faced by in-country EAA beneficiaries in order to raise their awareness of how education addresses developmental needs. The students will also have the chance to par-ticipate in an organised and well facilitated peer to peer workshop on leadership, computer skills, decision making and entrepreneurship, to develop their psy-chosocial life skills enabling them to cope with life and its challenges, and help them gain cross-cultural under-standing in an open and trusting environment, as well as improving their interpersonal communication, self-awareness and empathy.”

The volunteering students will be inspired throughout this journey to engage in on-going

Qatar-based volunteering activities, and implement the knowledge and learning experiences they received as part of ROTA’s Model of International Volunteer Trips.

Noora Al Thani, ROTA’s volunteer, commented: “I am really excited about this volunteering journey.”

Participants at the ROTA 2018 Nepal Student Volunteer Trip.

FAJRSHOROOK

05.00am

06.19 am

ZUHRASR

11.46 am

02.52 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

05.15pm

06.45pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 00:30 – 10:45 LOW TIDE 05:15 – 18:15

Hazy to misty / foggy at places at first

becomes moderate temperature daytime

with scattered clouds, cold by night.

WEATHER TODAY

COURTESY: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum 17oC 27oC

BUSINESSBUSINESSFriday 26 January 2018

MAIN BRANCHPH: 44441448

LULU HYPER MARKETPH: 44650768

SANAYYA (STREET 17)PH: 44510088

AL KHORPH: 44213444

MATAR QADEEMPH: 44655559

MANSOURA - AL MEERAPH: 44357552

ABU HAMOURPH: 44621271

BIN OMRAN - ALMEERAPH: 44162002

��

a l z a m a n e x c h a n g e w w w . a l z a m a n e x c h a n g e . c o m 4 4 4 4 1 4 4 8

Currency TT Rate Currency TT Rate Currency TT Rate Currency TT RateQAR/INR : 17.36 QAR/PHP : 13.85 QAR/LKR : 42.06 QAR/BDT : 22.68

EUR/QAR : 4.64 GBP/QAR : 5.32 CAD/QAR : 3.03 AUD/QAR : 3.03

CHF/QAR : 3.95 SGD/QAR : 2.85 KWD/QAR : 12.32 OMR/QAR : 9.60

PAGE | 23PAGE | 22

Dollar slump drives gold to highest level

ECB holds steady course as currency war fears mount

Oil hits $71 for first time since 2014 REUTERS

LONDON: Oil hit $71 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since 2014, supported by Opec-led supply curbs, a record-breaking run of declines in US crude inventories and a weaker US dollar.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia began to curb supplies in 2017. An involuntary drop in Vene-zuela’s output in recent months has deepened the impact of the curbs. Brent crude, the interna-tional oil benchmark, hit $71.20 a barrel - the highest since early December 2014. At 1053 GMT, Brent eased to $70.81, still up 28 cents.

US crude climbed to $66.44, also the highest since early December 2014, before dipping to $66.05, up 44 cents.

“The continuous fall in US oil inventories and the pro-longed weakness in the US dollar have done the trick,” said Tamas Varga of broker PVM, referring to oil hitting a new high. The supply cuts led by Opec and Russia started a year ago and are aimed at getting rid of excess supply that had weighed on prices. They are set to last throughout 2018.

In a further sign the glut is clearing, US crude inventories fell for a record 10th straight week to the lowest since Feb-ruary 2015, official figures showed on Wednesday.

Also supporting oil, the US dollar hit its lowest since

December 2014 against a basket of other currencies. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday a weaker dollar was “good for us”.

A falling dollar makes dollar-denominated commod-ities cheaper for other currency holders and tends to support oil prices.

“The depreciation of the US dollar is also allowing oil prices to make further gains,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Com-merzbank. “Almost every com-modity class is being driven up by this extended dollar fall.”

Casting a shadow over the oil rally is the spectre of growing output of US shale oil, as higher prices encourage more invest-ment in expanding supplies.

US crude oil production is expected to surpass 10 million barrels per day (bpd) in Feb-ruary, on the way to a record ahead of previous forecasts, according to the USgovern-ment’s Energy Information Administration.

Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. reduced its output target for oil and natural gas due to the drop in crude prices that started in 2014, Chief Executive Officer Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah said, Bloomberg reported.

Kufpec, a unit of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp., revised its production goal for 2020 to 150,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent from 200,000 bar-rels a day, Al-Sabah said in an emailed response to questions. The company, which last year

pumped 84,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent, is seeking to buy assets in the U.S. and else-where that meet “strategically identified criteria,” he said, without specifying the criteria or target markets.

“During the downturn, we purposefully avoided making large acquisitions that were risky at the time,” Al-Sabah said. “We could not justify the high valuations others were paying.” As a result, Kufpec thought it was “more realistic” to revise its production target and re-assess it later, he said. Kuwait is cut-ting oil output as part of an OPEC accord with other pro-ducers that aims to clear an oversupply and buttress prices.

The cuts deal is having the desired effect, with Brent crude reaching $71.20 a barrel in London trading on Thursday, the highest since December 2014. Brent peaked that year in June at more than $115, before tum-bling to about $27 in January 2016, the year the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Coun-tries and its allies first agreed to cap production.

Even as it pumps less, kuwait plans to raise its output capacity. The Persian Gulf nation currently can pump as much as 3.15 million barrels a day, and KPC targets capacity of 4 million barrels a day by 2020 and 4.75 million by 2040.

Kufpec has a “reserves base” of 650 million barrels of oil equivalent, and its reserves target is unchanged at 657 mil-lion, Al-Sabah said.

At Davos, Canada and Mexico upbeat REUTERS

DAVOS: Canada’s foreign minister and Mexico’s economy minister struck an upbeat note Wednesday on the outlook for talks with the United States on the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying they agreed the deal needed modernising.

The sixth and penultimate round of negotiations to update NAFTA opened in Montreal on Tuesday with time running out for Canada and Mexico to settle big differences with US Presi-dent Donald Trump’s administration.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland (pictured) said nobody was expecting a deal to be struck in the current round of talks, but Canada was approaching the negotiations

with a “spirit of positive intent” and expected the same of its partners.

She said Canada had brought new creative ideas to Montreal, in particular on contentious areas such as rules of origin, which she described as “insanely complicated” in the complex negotiations over the car sector.

“It’s going to be a fun and I

hope really useful and produc-tive discussion,” she said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “We’re prepared for every different possible outcome.”

Speaking alongside Free-land, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said the attempt to find creative solutions on NAFTA was in a much better place than a year ago.

But he said it was obvious that the 22-year old NAFTA text needed modernising, to reflect the march of technology and the changing energy balance in North America.

“The car that we use as the base for rules of origin is the model from 1991. Look at the car today - it’s 80 pct different,” Guajardo said.

He said negotiators needed

to listen to what Trump had promised to achieve in NAFTA reform, and try to interpret that in a way that did as little damage as possible, with a scope and time frame that was manageable for business.

“The president is right in saying that in North America, we have to make a much better effort to integrate value produc-tion in the North American countries,” he said.

Another complex negotiating issue is dispute settlement, he said.

Asked what could kill NAFTA, Freeland said there was a clause in the agreement that allowed any member to with-draw, after giving six months’ notice, and so a political deci-sion could allow any of the three to leave.

Russia offers Cryptos legal cover BLOOMBERG

MOSCOW: Russia’s Finance Ministry published draft legis-lation to regulate operations using cryptocurrencies, putting it at odds with the central bank’s resistance to allowing their exchange into rubles and other currencies.

Licensed operators would be able to validate conversion of cryptocurrencies into other digital instruments as well as rubles or foreign currencies, according to the bill. Digital assets themselves wouldn’t be

deemed as legal means of pay-ment in Russia, while the pro-posals also set out measures for domestic regulation of initial coin offerings.

Governments around the world are increasing scrutiny of digital currencies as soaring prices attract everyone from mom-and-pop investors to Wall Street banks. The Russian bill emerged after months of discus-sion between the country’s financial authorities, with cen-tral bank officials expressing skepticism over the use of cryptocurrencies.

The International Monetary Fund, the US Treasury, France and Germany are all pushing for greater coordination and regu-lation of digital currencies at the Group of 20 nations level, as their sharp volatility, soaring value and anonymity attract more investors and in some cases may be used for illicit transfers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this month that the central bank is right to be cau-tious about the increasingly popular financial instruments.

US home sales post largest drop in 16 monthsREUTERS

WASHINGTON: Sales of new US single-family homes fell more than expected in December, recording their biggest drop in nearly 1-1/2 years, likely as the boost from the replacement of flood-damaged houses in parts of the South affected by hurricanes faded.

Other data yesterday showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose from a 45-year low last week. The jump in jobless claims was, however, less than expected, and the underlying trend remained consistent with a tight labor market that is helping to underpin demand for housing.

“We expect demand for

single-family housing to remain robust, driven by job gains and the aging of the millennial gen-eration into prime homebuying ages,” said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide in Columbus, Ohio.

The Commerce Department said new home sales declined 9.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 units last month. The percentage decrease was the largest since August 2016. Unseasonably cold tem-peratures at the end of December probably also hurt sales.

Economists polled by Reu-ters had forecast that new home sales, which account for 10.1 per-cent of the housing market, would tumble 7.9 percent to a pace of 679,000 units last month.

Trump-May meeting at DavosUS President Donald Trump meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday.

9,459.61+101.01 PTS1.08%

QSE FTSE100 DOW BRENT7,615.84-27.59 PTS0.36%

26,425.16+173.04 PTS0.66% Dow & Brent before going to press

$65.87 +0.26

22 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018BUSINESS

The Frankfurt institution left interest rates at historic lows and held fast to plans to buy €30bn ($37.2bn) of government and corporate bonds per month until September, offering no hints about when it might step back from the mammoth stimulus programme.

ECB holds steady course as currency war fears mountAFP

FRANKFURT: European Central Bank governors left their massive support for the eurozone econ-omy in place yesterday, opting not to rock the boat after comments from the US sent the euro soaring against the dollar.

The Frankfurt institution left interest rates at historic lows and held fast to plans to buy €30bn ($37.2bn) of government and corporate bonds per month until September, offering no hints about when it might step back from the mammoth stimulus programme.

Central bankers’ caution may have been prompted by remarks from US Treasury Sec-retary Steven Mnuchin, who declared Wednesday that “a weaker dollar is good for us” -- helping send the euro to its highest level against the green-back since December 2014.

The former banker down-played the comments Thursday by insisting the Trump

administration “believe in free currencies” and was “not con-cerned with where the dollar is in the short term”.

But the market reaction underscored how tricky it will be for the ECB to wean the euro-zone off mass bond-buying and

ultimately raise interest rates in the coming months and years.

Mnuchin’s remarks came after the single currency was already stoked by the minutes of the ECB’s December’s meeting, which revealed governors plan to “revisit” policy early this year.

The ECB’s almost €2.3 tril-lion in purchases of government and corporate bonds, cheap loans to banks and historic low interest rates have aimed to fire eurozone growth and boost inflation towards its target of just below 2.0 percent.

Growth has indeed picked up -- estimated at 2.4 percent in 2017 -- but inflation stood at just 1.4 percent in December.

In what the Frankfurt insti-tution says is a side effect -- but critics allege is by design -- its policy has also suppressed the value of the euro against other currencies, supporting growth by encouraging exports and inflation by making imports more expensive.

A pricier euro could slow the

ECB’s quest to complete its mis-sion, although some analysts argue there is little it can do to brake the currency’s rise.

Following Mnuchin’s com-ments, ECB President Mario Draghi “is likely to adopt a dam-age limitation mode” at a 1330 GMT press conference explain-ing the bank’s decisions, tearing up any plans to hint at winding down support, ING Diba bank economist Rob Carnell said yesterday.

“Throwing more fuel on the fire... would be counter-produc-tive,” he added.

In the ECB boardroom, strong economic fundamentals prompted some central bank governors to argue at Decem-ber’s meeting that “a policy stance that remained in crisis configuration” was no longer needed. Policymakers decided in October to cut bond-buying by half to 30 billion euros per month from January and set a time limit of September.

“We can be hopeful that the

October extension was the last one,” ECB executive board mem-ber Benoit Coeure told German business daily Handelsblatt in November.

Council members favouring a prolonged, gentle exit from bond-buying are holding off more aggressive “hawks”, as the bank approaches technical lim-its to bond-buying that could open it to legal challenge.

Such constraints mean “the ECB is resigning itself to the inev-itable” as it prepares to wind down bond-buying, Commerz-bank economist Michael Schubert noted.

If the ECB halts asset pur-chases sooner than September, an interest rate rise -- slated in ECB statements for “well after” the end of bond-buying -- could also be moved up the agenda.

Whatever is happening to the exchange rate, “Draghi will have to clarify things” following the market reaction to December’s minutes, Societe Generale econ-omist Michel Martinez said.

As so often before, the smooth-talking ECB chief will likely play for time in hopes that other factors will fire price growth. That could include euro-zone workers negotiating hard for generous wage increases -- previously described by Draghi as the “linchpin” of higher inflation.

German metalworkers could set the tone, as they press twin demands for a 6.0 percent sal-ary boost and the right to go part-time for up to two years.

Elsewhere unemployment remains high, limiting upward pressure on pay.

“Wages are unlikely to pick up on a broad front” for now, with low inflation on the hori-zon in the short term, Commerzbank’s Schubert predicted.

“But the ECB is confident that the stronger economy will also lead to a lasting rise in infla-tion in the foreseeable future” that will dispel its policy woes, he added.

Crypto Funding SummitAttendees confer during the Crypto Funding Summit, which helps investors understand cryptocurrency, at the Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, is down from record highs approaching $20,000 and is now trading around $11,000, after having rocketed 25-fold over the year, before being hit by concerns about a bubble and worries about crackdowns on trading in it.

TPG consortium to bid $1bn for fiber arm of Tata GroupBLOOMBERG

MUMBAI: A management consortium backed by TPG Capital has bid for a fiber tele-communications network controlled by India’s Tata Group, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The suitors offered at least $1bn for the fiber assets and related businesses owned by the Indian conglomerate’s Tata Tel-eservices Ltd unit, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the informa-tion is private. The consortium is led by Mukund Rajan, the head of international operations for Tata Group’s holding com-pany, they said.

Some Tata Teleservices employees and another inter-national fund have also joined the bidding group, the people said.

The owner of the the fiber business has received multiple proposals, according to one of the people. The management consortium could face compe-t i t i o n f r o m T a t a Communications Ltd, which said in December it’s considering buying the enterprise business and fixed line assets of Tata

Teleservices. Data usage is booming in

India after billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s telecom unit stormed into the market with free offers for mobile Internet browsing. The fiber business of debt-laden Tata Teleservices includes an optical transmission network spanning 113,000 kilometers (70,000 miles) in the country, providing long distance as well as intra-city connectivity, according to its annual report.

Deliberations on the poten-tial sale of the fiber business are at an early stage, and other bid-ders could still emerge, the people said. Representatives for TPG, Tata Teleservices and Tata Group’s holding company, for-mally known as Tata Sons Ltd, declined to comment. A repre-s e n t a t i v e f o r T a t a Communications said the com-pany doesn’t have any comment beyond previous statements.

Shares of Tata Teleservices Maharastra Ltd, the listed arm of closely held Tata Teleserv-ices, jumped as much as 5.4 percent before closing 2.9 per-cent higher yesterday in Mumbai trading, while S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.3 percent.

QSE’s main index gained 259.51 points last weekTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Stock Exchange’s (QSE) benchmark index gained 259.51 points, or 2.82 percent, last week when the bourse closed yesterday at 9,459.61 points.

Trading value during last week decreased by 2.63 per-cent to reach QR1.50bn compared to QR1.54bn.

Trading volume decreased by 16.17 percent to reach 60.19 million shares, as against 71.80 million shares, while the number of transactions fell by 9.02 percent, to reach 21,887 transactions as compared to 24,058 transactions.

Market cap rose by 1.93 percent to reach QR514.41bn as compared to QR504.69bn at the end of previous week, reports QNA. Banking and financial services sector led traded value last week with

45.19 percent of the total traded value. Consumer goods and services sector accounted for 16.25 percent. Industries sec-tor accounted for 14.74 percent and real estate sector accounted for 12.17 percent.

Banking and financial serv-ices sector led traded volume last week with 49.15 percent of the total traded volume. Real estate sector accounted for 17.40 percent. Industries sec-tor accounted for 16.09 percent and telecoms sector accounted for 7.18 percent.

Banking and financial serv-ices sector led traded number of transactions last week with 36.6 percent of the total number of transactions. Indus-tries sector accounted for 18.03 percent. Real estate sector accounted for 15.30 percent and consumer goods and serv-ices sector accounted for 15.13 percent.

Out of the 45 listed compa-nies 26 ended last week higher, while 16 fell and three unchanged.

QNB led trading value dur-ing last week accounted for 10.02 percent of the total traded value. Qatar First Bank (QFC) accounted for 8.74 per-cent and Medicare Group accounted for 7.70 percent.

When compared on daily basis, the QSE index gained 10.01 points, or 1.08 percent, when the bourse closed trad-ing at 9,459.61 points.

The volume of shares traded increased to 9.75 mil-lion yesterday from 15.16 million on Wednesday and the value of shares increased to QR341.14m from QR419.43m on Wednesday. Out of the 45 com-panies, shares of 42 saw trading yesterday. From these, 20 com-panies gained, 21 closed lower and one remained unchanged.

UK economy loses ground after BrexitREUTERS

LONDON: Britain’s economy has fared better than the gloomy expectations made at the time of the 2016 Brexit vote, but it has been helped mainly by a strong pick-up in global growth and many of its peers are growing more quickly.

Britain is at risk, along with Japan and Italy, of being the slowest growing economy among the Group of Seven nations in 2018, Reuters polls of economists showed last week.

Following is a summary of how Britain’s economic per-formance compares with that of other rich nations.

Britain grew more slowly than every other G7 country over the first three quarters of 2017. It looks likely to lag behind both France and Germany in the next few years, according to Reuters polls, the International Monetary Fund and the Organ-isat ion for Economic C o o p e r a t i o n a n d Development.

That would represent a reversal of Britain’s outperform-ance of its peers since the early 1990s, barring a couple of years after the global financial crisis.

Official figures due to be released today are likely to show Britain’s economy grew by a quarterly 0.4 percent in the last three months of 2017, repeating

the July-September perform-ance, according to a Reuters poll.

That would probably leave average annual growth for 2017 as a whole at around 1.6 percent -- much better than the 1.2 per-cent Reuters poll forecast from this time last year, but compared with around 2.5 percent for Ger-many, 2.3 percent for the United States, and 1.8 percent for France.

The Reuters poll pegs growth for this year at around 1.4 percent ahead of Brexit in March 2019, compared with 2.6 percent for the United States, 2.4 percent for Germany, 2.0 per-cent for France and 1.3 percent for Japan.

Export volumes from Brit-ain have jumped over the last 18 months but much of the increase is probably linked to the recovery in the global econ-omy, rather than any increase in British competitiveness.

Britain’s recent export per-formance is average compared with other European countries, offering no clear sign of any edge gained from the weak pound.

While consumer morale in the euro zone has hit a 17-1/2-year high, the British public is more sombre, particularly about the economic outlook.

Higher inflation has hurt the spending power of consumers,

especially since wages have failed to keep pace with prices.

Consumer confidence in Britain was weaker in Decem-ber than in all other large European economies, accord-ing to European Commission data.

The Thomson Reuters/Ipsos consumer sentiment survey shows Britain was the only G7 country where confidence fell over 2017.

British inflation hit its high-est level in nearly six years in November at 3.1 percent, top-ping rates of consumer price growth in each of the other G7 countries for an eighth month. It edged down to 3.0 percent in December.

The BoE and many econo-mists think inflation has peaked. But surveys of businesses by the Confederation of British Indus-try and British Chambers of Commerce have suggested

inflation pressures could persist.

Business investment did not contract as the BoE forecast after the Brexit vote and has grown since mid-2016, albeit at around half its average pace since the financial crisis.

Business surveys suggest Brexit uncertainty has had a tan-gible impact on companies’ investment plans.

Last year JPMorgan said business investment ought to be rising at an annual pace of around 7 percent, given the glo-bal growth backdrop, instead of the rates of around 1.5 to 2.5 per-cent seen during the first three quarters of 2017.

Britain underperformed its peers for investment in the first three quarters of 2017, accord-i n g t o a n internationally-comparable measure of gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) that includes spending in businesses, govern-ment and dwellings.

GFCF in Britain grew at a slower rate during the first three quarters of 2017 than all of its G7 peers.

However, Martin Beck (pic-tured), economist at Oxford Economics, notes that Britain’s business investment perform-ance looks similar to other countries when excluding the oil and gas sector, which in Brit-ain has struggled of late.

BLOOMBERG

BENGALURU: SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks to back leading online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar at a valuation of at least $800 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

The two sides are exam-ining how the Japanese com-pany can take a stake without pushing foreign investment in PolicyBazaar above 49 percent, the limit under India’s regula-tory policies, said one of the people, asking not to be iden-tified because the matter is pri-vate. The discussions are still fluid and may not result in a final agreement. The startup’s existing foreign investors, including Tiger Global Man-agement and Temasek Hold-ings, hold about 48 percent of the startup. It was valued at $500 million in its last funding round, signed at the end of 2016 and finalized a year later.

Y a s h i s h D a h i y a ,

PolicyBazaar’s chief executive officer and co-founder, declined to comment on any potential deal, explaining the company has not received any offer. “The [foreign direct investment] cap will not be a challenge as we have firm offers from domestic investors with ready capital who can balance out any foreign invest-ment,” he said.

PolicyBazaar is part of a wave of upstarts seeking to challenge the dominance of banks and government insurers in India’s insurance market. E-commerce compa-nies such as Flipkart Online Services Pvt are seeking to push their way in with their own insurance products. The government has kept tight con-trol over the sector where local giants such as Tata Group and Aditya Birla Group exert wide influence.

India’s market potential is immense as the population is l a r g e l y u n i n s u r e d

or under-insured. Insurance penetration was estimated to cross 4 percent in 2017 and the domestic market is projected to quadruple over the next 10 years from the current $60 bil-lion, according to the govern-ment’s Brand Equity Founda-tion. Demographic factors like a young insurable population and growing middle class will propel the market, the Foun-dation said.

PolicyBazaar, based in Gurgaon near New Delhi, bills itself as a way for India’s expanding middle class to easily compare policies for life, health and motor insurance, and then choose the appro-priate fit, without paying intermediaries.

SoftBank declined to com-ment. The investor is showing increased interest in the insur-ance sector and last month led a $120 million investment in the New York-based home insurance startup, Lemonade Inc.

AP

BRUSSELS: Key eurozone leaders say Greece is expected to pass the latest review of its bailout program, putting it on track to emerge from its eight-year rescue this summer.

Top officials of the 19-nation eurozone said Monday there was little doubt that Greece would get the green light on its review at Monday’s meeting of finance ministers.

EU Financial Affairs Com-missioner Pierre Moscovici said that once the review is completed, the eurozone should prepare for “a suc-cessful conclusion, which means Greece being back as a normal member of the euro-zone and the final signal - the end of the Greek crisis.”

Mario Centeno, the presi-dent of the eurozone finance gatherings, said “we have great expectations” when it comes to settling the Greek financial crisis. Greece’s struggles to deal with its massive debts have dominated the 19-country eurozone for most of the past decade.

Instrumental in the progress in Greece’s latest reg-ular review of its economic pol-icies was the national parlia-ment’s approval last week of a batch of reforms.

The measures include tougher conditions for unions to call strikes, speedier prop-erty foreclosures to help reduce the amount of bad loans on banks’ balance sheets, and cuts in family benefits.

Greece has depended on international loans since 2010 and after the bailout program expires this summer.

REUTERS

LONDON: Gold prices climbed on Thursday to their highest since August 2016 as a weak-ening dollar helped it to extend gains of more than 10 percent since mid-December. The dollar plunged to a three-year low against a basket of major currencies after the U.S. treasury secretary said he welcomed a weaker green-back, making gold cheaper for users of other currencies.

The lower dollar could also drive prices higher in the United States and increase demand for gold as a hedge against inflation. “Gold is benefiting tremendously from the weaker dollar,” said ETF Securities analyst Nitesh Shah. Spot gold was up 0.1 per-cent at $1,358.80 an ounce by 1042 GMT. It had earlier touched $1,366.07, the highest level since Aug. 3, 2016.

US gold futures were up 0.2 percent at $1,358.50 an ounce. Gold has broken above its 2017 high of $1,357.54, a key technical level, with further resistance around $1,370 and the 2016 high of $1,374.91. Momentum indicators sig-nalled that gold should rise further, ScotiaMocatta analysts said. “Exchange-traded fund (ETF) holdings (of gold) con-tinue to increase .

We also see large open interest around the $1,350 strike level for the upcoming expiry, which should help to keep prices buoyant over the near term,” said MKS PAMP trader Sam Laughlin.

Holdings of gold in ETFs tracked by Reuters and bets by funds on higher gold prices on the Comex exchange have surged in recent weeks.

The market was looking ahead to a European Central Bank interest rate decision at 1245 GMT and a news confer-ence by its chief, Mario Draghi, at 1330 GMT. Draghi is expected to pour cold water on any view that the bank is speeding towards an interest rate increase. “The ECB meeting on Thursday will be pivotal (for gold), as it could spark the euro (and gold) higher, especially if the cen-tral bank signals a policy shift,” INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir (pictured) said in a note. In other precious metals, silver was down 0.1 percent at $17.56 an ounce after touching $17.69, its highest since mid-September.

It had jumped by 3 percent on Wednesday for the biggest daily gain since July 2016. Platinum was up 0.8 percent at $1,020.50 after hitting its highest since March 2017 at $1,024.30. Palladium fell by 0.7 percent to $1,102.80.

REUTERS

ANKARA: The Turkish central bank’s main goal this year is to increase the effectiveness of its monetary policy and rein in double-digit inflation, Governor Murat Cetinkaya (pictured) told Reuters in an interview.

Cetinkaya, speaking by tel-ephone from the World Eco-nomic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, also said the bank would take all necessary mon-etary policy steps to bring infla-tion down to single digits as swiftly as possible.

Turkey’s annual inflation stood at 11.92 percent at the end of 2017, far above the bank’s official target of 5 percent. At its most recent policy-setting meeting, the bank this month left its top rate steady at 12.75 percent, in line with expectations.

“Our fundamental goal is to increase the effectiveness of monetary policy and accelerate the disinflation process,” Cetinkaya said when asked about his priorities for 2018.

“I want to emphasise again that we will maintain a tight monetary policy decisively until the inflation outlook displays a significant improvement, inde-pendent of base effects and

temporary factors, and becomes consistent with the targets.”

“Our goal is to lower infla-tion to single digits in the shortest time and then to bring it towards targets. To achieve this, all the necessary monetary policy steps will be taken deci-sively,” he said.

But investors have been sceptical about the bank’s ability to bring down inflation, given that it faces the challenging task of balancing volatile prices with President Tayyip Erdogan’s demands for cheaper credit.

Erdogan, who has described himself as an “enemy” of interest rates, has repeatedly called for lower rates to fuel bank lending and boost the economy.

Cetinkaya said the govern-ment’s fiscal policy was sup-portive of the bank’s efforts to fight inflation.

“Reflecting the coordination of monetary-fiscal policy, we see an increase in the support which public finance is giving in the fight against inflation. There are joint efforts towards making this coordination permanent and systematic,” he said.

Erdogan’s comments, and the bank’s reluctance to use tra-ditional policy tools to tighten - it uses a complex system of

multiple rates - have reinforced investor concern that the cen-tral bank is less than inde-pendent, and this has weighed on the lira currency.

“Monetary policy has per-sistently proven unable to bring inflation near to target and a complex policy framework undermines transmission mechanisms,” ratings agency Fitch said last week.

Turkey’s economy has rebounded strongly from a downturn that followed a 2016 coup attempt. Helped by a series of government stimulus meas-ures, it grew by 11.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, its fastest expansion in six years.

23FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 BUSINESS

Macron at Michelin Ladoux R&T centreFrench President Emmanuel Macron (second right) waves next to Michelin group chairman Jean-Dominique Senard during a visit at the Michelin Ladoux Research and Technology centre in Ladoux, central France, yesterday.

Dollar slump drives gold to highest level

SoftBank is said in talks to back India insurance startup

GE’s surprise $15bn shortfall was 14 years in the makingBLOOMBERG

NEW YORK: The trouble at General Electric Co. began decades ago when a hole started to form inside its sprawling financial unit.

The hole became a $15bn shortfall in insurance reserves, disclosed last week. It’s prompted a Securities and Exchange Commission investi-gation, called into question the

oversight of GE leadership, pushed down the share price, and shocked investors who were asking Wednesday how this icon of American capitalism could allow the situation to deteriorate to this point.

“It sure seems that previous management had a rosy view,” said Scott Davis, an analyst with Melius Research in New York. “There seemed to be no effort on their part to get ahead of the

liability. I find it very hard to believe that mysteriously over-night GE found problems they didn’t know existed.”

A representative for Jeffrey Immelt, who was GE’s chief executive officer from 2001 to 2017, declined to comment.

In 2004, GE spun out an insurance unit, Genworth Finan-cial Inc., through a stock offering. The move was important to the parent company. It helped

eliminate one of the biggest drags on GE’s earnings.

At the time, advisers told GE the share sale could run into obstacles. Some Genworth busi-nesses were too weak for inves-tors’ tastes. GE would need to backstop them.

GE agreed to reinsure some of Genworth’s long-term-care insurance.

The company, then run by Immelt, raised $3.53bn in its first

Genworth share sale. The insur-er’s stock rose 67 percent by the time GE sold the last of its stake for $2.8bn in 2006.

Long-term-care insurance is a business that’s gotten tougher over the years. Policyholders are living longer. Medical costs have risen. Some insurance compa-nies have quit selling the product altogether. Genworth has taken writedowns to shore up the busi-ness with cash reserves. GE is

certainly not the first company to get its assumptions wrong, and the insurance policies date as far back as the 1980s. No new con-tracts were written after 2006.

But GE didn’t change its assumptions in a big way -- a decision that baffled industry veterans.

Genworth announced a revamp of its actuarial assump-tions in 2014 after a calculation error, leading to a $1.2bn loss

Turkey central bank aims to rein in inflation in 2018

Bail out: Greece may pass final reveiw

German business morale jumps backREUTERS

BERLIN: German business confidence rose unexpectedly in January to match a record high reached in November, a survey showed yesterday, suggesting that Europe’s biggest economy continued to fire on all cylinders at the beginning of 2018.

The surprisingly bullish fig-ures, released by the Ifo

economic institute, bode well for future growth and give Chan-cellor Angela Merkel a tailwind as she tries to form a coalition government with the centre-left Social Democrats.

The Munich-based Ifo eco-nomic institute said its business climate index, based on a monthly survey of some 7,000 firms, rose to 117.6 in January from 117.2 in December.

The January reading beat

expectations in a Reuters con-sensus forecast of analysts who had forecast a dip to 117.1. “The German economy made a dynamic start to the year,” Ifo chief Clemens Fuest said in a statement. The overall improve-ment was driven by managers taking a stronger view of their current business situation, with the respective sub-index hitting a record high, the survey showed.

24 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018BUSINESS

QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE Index 9,459.61 1.08 %

QE Total Return Index 15,863.21 1.08 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,744.94 1.13 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index - Price 2,429.74 1.13 %

QE All Share Index 2,654.72 0.40 %

QE All Share Banks &

Financial Services 2,924.78 1.28 %

QE All Share Industrials 2,933.66 1.16 %

QE All Share Transportation 1,963.91 0.38 %

QE All Share Real Estate 1,997.87 2.74 %

QE All Share Insurance 3,504.37 0.18 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,146.95 0.39 %

QE All Share Consumer

Goods & Services 5,499.81 1.94 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON WORLD STOCK INDICES

GOLD AND SILVER

10-01-2018Index 9,459.61

Change 101.01

% 1.08

YTD% 10.98

Volume 9,753,817

Value (QAR) 341,146,948.47

Trades 5,076

Up 20 | Down 21 | Unchanged 109-01-2018Index 9,358.60

Change 103.99

% 1.12

YTD% 9.80

Volume 15,158,805

Value (QAR) 419,380,034.63

Trades 5,808

EXCHANGE RATE

GOLD QR159.5660 per grammeSILVER QR2.0602 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year Low

All Ordinaries 6164.7 -4.1 -0.07 6256.5 6106.2

Cac 40 Index/D 5513.51 18.35 0.33 5567.03 5258.66

Dj Indu Average 26252.12 41.31 0.16 26392.8 19784.77

Hang Seng Inde/D 32654.45 -304.24 -0.92 33018.71 30028.29

Iseq Overall/D 7062.21 -94.19 -1.32 7257.41 7016.09

Kse 100 Inx/D 44810.21 -253 -0.56 45494.52 40169.62

S&P 500 Index/D 2837.54 -1.59 -0.056003 2842.24 2682.36

Currency Buying SellingUS$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 4.1650 QR 4.2382

Euro QR 4.3444 QR 4.4058

CA$ QR 2.9304 QR 2.9875

Swiss Fr QR 3.8445 QR 3.8984

Yen QR 0.0331 QR 0.03373

Aus$ QR 2.9165 QR 2.9738

Ind Re QR 0.0568 QR 0.0579

Pak Re QR 0.0325 QR 0.0334

Peso QR 0.0710 QR 0.0724

SL Re QR 0.0235 QR 0.0239

Taka QR 0.0433 QR 0.0442

Nep Re QR 0.0355 QR 0.0362

SA Rand QR 0.3033 QR 0.3095

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

Aarti Drugs-B/D 677 -9.2 1347

Aban Offs-A/D 233.3 0 353168

Acc Ltd-A/D 1727.45 -17.4 11952

Ador Welding-B/D 515.5 -10.05 3091

Aegis Logis-A/D 278.65 -2.05 17296

Alembic-B/D 67.3 -2.3 645023

Alkyl Amines-B/D 765 -13.85 1448

Alok Indus-T/D 3.64 0.01 714300

Apollo Tyre-A/D 263 -4.25 48462

Asahi I Glass-/D 360.05 -2.15 29353

Ashok Leyland-/D 122.4 -0.9 621269

Ballarpur In-B/D 15.5 -0.2 295757

Banaras Bead-T/D 71.55 -0.95 1111

Bata India-A/D 706.6 -18 26266

Beml Ltd-A/D 1481.8 -24.4 20267

Bhansali Eng-B/D 183.75 1.2 176452

Bharat Bijle-B/D 1485.85 104.1 126432

Bharat Ele-A/D 177.15 3.45 3860996

Bharat Heavy-A/D 103.25 -0.95 1239447

Bharatgears-B/D 204.15 -4 11951

Bhartiya Int-B/D 483.1 -7.8 7106

Bom.Burmah-X/D 1507.55 -42.15 23736

Bombay Dyeing-/D 233.35 -8.1 579184

Camph.& All-X/D 1190 -13.25 3947

Canfin Homes-A/D 443.05 0.15 96065

Caprihans-X/D 103.25 -2.55 8731

Castrol India-/D 183.05 -3.9 574860

Century Enka-B/D 336.15 -5 8065

Century Text-A/D 1403.2 -16.45 39311

Chambal Fert-A/D 154.35 -1.1 92567

Chola Invest-A/D 1320 11.9 8038

Chowgule St-Xt/D 16 -0.45 4265

Cimmco-T/D 117 -5.4 3282

Cipla-A/D 621.3 3.65 583931

City Union Bk-/D 172.35 -0.9 30224

Colgate-A/D 1147.5 -5.05 12759

Container Cor-/D 1440.35 -24.15 30852

Dai-X/D 424 -0.8 1108

Dcm Financia-B/D 3.5 0.15 5900

Dcm Shram Ind-/D 269.75 3.6 56568

Dhampur Sugar-/D 193.6 6.4 102155

Dr. Reddy-A/D 2504 -57.85 142150

E I H-B/D 197.15 0.15 12488

E.I.D Parry-A/D 342.5 -0.9 21730

Eicher Motor-A/D 26524.95 124.1 20821

Electrosteel-B/D 34.9 0.55 51170

Emco-B/D 21.2 -0.7 66845

Escorts-A/D 835.45 14.15 153431

Eveready Indu-/D 432.4 -0.45 7339

F D C-B/D 240 1.35 5289

Federal Bank-A/D 101.15 -2.05 550397

Ferro Alloys-X/D 12.65 -0.15 74911

Finolex-A/D 649.5 -2.4 3910

Forbes-B/D 4204.95 -69.45 2346

Gail-A/D 494.5 9.9 234006

Gammon India-T/D 6.5 -0.26 26234

Garden P -B/D 41 -1.25 42262

Godfrey Phil-A/D 966 -15 9335

Goodricke-X/D 459.9 -12.4 14106

Goodyear I -B/D 1122 -14.55 6620

Hcl Infosys-A/D 57.6 -1.15 444259

Him.Fut.Comm-A/D 30.65 -0.2 1130522

Himat Seide-X/D 377 5 14736

Hind Motors-T/D 9.5 -0.13 93126

Hind Org Chem-/D 28.85 1.35 50795

Hind Unilever-/D 1370 4 36157

Hind.Petrol-A/D 384.1 -4.6 229492

Hindalco-A/D 258.55 -0.9 619335

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1902.55 -5.4 478469

Idbi-A/D 65 -0.45 3557358

Ifb Ind.Ltd.-B/D 1332 -44.05 1572

Ifci Ltd-A/D 30.75 -0.65 1035303

India Cement-A/D 174.85 -3.75 404387

India Glycol-B/D 552.5 42.15 245415

Indian Hotel-A/D 149.55 -1.7 184629

Indo-A/D 107 -4.1 566387

Indusind-A/D 1729 10.8 64260

J.B.Chemical-B/D 318.5 -7.85 4328

Jagson Phar-B/D 35.85 -0.5 2927

Jamnaauto-B/D 75.25 0.25 428164

Jbf Indu-B/D 198.2 -2.6 8924

Jct Ltd-X/D 3.83 0.01 221600

Jenson&Nich.-T/D 6.38 0.12 10450

Jindal Drill-B/D 206.95 -2.8 22826

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 179.35 2.25 259345

Jmc Projects-B/D 576 -8.9 4780

Kabra Extr-B/D 128.45 -1.25 16944

Kajaria Cer-A/D 720 9.9 28751

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 382 4.55 8459

Kalpat Power-B/D 476.25 -13.1 20858

Kalyani Stel-B/D 366.95 -0.8 14097

Kanoria Chem-B/D 93.3 -1.15 19567

Kg Denim-X/D 65.55 0.4 26513

Kilburnengg-X/D 95.8 1.15 7857

Kinetic Eng-Xt/D 87.05 0 6129

Kopran-B/D 76.95 -0.2 87977

Lakshmi Elec-X/D 787.9 17.9 2469

Lloyd Metal-X/D 19.15 -0.2 36057

Lupin-A/D 950.45 -5.15 84443

Lyka Labs-B/D 67.6 -0.8 85694

Mafatlal Ind-X/D 314.25 -1.45 1477

Mah.Seamless-B/D 513.5 -5.15 11328

Mangalam Cem-B/D 426.6 13.35 18722

Maral Overs-B/D 43.5 -0.6 3200

Mastek-B/D 479.9 -9.15 181855

Max Financial-/D 537.45 16.15 68945

Mrpl-A/D 127 -3.65 118282

Nagreeka Ex-T/D 38.55 -0.55 4829

Nagreeka Ex-T/D 38.55 -0.55 4829

Nahar Spg.-B/D 121.45 -1.1 17327

Nation Alum -A/D 77 1.1 716465

Navneet Edu-B/D 146.05 -4.35 14735

Neuland Lab-B/D 870.3 -8.8 2562

Nrb Bearings-B/D 171.05 2.5 19274

O N G C-A/D 208.25 -2.25 544358

Oil Country-B/D 53.2 -0.85 5393

Onward Tech-B/D 110.75 -3 17199

Orchid Pharm-M/D 18.15 -0.8 202467

Orient Hotel-B/D 58.5 -1.25 173424

Orient.Carb.-B/D 1294.75 0.3 5689

Orient.Carb.-B/D 1294.75 0.3 5689

Patspin India-/D 24.35 -0.7 11756

Punjab Chem.-X/D 454.9 -11.5 19939

Radico Khait-A/D 372.8 -7.1 553583

Rallis India-A/D 250.7 1.45 38633

Rallis India-A/D 250.7 1.45 38633

Reliance Indus/D 546.3 -8.05 99639

Ruchi Soya-B/D 17.9 -0.35 230719

Saur.Cem-X/D 96.4 2.8 362232

Sterling Tool-/D 399 -3.15 2585

Tanfac Indu-Xt/D 122 -2.5 12828

Tanfac Indu-Xt/D 122 -2.5 12828

Thirumalai-B/D 2175.8 -38.65 11436

Timexgroup-T/D 60.4 1.65 64695

Tinplate-B/D 285.65 -0.15 429761

Ucal Fuel-B/D 312.35 -2.25 13460

Ucal Fuel-B/D 312.35 -2.25 13460

Ultramarine-X/D 371.8 -2 9265

Unitech P -B/D 8.61 -0.01 3788908

Univcable-B/D 163 -2.8 6594

3I Group/D 915.2 -9.8 273641

Assoc.Br.Foods/D 2842 58 574489

Barclays/D 208.95 0.45 7877457

Bp/D 517.2 1.7 4433320

Brit Am Tobacc/D 4968.5 -7.5 429683

Bt Group/D 264.1 2.7 2907304

Centrica/D 137.55 1.05 2328074

Gkn/D 433.6 -1 1240529

Hsbc Holdings/D 769.2 -2.3 2874595

Kingfisher/D 344.4 2 1813630

Land Secs./D 1000 -3 471818

Legal & Genera/D 273.5 -0.6 1787701

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 71.92 -0.08 18339231

Marks & Sp./D 306.2 1 1628954

Next/D 4992 80 275846

Pearson/D 690 -1.2 464575

Prudential/D 1930.5 -6 796616

Rank Group/D 233.5 0.5 2109

Rentokil Initi/D 293.4 -2.3 612832

Rolls Royce Pl/D 850.6 -11 675013

Rsa Insrance G/D 617.8 1.8 435351

Sainsbury(J)/D 259.4 0.5 1152868

Schroders/D 3659 -3 29265

Severn Trent/D 1998.5 5 131468

Smith&Nephew/D 1294.5 52.5 1701510

Smiths Group/D 1619 -20 374039

Standrd Chart /D 844.2 18.3 2067392

Tate & Lyle/D 654.4 -6.4 271186

Tesco/D 208.7 -0.2 2617729

Unilever/D 4021 -15.5 522578

United Util Gr/D 743 -4.8 371335

Vodafone Group/D 227.65 2.35 13356581

Whitbread/D 3914 -20 52515

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED





LONDON

25FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018

SPORTI tried to be calm but I was a like a rollercoaster, up and down. But I was not afraid of losing so maybe that’s why I won these match points.

7.00am

Starting at Caribou Cafe

near Al Sadd Stadium

The 4th ODI starts at 6:20am

England leading the series 3-0

CYCLING

Australia vs

England at SCGSimona HalepThe world number one from Romania is aiming to win her maiden Grand Slam title.

TODAY’S

ACTION

Halep outlasts Kerber in thriller, sets up title clash with Wozniacki

Chung can end ‘Big Four’ era with Federer win REUTERS

MELBOURNE: It is fair bet that few would have picked South Korean Chung Hyeon (pictured below) to be the player to break the domi-nance Roger Federer and the other members of the “Big Four” have had at the Australian Open over the last 13 years.

The 21-year-old has enjoyed an amazing run over the last two weeks and if he can get past Federer in Fri-day’s semi-final, it would ensure a final without the Swiss, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray or Rafael Nadal for the first time since 2005.

In fact, b a r r i n g 2014 when S t a n Wawrinka won the title, no p l a y e r apart from the quartet has even b e e n involved in the men’s final at Melbourne Park since 2008.

With Marin Cilic and Kyle Edmund lining up in the other semi-final, that particular dominance is already des-tined to be broken and Chung denying Federer a place in his 30th grand slam final remains a huge “if”.

Defending his title as second seed, the 19-times grand slam has yet to give up a set as he has moved through the draw on his mission to match Djokovic’s professional era record of six Melbourne titles.

Djokovic, albeit a Djok-ovic returning from six months on the sidelines, was world number 58 Chung’s most notable victim on his run to the last four and the manner of his victory caught even Federer’s attention.

“I’m very excited to play Chung. I thought he played an incredible match against Novak,” the 36-year-old said yesterday.

“I mean, to beat him here is one of the tough things to do in our sport, I believe. I know that Novak maybe wasn’t at 110 percent, but he was all right. He was giving it a fight till the very end. To close it out, that was mighty impressive.

“I think it’s an interesting match for me. I’ll definitely have to look into how I need to play against him because he has some great qualities, especially defensively, like Novak has.

“One thing I know is I’m going to be playing aggres-sive. I don’t know how I’m going to do that exactly yet.”

Although Chung won the Next Gen Finals last year, his meteoric rise to the top table of the tennis world is indi-cated by the fact that he will be bidding to become the first man in a decade to play his first tour final at a Grand Slam.

His run through the tour-nament has stunned even him.

“I’m really surprised,” he said. “I make semis, I beat like Sascha (fourth seed Alex-ander Zverev), Novak, the other good players. I never playing in second week in grand slam, so I’m really surprised.”

REUTERS

MELBOURNE: World number one Simona Halep quelled a tenacious Angelique Kerber fightback and saved two match points to reach her first Australian Open final with a riveting 6-3, 4-6, 9-7 victory on Rod Laver Arena yesterday.

A wildly unpredictable match veered one way, then the other, before the Romanian ended Kerber’s resistance on her fourth match point in a spell-binding deciding set that pushed both players to the limit of their endurance.

Former champion Kerber, who won only five points in losing the opening five games, was jelly-legged at times but fought off two match points in the 10th game of the third set before seeing two of her own come and go two games later.

In the end Halep’s insatiable desire for a maiden Grand Slam title proved the greater force as an exhausted Kerber struck a backhand over the baseline.

Halep will now face Den-mark’s Caroline Wozniacki in the first Australian Open final between two players still chasing a first major since 1980. On top of that the showdown between the top two seeds will have the number one ranking on the line.

“I feel happy. I feel proud that I could stay there and fight till the end,” said Halep who has fought for 12 hours and 16 min-utes to reach her third grand slam final and saved match

points against American Lauren Davis in a third-round epic.

“I tried to be calm but today I was like a rollercoaster, up and down. But I was not afraid of losing, so maybe that’s why I won those match points.”

She will need to dredge the depths of her energy reserves against Wozniacki if she is to join the Grand Slam winners’ circle after falling at the last hurdle twice in Paris.

“If it’s going to come, it’s going to come,” added the 26-year-old.

Halep predicted a marathon against former world number one Kerber but when she charged to a 5-0 lead in 14 min-utes it looked as though she might have caught the German on an off-day.

But Kerber roused herself to win 12 of the next 13 points and although Halep closed the set, the touch-paper had been lit and the match caught fire.

It felt like Halep was turning the screw when she ran a red-faced Kerber into the ground to seize a 3-1 lead in the second set and had a point for 4-1 lead.

But Kerber fought back, saving two break points at 3-4 and then fending off a flurry of Halep backhands to hold.

With Kerber in lockdown mode Halep’s patience snapped in the next game as she put a backhand into the tramlines to drop serve before 21st seed Kerber held to level the match.

At various times in the 69-minute decider, the players

were left propping themselves up with their rackets, lungs heaving, as the rallies grew ever more excruciating.

Kerber won a 22-point exchange featuring drop shots, moon balls and impossible gets to break at the start of the third, but it took its toll and Halep hit back immediately and

eventually worked her way into a 5-3 lead.

Kerber was literally on her knees when she struck a sensa-tional backhand to win a 26-point exchange to break back before saving two match points to make it 5-5. Halep began to feel the strain, shooting angry looks at her coach Darren Cahill

as Kerber broke for 6-5, then led 40-15, only for Houdini-like Halep to extricate herself with some courageous deep hitting.

It was exhausting to watch as the battle raged on but Halep found some extra aggression, crashing two forehand winners for an 8-7 lead before holding her nerve to finish it

Simona Halep of Romania celebrates her win against Angelique Kerber of Germany in the women’s semi-final match on day 11 at the Australian Open in Melbourne. Halep won 6-3, 4-6, 9-7.

Business-like Cilic eases past ailing Edmund to reach third Slam final REUTERS

MELBOURNE: A business-like Marin Cilic doused the fire of Kyle Edmund before crushing the ailing Briton 6-2 7-6(4) 6-2 to become Croatia’s first Australian Open finalist yesterday.

Sixth seed Cilic, who won his quarter-final when Rafa Nadal retired hurt in the fifth set, was again ruthless against a reduced opponent, ending 49th-ranked Edmund’s dream run after just two hours and 18 minutes at a floodlit Rod Laver Arena.

Sealing the match with a thumping serve, the 2014 US Open champion will bid for his second Grand Slam title against today’s winner of Roger Federer and South Korea’s rising star Chung Hyeon.

He will also enjoy two full days off after his centre court cakewalk which left the largely pro-Edmund crowd cold on a hazy, moist evening.

Everything is in a “good, solid spot”, said the confident Croatian, who will contest his third Grand Slam final after being thrashed by Federer at Wimbledon. “I’m playing much, much more aggressive,” the 29-year-old told reporters. “I’m feeling that I am, for most of the shots, hitting them really, really good ... Feeling really excited about the final, too.”

It was hard to disagree with the 6-ft 6-in (1.98m) Cilic, who put on a masterclass of clean hit-ting and was virtually unplay-able on his first serve. An

agitated Edmund, however, needed a medical time-out after the first set and slowed appreci-ably in the third. It was a deflating end to a match that had showed promise when the 23-year-old Yorkshireman came out in a blaze of shot-making to grab early break points.

Cilic served away the danger and studiously avoided Edmund’s bazooka forehand.

Given little latitude on his favoured side, a frustrated Edmund was broken in the sixth game when he slapped a back-hand into the net tape and the rebound went wide.

Cilic calmly broke him again, wrapping up the set with a

searing forehand to the corner.With only a single forehand

winner to his name, Edmund exited the court for a medical time-out but returned still trou-bled of mind. He lost his temper at 2-2, arguing with the umpire heatedly after Cilic was awarded a point on a challenge.

“Get the referee, I’m not having it,” he snapped before being flat-batted by the second match official. The blow-up seemed to help as he served out to love and kept snapping at Cil-ic’s heels all the way to a tie-break. But from there the big Croatian played with sublime control, landing a pinpoint serve to claim three set points. Edmund

saved one but Cilic was soon roaring in celebration, a

backhand winner down the line closing it out. It looked bad for the Briton, who began hobbling when in pursuit of Cilic’s raids on his backhand.

Tossed around like a rag doll across the court, Edmund was broken at 1-1 when he netted a weak retrieve. It prompted only a quiet fist pump from Cilic, who knuckled down to break him again at 4-2. An 11th ace and a volley put him a point from the finish before he wound up his serve one last time to end Edmund’s misery. It looked like a groin injury that did for the Briton, but he refused to play the sympathy card.

“Yeah, there’s something, but whatever,” said the Briton. “I’m definitely disappointed about it, but it’s one of those things where I have to look at the whole week. It’s been so good ... One of the biggest tournaments of the world, and making a good run and beating top players.”

Marin Cilic of Croatia reacts during his men’s semi final match against Kyle Edmund of Britain at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, BELOW, RIGHT: Kyle Edmund of Britain argues with the tournament official during his three-set loss to Cilic.

26 FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018SPORT

Maxwell back in Australia ODI squad as cover for Finch REUTERS

SYDNEY: Batsman Glenn Maxwell has been recalled to the Australian squad as cover for Aaron Finch, who was ruled out of today’s fourth one-day inter-national against England in Adelaide with a hamstring injury.

Maxwell, who has played 80 ODIs for his country and can be one of the most destructive bats-men in world cricket on his day, was surprisingly left out when the squad was announced ear-lier this month.

Captain Steve Smith and chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns had said at the time he needed to be more consistent at the international level to get back into the team.

The 29-year-old last played for the one-day side on the tour of India last September.

Finch will be assessed ahead of the fifth ODI in Perth on Sun-day. England have an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.

Pollock and Gavaskar criticise Test match pitch AFP

JOHANNESBURG: Former Test captains Shaun Pollock and Sunil Gavaskar yesterday criticised the pitch being used for the third and final Test between South Africa and India at the Wanderers Stadium.

The former South African and Indian captains were com-menting while examining the pitch for SuperSport television during the tea break on the sec-ond day of a match in which batsmen have struggled throughout.

Pointing to cracks and indentations on a good length, with graphics showing extrava-gant movement and unpredictable bounce, Pollock said: “If you’ve got deliveries behaving like this on day two of a Test match it can’t be judged a good surface.”

He compared the Wander-ers pitch to one which was condemned as “poor” by the International Cricket Council when South Africa toured India in 2015.

“You go to India and get a surface like Nagpur where it turned too much. This can’t be judged a good surface because as a batsman you are never in.”

Gavaskar said pitches needed to give both batsmen and bowlers a fair chance.

“You can get a very flat sur-face which is totally in favour of batsmen. This is a pitch which is totally in favour of bowlers,” he said.

Pacer Bumrah strikes as India take control of Test on day two REUTERS

JOHANNESBURG: Seamer Jasprit Bumrah took five wick-ets as India seized control of the third and final Test against South Africa yesterday, going to the close of the second day with a 42-run lead on a treacherous wicket at the Wanderers.

Bumrah, in this third Test, ripped through the middle-order and cleaned up the South Afri-can tail with career-best figures of 5-54 as India bowled their hosts out for 194.

With South Africa having taken a slender lead of seven runs, the tourists reached 49 for one wicket in their second innings.

Murali Vijay (13 not out) and Lokesh Rahul (16 not out) will resume on the third day as India look to set South Africa a chal-lenging target.

With 21 wickets tumbling in just two days on a wicket that has pace, bounce and prodigious lateral movement, it appears that any target above 150 will be dif-ficult to overhaul.

South Africa lacked their usual intensity in the Indian

second innings and may rue not being able to make deeper inroads into the batting line-up before the close.

India had elevated middle-order batsman Parthiv Patel (16) to the top of the order to give them a right/left hand combina-tion in the opening positions.

He made a fast start, but was out to a fantastic catch from Aiden Markram racing in from slip after an inside edge onto his pad from a Vernon Philander (1-11) delivery.

“It was always my dream to play test cricket and to get my first five-wicket haul, it’s very good. And to contribute to the team’s success is a good feeling,” Bumrah told SuperSport after the day’s play.

“When so much is happen-ing on the wicket you can get over-excited. That was the basic message that was given to the bowlers, not to get carried away, to bowl a disciplined line.”

The home side started the second day on six for one after dismissing India for 187 and Hashim Amla (61) and night-watchman Kagiso Rabada (30) put on 64 for the third wicket.

Rabada was out five minutes before lunch and South Africa then lost their way in the middle session as AB de Villiers (5), Faf du Plessis (8) and Quinton de Kock (8) all failed, the latter two out to Bumrah.

The Indian seamer then had

Amla caught at mid-wicket, before trapping Andile Phehluk-wayo (9) lbw and seeing Lungi Ngidi (0) caught by wicketkeeper Patel as the innings came to a rapid end.

“We had to scratch around for a few runs and at one stage

we were quite far behind the deficit, so to get to 190 was a decent effort,” Amla said.

South Africa have an unas-sailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series, but are seek-ing a first ever clean-sweep over India.

SCOREBOARDIndia (I innings): ......................................... 187South Africa (I innings): D Elgar c Patel b Kumar ...................................................4

A Markram c Patel b Kumar ............................................ 2

K Rabada c Rahane b Sharma ..................................... 30

H Amla c Pandya b Bumrah ......................................... 61

A de Villiers b Kumar ........................................................ 5

F du Plessis b Bumrah .....................................................8

Q de Kock c Patel b Bumrah ...........................................8

V Philander c Bumrah b Mohammed Shami ............35

A Phehlukwayo lbw b Bumrah ......................................9

M Morkel not out ...............................................................9

L Ngidi c Patel b Bumrah ................................................0

Extras (LB14, W9) ........................................................23

Total (65.5 overs) ....................................... 194Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-16, 3-80, 4-92, 5-107, 6-125,

7-169, 8-175, 9-194

Bowling: Kumar 19-9-44-3 (2w), Bumrah 18.5-2-54-5

(1w), Sharma 14-2-33-1, Mohammed Shami 12-0-46-1

(2w), Pandya 2-0-3-0

India (II innings):M Vijay (batting) .......................................13

P Patel c Markram b Philander ............ 16

L Rahul (batting) ..................................... 16

Extras (LB4) ............................................. 4

Total (1 wkt, 17 overs) ............... 49Fall of wicket: 1-17

Bowling: Philander 5-2-11-1, Rabada 6-1-

19-0, Morkel 4-1-9-0, Ngidi 2-0-6-0

Pakistan finally overcome Blacks Caps with T20 win AFP

AUCKLAND: Pakistan crushed New Zealand by 48 runs in the second T20 in Auckland yester-day to notch their first victory of the tour over the Black Caps.

The tourists finally found form with both bat and ball to level the three-match T20 series after a humiliating losing streak that included a 5-0 ODI series whitewash.

They set an imposing target of 202 after winning the toss and electing to bat, with half centu-ries for Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman.

In response, New Zealand’s top order crumbled to 64 for six under a combination of tight bowling and commitment in the

field from Pakistan.“Pakistan were excellent

tonight in all departments and we weren’t that good in any department,” New Zealand cap-tain Kane Williamson said.

“When you catch them on a great day, you get the result we got.” Openers Fakhar and Ahmed Shehzad laid the platform with a partnership of 94.

Pakistan’s previous best top-order partnership during the six limited-over matches played on tour so far was just 14.

The pair made the most of Eden Park’s short boundaries to comfortably dispatch anything short or wide for four. They pun-ished pacemen Ben Wheeler and Seth Rance, who both conceded 13 runs in an over, prompting

New Zealand to introduce spin-ners Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner.

Fakhar responded by belt-ing three sixes off Santner’s first over, bringing up his maiden T20 half century soon after off 26 balls.

Rance finally broke through in the ninth over, deceiving Ahmed with a slower ball that carried straight to Colin de Grandhomme on the boundary.

Fakhar fell in the next over but Sarfraz Ahmed and Babar kept the scoreboard ticking over, taking Pakistan to 137 for two with five overs remaining.

Sarfraz in particular dis-played a confidence that had so far eluded him on tour to make 41 off 24 deliveries.

Babar brought up his 50 and took the team past 200 with a four off the final ball of the innings. Pakistan’s bowling attack capitalised on the good work from their batsmen by dis-lodging New Zealand’s top order cheaply.

Faheem Ashraf ended with figures of three for 22 while Shadab Khan and Mohammad Amir each took two wickets.

Colin Munro was trapped lbw for one then, captain Kane Williamson made a rare golden duck before Tom Bruce was run out thanks to some sharp field-ing from Haris Sohail.

PakistanFakhar Zaman c Sodhi b de Grandhomme ...... 50

Ahmed Shehzad c de Grandhomme b Rance ..44

Babar Azam (not out) ........................................... 50

Sarfraz Ahmed c Munro b Wheeler .....................41

Faheem Ashraf c Santner b Wheeler ...................0

Hasan Ali not out .......................................................6

Extras: (W9, LB1) ..................................................10

Total: (4 wkts) ...................................... 201Fall of wickets: 1-94, 2-96, 3-187, 4-188

Bowling: Boult 4-0-37-0 (1w), Rance 4-0-47-1 (3w),

Wheeler 4-0-36-2 (1w), Sodhi 4-0-32-0 (1w), Santner

2-0-30-0 (2w), de Grandhomme 2-0-18-1 (1w)

New ZealandMartin Guptill c Umar b Shadab .......................... 26

Colin Munro lbw Amir ................................................ 1

Kane Williamson c Haris b Rumman .................... 0

Tom Bruce run out Haris .........................................11

Glenn Phillips c Haris b Faheem .............................5

Colin de Grandhomme st Sarfraz b Shadab ......10

Mitchell Santner c Sarfraz b Amir ........................37

Ben Wheeler b Hasan ........................................... 30

Ish Sodhi c Babar b Faheem ................................. 15

Seth Rance c Fakhar b Faheem ...............................1

Trent Boult (not out) .................................................0

Extras: (B4, W4, NB1, LB8) ................................ 17

Total: (all out) ............................................ 153Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-28, 3-47, 4-52, 5-58 Phillips,

6-64, 7-118, 8-152, 9-153, 10-153

Bowling: Mohammad Amir 4-0-28-2, Rumman Raees

3-0-27-1 (1w 1nb), Faheem Ashraf 3.3-0-22-3 (1w), Has-

an Ali 4-0-27-1, Shadab Khan 4-0-37-2 (2w)

Result: Pakistan win by 48 runs

Player-of-the-Match: Fakhar Zaman

SCOREBOARD

Sri Lanka beat Bangladesh, reach final AFP

DHAKA: Suranga Lakmal led Sri Lankan bowlers on a confi-dence-boosting rampage to skittle out Bangladesh for 82 yesterday and guide his side into the final of the Dhaka tri-nation tournament.

Openers Upul Tharanga (39) and Danushka Gunathilaka (35) sped to the target 83 in just 11.5 overs to seal the win for the islanders.

“This is what we’re capable of,” said Sri Lankan captain Dinesh Chandimal as he cele-brated the emphatic 10-wicket win that left Zimbabwe in third

place in the series and ensured Sri Lanka another match against Bangladesh in Saturday’s final.

Sri Lanka had to win to remain in the competition and, coming out of their worst year in international cricket, com-pleted the task in style.

Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Mortaza won the toss and opted to bat but soon regret-ted his move. Mushfiqur Rahim made 26 but Sabbir Rahman was the only other batsman to reach double figures, with just 10 runs.

Lakmal picked up his three wickets -- openers Tamim Iqbal and Anamul Haque, and number five Mahmudullah -- for just 21

runs and knocked out the upper order. Thisara Perera, Dushman-tha Chameera and Lakshan Sandakan each claimed two wickets.

Bangladesh, who had secured emphatic wins in their past three games, were all out for 82 in 24 overs and clearly stunned.

After the match, Chandimal highlighted Sri Lanka’s planning for this game.

“We wanted to attack them,” said the captain. “We can con-trol when we’re fielding. Especially Suranga bowled really well at the start. Upul and Danushka finished it really well.”

Bangladesh skipper Mortaza admitted his side had suffered a wake-up call. “Good thing that

our middle order has been exposed,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll find out their mistakes.”

BangladeshTamim Iqbal c Gunathilaka b Lakmal ....................5

Anamul Haque b Lakmal .........................................0

Shakib Al Hasan run out Gunathilaka ...................8

Mushfiqur Rahim c Mendis b Chameera ........... 26

Mahmudullah c Chameera b Lakmal .................... 7

Sabbir Rahman c Sub b Perera .............................10

Abul Hasan c Dickwella b Perera ............................ 7

Nasir Hossain c Dickwella b Chameera ................ 3

Mashrafe Mortaza b Sandakan ...............................1

Rubel Hossain c Tharanga b Sandakan ................ 0

Mustafizur Rahman (not out) .................................1

Extras (LB4, W10) ................................................. 14

Total (24 overs) ...................................... 82Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-15, 3-16 , 4-34, 5-57, 6-71, 7-79,

8-80, 9-81, 10-82

Bowling: Lakmal 7-1-21-3 (w5), Chameera 5-1-6-2 (w2),

T Perera 6-0-27-2 (w1), Sandakan 6-0-24-2 (w2)

Sri LankaD Gunathilaka (not out) ..........................................35

U Tharanga (not out) ..............................................39

Extras (W8, NB1) .......................................................9

Total (no wicket) .................................... 83Did not bat: K Mendis, D Chandimal, A Gunaratne, N

Dickwella, T Perera, S Lakmal, L Sandakan, A Dananjaya,

D Chameera

Bowling: Mortaza 2-0-15-0 (nb1, w1), Abul 4-0-25-0,

Nasir 3-0-19-0, Mustafizur 1.5-0-14-0 (w2), Shakib 1-0-

10-0 (w5)

Result: Sri Lanka win by 10 wickets

SCOREBOARD

Pakistan’s Rumman Raees and Sarfraz Ahmed celebrate the wicket of New Zealand’s Kane Williamson during the second Twenty20 international cricket match at Eden Park in Auckland yesterday. Pakistan won by 48 runs.

Indian bowler Jasprit Bumrah (right) celebrates the dismissal of South African batsman Hashim Amla during the second day of the third Test match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg yesterday.

27FRIDAY 26 JANUARY 2018 SPORT

Qatar Open Amateur Golf Championship beginsDefending champion Plerre Verlaar of the Netherlands in action on the opening day of Qatar Open Amateur Golf Championship at Doha Golf Club yesterday. CENTRE: A golfer walks at the DGC. RIGHT: Qatari golfer Saleh Al Kaabi in action on the opening day. Over 100 golfers from 40 countries including 11 professionals are taking part in the contest. PICTURES BY: KAMMUTTY VP/THE PENINSULA

No Neymar as PSG make Cup progress AFP

PARIS: Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) made light of Neymar’s absence in beating Guingamp 4-2 to secure their ticket to the French Cup last 16 on Wednes-day as Edinson Cavani was made to wait for his club-record goal.

Despite PSG’s dominance Cavani failed to get on the scoresheet as he pursues a record 157th goal, but it wasn’t for the want of trying as he failed to convert a hatful of chances.

The Uruguayan striker is on the verge of becoming PSG’s all-time scorer after drawing level with Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s benchmark in the 8-0 rout of Dijon last week.

Neymar left the pitch after that Ligue 1 outing angered at booing directed at him from Parc des Princes fans when he stepped up to take a penalty rather than allowing Cavani a shot at the record.

The world’s most expensive player was missing from PSG’s 2-1 loss at Lyon on Sunday and again for this Cup tie with according to the club “a pain in his right thigh”.

A section of the club’s fans - ‘Collectif Ultras Paris’ (CUP) - conveyed a message of

support to the Brazilian. “To boo our players runs contrary to our values,” “Neymar PSG Cup united for Paris”, home support-ers wrote on banners in the stands. Tackled about Neymar, PSG coach Unai Emery said: “He’s continuing his recovery with the physio, I hope he’ll be back with the team very soon.

“He (Neymar) is here, in Paris, and he’s a great player. We must show him affection.” Another high profile absentee was Kylian Mbappe, who was stretchered off after a clash with Lyon’s Anthony Lopes.

“He’s fine, we’ll see if he can

return on Saturday, but I hope he’ll be ready at the latest for Lille (on February 3). It was a hard knock and the risk is get-ting another blow,” said Emery.

Adrien Rabiot opened the scoring for PSG in the 21st minute followed smartly by Lucas Deaux’s own goal, with Javier Pastore and Marquinhos completing the round of 32 win after the break.

Marcus Thuram and Yeni Ngbakoto were on the mark in either half for Guingamp from the penalty spot. On Cavani’s record hunt Emery said: “Today he created lots of chances, but

missed the final touch,” he said.In the tie of the round Lyon

edged Monaco 3-2.Steven Jovetic opened the

scoring for Monaco but Betrand Traore quickly levelled with Mariano Diaz bagging a double.

Rony Lopes gave Monaco hope but Lyon held on to join PSG in the next round along with second division Auxerre and topflight Caen but only on pen-alties from lowly fifth-division outfit Canet-en-Roussillon.

On Tuesday, Marseille claimed a 2-0 win at fourth-tier Epinal.

Paris Saint-Germain’s players react after Guingamp scored an own goal during their French Cup round of 16 in Paris on Wednesday.

Neymar is here, in Paris, and he’s a great player. We must show him affection, says PSG coach Unai Emery

Arsenal set up Manchester City League Cup final AFP

LONDON: Arsenal started the post-Alexis Sanchez era in style on Wednesday, coming from behind to beat Chelsea 2-1 on aggregate and set up a mouth-watering League Cup final against Premier League lead-ers Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola’s City reached the Wembley show-piece the previous evening by beating Championship side Bristol City 3-2 in the second leg of their tie and 5-3 over the two legs, staying on course for an unprecedented quadruple.

After a goalless first leg, the visitors took an early lead at the Emirates through Eden Hazard but Arsenal were level soon afterwards via a bizarre Anto-nio Rudiger own goal and scored the winner in the sec-ond half through Granit Xhaka.

Arsene Wenger has an out-standing record in the FA Cup with Arsenal but in more than 21 years in the job he has never won the League Cup, which he has often used to blood young players. Guardiola on the other hand will be desperate to claim the first silverware of his time in charge at City, who are chas-ing glory on four fronts.

Wenger was unable to field the cup-tied Henrikh Mkhitar-yan, who joined the club from Manchester United earlier this week in a swap deal with Sanchez moving in the other direction while Ross Barkley made his debut for Chelsea as a first-half substitute.

“In the first half we gave Chelsea too much respect and distance. We were a bit scared to go for it and we suffered from

that,” said Wenger.“We were not playing in the

right position but we amended that in the second half and took control of the game.”

Antonio Conte’s Chelsea, missing Alvaro Morata and Cesc Fabregas, had the better of the first half and had already had a goal ruled out for offside by the time Hazard opened the scor-ing in the seventh minute after Pedro released him through the middle.

But Arsenal levelled just minutes later after a bizarre Rudiger own goal. Nacho Mon-real headed powerfully goalwards from a corner, which then took a double deflection off Marcos Alonso and then Rudiger, leaving Willy Cabal-lero flat-footed in the Chelsea goal.

Willian was forced off before half an hour and Conte threw on Barkley for his Chel-sea debut but the former Everton man struggled to make an impact on the game.

A rejuvenated Arsenal started the second period on the front foot and edged in front in the two-legged tie when Xhaka reacted quickly to prod home a deflected Alexandre Lacazette cross with about half an hour to go.

Alex Iwobi had a golden chance to seal the win, with Caballero making a fine save to keep Chelsea in the tie.

But Conte’s men, lacking a cutting edge, could not find the inspiration they needed to take the game into extra-time and Arsenal held on to claim a deserved victory.

The final takes place at Wembley on February 25.

Real suffer humiliating Copa del Rey exit AFP

MADRID: Real Madrid crashed to a humiliating Copa del Rey exit on Wednesday when they were knocked out by little Leganes in the quarter-finals, adding to the atmosphere of crisis at the European champions.

Real lost 2-1 in the second leg at their Bernabeu home as the tie finished 2-2 on aggregate with their modest city neighbours going through on away goals despite having lost the first leg 1-0 last week.

Javi Eraso gave Leganes a 32nd minute lead before Karim Benzema lev-elled after 47 minutes but Brazilian striker Gabriel Pires then hit the winner with a firm header eight minutes later.

It was a depressing evening for Zin-edine Zidane’s side who, despite being

in the Champions League last 16 where they face Paris Saint-Germain in three weeks’ time, are 19 points behind Bar-celona in the Spanish title race.

The fans let their feelings known by booing off the team at half-time.

Leganes have a budget of just 45m euros -- six times less than the 675m euros commanded by mighty Real.

Even without Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, who were rested on Wednesday after starring in the 7-1 rout of Deportivo La Coruna at the weekend, Real’s second-string side should still have had enough firepower for a side languishing in 13th spot in La Liga.

But Leganes put on an inspired dis-play, despite backs to the wall late in the game, to make the semi-finals for the first time.

In the night’s other game, Valencia

made the semi-finals but needed a 3-2 penalty shoot-out to defeat Alaves who won 2-1 for a 3-3 aggregate.

On Tuesday, Sergio Escudero’s goal after just 24 seconds set Sevilla on their way to a 3-1 win over Atletico Madrid and a place in the semi-finals. Sevilla, finalists in 2016, had won the first leg 2-1.

Meanwhile, Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho has been named in the Barcelona squad for Copa del Rey clash against Espanyol, his first call-up since his 160 million euros ($194m, £142m) move from Liverpool.

Coutinho, who has been handed the number 14 shirt vacated by China-bound Javier Mascherano, had been sidelined by a thigh injury since his drawn-out transfer saga came to an end on January 6.

Leganes’ Gabriel (centre) celebrates with team-mates after scoring their second goal against Real Madrid on Wednesday.

SPORTFriday 26 January 2018

Bumrah’s five-wicket haul swings third Test

in India’s favour

Real suffer humiliating Copa

del Rey exit

PAGE | 25 PAGE | 26 PAGE | 27Halep outlasts

Kerber in thriller to

reach final

opa

QSL: Clinical Al Sadd thrash Al Gharafa 4-0RIZWAN REHMAT

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: In a dominating performance, Doha giants Al Sadd yesterday crushed former champions Al Gharafa 4-0, thanks largely to a brace each by Jugurtha Hamroun and Hassan Al Haydos.

In a game played at Thani Bin Jassim Stadium, the home turf of Al Gharafa, Hamroun scored his two goals in the first half (33 and 45) while Al Haydos found the net twice in the second half (73 and 87) to complete a resound-ing win for Al Sadd who are hot on the heels of points QNB Stars League points leaders Al Duhail.

Coached by Portuguese Jesu-aldo Ferreira, Al Sadd (34 points) are a notch behind Al Duhail (35)

who take on Al Rayyan in a round 14 clash tomorrow.

In the sixth minute, Al Gharafa captain Wesley Sneijder found Carlos inside the Al Sadd box but the latter’s deflection from close range missed the tar-get. In the 7th minute, feared Al Sadd striker Al Haydos went long-range on a shot that sailed past the Al Gharafa goalpost without causing any harm.

In the 15th minute, Al Ghara-fa’s Tamir Gamal charged into the Al Sadd box but his low show beat goalkeeper Saad Abdulla but missed the goalpost narrowly.

In the 33rd minute, Al Sadd broke the deadlock in scoring.

Al Haydos outran and out-witted marker Carlos before slipping a cross to Jugurtha who calmly deflected the ball into the

net from close range. It was Jugurtha’s seventh goal of the season. Seconds from the end of the first half, Jugurtha scored his second goal after a cross from Hamid Ismail.

The Algerian deflected the ball towards the Al Sadd goal but Al Gharafa keeper Burhan blocked the shot. Jugurtha, how-ever, made the most of a fumble by Burhan who had lost control

of the ball. Despite being down on the pitch, Jugurtha flicked the lose ball into the net to consoli-date Al Sadd’s lead, giving himself a brace and taking his overall tally to 8 goals in the season.

In the 52nd minute, Jugurtha missed an easy deflection from close range when he was pro-vided with a neat cross from the right flank.

In a spell of 14 minutes, Al Sadd star and Qatar national team forward Al Haydos struck twice - first in the 73rd minute as he deflected the ball into the net on a Jugurtha cross.

Three minutes from the end, Al Haydos scored his second goal with another close-range strike as Al Sadd completed a dominat-ing show.

Eyeing 3rd spot, Qatar out to defy chill and Korea THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar coach Felix Sanchez believes his players have the character to overcome the disappointment of not reach-ing the final of the AFC U23 Championship 2018 to secure victory over Korea Republic in the third place play-off today.

Sanchez’s side lost in a pen-alty shootout to Vietnam while the Koreans were eliminated by Uzbekistan to set up the encoun-ter between the two, with the Qataris appearing in the third place play-off for the second tournament in a row.

“This is the game that

nobody likes to play, but we need to make the last effort to play a good game tomorrow,” Sanchez was quoted as saying on afc.com.

“Our players are going to do their best like they did in all the other games to play a good game.

“The situation is we didn’t qualify (for the final) without los-ing any games. We had four victories and one draw after 120

minutes, so it is not easy. But our players have a very positive mentality and they know that sometimes football has this.

“I think they are ready and, of course, we plan for the game for tomorrow. Yesterday and today we will see how the play-ers are doing, especially physically because it’s been a long tournament and the last

game was tough,” he added. The Qataris arrived in Kun-

shan on Wednesday evening from Changzhou and woke up yesterday to a blanket of snow over the city, providing unfamil-iar conditions for Sanchez’s team.

But he does not think the frigid temperatures will provide cause for concern for Qatar.

“We need to evaluate some players because there are some doubts,” said Sanchez of the physical condition of his players after five games.

“We will test and tomorrow morning we will decide.

“As for the conditions, it’s different to what we are used to but it’s not an excuse. Many of them have played outside Qatar with these conditions so it won’t affect us.”

The Koreans, meanwhile, will go into the game without Jang Yun-ho who was sent off during their 4-1 extra-time loss against Uzbekistan, leaving coach Kim Bong-gil to decide who will replace the Jeonbuk Hyundai man in central midfield.

“We are ready for the last match, the third place match, even though our players are exhausted because we played extra time, but our players will do their best,” he said.

“Our players are well pre-pared and they know how important this match is. They are eager to get third place and they’ll do their best. Tomorrow is the last match in this tourna-ment and they will give their all,” he added.

Al Markhiya rope in Yemen’s Hamzan THE PENINSULA

DOHA: QNB Stars League team Al Markhiya took on board Yemeni player Ammar Hamzan till the end of this season in a bid to further consolidate their ranks. He will wear jersey No.40.

The move followed the Qatar Football Association’s decision to allow Yemen’s players to be registered as resident players in its first and second division clubs due to the adverse circumstances prevailing in that country.

Accordingly, only one Yemeni player can be regis-tered by a team and the rule is applicable till the end of this season.

Earlier, Al Markhiya signed striker Leonardo Hen-rique Santos de Souza from South Korean club Busan IPark till the end of this sea-son. The Brazilian signed the deal in the presence of Al Markhiya Sports Club Vice-President Jamil Obaid after successfully passing his med-ical at Aspetar.

De Souza replaced Burkina Faso striker Alain Traore, who parted ways with Yousef Adam-coached Al Markhiya by mutual consent.

As for the conditions, it’s different to what we are used to but it’s not an excuse. Many of them have played outside Qatar with these conditions so it won’t affect us, says Felix Sanchez

Ahli’s Chikhaoui to return from injuryTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Al Ahli will get back the services of injured attacking midfielder Yassine Chikhaoui (pictured) when they face Umm Salal in Week 14 of the QNB Stars League tomorrow.

The Tunisian had missed their last-round match with Al Khor, which ended in a 2-2 draw, due to muscle cramp.

Chikhaoui had played an influential role and scored Al Ahli’s only goal even though they lost to Al Gharafa 1-2 in Week 12.

Meanwhile, the Brigadiers will sorely miss striker Moham-med Muntari as he is yet to recover from an injury.

Al Ahli are seventh on 15 points. Umm Salal had beaten Al Ahli 2-0 in the first phase.

Al Rayyan tie crucial for Al Duhail: Oliveira THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Al Duhail’s assistant coach Bruno Oliveira has termed tomor-row’s QNB Stars League (QSL) clash against Al Rayyan as ‘one of the most important games’ as his side look to retain their lead.

Al Duhail will host The Red Knights in what has been dubbed as ‘Match of the Week’.

“We are ready to face Al Rayyan. This will be one of the most impor-tant games for us this season,” Oliveira said ahead of the match.

“They are one of our title

contenders too. These kind of games make our players more enthusiastic on the pitch.”

“Certainly, the contest will be exciting for the fans too. We know fully well that we cannot score many goals in all matches, like what hap-pened last week against Al Arabi when we won by a solitary goal, and we are prepared for any scenario.

Al Duhail are on top of the stand-ings with 35 points with Al Rayyan being placed third with 31 points.

Al Sadd climbed to second spot with 34 points after a 4-0 rout of Al Gharafa yesterday.

Yesterday’s Results

Al Sadd bt Al Gharafa 4-0

Today’s Matches4:30pm: Al Sailiya vs Al Markhiya

at Al Ahli Stadium

6:40pm: Qatar SC vs Al Arabi

at Qatar SC Stadium

QNB STARS LEAGUE Al Sadd’s Jugurtha Hamroun celebrates his goal against Al Gharafa yesterday.

Qatar’s players share light moment in snow on the eve of their third place play-off in Kunshan, China yesterday.

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