Qatar’s economic roadshow begins in Miami PENINSULA DOHA: Government officials and over 200...

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Government officials and over 200 businessmen and officials from Qatar gathered in Miami to launch a multi-city Qatar Roadshow to highlight economic and culture partnerships with key American cities.

The roadshow features a high-level del-egation from Qatar and includes represent-atives from the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, Ministry of Energy and Industry, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar Chamber, Qatar Businessmen Association, Qatar Airways, Qatar Stock Exchange, Doha Film Institute, Qatar Foundation, beIN Sports, Manateq, Qatari Diar, and the Supreme Com-mittee for Delivery & Legacy.

The government delegation is being led by Qatar’s Minister of Economy and Com-merce, H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, and Qatar’s Ambas-sador to the US, H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani. They will be joined at the launch by officials in Miami to welcome people from across the region to the roadshow, which will include the inaugural 2018 Qatar-US Economic Forum.

More than 300 senior business execu-tives are expected to attend the event, including over 200 Qatari representatives.

Business-to-business sessions will be held on the sidelines, as attendees seek to bolster the strong and long-standing economic part-nership between Qatar and the US.

International trade and investment form a key part of Qatar’s future growth and diver-sification and the US is one of Qatar’s most valued global partners.

US is one of Qatar’s strongest trade partners. In the last 10 years (2007-2017) trade volume between two countries doubled from $3bn per year to $6bn. However, last year the trade volume reached $5.75bn, with a trade surplus in favour of US amounting to $4bn.

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BUSINESS | 25 SPORT | 29

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China imposes duties on US

soybeans & planes

Volume 23 | Number 7487 | 2 RiyalsThursday 5 April 2018 | 19 Rajab I 1439 www.thepeninsula.qa

Trade volume between the two countries reached $5.75bn last year

QIA, in 2015, pledged to invest $45bn for the period from 2015 to 2020

Over 658 companies established in Qatar with partnership between Qatari and American citizens

Qatar Airways has provided a $92bn boost to US economy through purchase of American-made aircraft

Qatar has established a $100m fund to

help US victims of Hurricane Katrina

Around 15,000 American citizens

living in Qatar

Trade volume between the two countries has doubled

to $6bn in 10 years

QATAR-US BUSINESS TIES

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Qatar’s economic roadshow begins in Miami Qatar Airways to acquire 25% stake in Russian airportTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Airways announced yesterday that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Moscow’s Vnukovo Interna-tional Airport, Russia’s third-largest airport, to potentially acquire up to 25 percent of the airport’s total shares.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, signed the MoU along with Chairman of the Board of Vnukovo Interna-tional Airport JSC, Vitaly Vantsev. The signing took place in the presence of Deputy General Com-merce for Vnukovo International Airport, Anton Kuznetsov.

“As we celebrate the Year of Culture between Russia and the State of Qatar, I am very pleased to announce the potential acqui-sition of up to 25 percent of Mos-cow’s Vnukovo International Airport. Such an investment will complement the strong ties we

have already established with the country, with our launch of direct services to St Petersburg late last year, as well as our triple-daily flights to Moscow,” said Al Baker. “All our investments are part of our existing expansion strategy, through which we aim to be able to bring even more people together from all parts of the globe,” he added.

The MoU signing took place at the Oryx Rotana Hotel in Doha.

“Today we have signed the Memorandum of Understanding, the provisions of which, once implemented, could establish a foundation for productive part-nership between Qatar Airways, one of the world’s leading air car-riers and a true, recognised touchstone of sterling quality of passenger and in-flight services, and Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport,” said Vantsev.


Qatar Rail completes 77% work of Doha Metro Project

DOHA: Qatar Rail has completed 77 percent work of Doha Metro Project, including 81 percent of construction work and 59 percent works related to instal-lation of various systems, said a

Qatar Rail official yesterday.The official was speaking at

a workshop organised by the General Directorate of Civil Defence in collaboration with Qatar Rail on the safety of Doha Metro at its headquarters. Security system of metro project, emergency plan and evacuation

procedures were discussed at the event.

He said that proposed date for inauguration of Doha Metro phase one Red Line from Al Qassar to Al Wakrah is October 31, 2018.

Doha Metro Red Line, also known as the Coast Line, runs

for about 40km from Al Wakrah in the south to Lusail in the north. The line also connects Hamad International Airport at Terminal 1 to the centre of the city. It has 18 stations with the Legtaifiya Station allowing passengers to transfer over to the Lusail Tram.

The other 17 stations are

Al Bidda ( Interchange station), Corniche, West Bay, DECC, Al Qassar, Katara, Lusail, Hamad International Airport T1, Qatar University, Al Wakrah, Ras Bu Fontas, Economic Zone, Oqba Ibn Nafie, Al Matar Al Qadeem, Umm Ghawalina, Al Doha Al Jadeda, and Msheireb ( Inter-

change station). Speaking on the passenger

handling capacity of Doha Metro Stations, the official said that the main Msheireb station will have the highest capacity with 100,000 passengers per hour.


SANAULLAH ATAULLAH

THE PENINSULA

02 THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018HOME

Emir greets President of SenegalQNA

DOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani yesterday sent a cable of congratulations to the Pres-ident of the Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall, on the occasion of his country’s National Day.

Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani also sent a similar cable of congratulations to the Pres-ident of the Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall, on the occasion of his country’s National Day.

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also sent a cable of congratulations to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Senegal, Mahammed Dionne, on the occasion of his country’s National Day.

Qatar pledges $20m to ease humanitarian crisis in YemenQNA

DOHA: The State of Qatar, represented by Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) pledged $20m in financial support to alleviate the humanitarian suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people.

This came during a meeting held in Geneva yesterday, organised by the United Nations in cooperation with the Gov-ernments of Switzerland and Sweden, and in which Sec-retary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, and a number of politicians and high-level officials, participated to mobilise resources and to announce the volume of dona-tions to help and alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.

On this occasion, the Director General of (QFFD), Khalifa bin Jassim Al Kuwari, praised the efforts exerted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of

Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.

Al Kuwari pointed out that the Qatari financial com-mitment comes within the framework of supporting the inter-agency 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan. He called for the need for friendly countries to respond to the suffering of the brotherly people of Yemen, and added that this crisis is a great human-itarian catastrophe not only in the Middle East, but in the entire world.

The United Nations and its humanitarian agencies working on the ground in Yemen have appealed to donors to provide $2.96bn in funding to support the basic sectors of food security, health, water, sani-tation and protection, as the bloody conflict in Yemen left 22 million people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and protection.

Sheikha Moza meets with Nigerian President’s wife

H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) and Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, with Aisha Buhari, spouse of the President of Nigeria. During the meeting, they discussed their mutual interest for ensuring quality education for out-of-school children and ongoing efforts of Education Above All in Nigeria. They also explored areas of future collaboration between the two countries in the fields of health, research and social studies. PIC: AISHA AL MUSALLAM

Qatar begins economic roadshow in MiamiCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

More than 658 companies established in Qatar with part-nership between Qatari and American citizens, while there are 117 US companies operating in Qatar 100 percent owned by US citizens.

Around 15,000 American cit-izens living in Qatar where 5,000 high skilled individuals are currently working in the private sector in Qatar, and a million other American jobs depend on business with Qatar. In 2015, Qatar investment Authority pledged to invest $45bn for the period from 2015 to 2020, where $10bnof it goes to the infrastructure sector.

“Over the past decade, Qatar has cemented its partnership with the

US in the form of direct investments, joint ventures and trade deals,” said the Minister of Economy and Com-merce. “These investments have contributed to the creation of hun-dreds of thousands of jobs and countless new opportunities for investors and businessmen from both countries.” “Florida was chosen as the first stop on our US visit because Qatar has deep and sub-stantial economic ties to the Greater-Miami area,” he explained.

Qatar Airways alone has pro-vided a $92bn boost to the US economy through the purchase of American-made aircraft, a deal that supports 123,000 jobs.

In 2017 Qatar spent $208m on medical and healthcare for its

citizens moreover there are 1200 Qatari students studying in US.

Qatar’s private sector has also invested heavily in Florida. Al Rayyan Tourism Investment Company (ARTIC) owns and operates the St Regis Bal Harbour Resort and the W Hotel in Miami.

“I am honoured to welcome hundreds of executives and officials from Qatar to Miami for the Qatar-US Economic Forum and the US-Qatar Business Council. This event is a testament to our city’s position as a thriving epicenter of global investment,” said Mayor Suarez. “Our economic potential as a global city, international hub, and pre-ferred destination for partnerships and investments is a valuable

resource that is becoming well known among the world’s most prominent business leaders. I look forward to building upon these rela-tionships and sharing everything Miami has to offer with the inter-national community”.

Qatar’s partnership with, and support for, the American people extends beyond bilateral trade, and encompasses humanitarian projects. Qatar has established a $100m fund to help American victims of Hurricane Katrina and gave $30m in aid for Hurricane Harvey. And, the privately funded Al Faisal Without Borders Foun-dation has launched projects to help r e h a b i l i t a t e A m e r i c a n ex-convicts.

Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani speaking in Miami.

03THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018 HOME


Qatar regards population health as national priorityTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The State of Qatar regards population health as a national priority and works to develop an inte-grated health system to realize the future of popu-lation health, said Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari. “Thanks to the full support given by the wise leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to the health sector, Qatar is among the developed countries in this field,” Dr Al Kuwari added.

The Minister made the remarks on the occasion of the World Health Day, which is marked on April 7 every year.

In the spirit of this year’s World Health Day theme, ‘Universal health coverage: everyone, everywhere’, the health sector in the country is organizing special events to mark this occasion.

Dr Al Kuwari stressed the importance of continuing to work hard to improve the health of Qatari society, ema-nating from Qatar National Vision, which stressed the development of an integrated healthcare system with high quality health services and facilities for the entire popu-lation along with affordable charges.

The National Health Strategy 2018-2022 with its “Our Health Our Future” vision focuses on improving the health of Qatar’s popu-lation, meeting the needs of

the current and future gener-ations and providing an inte-grated system aimed at improving health and pro-viding better health care and better value for all, she said.

The Minister of Public Health said that the theme of this year’s World Health Day is very important.

Achieving it is the most important goal of health systems in all countries of the world so that everyone can have access to the right health services in the right place and time and according to high standards, she pointed out.

The State of Qatar is devel-oping a strong health system to ensure universal health coverage for the population in accordance with the best international standards, at a time when the country’s health system has been ranked among the top health systems in the world as it was ranked 13th in the world and the first in the Middle East in the annual Prosperity Index released by the Legatum Institute.

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari.

Qatar Police College signs LoI with Shanghai Police CollegeTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Qatar Police College and Shanghai Police College in China yesterday signed a Letter of Intent for academic and training cooperation.

The LoI was signed by the Director General of Police College Qatar, Brigadier Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Al Mohanna and the Executive Vice President of Shanghai Police College, Hang Yong on the sidelines of the 7th conference of INTERPA, held at Sheraton Hotel Doha and concluded yesterday.

Brigadier Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Al Mohanna said that this Letter of Intent aimed to develop and strengthen cooperation and

exchange of experiences in the fields of scientific, educational and training activities and other areas of interest to both parties. He noted that this LoI was second of its kind signed with the Chinese side, where the Police College has already signed a similar letter with the Fujian Provincial Police College, also will sign a letter of intent with the People’s University of Public Security in Beijing. The Executive Vice President of Shanghai Police College, Hang Yong told that this LoI would contribute to strengthening cooperation between the two sides in many areas that

concern police work, and in the exchange of information and topics related to academic and training activities of mutual interest.

The Director General of Police College Qatar, Brigadier Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Mohanna (right) and the Executive Vice-President of Shanghai Police College, Hang Yong while signing the Letter of Intent.

Cabinet condemns shooting at PalestiniansTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Cabinet which met here yesterday under the chair-manship of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani condemned shooting at the Palestinian peaceful march on Land Day by the Israeli occupation forces, which led to the martyrdom of a number of Palestinian citizens and left hundreds injured.

Following the meeting, Min-ister of Justice and Acting Min-ister of State for Cabinet Affairs H E Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr Al Mohannadi stated that the Cabinet called for urgent and decisive international action to protect the Palestinian people and pressure the Israeli gov-ernment to stop its oppressive practices in the occupied Pales-tinian territories, stressing the firm position of the State of Qatar in supporting the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, foremost of which is the right to establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The Cabinet also reviewed topics on its meeting’s agenda. The Cabinet took the necessary measures to pass a draft law on industrial zones, having reviewed

the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the draft law.

The draft law defines indus-trial zones as areas designated for industrial purposes in accordance with the provisions of this law, including lands, installations and facilities erected thereon. The draft law stipulates that the establishment of indus-trial zones shall be by a decision of the Cabinet upon the proposal of the Minister of Energy and Industry after the Ministry coor-dinate with the concerned authorities in the State.

Pursuant to the draft law, no industrial establishment shall be founded in the industrial zones without an authorisation from relevant authorities in the State and after the approval of the Ministry of Energy and Industry.

The Cabinet approved a draft law on regulating the ownership

of dangerous animals or crea-tures, and referred it to the Advisory Council. The provisions of the draft law prohibit the ownership, import, export or trade of any dangerous animals and creatures without a license from the competent entity.

It is prohibited to take, walk around, or hike with any of the dangerous animals and creatures in public places. The owners and holders of dangerous animals and their custodians shall take pre-cautions and measures issued by a decision of the minister to ensure that such dangerous animals and creatures do not escape. The Cabinet also approved a draft law on amending some provisions of the commercial companies law promulgated by Law No. 11 of 2015. The Cabinet approved the Minister of Interior’s draft decision on certain provisions concerning taxis. The draft law stipulates that the provisions of this law shall apply to taxis operated by Mowasalat within the State in accordance with the concession granted to it.

The law also stipulates that the taxi is required to charge no more than the value recorded by the meter, even if the occupants are more than one passenger in a

single group. The driver is also prohibited from allowing another person to ride with the passenger, even if the destination is the same.

The Cabinet approved draft decision of Minister of Munici-pality and Environment on endorsing Qatari technical reg-ulations. The Cabinet approved a draft memorandum of under-standing on cooperation in the legal field between the Ministry of Justice of the State of Qatar and the Ministry of Justice of the Por-tuguese Republic.

The Cabinet reviewed and took required measures regarding a draft law on amending some provision of Law No. 21 of 1989 on regulating mar-rying foreigners. The Cabinet reviewed and took necessary measures on a memo by the Min-ister of Administrative Devel-opment, Labor and Social Affairs on the follow-up report on achieving government institu-tional performance standards.

The Cabinet reviewed and took needed measures on a memo by Minister of Adminis-trative Development, Labor and Social Affairs on the outcomes of the 88th session of the Board of Directors of Arab Labor Organization (ALO) held in March 2018 in Baghdad.

The Cabinet approved a draft law on regulating the ownership of dangerous animals or creatures, and referred it to the Advisory Council.

Emir issues laws, decrees & instruments of ratificationsTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued yesterday Law No. 4 of 2018 regu-lating electricity and water supply. The law is effective and is to be published in the official gazette, QNA reported.

H H the Emir also issued Decree No. 19 of 2018, on allo-cation of a land for Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation, to set up a solar power plant. The decree is effective starting from its date of issue and is to be pub-lished in the official gazette.

H H the Emir issued the Emiri Decision No. 13 of 2018 forming

the Board of Trustees of Qatar National Library (QNL). The decision stated that the Board of Trustees of QNL shall be com-posed of H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, as chairperson, and Minister of Culture and Sports, as vice chairperson, along with the following members: H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kuwari; H E Sheikh Dr Abdullah bin Ali bin Saoud Al Thani and H E Dr Hessa Sultan Al Jaber.

The decision is effective starting from its date of issue and is to be published in the official gazette.

H H the Emir issued Law No. 5 of 2018, on national service. The

law is effective starting from the following day of its publication in the official gazette.

H H the Emir issued an instrument of ratification approving a draft agreement on encouraging and protecting mutual investments between the governments of the State of Qatar and Republic of Paraguay, signed in Doha on February 11, 2018.

H H the Emir issued an instrument of ratification approving a draft memorandum of understanding in the agri-culture, livestock and fisheries field between the governments of the State of Qatar represented by the Ministry of Municipality and

Environment and the Sultanate of Oman represented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, signed in Muscat on January 28, 2018. H H the Emir also issued an instrument of ratification approving the ratification of a cooperation agreement in the sports field between the Ministry of Culture and Sports in the State of Qatar and the ministry of sports and youth in the French Republic, signed in Doha on February 1, 2015.

H H the Emir issued an instrument of ratification approving the ratification of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the health field

between the governments of the State of Qatar and the Republic of Indonesia, signed in Jakarta on October 18, 2017.

H H the Emir also issued an instrument of ratification approving a draft air services agreement between the govern-ments of the State of Qatar and the Ivory Coast, signed in Abidjan on December 23, 2017.

H H the Emir issued an instrument of ratification approving a draft agreements between the governments of the State of Qatar and Republic of Par-aguay on avoiding double taxation and preventing of financial evasion with related to income

taxes and the draft protocol annexed to the draft, both were signed in Doha on February 11, 2018.

H H the Emir issued Decree No. 18 of 2018 approving the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the establishment of a joint committee between the Gov-ernment of the State of Qatar and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, signed in Jakarta on October 18, 2017 and annexed to this decree, which shall have the force of law in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution.

The decree is effective starting from its date of issue and is to be published in the official gazette.

Mohammad Ahmed Al Marafi (second left) and Eng. Ahmed Khalid Al Ghanim (second right) and other officials during the workshop on Qatar Rail at Civil Defence head office yesterday. PIC: ABDUL BASIT / THE PENINSULA

77% work of Doha Metro Project overCONINUED FROM PAGE 1

Other stations were divided into two categories with the capacity of 60,000 and 30,000 passengers per hours. “The event is part of series of workshops being organised by Qatar Rail with Civil Defense officials to ensure the security of metro project,” said Eng Abdulla Al Subaie, Qatar Rail’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.

The General Directorate of Civil Defense (GDSD) is cooperating with other authorities concerned to ensure the safety and security of the country by implementing the highest security measures, said Brig Hamad Othman Al Duhaimo, Deputy Director of GDSD. He said that Doha Metro Project is considered one of key project of the country as the time for commencing metro is coming closer so such workshops are needed to know the role of civil defense and Qatar Rial to discuss the

requirements of coming phase.The safety measures of Qatar

Rail is meeting the requirements of the civil defense which is the best safety procedures, said Al Duahimo.

The safety of Doha Metro is top priority of civil defense as it is public transport and will be used by big number of people on daily basis, said Captain Ahmad Khalid Al Ghanam, Director of Prevention Department

at GDSD. Various topics including the percentage of the completion of Doha metro, passenger handling capacity, emergency condition, entrances for civil defense per-sonnel, equipment for rescue in tunnel, fire fighting, system for feeding electricity to the stations, accident response teams during construction and operation were discussed at the workshop.

Exam schedule adjusted for benefit of students and parentsDOHA: Minister of Education and Higher Education H E Dr Mohammed Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi yesterday issued a decision amending some provisions of Ministerial Decision No. 21 on the annual calendar for the academic year 2017-18. The decision set the second term examinations date for Grade 1 to 3 to be from May 8 to 15, 2018, Grade 4 to 9 from May 20 to 31, 2018, Grade 10 and 11 from May 22 to June 7, 2018, and Grade 12 from May 21 to June 6, 2018. The decision also set the dates for the second stage exams for the academic year, sched-uling them from June 25 to July 2, 2018 for Grade 1 to 9 and from July 24 to Aug. 2, 2018 for Grade 10 to 12. The Ministry of Education and Higher Education said the move after extensive study, in coordination with the Advisory Committee for School Principals and the Advisory Committee for Teachers, in response to the public interest, and for the benefit of students and parents.


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QLM offers free check-up on World Health Day

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Q Life & Medical Insurance Company (QLM) — Qatar’s leading Health and Life Insurer — is celebrating World Health Day by offering free medical check-up on April 6 (Friday) for all nationals and resi-dents of Qatar. This is the second consecutive year QLM is offering free medical checkup.

Whether insured with QLM or not, all Qatari nationals and expatriates can visit the nearest QLM counters located at the leading medical providers namely, Al Tai (Al Kinana Street, Al Nasr), Al Abeer Medical Centre (Mesaimeer Road & Al Karrasat Street), Elite Medical Centre (Al Jazeera Al Arabiya Street), Al Safa Polyclinic (Al Kinana Street, Al Nasr), Naseem Al Rabeeh (C Ring Road & Rayyan branch), Al Rabeeh Medical Centre (Al Aziziyah), Planet Medical Centre (Al Waab Street), Aster Plus (Muntazah), Aster Plus Medcare Polyclinic (Al Salam Street, Hilal), Aster Plus Welcare Polyclinic (Al Jassasiya Street, Al Rayyan), Aster Medical Center (Al Ghanim, Industrial Area, Al Khor) and Aster Hospital (D Ring Road) to avail free medical check-up and services. Participants

would only need to present their Qatar ID to avail the medical services listed below.

Participants visiting Al Tai Medical Centre can choose any one of the specialties viz.

Orthopedic Consultation, Internal Medicine Consultation, Dermatology Consultation, Pedi-atric Consultation, Ophthal-mology Consultation, CBC, Urine Analysis, Glucose Random, Lipid

Profile, Urea, Creatinine, Uric Acid, AST, ALT, and X-Ray.

The free medical tests available at Al Abeer include GP Consultation, Dental Consultation, Blood Pressure, Glucose – Random, Cholesterol –Total, Cre-atinine – Serum (Kidney Function), ALT (Liver Function), and Body Mass Index (Assess Body Fat).

Those visiting Elite Medical Centre can avail free GP Consul-tation, Dental Consultation, Der-matology Consultation, Blood Sugar, Cholesterol, Blood Pressure, and Body Mass Index (BMI).

Free medical tests available at Al Safa Polyclinic include GP Consultation, Vital Signs, Random Blood Sugar, Pulmonary Function Test (Spirometry), Eye Checkup, Dental Consultation, Cardiology Consultation & Echocardiogram (examination

dependent), Obstetrician & Gynecology Consultation and Ultrasonography.

Naseem Al Rabeeh Medical Centre at C Ring Road is offering free GP Consultation, Cardiology Consultation, Neurologists con-sultation voucher, Cholesterol checkup, Random Blood Sugar, Body Mass Index, and 25% dis-count on follow-up services.

Naseem Al Rabeeh Medical Centre at Rayyan is providing free GP Consultation, Neurolo-gists Consultation, Dental Con-sultation & X-Ray, Dermatology Consultation, Gynecology Con-sultation, ENT Consultation, Orthopedic Consultation, Cho-lesterol checkup, Random Blood Sugar, Body Mass Index, Free Medicine, and 25% discount on follow-up services. Whilst Al Rabeeh Dental Center at Aziziyah Branch offers free Dental exam-ination and X-Ray.

Planet Medical Centre is pro-viding free Internal Medicine Consultation, Dental Consul-tation, and Ophthalmology Con-sultation, tests for Glucose Random, Calcium, Creatinine, U r i n e A n a l y s i s , a n d Cholesterol.

Aster Medical Centres and Aster Hospital is offering free Physical Examination, CBC (14 tests), Triglyceride, HDL Choles-terol, LDL Cholesterol, VLDL Cholesterol, Cholesterol Total, Uric Acid (Kidney), SGPT (Liver), Blood Sugar.

Ahmad Mohammed Zebeib,

Senior Manager at QLM states, “Aligning our approach with the newly introduced National Health Strategy (NHS) 2018-2022, we take pride in commem-orating World Health Day along with our provider network. It is our way of demonstrating our commitment towards promoting awareness about various lifestyle diseases and ways to prevent them.”

He added, “Early detection of lifestyle diseases such as high Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar etc. is crucial as it helps to prevent complications at a later stage. The free medical check-up rein-forces the importance of this proposition and echoes the salient features of the NHS 2018-2022 that focuses more on disease prevention and helps the community to maintain a healthy and an active lifestyle.”

Rated ‘A/Stable ’ by Standard & Poor’s, QLM differ-entiates itself from its peers by delivering bespoke and inno-vative medical insurance solu-tions with unmatched cus-tomer service. QLM has estab-lished itself as a pioneer in the medical insurance sector in Qatar, with its highly experi-enced in-house team of experts coupled with innovative tech-nologies and a wide network of medical service providers, QLM is well positioned to deliver the world class healthcare services to its mul-ticultural client base.

Ahmad Mohammed Zebeib, Senior Manager, QLM.

Aligning our approach with the newly introduced National Health Strategy (NHS) 2018-2022, we take pride in commemorating World Health Day along with our provider network. It is our way of demonstrating our commitment towards promoting awareness about various lifestyle diseases and ways to prevent them.

Ahmad Mohammed Zebeib, Senior

Manager at QLM

Whether insured with QLM or not, all Qatari nationals and expatriates can visit the nearest QLM counters located at the leading medical providers to avail free medical check-up and services. Participants would only need to present their Qatar ID to avail the medical services listed below.

QLM has established itself as a pioneer in the medical insurance sector in Qatar. With its highly experienced in-house team of experts coupled with innovative technologies and a wide network of medical service providers, QLM is well positioned to deliver the world class healthcare services to its multicultural client base.

Insights on new trends in fighting terrorism at INTERPATHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The 7th annual conference of INTERPA concluded yesterday with participants from 42 countries giving insights on new trends in fighting terrorism.

The participants empha-sized on the importance of the role of family in the fight against terrorism. They noted that the international cooper-ation in the prevention and combating of terrorism and extremism in social networks was essential.

They also said that ter-rorist organisations had exploited Islam to spread ter-rorism, and also to spread fear of Islam in favor of world powers. It has been confirmed that social networks play an important role in communi-cation among people around the world, and besides their advantages, terrorist groups

use them to recruit potential candidates.

The Information Society has paved the way for more sophis-ticated ways to spread extremism across the world. Southeast Asia is one of the most important targets of interna-tional terrorism and extremism, and international cooperation is needed between countries to combat exploitation of the net-works of terrorism, the experts have observed.

The event highlighted the differences between attitude and behavior in psychology books, as well as the link between violent attitudes and actions with regard to extremism. The rising extremism and ter-rorism in the football fields and the roles of sports insti-tutions and the state in the fight against sports extremism require careful study, the par-ticipants said.

They observed that Daesh used marketing strategies to attract and deceive foreign fighters in jihad adventures. Ter-rorist organisations operate with a false understanding of religion and misinterpret religious rulings.

The experts noted that since people tend to misuse every-thing that is prevalent and because Islam is strong in terms of the number of followers in the world, terrorist organizations tend to exploit Islam in many cases.

They also confirmed the need to study anti-terrorism and extremism programs has become urgent. The conference hosted by Qatar Police College on “New Trends in Combating Terrorism and Extremism” wit-nessed participation of 42 coun-tries, 47 institutions and 5 inter-national organizations. 21 papers were presented in six dif-ferent sessions.

The participants at the 7th annual conference of INTERPA.


Positive clinical leadership key to patient safety, says study

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: A study, led by researchers from Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Pharmacy Department in collaboration with Qatar University, Robert Gordon University (UK), University of Aberdeen (UK), and RCSI (Ireland) identified positive leadership as being key to improving patient safety and

driving quality enhancements in healthcare.

The two-year study, which was funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), explored aspects of reporting medication errors from the perspective of healthcare professionals and those in positions of power and influence.

The multi-national research team involved in the study also

examined the underlying causes of medication errors. Professor Moza Al Hail, Exec-utive Director of HMC’s Pharmacy Department, says it is important to understand why

healthcare-related errors happen. She says the study’s findings validate the impor-tance of efforts undertaken by HMC to optimize the safety of its patients.

“ H M C ’ s P h a r m a c y Department is committed to making a significant difference to the health and well-being of our patients and to improving patient safety through innovative research, training, and safe med-ication use practices. These study findings reinforce the impor-tance of our efforts and will lead to the continued development of even more robust and enhanced medication safety practices,” said Professor Al Hail.

HMC’s pharmacy team has been at the forefront of efforts to improve medication safety practices. This has included the implementation of automated

pharmacies at several facilities across the organization, helping to increase the time pharma-cists spend with patients while also reducing medication errors.

This technology was first introduced in the region at Al Wakra Hospital in 2014. The use of automated dispensing cabinets in inpatient wards and surgical theaters has led to both decreased wait times in administering med-ications and reduced error rates through the use of barcodes to retrieve prescriptions.

According to Professor Al Hail, other notable service enhance-ments include the implemen-tation of dedicated pharmacist-led clinics, such as the anti-coag-ulation clinic, and medication therapy management clinics. The anti-coagulation clinic is designed to be a ’one stop shop’

where pharmacists assess patients, perform required tests, educate patients, and also dis-pense medications within the clinic.

Medication therapy man-agement clinics, led by clinical pharmacists, have been intro-duced to provide consultancy services with the aim of min-imizing medication side effects and encouraging patients to adhere to their dosage regime.

Additionally, last month HMC launched a drug information center to answer patient and cli-nician questions about pre-scribed medications, or medica-tions purchased at retail pharmacies.

The information center will eventually operate 24-hours a day and will also have a hotline available for queries.

Professor Moza Al Hail, Executive Director of HMC’s Pharmacy Department.

Domasco launches 10th generation Honda AccordTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Doha Marketing Services Company WLL (Domasco), the exclusive distributor of Honda vehicles in Qatar, has announced the launch of the all-new 2018 Honda Accord.

The all-new Accord is the 10th generation of Honda’s perennially best-selling midsize sedan. All-new from the ground up, the 2018 Accord is built on a new platform with a lower, wider stance, a lighter and more rigid unibody structure; a lighter and more sophisticated chassis; two advanced new power units, including Accord’s first-ever turbocharged engines, and a new 10-speed automatic

transmission.In recreating Accord for its

10th generation, Honda designers and engineers sought to convey ‘absolute confidence’ in every element of design and performance. Building on the bedrock char-acter of Accord – its out-standing quality, fuel effi-ciency, packaging and sophis-ticated driving dynamics – they have imbued the 10th-generation Accord with a new level of emotional appeal and premium quality; an Accord that defies its mainstream midsize sedan status, pro-viding even more refined and engaging performance, a more spacious and upscale interior, and the latest generation of advanced Honda safety and

driver-assistive technologies. Faisal Sharif, Managing

Director of Domasco, said, “We are extremely pleased to launch the 2018 Honda Accord in Qatar. The Accord has con-sistently set the benchmark in the midsize sedan segment and this new model is no different. With its advanced new pow-ertrain, refined look and enhanced features, the new Accord is Honda’s most sophis-ticated vehicle yet. We invite all our customers to visit the Honda showroom and take one for a test drive.”

In reimagining Accord, designers first established the fundamental packaging strategy. Consistent with the “Man Maximum-Machine Minimum (MM)” design phi-losophy that underpins all Honda designs, the team shrunk the Accord’s footprint while expanding its interior space, at the same time cre-ating more premium and ath-letic proportions and stance.

The move to 4-cylinder engines across the line-up is a key component of this

approach, allowing a shorter engine bay while also reducing weight and improving dynamic performance.

The new Accord has a longer wheelbase (+55 mm), a lower overall height (-15 mm), a wider body (+10 mm) and a shortened overall length (-15 mm). A sweeping greenhouse, positioned farther back on the body, completes the new stance and proportion of the next-generation Accord. The combined effect of these changes is a more premium look, highlighted by shorter overhangs, a bold front fascia, a long and low hood, and a visual centre of gravity moved closer to the rear wheels.

In addition, the longer wheelbase allowed designers to move the second-row seats substantially rearward, giving Accord 48 mm of added rear legroom. Overall passenger volume is increased by 70 litres (LX trim) and trunk space, at 473 litres on all models and trims, is up 25 litres on 1.5-liter and 2.0-liter models.

All-new Honda Accord 2018.

Officials during the launch.

Ooredoo’s Hala India Packs now permanentTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Ooredoo announced yesterday that its Hala India Packs will become a permanent service, thanks to its growing popularity and demand.

Ooredoo revealed that more customers than ever are making calls to India from Qatar and their customers have become reliant on Hala India Packs as

they will work with any network in India and Qatar.

Other benefits include an out of pack international rate of just 10 Dhs/min to call India, once the packs international minutes have been used.

Hala India Packs, which come in denominations of 10, 30, ,45, 60 and 100, offer a host of international and local calling minutes and data.

With a Hala India Pack 45, subscribers will enjoy 525 minutes to call India (valid for 30 days) and a bonus 500 MB of local data, as well as 40 local minutes (valid for 10 days) for just QR45. Hala India Pack 60 subscribers can take advantage of 725 minutes to India (valid for 30 days) as well as a bonus 750 MB of local data and 50 local minutes (valid for ten days) for QR60.

For expats looking to call home for longer, the Hala India Pack QR100 pack offers 1,250 minutes to India valid for 30 days, 1,500 MB of bonus local data, and 70 bonus local minutes valid for 15

To subscribe to a new Hala India Pack, customers should head to the Ooredoo App, dial *121#, or send ‘INP pack number’ (e.g. ‘INP 30’) to 121.

Permanent Population Committee issues 38th edition of Sukkan bulletinTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Permanent Population Committee (PPC) issued the 38th edition of Sukkan bulletin, its quarterly bilingual publication for December 2017.

The bulletin contains a set of topics aimed at spreading population culture and raising awareness of its issues to reach a better life for the people living in Qatar.

The issue has a series of topics, including a brief pres-entation on the new general population policy for Qatar 2017-2022, focusing on the challenges that face population growth for Qataris and non-Qataris.

It also focuses on the imbal-ances of the demographic com-position represented by the low proportion of Qataris among the total population and the increase in the proportion of males and single men and other imbalances.

T h e b u l l e t i n a l s o examines the principles of population policy and the general principles underlying

this policy to conclude a review of the goals, objec-tives and procedures of the new program.

The second topic of the quarterly bulletin reviewed the events of the Qatar Population Day, held in Doha on Oct. 31, 2017 under the theme of “Towards Effective Implemen-tation of Qatar’s Population Policy 2017-2022”.

The third topic presented the important activities and events of the PPC and its tech-nical office, during the last quarter of 2017.

This included the partic-ipation in a number of work-shops, joining several training courses, partici-pating at the 18th meeting of the National Population Council and Committee of the Arab States, and other important matters.

Finally, the quarterly bul-letin highlighted briefly the concept of percentage of divorce certificates to marriage contracts, which shows the evolution of this ratio in the State of Qatar during the years of population census.

Qatar Airways to acquire 25% stake in Russian airport

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1“Vnukovo International

nowadays boasts the best transport accessibility and most advanced, cutting-edge airport infrastructure in Russia, enabling the Airport’s consist-ently impressive passenger g r o w t h p e r f o r m a n c e nationwide. This gives me every confidence that our potential partnership will be mutually beneficial and good for all concerned, through further synergies it will be cre-ating for each partner, enabling further growth,” he added.

This potential investment supports the award-winning airline’s investment strategy, which already includes 20 percent investment in Interna-tional Airlines Group, 10 per cent investment in LATAM Air-lines Group, 9.94 per cent investment in Cathay Pacific and 49 percent investment in Air Italy.

The airline shares strong links with Russia, as it operates triple daily flights to Moscow and daily flights to St. Petersburg, launched in December 2017.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker (left) and Chairman of the Board of Vnukovo International Airport, Vitaly Vantsev, at the MoU signing ceremony.

HMC’s pharmacy team has been at the forefront of efforts to improve medication safety practices. This has included the implementation of automated pharmacies at several facilities across the organization, helping to increase the time pharmacists spend with patients while also reducing medication errors.

The HIA art program seeks to turn the airport into an innovative public space for creativity beyond the walls of a gallery or a museum in order to entertain and inspire as well as reduce stress level of millions of people flying through the airport annually.


Texas A&M at Qatar’s hosts annual research showcaseTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Texas A&M University at Qatar hosted its seventh annual Research-Industry Partnership Showcase, ‘Making an Impact,’ and highlighted the contribution researchers having in Qatar. The annual event highlights the work performed by Texas A&M at Qatar faculty, staff and student researchers that is having real-world impact in Qatar and contribute to Qatar’s goal of being a knowledge-based economy. The showcase also aims to strengthen partnerships with local industry to maximize shared opportunities and pursuits of mutual interest.

Texas A&M at Qatar’s research is valued at more than $248.2m and addresses issues important to Qatar. This year’s showcase fea-tured student presentations, lab tours, and workshops on enhanced oil recovery, cyber security and solar energy. In a poster session, stu-dents and researchers from Texas A&M at Qatar displayed research findings and outcomes of their recent projects, emphasizing their impact to local and international scientific and technical commu-nities. Several research centers also were represented, including the Gas and Fuels Research Center, the Advanced Scientific Computing Center, the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center and the Smart Grid. “Research creates new knowledge and drives innovation,” said Dr. César Octavio Malavé, dean of Texas A&M at Qatar.

Mariam A. Al-Maadeed, vice-president for research and graduate studies at Qatar University, gave the keynote talk, and said: “This is a very important event that can promote dialogue between universities and industry. Universities are the sources of innovation that power industry.”

LG premium brand shop opens at City Centre mallTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: LG Electronics (LG), a global leader and technology innovator in consumer elec-tronics, has had the grand opening of its premium brand showroom in City Centre Mall on Monday (April 2).

Located on the first floor, in a central shopping destination of Qatar – City Centre Mall – and spread across 433 sq. metres, the shop has been renovated as per the latest LG premium Brand shop guidelines. This new premium LG showroom serves as a one-stop destination for cus-tomers, housing an expansive line-up of LG’s latest and inno-vative consumer products.

Conceptualized with an intu-itive layout, the new premium brand showroom is specifically designed to showcase LG’s cutting-edge technology from across different business units

including Home Appliances, Home Entertainment, Mobile Communications, IT and Resi-dential AC, providing a fully immersive hands-on experience. A complete portfolio of LG’s premium range of products is showcased within dedicated areas in the showroom.

Speaking at the grand opening, Yong Geun Choi, Pres-ident, LG Electronics, Gulf, said, “Consumer satisfaction is key for us at LG Electronics, and our premium brand showroom is an embodiment of our commitment to our customers in Qatar. This is further testament to our com-mitment to give every customer a holistic experience into our complete line-up. This milestone would not have been possible without having a long-term trustworthy partner like Video Home & Electronic Centre - Jumbo Electronics, whose team and management have been

instrumental in LG’s leadership in Qatar.”

The premium products that will be available soon at the premium brand shops include LG’s revolutionary new LG

SIGNATURE products that were unveiled in CES 2018 at Las Vegas. LG Electronics won more than 90 awards at CES, leading the way with the coveted, official Engadget CES Best of the Best

Awards, for LG’s revolutionary new LG SIGNATURE W7 OLED 4K TV complemented by a variety of best-of-show honors for the LG SIGNATURE TWINWash washing machine.

Commenting on the occasion, Sajed Jassim Mohammed Sulaiman, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Video Home and Elec-tronic Centre - Jumbo Electronics said, “The opening of this premium showroom from LG is yet another indication of the robust retail sector Qatar has to offer. As LG expands, we will continue to ensure LG’s premium products are accessible and enjoyed by the avid Qatari con-sumer, and we look forward to the next chapter for the brand in Qatar.”

LG aims to recreate unique experiences in Qatar by giving customers the opportunity to connect with the brand and the product. These product offerings by LG have come together to ensure “Life’s Good” for con-sumers by enhancing consumer touch-points and boosting local business development.

HBKU faculty to develop Li-Fi supporting technologyTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Faculty members at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) College of Science and Engineering (CSE) are conducting innovative research to create a prototype in support of Li-Fi technology – a scientific breakthrough that utilizes the abundance of light to transmit data between different devices.

Currently under devel-opment, Li-Fi technology serves similar purposes to the popular Wi-Fi technology, but works by converting light intensity into binary bits that are transmitted at high-speed rates and can be understood by electronic devices, including mobile phone cameras.

Although Li-Fi technology is considered by many to be secure with minimal possibilities of dis-ruption, CSE’s faculty are working towards a prototype that ensures continuity and security of data communication. Their research project, titled Relay-assisted Visible Light Communication, has been made possible through a Qatar Foun-

dation research grant. CSE’s proposed prototype

will use multiple nodes such that, if one point of reception is blocked, light may be automat-ically rerouted to another node, thereby ensuring constant and direct transmission at all times.

Dr. Mounir Hamdi, dean of CSE, said, “Our mandate at CSE is to work on forward-thinking solutions that are oriented towards our needs in the not-too-distant future. The support we get within HBKU and from Qatar Foundation is paramount to our success in developing

applications that are relevant nationally and meet pressing challenges.”

The applications of Li-Fi are vast and extend to effective and remote traffic management, where the technology may be utilized to facilitate a ‘wireless conversation’ between two vehicles with the aim of pre-venting collisions. Li-Fi tech-nology also is considered to be integral to the operation of smart homes and cities.

In hospitals, Li-Fi technology becomes especially critical where the lives of patients may be contingent on seamless trans-mission of data. Lastly, the tech-nology may be utilized to monitor underwater systems

and examine gas pipes for any potential leaks, thereby evading catastrophic consequences.

Dr. Mohamed Abdallah, lead principal investigator of the research project, said, “Tapping into new areas of research is an overarching aim for us at CSE. All of the research we conduct today is geared towards finding real solutions with every-day applicability.”

Over the course of one year, Dr. Abdallah will be working closely with researchers at Texas A&M University at Qatar, as well as TUBITAK and Ozuegin Uni-versity in Turkey, to submit the prototype for consideration. If successful, the project will move to the start-up phase.

Win 101 gold bars from Sky JewelleryTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Sky Jewellery has announced 101gold bars for their customers only for Doha region during Akshya Tritiya this year.

For every purchase worth QR500, the cus-tomer will get a coupon for the lucky draw of 101 gold bars, said Mr. Babu John, Chairman & Man-aging Director of Sky Jewellery in a statement.

“We are also giving the privilege to our customers just to pay 1% and prebook the gold jewellery, which will help cus-tomers to get the lowest gold rate and ensure that you will be getting the lowest gold rate during this season by pre booking scheme.”

Sky Jewellery is also offering free gifts for all pre-booked gold jewellery purchases before 6pm during Akshya Tritiya. During Akshya Tritiya purchases, customers will be getting Free Gold coins for Gold Jewellery. For every purchase of QR1500 worth Diamond Jewellery customers will be getting 1gram free gold coin.

For old gold jewellery exchanges, Sky Jewellery is offering 100% value and no making charges for any purchases of gold coin, these offers are only at Sky Jewellery outlets.

The applications of Li-Fi are vast and extend to effective and remote traffic management, where the technology may be utilized to facilitate a ‘wireless conversation’ between two vehicles with the aim of preventing collisions.

Texas A&M at Qatar’s research addresses issues important to Qatar.

HIA hosts International Artists of DohaTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Hamad International Airport (HIA) welcomed the International Artists of Doha (IAD), a group of 29 Qatar-based international artists.

In cooperation with Qatar Museums, IAD were given a private tour of the airport to dis-cover and explore the artworks displayed both airside and landside of HIA. HIA is home to a collection of more than twenty art pieces of both local and global artists, hand-picked to be displayed at the airport.

The HIA art program seeks to turn the airport into an inno-vative public space for creativity beyond the walls of a gallery or a museum in order to entertain and inspire as well as reduce stress level of millions of people flying through the airport annually.

As strong supporters of public art, HIA takes pride in showing a great selection of art pieces in cooperation with Qatar Museums.

The artists’ tour began with a viewing of ‘The Flying Man’, two iconic sculptures designed by renowned Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi and installed in HIA’s passenger terminal for travellers to enjoy while flying through the airport. The 15m high dual sculp-tures are based on the story of Abu Firnas, a historical figure from the Islamic world who was an early pioneer in flight experiments.

Commenting on the tour, Willy Kempel, Austria’s

Ambassador to Doha and IAD President said: “We are delighted with this beautiful tour, allowing us to discover a very innovative, creative and vibrant art space. This tour stirred the highest attention from all members of the IDA Group.”

“Art installations displayed

at HIA are representative of the airport’s cultural intersection between local roots and global reach, transcending all cultures and beliefs. I would like to thank HIA and Qatar Museums for their wonderful hospitality and their joined efforts in making the airport a unique location for arts

& culture,” the ambassador added.

Abdulaziz Al Mass, Vice President, Commercial and Mar-keting at HIA, added: “HIA is an airport for art lovers and art curious. We are delighted by the visit of the International Artists of Doha. We believe that art and creativity must be enjoyed beyond the confines of a gallery and are proud to turn HIA into an innovative public space.”

During the two-hour tour, the artists visited more than 13 art pieces and received detailed information about each one as well as general information about HIA.

At the end of the tour, the international artists viewed the newest art piece at the airport, ‘SMALL LIE’ by American pop artist Brian Donnelly, known as KAWS. The iconic piece was unveiled on 7 March in a cer-emony attended by local art enthusiasts and representatives of the media.

International Artists of Doha (IAD) visiting Small Lie by KAWS at HIA.


On-the-ground reporting from war zones discussed at NU-QTHE PENINSULA DOHA: The implications and chal-lenges of on-the-ground reporting in war zones was the center of a discussion at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) with Awad Joumaa, a news editor, book editor, and documentary film-maker at Al Jazeera.

In a recent book, which he co-edited, ‘Journalism in Times of War,’ journalists and media activists contributed articles which provided a behind the scenes look at journalism in conflict areas. During the session at NU-Q, he read several excerpts from the book,

detailing life for journalists in a war zone.

In introducing the session Everette E Dennis, dean and CEO, said that covering war zones is the “Most difficult aspect of media and journalism. To have someone who works so closely with journalists who report on some of the most dangerous con-flicts in the world gives our

community a real perspective into the complications and risks involved in news creation and reporting.”

The conversation, which was moderated by NU-Q Professor Craig LaMay, addressed journal-istic challenges in a conflict area, which range from security and survival, to responsible reporting, and maintaining professional ethics and integrity.

During the discussion, LaMay asked Joumaa how Al Jazeera prepares its journalists before dispatching them to war zones and conflicted areas. “There’s never enough preparation,” Joumaa said. “Once journalists

are on the ground they are hit with the reality of how difficult and dangerous things are.”

Joumaa also said that reporters in conflict areas face a number of challenges, in addition to the physical danger, which includes being held by gov-ernment officials or the military who want to stop them from doing their job or receiving serious threats to hurt their families.

The quality of a journalist’s work can also be compromised in a warzone, explained Joumaa. “Security is not guaranteed in danger zones; therefore, we need to be accommodating to video

or photo coverage that is not of high quality. In some cases, just being seen with a camera can put your life in danger,” he said.

Joumaa’s book, which is available online in English and Arabic, includes contributions from award-winning war

correspondents, including Zeina Khodr, who has covered wars in Syria and Iraq; Zaina Erhaim, a project coordinator for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Peter Greste, who was imprisoned in Egypt for 400 days in 2013.

Awad Joumaa shares insights from Al Jazeera journalists’ experiences in covering conflict areas during a conversation at NU-Q.

Ashghal, QU workshopidentifies cooperation areasTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Public Works Authority, ‘Ashghal’, yesterday hosted a workshop presented by Qatar University for Ashghal staff, identifying areas of coop-eration between the two entities.

The workshop, entitled “Advances in Civil Engineering and Potential Developments and Applications for Qatar” was held in the presence of Eng. Khaled Al Emadi, Quality and Safety Department Manager and with participation of several new engineering aspirants and other Ashghal staff.

The workshop included presentations and discussions lead by scholars from the College of Engineering in four areas. The first area covered “building materials and roads” and the second one discussed “drainage,

treatment and use of wastewater for irrigation purposes.” The third part handled “health and safety in project management” while the fourth paper focused on “healthy monitoring and strengthening of vital infrastructure.”

This workshop comes within the scope of the Memo-randum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Ashghal and Qatar University’s College of Engineering (QU-CENG), aiming at development and enhancement of mutual coop-eration between the two entities to benefit from the potentials of both parties in the fields of research, consultancy and com-munity services, based on the desire of both parties in active community partnership and to facilitate mutual transfer of knowledge and technology.

WISH launches ‘Islamic Ethics and Palliative Care’ talks THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of Qatar Foundation, is inviting the public to partic-ipate in talks on the subject of Islamic Ethics and Palliative Care.

The discussions will take place at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU’s) College of Islamic Studies auditorium in Education City on April 10 and at St. Antony’s College, Uni-versity of Oxford, on April 16. Both events will start at 7pm and will feature expert presen-tations and the opportunity for public interaction.

Both events will feature presentations by Dr. Mohammed Ghaly, who leads the WISH Islamic Ethics and Palliative Care research group.

The Doha talk will also feature a presentation by Dr.

Azza Adel Hassan, a contrib-uting member of the WISH research group and Program Director of the Support and Pal-liative Care Unit of the National Center for Cancer Care and Research, Hamad Medical Cor-poration, who will share her knowledge of end-of-life care from a medical practitioner’s perspective.

Commenting on the talks, Dr. Ghaly said: “I am delighted to be working with WISH once again to address one of the most sensitive topics, palliative care, from an Islamic perspective. Investigations have com-menced and the forum members are a lready tackling the thorniest ques-tions and ethical challenges in preparation for the launch of the research report. We look forward to discussing early findings and learning

from our experiences as we work towards finalizing our report this month.”

The WISH research group, led by Dr. Ghaly, consists of an international collection of experts who are investigating the ethical challenges and ques-tions palliative care gives rise to from an Islamic perspective. The group’s findings, to be pub-lished in a report ahead of

WISH 2018, will be discussed in-depth during a panel session at the prestigious event.

Islamic Ethics and Palli-ative Care will be one of nine research topics that will form the focus of WISH 2018. The nine forums will highlight and address some of the world’s most pressing challenges across topics that cover medical, ethical, techno-logical, and humanitarian aspects of healthcare. The topics announced so far include viral hepatitis, eye health, nursing and universal health coverage, and design in health.

The World Health Organ-ization defines palliative care as an approach that leads to the improvement of the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem of terminal or life-threatening illness.

The WISH research group, led by Dr. Ghaly, consists of an international collection of experts who are investigating the ethical challenges and questions palliative care gives rise to from an Islamic perspective.

The Mega Draw pertaining to Lulu-Nestle Promotion was held yesterday at Lulu Hypermarket, D-Ring Road branch under the supervision of the Inspector from the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, whereby 10 prizes of Lulu Gift vouchers worth QR5,000 each were given away to 10 winners. Officials from Lulu Hypermarket Group and Nestle Qatar were present at the draw.

Lulu-Nestle Promotion Mega Draw

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: P Kumaran, Ambassador of India to the State of Qatar, and First Secretary Surindar Bhagat, yesterday visited the Logistics Village Qatar (LVQ) of GWC, Qatar’s leading logistics provider.

The visit included a tour of the landmark integrated logistics hub, offering bespoke supply chain logistics and warehousing solutions, spanning one-million square metre infrastructure; the largest logistics hub of its kind in the region.

Fifteen kilometres off the Hamad Port, 18km from Hamad International Airport and just 2km from Doha’s main industrial area, immediately accessible through the country’s G-Ring Road, GWC’s strategically positioned LVQ offers the most comprehensive, globally recognised supply chain solutions.

Organised, structured, integrated, IT enabled, and “ready-to-go”, the LVQ was conceived and developed on a scale that has set new benchmarks in logistics

infrastructure.Speaking at the LVQ, P Kumaran

stated: “I am indeed impressed by the quality of the facility, and the range of

solutions and various specialized equipment that you have here. It was also a happy situation to see a lot of Indian employees and to see the kind of passion they bring to their work.

“I am also impressed by the good quality of the workers’ accommodation you have here. I think it is very good that Qatar has put in place such high quality warehousing facilities in recent years, and it is a welcome initiative as it will help us improve trading links between India and Qatar, and the region in general.”

LVQ harnesses highest standards for health and safety, fire suppression and security within the premises, allowing for optimum handling of goods stored within. Environment pro-tection is also taken seriously when it comes to the use of packaging mate-rials and recyclables. The company implements reduce, reuse and recycle

(RRR) practices at all times to achieve this objective.

A multinational work force lives in high standards accommodation buildings while entertainment and living needs being secured for them.

“It was a pleasure to host the Ambassador of India at LVQ, showcasing what Qatar is capable of, while reviewing possible avenues of collabo-ration,” stated Matthew Phelps, General Manager at GWC.

“The grand vision behind developing the LVQ was to provide regional and international companies with custom-izable, instantly operational platforms to meet their logistics needs, and we are fully prepared to meet the growing demand for logistical support and expertise.”

Phelps, General Manager at GWC, among other GWC officials and employees.

P Kumaran, Indian Ambassador to Qatar (centre), Surinder Bhagat, First Secretary at the Indian Embassy; Matthew Phelps, General Manager at GWC, with other GWC officials and employees.

GWC welcomes Indian envoy at Logistics Village Qatar

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The seventh annual Senyar Festival, being organized by the Katara Cultural Village, kicked off to a colorful start at the Katara beach yesterday afternoon.

Some 165 experienced pearl divers, including four children set sail to the deep sea in 15 dhows to take part in the pearl diving championship.

Mood was jubilant at Katara beach as the participating teams arrived with beds and blankets and cartons of food and water to spend two days and nights in the sea. Katara staff and officials were busy making preparations for the championship.

Mohammed Al Hashmi, captain of the team that won first

prize last year, led the partici-pating teams in their hours-long journey to the sea. Traditionally the leader is called Sardal, captain of the captains.

They will be diving in an area in the sea about 40km away

from Katara beach to collect as many shells as possible. The actual competition is scheduled to begin around 7am today.

The teams, comprising Qataris and several participants from other GCC states, will

return tomorrow evening after completing the competition.

A closing ceremony will take place at the Katara beach in the evening during which t h e w i n n e r s w i l l b e announced.

The pearl diving champi-onship is the first part of the three-week long Festival which will also see competitions in tra-ditional fishing, which will begin next week.

The Festival will conclude on April 20 with traditional fishing competition open to families, being introduced for the first time this year.

The Festival in its seventh year is intended to evoke mem-ories of the past and revive the Qatari traditions associated with the sea.

Participants get ready for the 7th Senyar Festival pearl diving championship yesterday at Katara beach.

7th Senyar Festival begins at Katara

Joumaa said that reporters in conflict areas face a number of challenges, in addition to the physical danger.

The recent example of how the blockading countries placed students in various academic institutions in a difficult situation by rejecting them to continue education is a gross violation of human rights.

Syria has been locked in a devastating conflict since early 2011 when the regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity. According to UN officials, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict to date.

10 THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018VIEWS

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

[email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

[email protected]

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Qatar’s clarion call

Education is one of the basic rights of every child in the world irrespective of peacetime or war. In this respect, the

recent speech by H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation (QF) and Education Above All Foundation (EAA), urging the global community to facilitate access to quality education for displaced children and to enforce severe penalties for perpetrators of armed conflict, is a clarion call.

The recent example of how the blockading countries placed students in various academic institutions in a difficult situation by rejecting them to continue education is a gross violation of human rights.

H H Sheikha Moza’s speeches at various fora always highlighted the devastation caused due to armed conflicts and put focus on how various nations ignore the fundamental rights of children

and education should be kept above all obstacles.

H H Sheikha Moza, Advocate for the UN Sus-tainable Development Goals, at a high-level panel discussion held recently at the UN head-quarters in Geneva under the title “Quality Edu-cation for a Sustaina-ble Future: A Comprehensive Approach for Refugees and Internally Displaced People”, organised by the EAA in cooperation with the UNHCR, said: “Edu-cation must be given pri-ority as it is the tool for the children of the present and future. A global approach needs to be adapted, in order to remove institutional bar-riers which prevent the

recognition and verification of refugee education”.

Last month, H H Sheikha Moza, has affirmed that the QF’s ‘Educate A Child Pro-gramme’, is one month away from reaching the goal set six years ago to enable 10 million children around the world to get basic education.

The recent Unesco estimate of around 63 million children do not receive any form of edu-cation is an eye-opener for each person in this world and it’s the endeavour for all of us to make sure that each child in this world attend school.

It’s commendable that H H Sheikha Moza called on leaders of industry and government to place education at the heart of human devel-opment agenda. She also noted: “We need each person to think of educating out-of-school children as a personal challenge, as their cause”.

Iconic children of Eastern Ghouta start new life in Turkey

Young icons of resistance during the plight suffered by civilians victim of regime attacks in Syria’s besieged

eastern Ghouta district have started a new life in Turkey.

Baby Karim, who inspired a cam-paign of support in Turkey after he lost one of his eyes as well as his mother in a regime artillery strike arrived in Turkey’s border province of Hatay. He was accompanied by two sisters Alaa and Noor who have been providing a voice to eastern Ghouta’s children and their pains through their joint Twitter account.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also met the sisters and Baby Karim during his visit to Hatay, following their evacuation from the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta. The children were dressed by the Turkish Red Crescent and went through physical examinations at the hospital.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Shams Alkhateeb, the mother of Noor and Alaa, said they had lived under siege for seven years, deprived of basic material necessities.

“We were deprived of food, water, medicine, and education. Our children were afraid of bombs and clashes. We had to live under-ground,” she said.

Expressing her appreciation for Turkey, she said they had gotten intense support from the Turkish Red Crescent.

Following their arrival, the sisters tweeted about their journey, addressing the Turkish president.

“We forgot some of our fear. We are safe away from bombing and warplanes. We hope to see the children of Syria live in peace and safety,” the girls said Monday in their Twitter account.

The sisters were

influenced by seven-year-old Twitter activist Bana al-Abed, who captured the world’s attention two years ago with her Twitter posts from Syria’s war-torn city of Aleppo.

In their Twitter posts, Alaa and Noor shared stories and photos of their daily lives in regime-besieged eastern Ghouta.

Assisted by their mother, an English teacher, the sisters fre-quently issued appeals for the end of the crippling blockade plaguing eastern Ghouta.

Meanwhile, Abu Muhammed, the father of Baby Karim, told Anadolu Agency that their suffering had been devastating. They could not see the sky as they were obliged to hide underground from the regime’s attacks. “We were living under tough conditions,” he said, recalling two consecutive attacks in less than a month that resulted in Karim’s loss of an eye and the death of his wife.

Muhammed said he was grateful for the help and support from Turkey. “I thank Turkey and Pres-ident Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and everybody who stands beside us,” he added.

Baby Karim became a symbol of the siege of eastern Ghouta last December after Anadolu Agency publicized his story to the world, spurring social media campaigns to aid the infant.

Social media also saw an out-pouring of support for the injured baby. Twitter users across the world posted pictures with their hands clasping their left eyes shut. “#BabyKarim I see you” and

“#EasternGhouta siege must end” became trending Twitter hashtags.

Statesmen and celebrities also joined in, including Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Britain’s UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, and French footballer Franck Ribery.

The evacuations are part of a Russian-brokered agreement between Syria’s Bashar Al Assad regime and armed opposition groups.

On February 24, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Reso-lution 2401, which called for a cease-fire in Syria — especially in Eastern Ghouta — to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Despite the resolution, however, early in March the regime and its allies launched a major ground offensive — backed by Russian air power — aimed at capturing oppo-sition-held parts of the district.

Since February 19, more than 1,400 people have been killed in attacks by the regime and its allies in Eastern Ghouta, according to local civil defense sources.

Home to some 400,000 resi-dents, the district has remained under a crippling regime siege for the last five years, which has pre-vented the delivery of badly needed humanitarian supplies.

Syria has been locked in a devas-tating conflict since early 2011 when the regime cracked down on demon-strators with unexpected ferocity.

According to UN officials, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict to date.

ERDAL TURKOGLU & SALIM TAS

ANATOLIA

QUOTE OF THE DAYThe United States and our partners

remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have

not already eradicated. We will continue to

consult with our allies and friends regarding

future plans.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders White House Spokeswoman

South Africa defends Winnie Mandela as hero

In life, Winnie Mandela was known as a brave anti-apartheid activist whose reputation was

badly tainted by criminal con-victions and thuggish gang violence.

But in death, her cheq-uered record has largely been forgiven in South Africa, with the president declaring 12 days of mourning and the gov-ernment accusing her critics of pushing an “apartheid-era narrative”.

Defending Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy has become a rallying call for South African politicians keen to tap into her radical, uncom-promising image that now resonates with many young black voters.

Soon after winnie’s death on Monday, media accounts of her life told how she was found guilty of kidnapping in a case where her bodyguards beat a 14-year-old boy to death in her home in 1988.

She was accused of running a mafia-style gang responsible for multiple murders and beatings in Soweto, and of endorsing “necklacing”—killing sus-pected informers with burning tires put over their heads. But

Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane said there was an “attempt to present the legacy of this great liberation struggle stalwart as a compromised and divisive history”.

Mokonyane accused critics of undermining winnie’s role in the fight against a “regime whose killing machinery found enemies in children and adults alike on the sole basis of them being black”. President Cyril Ramaphosa had earlier set the tone by hailing winnie as “an abiding symbol of the desire of our people to be free” and “a champion of justice and equality”.

He ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast until April 14, when she will be honoured with an official funeral at a huge sports stadium, complete with a cer-emonial military guard.

Not to be outdone in the outpouring of praise, the leader of the radical oppo-sition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party Julius Malema, attacked those who questioned winnie’s record.

”The least we can do is defend her in death and not allow the racists to insult her,” Malema said, standing outside her modest Soweto home. ”They fear her even in death

— that is why they continue to characterise her in a manner that we do not know.”

Winnie, who was divorced from South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela in 1996, was also convicted of fraud in 2003 over fake bank loan paperwork. One of the few prominent names to address the darker side of her past was former president Thabo Mbeki.

He told local media that she was “an outstanding activist”, but that she had made major mistakes when she ran the notoriously brutal gang called the “Mandela United Football Club”.

Mbeki said that remem-bering a national figure like winnie “includes discussing the negatives”—sparking fury from some mourning South Africans.

National press coverage has been largely adulatory since Winnie — often known as “Mama” and “Mother of the Nation”—died aged 81 at a Johannesburg hospital.

The popular middle-market Sowetan newspaper described her “a true struggle icon” but added that people should at least “reflect on the mistakes ‘Mama’ made in her life”. She “was no angel and was punished for her mis-

takes,” it concluded.Winnie’s life story was

certainly compelling and complex. She was South Africa’s first black university-educated social worker—but suffered beatings, detention and torture while her husband was in prison for decades.

The couple were famously pictured hand-in-hand when he emerged from prison, though they divorced soon after the triumphant 1994 elections.

At the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, she was repeatedly questioned by archbishop Desmond Tutu and publicly shamed over her links to gang violence. She remained active in politics until the end—still passionate, angry and divisive.

Since her death, a constant stream of mourners have headed to her house in Soweto, ranging from Ram-aphosa and ruling ANC party ministers to neighbours and old friends.

Scores of ANC women’s league members sang and chanted on the street outside in her honour. ”I think she’s a hero of the struggle. Period,” said her one-time lawyer Dikgang Moseneke. “Does she have limi-tations? All heroes do.”

AFP

Trump’s appointment of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, whom Moscow regards as arch Russia hawks, to key foreign policy posts last month has further soured the mood in Moscow, say analysts and people close to Russian decision makers. When it comes to the United States, these sources say Moscow is not willing to change course, make concessions or launch new initiatives.

11THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018 OPINION

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Lula: Brazil’s Schrodingercandidate

Russia short of foreign policy options if bet on Trump fails

DEBORAH BL FARIAS

AL JAZEERA

ANDREW OSBORN

REUTERS

Almost 100 years ago, phys-icist Erwin Schrodinger pro-posed a thought experiment in quantum physics. One of

the important points of the theo-retical experiment, which involves a cat in a box — along with a hammer, poison, Geiger counter, and a radio-active substance — is that one can

only know what happens to the cat after the box is open. Until then, the cat is equally living and dead. Bor-rowing from that idea, Brazil’s former President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva is then the Schrodinger’s candidate: inside a box where his candidacy is (metaphorically) both alive and defunct.

Brazilians will choose their new president in October. According to recent polls from Datafolha and CNT/MDA, Lula is a clear leader. However - and where the first possible dra-matic plot twist comes in — he might be in jail while running as a can-didate. Adding yet another layer of complexity, regardless of whether he is in jail or not, no one knows if Lula will be able to be on the ballot, or take office if he were to win.

The former president has been condemned for corruption changes

linked to the large-scale Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) investigation. He is cur-rently appealing the 12-year prison sentence and has denied all wrongdoings.

According to Brazilian electoral laws, particularly the “Clean Record Law” (Lei da Ficha Limpa) — which then President Lula himself sanc-tioned in 2010, a condemnation for crimes such as corruption and money laundering prohibits individuals from holding office.

However, as long as there are pending recourses, the law allows individuals to register their candidacy and campaign normally. Therefore, in theory, the former president could be allowed to run his bid for a new term until the very last opportunity to appeal exists.

Many legally plausible mind-bending possibilities could emerge between campaigning and first and second rounds of voting. To start, Lula might have his request for can-didacy rejected by the Electoral Court (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral), and not be allowed to be on the ballot at all — although he could appeal the decision.

In another possibility, he could be on the ballot and lead in the first round of voting but be found ineli-gible to participate in the runoff, in which case all votes for him could be declared invalid, and the second-most voted candidate could win the presidency. In the most dramatic twist possible (even for Latin telen-ovela standards), Lula could win in the first round and later on be barred from effectively taking office, in which case the entire presidential

election could be annulled.For the former president and his

supporters, the entire process is described as a sham to keep him out of the ballot and from returning to the presidency.

For his critics, not only is he guilty, but deeply embedded in the many corruption schemes uncovered by the investigations. It will most likely be up to the country’s supreme court to give the absolute final decision on his case, which should take place within the next months. No matter how the Court decides at the very end, there will be vociferous cheers and boos.

When Datafolha asked the ques-tioned “in your opinion, should Lula [sic] be able to run in this election?”, the division among Brazilians on Lula becomes evident: in a tech-nical tie, 51 percent said he should not be able to participate in the election, and 47 percent said he should (two percent did not know/answer). Raising up this topic in family gatherings or friendly get-togethers among Brazilians is a sure way to instigate anything between intense awkwardness, tears, and fist fights.

Still, all of these speculations become mute points if Lula decides to drop off the process altogether and indicate a “by-proxy” candidate to run on his behalf. One can only wait and see what the next chapters of this Made in Brazil soap opera will reveal.

The writer holds a PhD in Political Science (UBC - Canada) and a BA in Law (UNIFOR - Brazil).

Russia long saw Donald Trump as the wild card in its strategy to improve relations with the United States. But 14 months

after he became US president, Moscow is close to viewing him as a busted flush, unable to enact his pledge for better ties.

Trump reluctantly signed off on new sanctions against Moscow last summer over allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Last week he backed the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closure of Russia’s Seattle con-sulate over the poisoning of an ex-Russian agent in Britain.

After betting the farm on Trump, Russia has seen relations with the West sink so low that there is talk of a new Cold War. President Vladimir Putin’s options for a change of strategy, banking less on Trump and his ability to sway those around him on Russia, is severely limited as he prepares for a new term.

One option being explored is to try to widen splits in the West by courting France and Germany. Another is to draw closer to China and India. But the relationship with Washington is still seen in Moscow as central to Russian foreign policy.

“Washington has become fixated with the fight against a non-existent, so-called Russian threat,” Sergei Nary-shkin, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency chief, said on Wednesday. “This has reached such proportions and acquired such absurd characteristics that it’s possible to speak of a return to the dark times of the Cold War.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier this week that the standoff was worse than during the

Cold War between East and West after World War Two. “...Then some kind of rules and appearances were kept up. Now, as I see it, our Western partners ... have cast aside all proprieties,” Lavrov said.

The Cold War saw the Soviet Union square off against the United States, with the threat of nuclear war hanging over the world until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But the standoff was kept under control by arms treaties, superpower summits and both proscribed and informal rules of engagement.

The new standoff, raw and unpre-dictable, has been likened to a “fight without rules” by Konstantin Kosachev, head of the upper house of Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee. The risk of miscommuni-cation, miscalculation and sudden escalation into a hot war is higher than during the original Cold War, he says.

Trump’s appointment of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, whom Moscow regards as arch Russia hawks, to key foreign policy posts last month has further soured the mood in Moscow, say analysts and people close to Russian decision makers.

When it comes to the United States, these sources say Moscow is not willing to change course, make con-cessions or launch new initiatives.

Russia will therefore continue to engage only if and when the United States is ready to do so, and, if faced with more hostile action — such as further diplomatic expulsions — will respond in kind, the people close to decision makers say.

“All we can do is keep the doors open for negotiation and wait and see what will happen. That’s

the predominant view,” said Andrey Kortunov, head of a think-tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In particular, Moscow is keeping the door open to a possible summit between Trump and Putin, an idea floated by Trump, and is also keen for US-Russia talks on strategic nuclear stability to avoid a costly arms race.

But its baseline scenario is a downward spiral in ties. “Washington is the standard bearer of a new Cold War,” Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy expert close to the Kremlin, wrote in government daily Rossi-yskaya Gazeta after last week’s US dip-lomatic expulsions.

“There’s no point in hoping for an improvement in ties or any progress in any area for the foreseeable future,” said Lukyanov, who has warned the Russian elite to brace for sweeping Iran-style financial sanctions.

While better ties with the United States are seen as a remote possibility, improved relations with France and Germany are seen as “more interesting opportunities for political investment,” said Kortunov.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised France’s “constructive position” after Paris confirmed French President Emmanuel Macron would still visit Russia in May despite ten-sions. Alexei Pushkov, a senator spe-cialising in foreign policy, has lauded German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to back Russia’s proposed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

The planned pipeline will connect Germany and Russia, despite concerns from other EU nations who fear it will harm the bloc’s energy security.

Lukyanov said Moscow should look to beef up ties with Beijing and Delhi as they had “freedom to manoeuvre” on the world stage and were not vulnerable to Western pressure on Russia.

Moscow believes the only wild card it has with Washington is Trump who, in Russian eyes, appears to have been playing a game of good cop bad cop, offering Russia a glimmer of hope, while Congress and his administration read Russia the riot act.

Russia casts Trump as a hostage of the US political establishment who it accuses of reducing his room for manoeuvre by boxing him in with the special investigation into his asso-ciates’ possible collusion with Moscow and what Russia says are false allega-tions it meddled in US politics.

Its disappointment with Trump has unfolded in stages. Trump’s decision to launch a missile strike against a Syrian air base, drop a large bomb in Afghan-istan in an attack on Islamic militants and stick with Obama-era policies over Russia’s annexation of the Crimea

For the former president and his supporters, the entire process is described as a sham to keep him out of the ballot and from returning to the presidency. For his critics, not only is he guilty, but deeply embedded in the many corruption schemes uncovered by the investigations.

region from Ukraine, and, until recently, his tough talk on North Korea, went down badly in Moscow. And initial euphoria over his victory gave way to dismay last summer when the man they hoped would end US sanctions reluctantly rein-forced the penalties. His decision to back the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats over the Skripal affair was a new inflection point.

“Increasingly, diplomacy is becoming irrelevant in Russian-US relations,” Dmitri Trenin, a former colonel in the Russian army and director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said of the move. “It seems to be the time to hit, retaliate, prepare for a fight.”

Trump’s approval of the expul-sions was seen as a bad omen for his relationship with Putin by an online Russian newspaper viewed as close to the Russian presidential adminis-tration. “If 14 months after taking office Trump has not won himself freedom of manoeuvre, it’s very hard to count on him getting it in what’s left of his presidential time,” wrote Vzglyad.

Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Putin after the Russian leader’s re-election, his talk of a US-Russia summit in the same call, and his statement on Tuesday saying it would be “a great thing” if he had a “very good relationship” with Putin have provided small shards of hope to Moscow.

“In theory, one can imagine that if President Trump somehow clears himself of the allegations of col-lusion with Russia .. he might get out of the cage and exercise a little bit more autonomy in rebuilding this relationship,” said Kortunov, the think-tank head close to the Foreign Ministry. “But these hopes are very slim.”

12 THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

One year on, West vows Assad will pay for sarin attackAFP

WASHINGTON: A year after the rebel-held Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun was attacked with sarin, the United States and its European allies vowed that Bashar Al Assad will be held to account.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and the United States also sternly crit-icized Russia for failing to strip its ally of his deadly chemical arsenal. “Today marks one year since the heinous attack... where Assad’s forces unleashed sarin nerve gas with tragic con-sequences for hundreds of men, women and children,” they said.

“We condemn the use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere,” said foreign min-isters Boris Johnson, Jean-Yves Le Drian and Heiko Maas and US Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan.

“We are committed to ensuring that all those respon-sible are held to account. We will not rest in our efforts to seek justice for the victims of these abhorrent attacks in Syria.”

At around 7am on April 4, 2017, an air strike hit Khan Sheikun, a small town in north-western Syria held by rebel fighters opposed to Assad’s Russian-backed regime. According to a UN-commis-sioned report, many residents

of the town suffered the symptoms of an attack from an illegal nerve agent and more than 80 or them died, con-vulsed in agony.

US President Donald Trump responded to the attack three days later, when US vessels in the Mediterranean fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase.

But Assad has denied ordering the attack and Russia has continued to give him dip-lomatic cover at the United Nations, despite having agreed to help remove his banned weapons. “In 2013, Russia promised to ensure Syria would abandon all of its chemical weapons,” the ministers said.

“Since then, international investigators mandated by the UN Security Council have found the Assad regime responsible for using poison gas in four sep-arate attacks.

FROM LEFT: Presidents Hassan Rowhani of Iran, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Vladimir Putin of Russia during a joint news conference after their meeting in Ankara, Turkey, yesterday.

Turkey, Russia and Iran urge lasting truce in SyriaAFP

ANKARA: Turkey, Russia and Iran yesterday said they were committed to achieving a “lasting ceasefire” in Syria, in a joint statement issued following a summit in Ankara hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rowhani and Russia’s Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their commitment to cooperating for “the achievement of a lasting ceasefire between the conflicting parties”, a joint communique said.

The three powers have been working together to speed up the process of finding a political solution in Syria as part of the Astana peace process which began last year.

The Ankara summit at Erdogan’s presi-dential palace was the second such tripartite summit following one in November 2017 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi hosted by Putin.

Erdogan insisted their meetings and the

Astana talks were not an “alternative” to the UN-backed Geneva process to find peace in Syria. But the three leaders said “the Astana format had been the only effective international initiative that had helped reduce violence across Syria and had contributed to peace and stability in” the country.

They added that it had given “impetus to the Geneva process in order to find a lasting political solution to the Syrian conflict” in the statement. “What is foremost for us is getting results. We must get results. We have no tol-erance for delays. People are dying here,” Erdogan told reporters after the summit. The three countries have been working together despite being on opposing sides of the civil war.

Russia and Iran have provided military and political support to the regime of Syrian Pres-ident Bashar Al Assad while Turkey has repeatedly called for his removal and helped Syrian opposition fighters.

Libya court acquits Saadi Gaddafi of murdering football coachAFP

TRIPOLI: Tripoli’s court of appeals has acquitted Saadi Gaddafi, a son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, of murdering a football coach in 2005, a judicial source said yesterday.

The court’s criminal chamber acquitted Saadi Gaddafi of charges of “vol-untary homicide”, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The former ruler’s son was accused of murdering Bashir Al Rayani, a former footballer and coach of Tripoli’s Al Ittihad football club, where Gaddafi played, in 2005.

The judicial source added that the ministry of justice asked the supreme court yes-terday to submit an update on the other cases involving Kadhafi.

Extradited from Niger on March 6, 2014, Gaddafi is also being tried, among others, for alleged involvement in the deadly crackdown on the revolt that toppled his father’s regime in 2011. The case has repeatedly been postponed.

Rayani’s son, Ali, took to local media to denounce the court’s ruling, saying his family would appeal the decision “until justice is served”. “The case is clear. All the evidence and tes-timony confirm the respon-sibility of Saadi Gaddafi,” Ali Al Rayani told the 218News channel.

“How is it possible that a criminal whose culpability is confirmed by concrete evi-dence can be acquitted... It’s impossible!” he said.

“We could not get justice under his father’s regime, we will get it now, I’m confident!” Of Gaddafi’s seven sons, three died were killed during the uprising, as was their father.

Liberian Minister steps aside in oil probeAFP

MONROVIA: Liberia’s justice minister yesterday announced he would step aside from a probe into a contested oil deal, as he used to be head of the country’s national oil company.

Frank Musa Dean had been appointed to head the probe just six days earlier by Liberia’s newly-elected president, George Weah, who has vowed to crack down on corruption.

In a statement, Dean said

he had decided to step aside from the probe -- initiated by an undercover investigation by the NGO Global Witness -- in the interests of transparency.

“The decision to recuse myself is based on the fact that I served as President and Chief Executive Officer of NOCAL [the National Oil Company of Liberia] between 2004 and January 2006,” he said.

The controversy stems from a deal in 2013, when the US oil major Exxon Mobil paid $68.m

(¤55.73m) for a licence to exploit a Liberian oilfield called Block 13.

It bought Block 13 from a company called Broadway Con-solidated/Peppercoast (BCP), which had initially been awarded the licence from NOCAL in 2005.

In a report released on March 29, Global Witness said it had evidence that in 2005 BCP was part-owned at the time by Liberia’s minister for mining and a deputy minister — a breach of Liberian law.

Decision made on Syria pullout, announcement soon: Top US officialAFP

WASHINGTON: The United States has reached a decision on a possible with-drawal of troops from Syria, the top US intelligence official said yesterday, adding an announcement was imminent.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said President Donald Trump took part in “a significant discussion” with his national security team on the US commitment in Syria at the White House.

“There will be a statement shortly relative to the decision that was made,” Coats said at a breakfast with defense reporters. President Donald Trump said he wants American troops to “get out” of Syria, even as top US officials stressed the need to stay for the long term.

“Our primary mission in terms of Syria was getting rid of ISIS,” Trump said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.

“We’ve almost completed that task. And we’ll be making a decision very quickly in coordination with others in the area as to what we’ll do.”

But at the same time Trump was speaking at a news conference with Baltic leaders, the top commander for the war against IS signaled different views. General Joe Votel, who leads the military’s Central Command, suggested the US should play a long-term role in Syria in terms of stabilizing the areas freed from IS occupation.

“The hard part I think is in front of us and that is stabilizing these areas, consolidating our gains, getting people back into their homes, addressing the long term issues of reconstruction and other things that will have to be done,” Votel said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.

“Of course there is a military role in this, certainly in the stabilization phase,” he added.

Israeli rights group urges soldiers to refuse orders in GazaAP

JERUSALEM: A leading Israel human rights group urged Israeli forces in a rare step yesterday to disobey open-fire orders unless Gaza protesters pose an imminent threat to soldiers’ lives.

B’Tselem said the appeal is a last-ditch attempt to prevent more bloodshed on the volatile Gaza-Israel border.

Nineteen Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since last Friday, including 14 in border protests. More large dem-onstrations are expected along the border this Friday.

B’Tselem has never before called on soldiers to refuse orders, but believes firing on Pal-estinians who pose no imminent threat to the lives of Israeli forces is “manifestly illegal,” said spokesman Amit Gilutz.

“As long as soldiers in the field continue to receive orders to use live fire against unarmed civilians, they are duty-bound to refuse to comply,” the group said.

The Israeli military has said its tough response is justified because the protests were organised by Hamas.

It said soldiers only targeted “instigators” who burned tires or threw stones and firebombs toward the border fence. The military accused Hamas of using the large crowds as cover to carry out attacks.

In one instance, a pair of gunmen approached the border, and the army said protesters also tried to plant explosives along the fence in several instances.

But in other incidents, some caught on video, those shot appeared to have been unarmed

and not actively involved in vio-lence at the time they were struck.

B’Tselem said that while Israel has the right to defend its border, it is still bound by inter-national norms for the use of live fire. The group said that simply approaching the fence, and even damaging it, does not provide grounds for using lethal force, and that Israel had other options

for dispersing the crowds.Yesterday, the head of the

Arab League called on the Inter-national Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate the deaths of Palestinians killed in Gaza since Friday. Ahmed Aboul-Gheit also said he supports a call by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for an independent investigation of the events on the border. Hamas is organising six

weeks of on-and-off border pro-tests in what it says is a campaign to draw attention to a crippling border blockade.

Both Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 in an attempt to weaken the militant group. But the measures have devastated Gaza’s economy, while failing to oust Hamas.

At around 7am on April 4, 2017, an air strike hit Khan Sheikun, a small town in northwestern Syria held by rebel fighters opposed to Assad’s Russian-backed regime, killing over 80. According to a UN-commissioned report, many residents of the town suffered the symptoms of an attack from an illegal nerve agent.

Buhari approves $1bn for weapons purchaseAGENCIES

LAGOS: Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari gave approval to the military to make weapons purchases worth $1bn to enable Africa’s most populous country to tackle rising insecurity, Defense Minister Mansur Dan Ali said.

The decision to acquire new weapons was announced after Buhari met with security chiefs in the capital, Abuja, to review cases of violent unrest and conflicts in different parts of the country, Ali said in an emailed statement yesterday.

The President met with Security Chiefs at the State House, Abuja after cancelling the weekly Federal Executive Council.

JOHANNESBURG: The South African government yesterday condemned the latest incidents of violence carried out by Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip that claimed more than a dozen Palestinian lives. In a statement, Foreign Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said actions of the Israeli armed forces present another obstacle to a permanent resolution to the conflict.

“South Africa reiterates its view that the Israeli Defense Force must withdraw from the Gaza Strip and bring to an end the violent and destructive incursions into Palestinian territories,” Sisulu said.

South Africa condemns Israeli attack

A Palestinian youth collects money in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday, as a tent protest continues in support of Palestinian refugees returning to lands they fled or were expelled from during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Elegant display Visitors look at a display inside the National Museum in New Delhi, yesterday.

13THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018 ASIA

Myanmar Minister to visit Rohingya camps in BangladeshAFP

DHAKA: A Myanmar minister will tour camps for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an official said yesterday, the first such visit since Myanmar’s army drove nearly 700,000 members of the Muslim minority over the border.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Min-istry confirmed that Myanmar’s social welfare, relief and reset-tlement minister Win Myat Aye would visit the congested camps, which are home to nearly one million Rohingya refugees in total. “His pro-gramme has not been fixed yet,” Tareque Muhammad, a Director-General at the Foreign Ministry, said. The visit is slated for April 11 or 12.

US and UN officials say the military crackdown which began last August in the mainly Buddhist nation, purportedly to flush out guerrillas, amounted to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. Another Bangladeshi official said it would be the first visit by a Myanmar minister to

the camps, which have shel-tered Rohingya refugees since the early 1990s, for more than a decade.

Win Myat Aye is the Deputy Head of a task force led by Aung San Suu Kyi on the crisis in Rakhine state, and a top official overseeing a stalled agreement with Bangladesh to repatriate some 750,000 refugees.

Myanmar has approved several hundred Rohingya from a list of thousands to return to their homeland but not a single one has yet crossed back.

Meanwhile Myanmar authorities are accused of bull-dozing Rohingya villages in Rakhine and seeking to erase evidence at sites where their troops are accused of atrocities. Myanmar has denied the charge but blocked investigators from visiting an area where thou-sands of Rohingya are believed to have been killed.

Even before the latest influx began last August, the camps in southeast Bangladesh were home to roughly 300,000 Rohingya.

New York returns stolen idols to NepalAFP

KATHMANDU: A pair of rare idols stolen from Nepal three decades ago were returned to the country yesterday by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The two statues — one of Buddha and the other of the Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati — were stolen in the 1980s when rampant looting saw many important artifacts whisked out of Nepal and into the hands of private collectors.

“The government was unaware of the whereabouts of the statues until historian Lain Singh Bangdel men-tioned (in a book) that the statues were on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,” Shyam Sundar Rajbanshi of Nepal’s Department of Archaeology said.

The 11th-century Shiva statue, known as the Uma Maheshwor idol, was given to the Met in 1983 while the Buddha -- estimated to be around 700 years old -- was donated by a private collector in 2015. The two statues were removed from display after the Met learned they were stolen, local media reported.

The statues will now be showcased at the National Museum of Nepal in the capital Kathmandu, Rajbanshi confirmed. Nepal’s rich cul-tural heritage was ravaged by decades of theft from the 1960s to 1980s. Natural dis-asters and unchecked devel-opment also encroached on ancient sites.A devastating earthquake in April 2015 caused extensive damage in the Kathmandu Valley, home to hundreds of sacred Bud-dhist and Hindu sites.

Scribes ask Myanmar to dismiss case against them AP

MYANMAR: Lawyers for two journalists detained in Myanmar asked a court yesterday to dismiss the case against them, saying the evidence doesn’t support the charges.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo face possible charges under the Official Secrets Act, a law dating

from British colonial times. If convicted, they could get up to 14 years in prison.

Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested on December 12, with police accusing them of violating the law by acquiring “important secret papers” handed them by two policemen who worked in troubled Rakhine state. Security

forces there have been accused of serious human rights viola-tions against the persecuted ethnic Rohingya Muslims. The court is currently holding pre-liminary hearings, in which the judge can dismiss the charges. It has drawn global attention with high-profile rights lawyer Amal Clooney announcing last week she’s taking it on.

HRD Ministry forms panel to study CBSE exam processIANS

NEW DELHI: In the backdrop of the Class 12 economics question paper leak, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has set up a seven-member committee to examine the board’s examination process.

The committee constituted

on Tuesday and headed by former HRD Secretary Vinay Sheel Oberoi will examine the conduct of Class 10 and Class 12 examinations by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in order to prevent leak of question papers and revisit all aspects related to security checks built into the system to ensure

question papers reach examinees without tampering, a Ministry statement said.

It will also suggest measures to make the examination process “secure and foolproof through the use of technology”. The panel will submit a report by May 31 to the Ministry. Other members are former CBSE Controller of

Examination Pavnesh Kumar, former NCERT Director J S Rajput, Mumbai-based SNDT Women’s University’s former Vice Chancellor Vasudha Kamat, former Education Director (Uttar Pradesh) Krishna Mohan Tri-pathy, senior representative of Director General (National Infor-mation Centre) and the Joint

Secretary (SE-II). The committee will examine/assess potential weakness in the present system of transporting question papers from the printing presses till they reach the examination halls.

The committee will suggest ways for more secure system through technology use and minimal human intervention.

The CBSE came under wide-spread attack after the economic question paper was leaked, affecting lakhs of students. The government announced a re-examination of CBSE Class 12 economics paper on April 25. But it ruled out any re-test for Class 10 mathematics paper, which too was said to have been leaked.

Modi hits out at Congress for politics in Ambedkar’s nameIANS

NEW DELHI: Amid simmering Dalit anger across the country over a Supreme Court ruling, Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday took a dig at the Congress for playing politics in B R Ambedkar’s name and said no other government had honoured the Dalit icon like his.

Modi said his government gave Ambedkar, one of the main authors of India’s Constitution, his rightful place and completed projects in his memory that were ignored by the previous government.

He said the 26, Alipur Road house where Ambedkar breathed his past would be ded-icated to the nation as Ambedkar National Memorial a day before his birth anniversary on April 14.

Speaking at an event to mark the inauguration of Western Court Annexe meant to house MPs in Parliament complex, Modi said it was the Atal Bihari Vajpayee gov-ernment that decided to ded-icate two memorials to Ambedkar at two places in the capital.

Without naming the Con-gress-led UPA, he said it could not happen as the governments that followed Vajpayee showed little interest, ignored Ambedkar and his contributions and delayed the project for years.

“After that, the governments ran like that... Everybody is always ready to do politics in the name of Babasahib. But nobody gave him the kind of respect and paid tributes to him as much as this government did,” the Prime Minister said.

He said his government was walking the path shown by Ambedkar and asked every political group to try and do the same for the country’s

development.“At the core of Ambedkar’s

ideals is harmony and togeth-erness. Working for the poorest of the poor is our mission.” The remarks came days after at least nine people were killed in wide-spread violence during protests by Dalit groups across the country against a Supreme Court ruling that diluted provi-sions of a law aimed at pre-venting atrocities against Dalits and tribes.

The rising public anger against the Supreme Court ruling forced the government to file a petition, seeking a review of the order. The top court on Tuesday refused to stay its March 20 decision but said it would hear the petition in 10 days.

The government had come under sharp attack of the oppo-sition with Congress President Rahul Gandhi saying that being anti-Dalit was in the DNA of the BJP and RSS.

Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at Modi and said the Prime Min-ister was “not uttering a word” on the alleged atrocities on Dalits and tribals in the country.

Modi said his government gave Ambedkar, one of the main authors of India’s Constitution, his rightful place and completed projects in his memory that were ignored by the previous government.

13 opposition parties meet IANS

NEW DELHI: Leaders of 13 opposition parties met here yesterday and urged the government and the presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to allow discussion on issues being raised by them, saying they were willing to

extend the Budget Session to pass the government’s legis-lative agenda.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, accom-panied by leaders of several other parties, said it was the duty of the opposition to raise concerns of people in

Parliament and the government should allow debate. The parties that attended the meeting were the Congress, SP, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Aam Aadmi Party, CPI, CPI-M, DMK, Jarkhand Mukti Morcha, Bahujan Samaj Party, IUML, Kerala Congress-M and Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Sri Lankan PM easily overcomes no-faith vote AP

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister comfortably overcame a no-faith vote yesterday, strengthening his hand within the unity government formed by parties traditionally opposed to each other.

The motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe brought by lawmakers sup-porting the country’s former

strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa and debated in Parliament received 76 votes in favour and 122 against. Twenty-six law-makers were absent during the vote and the speaker doesn’t usually vote.

The vote is unlikely to resolve intra-government ten-sions after some Cabinet min-isters representing Sirisena’s party voted for Wickremesin-ghe’s ouster.

Cabinet spokesman Rajith Senaratne told reporters after the vote that members would not allow some 15 lawmakers - some of them Cabinet ministers who voted for Wickremesinghe’s ouster - to continue in the gov-ernment. The main allegation against Wickremesinghe involved his appointment of a Singaporean as the central bank governor who is now accused of leaking inside information to

benefit his son-in-law in a treasury bond sale.

Sri Lankan police have sought Interpol assistance to arrest Arjun Mahendran, the former bank governor. His son-in-law and another official are already under arrest. According to a presidential commission’s findings, Mahendran’s son-in-law allegedly made profits of $72m from the dealings while the state lost about $55m. A victory

for the no-faith motion would have boosted Rajapaksa’s push to recapture power. Opposition lawmaker Dinesh Gunawardena opened the debate on the motion, saying Wickremesinghe was responsible for the scam because he appointed a foreigner to head a sensitive institution such as the central bank, and that its impact has been felt in the country’s economy, with low investor confidence.

Detained Reuters journalist Wa Lone is escorted by police after a court hearing in Yangon, Myanmar, yesterday.

Rhythmic display

14 THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018ASIA

Milli MuslimLeague to field poll candidates REUTERS

KARACHI: A Pakistani political party placed on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations vowed yesterday to continue its political activities and partic-ipate in upcoming elections.

The Milli Muslim League (MML) is controlled by Islamist leader Hafiz Saeed, who has a $10m US bounty on his head. The group shot to prominence after fielding a candidate in a September 2017 by-election to fill a seat vacated by deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The US State Department on Tuesday termed MML an alias for militant organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Army of the Pure, blamed for a bloody 2008 attack in India.

“We clearly state that on US announcements we will not dis-continue our political activities at any cost,” MML President Saifullah Khalid said, reading from a statement in Karachi.

“Milli Muslim League will fully participate in the 2018 elections and will field candi-dates from across Pakistan.” Saeed is the founder of LeT, which is also on the US terrorist list and blamed by the United States and India for a four-day militant attack on Mumbai in 2008 in which 166 people were killed. Saeed has repeatedly

denied involvement in the attack. The party was subse-quently barred from partici-pating in polls by Pakistan’s electoral commission, a decision that was overturned by the courts.

“We have confidence in our higher judiciary... MML will be registered and it will emerge as a big national party in future,” Khalid said.

Khalid termed the US decision a violation of basic human rights and an open intervention in Pakistan’s internal affairs, asking for the State Department to bring evi-dence before the courts.

“Make no mistake: whatever LeT chooses to call itself, it remains a violent ter-rorist group. The United States supports all efforts to ensure that LeT does not have a political voice until it gives up violence as a tool of influence,” the US State Department said in a statement.

Traditional music instruments, locally known as Rabab, are seen hanging for sale at a workshop in Peshawar, yesterday.

Anger grows in Afghanistan over seminary bombingANATOLIA

AFGHANISTAN: The reported killings of dozens of civilians in Monday’s air raid on a reli-gious seminary by Afghan forces have sparked an outcry in the country.

As the government promised to thoroughly inves-tigate the deadly incident in northern Kunduz province’s Dasht-e-Archi district, Hezb-e-Islami party led by former

Mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar yesterday labeled the air raid as “in-human war crime.”

The Afghan officials insist the raid only killed suspected militants. But local media outlets said over 100 civilians were killed in the deadly air raid on the religious seminary, which was adjacent to a mosque, in the Taliban-con-trolled area of Dasht-e-Archi district.

“The entire Afghan nation believe that blasts in cities and mosques, targeted killing of Ulema (religious scholars] and Jihadi leaders, bombardment on seminaries was carried out from one address that wanted the continuation of war and considered peace something against their interests,” the Hezb-e-Islami noted blaming elements within the gov-ernment for fueling the conflict.

According to the Afghan military, an alleged gathering of the Taliban’s Quetta Shura had been hit during an air raid this morning in Dasht-e-Archi district. “In the air raids by the Afghan Air Force at around 11am, 15 Taliban terrorists, including a member of the Quetta Shura, Mawlawi Baryal, were killed and 10 others wounded,” the statement said about Monday’s deadly raid.The images of children from

the religious ceremony at the facility in Dasht-e-Archi wearing traditional turbans and the ones after the raid with blood-littered bodies have been widely circulated on the social media.

Angry Afghans have blasted the Kabul government and its western-backers on the social media while the local print media has dubbed the lethal bombing in a public place as a “catastrophic mistake”.

Hundreds stage sit-in supporting radical clericAP

LAHORE: About a thousand supporters of a radical Paki-stani cleric have staged a sit-in in Lahore after a court declared him a fugitive over violent rallies in Islamabad last year, in which five people were killed.

Yesterday’s sit-in was organised by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a controversial cleric who led rallies in Islamabad in November, forcing the then law minister to quit over an omitted reference to Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) in a parliamentary bill.

That protest disrupted life in Islamabad for three weeks and ended with an accord with the government fol-lowing clashes with police.

Authorities then assured Rizvi that action would be taken against those respon-sible for mistakes in the bill.

Now, an Islamabad court wants Rizvi to be tried for provoking the violence.

INTERNEWS

KARACHI: Pakistanis are nostalgic about the past as much as they are optimistic about the future, reveal the findings of a Herald survey presented in a special publication that hits the market today along with the magazine’s April 2018 issue.

A vast majority of those interviewed for this survey believe that ten major fields of national life such as economy, foreign affairs, strategic affairs, human rights, religion, arts and culture, media, law and justice, governance and politics were

best handled by the government jointly headed by Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan.

The survey respondents have also given higher approval ratings to elected governments on most counts as compared to the military regimes.

While they have also acknowledged the issues that Pakistan continues to grapple with as a young developing state, most of them feel they are on a slow but steady upward path to a better life.

More than 55 percent of them feel their lives have

improved in economic terms as compared to those of their parents and grandparents, with an even greater number of people expressing satisfaction in this regard in rural areas than in urban ones. Predictably, such numbers are higher for Punjab than for the other provinces.

The survey, conducted in 70 selected districts during July-November 2017, asked 70 dif-ferent questions from 7,000 Pakistanis, who represent all the four provinces as well as Fed-erally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Islamabad, of dif-ferent genders & localities.

Pakistanis optimistic about future: Survey

Turkish minister hails Azerbaijan’s anti-terror effortsANATOLIA

AZERBAIJAN: Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul yesterday praised Azerbaijan’s efforts in countering terrorism.

Speaking to reporters during his visit to Azerbaijan, Gul said the fight against terrorist groups — including Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) — was among the top agenda items during his meetings in Baku.

“Our Azerbaijani brothers have always stood by Turkey

during its fight against FETO and other terrorist groups during Operation Olive Branch [in Syria], that is, all kinds of ter-rorist groups,” the minister said.

FETO orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 in Turkey, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured. Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particu-larly the military, police, and

judiciary. “They are proud of success of our soldiers,” Gul said, adding that Turkey wants to diversify and strengthen bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan.

On Tuesday, Gul met his Azerbaijani counterpart Fikret Memmedov as part of his official visit to the country.

Justice Minister Gul also met Azerbaijan’s President of the Court of Cassation Ramiz Rzayev. Turkey on Jan. 20 launched Operation Olive Branch to clear terrorist groups

from Afrin, northwestern Syria, near Turkey’s border, amid growing threats from the region.

On March 18, Turkish-backed troops liberated the town of Afrin, which had been a major hideout for the terrorist organ-ization PYD/PKK since 2012.

The Turkish Armed Forces are working to restore normal daily life in Afrin by providing necessary humanitarian aid to the region. A total of 1,096 ter-rorists were “neutralised” in March as part of the operation.

UN expresses concern over Australia’s move to cut service in NauruAFP

GENEVA: The United Nations sounded an alarm yesterday over Australia’s decision to stop providing services to migrants detained on the island of Nauru, saying the move would put vulnerable people at heightened risk.

Nauru is among the island nations involved in Canberra’s policy of offshore processing for refugees and asylum seekers that try to reach Australia.

Australia had previously taken responsibility for pro-viding basic care for migrants held on the island but has decided to let Nauru’s author-ities take over, with some financial support from Can-berra. The UN refugee agency’s chief for Asia and the Pacific, Indrika Ratwatte, told reporters that he had “deep concern” over the transfer of services.

He said it was vital that “adequate services are provided by trained, qualified indi-viduals, particularly in mental health.” Ratwatte, who recently visited the island, reported that 80 percent of migrants detained there have been clinically diag-nosed with post-traumatic

stress disorder, trauma and depression.

While they are already lacking “adequate care,” Rat-watte said their plight could worsen if Nauru’s authorities take charge without being properly supported.

Meanwhile, Nauru has also abolished links with Australia’s highest court, which for four decades had been the final venue for migrants looking to appeal against adverse rulings on asylum claims.

Nauru has pledged to set up its own local court of appeals, but activists warn that in the interim asylum-seekers will be deprived of basic legal rights.

Ratwatte said any legal “gap” was worrying.

“Until such time that Nauru has established a process where appeal can be effectively heard, I think Australia should con-tinue to have that facility open,” he said. More than 300 men, women and children are being held in a camp on Nauru, according to recent Australian immigration detention figures.

The group includes nationals of multiple countries, including Afghanistan, Iran and Myanmar.

IANS

JALALABAD: At least four militants of the Islamic State group were killed following an air strike by the US and Nato-led coalition forces’ unmanned plane in Afghan-istan, authorities said yesterday.

The strike occurred at around mid-day on Tuesday after the plane targeted an IS hideout in Nangarhar, Xinhua news agency reported. It said that weapons and ammu-nition of the insurgents were also destroyed.

4 IS militants killed in Afghanistan

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa (third left) speaks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (third right) during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, yesterday. Mnangagwa is on a visit to China to seek economic support from a major partner that previously backed his ousted predecessor Robert Mugabe.

China-Zimbabwe ties

“We clearly state that on US announcements we will not discontinue our political activities at any cost,” MML President Saifullah Khalid said.

Next govt likely to raise up to $7bn from IMFINTERNEWS

K A R A C H I : Pakistani government-to-be after the elections this year will have limited options to ease external account pressures and a timely one would be to raise another six to seven billion dollars from IMF a sine qua non to reintroduce financial discipline into the economy, a brokerage said on Wednesday.

Topline Securities said the government has three options to come out of morass created by weak foreign exchange reserves position as well as widening current account deficit. Foreign exchange reserves fell to three-year low of $11.8bn as of March 22 compared with $16.1bn in the beginning of July 2017. Current account deficit is esti-mated to close at 5.1 percent of GDP in the current year.

15THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018 ASIA

Row over Seoul’s AI weapon labREUTERS

BERLIN: Over 50 top artificial intelligence researchers yesterday announced a boycott of KAIST, South Korea’s top university, after it opened what they called an AI weapons lab with one of South Korea’s largest companies.

The researchers, based in 30 countries, said they would refrain from visiting KAIST, hosting visitors from the uni-versity, or cooperating with its research programmes until it pledged to refrain from devel-oping AI weapons without “meaningful human control”.

KAIST opened the new centre in February, with Hanwha Systems, one of two South Korean makers of cluster munitions, saying they would focus on using AI for command and control systems, navigation for large unmanned undersea vehicles, smart aircraft training and tracking and recognition of objects.

No comment was immedi-ately available from the uni-versity or the company outside of regular business hours about the boycott or the work of their Research Centre for the Conver-gence of National Defence and Artificial Intelligence.

However, in a statement quoted by Britain’s Times Higher Education magazine website

yesterday, KAIST president Sung-Chul Shin said he was “saddened” by the threatened boycott and denied the insti-tution had any intention to work on lethal autonomous weapons systems.

“The centre aims to develop algorithms on efficient logistical systems, unmanned navigation (and an) aviation training system,” he was quoted as saying. “KAIST will be responsible for educating the researchers and providing consultation.”

Hanwha says on its website: “The goal is to accelerate research into the convergence of national defence and AI technology through this industry-university collaborative partnership.”

It was not immediately clear how the boycott would affect KAIST, or how many academic exchanges would be derailed.

The boycott was organised

by Toby Walsh, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

“If developed, autonomous weapons will ... permit war to be fought faster and at a scale great than ever before. They will have the potential to be weapons of terror,” the researchers said, citing effective bans on previous arms technol-ogies. “We urge KAIST to follow this path, and work instead on uses of AI to improve and not harm human lives.”

AI is the field in computer science that aims to create machines able to perceive the environment and make decisions.

The letter, also signed by top experts on deep learning and robotics, was released ahead of next Monday’s meeting in Geneva by 123 UN member countries on the challenges posed by lethal autonomous weapons, which critics describe as “killer robots”.

Walsh said there were many potential good uses of robotics and artificial intelligence in the military, including removing humans from dangerous task such as clearing minefields.

“But we should not hand over the decision of who lives or dies to a machine. This crosses a clear moral line,” he said. “We should not let robots decide who lives and who dies.”

The researchers, based in 30 countries, said they would refrain from visiting KAIST or cooperating with its research programmes until it pledged to refrain from developing AI weapons without “meaningful human control”.

Malaysian PM vows wage increase for civil servantsREUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Najib Razak promised yesterday a $378.04m in salary hikes to Malaysia’s civil servants, a key vote bank for the ruling coalition in a looming general election.

Malaysia’s 1.6 million civil servants, most of them ethnic Malays, have traditionally been supporters of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. However, the rising cost of living has been a concern for many, with some ruling party officials warning that they could turn against the party if the issue is not addressed.

Scandal-plagued Najib needs to consolidate support for his coalition to stave off an unprecedented challenge from his former mentor turned opposition leader, Mahathir Mohamad.

“The government has agreed to increase the salaries amounting to one service year for all 1.6 million civil servants ... with an additional 1.46 billion ringgit from July 1,” Najib told a gathering of civil servants in the

administrative capital, Putrajaya.Najib promised a one-time

cash payment of $387 in October for civil servants and $193 for government retirees as part of the government’s 2018 budget.

Civil servants saw a salary hike between 7 and 13 percent in 2012 ahead of elections the following year.

Najib faces a tough contest in the upcoming polls amid a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB. Najib and the fund have denied any wrongdoing.

Parliament approved a plan last week to redraw electoral boundaries, a move that the opposition and critics say will help Najib’s coalition retain power.

Borneo oil spill prompts state of emergency APJAKARTA: Waters off an Indonesian port city reek like a gas station after an oil spill and fire that killed four people over the weekend, an official said yesterday.

Balikpapan city Secretary Sayid Fadli said that the city on the island of Borneo was in its third day of a state of emergency following the weekend spill around Semayang Port.

“The city is in an emer-gency situation because of the oil spill and the bay is now like a gas station,” Fadli said.

“We have warned workers and residents around the bay to refrain from lighting cigarettes and make safety the priority.”

Four people died after the fuel caught fire on Saturday, filling skies around the city with choking black smoke. One person is missing.

Duterte okays 6-month closure of BoracayREUTERS

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday approved the closure of the country’s most famous tourist island, Boracay, for six months from April 26, his spokesman said, paving the way for a major cleanup of what he had described as a “sewer pool”.

Boracay, on the northern tip of central Panay island, is a top destination for local and foreign tourists and its sugary white sand, lively night scene and abundant water sports attracted nearly 2 million visitors last year.

The island earns revenue from luxury hotels and beachside restaurants and also employs thousands of local residents.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque announced Duterte’s decision via Twitter.

Duterte, whose leadership style has been criticised as dic-tatorial, has castigated the local government and residents for “overzealous” development and permitting beachfront building with inadequate sewage and water treatment facilities.

Many businesses on the island have been releasing

wastewater directly into the sea, violating rules on wastewater management, according to Envi-ronment Secretary Roy Cimatu.

Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra, described the discussion about Boracay’s temporary closure during a cabinet meeting late yesterday as “exhaustive” and said affected companies would receive financial assistance.

Philippine Airlines said it will scale down its services to Caticlan and Kalibo airports, the gateways to Boracay, for six months from April following the government’s decision.

Telecoms fraudPolice officers escort Taiwanese nationals, who were arrested in the Philippines on suspicion of telecoms fraud, at an airport in Tianjin, China, yesterday.

MasterChef judges spark ‘rendang’ debate in Southeast AsiaREUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR: A British cooking show has sparked a lively debate across Southeast Asian over whether the widely popular chicken rendang dish should ever be crispy and where it originates from.

Malaysian-born Zaleha Kadir Olpin served the spicy chicken alongside her nasi lemak, a tra-ditional Malaysian dish, in the quarter-final of the BBC’s Mas-terChef UK.

But judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace turned down the chicken accompaniment, saying the skin was not crispy, stirring fury on social media and a heated debate in Malaysia, Indo-nesia, Singapore and Brunei.

“Saying chicken rendang should be crispy is like saying that hamburgers should be

boiled,” KF Seetoh, founder of Makansutra and an Asian street food expert based in Singapore, said.

Torode and Wallace defended their comments, saying “crispy” was the wrong word for

the dish, which is traditionally made with chicken or beef that is slow cooked with Asian herbs and coconut milk, but that they had reached the right verdict.

“What I meant was it wasn’t cooked. It simply wasn’t cooked.

It was white and flabby,” Wallace told Good Morning Britain.

“She (Zaleha Kadir Olpin) didn’t go out because her (chicken) skin wasn’t crispy. She went out because the other cooks were better.”

Haikal Johari, 41, executive chef of Michelin-star restaurant Alma by Juan Amador in Sin-gapore, said he had never heard of chicken rendang being crispy, echoing comments by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and veteran politician Mahathir Mohamad, who for once agreed with his arch rival.

While hashtags “gastrodi-plomacy” and “rendanggate” cropped up online, Wallace and Torode defended their judgement.

“I did a whole series on Malaysia. Malaysian food is fan-tastic,” Australian-born Torode

said. “But I said to her, it wasn’t cooked enough.”

However, Torode riled Malaysians by suggesting on Twitter that chicken rendang was from Indonesia. He later deleted the tweet, which ended with “namaste”, an Indian greeting.

However, the jury is still out on which country owns the dish, with neighbouring Indonesia already claiming it. Some suggest the first version of rendang was cooked in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, some 600 years ago.

Haikal from Alma said there were different versions.

“It is made by different people including Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indonesians, and even in Thailand, there is a dish called massaman, which actually tastes really similar to the chicken rendang too,” he said.

A plate of chicken rendang is pictured at a restaurant in Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia, yesterday.

Najib promised a one-time cash payment of $387 in October for civil servants and $193 for government retirees as part of the 2018 budget.

Indonesian politician accused of blasphemyREUTERS

JAKARTA: Islamist groups yesterday filed a blasphemy complaint against a daughter of Indonesia’s first president, accusing her of reciting a poem insulting Islam.

Sukmawati Sukarnoputri, a politician, is the third daughter of Indonesia’s founding father Sukarno and the younger sister of Megawati Sukarnoputri, who leads President Joko Widodo’s ruling party.

Indonesia is a secular country with significant Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and other religious minorities, but a rise of hardline, politicised Islam and stricter interpretations of the religion have undermined its reputation for tolerance in recent years.

The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) was among an alliance of hardline groups that reported Sukmawati, as she is usually known, to police over the poem.

The same alliance last year accused Jakarta’s former Christian governor of blasphemy and spearheaded mass rallies that led to his ouster and jailing, a ruling that many believed was politicised and unjust.

“It’s clear there is an insult toward the teachings of Islam in the poem,” said Eggi Sudjana, a lawyer and an adviser to the alliance.

“We hoped that Ahok’s case would be the last one, but now there are others who dare to insult Islam again,” he said, referring to the former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama by his nickname.

Sukmawati apologised for reading the poem, which appeared to favour traditional Indonesian culture and beliefs over conservative Islamic customs like the full veil, in

public.“The poem is a reflection of

my concern about the sense of nationalism...and to honour our motherland’s rich cultural tra-ditions and diversity,” a tearful Sukmawati told a news con-ference in Jakarta.

“I apologise to Islamic people in Indonesia, especially to those who feel offended by the poem,” said Sukmawati, whose family remains highly influential in Indonesia.

FPI’s Novel Bamukmin said the alliance appreciated the apology but would not withdraw its complaint.

Sukmawati Sukarnoputri walks to her car after talking to reporters, in Jakarta, Indonesia, yesterday.

S Korean pop stars return home after Pyongyang concertAFP

SEOUL: Musicians from North and South Korea held hands, sang and cried together at a rare concert held in Pyongyang that ended with an emotional standing ovation by thousands of spec-tators.

The South Korean pop stars returned home yesterday after two concerts in the North’s capital this week, the first of which was attended by leader Kim Jong-Un who said he was “deeply moved” by the performance.

Their visit comes as a dip-lomatic thaw gathers pace on the peninsula ahead of a landmark inter-Korean summit this month.

The second concert on Tuesday evening saw the North’s Samjiyon Orchestra join South’s K-pop stars on stage, to rapturous applause.

16 THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018EUROPE

78,000 ‘security threats’ in FranceAP

PARIS: France has flagged more than 78,000 people as security threats in a database intended to let European police share information on the continent’s most dangerous residents — more than all other European countries put together —according to an analysis.

A German parliamentarian, Andrej Hunko, was the first to raise the alarm about potential misuse of the Schengen Infor-mation System database in a question to his country’s Interior Ministry about “discreet checks” — secret international checks on people considered a threat to national security or public safety. He questioned whether and why different countries seemed to apply very different criteria.

“The increase in alerts cannot be explained by the threat of ter-rorism alone. Europol reports a four-digit number of confirmed foreign fighters, yet the increase of SIS alerts in 2017 is several times that,” Hunko said in a

statement late last month when he released the Interior Ministry response to his query.

That response included a spreadsheet detailing for the first time how many people were flagged for checks by each European country last year —more than 134,000 in all.

“This could mean that fam-ilies and contacts of these indi-viduals are also being secretly monitored. It is also possible that

the measure is being used on a large scale for combatting other criminal activity,” Hunko said.

The number of French entries by police and intelligence agencies “indicates a misuse” of the system intended to monitor dangerous criminals, he added.

The overall Schengen database — which is separate to the Europol database and far more widely used — forms the backbone of European security, allowing police, judicial author-ities and other law enforcement to immediately check whether a person is wanted or missing, or a car is stolen, or a firearm is legal, for example. The database was checked 5 billion times in 2017 alone, according to the director of the EU-LISA agency, Krum Garkov.

But a relatively unknown provision in European law allows countries to flag people for the “discreet checks” —allowing law enforcement in one country to quietly notify counterparts else-where of a person’s location and activities. Use of the system has

expanded enormously since IS extremists attacked Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016, from 69,475 in 2015 to 134,662 last year, according to data from EU-LISA and Germany.

If someone is flagged for a check, their name will come up for any law enforcement official who has stopped them anywhere in Europe - whether trying to cross an external border or running a red light. In the entry, the requesting country can ask for a subsequent action, ranging from simply reporting back their location, vehicle, and traveling companions to detaining them immediately for arrest.

The checks, unlike arrest warrants, expire after a year, although Garkov said countries are notified of pending expira-tions and can renew them at will.

But vast disparities in its use by individual countries raise questions about both the effec-tiveness of the tools and the cri-teria countries are using to enter people into the system.

To put the French number in

perspective, the country’s intel-ligence chief, Laurent Nunez, said late last year that France had recorded 18,000 people as suspected extremists, and con-sidered 4,000 of those to be highly dangerous. The Interior Ministry did not respond to requests to comment about the criteria for discreet checks. CNIL, the government data protection agency, said the 78,000 entries covered every person that France wanted flagged for any reason.

Like the US “no fly list,” people can only learn by inference whether they are flagged for a discreet check.

“People are not informed about the existence of this alert, which makes sense. But at the same there needs to be a pro-portionality assessment,” said Niovi Vavoula, a legal scholar at Queen Mary University of London who studies the use of the database. “If certain member states are introducing alerts en masse to the system, this needs to be flagged as a problem.”

German, Dutch militaries deepen tiesREUTERS

VREDEPEEL: The German military yesterday put a short-range air defence unit with about 450 soldiers under Dutch command, further deepening ties between the two Nato allies.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen lauded the unique nature of the closer bilateral cooperation, which began in 1995 with the creation of a multinational formation that takes part in Nato readiness rotations.

“We share common values and interests, believe in our

European future, and are strong partners in the trans-Atlantic alliance,” von der Leyen said during a ceremony marking the latest tie-up between the two countries’ militaries.

“We want to tap into syn-ergies to improve our existing capabilities and build up new ones.

Brigadier General Michael Gschossmann, commander of ground-based units for the German air force, said last week the move was politically signif-icant and could pave the way for joint development of new weapons and joint operation of

longer-range missile defence systems such as the Patriot.

Germany and other European countries are racing to expand defence cooperation, citing perceived US isolationism under President Donald Trump and the threat posed by Russia as well as instability in Africa and the Middle East.

The German and Dutch mil-itaries have already knitted together some land forces and naval elements, train together on missile defence, and have developed a joint concept of operations for missile defence forces.

One dead in Moscow shopping mall blazeAGENCIES

MOSCOW: One person has died in a fire at a shopping mall in eastern Moscow yesterday, TASS news agency said, citing medical staff.

The fire has now been put out, RIA news agency said, citing

a source in emergency services. It earlier said that the fire had broken out at the four-storey ‘Perseus for Childen’ shopping mall which sells children’s goods.

Russian investigators have opened a criminal case into a fire at a shopping mall earlier

in the day.The investigating committee

said it would look into whether the fire at the shopping mall had been caused by negligence.

In March, a total of 64 people, most of them children, dead in a fire at a Siberian shopping mall.

An aerial view shows smoke rising after a fire broke out in the “Perseus for children” shopping mall, in eastern Moscow, yesterday.

REUTERS

LONDON: Brit-ain’s Prince Philip (pictured), the 96-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II, was admitted to the hospital for surgery on his hip, Buck-ingham Palace said.

Greek-born P h i l i p h a s remained at his wife’s side throughout her 66-year reign, the longest in British history, and has earned a reputation for brusque comments and occa-sional gaffes at some of the thousands of ceremonial events he has attended.

Philip, or the Duke of Edin-burgh as he is known in Britain, retired from public life last August, quipping at the time

that he was no longer able to “stand up much”.

H e w a s admitted on Tuesday to a London private hospital regularly used by the royals in prepa-ration for a hip operation on Wednesday, the Palace said.

“His Royal Highness The

Duke of Edinburgh was admitted to King Edward VII Hospital in London this afternoon, for planned surgery on his hip which will take place tomorrow,” the Palace said in a statement.

“Further updates will be issued when appropriate.”

Both the Queen, 91, and Philip have suffered some health issues in recent years.

UK rejects joint probe with Russia into spy posioningAP

BRUSSELS: Britain and Russia accused each other of duplicity and untrustwor-thiness yesterday, with London rejecting any possi-bility of a joint probe involving Moscow into the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in England.

At a special meeting to discuss the case at the Organ-ization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, the Netherlands, the British envoy said that a joint investigation, as proposed by Russia, would force “a victim to engage the likely perpetrator.”

Acting UK Permanent Representative John Foggo said that “to do so would be perverse,” adding that Mos-cow’s demand showed “disdain.”

Britain, backed by its European and US partners, has blamed Russia for the March 4 nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the city of Salisbury, an accusation that Russian government vehe-mently denies.

Yesterday’s meeting at the international chemical weapons control body was called at the request of Moscow, which has pushed for Britain to provide evi-dence backing its claim that Russia was responsible.

“We are ready for a com-prehensive, highly profes-sional and open cooperation on the Skripal case with the UK both in a bilateral format and within the OPCW,” Rus-sia’s foreign affairs spokes-woman Maria Zakharova said.

French govt to extend internal EU border checksAFP

BRUSSELS: France will extend border checks with countries in Europe’s Schengen passport-free zone until the end of October because of the persistent threat of terrorism, the EU Commission said yesterday.

“We received notification from France this week,” a European Commission spokes-woman said when asked if France intends to extend controls for six months.

France introduced Schengen border controls after the IS mil-itant group attacks that killed 130 people in Paris on November 13, 2015.

The checks have been renewed every six months since then as France suffers a con-tinuing wave of attacks.

Unlike temporary checks to curb migration in the Schengen zone, those linked to security do not require a formal green light from the European Com-mission, the 28-nation EU executive.

Prince Philip to undergo hip surgery in London

Italian leader begins coalition talksAFP

ROME: Italy launched talks yesterday aiming to break political deadlock between anti-establishment and far-right leaders and form a new government a month after a general election.

Despite agreeing last week on the nomination of the speakers in parliament, the anti-migrant League and the Five Star Movement (M5S) have not budged publicly on their demands to be allowed to govern.

Last month’s election

yielded a stalemate: a right-wing coalition including the League and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party won 37 percent of the vote. M5S got the biggest share of any single party with just under 33 percent.

M5S leader Luigi Di Maio stepped up the rhetoric in the lead-up to President Sergio Mat-tarella’s series of consultations, which began at 0830 GMT at the Quirinal Presidential Palace in Rome and were scheduled to finish this afternoon.

Di Maio said on Tuesday that he would only deal with

either the League or the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which leads the outgoing gov-ernment and suffered a collapse in the election.

He said any deal with Matteo Salvini’s League must exclude media magnate Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the second largest party in the right-wing coalition and a fierce rival of the M5S.

“Salvini needs to choose between revolution and the res-toration. Whether to leave Ber-lusconi and change Italy or whether to stay with him and not change anything.”

The Italian President Sergio Mattarella with the newly elected Chamber of Deputies President Roberto Fico at the Quirinal Presidential Palace, in Rome, yesterday.

Austria seeks headscarf ban on primary school studentsREUTERS

VIENNA: Austria’s right-wing government announced plans yesterday to ban girls from wearing headscarves in kindergarten and primary schools to combat what it sees as a threat to Austrian main-stream culture from some Muslims. Austria took in more than one percent of its popu-lation in asylum seekers during Europe’s migration crisis, an issue that helped Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives win an election

last year by taking a hard line on immigration.

Our goal is to confront any development of parallel soci-eties in Austria,” Kurz said.

“Girls wearing a headscarf in kindergarten or primary school is of course part of that.” If any such plan became law it would apply to girls of up to around the age of 10 years.

Many Muslims believe their religion requires girls to wear a headscarf from puberty. Headscarves are rarely worn before then.

The overall Schengen database forms the backbone of European security, allowing police, judicial authorities and other law enforcement agencies to immediately check whether a person is wanted or missing, or a car is stolen, or a firearm is legal: Krum Garkov

17THURSDAY 5 APRIL 2018 AMERICAS

Mexico gives caravan migrants transit visasAP

MEXICO: The Mexican government began handing out transit or humanitarian visas to people in a caravan of Central American migrants, and said the procession of 1,000 or so migrants that drew criticism from President Donald Trump had begun to disperse.

Some migrants who awoke at the camp yesterday said they would try their luck at requesting asylum in the United States, others in Mexico.

Elmer Zelaya Gomez, 38, from eastern El Salvador, has been sleeping with his wife and three children aged 7, 13 and 14 on the soccer field under blankets as they wait for tem-porary transit visas from Mexico to continue to the US border. He hopes to request asylum and join relatives in New York.

“We didn’t leave our coun-tries just because we wanted to,” Zelaya Gomez said. “It’s for the safety of our children.” Like many, he had joined the caravan

- which was never expected to be so big, and never planned to go all the way to the border - because there was safety in numbers.

Now, the family faces the prospect of travelling solo; the caravan is scheduled to make its last stops this week at a migrants rights symposium in the central city of Puebla, and end in Mexico City.

“It seems a little compli-cated, with the robberies, kid-nappings, and all of that,” Zelaya Gomez said. “It’s a little scary, to travel without the caravan.” Organizer Irineo Mujica said, “We will try to find a better way of doing our caravans” in coming years. “We didn’t antic-ipate, or want, a caravan of this size.” The caravan is an annual, symbolic event held around Easter each year to raise awareness about the plight of migrants and has never left southern Mexico, though some participants then continue north on their own.

Trump’s strong criticism of

the caravan and Mexico’s sup-posed permissiveness in allowing it to proceed, have con-fused and befuddled families here, who deny they are a threat. Many say they never intended on going all the way to the United States after the end of the “Stations of the Cross” caravan. Some are seeking asylum in Mexico itself.

Even coordinators of the caravan seemed to misunder-stand the debate in the U.S. when Trump’s endorsed a “nuclear option” for pushing funding for his border wall through Congress. They told worried families Tuesday that the U.S. president had floated the idea of using a nuclear weapon against the caravan of mostly women and children who have fled violence in Central America. The Mexican government said in a statement late Tuesday that its immi-gration policy “is not subject to pressure,” but noted the caravan “began to disperse by decision of the participants.”

Border patrol agents apprehend immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the US in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, yesterday.

Outgoing Trump aide: US should be tougher on RussiaAFP

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s departing national security adviser HR McMaster said Washington has not gone far enough to punish Russia for interfering in US elec-tions and using a nerve agent to poison a former spy in England.

In a speech late Tuesday to the Atlantic Council ahead of his exit from the White House, McMaster told the leaders of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and others that Russia remains a threat to open societies and international peace.

He cited the attempted assas-sination in England of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a banned nerve agent and the “pernicious” employment of submilitary forms of aggression to attack rivals as evidence that Moscow

has not been deterred.“For too long some nations

have looked the other way in the face of these threats. Russia bra-zenly and implausibly denies its actions. And we have failed to impose sufficient costs,” McMaster said.

Analysts saw McMaster’s statement as a criticism of Trump, who has consistently tempered his remarks on the Russian president. The statement

came hours after Trump defended his embrace of Vladimir Putin, saying good rela-tions were important and that he

had been tougher than anyone else on Russia.

“Probably nobody’s been tougher to Russia than Donald

Trump,” the president said during White House meetings with the leaders of the three Baltic countries -- all of whom say they worry deeply about the threat from the powerful giant on their borders.

“If we got along with Russia, that would be a good thing not a bad thing,” said Trump, who recently proposed a White House summit with Putin.

“I think I could have a very good relationship with President Putin,” he said.

McMaster, however, warned that Moscow menaces the US way of life, and that Putin has not yet been deterred. “The Krem-lin’s confidence is growing as its agents conduct their sustained campaigns to undermine our confidence in ourselves and in one another,” he said.“Russia employs sophisticated strategies deliberately designed to achieve

objectives while falling below the target state’s threshold for a mil-itary response.” “Mr Putin may believe that he is winning in this new form of warfare.” Last month the United States joined nearly 30 European allies in expelling a total of 150 Russian officials, many labelled intelli-gence agents, to punish Moscow for the attempted murder of Skripal.

Yesterday, the US Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, said the attack on Skripal was “almost like the final straw” and that the US is weighing more actions against Moscow. “We clearly are in a position now to be undertaking the prospect of additional reactions to this issue,” he told reporters.“This is under considerable consider-ation and more things will be done, and soon, above where we are right now,” he added.

National security adviser Lt. Gen. H R McMaster attends a press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

The statement came hours after Trump defended his embrace of Vladimir Putin, saying good relations were important and that he had been tougher than anyone else on Russia.

Police charged with homicide after deadly Venezuela jail fireAFP

CARACAS: Five Venezuelan police officials have been charged with homicide after the deadly fire in a state police headquarters that killed 68 people last week, the state pros-ecutor’s office said yesterday.

Among those charged is the deputy chief of police in the northern state of Carabobo, Jose Luis Rodriguez. The others are

a supervisor and three officers.The men also face charges

of failing to assist people in danger, and corruption, the prosecutor’s office said.

The five have been in detention since last Saturday when they were arrested in the city of Valencia, where the fire occurred in the main police sta-tion’s overcrowded detention facilities. Prosecutors said they are investigating what started

the blaze, which claimed the lives of 66 inmates and two women who had spent the night in the jail.

Prisoners’ rights group A Window on Freedom said the fires were started by the inmates themselves to force guards to open doors, but the guards refused and eventually firefighters had to smash through a wall to try to save those inside.

Data on up to 87m Facebook users shared with UK firmAFP

WASHINGTON: Personal data on as many as 87 million Facebook users was improperly shared with British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, the company said yesterday, far greater than the 50 million previously estimated.

Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer made the announcement in a statement announcing the implementation of new privacy tools for users of the huge social network.

“In total, we believe the Facebook information of up to 87 million people -- mostly in the US -- may have been improperly shared with Cam-bridge Analytica,” he said.

The new estimate could deepen the crisis for Facebook, which has been pressured by the disclosures on hijacking of private data by the consulting group working for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Facebook is facing investi-gations on both sides of the Atlantic over the data hijacking and chief executive Mark Zuck-erberg agreed to testify next week before a congressional panel on the matter. Schroepfer

said that starting Monday new tools would be available to users to better understand privacy and data sharing. Facebook sepa-rately said new terms of service would offer a clear picture or data sharing and how adver-tising is targeted.

The changes will tighten how outside parties can access user data and research members of Facebook.

One change, according to Schroepfer, will eliminate the ability to enter a person’s phone number or email address to locate someone with Facebook search.The feature “has been especially useful for finding your friends in languages which take more effort to type out a full name, or where many people have the same name,” he said.

“However, malicious actors have also abused these features to scrape public profile infor-mation by submitting phone numbers or email addresses they already have through search and account recovery. Given the scale and sophisti-cation of the activity we’ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way. So we have now disabled this feature.”

Man charged with threatening to blow up mosqueAP

OKLAHOMA CITY: An Oklahoma City man has been arrested and charged with threatening to blow up a mosque.

Online court records show that 54-year-old Larry Dewayne Hornsby was charged with making the threat on March 24 at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City.

Court records don’t list an attorney for Hornsby. Jail records show he remains in custody on $20,000 bond.

The Council on Amer-ican-Islamic Relations’ state chapter says Hornsby entered the mosque, threatened to “blow up this building” and left. It says he was identified through surveillance footage.

The state Department of Corrections website shows that Hornsby previously served sentences for various crimes, including drugs and weapons violations.

Seven charged in death of radio hostAP

MAYS LANDING, NEW JERSEY: Seven people have been indicted in the slaying of a New Jersey radio show host whose murder allegedly was arranged by her late husband to prevent her from exposing a drug ring he was running with an outlaw biker gang.

Atlantic County prose-cutors announced the charges Wednesday, a day after a grand jury indicted the seven.

Authorities say Ferdinand Augello led the drug ring with Dr. James Kauffmann, husband of local radio talk show host April Kauffmann. The charges against Augello include murder and leader of a drug trafficking network.

Tense Brazil awaits court ruling on Lula prisonREUTERS

BRASILIA: Brazil’s Supreme Court yesterday resumed hearing former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s plea to remain out of prison while he appeals a corruption conviction, a case that has sharply divided the country, cast a shadow over this year’s presidential election and stirred rumblings in the army.

The leftist leader is still Bra-zil’s most popular politician despite his conviction and six separate pending corruption

trials. He is the front-runner in all polling for the presidential election in October, though his conviction will likely bar him from running.

The Supreme Court is split on Lula’s request to be allowed to exhaust his appeals before beginning to serve a 12-year prison sentence for taking bribes, and a ruling is expected to hinge on the vote of just one of its 11 justices. Lower court judges, the country’s top prosecutor and business groups have urged the court to abide by its own 2016 ruling that defendants can be

jailed if a conviction is upheld on a first appeal, as Lula’s was earlier this year.

Before that ruling, appeals in Brazil’s complex and badly back-logged legal system could stretched out for several years, guaranteeing impunity for those rich enough to afford lawyers who could launch countless technical appeals. Demonstra-tions for and against Lula snarled traffic in Brazil’s main cities on Tuesday and more gatherings were called for Wednesday in scores of cities. A court ruling is possible as early as Wednesday.

People watch on television a session of the Brazilian Supreme Court in Sao Paulo, Brazil, yesterday.

‘Maan Jao Na’ screened at Royal Plaza Cinema


Division J Toastmasters in Qatar holds annual conference DOHA: The Toastmasters of Division ‘J’ in Qatar conducted their Toastmasters Annual Conference at the magnificent Al Fayrouz Ballroom at the Doha Marriott Hotel. Division J Toast-masters in Qatar has over 430 members spread over 17 Clubs grouped in four areas, and boasts of a multicultural mix of members.

The Master of the ceremonies for the 1st half, TM Chan-drashekar Angadi, captured the audience with his comforting and lively personality.

Conference Chair TM Sudhir Gujar welcomed everyone and invited TM Division J Director, TM Venkatesan Kuandaivelu to

open the Conference. He wel-comed the delegates, special guests and all Toastmasters present. He gave an insight into the progress of Division J as a whole, and recognized all Area Directors in their efforts to make the Division as President Distin-guished Division.

Thereafter, a banner parade was held wherein the leaders from the Division, Area and Clubs participated, showcasing their clubs’ proud achievements during the course of the year. TM Rangamani Ravi coordinated the entire parade with great aplomb.

Renowned media person-ality, TM Anshu Jain was the

Master of Ceremonies for the second half, and she gracefully captured the attention of all, delighting them with charm and élan.

A special keynote presen-tation was conducted by

Maryann Pietersz, a vocal coach and music instructor from IAID.

The keynote presentation, Discover your VoicePrint, was an interactive and engaging presentation which introduced the audience to the four

systems of vocal speech and using them appropriately.

Speech Contests are a Toast-masters’ tradition, and at Tran-scend 2018, the event consisted of four contest categories: Speech Evaluation Contest, Humorous Speech Contest, Table Topics speech contest, and the Inter-national Speech Contest.

Qualification to contest began at the Club level and then progressed to the area level wherein, each area ensured they had two participants per cat-egory of contest for Transcend.

The winners of the respective contests were awarded a trophy and certificate, and each 1st place winner will now represent

Division J at the District 20 Toastmasters Annual Conference Speech Contest which will be held in Kuwait on May 11 and 12.

A special raffle draw was held, prizes consisting of Home appliances courtesy of Planet Tec.

Vote of thanks was given by Event Chair Sudhir Gujar and the conference was adjourned with a closing remarks by the Division J Director Venkatesan Kulandaivelu.

Sponsors of the event were Planet Tech, Axiom International WLL, Don Construction Products, IAID, Teyseer Group, Al-Tawfeeq Travels & MBR Trading Company.

ISC to conduct LG Golf tournament DOHA: LG signed an agreement with Indian Sports Centre (ISC) to sponsor 2nd LG Golf Tour-nament “India Cup“ at Doha Golf Club on Friday.

The agreement was signed between Brian Ahn, Director of LG Electronics and Nilangshu Dey, President of Indian Sports Centre.

The prestigious Golf Tour-nament will witness its largest participation yet, led by the Indian Ambassador himself, Indian Embassy Officials, Top Indian Executives, Professionals and Businessmen, Academicians and Students.

Manoj Megchiani, Head of Golf mentioned that: The INDIA

CUP Golf Tournament was con-ceived with the aim to unite all Golfers from the Indian Com-munity in Qatar to celebrate the Game of Golf and attract more Indians towards the Golf . Indian Sports Centre has also recently commenced coaching sessions for three new batches under PGA Professional Chris

Nicols at the Qatar Golf Academy.

This year over 50 players will participate on a format ranging from Strokeplay for Low Handicappers to Texan Scramble for High Handicappers, giving golfers of every caliber a chance to compete for prizes.

The tournament will be followed by a Gala Dinner sponsored by LTC International and a Prize Distribution Cer-emony at Majlis Hall of Doha Golf Club.

Assad Khan (third left) Marketing Manager of ‘Maan Jao Na’ Pakistani movie; Sana Salman (left), Marketing Director of Apex; Mohammad Riaz (right) and Riyaz Ahmed Bakali, Pakistani Community members, during the release of ‘Maan Jao Na’ at Royal Plaza Cinema, in Doha, recently.PIC: ABDUL BASIT/THE PENINSULA

VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTERCROSSWORD NOVO Pearl Qatar

MALL

Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

LANDMARK AL KHOR

ASIAN TOWN

Hurricane Heist (2D/Action) 10:00, 11:00am, 12:00noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00pm & 12:00midnight Acts of Violence 10:00am, 12:00noon, 1:00, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00, 11:00pm & 12:00midnight I Kill Giants (2D) 10:00am, 12:10, 2:20, 4:30, 6:40 & 8:50pm Red Sparrow (2D) 10:00am, 3:00, 8:00 & 11:00pm Tomb Raider (2D/Action) 10:00am, 12:30 & 3:00pm A Quiet Place (2D) 5:30, 7:20, 9:10 & 11:00pm Black Water (2D) 12:45, 5:45 & 10:45pm Status Update (2D) 11:00am, 4:00 & 9:00pm Ready Player One (2D/Action) 1:15, 6:15 & 11:15pm Etlouly Barra (2D/Arabic) 10:00am, 2:00, 6:00 & 10:00pm Talq Sena3y (2D/Arabic) 12:00noon, 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnight Ready Player One (3D/IMAX) 11:00am, 2:00, 5:00, 8:00 & 11:00pm

Sudani From Nigeria (2D/Malayalam) 11:30am & 2:30pm I Kill Giants 11:30am & 7:30pm Chal Mohan Ranga (Telugu) 2:30pm Status Update (2D/Comedy) 5:30pm Peter Rabbit (2D/Animation) 12:30, 2:30, 4:30 & 6:30pmActs of Violence (2D/Action) 7:30 & 11:30pm Blackmail(Hindi) 5:00 & 9:15pm Baaghi 2(Hindi) 8:00 & 11:30pm A Quiet Place (2D/Horror) 10:30pm Black Water (2D/Action) 9:30pm & 12:00midnight

ROYAL PLAZA

Chal Mohan Ranga (Telugu) 2:15 & 11:15pm Sudani From Nigeria (2D/Malayalam) 2:30, 7:00 & 11:00pm Peter Rabbit (2D/Animation) 2:30, 4:15 & 6:00pmI Kill Giants 5:00 & 9:00pm A Quiet Place (2D/Horror) 9:30pm Acts of Violence (2D/Action) 7:15pm Black Water (2D/Action) 7:30pm Baaghi 2 (Hindi) 4:45 & 9:30pm

Peter Rabbit (2D/Animation) 2:15, 4:00 & 5:45pmBlackmail (Hindi) 2:30 & 7:00pm I Kill Giants 2:30 & 5:00pmReady Player One (2D/Action) 2:30 & 9:00pmBaghi 2 (Hindi) 4:30 & 11:30pm Black Water (2D/Action) 7:00pmActs of Violence (2D/Action) 7:30 & 9:15pm Sudani From Nigeria (2D/Malayalam) 9:00 & 11:00pm Status Update (2D/Comedy) 9:30pmA Quiet Place (2D/Horror) 11:30pm

Chal Mohan Ranga (Telugu) 1:00 & 6:15pm Sudani From Nigeria (Malayalam) 1:30, 3:30, 4:00, 6:30, 8:45, 9:00, 11:00, 11:30, 01:15 & 02:00am Rangastalam(Telugu) 12:30 & 6:30pm Baghi 2 (Hindi) 3:45 & 9:45pm Blackmail (Hindi) 12:45, 6:30pm & 12:30am

Blackmail (Hindi) 10:30am, 3:45, 6:00, 9:00 & 11:30pmBaaghi 2 (Hindi) 11:15am, 4:00 & 8:45pmPeter Rabbit (Animation) 12:00noon, 2:00 & 4:00pm Sudani From Nigeria (Malayalam) 1:15, 6:30 & 11:45pm A Quiet Place (Horror) 2:00, 6:45 & 11:30pm Chal Mohan Ranga 8:45pm

When his fiancee is kidnapped by human traffickers, Roman (Ashton Holmes) and his ex-military brothers set out to track her down and save her before it is too late.

FLIK Mirqab7 Days In Entebbe 12:25 & 8:40pmBaaghi 2 12:20, 6:20pm & 12:20amBlack Panther 4:00pm Etlouly Heist 2:20 & 6:40pm Hurricane Heist 5:30, 9:10 & 11:15pm Pacific Rim: Uprising 10:50am, 1:10, 4:20, 9:25 & 11:50pm My Perfect You 11:20am, 7:35 & 10:50pm Peter Rabbit 10:30am, 12:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, 6:30 & 7:05pm Poomaram 3:15 & 9:15pm Ready One Player 10:25am, 12:20, 1:30, 4:35, 7:40 & 10:45pm 3D 3:25, 6:30, 9:35pm & 12:35amRed Sparrow 6:40 & 10:00pm Sherlock Gnomes 1:50 & 5:00pm Tomb Raider 12:00noon, 2:40, 8:30 & 11:00pm

ACTS OF VIOLENCE


FAJRSHOROOK

04. 05 AM

05. 22 AM

11. 37 AM

03. 06 PM

05. 54 PM

07. 24 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 07:30 – 20:30 LOW TIDE 01:30 – 14:00

Hazy at places at first becomes relative-

ly hot daytime.

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum 20oC 31oC

Aspire Zone Foundation and QFSW sign new partnershipAMNA PERVAIZ RAO

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Over eight hundred people from Qatar Foundation for Social Work (QFSW) to benefit from the partnership signed yesterday with Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF).

This partnership aims to support and strengthen their social and community-focused initiatives.Through this agreement, AZF also seeks to promote community activities and enhance cooperation with government institutions, which stems from its belief in the importance of social responsi-bility towards the community.

The agreement was signed by Amal Abdullatif Al Mannai, CEO of QFSW and Mohammad bin Khalifa Al Suwaidi, CEO of AZF.

Speaking to The Peninsula after signing the agreement, Amal Al Mannai said: “Qatar Foundation for Social Work signs such partnerships which support the entire entities come under the umbrella of QFSW. We arrange different activities for people with special needs, orphans and elderly people. More than two thousand staff members from Aspire Zone are ready to volunteer for our entities.”

“This partnership is three years long. Whereas they will continue to support us throughout Ramadan Kareem as they always do every year. Now we are able to arrange many outdoor activities within the premises of Aspire Zone Foundation, especially in Aspire Park which will help our members to adopt healthy life-

style,” she added.Meanwhile, Mohammad

Khalifa Al Suwaidi, CEO of AZF, praised this new partnership and confirmed the organisa-tion’s growing role in providing support to all local public and private organisations to benefit the society, saying: “This new agreement builds on our existing partnership with the Qatar Social Work, which extends beyond the agreement we signed today. This collaboration has been ongoing for the past couple of years, and we have organised several joint initia-tives and social programmes for Qatar Social Work’s member organisations such as the Orphans Care Centre (Dreama), the Centre for Empowerment and Elderly Care (Ehsan), and Shafallah Centre. This part-nership will combine our

Amal Abdullatif Al Mannai (left), CEO of Qatar Foundation for Social Work, and Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Suwaidi, CEO of Aspire Zone Foundation, during the signing ceremony at Torch Hotel, yesterday.PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

ongoing collaboration together under one umbrella.”

Al Suwaidi added: “AZF and Qatar Social Work share similar foundations and both our visions seek to help Qatar realise its National Vision 2030. For that purpose, we have already established yearly

CSR programmes to improve the physical and mental health of the local society and encourage them to have an active and healthy life-style. Some of our ongoing initiatives include the ‘Life in Aspire’ smartphone app, the ‘Step into Health’ campaign and the ‘Keep Aspire Green’ eco-friendly campaign.”

Education gives Qatari women success in all fieldsSIDI MOHAMED

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Qatari women have entered into business, arts, politics and many other fields and succeeded due to their education, said Dr Amal Al Malki, Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) after being selected by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs as “Personnalitéd’Avenir Genre”- “Gender Equality champions”.

“The Qatar National Vision 2030 will achieve more ambitions of Qatari women and today we have four women in the Advisory Council and one minister in the cabinet. I hope to see more than one woman as min-isters,” she added yesterday on the sideline of a press conference held at the residence of French Ambassador to Qatar.

The program aims at providing par-ticipants with genuine knowledge gender equality issues and policies in France as well as highlighting the activ-ities of women and their contribution

to gender equality in their respective countries. In this context, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs invited several Arab women who are particu-larly engaged in campaigns for gender equality, to Paris, in spring 2018.

Eric Chevallier, Ambassador of

France to the State of Qatar said: “Gender equality is one of the key focuses of France’s external action, as stressed by our President during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly last September 2017.”

“In this context, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs has decided to invite 11 women from North Africa and Middle East region particularly active in the promotion of gender equality, to participate in a Forum, in Paris from April 9 to 13, 2018. I am par-ticularly pleased that Dr Al-Malki was chosen to participate to this interna-tional Forum.”

Dr Amal Al Malki, also said: “Growing up with a strong conviction of women’s abilities and potential has dictated my studies, research interests as well as social engagement. I am, like all Qatari women, blessed to have a strong female leader – Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser – who has single-handedly changed how society perceives women (especially working women), giving us legitimacy and respect. Qatar is advanced in regards to women rights as a part of its overall social justice and equality agenda. Therefore, as a Qatari academic, I feel it’s my duty to participate in dialogue about women equality and empow-erment, and engage with government as well as the local and global communities.”

Ambassador of France to Qatar, Eric Chevallier (left), with Dr Amal Al Malki, Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), addressing the media to announce the participation of Dr Al Malki in Forum on Gender Equality in Paris. at the French Embassy in Doha, yesterday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT / THE PENINSULA

Fire Station holds Open Studio NightRAYNALD C RIVERA

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Eighteen artists under “Fire Station:Artist in Residence” programme’s third cycle impressed art enthusiasts with their fresh concepts executed in diverse media at yester-day’s Open Studio Night which provided opportunity for the public to see the artists’ works in progress.

A large number of people visited the Fire Station to meet the resident artists and see some exciting projects taking shape such as Qatari artist Ahmed Nooh Ahmed’s installation comprising over 200 burnt books, through which he underlines the crucial role book plays in life and how people take them for granted.

“In the past, people would burn books for a reason; maybe they differ in opinion with the author that they don’t want people to read his ideas. But

now, people burn books for no reason or just keep them in the library and no one reads them,” explained Ahmed.

The books in Ahmed’s installation were thrown away by their owners, so “they already burned these books before I did.”

Ahmed, who had taken formal art courses at Visual Art Centre, gets his inspiration from his dreams and his current project was two years in the making.

On his residency at the Fire Station, he said “It energizes me and I found myself here. Every week we meet with other artists in one studio to talk about art and it’s a good thing to share ideas.”

Fatima Mohammed, a young Qatari artist, was of the same view saying “It’s a good programme where you can meet other artists and learn from each other because everyone has a different medium.”

For her residency, Fatima is

creating a series of paintings depicting a fusion of Qatari and American culture by creating a fictional character com-bining American eagle and Qatari batoola. “I’ve fused two different cul-tures together and showed how they are changing and becoming mod-ernized through time,” she the VCU-Qatar alumna.

Another Qatari artist Yousif Fawzi Bahzad explores land and its rela-tionship with the people through his monochrome paintings which depict fantastical images and mythical creatures.

“I’m interested with the land as an entity and its relationship with people, how it shapes them and I’d like to explore that through my art. I’m also interested in hybridity of traditions and new ways of thinking,” he said.

On the residency programme, he said: “This is very important for Qatar. It’s one way of getting people excited

about art and establishing local and regional artists. It’s an interesting space,” he said.

Since Fire Station opened its doors, more than 55 artists have benefited from the residency programme which has proven to be enormously popular, with several hundred applications submitted over the course of the three years.

Khalifa Al Obaidly, Director of the Fire Station: Artist in Residence said: “The Fire Station not only provides an effective launchpad to develop the careers of many of the Qatar’s most talented artists, but it has developed into a colourful, spirited and dynamic arts centre for the public. Our open studio events are an incredibly important part of that and provide the perfect introduction to the various steps that Qatar Museums is taking to nurture and develop the country’s young creatives.”

Resident artists Fatima Mohammed (left) and Yousif Fawzi Bahzad at the Open Studio event held at Fire Station yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

Katara launches first cultural forum for folk costume designersTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Cultural Village Foundation (Katara) is organising the first cultural forum for folk costume designers and manufac-turers from tomorrow until April 13 from 5pm to 10pm at Building 15 and 18.

Eighteen Qatari designers in addition to participants from Turkey, Syria, Morocco and Iran are taking part at the forum.

The forum aims to enhance the national identity with all its cultural, his-torical and social features through tradi-tional costumes with all related handi-crafts such as embroidery. It will also host several exhibitions displaying the crea-tivity of traditional costume-making. Some of the pieces which will be show-cased were made in contemporary style by designers such as Lulua Al Kubaisi and Fakhriya Al Ansari.

It will also include some fashion shows of traditional models from dif-ferent countries in the region partici-pating in the forum to introduce their national fashion.

Moreover, the forum which comes within the cultural project “My national costumes are my identity” launched by Katara, will feature lectures by some famous fashion designers such as Salma Al Nuaimi who will speak on “The aes-thetic values in the Qatari women’s cos-tumes” and a similar lecture by an Iranian fashion designer.

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