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Trixi Worrack of Germany celebrates winning the golden jersey on the final day of the Ladies Tour of Qatar in Doha yesterday. At right is Qatar Cycling Federation (QCF) President Sheikh Khalid bin Ali Al Thani. Worrack, riding for Canyon SRAM Racing, finished in 15th spot to finish her Qatar trip with an overall time of 10:01:37. Australian rider Chloe Hosking clinched the fourth and final stage yesterday. →Story and pictures on page 22 PIC: Salim/ The Peninsula

Worrack wins Ladies Tour

SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016 • 27 Rabia II 1437

Reuters

BEIRUT: Tens of thousands of Syrians fled an intensifying Russian assault around Aleppo yesterday, and aid workers said they feared the major city could soon fall under a full gov-ernment siege.

Iran reported one of its gener-als had been killed on the front line, giving direct confirmation of the role Tehran is playing along with Moscow in what appears to be one of the most deter-mined offensives in five years of civil war. The government assault around Aleppo,

and advances in the south and north-west, helped to torpedo Geneva peace talks this week. Russia’s intervention has tipped the war President Bashar Al Assad’s way, reversing gains rebels made last year.

The last two days saw govern-ment troops and their Lebanese and Iranian allies fully encircle the coun-tryside north of Aleppo and cut off the main supply route linking the city — Syria’s largest before the war — to Turkey. Ankara said it suspected the aim was to starve the population into submission.

Aleppo would be the biggest strategic prize in years for Assad’s

government in a conflict that has killed at least 250,000 people and driven 11 million from their homes.

Video footage showed thousands of people massing at the Bab Al Salam crossing on the Turkish border. Men carried luggage on their heads, and the elderly and those unable to walk were brought in wheelchairs. Women sat on the side of the road holding babies and waiting to be allowed into Turkey.

Rights group Amnesty Interna-tional urged Turkey to let in those fleeing the latest violence, after reports the border remained closed.

“It feels like a siege of Aleppo is

about to begin,” said David Evans, Middle East programme director for the US aid agency Mercy Corps, which said the most direct humanitarian route to Aleppo had been severed.

“The situation in Aleppo is a humanitarian catastrophe,” said an opposition spokesman still in Geneva after the ill-fated peace talks.

“The Russian (air) cover contin-ues night and day, there were more than 250 air strikes on this area in one day,” Hassan Haj Ali, head of Liwa Suqour Al Jabal, a rebel group fight-ing in northwest Syria, said.

→See also page 3

By Satish Kanady

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar’s real estate mar-ket is facing challenges due to the ‘spending priorities’ of public sector and large corporates. Public sector is increasingly staying away from acquiring new office spaces. The corporates and large companies are slowly withdrawing from residential market and prefer to provide housing allowances rather than leasing out accommodations for their employ-

ees. The result has been significant drop in leasing activity in prime res-idential and commercial real estate market.

Enquiries with the market sources reveal that public sector accounts for more than 60 percent of office leas-ing in West Bay area. Government’s austerity measures have resulted in a lack of new office acquisitions by the public sector in West Bay . There is an increasing trend of public sector companies withdrawing from the res-idential market as well.

A valuation expert at a leading real estate and business services company told The Peninsula the government bodies and oil and gas companies are slowly withdrawing from the market. No commercial leases in excess of 3,000sq m agreed in third quarter of 2015, he said.

There has been a fall in demand for corporate lettings of entire res-idential blocks and compounds. Companies are increasingly look-ing to provide housing allowances rather than providing accommo-dation to their employees. This has resulted in a number of residential apartment blocks remaining vacant as some landlords prefer to secure corporate leases, he said.

→Continued on page 2

AFP

RAMALLAH: A Palestinian teen-ager threw a petrol bomb at Israeli soldiers in the south of the occu-pied West Bank and was shot dead yesterday, the Israeli military said.

At least two Palestinians threw a Molotov cocktail at a military jeep on patrol close to Halhul north of the West Bank city of Hebron, a military spokeswoman said.

The Palestinian health min-istry confirmed the death, identifying him as 17-year-old Haitham Al Bau. His death brings to 165 the number of Palestini-ans killed by Israeli forces in four months of violence.

Near Ramallah in the West Bank, clashes broke out as around 100 youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers who responded with live fire. Clashes also broke out between Palestinian demonstra-tors and Israeli soldiers along the Gaza-Israel border.

The Peninsula

DOHA: An interesting addition to the farmers’ market in Umm Salal, known as Al Mazrooa, is the locally grown plums, known in the Qatari parlance as kanar. Its botanical name is ziz-

iphus jujuba and it is also called as Chinese, Korean or Indian date. Its Hindi name is ber. According to a salesman at one of the outlets in Al Mazrooa, the demand for kanar is so much so that he alone has sold some-thing like 200kg in the past two days.

The farm he works for is located in Umm Qarn and has hundreds of

jujuba trees which produce some 150 to 200kg of ‘kanar’ a day. kanar season is from middle of January to the middle of May, said Iqbal, the salesman.

kanar, according to nutritionists, has several key minerals and is rich in vitamin C—It contains at least 20 times more vitamin C than any citrus

fruit and considered a medicine for var-ious diseases. kanar is available at Al Mazrooa in one and five-kg packets and while a kg cost QR10, the five-kg box was available for QR25 yesterday.

However, locally grown tomatoes and cucumber became expensive y in Al Mazrooa yesterday due to what vendors said were supply concerns.

Greenhouse-grown tomatoes were sold for QR20 per box of five to six kg here. The rate the previous week was QR14. Farm-grown toma-toes were available for QR14 a box, each also of five to six kg, while their price was QR9 last week.

→Continued on page 2

Agencies

MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al Shabaab militants took control of the south-ern port town of Marka yesterday hours after African Union troops and the Somalia National Army left, the rebels and witnesses said.

“We now control Marka police station and the entire town. AMISOM left the town early this morning,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab’s spokesman for military operations, said.

Residents said the militant Islamist group raised its flags inside the town, which is situated 100km southwest of Mogadishu, and started to preach to residents using loudspeakers.

Local police officer Hussein Elmi said they had moved out of the town to the outskirts without giving a rea-son for the move.

Kenyan troops, part of an Afri-can Union (AU) force in Somalia (AMISOM), took heavy losses when al Shabaab launched a dawn raid on their camp near the Kenyan border on Jan. 15, prompting the Kenyan and Somali forces to abandon some positions.

The loss of Merka, the state cap-ital of Lower Shabelle, is one of the most dramatic reverses for the AU force in its nearly decade-long bat-tle against the Shebab.

“The AU troops pulled out of the town and Shebab militants entered -- and have secured control without fighting,” Ibrahim Adam, governor of the Lower Shabelle region told reporters.

The loss of Merka comes as for-eign investigators probe a blast on a commercial airliner that ripped a hole in its fuselage, 15 minutes after take-off from Mogadishu on Tues-day, which the pilot and experts fear was a bomb.

Thousands flee embattled Aleppo

Real estate sector faces challenges

Locally grown plums a big hit at farmers’ market

Syrians fleeing the northern embattled city of Aleppo wait at Bab Al Salama, next to the city of Azaz, near Turkish crossing gate, yesterday. Nearly 40,000 civilians have fled a regime offensive near Aleppo, as Turkey warned it was bracing for a wave of tens of thousands of refugees.

Al Shabaab captures Somali port town

Today’s edition includes Health & Fitness

supplement

Israeli troops kill Palestinian youth

Companies are increasingly looking to provide housing allowances rather than provide accommodation to employees resulting in a number of apartment blocks remaining vacant

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

FEBRUARY 2016

HEALTHFITNESS

Family Fun Friday event held at Medina Central in The Pearl Qatar yesterday. Baher Amin/The Peninsula

Family Fun Friday

HOME02 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Al Jazeera Media Network has launched a new audio web app that will give users in low-band-width regions access to a live audio stream of the Al Jazeera TV broad-cast on their devices.

The service will help Al Jazeera reach new audiences where low Internet speeds limit access to video. The primary markets being targeted are Middle East, Africa and South-East Asia which will provide live broadcast content from Al Jazeera Arabic and English with plans for future channels and platforms as well.

Ibrahim Hamid, Director of Enterprise and Digital Platforms at Al Jazeera Media Network said: “The launch of our Al Jazeera audio streaming service will give new audiences the ability to listen to the

live broadcast of our English and Arabic channels. This service adds to our commitment of developing compelling digital experiences for those in areas with low-band-width Internet connections in markets such as South-East Asia and Africa.”

Samir Ibrahim Director of Distri-bution and Sales , commented:“We are very excited to bring our con-tent on an audio platform so we can reach new audiences where low Internet speeds limit access to video. The Al Jazeera brand contin-ues to expand into the digital sphere At Al Jazeera we continue to explore new and innovative ways to enhance our content consumption through a variety of ways. This announcement is another opportunity to strengthen our digital footprint and continue in our commitment to bringing access to Al Jazeera content across new platforms.”

Al Jazeera launches new audio service app

The Peninsula

DOHA: Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) showcased the Hamad Health-care Quality Institute (HHQI) at the Arab Health Exhibition and Con-gress in Dubai last week with the aim of building a network of regional healthcare providers in order to bet-ter understand and act on challenges faced by caregivers in the GCC.

HMC established HHQI with the sin-gle-minded purpose of improving the quality of healthcare within HMC, Qatar and the greater region. Nasser Saeed Al Naimi, Deputy Chief Quality Officer and Co-Director for Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute (HHQI), stated that HMC was committed to continuing on its jour-ney of quality improvement.

“The Institute was created to introduce the latest innovations and evidence-based healthcare solutions. HHQI embraces the roles of innova-tion, design, improvement, research, training and implementation, to cre-ate a first-of-its kind resource in the

region that enables sustainable health-care improvement.”

In addition expanding its regional network of healthcare provid-ers, HHQI used the exhibition as a

platform to announce the fourth Mid-dle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ME Forum), the lead-ing healthcare quality improvement conference in the region.

HMC showcases Quality healthcare system

HMC officials at the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress in Dubai.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Kashmir Solidarity Day was observed at the Pakistan Embassy here yesterday to express solidar-ity with the people of Kashmir in their struggle for the realisation of their fundamental and inaliena-ble rights.

The Embassy had arranged an august gathering comprising intel-lectuals, scholars, academicians, leading journalists and a large number of Pakistani and Kashmiri community members. All officials of the Embassy also attended the event.

The ceremony commenced with the recitation from Holy Quran fol-lowed by translation.

Messages of the President and the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, on Kashmir Solidarity Day, were also read out during the ceremony.

A s h o r t d o c u m e n -t a r y f i l m depic t i ng t he atrocities of the Indian armed forces in the Occupied Kashmir and Kashmiris’ struggle and their sacrifices to achieve their right

to self-determination,was also screened out for the audience.

A number of Speakers mostly from among prominent Kashmiris addressed the gathering and high-lighted the significance of the day. Dr. Azhar Iqbal Qureshi was the Keynote Speaker for the day. He is a prominent Kashmiri who has been an active volunteer for rights of Kashmiris and has been an active supporter of Kashmiris Freedom Movement.

The second Speaker was Rashid Iqbal Khan, a prominent Kashmiri businessman who has been working to raise awareness regarding Kash-mir issue on different platforms.

Shahzad Ahmad, Ambassador of Pakistan, in his speech reiterated his country’s principled stance on Kashmir. The Ambassador assured the Pakistani community, especially those who are of Kashmiri origin, that Pakistan will continue to sup-port people of Jammu and Kashmir politically and diplomatically and urged international community, especially the United Nations to resolve the issue in accordance with its Resolutions and aspirations of Kashmiri population.

Shahzad Ahmad, Ambassador of Pakistan, speaking at the Kashmir Solidarity Day function.

Pakistan Embassy holds Kashmir Day

Georgian dancers enthral audience

By Raynald C Rivera The Peninsula

DOHA: The Georgian Youth Folkloric Ballet “Egrisi” painted a vivid picture of the Georgian folkloric dance her-itage through a mosaic of dances in front of hundreds in the audience last night during the first of their two per-formances at the Cultural Diversity Festival at Katara Esplanade.

Georgia is the fourth country to present at the festival organised by the UNESCO Office in Doha together with the Cultural Village Foundation

— Katara.One of the creative forces on

Georgian stage, the troupe performed a wide range of Georgian folk dances reflecting the way of life of Georgians in the past. They looked stately in their beautifully crafted colourful costumes accentuated with fabu-lous head dresses.

The ensemble impressed the audience with their complicated dance routines involving graceful hand movements and swift amaz-ing tricks of toes and knees only best trained dancers can execute combin-ing skill and art.

From dances depicting aris-tocracy to romantic dance items to warrior dances, the young dance company composed of performers aged six to 24, earned the applause of Katara visitors who stayed in the venue until the conclusion of the show despite the cold weather.

“I think this event is an excellent platform to promote better under-standing among people. Dance is a language everyone understands and reflects how different and similar we are,” said Sara, a dance art enthusiast.

The 20-year-old dance com-pany founded in Tbilisi has already

enthralled audiences performing on various stages in their country.

Founded in Tbilisi, the ensemble has travelled extensively participating in competitions, festivals and cultural events around the world including Turkey, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus and Greece among others. It has also presented in Doha in several occasions including the 15th Doha Asian Games in 2006 and the Doha Capital of Arab Culture in 2010.

Georgian Ambassador Ekaterine Meiering-Mikadze, UNESCO repre-sentatives and Katara officials were among those in attendance at the

show which will witness a repeat tonight.

The biggest and longest festival of its kind hosted by Katara, the fes-tival runs until May 25 and will see performances by dance troupes from 20 countries from various continents. It also includes international and national workshops and is a vital part of UNESCO’s Intercultural Dialogue and Cultural Diversity Programme to increase cultural awareness and understanding. Among the countries that have already performed in the festival were the Philippines, India and Kenya.

Continued from page 1

The real estate market is rife with speculation that another major public sector entity, which has a key stake in Qatar’s residential market, is weighing the options of withdrawing from the market by providing housing allowances to its employees.

“Over 2015, redundancies in the hydrocarbon and governments sec-tors, together with new building completions have increased vacancy levels in many areas. The increase in vacancy levels has been most evi-dent in the past three months, where we have started to see rents in some areas reduce for the first time since 2009”, market analysts at DTZ said.

The majority enquiries for office accommodation during Octo-ber-December 2015 was limited to less than 250 sqm in the west Bay area. The demand from the private sector has also fallen in the past 12 months. In order to maintain current occupancy levels in 2016, there needs to be an increase in activity both from the public and private sec-tors, another market expert said.

According to market analysts there is currently more than 1.6 million sqm of purpose built office space in West Bay, which represents approximately over 40 percent of the supply of the supply of purpose built office accommodation in Doha. Despite fall in demand for office accommodation, availability levels in West Bay remain relatively low at 8 percent of built stock. DTZ estimates that there is currently an estimated 130,000 sqm of vacant offices available to rent in West Bay, much of which is available only as ‘single’ let buildings. This has resulted in rents remaining stable.

130,000 sqm of vacant office spaces in West Bay

Continued form page 1

Tomatoes are in high demand round-the-year and in winter particularly, as they are the main ingredient for curry-based local and Asian food prep-arations. Al Mazroora is one of the three farmers’ markets. The other two are in Al Wakra and Al Khor/Al Dhakhira. They are open three days a week, from Thursdays through Saturdays, during the winter months.

Cucumber turned three times costlier than the previous week in Al Maz-rooa, with its price jumping from QR12 for a five-kg box to as much as QR36.

Iqbal said the price hike was, perhaps, due to slackened supply of imported vegetables.

He didn’t give further details and said the prices of other vegetables were stable as compared to the previous week.

Demand for tomatoes and cucumber didn’t dwindle due to the price hike, he said. “In the past two days we have sold hundreds of boxes of the two veg-etables,” Iqbal claimed. Broccoli has begun coming on the market and its rate yesterday was QR18 for a five-kg box. Both types of cauliflower were selling for almost the same price. The price of pumpkin was QR20 for a seven-kg box and egg plants were the cheapest—QR12 for a box of four to five kg.

Cucumber turns three times costlier

Georgia is the fourth country to present at the festival organised by the UNESCO Office in Doha together with the Cultural Village Foundation — Katara

Georgian folkloric dancers perform at the Cultural Diversity Festival at Katara Esplanade yesterday. Baher Amin/The Peninsula

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Met office has forecast a foggy weather this morning and said that will affect visibility. How-ever, visibility will improve as the day progresses.

Day temperatures will be moderate and vary between 20 and 24 degrees C. Last night was cold with the mercury dropping to 11 in Meassaieed and Al Wakra.

In Doha, the temperature was 15 degrees C last night.

The wind direction inland will initially be northwesterly, later changing to northeasterly, said the weather bureau in its routine forecast for the day.

The sea will be clam, said the bureau.

Met sees foggy weather and low visibility

Baghdad Operations Command’s head Lieutenant-General Abdul Ameer Al Shammari (second right) speaks with officers in west of Falluja, Iraq.

War strategy

MIDDLE EAST 03 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Oppn should welcome Aleppo action: Russia

Reuters

GENEVA: A senior Russian diplo-mat said yesterday Syrian opposition envoys who attended UN-mediated peace talks this week should have welcomed a government offensive because it targeted Islamist mil-itants, rather than walk out of the parley.

The United Nations on Wednes-day shelved the first peace talks in two years, halting an effort that seemed doomed from the onset as fighting raged on unabated. Washing-ton said on Thursday it was hopeful talks would resume by the end of the month, and Russia said it expected that no later than February 25.

“Why did the opposition that left Geneva complain about the offensive in Aleppo, which is actually targeted against Jabhat Al Nusra and other rad-ical extremist groups?” said Alexey Borodavkin, Moscow’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

Nusra Front, as the militant group is known in English, is affili-ated to Al Qaeda and designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, and therefore banned from the peace talks, along with Islamic State insurgents.

“The opposition should be happy that terrorists are defeated. But, on the contrary, they were disappointed and left negotiations,” Borodavkin

said. The Syrian government, whose major non-regional ally is Russia, tends to refer to all rebels fighting it, including non-Islamist factions backed by the West, as “terrorists”.

Borodavkin also said it was regrettable that UN mediator Staffan de Mistura had suspended the talks and he must be “more meticulous” about deciding whom to include for the next round.

He said the international com-munity and moderate Syrian opposition wanted to see a demo-cratic, secular Syria which observed human rights and preserved terri-torial integrity and the main state institutions.

“We do not want Syria to become a state that could very much resemble something that is Daesh-looking,” he said, using the pejorative Arabic-language name for Islamic State.

“I’m afraid that not all opposi-tion personalities that were invited to Geneva share this point of view.”

Borodavkin declined to say if any group that quit the Geneva talks might risk being added to the “ter-rorist list”. “I don’t make comments on ifs,” he said.

The talks had included “some quite questionable personalities” from armed groups such as Jaish Al Islam and Ahrar Al Sham, Borodavkin said. But the Syrian government delegation, he said, was still prepared to negotiate and Russia accepted the talks must include people who had taken up arms against Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

Kurdish groups must also be involved in the talks, since they had a part to play in a ceasefire, anti-terrorism, humanitarian issues and political transition, Borodavkin said.

“It’s hard to believe that any of the points of the future agenda of Geneva negotiations could be substantively discussed without the Kurds. The argument that they are not opposition because they are not fighting Bashar Al Assad is absurd.”

Syrians fleeing from the northern embattled city of Aleppo waiting at the frontier post of Bab Al Salama bordering with Turkey. Thousands of Syrians were stuck on the Turkish border after fleeing a major regime offensive backed by Russia near Aleppo where a new humanitarian disaster appeared to be unfolding.

Fall of Aleppo would hand Putin elusive prizeReuters

MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin thinks Russian air strikes in Syria have helped turn the war’s tide but the pace of the Syrian army’s advance has frustrated him, some sources say. If Aleppo falls, he could get the military and symbolic prize he has been craving.

More than four months of Russian air strikes have stabilised the govern-ment of President Bashar Al Assad, the Kremlin’s closest Middle East ally, helping his forces find momentum on the battlefield.

But the names and strategic sig-nificance of the towns and villages they have recaptured have failed to electrify a Russian public more wor-ried about falling living standards.

Nor has the Syrian army — backed by Russian air power — yet deliv-ered a major victory that Russia can sell to the wider world as proof of its military might and growing Middle East clout.

“There has been some frustration with the Syrian army’s performance,” one source close to the Russian mil-itary, who declined to be identified, said. “Particularly in the beginning they were making slow progress.”

Retaking full control of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the five-year war, would change the narrative, say diplomats and analysts, bringing Putin a step closer to his preferred end-game which envisages a Rus-sia-friendly Syrian government that allows Moscow to keep its naval and air base there.

“So far we’ve heard reports of government forces gaining ground

here and there and there have been a few notable successes,” Dmitry Trenin, a former colonel in the Russian army and director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said.

“But all those successes were rather tactical and not particularly spectacular,” said Trenin. “Should Aleppo be placed under full con-trol of Damascus that would be a big psychological boost for Assad and a source of satisfaction for the Kremlin.”

Aleppo has been divided for years, with government forces con-trolling a section and other parts in the hands of rebels.

Tens of thousands of Syrians fled intensifying Russian bombard-ment around Aleppo yesterday, and aid workers said they feared the city, which once held two million peo-ple, could soon fall under complete

government siege. Government troops and their Lebanese and Iranian allies fully encircled the countryside north of Aleppo and cut off the main supply route linking the city to Turkey in the last 24 hours. Ankara said it suspected the aim was to starve the population into submission.

As the Kremlin’s impatience for a breakthrough has grown, it has bolstered its forces in Syria. Mostly recently, local media reported it had dispatched its most advanced military jet — the Sukhoi-35s — to join its strike force of around 40 fast jets.

It has also intensified its strike rate.

A victory in Aleppo could help lift morale at home where an economic crisis is eroding living standards and real incomes are falling for the first time in Putin’s 15 years in power.

Top Iraq cleric to end political messagesBAGHDAD: Iraq’s top Shia cleric will no longer provide weekly Fri-day political messages that have had a major impact on politics and secu-rity, an apparent sign of frustration with the government.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, who is revered by millions, has used messages delivered by his repre-sentatives at Friday prayers to call Iraqis to arms against the Islamic State group, push for anti-corruption reforms, and urge unity in a deeply divided country.

Each Friday, “we would read, in the second sermon, a written text representing the perspectives and opinions of the supreme religious authority on Iraqi affairs,” Sistani’s representative Ahmed Al Safi said in the Shia shrine city Karbala.

But it has been “decided that this will not happen every week at this time,” and rather only as circum-stances require, said Safi, who did not give a reason for the decision.

Hayder Al Khoei, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think-tank, said the end of the regular messages is a sign of Sistani’s frus-tration with Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi and his government.

“Sistani is clearly still livid with the government over the abysmal failure of its reform programme,” Khoei said.

“His decision to not continue with a weekly political sermon indi-cates obvious frustration that his constant and consistent messages pushing for reform are not being lis-tened to,” he said.

Sistani has repeatedly called for the Iraqi government to imple-ment measures aimed at fighting the rampant corruption plagu-ing the country, and warned

politicians not to undercut them. But while Sistani’s calls gave Abadi the political cover needed to pursue reforms, opposition from across the political spec-trum remained a major challenge and little in the way of deep, lasting change has been effected.

Khoei said a cleric from Najaf told him that with this decision, “Sistani is half-closing the door in Abadi’s face.”

Sistani is a follower of the “qui-etist” tradition of Shia Islam that eschews involvement in politics, as opposed to the much more active role advocated by clerics such as Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatol-lah Ruhollah Khomeini, who directly led the state.

But Sistani has had a major impact at key moments in Iraqi his-tory in the years since the 2003 US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

His timely return to Najaf in August 2004 from London, where he had been undergoing medical treatment, settled a deadly con-frontation between the US military and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

Sistani also pressured the US to expedite the path to democratic elections, and has repeatedly urged people to vote.

And both at the height of the Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict in Iraq and in later years, Sistani has urged unity among both Iraqi citizens and politicians.

The ageing cleric’s most influen-tial pronouncement of recent years was a call for all able-bodied Ira-qis to take up arms as part of the security forces to combat IS, which overran large parts of the country in 2014.

Merkel to visit Turkey for talks on migrantsAFP

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Ankara next week for talks with Turkey’s prime minister, her spokesman said yeser-day, as she seeks to cut the flow of refugees into the EU.

Merkel will meet with Prime Min-ister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday to discuss “the further implementation of the EU-Turkey action plan” agreed in November to reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving in the bloc.

They will discuss aspects of the plan that have not yet been imple-mented and “how we can make progress on reducing illegal migration and replacing it with legal migration,” spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

He said Berlin was still particu-larly concerned about the rampant people smuggling off the Turkish coast where dozens of refugees have drowned in recent weeks.

It will be the second bilateral meeting between Merkel and Dav-utoglu in a month, after talks in Berlin on January 22 where the two leaders signed an agreement to “do

everything to reduce the number of refugees” crossing into the EU.

Meanwhile, interior ministers of France and Germany said yesterday that the massive flow of migrants and refugees into Europe must be slowed through closer cooperation with Turkey.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere stressed that the migrant crisis which erupted last year is a real “danger” for Europe’s Schengen bor-der-free zone.

The goal “cannot just be to regis-ter arriving refugees and to relocate them equitably (but above all) to

reduce the flow,” de Maiziere said after a two-day visit to registration facilities in Greece.

Both de Maiziere and his French counterpart Bernard Caze-neuve stressed that there was room for improvement in coor-dinating security databases on Europe’s borders.

Data from the passport-free Schengen zone must include “ter-rorism (records) by police and intelligence agencies, and conditions must be created to link the Schen-gen system to other criminal records,” Cazeneuve told reporters.

Turkish court to

seek life without

parole for scribe

ANKARA: Two prominent Turk-ish journalists will be charged with assisting terrorists and face life sentences without parole if convicted, their lawyers said, after they published video foot-age purporting to show the state intelligence agency helping to send weapons to Syria.

An Istanbul court accepted an indictment yesterday seeking life imprisonment for Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of the secular Cum-huriyet, and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul, who were arrested in November. The two are charged with intentionally aiding an armed terrorist organisation and pub-lishing material in violation of state security. Cumhuriyet pub-lished photos, videos and a report in May that it said showed intelli-gence officials transporting arms to Syria in trucks.

Alexey Borodavkin, Moscow’s Ambassador to the United Nations, says that the opposition should be happy that terrorists are defeated

Palestinian protesters run to seek cover from tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers during clashes at the West Bank village of Qabatiya, near Jenin, yesterday. Israeli military closed off roadblocks and checkpoints in and out of the town while soldiers prepared punitive measures to raze the homes of three alleged attackers.

Fighting off tear gas

MIDDLE EAST04 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

AFP

MOGADISHU: Three people were killed yesterday in a car bomb tar-geting an airport official in Somalia’s capital, police said, as investigators probe an airplane blast experts fear was also a bomb. “An airport security official was targeted but he survived the attack, three other people includ-ing a woman were killed in the blast,” police official Ali Dahir said.

Witnesses described an enormous explosion with the car bursting into flames. The man believed to have been targeted had just left the vehi-cle to go into a chemist shop.

“A man got out of the car and entered a pharmacy, but before he returned a huge blast ripped through the car. I saw several people burned,”

said Aded Mohamed, who was near the explosion.

No group has claimed responsi-bility for the car bomb, but Somalia’s Al Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab extrem-ists have carried out a raft of similar attacks in the past.

The car bomb follows a blast on a commercial airliner that ripped a hole in its fuselage, 15 minutes after take-off from Mogadishu on Tuesday.

It is unclear whether the two blasts were in any way related, but security has been boosted around the already heavily fortified airport.

One passenger, named by the government as Abdulahi Abdisalam Borle, was killed in the mystery plane blast, apparently sucked out through the ragged hole ripped in the metal. Two other passengers were slightly injured, but the rest of the around 70 passengers and crew were unhurt.

Aviation experts and the pilot who landed the plane safely in Mogadishu after the mid-air explosion have said they fear the blast was a bomb. There has been no official confirmation of the cause of the explosion.

Mogadishu airport is surrounded by blast walls, and adjoins the capi-tal’s main base of the African Union mission to Somalia, the 22,000-strong force backing the government in the battle against the Shebab.

The insurgents have lost ground since being routed from Mogadishu in 2011 but continue to stage regular shooting and suicide attacks. They

have launched mortar attacks on the airport compound in the past.

They have made no claim of car-rying out a bomb attack on the plane.

The airline and government avi-ation experts have been examining the blast, with foreign experts due to begin work yesterday.

“Foreign experts are coming

regarding the blast on the plane. They will establish facts and see if it was really a bomb that went off on board,” a Mogadishu airport security official said, asking not to be named.Photo-graphs showed a large hole — about a metre in diameter — just above the engines on the right wing, with streaks of soot on the plane.

Minister for Transport Ali Jama Jangeli called on people to await the results of the investigation.

“We don’t want to speculate on this matter. There is no need to make suspicious links with any group at the moment,” Jangeli told reporters. “There are investigations going on to establish what caused

the airplane make the emergency landing.”

Pilot Vladimir Vodopivec has said he believed it was likely caused by a bomb, a claim backed by avia-tion safety expert Xavier Tytelman, who compared images of the blast with photographs of previous explosions.

Three killed as car bomb targets Somalia airportWitnesses described an enormous explosion with the car bursting into flames. The man believed to have been targeted had just left the vehicle

A soldier stands near a burnt car at the scene of a car bomb attack in Mogadishu yesterday.

Human Rights

Watch praises

Tunisia on

judicial reforms

AFP

TUNIS: Human Rights Watch has praised Tunisia on judicial reforms which it said amounted to a “significant breakthrough” in protecting the rights of detain-ees.

Parliament on Tuesday approved amendments to Article 13 of Tunisia’s penal code to fall in line with the new constitution adopted two years ago as part of the country’s political transition from dictatorship to democracy.

“Provisions to grant suspects the right to a lawyer from the onset of detention, and to shorten the maximum pre-charge detention are included in a revision of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP),” said the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“Tunisia’s parliament made a significant breakthrough for human rights by approving pro-posed changes in detainee rights,” it said.

“The new law has the poten-tial to close loopholes that led to widespread abuses during the presidency of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali” who was overthrown in Tuni-sia’s 2011 revolution, said Amna Guellali, country director for the rights group.

The new law takes effect on July 1.

HRW cautioned, however, that the law still has “several shortcom-ings” and urged the authorities to “adopt implementing legislation that could close the remaining loopholes”.

Such legislation “should clar-ify that detention begins at the moment of arrest, to preempt alternative interpretations that would delay a detainee’s access to a lawyer and presentation to a judge”, it said.

Ghazi Mrabet, a lawyer and rights activist, said he welcomed the amendments which he said could put an end to the use of violence against detainees and confessions being extracted under duress.

Israeli leaders slam MPs for meeting attackers’ familiesAFP

JERUSALEM: Three Arab Israeli lawmakers who met relatives of Pal-estinians killed after carrying out attacks on Israelis faced fierce crit-icism from both sides of the Jewish state’s political divide yesterday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-yahu said he wanted to punish the politicians, while the opposition Zion-ist Union said the Tuesday meeting “gave a helping hand to terror”.

“Members of Knesset (parliament) who go to comfort the families of ter-rorists who murdered Israelis do not deserve to be in the Israeli Knesset,” Netanyahu said in a statement late Thursday.

“I have asked the speaker of the Knesset and the attorney general to examine what steps can be taken against them,” he said.

Netanyahu and Speaker Yuli Edel-stein would take the “unprecedented step” of filing personal complaints against the lawmakers with the house’s ethics committee, a Knesset statement said yesterday.

Lawmakers Basel Ghattas, Jamal Zahalka and Hanin Zuabi attended a meeting initiated by a Palestinian committee seeking to retrieve the bodies of attackers killed at the scene by Israeli security forces, their Balad party said.

A wave of violence since October has killed 26 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, accord-ing to a count.

At the same time, 164 Pales-tinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks but others during clashes and demonstrations.

Israel has returned the bodies of some attackers but is retaining others.

The remains of assailants from

the occupied West Bank, for which the Israeli army is responsible, have been returned for burial in accord-ance with Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon’s view that retaining them would further fuel tensions.

But Israel has kept the bodies of 10 Palestinians from Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, which is under the authority of Internal Security Minis-ter Gilad Erdan, who says he wants to avoid funerals becoming Palestinian political rallies.

Palestinians say withholding the bodies is a form of collective punishment.

“The non-delivery of the bod-ies is an act of revenge” against the families of attackers, Balad said in a statement Friday.

It said the meeting was held to retrieve bodies withheld “in con-travention of all international and humanitarian laws and norms.”

Israeli Arab rights group Adalah

said the relatives of several Palestini-ans killed in attacks attended, but did not elaborate.

Balad said they included the father of Bahaa Alyan, who in Octo-ber boarded a bus in Jerusalem with a friend, shooting and stabbing passen-gers and killing three people.

Alyan was shot dead and Israel later demolished his family home as punishment. The friend was arrested.

When it does release Palestin-ian bodies for burial, Israel imposes conditions such as nighttime funer-als with few mourners.

Families are also sometimes made to pay a deposit of several thousand shekels (hundreds of dollars), which is lost if the funeral does not pass quietly.

Last month Alyan’s father Mohammed said he would not sub-mit to such demands, and would not bury his son outside Jerusalem.

Balad said its lawmakers had

passed the families’ requests on to Erdan.

Arab Israelis — who represent about 18 percent of Israel’s population — are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Although they are citizens of the Jewish state, they largely see them-selves as Palestinians.

Yaalon, of Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, said that the Balad law-makers represented a “small and separatist minority among Israeli Arabs”. “The radical minority that is trying to incite and divide must be condemned and removed from our midst,” he said.

Lawmaker Itzik Shmuli, of the main opposition Zionist Union, said that his party “totally condemned” such contacts.

“It’s an act that simply gives a helping hand to terrorism,” he told Israeli public radio yesterday.

Palestinian journalist keeps up hunger strikeAFP

JERUSALEM: Palestinian journal-ist Mohammed Al Qiq will keep up his hunger strike despite Israel’s sus-pension of a detention without trial order against him, his lawyer said yesterday.

The 33-year-old television reporter, who still cannot leave hospital without permission, is “determined to continue his fast until he is freed,” Jawad Boulos said.

Israel’s Supreme Court on Thurs-day lifted the order to hold him under the controversial administra-tive detention law, which allows the state to hold suspects without trial indefinitely.

But the court ruled Qiq needs permission to leave the hospital where he is handcuffed to his bed.

The hospital told the court his life was in grave danger, after fasting for more than 10 weeks in protest at his detention.

“The patient at this stage —and in fact during recent days — is

in grave danger and in a condition where there is a high risk of his sudden death,” court documents quoted the northern Afula hospital as saying.

The United Nations on Friday said that it was “extremely con-cerned” over his condition and called on Israel to end administra-tive detention.

“We reiterate our concerns at the situation of Palestinian administra-tive detainees who are held without charge or trial by the Israeli author-ities, often on the basis of secret evidence,” the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement.

“We call, once again, upon the Israeli authorities to end their practice of administrative detention and to either release immediately or promptly charge and prosecute all administrative detainees,” it said.

Qiq, a father of two and a cor-respondent for Saudi Arabia’s Almajd TV network, was arrested on November 21 at his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A Filipino protestor donned in a monkey mask participates in a demonstration in front of the China consular office in Makati City, south of Manila, Philippines, yesterday. In a statement by the activists, the Akbayan group trooped to the Chinese consular office to commemorate Lunar New Year while calling out the Chinese government for its continued incursions into Philippine territories.

Filipinos protest China incursions

ASIA / PHILIPPINES 05SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

AFP

HONG KONG: Chinese police have said for the first time that they are holding three Hong Kong booksellers who went missing on the mainland last year, sparking accusations that Beijing has “total contempt” for the law.

The admission confirms what many in the quasi-independent territory have suspected, and will reinforce fears that rights guaranteed under the principle of “One Coun-try, Two Systems” are being eroded.

The three men all work for the Mighty Current publishing house, based in Hong Kong and known for salacious titles critical of the Chinese government.

Five booksellers from the firm have disappeared since October. All have now turned up in China, draw-ing international criticism. Campaign group Amnesty International said

yesterday that Chinese authorities had “total contempt for due process and the rule of law”.

“The Chinese authorities need to end their smoke and mirrors strategy and come clean with a full and proper explanation,” said Amnesty’s China researcher William Nee.

Washington called on Beijing on Monday to explain the disap-pearances, with a State Department spokesman saying the incidents “raise serious questions about China’s commitment to Hong Kong’s auton-omy”. Booksellers Lui Por, Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kee disap-peared in southern mainland China in October.

A fourth missing member of the company, Gui Minhai, a Swedish national, was paraded weeping on Chinese state television in January, where he said he had turned him-self in for a fatal driving accident 11 years ago. Gui had failed to return to Hong Kong from a holiday in Thai-land in October.

In a letter to Hong Kong police, the Interpol Guangdong Liaison Office, part of the southern Chinese province’s public security depart-ment, said the three men being held “were suspected to be involved in a case relating to a person named Gui, and were involved in illegal activities on the mainland.”

“Criminal compulsory measures were imposed on them and they were under investigation,” said the letter, released by Hong Kong police late on Thursday. Enclosed was also a letter from the fifth missing bookseller, Lee Bo, Hong Kong police said.

Lee’s case has sparked the strongest backlash as he was the only one of the men to have disappeared while in Hong Kong.

Lee was last seen at a book

warehouse in his home city in December. Lawmakers and activists have accused mainland authorities of snatching Lee from the city, contra-vening Hong Kong’s laws which do not allow Chinese police to operate within the territory.

The new letter from Lee said Chi-nese authorities had told him Hong Kong police wanted to meet with him on the mainland, according to the Hong Kong police statement.

“He stated that he did not need to meet with police at the moment. He would contact police should he need to meet with police,” the state-ment said. It added that Lee’s wife had confirmed the letter was in her husband’s handwriting.

Some supporters of the booksell-ers believe they were targeted over a new book they were about to pub-lish on the love life of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The author of the book, Chinese writer Xi Nuo, based in the US, urged China to release the men.

“They are not responsible for this. I’m responsible for this. I want to... tell the Chinese government: let the five guys go home,” the author told the BBC. Hong Kong police have asked the Guangdong authorities to “assist in following up the situations” of the three booksellers revealed to be under investigation, and to reiterate to Lee that Hong Kong police wanted to meet with him, the statement said.

Hong Kong was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and its freedoms and way of life are pro-tected under a 50-year agreement.

The disappearances have added to already simmering tensions over the erosion of those freedoms after attacks on journalists, increasing self-censorship and accusations of interference in the city’s education institutions.

Police: Three missing HK booksellers held in ChinaThe admission confirms what many in the quasi-independent territory have suspected, and will reinforce fears that rights guaranteed under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems” are being eroded

Reuters

SYDNEY: Australia is considering subjecting thousands of refugees from Syria to tougher character and security checks than their European counterparts to minimise the risk of “extremist infiltration”, a leaked pol-icy document says.

The draft document singles out refugees from Syria as potentially

holding beliefs or associations that may lead them to engage in violent activities, and outlines measures to monitor them even after they gain Australian citizenship.

Australia is on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown radi-cals. Its tough asylum seeker policy, which includes mandatory deten-tion for people arriving by boat, is a hot-button political issue. The Aus-tralian Broadcasting Corporation first reported on the leaked document

prepared for the seven-member National Security Committee of cabi-net. Reuters has obtained a copy.

The seven-page document lays out recommendations to be put forward by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton this year. “To mitigate risks and build public confidence, I (Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) will be bring-ing forward a package of reforms to simplify Australia’s visa frame-work and create stronger controls

over access to permanent residency and citizenship,” it says.

Australia last year agreed to accept 12,000 refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, as hundreds of thou-sands of asylum seekers flooded into Europe amidst the worsening conflict.

The document also singles out Australia’s Lebanese Sunni Muslim population as an example of “poten-tial community safety and national security risks associated with unsuc-cessful immigration.”

Only about half a million peo-ple out of Australia’s 23.5 million are Muslims. At least half live in Sydney’s western suburbs, which were trans-formed in the mid-1970s from white working-class enclaves into major-ity-Muslim outposts by a surge of immigration from Lebanon.

Australia’s tough asylum seeker policy of mandatory detention has been criticised internationally, but is likely to figure highly in national elec-tions due to be held later this year.

AFP

KATHMANDU: Cargo trucks drove through a Nepal bor-der crossing for the first time in months yesterday, police said, fol-lowing a blockade that has caused a crippling shortage of fuel and vital supplies in the landlocked country.

Demonstrators from Nepal’s Madhesi ethnic minority have led a blockade of the key border cross-ing in Birgunj, 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of Kathmandu, since September. “There is no block-ade at the checkpoint right now, and over 150 small and big vehi-cles have passed through since this afternoon,” local police chief Raju Babu Shrestha said.

Shrestha said that Nepali and Indian businessmen and locals had dismantled the protesters’ tents and opened the blocked border. However, Shiva Patel, general sec-retary of the Sadbhawana political party that represents the Madhesi minority, said that protesters had not withdrawn the blockade.

“Black market goons and police forced our supporters off the cross-ing. There was a large mass (of people) there, and it was not safe for us to return,” Patel said. “We will have a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss what to do next.”

Nepal is heavily dependent on India for fuel and other supplies, but slow movement of cargo in other checkpoints since the protests broke out prompted Kathmandu to earlier accuse New Delhi of imposing an “unofficial blockade”.

In a bid to break the dead-lock, parties tabled a bill to amend the constitution, promis-ing to increase the presence of the Madhesi—who mainly live in the southern plains—in government bodies through proportional rep-resentation. The bill was passed in January and will likely generate more seats for lawmakers in the densely populated southern plains that are home to most Madhesis.

AFP

TOKYO: A volcano in southern Japan dramatically erupted yesterday, with television footage showing fiery bursts of super hot rock and ash rushing down its slopes, though authorities said it posed no imme-diate danger to populated areas.

One of the most famous of the country’s volca-noes is 1,117-metre-high Sakurajima, which sits in a scenic bay on the southern island of Kyushu, and erupted at 6:56pm (0956 GMT), the Japan Meteor-ological Agency said. The blast spewed out large rocks, the agency said, warning that debris and

pyroclastic flows — a super hot and fast-moving mixture of gases and rock fragments — could reach as far as 2km away.

The spectacle of the eruption was captured in footage shown on national broadcaster NHK, with the orange colour of the flows shining brightly in the darkened sky.

While local police received no immediate report of damage or injuries among the approxi-mately 4,000 residents who live in the immediate surroundings, they were still rattled by the power of the eruption.

“There were rising pillars of fire, and flickering lights like lightning,” said a local resident who told NHK that he witnessed the scene from a window.

Trucks cross Nepal border as checkpoint reopens

Australia may crack down on Syrian refugees: Report

Volcanic lightning is seen at an eruption of Mount Sakurajima, in southwestern Japan, yesterday.

Volcano erupts in fiery show of nature

Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze that broke out at a residential building leaving three residents dead and many injured, in Bangkok, Thailand, yesterday.

Three dead in Bangkok blaze

ASIA / AFRICA06 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Reuters

SEOUL: The United States has deployed missile defence systems that will work with the Japanese and South Korean militaries to track a rocket North Korea says it will launch some time over an 18-day period beginning Monday.

China, the North’s sole major ally but opposed to Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, appealed for calm.

North Korea has notified UN agencies it will launch a rocket carrying what it called an earth observation satellite some time between February 8 and February 25, triggering international opposi-tion from governments that see it as a long-range missile test.

North Korea says it has a sov-ereign right to pursue a space programme. But it is barred under UN Security Council resolutions from using ballistic missile technology.

Coming so soon after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, on Jan-uary 6, also barred by Security Council resolutions, a rocket launch would raise concern that it plans to fit nuclear warheads on its mis-siles, giving it the capability to strike South Korea, Japan and possibly the US West Coast.

China has told North Korea that it does not want to see anything happen that could further raise tension, Chi-nese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said,

describing “a serious situation”, after a special envoy from China visited North Korea this week. The United States has urged China to use its influence to rein in its neighbour.

Speaking to President Park Geun-hye, Chinese President Xi Jin-ping said he hoped all parties could bear in mind the broader picture of maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula, and “calmly deal with the present situation”, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

“The peninsula cannot be nucle-arised, and cannot have war or chaos,” Xi said, also repeating a call for dialogue.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun news-paper quoted Pentagon officials as saying that fuelling of the rocket appeared to have begun. It cited satellite footage showing increased activity around the missile launch and fuel storage areas, suggesting preparations for a launch could be completed within “a number of days” at the earliest.

A launch would draw fresh US calls for tougher UN sanctions that are already under discussion in response to the nuclear test.

What would likely be an indig-enous three-stage rocket will be tracked closely. South Korea and Japan have put their militaries on standby to shoot down the rocket, or its parts, if they go off course and threaten to crash on their territory.

“We will, as we always do, watch carefully if there’s a launch, track the launch, (and) have our missile defence assets positioned and ready,” US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said on Thursday.

“We plan a lot about it. We and our close allies - the Japanese and the South Koreans - are ready for it.”

South Korea has said its Aegis destroyers, its Green Pine anti-bal-listic missile radar and early warning and control aircraft Peace Eye are ready. A US Navy spokesman con-firmed the missile tracking ship USNS Howard O Lorenzen arrived in Japan this week but declined to say if it was in response to the North’s planned launch.

Boosters and other parts will also

be tracked as they splash into the sea, in the hope they can be retrieved and analysed for clues on Pyongyang’s rocket programme.

“Retrieving parts or objects from the launch vehicle are the most important part of the rocket analy-sis,” said Markus Schiller, a rocketry expert based in Germany.

North Korea said the launch would be during the morning and gave coordinates of where the boost-ers and payload cover would drop in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Penin-sula’s west coast and the Pacific to the east of the Philippines.

The US Navy has sonar equip-ment and unmanned vehicles that could be used to help recover parts, according to Navy officials. It was not clear if that equipment is in the region.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending what it described as a com-munications satellite into orbit.

South Korea’s navy retrieved the section of the first stage booster that was part of the fuel tank and one of the four steering engines that con-firmed the presence of technology and materials that North Korea had not been known to possess.

Analysis pointed to a launch vehi-cle capable of carrying a payload of about 500kg more than 10,000km, according to South Korea.

A typical nuclear warhead weighs about 300 kg, although North Korea is not believed to have been able to miniaturise a nuclear weapon to that size. Recovered parts allowed experts to conclude that the second stage booster likely used Soviet-era Scud missile technology and did not use advanced propellant, indicating the rocket was suited for satellite launch but unfit to deliver a warhead.

“My guess is that if you took the rocket they used last time and put a warhead on it you probably would not be able to reach the United States,” said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The search for information on the North’s rocket programme will not be easy.

US and allies aim to track N Korea rocket

AFP

HARARE: Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe yesterday declared a “state of disaster” in many rural areas hit by a severe drought, with more than a quarter of the popula-tion facing food shortages.

A regional drought worsened by the El Nino weather phenomenon has affected South Africa, Malawi and Zambia as well as Zimbabwe, leav-ing tens of thousands of cattle dead, dams depleted and crops written off.

Formerly known as the breadbas-ket of Africa, Zimbabwe has suffered perennial shortages in recent years and has relied on importing grain from neighbouring countries to meet its needs. “Initial indications were that 1.5m people were food insecure with all the 60 rural districts being affected,” Public Works Minister Sav-iour Kasukuwere said in a statement.

“Overall, the food insecure

population has since risen to 2.44m -- 26 percent of the population.

“(With) the continued threat of the El Nino-induced drought, his excellency the president has declared a state of disaster in regard to severely affected areas.”

Mugabe has blamed low farm yields on erratic rains due to climate change, as well as sanctions imposed by Western countries over the gov-ernment’s tainted human rights record. Critics say the food short-ages have been partially caused by the president’s land reforms enacted since 2000 when the government oversaw the often violent eviction of white farmers.

Many farms are under-utilised, and the government has vowed to hold an audit to ensure agriculture land is put into production.

“The rains came too late to save the crops. Most of the maize wilted,” Enos Janhi, a farmer in Masvingo, one of the worst affected districts, said by telephone. “Farmers are driving their

cattle into the fields to graze on the drying stalks. The government must act urgently to bring us food.”

Kasukuwere said at least 16,500 cattle have died in Zimbabwe, while as much as 75 percent of crops have been abandoned in the worst-hit areas.

The minister said the Zimba-bwean government would take measures to minimise the impact of the drought on both humans and live-stock. But he gave few details, and the country has scarce resources to tackle the food shortages due to years of international isolation and its stag-nant economy.

“The April (2015) harvest in Zim-babwe was 50 percent lower than the previous year,” said David Orr, spokesman for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). “With the drought continuing, it looks like the lean sea-son is going to continue beyond the harvest time this year. “The number of food insecure people is likely to rise and continue rising.”

Zimbabwean men attempt to get a malnourished cow on its feet in rural Masvingo.

Zimbabwe declares ‘state of disaster’ over drought

Reuters

JOHANNESBURG: Almost 90 miners were rescued and three were still missing after a cave-in at a gold mine in northeastern South Africa yesterday, the firm that owns the mine said.

The collapse at the mine’s main entrance trapped 87 work-ers underground, all of whom were rescued, Vantage Goldfields said in a statement. However, three oth-ers who had been working on the surface at the time of the collapse could not be accounted for.

No fatalities were reported. However, there was confusion regarding the number of workers involved.

“As we speak they might already all be out. Most have been evacuated,” Mike McChes-ney, chief executive of the small gold producer told Reuters by tel-ephone from the mine in Barbeton town in Mpumalanga province about 360km (225 miles) east of Johannesburg.

McChesney and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union initially said 115 workers had been trapped.

South Africa’s mines are the deepest and among the most dan-gerous in the world. Fatalities in the industry have been falling due to both improved safety practices and a reduction in the labour force as production declines. Vantage Goldfields is an Australia-based company mining gold at Barberton, a town that traces its origin in the country’s 19th century gold rush. Vantage was delisted from the Aus-tralian bourse in January 2015.

AFP

BAMAKO: At least four suspected jihadists and a Malian soldier were killed yesterday following an attack on a UN military camp in Timbuktu in Mali’s restive north, a Malian security source said.

The assault came just a day after the fabled city celebrated the restoration of its greatest treasures — earthen mausoleums dating to mediaeval times that were destroyed during an Islamist takeover in 2012.

Hours of fighting followed the early morn-ing attack on the camp in the south of Timbuktu, the source said, adding that the offensive against the attackers ended in the afternoon.

“At least four terrorists were killed, including those who blew themselves up in their vehicle, (and) three Malian soldiers were wounded and one killed,” the source said.

“A Malian officer who was taking part in the hunt for the terrorists was unfortunately killed” when a wall collapsed on his armoured vehicle.

“But we are continuing search-and-sweep operations and we will also continue patrolling to ensure the security of the local population.”

The raid was essentially a double attack with the assailants first blowing up their vehicle at a military roadblock near the camp and a sec-ond vehicle then coming in with others who started firing.

It was a “carefully prepared” plan targeting the Nigerian contingent of MINUSMA, the UN’s peacekeeping mission, the source said. A Nige-rian peacekeeper was slightly wounded along with a civilian.

The army had reports that a vehicle being used by the suspected Islamists had “infiltrated the town of Timbuktu itself,” another military source added. Another Malian source said the camp had

recently been evacuated by police officers from Nigeria but some soldiers had remained there.

A local resident said the assailants seemed to have “really prepared their plan.” “I believe that they first blew up their car so that MINUSMA forces would come out to inspect the damage, in order to attack them again,” he said, referring to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali.

A Malian soldier was killed last month in an ambush on the outskirts of Timbuktu in contin-uing violence in the sprawling arid north of the country. Northern Mali fell under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012.

AFP

BEIJING: China yesterday released the findings of an inquiry into its worst industrial accident in years, calling for 123 people connected to the deadly chemical blast to be punished.

The report followed an investiga-tion by the State Council evaluating the cause of the August blast in the northern city of Tianjin that left at least 165 dead.

Industrial accidents are com-mon in China where safety standards are often lax, but the massive blast sparked widespread anger over a perceived lack of transparency by officials about its causes and envi-ronmental impact.

The blast, which caused over $1bn in damages, was caused by improper chemical storage by Tian-jin Ruihai International Logistics, according to the report published on the State Administration of Work

Safety website. Dry weather condition allowed for the spontaneous combus-tion of “nitro-cotton”, a flammable compound stored in the warehouse, it said. The fire then ignited other chem-icals, including ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive compound com-monly used in fertiliser and also in homemade bombs.

But the underlying cause was that government bodies in charge of the port, up to the ministerial level, rou-tinely ignored or violated laws and regulations regarding chemical stor-age, according to the report.

It added that some officials con-nected to the explosion were guilty of “corruption” and “abuse of power” and recommended the 123 people, including five at the ministerial level, face disciplinary action. Another 49 had already faced legal proceedings, it said.

Thousands of tonnes of hazardous chemicals were stored at the ware-house, some 600 metres (2000 feet) from residential buildings.

Three missing and 87 rescued after S Africa mine collapse

Five killed as four jihadists attack UN camp in Mali

China calls for 123 to be punished over blast

North Korea says it has a sovereign right to pursue a space programme. But it is barred under UN Security Council resolutions from using ballistic missile technology

Young Pakistani children hold toy weapons as supporters of the banned organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa shout anti-Indian slogans during a protest to mark Kashmir Solidarity Day, in Peshawar, yesterday.

Kashmir Solidarity Day

PAKISTAN 07SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

All of PIA’s foreign and domestic flights were suspended with thousands of passengers, including Pakistani domestic workers trying to fly to the Middle East stranded at key airports

AFP

KARACHI: Major Pakistan airports remained crippled by industrial action yesterday as a strike by employees of the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airways (PIA) against plans to privatise the airline entered its fourth day.

All of PIA’s foreign and domestic flights were suspended yesterday with thousands of passengers, including

Pakistani domestic workers trying to fly to the Middle East, stranded at Karachi’s international airport and other key hubs.

“My visa is about to expire in the next three days and I have to reach Dubai before that but here I am stuck at the airport,” Sualma Jia, who works at a hotel in Dubai, told reporters in Karachi. She said she was not even able to retrieve her luggage from the airline.

“My future is at stake here, I tried a few private airlines but they have raised their fares by almost three times,” she said.

PIA spokesman Danial Hassan Gillani said agreements had been reached with rival airlines to fly all domestic and international passen-gers, including dozens of pilgrims heading for Saudi Arabia who held a protest after their flight was cancelled.

However, passengers must pay any price increase and the backlog is expected to take days to clear, with no end in sight to the industrial action.

Earlier this week, two protesting airline employees were shot dead and several more wounded at Karachi’s international airport when clashes broke out between security forces and staff, though authorities denied opening fire.

The strike continues despite Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s warning the demonstration was illegal and those

taking part could face up to a year in prison under a law that restricts union activity in state-administered sectors.

In December, Islamabad announced it would complete the partial sale of the carrier by July,

following years of crushing losses and mismanagement that have bat-tered the airline’s reputation.

Internews

LAHORE: It is a classic example of a capitalist economy —one person’s loss is another person’s gain. Driven into the arms of Pakistan Railways, pas-sengers have helped this state-owned entity earn an additional Rs 6m on Wednesday, as PIA workers continued to disrupt operations ironic since it is their loss-making status that is forcing the state to sell its stake in the entity in the first place.

However, passengers’ shift to Railways has helped the entity, said

its senior general manager sales Javed Anwar, and it is ready to take on the challenge.

Nearly all main Line-1 trains, including Lahore to Karachi, Kara-chi Express and Business Express and Rawalpindi-to-Karachi Green line train, were seen catering to an increased number of passengers from Tuesday, the day PIA strike began. “The number is not too high, it is somewhere between 500 to 600 additional passengers,” said Anwar. “However, we have made preparation to carry the additional passengers and we have plenty of reserve coaches for the purpose.

“We are continuously monitoring the passenger traffic and are attach-ing additional coaches with those trains whose occupancy crosses 100 percent. To ensure this, we have directed all our divisions accordingly.”

Currently, two additional coaches have been attached to Karachi Express, and one to Business Express and Green Line.

Normally, these trains have a total number of 15 coaches each. However, the number of coaches for green line are either reduced or increased at the Lahore railway station depending on the number of passengers in between Lahore-Rawalpindi.

Some Railways officials are anticipating increased number of passengers in the coming days due to the PIA strike. Consequently, they are hoping that Railways will earn higher revenue, at least for the next few days. Moreover, the major chunk of additional passengers is from Kara-chi to Lahore.

As per the Railways, Karachi Express can generate an amount of Rs 2.4m for a single trip at 100 per-cent occupancy. Similarly, Business Express can earn Rs 3.2m and Green Line can earn Rs 5.4m if operated at 100 percent occupancy.

“It is a natural phenomenon; if one

mode of transportation sees trouble, people will opt for the second one”, said Tariq Sikandar, travelling to Karachi from Lahore. “I have opted for the rail route since right now I can-not afford air travel with my family. We were able to book seats comfort-ably,” he added.

Meanwhile, Railways is trying to work on schedule as it wishes to fully benefit from this situation.

Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafique, earlier yesterday, directed the staff to make sure rail tickets were not being overcharged, punctu-ality of trains is ensured and to avoid any unseemly situation.

US to provide

$8m for research

in science and

technology

Internews

ISLAMABAD: United States will provide more than $8m in joint funding for high-level collab-orative research in Pakistan in the field of science and technol-ogy, with a new focus on health and other fields such as water, energy, and information technol-ogy. In this regard, Ambassador of the United States in Pakistan David Hale and Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed signed a Mem-orandum of Understanding in Islamabad yesterday.

This will be the seventh phase of Pakistan-US Science and Tech-nology Cooperation Programme which was initiated in 2015.

Since the programme’s inception, the United States and Pakistan have jointly funded nearly $34m in collaborative research, supporting 96 projects conducted by scientists and researchers from both the nations working in collaboration.

Each year, researchers, schol-ars, and scientists from the United States and Pakistan propose sub-jects for research, and are selected for funding through a competitive process. Previous grantees, some of whom were present in the audi-ence, focused on diverse topics, including food security, pub-lic health, disaster management, engineering, water, energy, and information technology.

The Higher Education Com-mission, Pakistan, the US Agency for International Development, and the US Department of State are the joint contributors to the Programme.

Internews

ISLAMABAD: The Election Com-mission of Pakistan (ECP) has come under fire for setting a new prec-edence by postponing polls on reserved seats in local bodies of Sindh and Punjab on the basis of petitions pending adjudication.

In a surprising move, the com-mission modified notifications earlier issued by it to postpone the elections in the two provinces, cit-ing the matter’s being sub-judice as the only reason. This prompted the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) - to unleash criticism against the ECP, accusing it of playing a ‘partial’ role.

Under the previously announced schedule, polling for indirect elec-tions for reserved seats in district councils, municipal corporations, district municipal corporations and metropolitan corporations in Sindh

and the same excluding district municipal corporations in Punjab were scheduled for February 8.

Polls for reserved seats in municipal committees and union councils in Punjab were scheduled for February 11 and 14, respectively.

Senator Saeed Ghani of the PPP accused the ECP of being involved in ‘advancing the agenda’ of some political parties. “Either the com-mission is in collusion with them or afraid of them,” he alleged.

Pointing out that no stay order had been issued by any court against the elections, he said how an elec-toral exercise could be postponed just because of litigation. “I do not expect that an ECP behaving in a manner like this to conduct next general elections in a free, fair manner,” Ghani said.

PTI lawmaker Dr Arif Alvi also criticised ECP saying it would set a wrong precedence for future when only the filing of a petition would be sufficient to get an election postponed at last minute.

Internews

ISLAMABAD: The electoral reforms package as prepared by the sub-com-mittee of the parliamentary body on the subject suggests over a dozen con-stitutional amendments to overhaul the electoral system of the country for free, fair and transparent elections in Pakistan.

These changes in the Consti-tution pertain to either removing certain anomalies or improving the electoral system but do not include contentious issues dividing different political voices present in parliament.

Sources said that contentious issues like deleting or diluting Islamic qualifications for MPs as included in Article 62, direct elections for the

Senate and women’s seats in the National Assembly, increasing Balo-chistan’s representation in the Upper House, etc, have been left by the sub-committee for the main Electoral Reforms Committee to decide.

The sub-committee has made preparation of consensus recom-mendations to ensure that the reforms package, involving both constitu-tional and legal changes, gets through smoothly. Contentious issues will be discussed in the main Electoral Reform committee.

However, sources said that it is unlikely that any of such mat-ters would become part of the final package. Demand for deleting the Islamic provisions included in Article 62 is the real thorny issue, which if pressed by some politi-cal parties, may spoil the whole

electoral reforms package. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had sought deletion of the Islam-related qualifications for MPs, which were introduced during Zia’s tenure and endorsed by the 18th Amendment.

However, the PML-N, Jamaat-e-Islami and JUI-F were not supportive of the deletion of these Islamic provisions.

During the deliberations of the sub-committee of the Reforms Com-mittee, the PPP and PTI had joined hands to get deleted the following Islamic provisions in relation to the qualifications of MPs.

The PPP and the PTI wanted to revert to the original “Qualifica-tions” for MPs as were framed by the authors of the Constitution in 1973.

It was said in the meeting that these Islamic provisions were added during General Zia’s era thus should be deleted through a constitutional amendment.

The JI and JUI-F were vocal in their opposition to the deletion of these articles following which an effort was made for a compromised solution that is linking the implemen-tation of all these Islamic provisions to court decisions.

The PML-N was reportedly ready for such a compromise but the JI and JUI-F representatives said that they would never agree on any compro-mise in any Islamic provision of the Constitution.

Contrary to the public demand that a mechanism be evolved for the implementation of Islamic pro-visions in the election of members

of parliament so that only upright, honest and practicing Muslims could make it to the National Assembly and Senate, the PPP and PTI demand the total deletion of these provisions whereas the sub-committee at one stage had also suggested a proposal for making these provisions redundant that was considered.

These provisions of Article 62 ensure that only men of good char-acter, not commonly known as who violate Islamic Injunctions, or those who has not adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings or those who don’t practice obligatory duties pre-scribed by Islam or don’t abstain from major sins, are not qualified to become member of parliament (National Assembly and Senate) or provincial assemblies.

Around 1.36m kids

to get polio drops

in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: Around 1.36 mil-lion children aged five and below will be given polio drops during the upcoming campaign starting from February 15 in Islamabad. For the three-day campaign, the Capital Development Authority’s (CAD) directorate of health serv-ices has formed 427 mobile teams and 83 fixed and 43 transit teams, said a press release yesterday.

Around 1,023 polio workers will take part in the drive. It was informed that urban and rural areas of Islamabad have been divided into 20 zones. Around 50 doctors from different hospi-tals will also join the anti-polio campaign.

PIA strike grounds passengers across the country

PIA employees shout slogans as they gather outside Benazir Bhutto International Airport during the strike in Islamabad yesterday.

Pakistan Railways earns extra after PIA goes off track

ECP flayed for deferring

polls in Punjab and Sindh

Constitutional amendments required for electoral reforms

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj (left) with Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera during the Sri Lanka-India Joint Commission meeting in Colombo, yesterday. India and Sri Lanka signed two memoranda of understanding in health and education sectors.

Boosting regional ties

INDIA08 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

IANS

NEW DELHI: A man suspected of links with the Islamic State (IS) terror outfit has been arrested, Delhi Police said yesterday.

Mohsin Ibrahim Sayeed, 26, a resident of Malad in Mumbai, was arrested from Old Delhi’s Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal on late on Thursday night by the Special Cell of Delhi Police.

“We arrested IS suspect Mohsin Ibrahim on a tip-off and recovered Rs85,000 from his possession,”

Special Commissioner of Police (Spe-cial Cell) Arvind Deep said.

He said Sayeed was in touch with four IS suspects arrested on January 19 in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district.

Sayeed’s arrest takes the number of IS suspects arrested by Delhi Police to five. The arrest of other four suspects — Akhlaq-ur-Reh-man, Mohammad Osama alias Adil, Mohammad Azimu Shaan and Mehraj — was based on specific information by central intelligence agencies.

They allegedly planned to carry out bombings during the ongoing Ardh Kumbh pilgrimage in Harid-war, in Roorkee-Haridwar trains, in Delhi and NCR.

The Ardh Kumbh pilgrimage that commenced on January 1 would last till April 30. During the four-month religious congregation, over five crore pilgrims are expected to visit Harid-war for a holy dip in the Ganges.

The officer said Sayeed had arranged for finances for the four other arrested suspects and handed over Rs50,000 to Akhlaq-ur-Rehman. He has been booked under the Unlaw-ful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Police sources said Sayeed had come to Delhi to meet one of his

associates, whose name is withheld due to investigation, and wanted to visit Rohtak in Haryana where he wanted to stay for some period before going to Syria.

The officer said Sayeed had given Rs50,000 to Akhlaq-ur-Rehman to arrange for his passport, visa and tickets to go to Syria to joint IS camps

for fighting alongside the Islamist ter-ror militia.

The officer said Sayeed was radi-calised by the Islamic literature which he read on the Internet and then con-tacted some people through social networking sites. “Sayeed was made to go through some texts and speeches after which he owed allegiance to IS,”

the officer added. Another officer, privy to the investigations, said that all the arrested IS suspects were in touch with former Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Safi Armar who, intelligence agencies say, is the main recruiter of Indian men lured by the IS ideology.

Armar, intelligence sources said, is now believed to be in Syria and is

a key member of Ansar-ul-Tawhid, a recruiting wing that has pledged alle-giance to the Islamic State group.

This is the 23rd arrest in nation-wide raids carried out by intelligence agencies, including the National Investigation Agency, Special Cell of Delhi Police and other state police teams.

Sayeed was in Delhi to meet one of his associates and wanted to visit Haryana where he planned to stay for some period before going to Syria

IANS

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army yesterday thanked the Pakistan Army for offer of help in rescue and recovery of their personnel buried in an avalanche on Siachen.

“We thanked Pakistan Army for their gesture but since our resources are adequate and teams are well placed, we do not need any help,” an Indian Army spokes-person said here.

Terming the offer a routine gesture, the spokesperson added, “It is a normal gesture when any incident takes place near the Line of Control”.

Earlier, Pakistan Army’s Direc-tor General of Military Operations Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza called Indian DGMO Lieu-tenant General Ranbir Singh and offered assistance in the ongo-ing rescue operation, a military statement in Islamabad said. Ten soldiers were buried in an ava-lanche on Wednesday.

The soldiers were hit while on duty at a post at an altitude of 19,000 feet. The post was being manned by a junior officer and nine soldiers when the avalanche struck, an army statement said.

In 2012, at least 140 people, including Pakistan Army per-sonnel and civilians, were killed when an avalanche struck an army camp in Gayari sector. The Siachen glacier has been dubbed as the worldÂ’s highest battle-field. Avalanches and landslides are common in the area during winter and temperatures there can drop to as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius.

Police arrest man in Delhi for IS links

Army thanks Pakistan for Siachen rescue offer

Landslide win for TRS in Greater Hyderabad civic pollsIANS

HYDERABAD: Telangana’s rul-ing TRS scored a landslide victory in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Cor-poration (GHMC) elections, winning over 100 seats in 150-member body.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) wave washed away main oppo-sition Congress and the Telugu Desam Party-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP-TDP) alliance, which were together reduced to single digits.

Out of the results declared till 9pm, TRS bagged 100 seats and was leading in couple of other divisions. This means the TRS, which had not

contested the GHMC elections in 2009, has the majority to have its own corporator as mayor.

It was a remarkable performance for TRS, which proved its relevance in the politics Hyderabad, which is cur-rently joint capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The party which led the move-ment for separate Telangana state formed the first government in the new state following its victory in 2014 elections. However, the party could win just two out of 24 assembly seats in GHMC limits.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) maintained its stranglehold in the old city of Hyderabad. It retained

its second position by winning 41 seats. However, the massive mandate for TRS means MIM will not have the kingmaker’s role, which it historically enjoyed in the municipal body.

The BJP won three and its alliance partner TDP won one seat. The rul-ing alliance in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh was virtually wiped out.

The fate of Congress was no dif-ferent. The main opposition party in Telangana could win just two seats.

The counting of votes polled in Tuesday’s elections began at 3pm but the results and trends were announced after 5pm when repoll-ing in one division concluded.

Elections held in all 150 divisions

on Tuesday had recorded 45.27 per-cent turnout. According to GHMC, 33,60,543 voters out of the total elec-torate of 74,23,980 cast their votes.

A re-poll in Puranapull division in the old city was ordered following complaints of rigging and incidents of violence. A total of 1,333 candidates were in the fray. The TRS had fielded candidates for all the 150 divisions while Congress contested 149 seats. The TDP had fielded candidates in 90 divisions and BJP in 60. The MIM contested 63 seats. This was the first GHMC election after the formation of separate Telangana state.

The TRS had no representa-tion in the previous body, where the

Congress shared power with MIM after their victory in 2009 elections.

In the first GHMC, Congress had 52 seats and MIM 43. TDP had bagged 45 seats while BJP had five corporators.

The TDP-BJP alliance, which is ruling neighboring Andhra Pradesh, was banking on voters from Andhra Pradesh settled in Hyderabad but the results show that the TRS won even in those divisions where Seemand-hra voters were in sizeable numbers.

Leaving behind the bitterness of the Telangana movement, TRS had also tried to reach out to people from Andhra, saying Hyderabad belong to all people who live here.

HC: Immediately remove garbage from Delhi roadsIANS

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court yesterday asked the civic bodies to take steps for immediate removal of the piled-up garbage on the roads of national capital, saying if sal-aries have been paid to sanitation workers, they cannot hold the city to ransom by going on strike.

A division bench of Chief Jus-tice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath sought response from civic bodies and unions of the sanitation work-ers by February 8.

“We have already passed an interim order on January 27 that the commissioner of police shall ensure that the removal of garbage by the private agencies employed by the municipal corporations is not obstructed by the existing staff or their agents in any manner whatsoever.

“We reiterate the said direction and the municipal corporations shall take steps for immediate removal of the piled up garbage,” said the court. The court was hearing a PIL bringing to the notice of the court the dete-riorating sanitation conditions in Delhi and extreme hardship being caused to the citizens on account of the ongoing strike by the sanitation workers of all the three municipal corporations.

Civic bodies told the bench that they have been taking steps for clearing garbage by engaging pri-vate agencies, but it is inadequate to meet the prevailing situation of overflowing garbage on the streets.

The corporations further said

they had received funds from Delhi government on Thursday and had immediately paid wages to the work-ers up to January. But, the workers have now raised new demands like arrears of dearness allowance and other such perquisites, they told the bench.

When the court asked whether Delhi government intended to enforce the Essential Services Main-tenance Act (ESMA), the government said that this had not been consid-ered till now.

Employees of Delhi’s civic bodies have been protesting over the non-payment of salaries for the past few months, and directing their ire at both the Delhi and central govern-ments for the last 10 days.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Gover-nor Najeeb Jung offered a loan of Rs300 crore to two municipal cor-porations for payment of the salaries of its workers and urged the striking employees to end their strike.

The move came after a delega-tion of Aam Aadmi Party legislators met Jung and urged him to intervene in civic workers’ strike.

“With a view to resolve the issue at hand and keeping in mind the dif-ficulties being faced by the people of Delhi, LG made a unilateral offer of Rs300 crore loan to the North and East Delhi Municipal Corporation from the Delhi Development Author-ity (DDA),” said a statement from the Lt. governor’s office. Jung met the mayors of the three municipal corporations and also the represent-atives of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Employee Unions at Raj Niwas.

Jet Airways suspends crew for Nigam’s in-flight musicIANS

MUMBAI: Airline major Jet Airways said yesterday that it has suspended the five-member cabin crew of its January 4 Jodhpur-Mumbai flight for allowing singer Sonu Nigam to use the in-flight announcement system to entertain his fellow passengers.

“All cabin crew on the flight have been taken off from flight duty for enquiry and corrective training to

reinforce strict adherence to oper-ating procedures,” said a Jet Airways spokesperson.

According to aviation safety experts, the unauthorised use of any aircraft system by passengers is a rec-ipe for disaster.

“This is a vital information system, which is used by the crew to alert and inform passengers about major safety related procedures, weather and issu-ing of turbulence warnings,” Kanu Gohain, safety expert and ex-director

general of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.

“If an emergency would have occurred at that time, then the crew would have lost valuable time in informing passengers. This (con-cert) also diverts the attention of the crew from other duties,” elaborated Gohain, who was the DGCA Chief from April 2006 till 2008. An enquiry has been initiated. “There has been a lapse in discharging of crew duty. If found guilty then there (cabin crew’s)

licenses can be repealed and they would not be eligible to work with any airlines,” Gohain added.

Cabin crew have to take a DGCA examination which is partly based on safety and emergency procedures (SEPs) and in-flight operation guide-lines. Online videos uploaded by some passengers show Sonu, dressed cas-ually in a t-shirt and jeans, leaning against a bulkhead as he sings two of his popular songs from the films “Veer Zaara” and “Refugee”.

Mohsin Ibrahim Sayyed (centre) is brought by Delhi Police yesterday.

An expert from London Zoo inspects the carcass of a sperm whale on the beach in Hunstanton, Britain yesterday. A sixth sperm whale died on a British beach in the recent past.

Another sperm whale dies

Uber and VTC (‘Vehicules de Tourisme avec Chauffeur’ - Tourism Vehicles with Driver) drivers block Place de la Nation to protest against the French government favouring taxis, in Paris, yesterday.

Uber protest

EUROPE 09SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Over 2,000 French residents were believed to be involved with jihadi networks based in Syria and Iraq, the French Prime Minister told the National Assembly

Reuters

PARIS: Thousands of house searches since November’s Islamist attacks in Paris have helped foil another ter-rorist plot, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said yesterday as his government sought to extend emer-gency rule.

Valls, defending state of emer-gency rules that have allowed police conduct thousands of house searches in just a few months, also said over 2,000 French residents were believed to be involved with jihadi networks based in Syria and Iraq.

The Islamic State militant group that controls large parts of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for the November 13. attack on Paris. .

“The terrorist threat is here, and here to last,” Valls told the National Assembly, where the government is asking lawmakers to extend the state of emergency to the end of May and amend the Constitution so people convicted on terror charges can be stripped of their citizenship.

In 2015, 15 terror plots were foiled by the French security serv-ices, he said. At least one plot, he said, was foiled as a direct result of house searches police have been able to conduct under state of emergency rule, which allows police to conduct raids without first securing a search warrant from the judiciary.

In the three months since the attacks on Paris, police have carried out 3,289 house searches, placed 341 people in custody, put 407 under house arrest and confiscated 560 weapons, 42 of them war-grade, the prime minister said.

Half of the 2,000 people involved in some way or other with jihadist networks in Syria and Iraq had left France for that region, and 597 were still there, he said.

France is among several countries whose jets are bombing the strong-holds of the Islamist State, which has declared a caliphate and vowed to carry out more attacks on France.

The ruling Socialists have taken a strong line on law and order against competition from their conservative opponents and the far-right National Front as the country approaches elections next year.

Reuters

PARIS: Criticism of the anti-euro stance of France’s National Front is growing among party officials, who fear the position is a key reason the party is failing to turn growing pop-ularity into election victories.

The issue will be discussed at a rare three-day strategy meeting

of the FN after the far-right party attracted strong support but failed to win any councils in two sets of local elections last year.

Since taking over from her father, Jean-Marie, in 2011, Marine Le Pen has reworked the image of the FN to make it more mainstream. The party has done better, election after election —in the first round. But it still loses in run-offs, and now controls less than a dozen small and medium-size municipalities.

Its protectionist, anti-euro policy appeals to some voters but puts off others, particularly older ones who are key to wining elections, analysts and some within the party say.

“I’d rather we kept the euro and worked on building a differ-ent Europe,” Gilbert Collard, one of two deputies backed by the FN in France’s lower house of parliament, said. “More and more people inter-nally are on this line.”

Even Louis Alliot, Marine Le Pen’s partner, said the FN was too focused on opposition to the euro stance and was neglecting other economic questions, in particular from small business owners. “Their concerns are very far from our discourse,” he said.

“There are elements missing in our economic strategy.” Under the senior Le Pen, FN was pro-business, anti-state and anti-tax. It has since become a pro-tectionist and pro-public services party.

Reuters

WARSAW/LONDON: Prime Minis-ter David Cameron appeared to win support from Poland yesterday for a proposed deal to keep Britain in the European Union, though an opinion poll suggested voters could still reject membership by as much as nine per-centage points.

Cameron says he needs a deal to restrict EU migrant benefits, recover powers from Brussels and defend

Britain against greater integration of the euro zone if he is going to be able to sell it to voters in a referen-dum likely in June.

But European Council President Donald Tusk’s outline deal for Britain is still littered with empty square brackets. Proposals to allow Britain to delay pay-ing benefits to workers from elsewhere in the EU are under intense scrutiny, especially from Poland, the biggest source of Britain’s migrant labour force.

After meeting Cameron in War-saw, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who as head of the ruling Law and Justice party is

viewed as the ultimate decision maker in Poland, said he was satisfied.

“We have gained really very, very much,” said Kaczynski, who is also a former prime minister and the twin brother of late president Lech Kaczynski.

“Poland has ... gained here really very much, full safety, above all, for all those who are in Britain right now, but also that those who have children in Poland will continue to receive ben-efits, they may be adjusted, but they will get them anyway.”

Polish Prime Minister Beata

Szydlo said she fully supported Cameron’s proposals on improving competitiveness, removing red tape and granting proper significance to national parliaments but wanted to discuss the question of welfare benefits.

Cameron wants EU leaders to approve his deal at a summit on February 18-19. While support from Poland is crucial to any EU deal, senior officials of Britain’s 27 EU partners and the EU institutions were meeting in Brussels for a first official response from other member

states to the deal on offer to Britain.Cameron’s deal may be taking

shape in Europe but he faces a deeply sceptical British electorate —the cam-paign for Britain to leave the European Union has taken a nine-point lead over the rival “in” campaign, a poll showed. Nineteen percent said they did not know or would not vote.

The polls, however, have faced questions about their methodology since they failed to predict Cameron’s victory in the 2015 national election, and they have varied widely on the EU issue in recent months.

Ukraine soldier

killed in rebel

east as clashes

intensify

AFP

KIEV: A Ukrainian soldier was killed in a sudden upsurge in clashes between pro-Russian rebels and government forces in the country’s separatist east, Ukraine’s military said yesterday.

“Over the past 24 hours, as a result of hostilities one Ukrainian soldier was killed and another three were wounded,” military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

Lysenko said fighting along the front “has escalated”, accus-ing the insurgents of violating a shaky truce 81 times since Thurs-day —the highest number recorded since the end of August.

The soldier died during a mor-tar attack on the contested village of Zaitseve, a recent flashpoint located 55km northeast of the rebels’ de facto capital Donetsk.

Meanwhile, separatist author-ities accused Kiev’s forces of also intensifying their attacks in breach of the latest ceasefire agreed on January 13.

More than 9,000 people have been killed and 20,000 injured since the revolt against Ukraine’s new pro-Western leadership erupted in April 2014, according to the United Nations. Kiev and the West accuse Russia of supporting the insurgents and sending regu-lar troops across the border, claims that Moscow denies.

Reuters

BRUSSELS: Backed by an increase in US military spending, Nato is planning its biggest build-up in eastern Europe since the Cold War to deter Russia but will reject Polish demands for permanent bases.

Worried since Russia’s seizure of Crimea that Moscow could rap-idly invade Poland or the Baltic states, the Western military alli-ance wants to bolster defences on its eastern flank without provok-ing the Kremlin by stationing large forces permanently.

Nato defence ministers will next week begin outlining plans for a complex web of small eastern out-posts, forces on rotation, regular war games and warehoused equipment ready for a rapid response force. That force includes air, maritime and spe-cial operations units of up to 40,000 personnel.

The allies are also expected to offer Moscow a renewed dialogue in the Nato -Russia Council, which has not met since 2014, about improved military transparency to avoid sur-prise events and misunderstandings, a senior Nato diplomat said.

US plans for a four-fold increase in military spending in Europe to $3.4bn in 2017 are central to the strategy, which has been shaped in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

The plans are welcomed by Nato whose chief, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, says it will mean “more troops in the eastern part of the alliance ... the pre-positioning of equipment, tanks, armoured vehicles ... more exercises and more invest-ment in infrastructure.”

Such moves will reinforce the message from US President Barack Obama, in a speech he delivered in Estonia in 2014, that Nato will help ensure the independence of the three Baltic states, which for decades were part of the Soviet Union.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Juo-zas Olekas openly described Russia as a threat last June, but many Euro-pean countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation are wary of upsetting the continent’s biggest energy supplier.

With such concerns paramount, diplomats and officials say Nato will not back requests for permanent bases by Poland, which has a his-tory of fraught relations with Russia.

“I am a great proponent of strong deterrents and to improve our resil-ience, but I do think that the best way to do it is to do it on a rotational basis,” Dutch Defence Minister Jean-ine Hennis-Plasschaert said.

Stoltenberg has also said he will not be “dragged into an arms race.”

Russia has made clear it would regard any moves to bring Nato infrastructure closer to its borders a threat and the Kremlin has warned it would take “reciprocal steps.”

AFP

MADRID: Spain suffered a fresh set-back yesterday after the Socialists and anti-austerity party Podemos —key players in a weeks-long bid to form a government —hit a deadlock in talks.

Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said he would not negotiate with the Socialists (PSOE) if they continued to

talk with upstart party Ciudadanos —an ultimatum rejected by PSOE chief Pedro Sanchez, whom the king has designated to form a government.

Spain has been plunged in political uncertainty since Decem-ber 20 elections put an end to the long-established two-party, con-servative-socialist system with the emergence of Podemos and Ciu-dadanos, resulting in a parliament fractured along four main groupings

that makes any government forma-tion difficult.

Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy from the conservative Pop-ular Party that won the polls, but without an absolute majority with just 119 seats out of 350, hoped to get the support of the Socialists to form a coalition government along with Ciudadanos. But Sanchez categori-cally refused to back a party he said was tainted by austerity measures

and corruption.Rajoy gave up, and the king on

Tuesday decided to nominate Sanchez as candidate to be prime minister, tasking him with the delicate task of forming a government.

Since then, Sanchez has talked to the leaders of most parties that got representation in parliament, end-ing the week with a chat with Iglesias, whose Podemos came third in elec-tions with 65, very valuable seats.

French premier Valls defends emergency rule

National Front under fire over anti-euro stance

Cameron wins Poland support on deal to keep Britain in EU

Nato to strengthen Russia deterrence

Socialists fail to form govt in Spain as negotiations fail

VIEWS10 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

By Nicholas Burns

The Washington Post

Of the critical global challenges faced by the Obama administration in its final year, Syria

may be the most confounding.The brutal Syrian civil war

has reached a crisis point, with more than 250,000 dead and 12 million Syrians homeless. The cancer of this war has metasta-sized into neighbouring countries and the heart of Europe. It could destabilise the Middle East for a generation.

We believe that President Obama can no longer avoid providing stronger American leadership to reverse this tidal wave of suffering and violence in the Levant. US strategic interests and our humanitarian responsi-bilities as the world’s strongest country dictate a change of strategy, as well as of heart, in Washington.

Where the administration has done well, led by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, is to launch new negotiations for elections, a transitional government and a cease-fire. Those talks will be difficult to sustain, however, and diplomacy alone is unlikely to be effective.

Where the United States has

fallen short is in framing a clear, consistent and forceful strategy for it to play its traditional lead-ership role in the Middle East. As a result, it is in an uncharacteris-tically weak negotiating position. The stronger party is the Russia-Iran-Hezbollah axis supporting Bashar Assad’s brutal regime through indiscriminate bombing and starvation in besieged cities. As former career diplomats, we believe diplomacy is most often effective when it is backed by clarity of purpose and military strength. Those have been notice-ably absent in US policy toward Syria.

For that reason, the admin-istration should take steps to reinforce US strength in the difficult negotiations ahead in Geneva. It should dramatically expand funding for the mod-erate Sunni and Kurdish forces that pose an alternative to Assad’s government and the Islamic State, while asserting active, daily lead-ership of a strengthened coalition including Turkey, our European allies and the Sunni Arab states.

As the talks proceed, Obama and Kerry must also consider stronger measures to protect mil-lions of civilians at risk, including establishing humanitarian corri-dors to reach those subjected to air assaults by the government and attacks by terrorist groups on the ground. Most important, we believe the Obama team will have to reconsider what it has rejected in the past: the creation of a safe zone in northern Syria to protect civilians, along with a no-fly zone to enforce it.

While the US military has the experience to decide how to cre-ate such a zone, one option could be to locate it over 25 to 30 miles south of the Turkish border, with links to areas held by Syrian Kurdish rebels. Its central pur-pose would be to help local forces drive out the Islamic State and to provide a haven for civilians until

the war can be brought to a close.The White House could press

Russia, as a permanent mem-ber of the UN Security Council, to help organise and protect the zone. The zone would be far more durable and credible with Russian support, and if Russia rejected the proposal - as it probably would - the administration and its part-ners would be in a much stronger position to take the initiative themselves.

The benefits of a safe zone are manifold. It would be the most effective way to support Syr-ian civilians and to diminish the flow of refugees to neighbouring countries and Europe. It would strengthen our ability to work closely with our key regional NATO ally, Turkey, which has long advocated this step. For the first time, it would restrict the opera-tions of the rampaging Syrian air force - the largest killer of civil-ians in the conflict. It would also hinder the use of military power by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah against the resistance.

We do not minimize the extraordinary difficulty of estab-lishing such a zone in a civil war. Defending the zone, prevent-ing it from being overwhelmed by refugees, grounding it in a convincing legal justification and keeping out jihadist groups would be daunting tasks. The United States would also need to make sure its air operations did not conflict with those of Russia. Once a zone were established, we do not believe Russia would chal-lenge the stronger US and NATO forces, particularly if they were operating mainly from Turkey.

Our experience as diplomats suggests that the United States would have to deploy US soldiers on the ground inside Syria along the Turkish border in order to recruit the majority of the zone’s soldiers from Turkey and other NATO allies, as well as the Sunni Arab states. Those countries

could also contribute air power and missiles, to be organised by NATO from Turkish territory, to police the no-fly zone.

Taking the lead on this ini-tiative would carry dangers for the United States. But critics must also weigh the risks of inaction - which may include thousands more killed, millions more refu-gees, the spread of the war to US allies such as Turkey, Jordan and Israel and a Russian-Iranian mil-itary victory.

The two of us have worked for both Democratic and Repub-lican administrations. We have observed that when the United States leads with confidence and determination, when we form big and effective coalitions, we have a much greater opportunity to be successful in complicated regions such as the Middle East.

We admire Obama and his many foreign policy successes. The president is right that the United States needs to be cautious about intervening in the Middle East. But he has been far too reac-tive and unwilling to assert US leadership in Syria over the past five years. We believe the risks of inaction are greater than the risks of a strong US initiative to protect civilians. If we fail to act, the war in Syria will almost cer-tainly grow worse.

President Obama will not be able to cure all the ills afflict-ing Syria this year. But he could begin to turn the tide of the war and prepare the way to an even-tual peace in the years ahead.

Nicholas Burns, a pro-fessor at Harvard University currently on a semester leave at Stanford University, was US undersecretary of state for political affairs from 2005 to 2008. James Jeffrey, a fellow at the Washington Institute, was US ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012.

Time to take the lead in Syria

Greece is still struggling to swallow the bitter austerity pills prescribed by its creditors. And the doctor in charge of this operation, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, is finding his job extremely tough. Tens of thousands marched in Greece on Thursday and scuffled with the police demanding an end

to the austerity plans imposed by the government under orders from its international creditors. The protest comes as the Greek government and its creditors are talking to review the $91.6bn bailout agreed in July after six months of bitter talks that nearly saw Greece exit the euro. The heads of the European Union and International Monetary Fund mission assessing Greece’s progress are in Athens to discuss the pension plan, tax reforms and bad loans weighing on Greek banks.

What Athens witnessed was the largest protest since the leftist prime minister came to power just over a year ago and reflects the growing bitterness and anger of Greeks. About 50,000 people marched peacefully on parliament in central Athens and black clad youths hurled stones and petrol bombs at police, who responded with teargas and stun grenades. The protestors were mainly venting their anger at

the pensions reforms, a key part of Greece’s economic bailout. This particular clause has sparked a major backlash against embattled Tsipras, who is now stuck between either pushing the reforms through to appease international creditors and get the full aid, or attracting the wrath of thousands of Greeks. He is likely to choose the latter because that is a better option.

Greeks have said goodbye to the worst of the pain caused by the economic crisis, and going through the rest of the treatment, however painful it is, is necessary for a complete recovery. The prime

minister knows this. Tsipras had at first challenged the creditors due to public fury, threatening not to succumb to their austerity demands, but finally caved in under the threat of expulsion from the euro zone, as it would have brought more financial misery, and signed up to sweeping reforms under an EU-IMF bailout package worth up to $91.6bn. The creditors are highly unlikely to go back on their demands. In Washington, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Greece’s pension system was not sustainable and needed to be reformed.

But for hundreds of thousands of Greeks, the pension reforms will be a ticket to financial hardship. The government is planning to lower the maximum pension to 2,300 euros per month from 2,700 euros currently and introduce a new minimum guaranteed basic pension of 384 euros.

Tsipras needs to address their problems within the confines of the deal with the creditors.

Greek protest

Quote of the day

Strong and effective resolutions that could force North Korea to change its course must be adopted at the UN Security Council this time. The international community’s stern message should quickly lead to action.

Park Geun-Hye South Korean President

Greece is still struggling to swallow the bitter austerity pills prescribed by its creditors.

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Clinton attacks on Wall Street ring hollowThe Washington Post

It’s nice work if you can get it: In 2013, after stepping down as secretary of state, Hil-lary Clinton earned $9.7 million in speaking

fees -- a lot of it from banks and investment firms, including $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs.

Those three speeches are not on her cam-paign website, but it’s a pretty good bet they had a different tone than the one she is now taking. Asked about them at a New Hampshire town hall meeting this week, her response started out merely vague -- “Look, I made

speeches to lots of groups” -- before becom-ing reckless: “I’m out here every day saying I’m going to shut them down, I’m going after them,” she said. “I’m going to jail them if they should be jailed. I’m going to break them up.”

By all means, criminals -- in any industry, including politics -- should be jailed. It’s also true that there are bad actors in the financial industry, as there are everywhere, and that Wall Street needs smarter regulations to reduce risks. Finally, it was an unscripted remark in the second half of a two-hour town hall that started at 9pm.

Still: Clinton’s attack was careless and overly broad. The industry that helped enrich her also plays a central role in the economy -- helping families afford homes, entrepreneurs

launch small businesses, governments build schools, and seniors retire comfortably. And though this shouldn’t need saying, it does, given the tenor of the presidential campaign: The vast majority of men and women who work in the industry are honest.

Like most politicians, Clinton has never been shy about asking those who work in finance for campaign contributions, and she ably represented the industry during her eight years as a senator from New York. If her views on the financial industry have changed since she accepted those millions of dollars in speak-ing fees, perhaps she ought to explain why. And the next time she’s invited to speak to Wall Street, perhaps she ought to decline the fee. It would be the decent thing to do.

E S TA B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6

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

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ACTING MANAGING EDITORHUSSAIN AHMAD

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EDITOR IAL

OPINION 11 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Britain’s tea party crisis

By Sebastian Mallaby

The Washington Post

The United States is not the only place possessed by populism, and this week the results from Iowa coin-cided with a new lurch toward the

gutter in formerly sane Britain. The coun-try once governed by Bill Clinton-imitating centrists is now beset by its own version of Trump-Cruzery: a xenophobic nativism that would divorce Britain from Europe in defiance of ordinary good sense. For most of postwar history, the fact that US and British politics have often marched in parallel has cemented the Western alli-ance and underpinned the global order. Now it’s an embarrassment.

David Cameron, Britain’s decent and generally bland prime minister, has a curious habit of punctuating his steady stewardship with bouts of wild roulette. As a young man at Oxford, he combined a straight-arrow academic record with fits of juvenile carousing; now, as the leader of his country, he has twice gambled its very existence on referendums. The first, on whether Scotland should separate from the United Kingdom, Cameron survived narrowly. The second, on whether Brit-ain should separate from the European Union, is expected in June.

Cameron knows perfectly well that quitting Europe would be madness. Brit-ain might lose access to its natural trading partners; its world-class financial indus-try might be kept from selling services to

the French and Germans. You don’t hear New York’s mayor proposing to cut off links with Texas, whatever the cultural chasm between Park Avenue and Waco. The argu-ment that Britain should quit Europe and then renegotiate access to it is feeble, even though it is earnestly advanced by Brit-ain’s noisy Europe-bashing commentariat. If Britain asked to be outside the Euro-pean Union but inside the trading club, it would be forced to accept EU regulation as a condition, and also to contribute to the EU budget. Why leave the union, gain no real independence, save little or no money, and volunteer for the humiliation of being a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker?

Despite all this, Cameron promised a referendum on Europe because he has a tea party problem. About half of his Con-servative Party’s parliamentarians have strong doubts about Europe, and they have made trouble for their centrist leaders since the early 1990s - about the time that Newt Gingrich was brewing up Tea Party Ver-sion 1.0. The British tea partyers proclaim a states’-rights hatred of distant federal bureaucrats, never mind that their scare stories of regulatory overreach are mostly fiction. The British tea partyers assert that too much public money goes to Europe, but they ignore the money that flows back: This is the British equivalent of telling Washing-ton to get its hands off Medicare. Above all, the British tea partyers peddle a version of Donald Trump’s wall-building fantasies. They seem to think that Syrians and Afghans could be kept out of Britain if Britain were to leave the European Union.

Still, having tried to mollify his tea par-tyers by promising a referendum, Cameron must deliver. In preparation, he has set out to “reform” Europe before making the case for it, hoping to win waverers to the “remain” camp by offering a newer, shinier version of union. This week, after much shuttling between capitals, the provisional fruits of Cameron’s reform effort were published. Countries in the euro currency area will be restrained from ganging up on nonpartici-pants such as Britain; migrants working in Britain will face benefit restrictions. But, alarmingly for the prime minister, these largely token concessions have been met with derision.

It is of course not surprising that the tea partyers belittled Cameron, accusing him of trying to celebrate “a pint-sized pack-age”; he was “polishing poo,” another said. But the vitriol from Britain’s widely read tabloid newspapers was more distressing. The Daily Mail, a generally pro-Cameron outfit, declared that the prime minister’s “capacity for self-delusion is breathtak-ing.” The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch, trumpeted “a dismal failure worse than we ever imagined.” “It stinks,” the paper said.

Cameron now faces a referendum with large sections of the media sneer-ing at him. He will have to fight, moreover, against the backdrop of Europe’s appalling migration crisis; and although the crisis is caused by chaos in the Muslim world, not the malevolence of European bureau-crats, the two issues are muddled in the public mind. The latest poll of polls gives

the “remain” camp a lead of only 54 per-cent to 46 percent; and Britain’s secession could set off a domino effect. The Scots, who are pro-Europe, might quit Britain to rejoin the continent. Other dyspeptic Europeans - Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, Spaniards - may begin to consider exit if Britain shows how it is done.

For many Americans, the rise of

populism at home has been horrifying, and mesmerising. But similar monsters stalk Europe. They may do more dam-age in the end.

Sebastian Mallaby is a senior fel-low at the Council on Foreign Relations and an editor at InFacts.org.

For many Americans, the rise of populism at home has been horrifying, and mesmerising. But similar monsters stalk Europe. They may do more damage in the end.

British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Tech entrepreneurs try to hack the refugee crisis

By Therese Raphael

The Washington Post

When world leaders gathered in London for a massive donor conference on the Syrian ref-

ugee crisis Thursday, many of the most difficult questions they faced were ones they are least equipped to answer. How can they avoid creating a lost generation of kids who might be unemployable or, worse, radicalised? How can they equip adult refugees with the skills and credentials necessary to build a life outside Syria? Some of the more com-pelling answers could be heard just a few miles across town from where the donors’ conference was held.

In a makeshift studio in east Lon-don’s Shoreditch neighborhood, tech entrepreneurs gathered in person and by video link from all over the world to talk about projects that would provide

skills, jobs and opportunities for ref-ugees. The event was sponsored by Techfugees, a nonprofit created to coordinate the tech community’s response to the refugee crisis, and timed to run a day before the donor conference, where Techfugees was invited to make a submission. (Alex-ander Asseily, the British-Lebanese founder of the wearable-tech com-pany Jawbone, represented Techfugees at the conference.)

“The rise of the smartphone has put powerful tech in the hands of ref-ugees, and it’s just waiting to be used in a scalable way,” says Mike Butcher, Techfugees’ co-founder. The solutions range from location-based services that can draw refugees to safe areas to apps that put a doctor in their pock-ets. They are in most cases solutions hatched in the private sector. And they ought to lead to a radical rethink of the scope and structure of humani-tarian assistance.

Many of the ideas presented were developed in consultation with refugees themselves. Some deploy cutting-edge technologies -- think 3-D printing of prosthetic limbs and ultrasonic echo-location devices for a refugee blinded by explosives or blockchain-based technologies -- while others are decid-edly more low-tech. GeeCycle collects smartphones from people around the world and distributes them to refugees. The Refugee Aid App is designed to help displaced people see all the types of assistance -- food, shelter, legal help, medical care -- available to them on

a map. Another project, Meshpoint, advertises its “world-proof rugged Wi-Fi” for crisis areas.

German entrepreneur Harald Nei-dhardt’s brand new solution started with a passion for shipping containers. (That isn’t a typo -- he lives in Ham-burg, one of the world’s top container ports.) Partnering with Cisco for hard-ware and a translation service, his company developed a scalable way to transform containers into medical offices and connect them by video link to live interpreters working in more than 50 languages. It took him six weeks.

In London for the Techfugees event, he explained that his centers are “more humane for the refugee and more effi-cient for the doctor,” while also being more cost-effective since there is no need for several interpreters to be on site. Often refugees who don’t speak German are sent to emergency rooms for basic medical treatment since language barriers make assessment difficult; the mobile response centers with dial-in interpreters would free up that resource. The containers cost about $56,000 (50,000 euros) each and could be kitted out for schooling or other services, he said. The proto-type is operational in Hamburg and in high demand from refugees there. “My dream is to put 100 along the road south to Lesbos orwhere the camps are,” he told me.

Kiron University offers refugees the opportunity to receive an interna-tionally accredited degrees for free by partnering with open course platforms

and universities to develop degree pro-grams. At the moment, 80 percent of Kiron’s students are Syrians and come from refugee centers.

Hugh Bosely, founder of ReBootKamp, dialed in from San Fran-cisco to talk about his project to build a talent pipeline from the Mideast to Silicon Valley by teaching refugees to code. It sounded far-fetched at first, but Bosley, whose co-founder is Syrian, says it is “extremely feasible” to teach refugees to code in 12 to 16 weeks; he says he has commitments from the tech industry to hire every graduate of their program for the next two years.

The previous United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, warned that the system of funding humanitarian relief was bro-ken. “Already today,” he said in 2014, “with the exponential increase in needs we have seen just in the last three years, the humanitarian financing system is nearly bankrupt.” The tech community (and I know I repeat myself here) can be part of the answer, as much for their problem-solving mindset as their algo-rithmic wizardry. They do not fret about job displacement or benefits-mooch-ing; they see refugees as entrepreneurs. Combining a hunger to hack solutions to whatever problem gets put in front of them with relentless productivity, they can turn a light-bulb moment into an MVP -- minimum viable product -- in weeks or months.

Some quarters of the NGO com-munity have caught on to the need to find more innovative ways of operating.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has launched The Hive, a New York-based innovation lab that its director describes as part tech startup, part political operation and part con-sumer brand. The Hive is working with Civis Analytics (which employs much of the data team behind Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign), and has partnered with Kickstarter and other companies to raise awareness of refugee issues and find new sources of funding.

“This is more than a humanitarian relief challenge; this is a massive sys-tems challenge,” Hive director Brian Reich told me when we spoke at the end of last year. “If we try to solve it with some feel-good philanthropy, we’re going to watch those problems get worse and worse while we don’t raise enough money to help where it’s needed.”

The donor conference was cer-tainly meant to generate some feel-good philanthropy; it raised more than $10 billion, at least in pledges. That alone is heartening. But we can ulti-mately judge the success of the effort by whether refugee camps and com-munities become centers of learning and engagement, rather than places of idleness and despair.

Therese Raphael is a Bloomberg View editor in London, writing about European politics and economics.

Therese Raphael is a Bloomb-erg View editor in London, writing about European politics and economics.

The rise of the smartphone has put powerful tech in the hands of refugees, and it’s just waiting to be used in a scalable way.

All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers, not of the newspaper.All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should be mailed to the Editor-in-Chief.

AMERICAS12 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Assange has refused to go to Sweden for questioning fearing deportation to the US over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

AFP

LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange yesterday urged Britain to let him walk free from Ecuador’s Lon-don embassy after a UN panel found that the anti-secrecy campaigner who faces an allegation of physical exploitation in Sweden was “arbitrar-ily detained.”

Speaking to a handful of sup-porters and a media scrum in a rare appearance from the balcony of the

embassy where he took refuge nearly four years ago, Assange hailed a “vic-tory of historical importance”.

“How sweet it is! This is a vic-tory that cannot be denied,” he proclaimed, waving a hard copy of the legal opinion and often seeming emotional.

Assange has refused to go to Sweden for questioning fearing deportation to the US over WikiLe-aks’ release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghan-istan and Iraq.

Earlier, the 44-year-old Austral-ian told journalists via video link that it was “now the task of the states of Sweden and the United Kingdom as a whole to implement the verdict”.

The UN panel said Assange’s detention should end and that he should be able to claim compensa-tion from Britain and Sweden.

But both countries quickly dis-missed the non-binding legal opinion, with Britain’s Foreign Sec-retary Philip Hammond calling it “ridiculous”.

Assange walked into the embassy in June 2012 to avoid the threat of arrest and extradition to Sweden, where he still faces an allegation of physical exploitation. He has lived

there ever since in a small office room with a bed, computer, sun lamp, treadmill and access to a small bal-cony decorated with Ecuador’s flag.

In a statement, the panel said it had adopted an opinion that consid-ered Assange “arbitrarily detained by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

It added: “The working group also considered that the detention should be brought to an end and that Mr Assange should be afforded the right to compensation.”

Britain and Sweden sharply con-demned the panel’s findings and said they would change nothing.

Hammond called Assange “a fugitive from justice.”

“This is frankly a ridiculous find-ing by the working group and we reject it,” the foreign secretary added.

Sweden’s foreign ministry said that it “does not agree” with the assessment.

“Mr Assange is free to leave the embassy at any point and Swedish authorities have no control over his decision to stay at the embassy,” the ministry added.

Only three of the five members of the UN panel supported the opinion

—one recused herself because she is Australian, like Assange, and another member disagreed.

Christophe Peschoux, the working group’s secretary, said at a briefing in Geneva that Britain and Sweden had two months to submit new informa-tion to force a review, and Britain says it will contest the opinion. Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said it was “time for both governments... to allow Julian Assange his freedom.”

Swedish authorities want to speak to Assange about the allegation whose statute of limitations does not expire until 2020.

Elizabeth Fritz, the lawyer for the woman who has accused Assange, criticised the panel’s comments.

“That a man who is wanted on an arrest warrant should be awarded compensation for intentionally hid-ing from the judicial system for more than five years is offensive to my

client,” she said.Assange fears that if he went to

Sweden for questioning, he could then be sent to the US and face prison.

WikiLeaks’ activities —including the release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq —have infuriated the US.

The main source of the leaks, US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for breaches of the Espionage Act.

AFP

WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are now running neck-and-neck for the Democratic presidential nomination, with the Vermont senator lagging only two percentage points behind his rival, a nationwide poll showed yesterday.

The survey, carried out after this week’s Iowa caucuses which Clinton won by a hair, reveals Sanders clos-ing in on the former secretary of state

and longtime frontrunner.Clinton and Sanders now stand

at 44 to 42 percent, according to the Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters, revealing a dras-tic shift since December 22 when the pair stood at 61 and 30 percent respectively.

“Democrats nationwide are feeling the Bern as Senator Bernie Sanders closes a 31-point gap to tie Secretary Hillary Clinton,” Quinnip-iac University Poll assistant director Tim Malloy said.

In the Republican camp,

frontrunner Donald Trump, who came second in the Iowa nomination con-test behind arch-conservative Ted Cruz, still has a strong national lead, Quinnipiac said.

Trump is polling at 31 percent nationwide, ahead of Cruz on 22 per-cent and Florida Senator Marco Rubio who is snapping at their hells with 19 percent support. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson is on six percent —the only other Republican candidate to pass the three-percent mark.

In a presidential contest, Clinton would beat Trump 46 to 41 percent

and tie Cruz 45 to 45 percent, the Quinnipiac figures suggest.

Sanders, meanwhile, would wal-lop Trump by a resounding 49 to 39 percent and beat Cruz by 46 to 42 per-cent, Quinnipiac said.

When voters across the politi-cal divide were asked whether they viewed a candidate favorably or unfa-vorably, Sanders fared the best while Trump was worst off. “While Trump, Clinton and Cruz wallow in a nega-tive favorability, Rubio and Sanders are rock stars,” Malloy said.

Fifty-six percent of participants

had an unfavorable view of Clinton, compared to 39 percent who viewed her favorably. For Trump the numbers ran at 59 and 34 percent respectively.

For Sanders, 44 percent viewed him favorably against 35 unfavorably. Sim-ilar numbers were seen for Rubio, who 42 percent viewed favorably compared with 28 percent unfavorably.

On Thursday, Sanders and Clinton faced off in a nearly two-hour debate at the University of New Hampshire where Hillary mounted a sharp attack on her rival, warning his promises of revolution “don’t add up.”

Reuters

WASHINGTON: Four days before the US presidential candidates face a crucial primary in New Hampshire, Republican Donald Trump’s rivals kept up their attacks yesterday with Jeb Bush and his mother scolding the front-runner over his use of profan-ity and treatment of women.

The billionaire’s front-runner status was pierced by a second-place finish to US Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa, where Rubio’s strong third-place finish set him apart from the rest of the Republicans vying for the party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election.

One of those rivals, former Flor-ida Governor Jeb Bush, continued his attacks on both Rubio and Trump, with help from his mother, former

first lady Barbara Bush. His brother, former President George W Bush, also appeared in a new ad yester-day praising Jeb as having “a good heart and a strong backbone” and being able to unite the country.

In an interview on CBS This Morning, Jeb and Barbara Bush attacked Trump as misogynistic and vulgar after he used a four-letter word in a recent campaign appearance.

“I don’t think a president would have ever shouted profanities in a speech in front of thousands of peo-ple with kids in the crowd,” Jeb Bush said. “He does it all the time.”

His mother lambasted Trump for criticising Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly during and after a Republican debate in August.

“I don’t know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly,” she said.

Nasa says big

asteroid could

pass near Earth

next month

Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL: Nasa is monitoring a 100-foot wide aster-oid that could make a close pass by Earth next month but has no chance of hitting it, the US space agency said yesterday.

First spotted in 2013, the aster-oid could fly as close as 17,700 km from Earth on March 5, according to scientists at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. That is roughly 1/20th the distance from Earth to the moon and about half as far as many communica-tions satellites that ring the planet. But given uncertainty about the pre-cise path of the asteroid, known as 2013 TX68, it also could end up as far as 14 million km from Earth dur-ing its flyby.

The asteroid was visible for just three days during its last approach to Earth in 2013 before it passed into daytime skies and could no longer be tracked.

“It will be hard to predict where to look for it,” Nasa’s Paul Chodas, who manages the agency’s Near-Earth Objects Studies office, said in a statement.

Nasa said there is a one-in-250 million chance of an impact during the asteroid’s next pass on Sep-tember 28, 2017, though future observances are likely to reduce that probability even further.

“The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern,” Chodas said.

AFP

NEW YORK: A giant crane crashed in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood yesterday, killing one person and injuring three others, two of whom were in serious condition, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters.

The crane’s operators were in the process of lowering and securing it amid adverse weather conditions including heavy snow, when it col-lapsed lengthwise down Worth Street in lower Manhattan, he said.

Four buildings were damaged and the three people injured by fall-ing debris as the accident unfolded at 8:30am the mayor said.

It was still unclear why the

565-foot crane fell, De Blasio said, explaining that a crew “had inspected the crane on Thursday.”

Several minutes prior to the acci-dent, construction workers had been deployed to divert pedestrians and cars from the area.

“Thank God it was not worse,” De Blasio said, adding that the precau-tions likely prevented a heavier toll in the area, which is filled with offices and sees heavy traffic during rush hour. The crane was mounted on a mobile tracked vehicle that also over-turned during the accident.

It was replacing generators and the air conditioning system on the roof of a building. An order had been given for the city’s 376 mobile cranes and 43 fixed cranes to be put in a secure position, De Blasio said.

Reuters

SAN JUAN: Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla yesterday declared a public health emergency because of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, a government statement said.

Puerto Rican health officials have confirmed 22 cases, including a pregnant woman and a man with Zika who developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, a separate government statement said. Guillain-Barre is a rare disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves.

Health authorities would track

the Zika cases and report results weekly, the government said.

The virus is having an impact on tourism, with some tourist groups canceling reservations, particularly weddings in hotels. There were no reports of conventions being can-celled, the statement said.

Puerto Rico reported its first case of Zika in December, the virus having emerged at a difficult time for the US territory as it tries to resolve an eco-nomic and fiscal crisis. The island, struggling to restructure its debt, will run out of fiscal emergency measures by June, the Government Development Bank president said on Friday.

Assange hails ‘victory’ after UN panel ruling

Sanders and Clinton neck-and-neck in contest: Poll

Trump holds lead in New Hampshire

Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton greets supporters at a debate watching party in Durham, New Hampshire.

One killed as giant crane falls in New York

Emergency workers at the site where the crane toppled and flipped upside down in downtown Manhattan in New York, yesterday.

Health emergency in

Puerto Rico over Zika

Julian Assange speaks to the media from a balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, yesterday.

People walk past an electronic quotation board flashing the Nikkei key index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in front of a securities company in Tokyo, yesterday.

BNP Paribas net profit at €6.7bn in 2015

PAGE | 14 PAGE | 15

Toyota net profit jumps

to $16bn

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DOW 16,221.51 -195.07 PTS

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BRENT $33.93 -$1.58

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SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016 • 27 Rabia II 1437 @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

By Satish Kanady

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar is turning to interna-tional debt markets to shore up its finances pressured by low energy prices. The country is in talks with banks about a sovereign sukuk issue.

Through bond sales in interna-tional and loan markets, Qatar could cover its likely QR46.5bn ($12.8bn) deficit for the current fiscal.

Talks are underway with a small group of banks to select arrangers for the first of these deals, Global Research noted in its latest “GCC mar-ket performance” report.

“As oil prices are not expected to recover soon, we believe GCC mar-kets may face near- term challenges. All GCC nations are expecting a deficit

in their 2016 budget due to a contin-ued fall in oil prices. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have already projected $87bn and $12bn deficits, respectively in their budgets for 2016.

Furthermore, Kuwait is estimat-ing a deficit of KWD12.9bn ($42.6bn) in its 2016/17 budget. We believe other GCC peers would follow suit. In the UAE, Dubai announced a zero- deficit budget this year; however, the other emirates may record budget short-falls”, the analysts said.

To reduce deficits, GCC nations have plans to raise taxes, sell bonds, and eliminate subsidies.

Furthermore, their focus would remain on strengthening non-oil revenue by developing small and

medium-sized enterprises. GCC governments have already begun to develop their non-oil sector to strengthen their economies. Hence, in the long run, GCC markets would be an attractive investment avenue.

The market performance report noted Qatari bourse fell 9.1 percent month-on-month in January due to the oil rout. The index reached a two -year low during the month as oil prices plunged after the lifting of sanctions on Iran.

The market has been record-ing weakness over the past several months due soft oil prices. During the middle of the month, the index crashed due to a sharp decline in crude prices. However, owing to

mixed earnings performances, mar-ket sentiment recovered partially.

The value of shares traded declined 20.9 percent month-on-month to $1.2bn, while volume traded fell 7.2 percent. Market cap-italisation of companies listed on QE declined 8.3 percent to $118bn in January from $128bn. Market capitalization of the top 10 listed companies dropped 7.3 percent.

In terms of valuation, the one-year forward PE ratio of GCC markets stands at 7.1x–10.3x, lower than that of emerging market peers.

Thus, GCC markets are still attractive vis-à-vis peers. Qatar and the UAE are part of the MSCI Emerg-ing Markets Index. Saudi Arabia is

likely to be added to the index in 2017. The FTSE has upgraded Qatar to Secondary Emerging Market from Frontier Market in September 2015 -this would be positive for Qatar in the long run.

The report noted the GCC markets may face near-term challenges due to fall in oil prices. In 2015, the perform-ance of GCC markets was weak due to a significant fall in oil prices.

In January, the market trend continued due to concerns about oversupply of oil as sanctions on Iran were lifted. The markets plum-meted mid-month due to fall in oil prices. News that Russia plans to cooperate with Opec partly allayed investor concerns.

Qatar to tap global debt market to plug deficitTalks are underway with a small group of banks to select arrangers for the first of these deals. GCC markets may face near-term challenges

Reuters

WASHINGTON: US employment gains slowed more than expected in January as the boost to hiring from unseasonably mild weather faded, but surging wages and an unem-ployment rate at an eight-year low suggested the labour market recov-ery remains firm.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 151,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate slipped to 4.9 percent, the lowest since February 2008, the Labour Department said yesterday.

Data for November and Decem-ber was revised to show 2,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast employment increasing by 190,000 in Janu-ary and the jobless rate steady at 5 percent.

Also taking the sting from the softer payrolls number, employ-ers increased hours for workers. Manufacturing, which has been undermined by a strong dollar and weak global demand, added the most jobs since August 2013.

“That ... serves as a caution to markets that it is too early to take a Federal Reserve March hike com-pletely off the table,” said Mohamed el-Erian, Chief Economic Advi-sor at Allianz in Newport Beach, California.

The dollar rose against a basket of currencies on the data as trad-ers saw more rate hikes this year. Prices for US Treasury debt fell and US stock futures extended losses.

The US central bank raised its short-term interest rate in December for the first time in nearly a decade.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said the economy needs to create just under 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with growth in the working age population.

TComing in the wake of an

abrupt slowdown in economic growth in the fourth quarter and a sharp stock market sell-off, the fairly upbeat details of the closely watched employment report could ease con-cerns about the economic outlook.

The economy grew at a 0.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, restrained by headwinds that included the strong dollar and efforts by businesses to sell off inventory.

Even with slower job growth, wages rebounded sharply after hold-ing steady in December. Average hourly earnings increased 12 cents or 0.5 percent. That left the year-on-year gain in earnings at 2.5 percent as the unusually strong wage gains seen in January 2014 dropped out of the picture. But with the jobless rate in a range most economists associate with full employment, wage growth is expected to pick-up this year.

With its January employment report, the government published its annual “benchmark” revisions and updated the formulas it uses to smooth the data for regular seasonal fluctuations. It also incorporated new population estimates.

The government said the level of employment in March of last year was 206,000 lower on a seasonally adjusted basis than it had reported. The shift in population controls means figures on the labour force or number of employed or unem-ployed in January are not directly comparable to December. The labour

In January, all the employment gains were in the private sector, which added 158,000 jobs. The serv-ices sector dominated the payrolls increase last month, with 118,000 jobs created. Mining lost 7,000 more jobs, while the embattled manu-facturing sector surprisingly added 29,000 positions. Mining payrolls have decreased by 146,000 since peaking in September 2014. About three-fourths of the job losses over this period have been in support activities for mining.

US unemployment rate at 8-year low

AFP

LONDON: European stocks gave up early gains and Wall Street also fell yesterday after a US jobs report sent conflicting signals about the econ-omy, reviving jitters about global growth.

Shares in London, Frankfurt and Paris all dipped after rising earlier in the session following data that showed US hiring slowed last month but that the jobless rate has fallen to an eight-year low.

Germany’s Dax led Europe’s main bourses into negative territory, clos-ing more than one percent down, followed by the FTSE in London and France’s CAC.

In London, the FTSE 100 was down 0.86 percent at 5,848.06 points. In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 was down 1.14 percent at 9,286.23 points while in Paris, the CAC 40 was also down 0.66 percent at 4,200.67 points. The Euro Stoxx 50 was down 1.22

percent at 2, 869.92 and in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 was down 1.3 per-cent at 16,819.59.

Wall Street stocks also dropped as highly anticipated American jobs data painted a far from clear picture over the likelihood of another interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.

In New York, the Dow was down 1.08 percent at 16,239.09 in early trade. After a tumultuous start to the year fuelled by a slowdown from Asia to South America, the focus has turned to the US, the world’s biggest economy and key driver of world growth.

“Domestic stocks are mov-ing lower with the Street grappling with further Fed rate hike uncer-tainty following the January labour report, which showed smaller-than-expected job growth and stronger-than-expected wages,” Charles Schwab analysts said in a note. Meanwhile Harm Bandholz, Chief US Economist at UniCredit Research, said the US jobs market “remains a bastion of strength”.

“The (US jobs) report unequivo-cally supports the Federal Reserve’s (and our) baseline view that further gradual rate hikes are warranted,” he said.

However he added that, while the report was “undoubtedly a step in the right direction”, Fed decision-mak-ers would want to see “more of these signs before pulling the trigger again”.

The US has enjoyed reasonable results for the past few years in the face of a worldwide malaise, but a string of weak data out of Washing-ton recently has led to speculation it is now in the firing line.

On Thursday, figures showed orders for manufactured goods fell again in December and jobless claims rose last week. That came after data pointed to a slowdown in factory activity, easing economic growth, a drop in consumer spending and weakness in the crucial services sector. Yesterday’s jobs data showed a downshift pace of hiring in Janu-ary offering fresh evidence of the US economy hitting a soft patch.

Reuters

LONDON: Oil is on track to end the week lower after two consec-utive weeks of gains in a volatile session, as bearish fundamentals pressure prices despite bullish indications earlier in the week.

International benchmark Brent crude futures were 53 cents lower at $33.93 per barrel at 1454 GMT, and down from an intraday high of $35.14. US West Texas Interme-diate (WTI) crude futures fell 62 cents to $31.10 a barrel.

An effort by Venezuela to rally support for concerted action to boost prices also buoyed futures. Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino is due to meet his Saudi counterpart Ali bin Ibrahim Al Nuaimi in Riyadh tomorrow, after meeting the Qatari and Omani ministers this week.

Oil has been extremely volatile since the start of the year, and in particular this week, as a string of bullish indicators such as a slump in the dollar and potential talks on output cuts clashed with bearish reports of record US crude inven-tories, higher output and a slowing global economy.

Oil prices fall amid volatility

Gold price slips LONDON: The price of gold slipped back from three-month highs yesterday. Spot gold initially rose to $1,161.31 an ounce, its high-est since October 29, but it then fell to a session low of $1,144.96. By 1524 GMT it was down 0.5 per-cent at $1,149.5 an ounce. US gold for April delivery was down 0.4 percent at $1,152.5 an ounce.

Spot silver was down 0.7 per-cent at $14.78 an ounce and has gained more than 3 percent this week. Platinum was down 1.1 per-cent at $897.99 an ounce, while palladium was down 1.3 percent at $505.22. Peter Hug, global trading director at Kitco Metals, said that the recent surge in metals prices was due for a correction and trad-ers took profits after the jobs data.

European, US indexes dip

News Corp profit slides on weaker revenuesNEW YORK: News Corp reported a 56 percent drop in quarterly profits on weaker revenue from its newspaper operations worldwide.

The group formed by media tycoon Rupert Mur-doch said profit in the quarter to December 31 fell to $62m from $142m a year earlier. Total revenues dipped four percent from a year ago to $2.16bn.

“News Corp is evolving rapidly into a more digital and increasingly global com-pany with a diverse revenue mix that we believe will drive long-term growth in profits and shareholder returns,” said chief executive Robert Thomson in a statement.

Thomson noted that in newspaper operations, “print advertising remained chal-lenged, but we are seeing growth in digital advertis-ing and circulation revenues,” and added that the company is “particularly focused on cost reductions and sharing services around News Corp to streamline operations at the newspapers in Australia and the UK.”

News Corp retained the name of the media-enter-tainment conglomerate broken up into two separate firms in 2013 as part of Mur-doch’s plan to “unlock value” for shareholders.

At News Corp, the “news and information” division which is the largest unit, saw an eight percent drop in revenue in the quarter to $1.4bn, while operating earn-ings fell 27 percent to $158m.Advertising revenues for the division fell 12 percent, driven by weakness in print advertising, currency fluctu-ations and other factors.

UAE plansfloating LNG import terminal this yearLONDON: State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) plans to start a new liquefied natural gas floating import terminal (FSRU) in the second half of this year, three LNG industry sources said. The floating import terminal is being supplied by US gas shipping company Exceler-ate Energy, the sources said.

Both ADNOC and Excel-erate Energy did not respond to requests for comment. One of the sources said the termi-nal’s import capacity will be about 1m tonnes per annum. The UAE already imports LNG via a floating termi-nal supplied by Excelerate Energy off the coast of Dubai.

BUSINESS14 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

AFP

TOKYO: Toyota yesterday said its nine-month net profit jumped nearly 10 percent to 1.9 trillion yen ($16bn), despite falling sales in most regions, with the world’s top auto maker focused on squeezing more produc-tivity out of its plants.

The Corolla and Prius maker also slightly raised its fiscal year profit forecast to 2.27 trillion yen, but unit sales were down in most regions, including Europe and Japan, while North America rose.

The region has stood out for Jap-anese auto makers, with rival Honda last week saying it was a bright spot that helped offset sluggish sales at home.

Toyota and its domestic rivals have benefited from healthy growth in the US where low interest rates proved a boon to consumers, although the slim possibility of rate hikes this year could dampen sales.

Weakening demand in emerg-ing markets such as Thailand and Indonesia, as well as a planned con-sumption tax hike in Japan next year, could also eat into the market, ana-lysts said.

Sales in China, the world’s top vehicle market, ticked up, Toyota

Toyota net profit jumps to $16bn

said, adding that demand for it its RAV4 sport utility vehicle was strong in North America. “A further slow-down in emerging economies may affect (Toyota’s) sales overseas, and an expected rate hike in the United States would dampen customers’ appetite” for new cars, said Shigeru Matsumura, analyst at SMBC Friend Research Center.

The weaker yen has made Jap-anese automakers relatively more competitive overseas and inflated the value of repatriated overseas profits, although the unit has strengthened recently.

Toyota has said all its domestic parts plants would shut for a full day next week, expanding a production suspension that is set to be its long-est since the March 2011 earthquake

and tsunami disaster. The move was due to a compo-

nents shortage following an explosion at a supplier.

It was not clear if the temporary production shutdown would affect results in the current quarter. “We are going to take all the necessary measures for a speedy recovery of production,” Toyota managing officer Tetsuya Otake told a news briefing.

“The impact of the suspension is not taken into account in our fore-casts — it is difficult to evaluate for the time being.”

Also this week, Toyota said it will drop its Scion brand, the often-quirky line of cars it launched in the United States more than a decade ago tar-geted at younger Americans.

The company said the move was

driven by a market shifting away from small cars and by changes in buying habits. Yesterday’s report comes after Toyota last month kept the title of world’s top carmaker for the fourth straight year after saying it sold 10.15 million vehicles globally in 2015, driving past Volkswagen and General Motors.

In the first half of 2015, the Ger-man giant, whose other brands include Porsche and Audi, was set to take the crown as it rode momentum in emerging economies.

But then it posted its first drop in annual sales for more than a decade after being hammered by a massive pollution cheating scandal.

“Volkswagen is in a severe sit-uation,” said Rakuten Securities analyst Yasuo Imanaka. “Japanese

automakers can take advantage of the slump by winning Volkswagen customers. It could be a plus for Japanese firms.” Toyota has been focusing on squeezing out produc-tivity gains and better using existing plants — it put on hold building new factories for several years.

The company began operating a new Thai plant in 2013, but then halted investment as the global car market struggled with oversupply and weak demand. It has since announced it was ending the construction freeze as it unveiled plans for a $1bn plant in Mexico, while it is overhauling its operations in China. It also wants to overhaul its production methods, vowing to slash development costs to try to offset any downturn in the market.

Reuters

OSAKA: Taiwan’s Foxconn is aiming to finalise a deal to acquire Japan’s Sharp Corp by the end of the month, after the two firms reached a con-sensus on most points, Foxconn Chief Executive Officer Terry Gou said.

Foxconn, known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co , has been given preferred negotiating rights and most remaining issues to be resolved were legal and regulatory, Gou said after meeting with executives of the struggling electronics maker on Friday.

The Apple Inc supplier has offered to invest around 659bn yen ($5.6bn) in Sharp, sources familiar with the matter have said - which would make it Foxconn’s biggest deal to date and the largest acquisi-tion by a foreign company in Japan’s insulated tech sector. “We have a con-sensus,” Gou told reporters. “The rest

is a process ... I don’t see a problem completing this process.” The meet-ing with Sharp executives came one day after Sharp’s board decided to focus on Foxconn’s offer over a rival bid from a Japanese state-backed fund.

While many investors have faith in Gou’s business acumen, noting he has built up the world’s biggest con-tract maker of electronic gadgets from scratch, buying Sharp is seen as carrying as many, or more, risks than potential benefits.

A deal would give Foxconn access to the Japanese display maker’s cut-ting-edge technology at a time when clients such as Apple are likely look-ing ahead to more advanced flexible screens.

However, key concerns include slowing global sales for smartphones as well as fierce competition from South Korea and Chinese rivals that have hammered demand for Sharp’s liquid crystal displays and hindered it from making a recovery despite

two major bank-led bailouts in the last four years. The macro environ-ment is not so great,” said Vincent Chen, head of regional research with Yuanta Research in Taipei. “Terry is very calculating. He has guts, but I really think there is still a big risk.”

Foxconn is also seen by some as overpaying for a loss-making com-pany with the acquisition likely to weigh heavily on its balance sheet.

“Foxconn’s offer is expensive, which shows how desperately the company wants Sharp’s technol-ogy,” said Takatoshi Itoshima, chief portfolio manager at Commons Asset Management.

But Sharp CEO Kozo Takahashi stressed on Thursday that Sharp and Foxconn had since forged a good relationship through the joint man-agement of a plant in Japan. Shares in Sharp soared to end 10 percent higher yesterday on the news that Gou had flown in to meet Sharp executives, bringing two-day gains to 28 percent and giving it a market value of $2.6bn.

Foxconn agrees with Sharp on most points of a takeover deal

AFP

FRANKFURT: Embattled German auto giant Volkswa-gen said yesterday that it would postpone publishing its 2015 annual results, as well as its shareholder meeting due to an ongoing probe into a global emissions-cheat-ing scandal.

The annual earnings news conference had been scheduled for March 10 and the shareholders’ annual gen-eral meeting (AGM) for April 21, but new dates for both events “will be announced as soon as possible,” VW said in a short statement.

The carmaker will “set a new date for the publica-tion of the annual accounts for fiscal year 2015 due to remaining open questions and the resulting valuation

calculations relating to the diesel emissions issue,” it said.The reasoning behind the postponements is to

“achieve the best possible transparent and reliable out-come for its shareholders and stakeholders,” the carmaker added.

VW is currently engulfed in the deepest crisis in its history after it was forced to admit last September that it installed so-called “defeat device” software into 11 mil-lion diesel engines worldwide.

The sophisticated software skews the emissions data during regulatory testing. The revelation sent shockwaves across the automobile sector around the world, appears to be hurting VW sales and could cost the former para-gon of German industry untold billions in regulatory and legal fines. Nevertheless, VW insisted Friday that group operating profits were expected to hold steady “within the expected range for fiscal year 2015.”

Reuters

BEIJING: Chinese officials have issued warnings to seed dealers and farmers not to use unapproved genetically modified seeds in the country’s main crop belt, shortly after Greenpeace said it had found widespread GM contamination in corn.

The unprecedented action by rural authorities in the past two weeks also comes as state-owned ChemChina agreed a $43bn deal for seed and agrichemicals giant Syn-genta AG , a move seen as bringing leading technology and know-how to China’s fragmented seed indus-try as it grapples with a divisive GM policy.

China does not allow cultiva-tion of any GM varieties of corn or other staple food crops although it does permit the import of some GMO crops for use in animal feed.

Despite Beijing’s strict official position on the issue, Greenpeace last month said almost all sam-ples taken from cornfields in some parts of the north-east, China’s

breadbasket, tested positive for GMO contamination. Beijing has not explicitly commented on the Green-peace findings, but local authorities in Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces issued notices to farmers and seed companies warning them ahead of the spring seed-buying season against dealing in geneti-cally modified products.

Liaoning’s seed management bureau said any business or person found engaging in illegal activity with fake or genetically modified seeds would be “strictly investigated and prosecuted”.

It was the first time the local government had taken such action, she said, but it is not clear how effec-tive such a move will be. The policy limbo has both frustrated a hand-ful of domestic biotech firms, and led other seed companies to simply peddle unregistered GMO seeds to farmers eager for solutions.

“We have heard that GMO corn is very popular in the west of Liaoning and a small area of west Jilin. Those areas are traditionally infested by the Asian corn borer,” a moth that can devastate crops, said Liu Shi, a seed industry veteran.

VW delays shareholder meet

China cracks down on illegal GM crops

Sales in China, the world’s top vehicle market, ticked up, Toyota said. Demand for its RAV4 sport utility vehicle was strong in North America

Visitors gather next to a Toyota Camry vehicle on display at the company’s showroom in Tokyo yesterday.

Terry Gou (centre), Founder and Chairman of Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology, speaks to reporters after a meeting with Sharp Corp executives including Chief Executive Kozo Takahashi (not in picture) at Sharp’s headquarters in Osaka yesterday.

A view of a crude oil importing port in Qingdao, Shandong province. Newly licensed Chinese oil importers are taking advantage of low crude prices and healthy domestic product margins, snapping up hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of a global surplus but also adding to China’s swelling fuel exports.

China imports more oil

BUSINESS 15SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

AFP

PARIS: ArcelorMittal said yester-day that it would ask shareholders for fresh funds, sell assets and slash costs after falling commodity prices pummelled its performance last year, leaving a gaping hole in its accounts.

The world’s largest steel maker reported a net loss of $7.95bn for 2015, more than four times the previous year’s net loss of $1.86bn in 2014.

To help fill the shortfall, Arce-lorMittal said it would tap into shareholders’ pockets via a capital increase of $3bn by mid-2016, and also sell its stake in Spanish auto-motive company Gestamp, roughly

netting another $1bn. The compa-ny’s shares plunged on the Paris stock exchange in anticipation of the cash call, dropping by over 6 percent in morning trading.

“Having already seen its mar-ket capitalisation decline in recent years, ArcelorMittal now can’t avoid a big dilution for shareholders with this capital increase of $3bn,” bro-kers Aurel BGC said in a note.

Analysts at Societe Generale called the cash call “disappointing, but certainly a reflection of very dif-ficult market conditions”.

Over half of the 2015 loss was due to writing down in its books the value of its mining operations to reflect the currently lower value of its iron ore, but even excluding exceptional items

ArcelorMittal was $300m into loss, compared to $400m in 2014.

Chief executive Lakshmi Mittal acknowledged in a statement that “2015 was a very difficult year for the steel and mining industries... Prices deteriorated significantly during the year as a result of excess capacity in China”. However, he said the mining business “is fully focused on adapt-ing to this low price environment and has reduced cash costs by 20 percent compared with an initial target of 15 percent”.

Mittal said a further 10 percent reduction in mining costs is targeted for 2016. Sales dropped 20 percent to $63.6bn, which mostly reflects fall-ing prices as the company’s iron ore production and steel shipments only

dipped marginally. Net debt dipped to $15.7bn at the end of 2015 from $15.8 at the end of 2014.

The company announced a new restructuring plan that aims to raise EBITDA per tonne to above $85, irre-spective of changes in raw material prices. It fell from $86 per tonne in the fourth quarter of 2014 to $56 in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Overall the latest plan aims to improve structural EBITDA by $3bn by 2020. It also plans to trim costs in the division by more than one bn euros over the same period, while boosting revenues from its Ameri-can and Asia-Pacific businesses. The bank said it will propose a dividend of ¤2.31a share at its shareholders in May, compared to ¤1.50 a year earlier.

Reuters

SEOUL: Chinese visitors to South Korea are buying less from global luxury mainstays like Louis Vuit-ton and Chanel in favour of cheaper homegrown brands, as young and independent travellers make up a bigger share of tourists.

Lured by the “Korean Wave” of culture exports, from soap operas and K-pop music to food and fash-ion, price-conscious younger Chinese visitors are seeking a more authentic and less expensive shop-ping experience.

South Korea trails only Thailand as an overseas destination for Chi-nese travellers, whose heavy retail spending has helped make South Korea the world’s largest duty free shopping market.

The emphasis on value will put further pressure on global luxury retailers already grappling with slowing sales in China after years of skyrocketing growth, as a govern-ment crackdown on graft and lavish spending bites.

“You can buy those big brands everywhere, and it is actually cheaper to buy those brands in other

countries compared to the prices in South Korea,” said 21-year-old Zhu Xin, who was shopping at the Sty-lenanda store in Hongdae, a Seoul neighbourhood popular with young adults. “Now that we are here, we should buy local brands,” she said.

Average prices on best-selling items from global luxury brands in South Korea are cheaper than they are in mainland China, but still cost more than in Europe, Singapore and Dubai, according to HSBC data.

At downtown Seoul duty free shops run by Hotel Lotte’s Lotte Duty Free and the Samsung Group’s Hotel Shilla , LG Household & Health-care’s Whoo and Amorepacific’s Sulwhasoo cosmetics were the top-selling brands in 2015, overtaking Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Richem-ont’s Cartier, store data shows.

The number of Chinese tourists to South Korea dipped 2.3 percent in 2015 to about 6m due to the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak. However, bro-kerage CLSA says Chinese inbound traffic growth rebounded from September and should jump by 28 percent in 2016. The South Korean government expects a record 8m Chinese visitors this year.

Chinese tourists to South Korea are getting younger: the share of those in their 20s and 30s rose to 46.1 percent last year, from 40.9 percent in 2013, according to the government-run Korea Culture and Tourism Institute.

While older Chinese tourists typ-ically travel in groups where they are ferried between shops catering to them, Chinese millennials tend to be better-informed about what they want, travel independently and spend less on shopping.

“Whereas past generations blindly purchased luxury goods, the younger generations have a more price-conscious consumption pat-tern,” KB Investment & Securities analyst Yang Ji-hye said.

AFP

TOKYO: The last big week of Japan’s earnings season will be a key cue for Tokyo investors, after Toshiba plunged to its lowest level in more than three dec-ades yesterday.

Nissan and mobile carrier Soft-Bank are among the major firms set to announce quarterly earnings next week as Japan Inc’s latest reporting period winds down.

Forex rates will also be in focus after the yen jumped this week—a negative for Japanese exporters’ shares. Markets will also be eyeing wage data for signs that Japanese firms are putting more money in employees’ pockets—as the labour unions gear up for spring wage talks.

“The highlight of the coming week will be the release of labour cash earn-ings for December, the month in which winter bonuses are paid,” research house Capital Economics said in a commentary.

However, it warned: “Wage growth

is set to slow again as bonus payments will account for a negligible share of overall pay in coming months.” Yes-terday, Toshiba shares dived to a more than 36-year low after the scandal-hit firm widened its annual loss forecast to a whopping $6.0bn, while a strong yen dragged the Nikkei into the red.

The company’s gaping shortfall was announced after markets closed on Thursday and the firm’s stock plum-meted more than 11 percent to 176.3 yen yesterday, its lowest close since late 1979. Bucking the downtrend, Sharp soared

10 percent to 176 yen on speculation it would agree to a bailout from Foxconn parent company Hon Hai Precision, which is based in Taiwan.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 1.32 percent, or 225.40 points, on Friday to close at 16,819.59. It was down nearly four percent on the week. The broader Topix index of all first-sec-tion shares fell 1.43 percent, or 19.84 points, to 1,368.97. It lost 4.41 percent over the week. The greenback was up slightly at 116.80 yen from 116.74 yen Thursday in New York. But it is still

sharply down from levels above 121 yen seen earlier in the week.

In other Tokyo trading, Toyota dropped 1.88 percent to 6,625 yen, shortly before reporting its latest quar-terly earnings after the markets closed yesterday. Banking giant Mitsubishi UFJ finished down 3.51 percent at 538.2 yen, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing, a market heavyweight, shed 2.28 per-cent to 34,590 yen.

Japan Airlines lost 2.37 percent to 4,076 yen, while rival All Nippon Air-ways slipped 2.81 percent to 317.7 yen.

AFP

PARIS: French banking giant BNP Paribas reported yesterday that a net profit of ¤6.7bn for 2015, bouncing back strongly more than a year after a record fine by US authorities.

The result marks a jump from the ¤157m ($176m) reported in 2014, when earnings were hit by the ¤6.6bn fine by US authorities for breaching embargoes on trans-actions with some countries, most notably Iran.

But it missed the average ana-lyst forecast of ¤6.9bn collated by FactSet.

Nevertheless, investors pushed the bank’s shares up 3.2 percent in early trading to ¤42.27, as the Paris stock exchange’s CAC 40 index was up 0.4 percent overall. Like many European lenders, BNP Paribas’ business has been crimped in recent

years by low interest rates, higher taxes and stagnant growth in the Euro Zone.

Financial markets have made one of their worst starts to the year in living memory in 2016, with stocks and commodities slumping over con-cerns about the health of the world economy.

Reporting the 2015 results, BNP Paribas CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe said: “The group turned out a good operational performance, with rev-enues increasing in three key areas.”

Revenues increased by 9.6 per-cent to ¤42.9bn in 2015, slightly higher than analyst predictions, helped by its financial services and investment banking businesses.

Growth in its European markets including France, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg has been slow, how-ever, where income rose by just 1.6 percent over the year. The bank is aiming to increase its earnings before tax from investment.

STOCKHOLM: Volvo Group, the world’s second-biggest truck maker, yesterday reported a seven-fold increase in net profit, thanks mostly to a massive cost-cutting drive.

Net profit for 2015 came in at 15.06bn kronor (¤1.6bn, $1.8bn), after 2.2bn in 2014.

The profit margin of the truck maker, second in the world only to Germany’s Daimler, rose to over 8 percent from 3 percent the previous year. “This was thanks to cost reductions, but was also helped by positive currency development and capital gains from selling shares,” chief exec-utive Martin Lundstedt said in a statement.

Fourth-quarter operating income, at 5.4bn kronor, how-ever came in below expectations by analysts polled by Swedish financial agency Direkt.

In 2015, demand in the truck market improved in Europe but declined from high levels in North America, Lundstedt said.

This, coupled with weak-ness in the Brazilian market, was going to prompt production cuts, he said.

Volvo is at the end of a three-year restructuring programme which it said has reduced over-heads by 10bn kronor annually.

The company cut 5,000 jobs last year, and the payroll now stands at 99,500.

Sales rose 9 percent in 2015 partly thanks to weakness in the Swedish currency, which gave the headline a boost once income from other currencies was con-verted into kronor. Stripping out the currency windfall, sales were up 2 percent.

Chinese visitors in S Korea shun luxury brandsSouth Korea trails only Thailand as an overseas destination for Chinese travellers, whose heavy retail spending has helped make South Korea the world’s largest duty free shopping market

ArcelorMittal to mine stock market after massive loss

BNP Paribas net profit

at €6.7bn in 2015

BNP Paribas Chief Executive Jean-Laurent Bonnafe (right) speaks during a news conference to present the bank’s 2015 annual results in Paris yesterday.

Volvo offloads costs for big profit rise

Earnings and wage data on tap for Tokyo investors next week

BUSINESS VIEWS16 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

European carmakers survive politicians’ backlash — for nowBy Barbara Lewis

Reuters

Intense lobbying by Europe’s car manu-facturers helped to save a compromise that will let them exceed EU pollution targets for

now, but the narrowness of their victory in the European parliament shows that politicians are running out of patience.

Green and Liberal lawmakers said the compromise, which would allow diesel cars to exceed permitted levels of deadly pollut-ants by 50 percent, had prioritised saving jobs above saving lives.

They came close to securing a rare veto in the European parliament of a policy that had the backing of the EU’s member state governments and, more grudgingly, the executive European Commission.

In the end, the veto failed by 323 votes against to 317 for, plus 61 abstentions. Most centre-left and centre-left lawmakers finally accepted the argument of car makers that the deal was needed to give the industry time to meet its targets.

But the close vote was a sign of how tough a fight the automobile manufacturers have on their hands to save the diesel industry, after

Volkswagen was caught manipulating its emis-sions test results last year.

Europe is the only region in the world where most new cars are diesels, a technology that uses less fuel and produces less climate change-causing carbon than petrol, but produces larger quantities of nitrogen oxides that are hazard-ous to health.

The revelation last year that the continent’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen was cheating on tests to show lower emissions than on road con-ditions has put the technology’s future in doubt.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg nar-rowly endorsed a compromise deal, agreed by EU member states in October, to curb car emis-sions while still allowing vehicles to exceed official pollution limits.

That overturned an earlier rejection from the European Parliament at committee level in December, which had unleashed a flurry of lobbying from industry on the one hand and environmentalists and Green politicians on the other.

In the end, the car industry got what it wanted. Car makers will be allowed a 50 percent over-shoot of the official ceiling for nitrogen oxide of 80 milligrams/kilometre for new cars. That compares with pollutant levels of up to seven

times legal limits among cars now on the roads.The European Commission said it had

accepted the higher ceiling agreed by member states as a pragmatic solution, but its patience with Volkswagen is thin after its demands for information on discrepancies concerning the emissions its vehicles emit have so far gone unanswered.

While it waits for replies to a series of let-ters, it has proposed deeper reforms that would let Brussels oversee how governments approve new models of vehicles and take responsibility for ensuring they meet standards.

The reforms will have to be thrashed out between member states and the European Parlia-ment, which has begun a year-long investigation into why EU regulators failed to prevent Volkswa-gen’s cheating discovered in the United States.

Claude Turmes, a veteran Green member of the European Parliament from Luxembourg and one of those investigating what went wrong, predicts the inquiry will unearth evidence to defeat industry lobbyists.

“They (politicians) will not be able to explain to their voters that they are in the pockets of the car industry,” he said. Lobbying had so far been focused on politicians with car produc-tion sites in their constituencies, Turmes said.

“The tactic of industry is to say that if the diesel market shrinks in Europe, the only large diesel market in the world, some EU car com-panies would go bust,” he said. “This is a fear statement.”

While the Greens were unbending, say-ing the compromise was so weak it had to be replaced even if that took time, a majority of lawmakers were persuaded that it was bet-ter than no deal.

A member of the EPP, Giovanni La Via said it was important to provide certainty for the industry, so that car makers could get on with the job of working out how to meet tougher targets later on.

”This way we will have a clear legislative framework. We will be able to use that as a basis for industry to get down to work right away and plan investment with a clear time-table in order to reduce emissions in cars that will be placed on the market,” he said.

”The car industry has been very successful in resisting successful legislation,” Alan Andrews, a lawyer at non-governmental organisation Client Earth, said. “But they are playing a dan-gerous game. The alternative left to cities will be to ban diesel cars.”Volkswagen declined to comment.

By Alexander Winning

Reuters

Kirill and Zlata Fateev have stopped buying clothes, going to the cinema and are

scrimping on food as the rouble sinks and their mortgage repay-ments soar.

The couple took out a US dollar mortgage in 2007 after moving to Moscow from the southern Russian republic of Dagestan and blames the government for not helping as the rouble has fallen to record lows.

“My son is a champion of Mos-cow at martial arts and we’ve had to stop his training sessions,” Kirill told Reuters at a recent protest by foreign-currency mortgage hold-ers in central Moscow.

“People like us are the back-bone of this government,” he said.

“But they aren’t listening”.Kirill and Zlata’s difficulties

are a reflection of how the weaker rouble has pressured household budgets already strained by an economic recession. They also illustrate that while the rouble’s slide has helped the authorities shield state finances from the impact of lower global oil prices, it has hurt the tens of thousands of Russians with dollar mortgages.

Their plight undermines Vladimir Putin’s claim to have overseen a consistent rise in liv-ing standards in the 15 or so years since he came to power.

That is uncomfortable for the Kremlin in a year when Russia holds a parliamentary election.

Russians with dollar mort-gages began taking to the streets to protest in late 2014, when the rouble first slumped to 80 to the US currency amid panic on finan-cial markets. But their protests have yielded few results.

The central bank in January 2015 advised banks to convert their clients’ dollar mortgages into rou-ble ones using more favourable exchange rates but gave no firm orders.

Putin said in April that year that any government help for for-eign-currency borrowers should be no greater than for those who had borrowed in roubles.

Kirill, who works as a colour correction artist in a publishing firm, said those were half-measures.

“Putin says foreign-currency borrowers took on risks, but you need to understand what risk is. The failed policy of our govern-ment, is that our risk?”

Zlata, an administrator at a fur-niture firm, said she used to believe the government could ensure a sta-ble currency but that vision had been shattered. “We feel defence-less,” she said.

Some economists say Russian officials are right to tread carefully

with the problem of dollar mort-gages, however.

They warn about the dangers of forcing banks to convert for-eign-currency loans into roubles, as such a move would contradict free-market practices and add to losses in the banking sector.

Both domestic and foreign-owned banks offered dollar mortgages to Russian clients, espe-cially in Moscow and St. Petersburg before the 2008/09 financial crisis.

But banks have practically stopped issuing such mortgages in recent years as the central bank has tightened risk rules.

Banks have rejected claims they encouraged their clients to take mortgages in foreign currency in the past and stress the major-ity of their mortgages were issued in roubles.

Alfa Bank, where Kirill and Zlata got their mortgage, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The rouble was at 25 to the dol-lar when Kirill and Zlata took out their 10-year dollar mortgage at an annual interest rate of around 10 percent.

In January this year it hit a new all-time low of over 85 to the US currency, prompting protests by Russia’s dollar debtors to flare up as many said their homes risked being repossessed.

Estimates as to how many for-eign-currency mortgage holders there are in Russia vary, but com-pared with the scale of the problem in other countries their number seems relatively slight.

The central bank said it did not have an up-to-date figure for the number of foreign-currency mort-gages in Russia, while bankers have said there are around 20,000. A protest group that wrote an open letter to Putin said over 70,000 Russian families have foreign-cur-rency mortgages.

In Poland there were more than half a million foreign-cur-rency mortgage holders last year in a country with a population more than three times smaller than Russia.

Kirill and Zlata say they want Alfa Bank to compromise by using a fixed exchange rate somewhere between the current rate and the rate when they signed the con-tract for their remaining mortgage repayments.

They say many banks refused to give them sufficiently large mort-gages in roubles in 2007 and that they were lured in by the lower interest rate on a dollar mortgage.

For now it looks like the gov-ernment is not going to intervene.

Putin’s spokesman said last week it had not yet been possible to find any “ready-made solutions” to the problems faced by those with dollar mortgages.

Rouble collapse heaps pain on Russia’s dollar mortgage holders

Increasing food prices fuel Turkish inflation

By Asli Kandemir

Reuters

Standing amid a jumble of food stalls in an Istanbul market, 61-year-old Gulsen Yuce wonders how she can stretch an already tight budget to make ends meet as food prices rise

week after week. Inflation has become Tur-key’s biggest economic challenge, hitting the pockets of ordinary people even as Presi-dent Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling party have built their reputation largely on eco-nomic growth and stability.

“A head of lettuce is 5 lira and I have dif-ficulty paying that much for it. I live on my own, I get by on fish or poultry instead of red meat,” said Yuce, one of the 10m Turks who

scrape by on pensions as low as 1,000 lira ($330) a month.

Global food prices have fallen to their low-est in nearly seven years, but Turkey has consist-ently struggled with food costs overshooting head-line inflation - at a rate that has at times outpaced other emerging markets.

Ankara’s inability to cool the rise has fuelled a blame game among food producers and retailers, with each accusing the other of hiking prices.

Industry officials and economists say there are deeper structural prob-lems, from the lack of a long-term agricultural policy to a supply chain hindered by middlemen and arcane bureaucracy.

“Turkey sticks out like a sore thumb among the major emerging markets whose inflation rates are significantly above target,” said Nicholas Spiro of Lauressa Advisory, an eco-nomics and property consultancy.

“There’s little indication that monetary policy will be tightened sufficiently any time soon to curb inflationary pressures, which are particularly prevalent in food despite the sharp decline in global food prices.”

Annual inflation hit 9.58 percent in Jan-uary - the highest since the middle of 2014

- fuelled by an 11.69 percent rise in food prices, data showed this week. The central bank has hiked its food inflation estimate for this year to 9 percent, from 8 percent.

By contrast, South African food prices rose 5.9 percent last year, just a touch more than the overall inflation rate of 5.2 percent. Turkey also outpaced Russia, where the food price increase was 1.1 percent greater than overall inflation.

Central Bank Governor Erdem Basci has cited the surging cost of bread and red meat as the main culprit and asked a government-run food committee to take measures to limit the impact on overall inflation, but it remains unclear what the committee can do. Food and beverages account for the largest por-tion of Turkey’s inflation basket, at 24 percent.

The price of a loaf of bread increased in Istanbul by 25 percent at the beginning of this year, while the annual increase in red meat averaged 21 percent nationally last year.

The economy minister has said Ankara will allow more red meat imports to keep prices down. But Turkey has already imported about $4bn in meat and livestock over the last dec-ade and that has done little to fight inflation.

Industry officials and analysts said boost-ing imports would be a short-term remedy at best. The bigger problem, they say, lies with scattered farm ownership that prevents large-scale farming, outdated agricultural technology and unpredictable harvests borne

Global food prices have fallen to their lowest in nearly seven years, but Turkey has consistently struggled with food costs overshooting headline inflation —at a rate that has at times outpaced other emerging markets.

Europe is the only region in the world where most new cars are diesels, a technology that uses less fuel and produces less climate change-causing carbon than petrol, but produces larger quantities of nitrogen oxides that are hazardous to health

of poor planning.Both the head of the red meat pro-

ducers association, Bulent Tunc, and the chairman of the bakers association cited a web of middlemen as a major cause of price pressure.

“There is a problem in the supply chain,” Tunc said.

In Turkey, the food business is riddled with intermediaries. Farmers’ costs include bureaucratic formalities such as imposts, pesticide tests and quality certification, all of which are usually handled by infor-mal middlemen.

To reduce the impact of middlemen, the government enacted a law in 2012 to remove some informal intermediaries and give farmers direct access to retailers. That helped lower wholesale prices by almost 20 percent, but had little impact on retail prices, a central bank study found in 2015.

“The power of big retailers to set prices seems to be the reason for that gap,” the study concluded. Retailers dismiss the idea that they have vast pricing power.

“That’s an urban legend,” said Nihat Ozdemir, chairman of Turkey’s main association of food retailers, citing stiff competition in fresh produce. “There isn’t a single retailer who can say they profit from fresh food.”

They argue that they are saddled with high transport, distribution and wastage costs for fresh food, while profit margins are razor-thin.

Mehmet Nane, the chief executive of Carrefoursa, one of Turkey’s largest super-market chains, blamed speculators for driving up the price of grains and meat, and said the government-run food com-mittee should take action.

“The food committee should prevent those who are collecting products in advance and selling them when prices rise,” he said.

People withdraw money from an ATM at the main shopping and pedestrian street of Istiklal in central Istanbul, Turkey.

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Yesterday’s answer

Yesterday’s answer

Yesterday’s answer

How to play Hyper Sudoku:A Hyper Sudoku Puzzle is solved by filling the numbers from 1 to 9 into the blank cells.

A Hyper Sudoku has unlike Sudoku 13 regions (four regions overlap with the nine standard regions). In all regions the numbers from 1 to 9 can appear only once. Otherwise, a Hyper Sudoku is solved like a normal Sudoku.

How to play Kakuro:The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can

be of any size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword, some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some cells will contain two numbers.

However, in a crossword the numbers reference clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get! They denote the total of the digits in the row or column referenced by the number.

HYPER SUDOKU

KAKURO

ALL IN THE MINDCan you find the hidden words? They may

be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, forwards or backwards.

ACROSS 1 As high as you can go

5 With 68-Across, what the

groups of circled letters are

famous examples of

10 Instrument similar to a

cor anglais

14 Use a

Veg-o-Matic

15 Italian’s “I love you”

16 Fond of self-reflection?

17 Per the Beach Boys, they’re

the cutest in the world

20 Ranchero’s rope

21 Flogging implement

22 Usually dry gulches

25 Sea monster of Norse myth

29 Streaker at night

32 Barclays Center, e.g.

33 City founded by a twin, in

myth

36 Actor Katz of “Dallas”

37 Turf war adversaries

38 Pass with flying colors

39 Sewer’s protection

41 Narc’s org.

42 Friedlander of “30 Rock”

44 Forbidden-sounding

perfume

45 Mobster’s gal

46 Words of concession

47 Mind-boggler

49 Mr. Boddy, in the game Clue

51 Rabbi, e.g.

55 Home of Maine’s Black

Bears

58 Zoo heavyweight

59 Chester Nimitz or William

Halsey

64 ___-G suit

65 Dumbstruck

66 Salt, chemically

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

Y A W P P A P A S S A S SO P A L A L E T A U T N EG O N E A S T R A Y G A E AA P G A R S H E A R A L

S T A G E A S T R I K EJ O S E F O U L T I PA R C I L O S T R E E S EY E A S T Y F E A S T SZ O N K S H E A R D P A T

I M P A S S E A N T EA D E L E A S T A I R EL O L L C T A U N T I EU R I S M I D D L E E A S TM A Z E A M O R E I K E AS L A T N E S T S D E E S

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66

67 68 69

EASY SUDOKU CROSSWORD

Easy Sudoku Puzzles: Place a digit from

1 to 9 in each empty cell so every row, every

column and every 3x3 box contains all the

digits 1 to 9.

Cartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate

TEL: 444933989 / 444517001

SHOWING ATVILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER

Hoy en la HistoriaFebruary 6, 1917

1971:�������������� ����� ��������������������������������������� ������� �������� 1976: Patricia O’Shane became the first Aborigine to be admitted to the Australian bar, practising in Sydney2011:����� �������� ���������� ��������������������������� !�� ����"� ���������2015: Houthi rebels dissolved Yemen’s parliament, and UN efforts to broker talks broke down

Zsa Zsa Gabor, flamboyant U.S. actress and socialite renowned more for her nine marriages than her movie career, was born in Budapest, Hungary

#������$�%����� &�'(�#")��%*+�

67 Exiled shah Mohammad

___ Pahlavi

68 See 5-Across

69 Trauma experts, briefly

DOWN 1 Ghana’s capital

2 Direct, as a meeting

3 One of eight baby teeth

4 Perfect example

5 Intl. commerce group

6 Go public with

7 Some salon acquisitions

8 Throw off

9 “The Fountainhead” hero

Howard

10 Egg-laying animals

11 Vaulter’s hurdle

12 Subject of a 1973 crisis

13 U.S.N.A. grad: Abbr.

18 Dunaway of “Chinatown”

19 Motorhead’s workplace

23 Texter’s “However …”

24 Hebrew or Arab

26 Japanese sword sport

27 TV foreign correspondent

Richard

28 Congested-sounding

30 Financial guru Suze

31 Croaking sound

33 Indira Gandhi’s ill-fated

son

34 Eye-shaped openings

35 French red wine

39 His and hers

40 Olympic downhill event

43 Oregon city named for a

furrier

45 Cyborg, in part

48 Head of the class, in

pioneer schools

50 Theme

52 Distiller ___ Walker

53 Sign into law

54 Diner basketful

56 Granny

57 Student’s viva voce

59 Partner of away

60 Score for a

post-touchdown kick

61 Big name in chips and

pretzels

62 Saddler’s tool

63 Start of many French

surnames

BABY

BLU

ES

ABOUT, ABOVE, ABUTTING, ACROSS, ADJACENT,

ADJOINING, ADVANCE, AROUND, ASCENDING,

BACKWARDS, BELOW, BENEATH, CIRCLE,

CONTIGUOUS, DECLINE, DECREASE, DESCENDING,

DIAGONAL, DOWN, EAST, EBBING, FALLING,

FLOWING, FORWARDS, HIGHER, HORIZONTAL,

INCLINE, INCREASE, INSIDE, LEFT, LOWER, NEXT TO,

NORTH, OUTSIDE, OVER, RETREAT, REVERSE, RIGHT,

RISING, SOUTH, THROUGH,UNDER, UP, VERTICAL,

VIA, WANING, WAXING, WEST.

ASIAN TOWN

NOVO

MALL

ROYAL PLAZA

LANDMARK

BREAK TIME 19SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Within each collection of cells - called a run - any of the numbers 1 to 9 may be used but, like sudoku, each number may only be used once.

The Finest Hours 3D 10:30am, 1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30& 11:00pm2D/Action 11:00, 11:30am, 1:30, 2:00, 4:00, 4:30, 6:30, 7:00, 9:30, 11:30 & 11:55pmAlvin And The Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2D/Animation) 11:15am, 1:15, 3:15, 5:15, 7:15, 9:15 & 11:15pmCapture The Flag (2D) 11:00am, 1:00, 3:00, 4:50 & 5:40pmThe Boy (2D/Horror) 7:30, 9:40 & 11:50pmDirty Grandpa (2D/Comedy) 10:30am, 3:10, 7:30 & 11:45pmIntruders (2D/Horror) 12:40, 5:00 & 9:20pm Wild Horses (2D/Crime) 11:45am, 3:45, 7:45 & 11:45pmAshby (2D/Comedy) 1:45, 5:45 & 9:45pmJane Got A Gun (2D/Action) 10:00am, 2:00, 6:00 & 10:00pmRide Along 2 (2D/Comedy) 12:00noon, 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnightEverything About Her (2D/Tagalog) 11:30am, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30pm & 12:00midnightThe Finest Hours 3D IMAX 11:30am, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30 &11:55pm

Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 5:45pm Visaranai (2D/Tamil) 2:00pm My Little Pony: Friendship Games (2D/Animation) 4:15pm

Ocean 14 (2D/Arabic) 7:30pm Ashby (2D/Comedy) 7:00pmEverything About Her (2D/Tagalog) 9:15pmJane Got A Gun (2D/Action) 11:30pm

Capture The Flag (Animation) 3:00pm The Finest Hours (2D/Action) 5:00 & 9:00pm Intruders (2D/Horror) 11:15pm Banglore Naatkal (2D/ 4:15pm Wild Horses (2D/Crime) 7:00pm

Adi Kapyare (2D/Malayalam) 8:45pmGhayal Once Again (2D/Hindi) 11:15pm

Adi Kapyare (Malayalam) 1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30, 8:45, 11:00pm & 01:15amGhayal Once Again (Hindi) 3:45, 6:00 & 11:00pm2 Countires (Malayalam) 1:00, 3:15 & 8:15pm Sanam Teri Kasam (Hindi) 6:00pm Banglore Naatkal (Tamil) 1:00 & 8:15pmVisaranai (Tamil) 1:30, 3:45 & 11:00pm Irudhi Suttru (Tamil) 6:00pm

Banglore Naatkal (2D/Tamil) 2:15pmGhayal Once Again (2D/Hindi) 5:00pm

Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2D/Animation) 3:00 & 7:30pm Wild Horses (2D/Crime) 9:15pm

Adi Kapyare(2D/Malayalam)9:15pm Visaranai(2D/ Tamil)11:30pm

Ashby (2D/Comedy) 5:00 & 9:45pm Intruders (2D/) 11:30pm The Finest Hours (2D/Action) 7:00 & 11:00pm Capture The Flag (Animation) 2:30pm My Little Pony: Friendship Games (2D) 4:15pm

Jane Got A Gun (2D/Action) 5:45pmEverything About Her (2D/Tagalog) 7:30pm

Sanam Teri Kasam (2D/Hindi) 2:15 & 10:45pm Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Road Chip(2D)5:00pm Intruders (2D/Horror) 4:15 & 7:00pm Wild Horses(2D) 11:15pm The Finest Hours (2D/Action) 6:00 & 9:00pm

Ghayal Once Again (2D/Hindi) 11:15pm My Little Pony: Friendship Games (2D) 2:30pm Capture The Flag (Animation) 4:15pm

Everything About Her (2D/Tagalog) 8:30pm Ashby(2D) 2:30 & 6:00pm Ocean 14(2D/Arabic) 7:45pm

Jane Got A Gun (2D/Action) 9:30pm

Agencies

NEW ORLEANS: Cheered on by a road crowd, Kobe Bryant nailed three three-pointers in the final 6:07 to score a team-high 27 points and lift the Los Angeles Lak-ers to a 99-96 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Centre on Thursday.

Bryant re-entered the game with the Lakers holding an 85-79 lead and immediately hit a three-pointer from the right wing and came back on the next possession with another long-range jumper from the left wing.

Each time his shot fell, the Pelicans’ home crowd erupted in cheers.

Raptors 110, Trail Blazers 103Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan combined for

59 points as Toronto beat Portland.Lowry scored 30 points with eight assists while

DeRozan added 29 points for the Raptors (34-16), who won for the 13th time in their last 14 outings.

Rockets 111, Suns 105Corey Brewer had a season-high 24 points,

including two three-pointers in the final two min-utes, and Trevor Ariza had 20 points to lead Houston past Phoenix.

Pistons 111, Knicks 105Reggie Jackson scored 21 points, including a pair

of three-pointers to save Detroit’s victory after it blew a 27-point lead.

Jackson also made three free throws in the clos-ing seconds as the Pistons (27-24) out-scored New York 16-8 in the final 1:47.

Arron Afflalo scored 19 of his 24 points after halftime as the Knicks roared back from a 60-36 halftime deficit. Robin Lopez had 26 points and 16 rebounds to lead New York (23-29), which has lost seven of its last eight.

Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO: The Denver Bron-cos and Carolina Panthers are primed to provide a grand finish worthy of a landmark Super Bowl 50 tomorrow and cap a season of celebration by the National Football League.

An estimated 190 million Amer-icans and a worldwide TV audience are set to tune in for a game that has the hallmarks of an instant classic as Carolina’s top-ranked offence clashes with Denver’s number one defense in a Silicon Valley showdown for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

The game will feature two

generational talents on offense with Carolina quarterback Cam Newton on the cusp of greatness and five-time NFL Most Valuable Player Peyton Manning playing what could be his last game, but the victor will likely be determined by the play of the defenses.

“Our defence has just been exceptional all season long,” praised Manning. “They have led the charge for us to be here from the get-go.

“Each game they had stepped up and done the job and they were awe-some against Pittsburgh and against New England.

“They are the reason we’re here and, like I said a couple weeks ago, I’m just glad that I don’t have to play against them this year because they are that good.”

Still, the spotlight will not stray far from the two quarterbacks who bring contrasting styles and personalities to the championship game.

Newton, 26, is a flashy, brash

imposing quarterbacking cyborg who can beat an opponent with his arm and his feet.

With a victory tomorrow the Pan-thers would find themselves with an 18-1 record, a Super Bowl and in the discussion about the greatest NFL teams of all-time.

Manning, meanwhile, is a cerebral 39-year-old quarterbacking genius with an off-the-charts football IQ who operates primarily from the pocket.

A Denver defence that led the NFL in sacks can expect a long evening try-ing to contain Newton while Manning will engage in an intriguing chess match with a Panthers defence spearheaded by All-Pro linebacker Luke Kuechly that led the league in takeaways.

“He (Newton) is a special talent, a rare talent,” said Broncos coach Gary Kubiak. “This league has the best of everything.

“Not only beating people with his arm but with his feet, his ability to move around. A tremendous athlete that they’ve molded their offense around.”

During the regular season, the Pan-thers were an offensive juggernaut

averaging a league-high 31 points a game.

In the playoffs, they have been even more explosive in piling up 80 points in two routs, including a 49-15 blowout of the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship game that sent them through to their second Super Bowl.

This has been far from a vintage year for Manning, who missed six con-secutive starts due to a heel injury and when he did return, for the first time in his Hall of Fame career he stood on the sidelines - as backup to Brock Osweiler.

Manning, who once threw seven touchdowns in a single game, had just nine in 10 games this season offset by 17 interceptions as questions over his age and diminishing arm strength became a recurring storyline.

But like every great drama there are twists and in the regular season finale Manning came on in relief of Osweiler to lead the Broncos to a win, then steered Denver to narrow playoff victories over the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots.

SPORTS20 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

NBA: HIGHLIGHTS AND RESULTS

Broncos, Panthers set for super season finishDenver Broncos and Carolina Panthers will meet in the Super Bowl 50 tomorrow

A woman takes a photo of San Francisco City Hall several days before the NFL’s Super Bowl 50 which will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, between the AFC Champion Denver Broncos and the NFC Champion Carolina Panthers, in San Francisco, California, USA tomorrow.

NFL SUPER BOWL 50

Sharapova in Fed Cup team,

stays on road to Rio Games

AFP

MOSCOW: Maria Sharapova remained on course for the Rio Olym-pics as the five-time Grand Slam champion was yesterday named in Russia’s doubles team for their Fed Cup first-round tie against the Neth-erlands in Moscow this weekend.

World number 31 Ekaterina Makarova will take on 106th-ranked Kiki Bertens in the opening singles of the World Group clash on the hard-court of Moscow’s Olympic indoor arena from 1100 GMT today.

Russia’s two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, 17th in the world, will then face 141st-ranked Richel Hogenkamp.

In tomorrow’s reverse singles, Kuznetsova will face off against Bertens and Makarova will then take on Hogenkamp.

Russian team skipper Anastasia Myskina then announced the coun-try’s top-ranked player Sharapova, the world number six, will play in the tie’s concluding doubles rubber along-side 18-year-old Darya Kasatkina.

They will face Dutch pair Arantxa Rus and Cindy Burger. Myskina, the 2004 French Open champion, said that she expected a tough match against the Dutch. “We’ve prepared well for this match but I expect a very tough opposition this weekend,” Myskina told reporters following the draw.

“Netherlands were victorious in their last Fed Cup matches. They’re in good form and brave mood. It’s unlikely to be easy. But I hope we will do enough.”

Sharapova, who is struggling with a forearm injury suffered at last month’s Australian Open, said she wasn’t about to call time on her Fed Cup career.

“Our team is strong and any of our girls are capable of winning their rubbers,” she said.

“I don’t know how long I will be able to play tennis but I will definitely continue to play for my country.”

The world’s richest sportswoman will remain on course for this sum-mer’s Olympic Games even if she doesn’t step out on court against the Netherlands. Under qualification rules, a player must be nominated three times in an Olympic cycle in order to be eligible for the Games in Rio in August.

So far, the 28-year-old star has featured in just two ties since 2012, the year when she won the silver

medal at the London Olympics. The International Tennis Federation (ITF), which oversees the Fed Cup, said that Sharapova did not necessarily need to play the tie in order to fulfil her Olympic criteria.

“The Olympic tennis event qual-ification regulations require a player to be in the nominated Fed Cup team at the time of the draw on three occa-sions,” a spokesman told on the eve of the draw for the tie.

“A player does not need to play a match.”

Sharapova won all four Fed Cup rubbers she played in 2015 including the two singles matches in the final which Russia lost 3-2 to the Czech Republic.

Russian Fed Cup player Maria Sharapova attending the draw ceremony of the Tennis Fed Cup World Group first round match against the Netherlands at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, Russia yesterday. Russia will face Netherlands in the Tennis Fed Cup World Group first round match today and tomorrow.

NBA Results

Detroit 111, NY Knicks 105 LA Lakers 99, New Orleans 96 Toronto 110, Portland 103 Houston 111, Phoenix 105

Bryant on target as Lakers drown Pelicans

Ma’s Army in IAAF’s crosshairs after doping letter surfacesAFP

PARIS: The IAAF confirmed yes-terday it had asked the Chinese Athletics Association to look into a letter claiming there had been a systematic doping programme under the infamous Ma Junren, who coached China’s “Ma’s Army” of runners.

Chinese web portal Sina on

Wednesday published what it said was a letter signed in 1995 by 3000 and 10,000m world record holder Wang Junxia and nine other former athletes of Ma’s, saying the coach had forcibly doped them.

Ma’s glory days were capped when Wang won the women’s 5000m gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to add to her 10,000m world crown. The other signatories included Zhang Linli, who briefly held the world 3,000m record, and

1993 1500m world champion Liu Dong. “It is absolutely true that Ma forced us to take large doses of ille-gal drugs,” Sina cited the letter as saying. It did not specify which drugs were involved.

“We were sad when we revealed this to you, and seriously worried that might impair China’s repu-tation, as well as it might devalue the gold medals we won,” the let-ter said.

“But we must disclose these

criminal behaviours because we don’t want the same things hap-pen to the next generation”.

The letter was addressed to Chinese reporter Zhao Yu, who published a book titled “An Investi-gation of Ma’s Army” in 1997.

Ma stepped up his alleged dop-ing regime after 1991, CCTV cited the latest edition as saying, adding that some athletes complained of side effects such as husky voices and liver problems, but “they would

never escape injection from coach Ma”. Zhao declined to comment fur-ther yesterday, saying: “An author speaks through his books.”

Phone calls to China’s Athlet-ics Association went unanswered yesterday, the eve of the national Lunar New Year Holiday. And the athletes said to have signed the letter could not immediately be reached.

The IAAF said yesterday that its “first action must be to verify that the letter is genuine”.

Ennis-Hill to miss indoor season with injury

Reuters

LONDON: Olympic and world hep-tathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill is set to miss the indoor athletics sea-son with an Achilles injury, disrupting her preparations for the defence of her title at the Rio Games in August.

The Briton told Sky Sports she had suffered the injury in training, but hoped to return to competition at the outdoor meeting in Gotzis, Austria in May. Asked if it would affect her par-ticipation at the Olympics, she said: “At this stage I’m hoping that’s not the

case. We’re still in February, there’s a lot of time before the Olympics. “I’ll be going away and sitting with the medical team to go through everything. Hope-fully, it won’t impact on my summer.”

The 30-year-old missed the 2013 world championships in Moscow through injury and sat out 2014 dur-ing which she gave birth to her son.

She returned, however, to win her second world title in Beijing in 2015.

“We need to work out how long I need for rest and recovery but I very much want to have a full season, start-ing in Gotzis, and starting the season as originally planned,” she said.

NZOC issues Zika warningsReuters

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s Olympic athletes and officials have been warned of the risk asso-ciated with the Zika virus yesterday, including the possibility that it could be sexually transmitted.

The spread of the virus across Latin America and the Caribbean have put the Rio Olympics in the spotlight with the Games’ authorities working to eradicate the mosquito that has been attributed as the prin-cipal cause of the outbreak.

World Health Organisation officials have said the possibility of sexual transmission had added a new dimension to the outbreak.

The New Zealand Olympic Com-mittee (NZOC) had its first Rio Games briefing yesterday with athletes and officials in Christchurch, with the virus and other health issues being discussed.Jessica Ennis-Hill

SPORT 21 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Ex-Ferrari chief has no ‘good news’ on Michael SchumacherAFP

MILAN: Sombre ex-Ferrari chief Luca de Montezemolo admitted on Thursday that he did not have “good news” regarding the condition of stricken Formula One legend Michael Schumacher.

Former seven-time world champion Schumacher suf-fered head injuries in a skiing accident in the French Alps in

December 2013 and spent six months in an induced coma before returning to his home in Switzerland to continue his rehabilitation.

“I get news about him constantly, and unfortu-nately it’s not good,” said Montezemolo when asked about Schumacher in Milan on Thursday.

Montezemolo did not elaborate on 47-year-old Schumacher’s condition, but he added: “He was the most

successful driver Ferrari ever had. He only suffered one accident in his entire career, in 1999, and it was our fault, not his.

“Unfortunately, a skiing accident ruined his life.”

Amid speculation Schu-macher was at fault for the accident that has left him in a coma for over two years, Mon-tezemolo defended the former champion. “It’s not true that Michael wasn’t careful on his skis. When he went off piste,

he was always careful,” he added. “More than anything, on skis he was very careful.”

Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm declined to comment on Montezemolo’s remarks when contacted by British TV channel Sky Sports.

Kehm’s most recent offi-cial statement was issued last May when she said: “We’re glad to be able to con-tinue to say that he is making progress, as I always say, given the severity of his head

injuries”. In November, Schu-macher was described by FIA president Jean Todt as “still fighting”.

“Michael was and remains a close friend of mine,” said Todt, who was Schumacher’s team boss at Ferrari when the German won five titles between 2000 and 2004.

“His family is very close. I see Michael often and can tell you: Michael is still fighting. And his family are still fight-ing by his side.”

Formula One legend Michael Schumacher

Yuvraj named in India squad for World T20

AFP

NEW DELHI: The hosts India yes-terday recalled strike bowler Mohammed Shami and named vet-eran former champions Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh in their squad for the World Twenty20 which begins next month.

Shami has not played for India since last year’s 50 over World Cup after suffering a knee injury and was sent home early from India’s recent tour of Australia with hamstring problems.

But chairman of selectors San-deep Patil said the 25-year-old had recovered and would be given time to prove his fitness, leaving open the possibility of calling up a late replacement before the final selec-tion deadline.

“We have 30 days to ascertain where Shami is,” Patil told reporters in New Delhi.

“He has recovered, he has resumed bowling. That’s what we know right now.”

Shami had been emerging as India’s premier fast bowler before his injury woes, shining in all three formats of the game.

Given India’s struggles to iden-tify a successor to the recently retired spearhead Zaheer Khan, Shami’s fitness could be key to the host’s chances of winning the tournament for the second time.

Shami’s inclusion was the most eye-catching in a 15-man squad packed with experience and skip-pered by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who led India to victory in the 2007 inau-gural tournament in South Africa.

There had been questions about Dhoni’s future after a disappointing run of scores but critics were silenced when he led India to a 3-0 victory in the recent T20 series against Australia. Patil refused to be drawn on Dhoni’s long-term future but underlined the Indian board (BCCI) retained complete faith in

the 34-year-old, who will also cap-tain the same squad in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh.

“I have repeatedly said that selec-tors or BCCI, I don’t think we have any right to tell any player when he should retire,” Patil said.

“We have a right to pick (a) player on his performance and fitness. What the player thinks about his future is entirely his decision.

“We have total faith in MSD’s cap-taincy and that is why the selection committee felt that he is the right per-son to lead India in the Asia cup and till the T20 world cup. What happens after that we will wait and see.”

Dhoni, who has already relin-quished the Test captaincy to Virat Kohli, is widely expected to retire from internationals after the tournament.

The 35-year-old Harbhajan and Yuvraj, 34, are two other veterans of India’s triumph in 2007, the only time the team has won the trophy.

Harbhajan failed to make the starting line-up in the Australia tour but Patil said the offspinner, who has

taken more than 700 international wickets, still had something to offer.

“Unfortunately he didn’t get a chance (in Australia),” he said.

“But selectors and captain and team management have total faith in Harbhajan and the record which has set and the contribution that he has made, not only towards Indian cricket but towards world cricket.”

The only uncapped player in the squad is the left-arm spinner Pawan Negi, who has impressed in the Indian Premier League with his bowling and his powerful lower-order hitting.

India’s first match in the World T20 comes against New Zealand in Nagpur on March 15. They then face arch rivals Pakistan in Dharamsala on March 19. The final is in Kolkata on April 3. The Asia Cup, which is also a T20 tournament, runs from Febru-ary 24 to March 6.

Hosts also pick Harbhajan and recall pacer Shami for March-April event as Dhoni retained as captain

Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma (right) celebrates with his team-mate Yuvraj Singh (centre) after the dismissal of Australia cricketer David Warner during their ICC World Twenty20 match in Dhaka, in this March 2014 file photo.

INDIA ANNOUNCE WORLD T20 SQUAD

Australia recall Khawaja in bid to save series AFP

WELLINGTON: In-form batsman Usman Khawaja has been recalled to the Australian side as the world champions fight to stay alive in their one-day international series against New Zealand today.

Victory for New Zealand at their Westpac Stadium fortress would see them wrap up the series with a game to spare and snap a remarkable run by Australia who have won their last six ODI series and the World Cup over the

past two years. Shaun Marsh was sur-prisingly preferred to Khawaja in the team thrashed by 159 runs in Auck-land on Wednesday in the first tie of the three-match series.

Australia have also brought in leg-spinner Adam Zampa for the second round in Wellington to replace injured quick James Faulkner.

Khawaja, who has not played an ODI for three years but scored centu-ries in three consecutive Tests against New Zealand and the West Indies late last year, said Australia have already put the ODI humiliation behind them.

“We just had an off-day the other

day. It happens no matter who you are, you don’t have to worry about that. We’re a good enough team if we do the basics right,” he said hoping for a good show.

The 29-year-old Pakistan-born left-hander also downplayed his golden run of form in Tests, saying the ODIs in New Zealand conditions were a new challenge.

“The past is done. I’m feeling really good right now but that doesn’t mean I’m going to contribute runs,” he said after surveying the wicket at Westpac Stadium yesterday. .

“New Zealand are very good in

their conditions, as we are at home. I think they’ll come hard again. They’re going to try and win this series 2-0,” he added.

New Zealand have an air of con-fidence playing at Westpac where they have lost only eight of 26 ODIs and opener Martin Guptill smacked an unbeaten 237 in a World Cup fix-ture against the West Indies a year ago.

Guptill hit 11 sixes and 24 fours in that innings and remains in rich form with a top score of 90 when New Zea-land beat Australia this week.

The third and final ODI will be played in Hamilton on Monday.

Inform Usman

Khawaja back in

Australia squad for

New Zealand series.

A Qatari sailor gestures during yesterday’s proceedings of Sail The Gulf 2016. Sailors from as many as 18 countries are taking part in the international regatta. The event will conclude today.

Sail The Gulf 2016

PSG bid to extend unbeaten run AFP

PARIS: Paris Saint-Germain will be looking to extend their Ligue 1 unbeaten streak at bitter rivals Mar-seille tomorrow as the hosts bid to end their own record winless run at home.

Laurent Blanc’s champions stretched their unbeaten run to a record 33 matches with a 3-1 win over Lorient midweek and next tackle Marseille who have not won at their Velodrome Stadium since September.

PSG – with 66 points from 24 games – have an impressive 24-point lead with their fourth con-secutive and sixth overall league title beckoning.

Marseille, who claimed the last of their ten Ligue 1 titles back in 2010, are eighth in the league -- 32 points behind PSG.

A 1-0 victory at Montpellier Tues-day pushed Marseille’s unbeaten league run to 11 matches, with their last away loss a 2-1 defeat to PSG at the Parc de Princes on October 4.

But that impressive statistic conceals misery at their Velodrome stronghold where they have not won since September 13.

Blanc’s side will be looking to further flex their muscles with a Champions League last 16 tie against Chelsea on February 16.

The Parisians have won their past eight ‘Classique’ clashes with Mar-seille, and another would give them a new record of consecutive wins against their rivals.

But counterpart Michel can count on the support of their loyal fans with PSG’s supporters banned from travel-ling to Marseille because of security concerns.

Marseille will be without newly-signed winger Florian Thauvin after he received a red card against Montpellier, but Scotland striker Ste-ven Fletcher, also a transfer window signing, should give the southern giants fresh legs.

“It’s a match we have to win, for

the club, for the fans and above all for us,” said Marseille striker Remy Cabella.

“If we got a result against Paris it would give us a boost.”

Striker Georges-Kevin Nkoudou added: “I know that there is always pressure between Paris and Mar-seille, but it remains a classic, and it’s up to us to rise to the occasion.”

Second-placed Monaco, 24 points behind PSG, host Nice, three points behind in third, in a classic Riveria derby today.

The clash is crucial for qualifica-tion for elite European football next season, with Monaco’s billionaire Russian owner Dmitry Rybolovlev making a rare appearance at train-ing to motivate the troops.

“He said some words this morn-ing to motivate us, to wake us up and to take this match seriously,” said Morocco midfielder Nabil Dirar.

Lyon, back into the top half, above 11th-place Bordeaux on goal difference, are six points adrift of the Champions League spots.

Coach Bruno Genesio is hope-ful their 3-0 win at Bordeaux with boost his side.

Nantes will be looking to extend their unbeaten streak to 11 matches at Toulouse.

LIGUE 1 FIXTURES (All time in GMT)

Today: Monaco vs Nice (13:00), Angers

vs Lyon (16:00), Lorient vs Montpel-

lier, Caen vs Reims, Gazelec Ajaccio vs

Guingamp, Bastia vs Troyes, Toulouse

vs Nantes

Tomorrow: Lille v Rennes (13:00), Bor-

deaux v St. Etienne (16:00), Marseille v

Paris Saint-Germain (20:00)

SQUADMahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Rohit

Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli,

Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya

Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pan-

dya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Harbhajan

Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashish Nehra,

Pawan Negi and Mohammed Shami.

SPORT22 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

Worrack wins Ladies Tour of Qatar title as Hosking claims final stage

Action from the fourth and final stage of Ladies Tour of Qatar yesterday. The 80-rider pack competed for the 73-km stretch, starting in the impressive Aspire Zone, and heading towards the picturesque Doha Corniche. Pics: Salim M/The Peninsula

By Rizwan Rehmat

The Peninsula

DOHA: Australian rider Chloe Hosk-ing yesterday clinched the fourth and final stage of the Ladies Tour of Qatar but overnight golden jersey owner Trixi Worrack of Germany produced another consistent round to win the title of the ‘Desert Queen’ for the first time.

Hosking, riding for Wiggle-High5, produced a well-timed surge in the final bunch sprint at the city’s main sea-front tourist attraction at Doha Corniche.

The stockily-built Australian clocked a time of 1 hour 46 minutes and 09 seconds to win the 73-km

stage that started in bright and sunny conditions at Aspire Park.

Four-time champion Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands (Hitec Products) finished in second spot for the sec-ond successive day while compatriot Monique Van De Ree (Boels Dolmans Cyclingteam) ended stage four in third spot.

Anouska Koster (white jersey) also of the Netherlands and Shelley Olds of the US completed the top-5 in the final stage of the four-day event.

Worrack, riding for Canyon SRAM Racing, finished in 15th spot to finish her Qatar trip with an overall time of 10:01:37. Compatriot Romy Kasper (Boels Dolmans Cyclingteam) was second with a 17-second difference against Worrack.

Stage three-winner Eleonora Van Dijk of the Netherlands (Boels Dol-mans Cyclingteam) finished third in the overall general classification. Van Dijk was 28 seconds behind Worrack.

Wild clinched the silver jersey for her top tally of 43 points from the four days of action across Qatar. Hosk-ing finished in second place with 27 points. Third-placed Van Dijk man-aged a tally of 25 points.

Worrack (18) and Koster (18) com-pleted the top five riders in the points classification.

“Yeah, we are really happy about it,” Worrack said after picking up her golden jersey. “It was so much of hardwork. Yesterday (Thursday) was the hardest day, I think. We could keep the yellow jersey today so I am happy about it,” the German said.

“It was a great team effort. We are really happy. We managed to pull off a great team performance,” Worrack said.

“Some things changed in every

stage. It made for interesting riding. Nobody knew who would emerge on top,” Worrack said.

“So it is even a bigger victory since it was so tough,” Worrack said.

“No, we did not expect to win because it is the first race of the sea-son,” Worrack said.

“Yes, I am surprised that we did so well. The first two days were so tough. We look from race to race. We go back to Europe. There were will be a three-week break and then we start the spring classics,” Worrack said.

Will the fans see her back in Doha next year?

“Yeah, for sure,” Worrack said with a smile. “We will try to win the title again,” she said.

Hosking said it was interesting to check out the 2016 World Road Cycling Championships route on the first day of the event.

“To ride the course on the first day was very different to what I had expected,” Hosking said.

“The wind will play a good part (in the world championships),” the Aus-tralian said.

“I think it will be an exciting world championships. It could go either way. It could be bunched sprint or a small bunch or a solo ride. You really do not know so I am little nervous,” Hosking said with a smile.

“That’s my big goal for the last couple of years. I do want to come here and win,” Hosking said. “I have

to stay focused, I have to work hard and come back strong in the best pos-sible form,” Hosking said.

The 80-rider pack took off just after 2pm for the 73-km stage, start-ing in the impressive Aspire Zone, and heading towards the picturesque Doha Corniche.

After a rather quiet start all the way to the 6km Doha Corniche circuit, the pace went up on the lap before the first intermediate sprint.

At the 27-km mark, fourth pas-sage on the line, Van Dijk claimed the sprint ahead of Koster and Chantal Blaak.

Thanks to her second spot and two bonus seconds, Koster virtually caught up with Lauretta Hanson in the lead of the best young rider standings.

After several breakaway attempts, Coryn Rivera managed to pull away from the pack at the 36-km mark.

The American saw her lead reach 22 seconds with five laps to go, while Anna Trevisi, followed by Yixian Pu took off on a counter-attack.

The second bonus sprint was claimed by Rivera with a 30-second advantage over Trevisi and Pu and 1’20 over the pack.

With two laps to go, the gaps had dropped down to 20’’ on the first chasers and 48’’ on the bunch. While Trevisi and Pu were caught at the 62-km mark, Rivera managed to hang on until the 67th kilometre before being gobbled up by the hun-gry pack.

Led by teams Hitec Products and Wiggle HighFive, the main field remained bunched until the final sprint. On the last straight, Hosking powered to glory, capturing her first stage success this year, beating Wild and Monique Van Der Ree to the line.

Trixi Worrack of Germany receives her winning trophy from Qatar Cycling Federation President Sheikh Khalid bin Ali Al Thani yesterday at Doha Corniche.

RESULTSTop-5 results and standings from

stage four1 Chloe Hosking (Aus), Wiggle High5,

1:46:09

2 Kirsten Wild (Ned), Hitec Products,

3 Monique Van De Ree (Ned), Lares-

Waowdeals Women Cycling Team

4 Anouska Koster (Ned), Raboliv Women

Cycling Team

5 Shelley Olds (USA), Cylance Pro Cycling

Final general classification1 Trixi Worrack (Ger), Canyon SRAM Rac-

ing, 10:01:37

2 Romy Kasper (Ger), Boels Dolmans

Cycling team, 0:00:17

3 Eleonora Van Dijk (Ned), Boels Dol-

mans Cycling team, 0:00:28

4 Katrin Garfoot (Aus), Orica-GreenEdge,

0:00:43

5 Gracie Elvin (Aus), Orica-GreenEdge,

0:00:50

Points classification1 Kirsten Wild (Ned), Hitec Products, 43

points

2 Chloe Hosking (Aus), Wiggle High5, 27

3 Eleonora Van Dijk, (Ned) Boels Dol-

mans Cycling team, 254 Trixi Worrack

(Ger), Canyon SRAM Racing, 18

5 Anouska Koster (Ned), Raboliv Women

Cycling Team, 18

Teams classification1 Canyon Sram Racing, 30:07:41

2 Orica - Ais, 0:01:22

3 Boels Dolmans Cycling team, 0:01:27

4 Wiggle High5, 0:01:43

5 Raboliv Women cycling team, 0:03:54

4-DAY EVENT CONCLUDES AT DOHA CORNICHE

Australian rider Chloe Hosking celebrates her victory in the final stage of Ladies Tour of Qatar in Doha yesterday.

Consistent show gives German ‘Desert Queen’ honour as Hosking looks forward to Doha return after encouraging finish

Ewan takes stage 2, Sky protect lead AFP

MELBOURNE: Caleb Ewan won a tough second stage of the Herald Sun Tour in Australia yesterday, but Team Sky’s Peter Kennaugh and Chris Froome did enough to stay on top in the overall standings.

Rising Australian sprinter Ewan, who won two stages of the Tour Down Under last month, completed the 144.2-kilometre stage in three hours, 29 minutes and six seconds.

The 21-year-old Orica Green-EDGE rider came in just ahead of American Tanner Putt (UHC) and Sky team-mates Kennaugh and Froome, followed by Australian Jack Bobridge (Trek-Segafredo).

“On the final climb I knew Bobridge and Kennaugh were strong,” Ewan said.

“I fought for dear life and was able to stay with them. It’s a real confidence boost to be able to win on terrain like this when it’s tough.”

British road champion and Olympic gold medallist Ken-naugh, who won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race last week, leads the overall standings on 6hr 33min 21sec, 13 seconds ahead of two-time Tour de France winner Froome.

Yesterday’s race, which began in the grazing farmlands of South Gippsland’s Yarra Junction and ended in the town of Moe, saw sev-eral riders break away early.

But they were ultimately reeled in by the peloton driven by Orica-GreenEDGE and Team Sky.

Bobridge made a move towards the end, with Kennaugh, Ewan and Australia’s Jack Haig (Orica-GreenEDGE) going with him and Froome and Putt joining the group soon after.

The six fought it out to the fin-ish line with Ewan crossing first.

“I gave it one last dig at the end but I knew it was always going to be hard to shake Caleb off,” said Kennaugh.

The race has its longest stage of 146.2 kilometres today before tomorrow’s final stage of 121.8 kilometres which ends in Arthurs Seat in the Mornington Peninsula.

Nizzolo secures

Dubai lead

AFP

DUBAI: Spain’s Juan Jose Lobato clinched a summit finish victory in the key stage three of the Tour of Dubai yesterday as Italy’s Giacomo Nizzolo seized the overall leader’s blue jersey.

Finishing the race at the steep Hatta Dam way after a 172km ride through the city and the desert, the Movistar man also seized second place in the overall standings from Germany’s Marcel Kittel.

“I knew this finale from last year and it’s exactly the kind of finish that I like,” Lobato said after the race.

“It was all about being well positioned before the last climb and I was indeed,” he said. “I’m very happy to get my first win of the year here.”

Nizzolo, who had maintained third place during the first and second stages of the tour, steadily made his way to the overall lead yesterday.

Yesterday’s third stage embarked from the Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort to the Hatta Dam near the border with Oman where racers were chal-lenged with two climbs and descents.

Swiss rollers Silvan Dillier and Fabian Cancellara and Belgian puncher Philippe Gilbert arrived four seconds after Lobato.

The first kilometre of the race featured a breakaway led by Spain’s Francisco Mancebo.

Later as the road began to climb towards the Hatta Dam, Kazakh racer Dimitry Gruzdev led another escape.

The fourth and final stage today will run 132 kilometres within the city of Dubai ending at its iconic Burj Khalifa.

The Peninsula

ZURICH: Qatar have jumped six spots to be ranked 78, according to latest FIFA rank-ings released by the football governing body.

Coached by Daniel Carreno, Qatar have accumulated a tally of 444 points.

In Asia, Qatar are ranked 8 behind Iran (FIFA ranking 44), Korea Republic (53), Saudi Arabia (55), Japan (58), the United Arab Emirates (65), Australia (68) and Uzbekistan (71).

Jordan (82), Iraq (89), China PR (93), Korea DPR (95), Oman (97) and Kyrgyzstan (105) are below Qatar in world and Asian rankings. Meanwhile, Belgium has kept the No. 1 spot in the FIFA rankings among

an unchanged top 18 for February. With no international matches played by the 20 best teams so far this year, Belgium still leads second-place Argentina and third-place Spain.

World Cup champion Germany is No. 4, followed by Chile and Brazil in a top 10 dominated by European and South Amer-ican teams.

The three teams which made the biggest moves since the last rankings all come from Asia: Palestine at No. 110 (up 21 spots), Saudi Arabia at No. 55 (up 20 spots), and North Korea at No. 95 (up 18 spots).

Canada moved up three spots to No. 85 out of the 204 nations in the ranking.

Sheikha Asma Thani Al Thani presenting the winner’s trophy to Ms Alyazia Khalid Khalifa Al Rumaithi of United Arab Emirates during the presentation ceremony of the Ladies GCC Cup, a 90-km marathon for young riders, hosted by the Qatar Endurance Committee in Doha yesterday. CENTRE: The winning teams with the officials and special guests. RIGHT: Competitors reaching the finish line of the endurance event.

Ladies GCC Cup

Yuvraj named in India squad for World T20

PAGE | 20 PAGE | 21

Sharapova in Fed Cup team, stays on road to Rio Games

SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016 • 27 Rabia II 1437

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

@peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

FIFA RANKINGS

Qatar jump six spots in FIFA rankingsAl Sailiya shock Lekhwiya after Aaish double

The Peninsula

DOHA: Defending Qatar Stars League champions Lekhwiya suffered a surprising loss of 3-2 in the hands of Al Sailiya who proved that they were the bet-ter side of the day at the Qatar SC Grounds last evening.

Al Sailiya took an early lead when Bahraini Faouzi Mubarak Aaish struck in the 37th minute of the game which was earlier expected to be dominated by the defending champions.

However Lekhwiya’s South Korean midfielder Taehee Nam found the back of the net in the 60th minute and nine min-utes later, last year’s top scorer in the QSL, Alain Dioko netted one more to make it 2-1 for the top favourites. Abdulrahman Mohammed scored the equal-izer in the 82nd minute and only three minutes later, Mubarak Aaish scored his second goal to put Al Sailiya on top.

Qatar Sports Club left came back fighting but their effort was only enough to force a 2-2 draw against with Umm Salal at their home grounds last evening.

The Kings have new win-ter signing Emiliano Vecchio to thank, as he slotted away a pen-alty in the 95th minute of the tie, effectively saving the points for his side. Umm Salal got off to a good start and pressed Qatar SC back for long periods of the first half. Eventually Umm Salal took a deserved lead on the 38th minute. Sanzhar Tur-sunov played through a perfect

pass to Mounir El Hamdaoui who flicked the ball over the oncoming keeper to end the first half 1-0 in their favour.

The Orange Fortress dou-bled their lead on the 68th minute when Ivorian striker Yannick Sagbo calmly slotted away from the penalty spot for his 12th goal of the season.

However their rivals entered the fray in the 85th minute as midfielder Fadil Omar seem-ingly danced his way through the Salal defensive line to slot past Salal stopper Baba Malick to give his side a lifeline. 2-1 Game on.

Qatar Sports Club completed their dramatic comeback on the 95th minute when Argen-tine playmaker Vecchio kept his nerve from the penalty spot to give Sebastiao Lazaro-ni’s side a share of the spoils, much to the frustration to Salal coach Bülent Uygun. Gianfranco Zola’s Al Arabi side survived a massive threat from opponents Al Gharafa to beat them 3-2 in a pulsating QSL match-up last night.

Arabi skippper Ashkan Dejagah provided a goal and an assist for his side. Arabi opened the scoring in the 24th minute with a well worked quick corner from new signing Alan Souza found Dejagh, and his power-ful shot found the back of the net after being palmed into the net by Gharafa keeper Qasem Bur-han. Gharafa found an equalizer when Kristian Nemeth netted one in the 33rd minute. Al Arabi doubled their lead at the start of the second half when Dejagah delivered an inch perfect cross to an onrushing Yousef Ali who slotted past Qasem Burhan.

Arabi found a third goal, effectively ending the com-petition on the 73rd minute. New signing Javad Nekounam calmly put though to fellow new recruit Alain Souza who found the bottom left hand corner. The composed finish from the Bra-zilian rightly brought a smile to

Gianfranco Zola’s face. Despite being three goals down, Gharafa did mount a mini revival in the final five minutes of the tie Kris-tian Nemeth grabbed his first goal for his side on the 89th minute.

Nemeth also had the ball in the net in stoppage time for his new club, however he was rightly flagged offside.

With the final act of the game, Iranian international Masoud Shojai scored a fine individual goal, to leave the final score 3-2 to Al Arabi.

Qatar SC force a two-all draw with Umm Salal while Al Arabi taste victory

Umm Salal Sports Club’s Brazilian centre Welinton Souza Silva (on top) heads the ball during their Qatar Stars League match against Qatar Sports Club, played at Qatar SC Grounds yesterday. Match was forced to a two-all draw.

QNA

DOHA: Qatar racer Nasser bin Saleh Al Atti-yah yesterday maintained his lead at the Qatar International Rally.

Al Attiyah finished yesterday’s stage in one

hour and 30 seconds, 4:39 minutes ahead of his compatriot Khalid Al Suwaidi. Yesterday’s stage began in front of Aqua park and covered a distance of 121.86 kilometres.

Today be the final day of the rally. It will be divided to three stages with a total of 257.38 kilometres.

Al Attiyah closes in on winQatar’s racing icon Nasser bin Saleh Al Attiyah in action during yesterday’s stage of the Qatar International Rally.QSL RESULTS

Al Sailiya bt Lekhwiya 3-2Qatar SC draw with

Umm Salal 2-2Al Arabi bt Al Gharafa 3-2

Today’s Fixtures

Al Warkah Vs Al Khor at Al Warkah Stadium 4.30pm

Meisameer vs Al Rayyan at Al Arabi Stadium 7.15pm

Visitors look at a red 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti model on display at the Paris Retromobile fair in Paris, France, yesterday. The 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti, one of the most iconic racing cars in the history of the sport, is about to go on sale at a Paris Artcurial auction and could reach a record price of up to €32m ($34m).

Paris Retromobile fair

MORNING BREAK24 SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2016

FAJR

SHOROOK

ZUHR

ASR

MAGHRIB

ISHA

04.57 am06.15 am

11.48 am02.58 pm

05.23 pm06.53 pm

Minimum: 15o C Maximum: 24o C

HIGH TIDE 04:00 - 14:30LOW TIDE 11:00 - 21:00

Misty to foggy at places at first becomes moder-

ate temperature later, cold by night.

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER

Reuters

FLORENCE: An Italian actor has been declared brain dead after being strangled on stage when a hanging scene went wrong in the central region of Tuscany, a judi-cial source said yesterday.

The Teatro Lux in Pisa said it was closing for 10 days because “following the unthinkable trag-edy ... we think it right to suspend all our activities, including shows”.

Raphael Schumacher, a 27-year-old from northern Italy, had been performing a monologue on adolescent existential unhap-piness that ended with a scene of simulated suicide by hanging, local media reported.

The incident occurred during a private performance on Jan. 30, according to the local edition of national newspaper Corriere della Sera. Schumacher clinically died on Thursday at the University Hos-pital of Pisa, where he had been lying in a coma since the incident last weekend, a hospital spokes-woman said.

Police were investigating two theatre directors and two techni-cians at the theatre for possible manslaughter, as they suspect that safety requirements were not adhered to during the perform-ance, Corriere della Sera wrote. It said Schumacher had chosen at the last moment to use a rope for the suicide scene rather than a pistol.

AFP

LONDON: In the name of reducing waste and freeing up chefs’ creativ-ity, top British restaurants are doing away with long menus to give din-ers a limited selection of dishes or no choice at all.

“It is we who decide,” said Mikael Jonsson, head chef at Hedone in the district of Chiswick in west London. Last summer, the 49-year-old Swede decided to scrap the menu, after four years of observing customers’ tastes.

“More and more regular custom-ers do not want to see the menu, and want a personalised menu drawn up by me,” Jonsson said in his restau-rant dining room. Hedone has had a Michelin star since 2012, a year after it opened, and has been included in the world rankings of the “50 Best Restaurants” since 2013. “Some wanted the surprise, others did not know what to order,” he added.

Now, Jonsson decides what diners

will eat, though customers are asked about their preferences when they make a booking. From a personal point of view, “it’s super interesting to work this way,” Jonsson said. “No two days are the same.”

Jonsson uses ingredients avail-able on the day to create a menu of seven to 10 dishes each evening, something which allows the use of higher quality and rarer ingredients.

“If we offer bass on a menu which is changed every two months, it is impossible to offer exceptional bass every day. Now, if I can’t find a bass I’m happy with I will offer turbot or another fish,” Jonsson said.

“It allows me to serve woodcock at one table and hare at another because I don’t have enough for eve-ryone.” Another advantage in ditching the menu is that it reduces waste, as less ingredients are needed to be kept in stock. “We notice the difference, especially with seafood and pastry which you can now prepare at the last minute.”

Hedone reflects a wider trend,

according to “50 Best” director William Drew. This is driven by cus-tomers’ interest in being surprised by dishes, in an era when they will often be familiar with the restau-rant’s fare from Instagram. “I think the idea of not having a menu is growing,” Drew said.

The shift has also been noted in France and New York, but is likely to remain confined to gastronomic cen-tres. “I’m not sure it really works in restaurants that are not destinations for foodies already,” Drew said. Res-taurants following the trend in London include sushi restaurant Araki, which has two Michelin stars and offers a unique set menu, and the two-Miche-lin-starred Hibiscus which offers a surprise tasting menu in the evening.

But others are following outside the capital. The Checkers, in Mont-gomery in Wales offers between five and nine dishes a day in a tasting menu. “With an a la carte menu there will always be a degree of wastage,” said Kathryn Francis, who manages the Michelin-starred restaurant.

IANS

NEW YORK: If you often face a situation where you hear your mobile phone ringing or feel it vibrating but in reality it is not, you may have “ringxiety” and be psychologically primed to detect such signals, according to a study.

Insecurity in interpersonal relationships, manifested as attachment anx-iety, increases the likelihood of having phantom mobile phone experiences, said Daniel Kruger and Jaikob Djerf from University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

The researchers evaluated and compared the frequency of phantom ringing and notifications among individuals characterised as having either attachment anxiety (worries about being abandoned or their feelings not being reciprocated) or attachment avoidance (keeping distance from partners).

They reported that individuals who scored higher in attachment anx-iety — indicating that they may seek more reassurance of their partners’ interest — were more likely to experience phantom ringing and notifica-tions. The ringxiety may result in both immediate and longer term negative health effects, including headache, stress, and sleep disturbances.

AFP

MUMBAI: The captured monkey, its arms tied tightly behind its back, sits crouched over in a Mumbai residential colony trying with its teeth to untie the cord bound around its ankles.

But this primate — caught just moments ago by a professional mon-key catcher in India’s commercial capital — isn’t going anywhere for a while, other than straight into a cage.

The wild macaque was caged after locals said it had been causing a nui-sance for over six months, including stealing food and tearing up pillows that were on sale in one of the colo-ny’s shops.

It was one of three or four monkeys to have been tearing around the com-munity in the western city’s Sion area and residents recently complained to a local municipal councillor about the unwelcome guests.

Monkeys, who are revered in Hindu-majority India, often trash

gardens, offices, residential rooftops and even attack people viciously for food — but are rarely subjected to such public humiliation.

When locals spotted one of the pri-mates on Friday morning they called a monkey catcher who hot-footed it to the housing block and laid a trap with fruit. Local residents gathered round and cheered as bandages were tied around the macaque’s wrists and elbows and a rope was put around its neck.

At one point a passerby patted it on the forehead, only for the monkey to hiss aggressively before showing him a full set of sharp teeth.

Later the shackles were removed from the monkey and it was placed in the cage, where it ate grapes and looked forlornly at the crowd of star-ing onlookers.

The monkey is now set for a new life in the countryside north of Mum-bai. “We will make sure it’s fit and when it is we will release him on the outskirts of Thane,” an official in the Maharashtra state forest department said.

Thieving monkey bound and caged in Mumbai

Italian actor dies

after live hanging

scene goes wrong

A captured monkey tries to untie his legs at a residential colony in Mumbai yesterday.

Are you suffering from ‘ringxiety’?

Top British restaurants doing

away with a la carte menus

Maurice White dies at age 74LOS ANGELES: Maurice White, the founder of R&B funk band Earth, Wind & Fire, died in Los Angeles at age 74, a band spokes-man said. White died at his home on Wednesday night from natural causes, publicist Mark Young said. White had been battling Parkin-son’s disease since 1994.

Earth, Wind & Fire was founded by White, a session drummer, in 1969 after he moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Grammy-winning band fused together rhythm and blues, gospel, funk, soul and African sounds, and enjoyed numerous hits, including Shining Star, Boogie Wonderland and September.

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Cultural Diversity Festival present-ing Youth Folkloric Ballet Egrisi took place at Katara yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin