www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Volume 21 | Number 7014 | 2 RiyalsSunday 18 December 2016 | 19 Rabia I 1438

Al Rayyan beat Al Arabi 3-0 in Doha Derby

BUSINESS | 17 SPORT | 24

Milestone as GOIC celebrates 40th

anniversary

Campaign to raise funds for Aleppo today

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

Leading charity organisa-tions in Qatar will join hands at a fund-raising campaign today at Darb El Saai to support people

of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo.

The drive, coordinated by the State National Day Celebrations Organising Committee, follows Qatar’s decision to cancel all National Day celebrations in soli-darity with the people of Aleppo.

The donation drive will begin at 7pm at flag pole yard in Darb El Saai, and will be telecast live by Qatar TV and Al Rayyan Channel.

“All types of donations are wel-come such as vehicles, money, and jewellery. We will continue

receiving donations as long as there are people to donate, and there is no specific time frame”, an official from the organising committee told this daily yesterday.

→ Continued on page 2

People warm themselves around a fire while waiting to be evacuated from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo in Syria yesterday.

Thousands in desperate wait for evacuation from Aleppo Aleppo

AFP

Trapped Syrian civilians and rebels waited des-perately yesterday for

evacuations to resume from an opposition-held enclave in Aleppo as the Red Cross pleaded for a deal to "save thousands of lives".

A rebel representative said an agreement had been reached to allow more people to leave the city, which has been ravaged by some of the

worst violence of the nearly six-year war that has killed more than 310,000 people.

But there was no confir-mation from President Bashar Al Assad's regime or its staunch allies Russia and Iran, which are under mounting international pressure to end what US President Barack Obama denounced as the "horror" in Aleppo.

Families spent the night in freezing temperatures in bombed out apartment blocks in Al-Amiriyah district, the

departure point for evacua-tions before they were halted on Friday.

Abu Omar said that after waiting outside in the cold for nine hours the previous day, he had returned yesterday only to be told by rebels the buses were not coming. "I'm tired of having to carry all our things and come back every day for nothing," he said. "There's no more food or drinking water, and the situation is getting worse by the day."

→ See also page 4

Emir condoles with ErdoganQNA

EMIR H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yester-day a cable of condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the vic-tims of the explosion which occurred yesterday in central Turkey's Kayseri province, wishing the injured a speedy recovery. Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani also sent a similar cable. Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Kha-lifa Al Thani sent a similar cable to his Turkish counter-part Binali Yildirim.

Qatar expressed strong condemnation and denunci-ation of the bombings, which occurred near a university.

In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs voiced Qatar's condemnation of the criminal act, which is contrary to all divine religions and human values. The Min-istry stressed Qatar's solidarity with the fraternal Republic of Turkey in all measures it takes to maintain its security and stability. The statement renewed Qatar's firm position rejecting violence and terror-ism in all its forms and manifestations. It also expressed Qatar's sincere con-dolences to the victims' families and the Turkish gov-ernment and people, wishing the injured speedy recovery.

→ See also page 4

A donation box installed by RAF at Darb El Saai to raise funds for Aleppo.

Noble cause

The donation drive will begin at 7pm at flag pole yard in Darb El Saai, and will be telecast live by Qatar TV and Al Rayyan Channel.

02 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016HOME

Emir sendsgreetings toBhutan KingQNA

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday a cable of

congratulations to King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of the Kingdom of Bhutan on the occasion of his country's National Day.

Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister and Min-ister of Interior H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Kha-lifa Al Thani also sent greetings to King Jigme Khe-sar Namgyel Wangchuck on the occasion.

Municipality of Rayyanissues morebuilding permitsThe Peninsula

Rayyan Municipality has surpassed Doha Munic-ipality in terms of the

issuance of building permits last month. Rayyan Municipal-ity (including Sheehaniya) issued 205 building permits, 34 percent of the total permits issued in November, followed by Doha Municipality with 130 permits, i.e. 21 percent. Al Wak-rah Municipality issued 101 permits (16%) and Al Da'ayen Municipality issued 83 permits, i.e. 14%. Other municipalities followed with Umm Slal issu-ing 45 permits (7%), Al Khor 36 permits (6%), and Al Shamal 12 permits (2%).

The figures were revealed by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics in its 23rd edition of the monthly Statistics of Building Permits issued by all municipalities. In terms of type of permits, the new building permits (resi-dential and non-residential) constitute 68% (416 permits) of the total building permits issued during the month of November 2016, while the percentage of additions per-mits constituted 28% (171 permits), and fencing permits with 4% (25 permits).

465 discountsales approvedlast monthTHE Ministry of Economy and Commerce approved 465 discount offers at commer-cial outlets across the country last month. A total of 507 pro-motion offers were approved in November, according to a monthly statistic report issued by the Ministry.

The highest, 382 licences, were related to special offers followed by 105 licences for promotional offers. Raffles accounted 16 licences.

Awqaf Ministry upgrades Islamic portal for childrenSanaullah AtaullahThe Peninsula

The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has upgraded its web portal

for children to create awareness about Islamic values and cul-tures among the young generation. Some 54 cartoon movies on various religious aspects have been uploaded to the portal.

The portal “Boys-Girls” on Islamweb.net can be accessed at http://kids.islamweb.net/bwbeng/.

The portal provides the chil-dren substantial knowledge about Islam and makes learn-ing about Islam an enjoyable experience. It provides a fun-filled, secure and safe online platform for children.

Some 13 subjects on the reli-gion, including Prophets, Holy Quran, people of Islam, morals and health, among others, are addressed in the portal.The con-tent and the visuals have been designed to attract children and thus learn more about the reli-gion. It provides a complete interactive experience for the children with games, social media and educational resources.

"This is the third edition of the portal in English. It is a safe place to build Islamic morals

and ethical values in children," said Mohammad bin Hamad Al Kuwari, Head of the Call and Guidance Department at the Ministry on the sideline of the inauguration of the website.

"The portal provides very good quality of contents and has bagged several international awards. We have made available many cartoon movies focusing on awareness, education and enter-tainment. The contents have been made colourful with different entertainments like cartoon mov-ies, sound effects and drama for children. The website also has entertainment games in the form of stories of awareness and education."

The portal aims at provid-ing safe online environment for creating awareness, particularly in the context of increasing dis-tortions and misrepresentations of Islam in the media. It is also meant to bring the children closer to the Islamic culture. The portal is considered the biggest for Muslim children in a foreign language and received several international awards for its e-contents and creativity.

The children's portal was launched by Islamweb in 2003. It was upgraded and re-launched in 2008. The latest edition (third edition), is con-nected to YouTube and mp4 player.

QNA

Prime Minister of Alba-nia Edi Rama met yesterday with Cul-tural Adviser at the Emiri Diwan and the

State of Qatar's candidate to the Post of the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organi-sation (Unesco) Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari.

During the meeting, they talked in detail about the Qatari candidate's vision for the advancement of Unesco and the most important challenges fac-ing the organisation.

The Albanian Prime Minis-ter expressed appreciation for the role of the State of Qatar, and

aspirations to develop the rela-tions between the two countries in the fields of education, culture and investment. He also expressed willingness to con-tinue exchange of official visits in various fields, wishing Dr Al Kawari success and hoping to cooperate with him in the future in order to promote the status of the organisation.

In a related context, Qatar's candidate held meetings with a number of ministers and officials

responsible for foreign affairs, culture and education in the Albanian government, as part of his campaign to publicice his electoral programme which car-ries the theme "Towards a new start for Unesco."

During his meeting with Albania's Foreign Minister Dit-mir Bushati, the two sides discussed bilateral relations and the vision of Qatar's candidate on Unesco and the challenges facing the organisation.

Albanian Foreign Minister pointed to his country's atten-tion to Unesco and its willingness to cooperate with the Qatari can-didate to facilitate his mission.

The vision of the Qatari can-didate on culture and heritage was presented at his meeting with Albania's Minister of Cul-ture Mirela Kumbaro, who appreciated the support and of the State of Qatar to heritage, pointing out that Albania has sig-nificant relics registered on the

world heritage list. She expressed readiness to cooperate with the candidate after his success in this quest, wishing him success in his mission.

Dr Al Kuwari also met with the Albanian Deputy Minister of Education and they discussed the Qatari candidate's vision in addi-tion to Qatar's efforts in the field of education. The meetings were attended by the Charge d' Affairs in the Qatari Embassy in Tirana, Awad Al Ehbabi.

Dr Al Kawari meets Albania PM; discusses tiesBoosting ties

Albanian Prime Minister expresses keenness to develop relations with Qatar in education, culture and investment.

Dr Al Kawari meets a number of ministers and officials in Albania.

Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari with Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama (left) and other Albanian ministers.

Programme launched for schools to share experiencesThe Peninsula

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education has introduced a twinning

programme between the pub-lic schools and high-performing private schools in order to exchange experiences.

It has also started imple-menting the "my skills" programme to promote linguis-tic and mathematical skills in several public schools.

The ministry during the 2015-2016 academic year com-pleted the project of illustrated educational lessons for grade XII subjects of mathematics, physics and chemistry and posted the lessons on the min-istry's YouTube channel.

The Ministry has prepared a guide for the registration of students in private schools and the students' council guide.

The Ministry has also organized several competitions for the government and private schools in the areas of Arabic Reading and Mathematics, in addition to the participation in different regional and interna-tional competitions.

With regard to teachers and administrators, the Ministry's

achievements included the issuance of teachers' guidelines for obtaining licences, revising the standards for teachers and school leaders, the preparation of a program to raise the per-formance of English language teachers in public schools in collaboration with the Qatar University, the adoption of a regulatory guideline to assess the performance of schools' principals and setting indica-tive guideline of offenses and penalties for workers in public schools.

The ministry has launched of the general framework of the national education curriculum of Qatar. It has prepared and reviewed education resources for all stages and revised text-books and interactive elements to be published on the elec-tronic bag.

In the area of services and facilities, Qatar Banking Stud-ies and Business Administration Independent School for Girls was opened in collaboration with the Qatar Central Bank. The Ministry opened a consul-tations center for students special needs, eight new pub-lic schools and a center for vocational training.

Awqaf Ministry officials inaugurating the upgraded web portal.

Five Qatari charities join Aleppo campaignContinued from page 1

Five Qatari charities are participating in the campaign — Qatar Charity, Eid Charity, Qatar Red Crescent Society, Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitar-ian Services (RAF) and Afif Charity.

About 100 boxes for col-lecting donations have been installed at Darb El Saai. Each participating organisation has allocated 20 boxes.

Some of the boxes are already in place and have started receiving donations, said the official.

“We are expecting a huge response from people for

various reasons. First of all, it is the National Day and Qatar has declared solidar-ity with the people in Aleppo. Everybody is concerned about the worsening human-itarian situation in Aleppo,” an official of RAF said yesterday.

“We started the prepa-rations much in advance to make the drive a big suc-cess. Besides the campaign in Darb El Saai, we, and our other partners have dedi-cated charity boxes in all centres to collect donations for Aleppo on this day,” he added.

He said several

companies and restaurants including Qatar Airways have contacted the charity inform-ing their readiness to allocate part of their revenue for Aleppo.

He explained that people can donate both in cash or kind. “We are receiving cash donations and in kind like cars, jewellery, and watches,” said the official.

The Cultural Village Foundation - Katara has installed more than 18 boxes at its premises (near the beach) to collect cash dona-tions, in addition to two containers for donations in kind.

All these charities on its official Twitter and Facebook accounts have urged people to partici-pate in the campaign to support their brothers in Aleppo.

Aspire Zone Foundation, in partnership with Qatar Charity, will donate all income generated from December 15-17 at Aspire Zone’s restaurants.

The prize money worth QR100,000 it has allocated for the Best National Day Instagram picture competi-tion will also be donated for A l e p p o , s a i d t h e Foundation. A donation collection box at the Katara Cultural Village.

03SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 HOME / MIDDLE EAST

Children looking at a bird-shaped kite on the Corniche yesterday bought from a vendor.Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

Kite-flying

Customers checking winter clothes at a shop in Ezdan Mall yesterday. The demand for winter wear has gone up with the mercury continuing to fall in Qatar. Pic: Kammutty V P / The Peninsula

Demand for winter clothes goes up

Huda N VThe Peninsula

Offering an exceptional glimpse into two differ-ent lifestyles of pre-oil

Qatar, a two-day festival is set to open today. 'Henna Ahalha', organised by Embrace Doha, will be a rare treat that will showcase both the moving Bedouin culture and the culture of the settled sea people.

“Many people, even residents here, think that these cultures existed in two different timelines of history,” said Amal Al Shamarri, Chairman and Founder of Embrace Doha, a Qatari organi-sation aimed at spreading awareness on the traditions, cul-ture and heritage of the country.

“We will show that these cultures of Qatar were co-exist-ent in the same era. Still, the way they lived, their food, even the way they dealt with issues were different. These cultural differ-ences that were existent then are still inherent in the behavioural patterns and many other aspects of the Qatari society even today,” she told The Peninsula.

The two-day Henna Ahalha festival that showcases Qatar’s cultural history will open today at Katara beach area.

Qatar had two lifestyles, with the Bedouins living in the inner deserts and the “ Hadari” or settled coastal lifestyle. Bedouins moved after water, fixing their tents at suitable loca-tions and lived rearing the cattle,

which was also the main source of food.

At the same time, coastal areas saw a settled life, with the traditional houses and flourish-ing trade relations. “The men go to sea, diving for pearls and trading. These seasonal trips would take some six months at sea and many who go do not come back. It was real adven-ture to collect the pearls, many risking their lives in the proc-ess,” she said.

Doha even earlier was a pit stop for traders going on further into the Gulf from India and other part of the world by sea. “Areas like today’s Souq Waqif was a resting point for traders going on to Iraq and Kuwait.”

Though the cultural differ-ences have diminished today, the impact is often felt in their behavioural patterns, accord-ing to her. “People who lived in the coastal sides had much

contact with people of various cultures. Today we find these people are more open to other cultures as they mix with them on a daily basis and can accept the differences,” she said

Henna Ahalha festival will showcase Qatar’s cultural his-tory, offering interactive cultural experiences that will enhance the value of heritage and pride about national identity.

“Through this festival, we are commemorating the dif-ferent cultures we had, marking the merging of the tribes in Qatar. We aim to pro-vide cultural content that focuses on expanding cultural knowledge of visitors. We want them to interact and know Qatari traditions and heritage closely,” said Al Shamarri.

Henna Ahalha will showcase the Bedouin lifestyle, with the traditional tents and their nomadic traditions, while coastal lifestyle will be exhib-ited with their handicrafts and traditional houses.

In addition, the festival will also feature traditional arts, crafts, kids entertainment and games, and apart from main stage per-formances. Visitors can also enjoy traditional food and have photos taken with traditional Qatari clothing at the photo booth.

The event is organised in collaboration with Katara Cul-tural Village, Vodafone Qatar, Mema Advertising, Qatar Stars League, and QDVC, among the others.

Festival offers glimpses into two Qatari lifestyles

A cultural treat

The two-day festival called, 'Henna Ahalha', organised by Embrace Doha, promises to be a rare treat for visitors.

Henna Ahalha will showcase the Bedouin and coastal lifestyles.

Traffic Dept issues 10,075 driving licences in October Irfan BukhariThe Peninsula

The Traffic Department issued 10,075 driving licences in October 2016,

registering a 17.9 percent increase compared to a total of 8,548 driving licences issued in October last year.

This was an increase of 35.9 percent compared with Septem-ber 2016, when 7,413 driving licences were issued.

These figures were revealed in the 34th edition of Qatar Monthly Statistics issued by the Ministry of Development Plan-ning and Statistics.

Giving a breakup between Qataris and non-Qataris who were issued driving licences, the report says that Traffic Department issued 630 new driving licences to Qatari nationals in October 2016, which is a 21.4 percent increase when compared to October 2015 in which 519 driving licences were issued. In Sep-tember 2016, 509 driving licences were issued to Qataris.The October 2016 figure shows an increase of 23.8 percent when compared with Septem-ber 2016.

The report further reveals that 9,445 driving licences were issued to non-Qataris in Octo-ber 2016, marking a 17.6 percent increase compared with Octo-ber 2015 in which 8,029 driving licences were issued to

non-Qataris. In September 2016, 6,904 driving licences were issued to non-Qataris. The Octo-ber 2016 figure shows a 36.8 percent increase when com-pared with the two months of 2016.

There has been a steep increase in the number of visi-tors from GCC, as the total number reached, from the beginning of the year until Octo-ber 2016, 1,157,811 visitors, registering an annual increase of 5.1% compared with the total number of visitors from GCC during last year until October 2015 when only 1,102,095 visi-tors arrived in Qatar. The difference is about 55,716 visi-tors from the beginning of the year.

The statistics also show that Qatar's population reached 2.6 million in October 2016, an annual increase of 8.3% as the population was 2.4 million in October 2015, with a total of 2,311 births during October, 2016.

Traffic violations were 161,353 in October 2016, while the number was 145,128 in Sep-tember 2016, marking a 11.2 percent increase.

The traffic violations related to crossing red light signals have seen a downward trend from 1,808 in September 2016 to 1,746 in October 2016.

According to statistics, there were 20 cases of traffic viola-tions pertaining to non-renewal

of driving licences in October 2015 which increased to 73 in October 2016, a 265 percent increase.

The bulletin also highlights the number of vehicles regis-tered in October 2016 which was 8,629 compared to 5,352 during September 2016, with a monthly increase of 61.2%.

According to official statis-tics, top five export destinations in October 2016 were: Japan (QR 943m), South Korea (QR3,054m), India (QR2064m), China (QR1588m) and the UAE (QR1313m).

The top five origins of import in October 2016 were: the USA (QR2,528m), Germany (QR1,146m), China (QR1,118m), UAE (QR957m) and Japan QR76m.

Total broad money supply (M2) recorded about 489bn riy-als during the month of October 2016 showing a monthly decrease of 0.9% compared with September 2016.

On the other hand, cash equivalents; includes deposits decreased by 0.3 % during Octo-ber 2016 in comparison with September 2016, as it recorded about QR677bn during October 2016.

In contrast, the total broad money supply (M2) recorded a negative year-on-year change of 4.1%, while cash equivalents; includes deposits, recorded a positive year-on-year change of 7.4%.

Hamas blames Israel for death of drone expert GAZA

Reuters

The Palestinian Hamas group in Gaza blamed Israel yesterday for the

killing in Tunisia this week of a Tunisian national it described as one of its drone experts, and threatened retaliation.

Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Moham-med Zawari, who was gunned down near the city of Sfax on Thursday, had been a member of the group for 10 years and had been supervising its drone programme. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, did not offer any evidence to support its accusation. A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

"Qassam Brigades mourns the martyr of Palestine, martyr of the Arab and Muslim nation,

the Qassam leader, engineer and pilot Mohammad Zawari, who was assassinated by Zion-ist treacherous hands on Thursday in Sfax," a statement posted on the group's website said. "The enemy must know the blood of the leader Zawari will not go in vain," the state-ment said.

The Tunisian interior min-istry said Zawari was killed in his car by multiple gunshots in front of his house in El Ain, near Sfax, on Thursday. Four rental cars were used in the killing and two handguns and silencers were seized, the ministry said.

Television footage aired on local media showed a black Volkswagen with its windows apparently shot out.

A judicial spokesman from Sfax, Mourad Tourki, told Tuni-sian radio Shems FM eight Tunisian nationals had been arrested in connection with the killing.

200,000 to be employed at logistics projectThe Peninsula

About 200,000 people are expected to be employed at the logistics project

being set up in south Wakra, Birkat Al Awamir and Aba Salil, the Ministry of Economy and Commerce said yesterday.

The Technical Committee to promote private sector par-ticipation in economic development projects at the Ministry has prepared 119 plots of mixed use commercial land for investors in the three locations.

The lands are offered at monthly rent of QR 8.33 per sq meter per month, with an aver-age increase in the rents by 5 percent every three years, with lease contract extending for 30 years.

The rent is to be paid every six months after the first year of allocation of land. The plots are located on the Orbital Road

and near the Hamad Port. The plots are allotted for

private investors to develop shops, showrooms, clinics, banks, restaurants, parking areas, among others.

The committee said that prompt delivery of land for starting construction and inte-grated infrastructure are among the major advantages of the project.

The ministry has started receiving applications for the land for phase-I. The Applicants need to produce their commer-cial registration and provide a clear action plan for the project and a plan for land

development, a copy of ID card of the owners, and a bank guar-antee cheque as per the size of the land allotted.

Applications are received electronically through the web-site www.manateq.qa. Applicants must choose the size of the land according to the cat-egories specified, and agree to the terms of the lease and booking and then upload the required documents properly on the website. The deadline for receiving application has been set at February 2, 2pm.

The committee will review all applications and required documents and determine the

eligibility of the investor in accordance with the require-ments and conditions, and then notify the investors.

If the number of eligible applicants exceeds the number of commercial land at hand, a public draw will be held to determine the winning compa-nies. A waiting list of candidates will also be announced through the draw. The committee said that it will announce the results of the draw on the website in addition to various media.

The winning candidates will be asked to provide a bank guarantee for land allotment. Then an agreement will be signed for booking the land before signing the final lease contract after the completion of the plans and designs. In case of disqualification, the bank guarantee will be refunded within 15 days from the date of announcement of the allotment.

The land is offered at a monthly rent of QR8.33 per sq meter per month, with an average increase in the rents by 5 percent every three years, with the lease contract extending for 30 years.

04 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016MIDDLE EAST

13 dead in Turkey suicide bombing

Istanbul

AFP

Thirteen Turkish sol-diers were killed and dozens more wounded yesterday in a suicide car bombing targeting

off-duty conscripts blamed on Kurdish militants, the latest in a string of attacks to rock Turkey in recent months.

The government said all signs so far suggested the out-lawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was behind the bombing in the city of Kayseri, a usually calm industrial hub in Anatolia.

Forty-eight soldiers were wounded in the attack which struck when the soldiers were being taken from their barracks by bus on a weekend shopping trip, the army said in a statement.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said a total of 55 people were wounded, six seriously.

Television pictures showed the bus reduced to a smoulder-ing wreck by the blast, which comes a week after 44 people were killed in a double bombing in Istanbul after a football match. That attack was claimed by Kurdish militants.

Deputy Prime Minister Veysi

Kaynak said in televised com-ments that Kayseri attack was "unfortunately similar" to last weekend's strikes in Istanbul.

"All indications at present point to the PKK," Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus told NTV television.

"We have to take into account all possibilities but the signs at present point to the PKK."

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that the attack was carried out by a "suicide bomber", without giving further details.

The army said that the bus — carrying low-ranking privates and non-commissioned officers — was attacked after leaving the

commando headquarters in the city.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the "acts of ter-ror" in Turkey were "aiming at all 79 million of our citizens together with our soldiers and police."

Without referring specifically to the Kayseri attack, he said that Turkey was targeted by all ter-ror groups but especially the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

"We will fight decisively against these terror organisa-tions in the spirit of a national mobilisation," he said.

Turkey has seen a spate of deadly bombings in a bloody 2016 blamed both on jihadists and Kurdish militants that have

left dozens dead and put the country on daily alert.

In June, 47 people were killed in a triple suicide bomb-ing and gun attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport, with authorities blaming the Islamic State group.

Another 57 people including 34 children were killed in August in a suicide attack by an IS-linked bomber at a Kurdish wedding in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

Kurdish militants have twice struck with bombings that killed dozens in Ankara in February and March.

The attacks have come with the civil war still raging in neigh-bouring Syria, where Turkey is staging its own incursion to expel jihadists and Kurdish militia

from the border area. Turkey is also still reeling

from a failed July 15 coup blamed on the US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen that has been followed by a relent-less purge of his alleged supporters from all state institutions.

One of the main cities of cen-tral Turkey, Kayseri is a key industrial hub with a population of over one million and usually seen as a peaceful area.

The city lies close to the famous landscapes of Cappado-cia, a magnet for tourists around the world.

It is well west of the south-east of the country that has been hit by months of deadly fighting between the PKK and the secu-rity forces.

Following the bombing, doz-ens of protesters stormed the offices of the pro-Kurdish Peo-ples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Kayseri, draping a Turkish nationalist flag from the top floor, footage posted on social media showed.

The government slapped a temporary broadcast ban on footage of the attack, as is becoming typical in the after-math of major incidents in the country.

The Turkish military has stepped up operations against the PKK after a fragile ceasefire broke down in the summer of 2015. Since then, there has been a dramatic surge in violence that shows no sign of ending.

Last week's double bombing in Istanbul, which targeted police after a match of the Besiktas football club, was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) seen as a radical offshoot of the PKK.

People react after a bus was hit by an explosion in Kayseri, Turkey, yesterday.

Kurdish terror

Government says all signs point to involvement of PKK in attack, which targeted a bus transferring low-ranking privates and non-commissioned officers.

France asks United Nations to monitor Aleppo evacuation United Nations

AFP

France has presented a UN Security Council draft resolution on send-ing observers to Aleppo to monitor

evacuations and report on the protec-tion of Syrian civilians, according to the text obtained yesterday by AFP.

The measure, circulated to the coun-cil late Friday, could be put to a vote today despite resistance from Russia, Syria's ally and a veto-wielding Secu-rity Council member, diplomats said.

The draft text said the council was "alarmed" by the worsening humani-tarian crisis in Aleppo and by the fact

that "tens of thousands of besieged Aleppo inhabitants" are in need of aid and evacuation.

Thousands of trapped civilians and the last remaining opposition fighters in Aleppo were waiting for evacuations to resume yesterday, a day after the operation was suspended by the Syrian government.

Syrian forces this week moved to assert full control over the east of the city, which had been held by opposition fighters since 2012.

French Ambassador Francois Delat-tre has warned that Aleppo could turn into another Srebrenica, where thou-sands of Bosnian men and boys were

massacred in 1995 when the town fell to Bosnian Serb forces during the Bal-kan wars.

The draft resolution would request that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon quickly redeploy UN humanitarian staff already in Syria to Aleppo "to carry out adequate, neutral monitoring, direct observation and to report on evacua-tions from besieged parts of Aleppo and protection of civilians inside Aleppo."

Ban would also ensure the deploy-ment of further staff, according to the draft text, which demands that Syria grant access to the observers.

The UN chief would report to the council within five days on whether

access has been granted by the Syrian government, which has repeatedly blocked UN access during the nearly six-year war.

The evacuations from Aleppo were expected to resume under a new deal that would allow civilians and pro-gov-ernment fighters in two other towns besieged by rebels to leave.

The measure would seek to ensure the "voluntary, safe and dignified pas-sage of all civilians" from Aleppo and other areas under UN monitoring and coordination, with priority given to the wounded and most vulnerable. The draft resolution demands the protection of all doctors, medical workers, hospitals

and ambulances following reports that Syrian forces had bombed all of the medical facilities in Aleppo.

The text specifically mentions the need to protect the border hospitals of Atmeh, Darkoush, Bab Al-Hawa and Bab Al-Salamah, where many of the evac-uees would be taken.

The council would also demand that urgent humanitarian aid reach Aleppo, which has been under siege since July.

US Ambassador Samantha Power said Friday that the observers on the ground would provide a "presence as protection." But Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he found elements of the French proposal "questionable."

Algeria defends treatment of Mali migrantsAlgiers

AFP

ALGERIA yesterday defended its treatment of a group of around 260 Malian migrants rounded up and deported to their country, dismissing charges of brutality.

Algerian security forces conducted the operation at the start of December "with respect for human rights", the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, although it acknowledged that "minimal but regrettable incidents" had taken place.

The operation, supervised by the Algerian Red Crescent, had been carried out with "exemplary professionalism" that had "contained" the incidents.

On their return to Bamako, members of the group accused Algerian forces of brutality, saying many Mal-ians had been injured and some of them killed, although there was no official confir-mation of any deaths.

The deportations were decided as a "last resort", the Ministry said, following "acts of violence and physical aggression" by Malian migrants in Algiers and other parts of the country. The For-eign Ministry said Algeria, despite its own economic problems, granted legally reg-istered migrants the same access to its health and edu-cation systems as Algerian nationals. A Malian official in charge of Malians who live abroad, Issa Sacko, has said Bamako would seek an inquiry into the alleged deaths.

Qayyarah

AFP

The battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group is leaving a legacy

of environmental damage and health risks that will pose dan-gers to people for years to come.

Iraqis have already paid the initial price from burning oil wells and a sulphur factory that IS set alight south of Mosul, Iraq's last jihadist-held city which is the target of a major military operation launched two months ago.

The fires, combined with water pollution and the poten-tially toxic remains of destroyed buildings, military equipment and munitions, will also present longer-term threats to people in areas around and inside Mosul.

"We are concerned about how the pollution will affect the health of local populations and negatively impact their capac-ity to rebuild quality, sustainable livelihoods within those affected areas," said

Jenny Sparks of the Interna-tional Organization for Migration.

A United Nations report on environmental and health risks in the Mosul area said that "hundreds of people were treated for exposure to chem-icals, and millions are exposed to soot and gases from the burning oil wells".

"The events are occurring in an already environmentally

degraded region, threatened by substantial environmental leg-acy risk from previous conflicts, coupled with serious desertifi-cation and land degradation primarily caused by unsustain-able agricultural practices," the report said.

IS set fire to oil wells before the Qayyarah area was recap-tured by Iraqi forces in August, and these have burned for months, turning sheep that

graze in the area black with soot. "We can't sell our sheep any more. We have had some sheep die, other times people won't buy them because they look black," said Jaber, a 16-year-old shepherd. Iraqi civil defence forces have been battling the Qayyarah fires, and while they have extinguished some, others are still burning.

IS also set fire to the Mishraq sulphur plant south of Mosul, and while the blaze was eventually put out, it had already blanketed nearby areas with a haze of smoke that caused respiratory problems for those who inhaled it.

However, the aftermath of a 2003 fire at the same plant offers some cause for optimism, according to the UN report.

"Even though the vegeta-tion and crops had been badly damaged by the fire, natural recovery was advancing well two years later," it said.

Houses and other buildings damaged or destroyed by air strikes and shelling also pose a risk to civilians trying to return and rebuild their homes.

Mosul oil well fires turn sheep coats black

File picture of a young shepherd watching over his flock of sheep, their fleece blackened by smoke from burning oil wells set ablaze by Islamic State (IS) jihadists before retreating, near Mosul.

05SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 ASIA / AFRICA

'No deal' in talks on Kabila's political futureKinshasa

AFP

Congolese crisis talks to ensure a peaceful political transition were suspended yes-terday, Catholic

church mediators said, announc-ing they would resume only a day after President Joseph Kabi-la's last legal term in office ends.

"Direct negotiations are sus-pended", Monsignor Marcel Utembi, the head of the Congo-lese bishops conference (CENCO), said.

The announcement ends 11th-hour talks between Kabila's ruling party and opposition groups to find a path forward for the Democratic Republic of Congo after December 20, when Kabila's second term ends.

"There is no deal," said Jean-Marc Kabund, the secretary general for the Union for Democ-racy and Social Progress (UDPS) party of the main opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi.

"The ruling majority is sitting on its positions and refuses to

offer any concessions on mat-ters that require a political response," he said.

The Congolese constitution bans presidents from serving a third term, but Kabila has shown no signs of stepping down and no elections have yet been planned, prompting fears the sit-uation could descend into violence.

The 45-year-old Congo pres-ident has signalled his desire to remain in power until a succes-sor is chosen in an election, but some opposition figures want him to hand over to a transitional leadership while awaiting the vote.

The CENCO-sponsored talks had brought together the ruling party and fringe opposition groups, allied against a main-stream opposition coalition led by the 84-year-old Tshisekedi.

The latter accuse Kabila of delaying the vote in the hope of tweaking the constitution to extend his family's hold over a nation hugely rich in minerals that is almost the size of western Europe.

Kabund, speaking to the media after the talks broke up, said: "We call on the people to carry out their responsibilities with respect to the... date mark-ing the end of Kabila's mandate", referring to a midnight Tuesday deadline.

The church mediators have warned that failure to find a political settlement would lead

to "an uncontrollable situation".

The international community has also warned the current ten-sion could descend into violence, and Western diplomats in Kin-shasa this week urged all non-essential nationals to leave the country.

Some two decades ago, Congo sunk into the deadliest conflict in modern African

history, its two wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s dragging in at least six African armies and leaving more than three million dead.

A democratic handover would break ground for Congo's 70 million people who since independence from Belgium in 1960 have never witnessed polit-ical change at the ballot box.

In the last few years

hundreds of people have died in political violence in the capital, Kinshasa, and elsewhere.

Tshisekedi and his allies had threatened nationwide protests from tomorrow to press Kabila to step down, but opted to hold off pending the negotiations.

The government has ordered that social networks including Facebook and WhatsApp be blocked from 11:59pm today.

Seoul protests put pressure on impeachment courtSeoul

AFP

Tens of thousands of protes-tors turned out in Seoul for the eighth straight week

yesterday, pushing for the swift and permanent removal of impeached South Korean Pres-ident Park Geun-hye.

Unlike previous weeks, the demonstrators didn't have the streets of the capital all to them-selves, with a sizeable rally by Park loyalists seeking to buttress support for the beleaguered president.

The main anti-Park protest began with a gathering in cen-tral Seoul, with organisers putting the turnout at around 300,000.

It then split into three col-umns, marching on the presidential Blue House, the

office of the prime minister and on the Constitutional Court whose nine justices are consid-ering the validity of the

impeachment bill passed by the national assembly more than a week ago.

The court has 180 days to

make a ruling, but the protest-ers are pressing for a swift judgement.

Although Park has been stripped of her substantial exec-utive powers, she is allowed to retain the title of president and continue to live in the Blue House while the court deliberates.

The protesters are adamant that she should resign immedi-ately and face criminal prosecution.

Park still has her supporters, many of them elderly voters who remain steadfast admirers of her father, the late military dictator Park Chung-Hee -- credited as the architect of the South's eco-nomic transformation but vilified as an authoritarian rights abuser.

Police said around 30,000 Park loyalists attended their own rally near the court earlier in the

day to demand the impeachment bill be thrown out.

Waving national flags and clutching red roses they carried banners denouncing the anti-Park protests as a leftist conspiracy.

On Friday, Park's legal team formally submitted a 24-page rebuttal of the impeachment charges to the court, arguing that they had no legal basis.

"We can't accept that there was any violation of the con-stitution by the president... the impeachment motion should be rejected," one of her law-yers, Lee Joong-Hwan, said.

Park was impeached on numerous counts of constitu-tional and criminal violations ranging from a failure to pro-tect people's lives to bribery and abuse of power.

Ruling party backs Mugabe for 2018 pollMasvingo

AP

ZIMBABWEAN President Rob-ert Mugabe, who turns 93 in February, was endorsed yes-terday as the ruling party's candidate in a national elec-tion scheduled for 2018.

The ruling ZANU-PF party announced its support in the southeast town of Masvingo, where the party's youth wing even proposed that Mugabe should rule for life with broad powers.

Opposition groups have described such adulation as a sign that Mugabe and his loyalists are out of touch with the desperation of a nation that is suffering massive unemployment, cash short-ages and company closures.

Despite the praise, Mugabe has acknowledged that some people within the ruling party have wanted him to quit.

"Let us stop fighting each other," he said, referring to the succession fights that have engulfed his party.

Even so, the ZANU-PF party rallied around Mugabe at its annual conference. Most delegates wore the party's colors of red, green, black and yellow, as well as Mugabe's portrait. Speaker after speaker extolled his virtues.

One Cabinet minister named Supa Mandiwanzira did so by making a pun about his own first name.

Mali drops treason charges against ex-leaderBamako

AFP

Malian lawmakers have decided a treason case should be dropped

against former Malian presi-dent Amadou Toumani Toure, who was overthrown in a mil-itary coup in 2012.

Toure, known by the acro-nym ATT, came to power in 2002, and fled to Senegal after being overthrown by a military junta in 2012 just as he was

preparing to end his final term in office.

"The elected representa-tives of the people have voted by secret ballot on the fate of former president ATT, and have decided not to pursue him after leading Mali for 10 years," an opposition lawmaker said.

Under Malian law, it is law-makers who sit in judgement on current or former presidents.

Toure was accused by the current government of

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of treason related to the failure of soldiers to tackle an Islamist insurgency in the north of Mali.

The coup led by army cap-tain Amadou Sanogo toppled what had been heralded as one of the region's most stable democracies and precipitated the fall of northern Mali to Al Qaeda-linked groups until a French-led military operation in 2013 forced them out of the towns.

Political crisis

The opposition group said that the ruling majority is sitting on its positions and refuses to offer any concessions on matters that require a political response.

We call on the people to carry out their responsibilities with respect to the...date marking the end of Kabila's mandate: Kabund

Members of the Congolese community in Belgium demonstrate in Brussels yesterday to ask the departure of Congo's President Joseph Kabila at the end of its mandate tomorrow.

Portraits of South Korea's President Park Geun-hye and her aides are set in a mock prison during a rally in Seoul, yesterday.

Abuja

AFP

West African leaders called yesterday for a swift resolution of the

political impasse in The Gambia after disputed elections in which long-term president Yahya Jam-meh is refusing to concede defeat.

The appeal came at the 50th summit of the 15-member Eco-nomic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Nigeria, attended by 11 heads of state but without the leaders of four members including The Gambia.

Opposition leader Adama Barrow was declared winner of the December 1 polls and Jam-meh initially conceded defeat, only to reverse his decision a week later, condemning "unac-ceptable errors" by election authorities and calling for a new vote.

Yesterday, Liberian Presi-dent Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the current ECOWAS chairperson, said in Abuja that the regional economic group would push for prompt resolution of the crisis.

"It is now important that the Authority, at this summit, con-siders recommended measures to bring this matter to

successful conclusion before January 19, the constituted date when the mandate of the incum-bent president expires," Sirleaf said.

Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the UN top envoy for West Africa, said the global body would sup-port efforts to resolve the election logjam.

"The UN remains concerned by some of the worrisome devel-opments that occurred during the post election period in The Gambia," Chambas said after the summit was declared open by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

These included "in

particular, the seizure of the headquarters of the Independ-ent Electoral Commission by the Gambian military," he added.

On Tuesday, Sirleaf led a heavyweight delegation to The Gambia to seek to broker a deal, meeting both Jammeh and Bar-row. But Sirleaf announced there was no deal.

The situation has been fur-ther complicated by Jammeh's political party filing a legal chal-lenge against the result at the Supreme Court.

The African Union, the UN, local and international rights groups have asked Jammeh to step down.

W African leaders push to resolve Gambia poll row

ECOWAS head of goverments pose for a group photograph after attending the Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government in Abuja, yesterday.

Colombo

AFP

Ten passengers were killed and another 21 wounded yes-terday when a van and a bus collided on a highway in Sri Lanka's former war zone of Jaffna, police said.

All those killed in the head-on collision along the A-9 high-way were passengers travelling in the smaller vehicle, police said adding that three of the wounded were in critical condition.

The crash involved a van heading to Jaffna town and a bigger bus travelling in the opposite direction, police said.

10 dead & 21 injured in Sri Lanka road accident

06 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016ASIA / PHILIPPINES

China slams US for 'hyping' up naval probe seizureBeijing

Reuters

China's Defence Ministry said yesterday it had been in talks with the United

States about returning an under-water drone taken by a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea, but the US was not helping by "hyping up" the issue.

The drone was taken on Thursday, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory, about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines, just as the USNS Bowditch was about to retrieve the unmanned

underwater vehicle (UUV), US officials said.

The Defence Ministry said a Chinese naval vessel discovered a piece of "unidentified equip-ment" and checked it to prevent any navigational safety issues, before discovering it was a US drone.

"China decided to return it to the US side in an appropriate manner, and China and the US have all along been in commu-nication about it," the ministry said on its website.

"During this process, the US side's unilateral and open hyp-ing up is inappropriate, and is not

beneficial to the smooth resolu-tion of this issue. We express regret at this," it added.

US President-elect Donald Trump weighed in to the row yesterday, tweeting: "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprece-dented act."

Without directly saying whether the drone was operat-ing in waters China considers its own, the ministry said US ships and aircraft have for a long period been carrying out surveil-lance and surveys in "the

presence" of Chinese waters."China is resolutely opposed

to this, and demands the US stops this kind of activity," it said.

China will remain on alert for these sorts of activities and take necessary steps to deal with them, the ministry said without elaborating.

Earlier, the Global Times, published by the ruling Commu-nist Party's official People's Daily, cited an unidentified Chi-nese source as saying they believed the issue would be resolved smoothly.

The United States says the drone was operating lawfully.

"The UUV was lawfully con-ducting a military survey in the waters of the South China Sea," a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's a sovereign immune vessel, clearly marked in English not to be removed from the water - that it was US property".

The Pentagon confirmed the incident at a news briefing on Friday, and said the drone used commercially available technol-ogy and sold for about $150,000.

Still, the Pentagon viewed China's seizure seriously since it had effectively taken US military property.

Duterte threatens to repeal US troops pactManila

Reuters

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told the United States yes-terday to prepare for repeal of an agree-

ment on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises, declaring that America's money could be replaced.

Duterte, however, suggested relations could improve under President-elect Donald Trump. "I like your mouth, it's like mine, yes Mr President. We are simi-lar and people with the same feathers flock together."

But returning his focus to the present US administration, which has criticised Duterte over reports of extra-judicial killings in his campaign against drugs, he deliv-ered a different message.

"We do not need you,"

Duterte said in a news confer-ence after arriving from visits to Cambodia and Singapore.

"Prepare to leave the Philippines. Prepare for the eventual repeal or abrogation of the VFA."

The Visiting Forces Agree-ment, signed in 1998, accorded legal status to thousands of US troops who were rotated in the country for military exercises and humanitarian assistance operations.

"Bye, bye America and work on the protocols that will even-tually move you out of the Philippines," he said, adding that his decision would come "any day soon" after reviewing another military deal, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

A US State Department spokesman, Justin Higgins, said officials had seen Duterte's state-ments, but the United States had "not received any official requests from Philippine officials to alter any of our many issues of bilateral cooperation."

Duterte was visibly upset and vented his anger on Washington because of a decision by the board of the Millennium

Challenge Corp to defer a vote on the re-selection of Manila for compact development due to human rights issues.

"We do not need the money. China said they will provide so many. The politics here in Southeast Asia is changing."

Kuala Lumpur

Anatolia

Malaysia's foreign minis-try said yesterday that it will express strong con-

demnation during an upcoming regional meeting organized by Myanmar to discuss recent vio-lence in troubled Rakhine State.

Myanmar has invited foreign ministers from Southeast Asian nations for December 19 talks in an effort to reduce regional con-cerns over a situation in northern Rakhine in which any-thing from 76 to 400 Rohingya Muslims have died.

Yesterday, Malaysian For-eign Minister Anifah Aman (pictured) said the gathering would be used as platform to express Asean member coun-tries' firm stance against any form of violence or discrimina-tion against the Rohingya.

"This 19 December meeting will give me the opportunity to

unequivocally state Malaysia’s strong position on this issue," he said in a statement, stressing that Malaysia has consistently con-demned the escalation of violence in northern Rakhine since October 9.

"The loss of innocent lives and the displacement of people is unacceptable, and Malaysia will further call on all parties involved to refrain from taking any actions that would aggra-vate the situation further," the minister underlined.

Myanmar has said that at least 93 people -- 17 police and soldiers and 76 alleged "attack-ers" -- were killed and some 575 suspects detained in the Octo-ber 9 attacks and a subsequent military crackdown.

Rohingya advocacy groups, however, claim around 400 Rohingya -- described by the UN as among the most persecuted groups worldwide -- were killed in the military operations,

women were abused and Rohingya villages torched.

Malaysia has heavily criti-cized Myanmar’s government and military over the violence, with Prime Minister Najib Razak and his cabinet referring to it as “ethnic cleansing".

After Malaysia’s government organized a Razak-led protest against the violence, Myanmar accused Malaysia of meddling

in its internal affairs.On December 8, the deputy

director general at Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs high-lighted that a pledge by Indonesia's foreign minister, Rento Marsudi, to help Myan-mar resolve all conflicts between the Buddhist and Muslim com-munities in Rakhine was both “positive and constructive”.

“Unlike Malaysia, Indonesia shows respect to Myanmar and regional principles,” Aye Aye Soe said by phone, referring to Asean's non-interference principle.

Aman underlined yesterday that Malaysia's position to assist Myanmar in finding a “just, expeditious and durable” solu-tion to the protracted conflict in Rakhine.

He said Malaysia is “fully cognizant” of Asean’s non-inter-ference principle, but also upholds that Asean member states are bound by international principles on human rights.

Pollution alert: Beijing orders 1,200 factories to close amid smogBeijing

Reuters

Beijing's city government has ordered 1,200 fac-tories near the Chinese

capital, including an oil refin-ery run by state oil major Sinopec and a Cofco food plant, to either shut or cut output following its highest possible air pollution warning.

Environmental authori-ties issued a red alert that started on Friday night and will run until Wednesday after warning of a smog build-up across China's north.

That will mean curbs on traffic and construction work and advisories for schools, hospitals, offices and businesses.

The municipal govern-ment said in statement the Sinopec's 10 million tonne-per-year Yanshan refinery, a Shougang Group steel prod-uct plant and a Cofco factory that makes instant noodles and crackers were among 500 companies it had ordered to limit output.

It also listed 700 compa-nies that must suspend operations altogether.

Red alerts are issued when the air quality index (AQI), a measure of pollutants in the air, is forecast to break 200 for more than four days in succession, surpass 300 for more than two days or over-shoot 500 for at least 24 hours.

The AQI reading in Bei-jing yesterday was 120.

Immigration officials fired over extortion scandalManila

Reuters

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte yesterday fired two immigration

officials facing allegations of corruption as he reaffirmed his commitment to ensure a clean government.

"I said before that corrup-tion will have no place in my government," Duterte said.

"Consistent with this elec-toral campaign, I have directed the dismissal of the two (offi-cials from) the Bureau of

Immigration who are now tainted with corruption," he said without giving details about the allegation.

"They will be held account-able for their actions. They will face the full force of the law".

Just shortly before Duterte arrived in his hometown Davao City from Singapore, local media reported that two immigration officials accused of extorting $1m from Jack Lam, a Chinese citizen and head of Hong Kong-listed Jimei International, had tendered their resignation.

The two officials, however, had denied the allegation and said they were a target of a demolition job for investigat-ing corruption in the immigration bureau, the reports said.

Lam, from the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau, faces allegations of economic sabotage and bribery in the Philippines.

Lam's whereabouts are unknown. His lawyer in the Philippines has previously denied the accusations against Lam.

Bye, bye America

Prepare to leave the Philippines. Prepare for the eventual repeal or abrogation of Visiting Forces Agreement: Philippine President.

A US State Department spokesman, Justin Higgins, said officials had seen Duterte's statements, but the US had 'not received any official requests from Philippine officials to alter any of our many issues of bilateral cooperation.'

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during a press conference shortly after arriving from Singapore at Davao International Airport, yesterday.

Thai lawmakers approve tighter Internet controlBangkok

AP

THAILAND'S military-appointed legislature approved a bill tightening the country's already harsh Computer Crime Act, defying critics who said it infringes on the right to free expression.

The National Legislative Assembly voted 168 to 0 with four abstentions to approve amending the 2007 law.

Internet activists had campaigned against the amendment, which will allow the authorities to intercept private communications and block websites deemed harmful to national security without a court order.

Other provisions add spe-cific criminal penalties for undermining national secu-rity and entering false information into systems.

The original law was passed to cope with a lack of regulation of the online world. Increasingly it has been used against critics of the government. Thai Inter-net service providers already block some websites with material such as pornogra-phy and criticism of the monarchy, and YouTube blocks some similar sites, but only in Thailand.

A screen is pictured in smog on a polluted day as a red alert issued for air pollution in Beijing, yesterday.

Malaysia to condemn Rohingya crisis at Asean meet

Govt to provide mobile charging facility in trainsPAKISTAN Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has ordered for provision of mobile-phone charging facility in the trains, it was learnt yesterday.

According to the PR sources, the minis-ter ordered that at least 10 charging points in an economy class coach should be provided.

Pakistan Railways will complete its work of repairing of 260 old coaches by June 2017 while mobile-phone charging points has been installed in already repaired 57 coaches on the direction of the PR min-ister. Also, reconditioned coaches are being con-verted from 110 volts to 220 volts, which would facilitate passengers and light problem would be solved.

Chinese firm to set up 1320MW plantTHE PRIVATE Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has agreed to grant extension in the financial closing date for imported coal-based power plant of China Power Hub Gener-ation Company (CPHGC), which means the com-pany would be setting up two plants of 660MW each, as planned earlier.

“The PPIB has now called for a meeting to discuss the extension in the financial closing and Implementation Agree-ment (IA) for 660x2MW imported coal based power plant at Hub,” Shamsul Islam at HUBCO said in a bourse filing on yesterday.

Hubco in October this year notified the bourse that CPHGC, having a generation license for two 660MW coal-fired plants in Hub, was likely to reduce the size of its generation facility to only 660MW. China Power Hub Generation Company is a joint venture of the Hub Power Company Lim-ited (Hubco) and China Power International Hold-ing Limited (CPIHL).

NEWS BYTES

07SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 PAKISTAN / AFGHANISTAN

Internally displaced Afghan children play outside their temporary home at a refugee camp in Kabul, yesterday.

Smiling amid adversity

Kandahar

AFP

Gunmen on motorcycles shot dead five female airport workers and their driver in south-ern Afghanistan

yesterday, underlining the dan-gers facing employed women in the conservative, conflict-torn country.

The women, employees of a private company that provides luggage and body search services for female passengers, were in a van driving to the airport in Kan-dahar when three gunmen opened fire at them.

"All the women and their driver aboard the van were killed. The attackers fled the area and we have launched an investigation," provincial spokesman Samim Kheplwak said. The women had been concerned about their secu-rity after receiving death threats

from people who disapproved of their career, Kandahar Airport Director Ahmadullah Faizi said.

Taliban militants who imple-mented a harsh version of Shariah law during their 1996-2001 rule, not allowing women to work outside their homes, said they were not behind the killings. But employed women have long faced a high risk of attacks from

insurgent groups and conserva-tive Islamists. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said the killing of innocent civilians and women showed the "weakness of the enemies of Afghanistan".

The United Nations also con-demned the killings and called for a "prompt, effective, impartial and transparent investigation" into the incident.

Afghan women have made giant strides since the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001, but they are still absent from public life and continue to suffer high lev-els of violence, oppression and abuse. The Afghan attorney gen-eral's office recorded more than 3,700 cases of violence against women in the first eight months of 2016, with 5,000 cases recorded in the whole of the previous year. In October last year, unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a woman working as a rights defender with the UN in Kandahar.

Five female airport staff shot dead in Kandahar Deadly attack

The women were in a van driving to the airport in Kandahar when three gunmen opened fire at them.

The Attorney General's office recorded over 3,700 cases of violence against women in the first eight months of 2016.

Islamabad

Internews

The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Khy-ber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has

arrested 798 terrorists in last two years as part of the efforts aim-ing at rooting out terrorism from the province. Out of them ten were later executed and 45

awarded sentences by the courts.According to a report com-

piled by KP’s CTD to show the record of implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) in last two years, some 17972 for-eigners who were illegally living in KP province were identified and deported to their respective countries while 2178 people were arrested on the charges of

preparing fake computerised national identity cards (CNICs).

On December 24, 2014 - a week after terrorists killed 144 students and staff members at the Army Public School in Peshawar, Prime Minister announced NAP, a comprehen-sive strategy to defeat what many had come to believe was an existential threat.

Islamabad

Internews

The federal government of Pakistan has adopted an absolute “no lift” policy to

the four demands of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, show-ing its total lack of seriousness toward them.

There may be different rea-sons behind this official strategy with the principal one being waned political relevance and weight.

Moreover, since the PPP doesn’t pose any great threat to the government, the latter is indifferent to its hue and cry and caveats to start its agitation on December 27, the day Bena-zir Bhutto was martyred nine years ago at Rawalpindi’s LiaquatBagh. The government doesn’t seem bothered by this protest.

The government’s noncha-lance is very paramount, so much so that it is not willing to initiate even a cosmetic dia-logue with the PPP to talk about these demands.

Rather, one federal minis-ter has stated that Bilawal should convey his calls to the Sindh government and get them implemented by it. While look-ing at the PPP demands, it

becomes clear that the provin-cial administration has nothing to do with any one of them.

The government’s total dis-regard to these demands has created frustration in the PPP, forcing Bilawal and others to issue recurrent hard-hitting statements against it. Federal ministers restrict themselves to retaliation.

The federal government can accept or agree to imple-ment at least three demands, which are not very hurtful to it in order to close the political front being heated up by the PPP. As a minimum, it can explain to the PPP why it is not consenting to its demands and how far it can go to accept some of them.

One of the demands is the appointment of a full-fledged foreign minister, which is obvi-ously innocuous and innocent. Already, an adviser and a spe-cial assistant are handling the foreign affairs as per the instructions of the premier, who is the foreign minister.

The PPP will gain nothing if a full-time foreign minister is picked up. The second demand calls for formation of a parlia-mentary committee on national security. It was agreed long time ago that such a forum would be created.

An Afghan policeman inspects a damaged vehicle in Kandahar, in which five female airport workers were killed, yesterday.

Government ignores Bilawal’s demands

Islamabad

Internews

Pakistan and China have termed installation of new chandelier gifted by the

latter for the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam as a symbol of strong bond between the two countries, said Pakistani Presi-dent Mamnoon Hussain.

President Mamnoon, in his message on the installation of the

new chandelier, has expressed confidence that the symbolic sig-nificance of the chandelier would always remind impor-tance of Sino Pak relationship.

The installation of new chan-delier, a masterpiece of its own kind, at the last abode of Quaid-i-Azam is a great occasion for the nation, he said.

President Mamnoon said during the construction of Quaid’s mausoleum, some 45

years ago China had gifted a beautiful chandelier. During the whole four and half decades, the chandelier had been illuminat-ing the mausoleum as a symbol of Pak-China friendship, he said.

He said due to environmen-tal pollution and corrosive atmosphere of Karachi, the chandelier had lost its shine with the passage of time and the gov-ernment of Pakistan decided to change it. For this purpose, he

said a request was made to the Chinese government to assign some experts for this job but the Chinese government decided to do it on its own as a goodwill gesture.

The president thanked the Chinese leadership, especially Ambassador Sun Weidong for chandelier.

Adviser Irfan in his message said the bond between Pakistan and China is unbreakable. He

said the friendship that the two countries have forged is beyond the spheres of defence, security, economy, trade, communication and nuclear power.

Pakistan and China turned a new leaf when their friendship became more about cultural tra-ditions, he said. Irfan said he believed that the chandelier at the tomb would continue shed-ding light on great bond between the two countries.

Chinese chandelier symbol of strong bond: President

Islamabad

Internews

The legal cover given to mil-itary courts in Pakistan to try civilian terrorism sus-

pects will expire on January 7.The legal cover was given

under the 21st Constitution Amendment Bill and the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill 2015 having a two-year sunset clause on January 6 last year which was

subsequently accorded an assent by the president.

Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani at the outset of the pro-ceedings of the house yesterday invited the attention of the gov-ernment towards the expiry of the 21st amendment on January 7. He observed that action was needed to avoid a legal vacuum. He said the Senate had already passed the anti-terrorism bill and the wit-ness protection bill to fill the gap.

The two bills piloted by the leader of the house and the leader of the opposition have already been sent to the National Assembly.

He said the Senate had ful-filled its responsibility and it was now for the National Assembly to pass the bills. Leader of the House Raja Mohammad Zafarul-Haq was not present when the remarks were made and the chairman repeated his words when Haq arrived later. “This bill

is about military courts trying hardcore terrorists who kill Paki-stanis this is an important day for Pakistan when the nation decided that terrorists will be taken out from the roots,”

Prime Minister had told the joint session of parliament at the passage of the laws to constitu-tionally protect the military courts for the trial of civilians sus-pected of terrorism in January 2015. The preambles to both bills

were largely identical. They said extraordinary situation and cir-cumstances demanded “special measures for speedy trial of cer-tain offences relating to terrorism, waging of war or insurrection against Pakistan” and the preven-tion of acts threatening the country’s security by “any terror-ist or terrorist group using the name of religion or a sect and members of such armed groups, wings and militias.”

798 terrorists arrested in two years

Legal cover given to military courts to expire on January 7

Call him crazy or controversial, or any of the scores of derogatory epithets routinely being deployed, but the fact is that president-elect Donald Trump has already proved his ability,

or recklessness, to disrupt anything built and protected by past US presidents over decades. The assumption that Trump might grow up after winning the election was largely misplaced. There’s been precious little evidence so far of a statesmanlike attitude. And the repercussions are being felt worldwide. The Chinese navy on Thursday seized an American underwater drone in the South China Sea, an aggressive act by Beijing which has been attributed to Trump’s provocations over the ‘One China’ policy. It seems the Middle East too will not be free of the policy somersaults of Trump. The region is watching with dismay and fear his selection of a pro-Israel hard-liner, David Friedman, as ambassador to Israel. Even liberal Jewish-American groups have raised objections over Friedman’s previously stated positions, including support for Jewish settlement building and advocacy of Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Worse, the Trump

team is going ahead with its plan to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an extremely sensitive issue which previous US presidents have stayed away from.

Israel has killed the peace process and is going ahead as if Palestinians don’t exist, while the world chooses to watch from a distance. President Benjamin Netanyahu has received broad US support

in his flagrant violations of international laws - like the illegal settlement construction - despite some oral condemnations from US officials. But Washington has been able to take an independent stance on some core areas of dispute between the two sides, like the status of Jerusalem. It’s this convention and policy which Trump is seeking to rip apart. The consequences will be huge for the region and the US. The new policy risks provoking Palestinians into unprecedented actions and the US will forfeit its right to act as an independent negotiator and policeman and will be seen as an aggressor siding with the enemy.

Trump’s policies also threaten to stymie peace efforts by other parties because no Middle East peace initiative can start without US support. France yesterday postponed a proposed peace conference in Paris to January next year, saying that the conditions to bring Israelis and Palestinians face-to-face were currently not there. It’s worth noting that Paris has made sincere efforts to restart the peace talks. It held a preliminary conference in June where the United Nations, the European Union, the US and major Arab countries gathered to discuss proposals without the Israelis or Palestinians present.

08 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016VIEWS

E S T A B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

msalim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORHUSSAIN AHMAD

hussain@pen.com.qa

Provocative move

QUOTE OF THE DAY

For the sake of civilian protection everywhere,Syria’s conflict must be ended, now, and without delay. Civilians should not be hostage to negotiations.

Filippo GrandiUN HighCommissioner for Refugees

Trump risks inflaming tensions in the Middle East if he moves the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump’s cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older,

white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation.

Trump, who says Washington is “broken” and controlled by special interests, has largely eschewed technocrats with long government experience. Instead, he has built a team of bosses.

Trump’s roster of agency heads and advis-ers conspicuously lacks intellectuals, lawyers, and academics of the sort sought by some past presidents. In their place are titans of business and finance from the likes of Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs and no fewer than three retired generals in key positions.

Many of them are people used to getting their way but will now have a boss to answer to - Trump - while navigating the sometimes frustrating and sprawling bureaucracy of the US government. The incoming Trump admin-istration is poised to undo as much of President Barack Obama’s accomplishments as possible, while also attempting to advance a conservative policy agenda in areas such as taxes and healthcare.

A former senior US official who knows Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil CEO who is Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, and Marine General James Mattis, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, predicted a massive clash of egos in the cabinet.

Tillerson and Mattis are “accustomed to dominating whatever space they find them-selves in, and that probably will now include the Situation Room and even the Oval Office.”

Trump’s transition team has said the cabi-net is intended to be a mix of experienced Washington hands and newcomers. But former presidents who brought in outside blood have at times seen political neophytes make costly errors, experts said.

Of the 21 cabinet members and White House advisers chosen to date by Trump, 16 are white men. There are four women, none of whom hold what might be considered a top-tier agency post. There is one African-American, one Asian-American and one Indian-American. There are no Hispanics.

Like the real-estate magnate who chose them, several have no government experi-ence. Others have been hostile toward the agencies they will lead if the US Senate con-firms them early next year.

Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, said Trump is building a cabinet in his own image: blunt-talkers with real-world experience.

“Surrounding yourself with military guys and money guys sends a certain message,” Zelizer said. “A certain kind of cutthroat aggressive dealmaker is how imagines him-self to be.”

Obama, who leaves office in January,

Trump builds team of bosses to shake up Washington

relied on experienced hands to form his cabinet in 2008. He named his rival for the Democratic presi-dential nomination, Hillary Clinton, as his secretary of state. Robert Gates, who

served the previous administration, remained at the Pentagon, and Obama made longtime Justice Department offi-cial Eric Holder attorney general.

Some of Trump’s picks do have simi-lar experience, and he has packed his on-the-ground transition teams at vari-ous agencies with government veterans and ex-lobbyists, a Reuters review found earlier this month.

The newcomers to Washington will rise to the administrative challenge, said those who know them.

Republican Representative Tom Price, Trump’s choice to lead the Depart-ment of Health and Human Services, is “decisive by nature,” said fellow Repub-lican lawmaker Tom Cole. He credited Price’s career as a surgeon, which is also the former profession of Ben Carson, Trump’s choice for secretary of housing and urban development.

Carson, said Henry Brem, a neuro-surgeon who worked with Carson at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, has a “cool head” and is unafraid to give strong opinions. “He’s a gentleman, he speaks his mind, he has great ideas - and nobody in the world intimidates him.”

Rick Perry, Trump’s choice for energy secretary, served three terms as governor of Texas and had to “balance a very conservative and increasingly ideo-logical grassroots (support base) with a very influential business community,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

“Whether he can do that do that in a bureaucratic setting, in an environment as competitive as a cabinet with a lot of obviously large egos, I think is another question,” Henson said.

Several of Trump’s picks have never

held any sort of government post and have little, if any, background in policy-making, including Tillerson, Treasury nominee Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs alumnus, Commerce pick Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor, and Gary Cohn, the Goldman Sachs executive who would chair Trump’s economic council.

In 2008, Mnuchin purchased Indy-Mac, a lender that failed during the financial crisis and helped transform it into OneWest, now a thriving retail bank in southern California.

Kevin Kelly, a managing partner at Recon Capital Partners, an investment firm in Stamford, Connecticut, said that kind of real-world savvy could make government more effective.

Those with high-level corporate experience are used to having to please shareholders, board members, employ-ees, and the community, Kelly said. “It takes a very precise and dedicated per-son to deliver across those constituencies.”

The outsider approach hasn’t always worked. In 2001, President George W Bush’s treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, the former chief executive of aluminum producer Alcoa Inc, rattled markets with a series of careless remarks that seemed to herald economic policy shifts that dif-fered with the White House’s stance. He ultimately was fired.

“Management of large, public agen-cies is really difficult and requires bringing in experienced and knowledge-able people and working in ways that doesn’t alienate people,” said Thomas Mann, an expert on governance at the Brookings Institution.

Anthony Scaramucci, an adviser to the Trump transition, has acknowledged that too much inexperience could be harmful to Trump’s young administration.

“Washington is a very healthy immu-nological system,” he said. “You’ll see a full-blown organ rejection if you put too many status-quo disruptors in Washington.”

ED ITOR IAL

US President-elect Donald Trump takes the stage with Vice President-elect Mike Pence during a rally in Orlando, Florida, on Friday night.

James Oliphant & Emily StephensonReuters

than 50 years is an important question for a region long used to authoritarian rulers and sporadic coups. A top United Nations official said this week that Jammeh would face strong sanctions if he tried to cling to power beyond the end of his elected term next month. Following the five-hour bar association meeting, dozens of lawyers stood on the tiled steps of the resort’s meeting room at dusk and accused Jammeh of “treason” for refusing to step down.

Just a few onlookers were present, but the state-ment prompted an unprecedented cascade of similar denunciations. The next day, the Gambia Teachers Union called Jammeh’s refusal to leave office a “recipe for chaos and disorder which undoubtedly endangers the lives of all Gambians.”

Many Syrian refugees trapped in perpetual exile

They fled Aleppo from different districts and at different stages of Syria’s civil war, seek-ing refuge abroad. Now, for refugees who supported the opposition, President Bashar Al Assad’s victory has dashed hopes of ever

going home.Even as the uprising in Aleppo and cities across

Syria descended into conflict, several former resi-dents interviewed by Reuters said they had hoped there could still be change, a negotiated settlement and a chance to return.

But as Assad reasserts control after the army and its allies routed rebels in Aleppo, these Syrians living in exile fear that a new crackdown that will include arrests and executions, and be worse than anything witnessed pre-war.

“If I go back, I’ll be executed,” said Abdulhamid Zughbi, a 30-year-old who fled besieged eastern rebel-held Aleppo earlier this year for Turkey, seek-ing medical treatment for his wife and infant son.

“I can’t even think about returning as long as the Assad regime is still in power. It’s impossible for any-one from the opposition,” he said.

Nearly 5 million Syrians have fled the country in a conflict that has killed more than 300,000 people and pitted multiple warring sides against each other, including jihadists who have come to dominate the insurgency in many areas.

The permanent displacement of millions of Syri-ans is one way in which its war and others in the region are causing irreversible changes. Most refu-gees are in neighbouring countries including Turkey and Lebanon, and hundreds of thousands have gone to Europe. Some will see Assad’s win in Aleppo and other gains he has made with Russian and Iranian support as a chance to return and rebuild their lives - but not those involved in dissent when protests began in 2011.

Zughbi took part, then worked for years in medi-cal aid and rescue in rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

“My wife was lightly wounded in shelling and my son was ill.

I thought I’d take them to Turkey and come back.“That day, they closed the road, and I couldn’t

return,” he said, referring to when government forces sealed off the rebel-held part of the city in August.

They besieged it for months and then made a lightning advance to drive insurgents out of most of their areas they held in a matter of weeks.

As residents have poured out of rebel districts, including into areas under government control, the army has begun making arrests, Zughbi said.

“The arrests have just begun. They detain the more prominent people (activists) on the spot ... but for others - now they (the government) have the time, they’ll investigate and then arrest them at a later stage.

“A friend of mine went to a government-held area and three days later they detained him.”

The United Nations voiced deep concern about reports of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in east Aleppo districts this week - accusations denied by the army and the Iraqi militia in question. Assad’s opponents accused the government of mass arrests and forced conscription. A Syrian military source denied arrests but said identities of people leaving rebel-held areas were being checked and anyone who was unknown was being put into “specific places” in areas where civilians were gathered. The army says Syrians eligi-ble for military service must serve.

For Abu Rakan, a 51-year-old refugee living in Lebanon, the death of his brother in law, a rebel fighter, and disappearance just days ago of his sister have underscored the danger for anyone linked to the opposition.

“If we go back, it’ll be more dangerous than before. Anyone with the opposition is in danger.

“We’ve lived with this regime for 40 years. We know how it behaves, what it does,” he said, refer-ring also to Assad’s father and former president

Hafez Al Assad, who crushed leftist and Islamist chal-lenges to his rule.

Abu Rakan said he would only return to Syria under a “full national reconciliation”, and if there were a freely elected government in place and a new constitution - all of which look more than distant than ever. Hala, an activist who left government-controlled Aleppo in 2014, said she would not trust any settlement between the government and opposi-tion - Assad had to go.

“There’s no way I can go back while the Assad regime is there,” said the 37-year-old, who now lives in Beirut and works for a Syrian citizenship organisation.

“Even if there was a kind of reconciliation, we wouldn’t be able to live there. The oppression that existed before the revolution will multiply.

“When the revolution began we were able to express our views and to live more freely. Even if we weren’t arrested, we can’t go back, knowing it will be just like it was,” she said.

Hala, Abu Rakan and Zughbi want to go home.Even for them, who are among the better off refu-

gees, life in exile is beginning to become unbearable.“There’s no future for me in Lebanon. I work ille-

gally because it’s difficult to get residency, and I can’t get medical insurance because I’m not UN-regis-tered,” Hala said.

She decided not to travel onto Europe before EU countries tightened their borders because she still hoped to make it back to Syria at that stage. Many Syrian refugees live illegally in Lebanon because they cannot afford the renew their residency. Seventy per-cent live below the poverty line, the UN says.

In Turkey, Zughbi is preparing for a lifetime of

09SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 OPINION

Lawyers, trade unions, teachers and journalists have joined a growing chorus of demands for Gambian President Yahya Jam-meh to accept his defeat in a

December 1 election, as people lose their fear of the man who has ruled them for the past 22 years. As lawyers prepared to attend a meeting of the Gambian Bar Asso-ciation on Monday, the intelligence service rang them with threats and monitored the ritzy Coco Ocean Hotel where they gath-ered, said the association’s Secretary General Aziz Bensouda.

But since the shock opposition victory that brought Gambians out on the streets of the capital Banjul in boisterous celebra-tion, the familiar menacing tactics have lost their usual effectiveness.

“The intimidation did not work,” said Bensouda. “At the end, no one feared anything.”

After first conceding defeat to little-known challenger Adama Barrow, Jammeh last week rejected the voting results and his party is challenging them at Gambia’s Supreme Court. Whether the small West African country can achieve its first peaceful transition of power in more

Gambian President Jammeh’s isolation grows

Syrians walking in the old market in the old city of the northern embattled city of Aleppo yesterday.

On Wednesday, the Gambian press union, one of the most harshly persecuted groups under Jammeh, said he must back down. “The defeat was conceded. There is, therefore, no turning back,” it said. Transport and medical unions and the Chamber of Commerce echoed that call in statements on Thursday. The public demands have left Jammeh, who took power in a 1994 coup and once vowed to rule for “a billion years”, looking isolated both internationally and domestically in the country of 1.8 million.

Gambians are now openly speaking out against him in places they didn’t dare before - in taxis, markets and on the phones and computers they used to worry were tapped.

“The illusion of Jammeh as Gambia’s all-seeing and all-knowing overlord has been shattered for ever. The fear among Gambians is gone,” said Jeffrey Smith from campaign group Vanguard Africa. The lawyers who first spoke out against Jammeh had pent-up frustrations to voice. Their jobs had long been a struggle. Gaining access to detained clients was often impossible in the face of recalcitrant security offi-cials. Many received death threats for representing Jammeh’s political opponents. With Gambians too fearful to serve on the Supreme Court and the High Court, lawyers and judges have had to be brought in from abroad to fill key positions.

So when the association brought forward this week’s meeting to discuss the president’s defiance, its attendance ballooned from the usual couple of dozen members to nearly 100. As they scoured the constitution for legal arguments against Jammeh, the tense atmosphere was suddenly broken.

“A senior lawyer said, ‘Let’s just call it what it is. It is trea-son.’ The room exploded in applause,” said Bensouda, who was present. The lawyers voted to approve that wording, then celebrated with a meal of butter-fried shrimp and beef brochettes. Many hugged and laughed.

“We have compromised ourselves for too long and have not stood up because of fear,” said Bensouda. “When Jammeh lost the election, it solidified everyone.”

Whether the small West African country can achieve its first peaceful transition of power in more than 50 years is an important question for a region long used to authoritarian rulers and sporadic coups. A top United Nations official said this week that Jammeh would face strong sanctions if he tried to cling to power beyond the end of his elected term next month.

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exile, but says conditions are not much better, as he struggles to make a living still as a medical aid worker. “My ambition now is to get out of Turkey, maybe try to go to Europe, or America. That’s my only choice.”

The permanent displacement of millions of Syrians is one way in which its war and others in the region are causing irreversible changes. Most refugees are in neighbouring countries including Turkey and Lebanon, and hundreds of thousands have gone to Europe.

Edward McAllisterReuters

John DavisonReuters

10 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016INDIA

3 soldiers dead in Kashmir militant attackSrinagar

Agencies

Militants attacked an army convoy in south Kash-mir's Pulwana district yester-

day, killing three soldiers, a defence spokesman said, in the latest in an uptick of violence in the region at the heart of ten-sions with rival Pakistan.

According to security offi-cials, militants fired incessantly at the vehicles carrying army men near the Kadlabal area of Pampore.

"Motorcycle-borne mili-tants ambushed an army convoy. There have been cas-ualties but details are being ascertained," K Rajendra Kumar, police chief of the Kashmir region said.

The militants then fled from the spot, but a massive search operation was underway. It was the second attack in Pampore this year.

Last month, militants stormed an army base near Jammu, killing seven soldiers.

"A bad year in terms of security force casualties just got worse," Omar Abdullah, the leader of the main opposition group in Jammu and Kashmir, said in a Twitter post following the latest attack.

Army convoys have been attacked several times along the stretch of the highway that con-nects Srinagar and Jammu and is used to carry supplies to the Srinagar-based 15 Corps that

acts as nerve centre to battle militancy in the valley.

Thousands of vehicles including army convoys pass daily through the crucial 300km Jammu-Srinagar high-way — the only road link to the Himalayan valley.

The attack comes just days after two militants were killed on in separate encounters with security forces in Anantnag and Baramulla districts.

This year, after years of decline, militant violence has increased in Kashmir, deepen-ing a chill in ties with Pakistan whom India blames for stoking and keeping the revolt alive by sending fighters and materiel across the de factor border.

Pakistan denies the allega-tion and says New Delhi must agree to talks to resolve the future of Kashmir.

Soldiers have launched a search operation to hunt the militants behind the attack, the defence spokesman said.

THE BJP yesterday said that Congress Vice-Pres-ident Rahul Gandhi's (pictured) promise at a rally on Friday to take action against corrupt party leaders within "two minutes", was the "joke of the day".

Gandhi vowed to act against the corrupt in his party at a public rally in South Goa. "He is speak-ing like a dictator? How can he deal with corrupt Congress leaders within two minutes? This was the best joke of the day," BJP spokesperson Damu Naik told a conference.

"In five years, we will give a shining Goa, and in Goa if there is even a bit of corruption, we will take cent percent strict action in two minutes," Gandhi told a public rally in Margao town, located some 40km from the state capital.

Naik also said that the rally of one of the top Congress leaders attracted only about 10,000 to 12,000 people, while the BJP rallies held in each assembly constit-uency attract that much audience.

'Action against corrupt in 2 minutes' a joke: BJP on Rahul

People watch as the body of an elephant is lifted by an excavator for its burial after it was hit by a train engine while crossing a railway track at Kampur village in Nagaon district in the northeastern state of Assam yesterday.

Elephant hit by train

Increasing attacks

Militants fired incessantly at the vehicles carrying army men near the Kadlabal area of Pampore.

Militants then fled from the spot, but a massive search operation was underway.

India & Tajikistan discuss anti-terror fightNew Delhi IANS

India and Tajikistan yesterday discussed cooperation in the fight against terrorism and

working closely on developing trade and transport links through the Chabahar Port in Iran, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

In a joint address to the media after delegation-level talks headed by him and Tajik Presi-dent Emomali Rahmon here, Modi said: "India and Tajikistan live in an extended neighbour-hood that continues to face multiple security challenges and threats."

"The threat from terrorism endangers not just our two coun-tries, it casts a long shadow of violence and instability over the entire region," the Prime Minis-ter said without naming Pakistan, which India has charged with sponsoring terrorism.

"Combating terrorism has, therefore, been an important area of our cooperative engagement. We appreciate Tajikistan's role in the Central Asian region as a mainstay against forces of extremism, radicalism and ter-rorism. President Rahmon and I agreed today to strengthen action on this front based on mutually agreed priorities."

Modi said that this would be done on multiple levels — by reinforcing overall bilateral secu-rity cooperation, through greater training, capacity building and information exchange, and through active coordination in regional and multilateral contexts.

The two also agreed on the need to increase the scope and scale of the two nations' eco-nomic engagement, especially trade and investment traffic.

"In this context, hydel power, information technology, pharma-ceuticals and healthcare would be areas of priority action.

"We agreed that enhanced surface connectivity is crucial to realise the promise of our eco-nomic partnership for the benefit of our countries," said Modi, add-ing India supports initiatives to develop the existing port and transport infrastructure and con-necting it through road and rail network with Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Central Asia.

"In this respect, we will work to build trade and transit links through Chabahar port in Iran," he said.

Earlier this year, India, Iran and Afghanistan signed a trilat-eral agreement on developing the Chabahar port to boost connec-tivity between South and Central Asia. "India is also engaged in facilitating the International North South Transport Corridor with other members, including Tajikistan," Modi said.

"Our planned accession to the Ashgabat Agreement (a multi-modal transport agreement

between Oman, Iran, Turkmen-istan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Pakistan) will further help in linking us with Tajikistan and Central Asia.

President Rahmon said that the talks primarily focussed on boosting bilateral ties and major regional ties.

He also invited Indian busi-nessmen for small and medium hydel projects in his country.

India and Tajikistan signed four agreements related to coop-eration in the exchange of financial intelligence related to money laundering, related crimes and financing of terrorism; amending avoidance of double taxation pact and prevention of fiscal evasion; cooperation on broadcasting in exchange of audio-visual programmes; and on bilateral investment.

In a joint statement, India and Tajikistan resolved to strengthen bilateral counter ter-rorism cooperation and expand

security and defence ties."The two leaders agreed that

terrorism in all its forms and manifestations must be elimi-nated without any distinction between good and bad terrorists and called for an end to sponsor-ship, support and provision of safe havens and sanctuaries to terrorists," it said.

Both leaders reaffirmed their resolve to strengthen bilateral counter terrorism cooperation, expand security and defence ties and work for early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism by the UN General Assembly.

Stressing on the importance of an "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process and national reconciliation", both countries, as neighbours of Afghanistan, resolved work together to contribute to Afghan peace and prosperity. This is the sixth visit of President Rahmon to India.

President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon (centre) with President Pranab Mukherjee (left) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a ceremonial reception at The President's House in New Delhi yesterday.

Karunanidhi needs to be in hospital for some more days: DMKChennai

IANS

DMK President M Karuna-nidhi (pictured) will have to be in hospital for some

more days for treatment and party members, friends and oth-ers are requested not to visit the facility, the party has said.

The party also postponed its general council meeting that was slated to be held here on Decem-ber 20 owing to Karunanidhi's ill-health.

In a statement issued here the DMK party citing Kauvery Hospital's statement said Karu-nanidhi was stable.

According to the statement, Karunanidhi will have to be in the hospital for treatment for

some more days and hence party members, friends and others are requested not to visit Kauvery Hospital to see him in person.

Meanwhile DMK's General Secretary K Anbazhagan in a statement announced the post-ponement of party's general council meeting scheduled to be held here on December 20 under the chairmanship of Karunanidhi.

Karunanidhi, 92, was admit-ted to Kauvery Hospital on Thursday night due to breath-ing difficulty as well as throat and lung infection, said the hos-pi ta l . He underwent tracheotomy to optimise breath-ing on Friday.

"He is stable, on antibiotics and is being treated by a team

of doctors," the hospital said.Karunanidhi's second spell

of hospitalisation this month comes after a short interval.

It was on December 7 that

Karunanidhi was discharged from the hospital after being admitted on December 1.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi yesterday said that the DMK President would soon return home from hospital.

Gandhi flew down here in a special aircraft to visit Karuna-nidhi admitted in a hospital.

Speaking to reporters Gan-dhi said he met Karunanidhi and enquired about his health.

He also conveyed Congress President Sonia Gandhi's wishes to Karunanidhi for a speedy recovery. Gandhi was accom-panied by Tamil Nadu Congress Chief S Thirunavukarasar and other party leaders like E V K S Elangovan.

DMK Treasurer M K Stalin

was present when Gandhi met Karunanidhi.

Meanwhile, DMK cadres yesterday protested strongly against MDMK leader Vaiko when he came to Kauvery Hos-pital here to enquire about the health ofKarunanidhi, forcing him to leave.

Party workers shouted slo-gans against Vaiko when he came to the hospital in the evening. Some members also threw slippers at Vaiko's car.

Later in a statement, DMK Treasurer M K Stalin expressed regret for the incident.

He said the party has the strength to face criticism in a democratic manner and DMK members should not resort to such actions.

Yet to receive names for judges: PrasadNew Delhi IANS

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad yester-day said his ministry has

not yet received about 280 names from the high courts and seven names from the Supreme Court for the posts of judges which are to be filled.

"We can process only those names which come from the high courts and Supreme Court. SC has seven vacancies, we have still not received the names. Once the names come, we will process it.

"High courts have 430 vacancies. Out of these, we have not received names of about 280. Once it comes, we'll

expedite the process," said Prasad at the Ficci Annual Gen-eral Meeting.

Chief Justice of India T S Thakur and the government have been at loggerheads over the appointment of judges.

"About 5,000 posts in dif-ferent district courts all over the country are vacant. We have no role in this, nor the state gov-ernment. Only high courts and Public Service Commissions have a role in it. This is one of the challenges we have. But we are working together.

"But, our commitment is to work with the Supreme Court and we maintain that judiciary's independence must be respected we should continue to respect that," Prasad said.

11SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 INDIA

Govt to double operational airports to 150New Delhi IANS

The central government yesterday said that it is trying to double the

number of operational airports in the country from 75 to 150, under the ambitious regional connectivity scheme (RCS).

According to Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha (pictured), under RCS christened as UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik), the central government is working to expand the aviation map of India from 75 to 150 airports.

The minister elaborated that recently Kanpur and Bhat-inda airports became operational under the scheme.

Sinha was addressing the 89th Annual General Meeting of Federation of Indian Cham-bers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

The minister informed that the government also plans to augment airport capacity by expanding existing terminals, building new ones and devel-

oping greenfield airports. Sinha pointed out that

Rs2.5-3 lakh crore investment is required for airports exclud-ing the land acquisition cost.

He added that the govern-ment is developing a regulatory framework for the aviation sec-tor to make it 'asset class' attractive.

When asked about the per-formance of national passenger carrier Air India, the minister said that all operating factors are looking positive. However, a clear strategy is to be defined to make the airline financially robust.

RBI infuses Rs5.5lakh-crore notes since Nov 8New Delhi IANS

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has supplied as much as Rs5.50lakh-crore in fresh currency notes to the banking

system so far after the govern-ment announced spiking 500 and 1,000 rupee notes on November 8, a top Finance Ministry official said. In an interview with state broadcaster DD News aired yes-terday, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said the situation of liquidity has

largely improved in the country in the last five weeks.

"It has been five weeks since Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement on November 8. Old currency notes of Rs500 and Rs1,000 started returning to banks and banking system from November 10.

"So far, nearly Rs5.50lakh-crore currency has been infused fresh in the market. These are the latest figures," Das said.

Citing RBI figures, the official said that "45-50 percent notes in value terms (of the spiked cur-rency) has been supplied in the

market".However, the total amount of

the spiked high value denomina-tion notes of Rs500 and Rs1,000 in circulation on November 8 was 15.44lakh-crore, according to Finance Ministry figures given to the Rajya Sabha in response to a question. If the Rs5.5lakh-crore figure is counted, it means only 35.6 percent of the spiked cur-rency has been supplied so far.

Das said the government expected "that by December 31, we should be able to supply 6lakh-crore to 6.5lakh-crore in currency value in the market"

which he emphasised meant that "over 50 percent of currency will be in circulation (again) by the year end. "It is the effort of the RBI and the government to infuse currency as soon as possible in the markets. We are trying our best to infuse (adequate) fresh currency notes."

He said the government and the RBI, initially, gave "more importance" to printing Rs2,000 currency notes to meet the pace of currency demand. "But then we observed that people were not spending Rs2,000 notes. It was not coming into the circulation.

We then decided to increase the production of Rs500 notes," he said. Das said 80-90 percent of the production capacity of print-ing presses was "being dedicated to the printing of Rs500 notes so that more 500 rupee notes come into the market in the next two-three weeks."

He said the RBI has also sup-plied new 12,000 crore pieces of lower denomination notes of Rs10, Rs20, Rs50 and Rs100. "This is three times more than what is being supplied a year normally. This has been supplied in the last 30-35 days."

Currency crisis

The total amount of the spiked high value denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in circulation was 15.44lakh-crore.

RBI has also supplied new 12,000crore pieces of lower denomination notes of Rs10, Rs20, Rs50 and Rs100.

People sift through the remains of their houses gutted by a fire in a slum area in the wee hours in Kolkata yesterday.

Fire in Kolkata Sharma hits out at Modi for insulting Indira Gandhi

SENIOR Congress leader Anand Sharma, taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making a comment on former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, asked him to to stop "insulting" former heads of government.

He also noted that "she would not have said anything to her ministers in presence of any other person".

"Stop insulting former Prime Ministers. Change the narrative and mindset. From Jawaharlal Nehru to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh to Indira Gandhi, it is a long list.

"When you insult them, you do not insult Indira and Nehru, you also insult Lal Bahadur Shastri and Morarji Desai who demonetised high-value currency in 1978," said Sharma at the 89th AGM of industry chamber Ficci.

Modi on Friday said that demonetisation should have been done in 1971 when Indira Gandhi was heading the government, referring to former bureaucrat Madhav Godbole's book in which he has recorded how then Finance Minister Y.B. Chavan had recommended demone-tisation to curb ill-gotten and hidden wealth.

He had said Gandhi turned down the proposal, telling Chavan whether he expected the Congress to never contest another elec-tion. "In 1971, more than 45 years back, I was 17 years, Modjiji was 19 or 20 years of age. It is interesting to know that he had this knowledge what Indira Gandhi had said during that time.

Chandy faction sore over revampThiruvananthapuram

IANS

The Oommen Chandy fac-tion of the Congress party's Kerala unit yes-

terday expressed i ts unhappiness over the way the party high command has been

handling the affairs of the state unit.

Party's Kerala unit Vice-President and former state minister M M Hassan, speak-ing to reporters yesterday, pointed out that the manner in which the high command went about naming the 14 district

party chiefs last week was not in keeping with the normal practice.

"When the list came out, it became very clear that one fac-tion had been given the upper hand and this has been brought to the notice of the high com-mand also," said Hassan.

Political parties' tax books can be scrutinised: FMMumbai/New Delhi IANS

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (pictured) yesterday said that no

change has been made in tax laws to bar income tax returns of registered political parties being scrutinised with regard to deposit of demonetised currency notes and the law is fully equipped to inspect their accounts.

"In the last two and a half

years that the government has been in power, the legal and tax-ation regime with regard to political parties remains abso-lutely same to what it existed for the last 15-20 years. There is not a single change that has been brought about, nor is there any change that is contemplated," Jaitley said in Mumbai.

"Under the current system, if any political party allows itself to be misused for conversion of black money into white, then there are already sufficient

provisions in the law to take action against the political party and the individual.

"Therefore law is fully equipped, and I am cautioning anyone who misuses these pro-visions that strong action will be taken against them," he said.

His comments came in wake of some news reports that income tax returns of political parties registered with Election Commission cannot be scruti-nised with regard to deposit of demonetised currency notes.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia also decried reports on the alleged privilege to political par-ties, saying that they were false and misleading.

"Post demonetisation, no political party can accept dona-tions in Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes since they were rendered illegal tender. If there is any discrep-ancy, political parties are as liable to be questioned by IT authorities as is anyone else. They enjoy no immunity," Adhia said in a tweet.

"Political parties have not been granted any exemption or privilege, post demonetisation

and introduction of Taxation Amendment Act, 2016," Adhia added in another tweet.

New heads for Army & Air Force announcedNew Delhi IANS

Lt General Bipin Rawat will be the new Army Chief and Air Marshal B S Dhanoa will be the new chief of

Indian Air Force, Defence Ministry said yesterday. Lt General Rawat and Air Mar-shal Dhanoa, presently the Vice-Chiefs of their respective services, will take over on December 31, when incumbents Gen-eral Dalbir Singh and Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha demit office on retirement from service.

The appointment of Rawat has ignored the principle of seniority as East-ern Army Commander, Lt General Praveen Bakshi and Southern Army Com-mander, Lt General P M Hariz had spent longer in service. Bakshi was also not appointed Vice-Chief when the post fell vacant in September and Rawat brought

in from the Southern Command. However, this was not the first time

the seniority principle has been given the go-by by the government.

In 1972, the Indira Gandhi government had side-stepped Lt General P S Bhagat, who was next in seniority to then army chief General Sam Manekshaw, who later became a Field Marshal, by giving his jun-ior, Lt General G G Bewoor a year's extension. Bhagat retired in this period and Bewoor then succeeded Manekshaw. In 1983, again under Indira Gandhi, Lt General S K Sinha who most senior was superseded when General K V Krishna Rao demitted office and General A S Vai-dya appointed the chief. On Friday, asked if the line of succession will be broken, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had cryptically said: "Line of succession is decided by the people." Lt General Rawat was commissioned in the Fifth Battalion

of the Eleven Gorkha Rifles in December 1978, from IMA, Dehradun, where he was awarded the 'Sword of Honour'.

He has commanded an infantry bat-talion along the Line of Actual Control, a Rashtriya Rifles Sector and an infantry division in the Kashmir Valley, and has vast experience in high altitude warfare and counter insurgency operations.

Commissioned into the IAF's fighter stream in June 1978, Dhanoa, who has flown various types of fighter aircraft and is a qualified Flying Instructor, com-manded a fighter squadron during the Kargil Operations and flew numerous night strike missions in the mountainous terrain. He has also held a number of important operational appointments including commanding a fighter base and leading the Indian Military Training Team in Bhutan. He has also served as Chief Instructor (Air) at the Defence Services

Staff College, Wellington, Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Intelligence) and Senior Air Staff Officer (chief of staff) of two opera-tional commands.

SENIOR IPS officer Rajiv Jain will be the next chief of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), while Anil Dhasmana will be the next head of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Dhasmana and Jain will succeed Rajinder Khanna and Dineshwar Sharma. Jain, a 1980-batch IPS officer was serving as Special Director in the IB, while Dhasmana, a 1981-batch IPS officer was Special Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat.

IB & RAW get new chiefs

12 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016EUROPE

Jail drama

Prisoners took over of at least two wings of HMP Birmingham jail, authorities said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (left) receives the Lampara peace prize from the Keeper of the Sacred Convent, Father Mauro Gambetti, in Assisi, Rome, yesterday.

Another honour

Birmingham, England

Reuters

Prison officers regained control of inmates at a prison in Birmingham, England after rioting broke out among

some 300 prisoners.A ministry of Justice spokes-

woman said officers have control of all four wings of the jail.

Prisoners took over of at least two wings of HMP Birming-ham jail, authorities said, in the latest and most serious distur-bance at a British prison this year.

The trouble erupted at the prison in central England, which can hold 1,450 male prisoners, forcing staff to withdraw, according to G4S, the private firm that runs the jail.

“Our teams withdrew fol-lowing a disturbance and sealed two wings, which include some administrative offices,” said Jerry Pethericka, Managing Director for G4S custodial and detention services. “The disturbance has since spread to two further

wings. All staff have been accounted for.”

The Prison Officers’ Associ-ation (POA), which represents jail staff, said the incident involved about 300 inmates.

“It’s understood a set of keys giving access to residential areas was taken from an officer and that offenders have since occu-pied some blocks and exercise facilities,” West Midlands Police said in statement.

G4S said extra officers had been sent to the jail near Bir-mingham city centre which was built in 1849. Specialist riot con-trol officers and dog units had also been deployed to attempt to regain control.

The company said due to the severity of the incident, the Prison Service had taken charge

of the operation.“The situation is contained,

the perimeter is secure and there is no risk to the public,” the Min-istry of Justice said in a statement. “We are absolutely

clear that prisoners who behave in this way will be punished and could spend significantly longer behind bars,”

There have been several serious incidents in jails this year

including an alleged murder, and last month prisoners took over parts of Bedford prison in cen-tral England before police and extra prison officers were drafted in to restore control.

Berlin

Reuters

GERMANY’S lower house of parliament, countering increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, declared German culture is defined by freedom and humanity and said more should be done to integrate an influx of migrants.

Many Germans see inte-grating the migrants as the country’s biggest challenge.

Parliament’s “Culture Builds Bridges” declaration comes amid a rise in support for the anti-immigrant Alter-native for Germany (AfD) party, which is expected to gain seats in the Bundestag (lower house) in next year’s federal election.

The declaration described Germany as a “European cul-tural nation” shaped by values of enlightenment, freedom and humanity, and said the consti-tution, which states human dignity is inviolable, defined modern German culture.

The proposal was brought by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc in parlia-ment and Social Democrats (SPD), their junior partner in ruling coalition, which have lost support to AfD as hostility against migrants has risen.

“We want to preserve our country’s rich cultural herit-age, which is characterised by diversity of its citizens, states and regions as well as by its lively art and cultural scene,” the declaration said.

It said German culture encompassed seeing different lifestyles, values, religions and world views as enriching.

“That’s opposite of a cul-ture of isolation and intolerance like that being propagated by right-wing pop-ulist movements,” it said. The Bundestag said even migrants who only stay in Germany for a short time should be encour-aged to learn the language and take part in German cultural life and media.

The Hague

AFP

The Dutch government approved a draft law needed to ratify the EU’s

historic pact with Ukraine after reaching a compromise with Brussels following a referendum in which Dutch voters rejected the deal.

“The Dutch cabinet... finds it is necessary to ratify this accord,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said of the draft law, which still needs approval from parlia-ment before the Netherlands can sign up to the deal with Kiev.

“Cabinet will (now) table the law as soon as possible,” the Dutch cabinet added in a statement.

The EU previously agreed the cooperation pact and an associated free trade agree-ment with Ukraine in 2014 after pro-EU protestors ousted Russia-leaning president

Viktor Yanukovych who fled to Moscow.

But Dutch voters opposed the deal on the grounds it opened the door to Ukraine’s membership of bloc and amounted to a defence guaran-tee for a country already embroiled in bloody conflict with Russia.

EU leaders at its summit, gave Rutte special pledges lim-iting defence commitments to Ukraine, and saying the accord does not entail future member-ship for Kiev.

The Netherlands is now set to become the final EU nation to ratify the agreement.

Rutte had warned that a col-lapse of the deal would have been “biggest ever present” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The law will now be sent to the Dutch government’s high-est advisory body, the State Council, for an opinion, before

being tabled for parliamentary approval.

It is likely to be approved by the lower house and will be then sent to the upper house.

“There is however still a big question mark” whether the law will pass in the Senate, a Hague-based political source said.

Rutte’s coalition government does not have a majority in the 75-seat upper house, the final hurdle before the law can be approved.

Even Rutte admitted that he was not sure whether the law would be confirmed before crunch parliamentary polls, set to be held on March 15 next year.

But the premier was upbeat, saying he believed “there’s a big chance that majorities will be reached in both houses of parliament.”

Rutte “still has a long polit-ical road” ahead over the Ukraine deal, Dutch public

newscaster NOS said.“It will probably take until

after parliamentary polls before there will be clarity whether the upper house agrees with the deal,” it added.

Rutte has been walking a political tightrope since the non-binding plebiscite organised by Dutch eurosceptic groups in which—despite a low turnout -- 60 percent of those who voted rejected the accord with Kiev.

Rutte yesterday again caught heavy flack from some opposi-tion politicians including from anti-Islam Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders, who opposes the pact and called on the embat-tled premier “to step down”.

The referendum’s organisers also criticised compromise deal. “It’s merely a solution for Rutte’s failure: 61 percent of voters do not want a compromise—they said ‘No’,” referendum organiser Jan Roos said.

London

AFP

A 101-YEAR-OLD British man was facing jail after he was convicted of a string of historic abuse offences against children.

Former lorry driver Ralph Clarke showed no emotion as he was found guilty of 21 abuse offences related to two girls and one boy between 1974 and 1983.

Prosecutor Claire Nicholls said Clarke had used “fear and intimidation” to control his victims.

“He took full advantage of their young age and the sit-uation in order to carry out his offences.

“For over 40 years Clarke thought that he had got away with his crimes. Due to the courage of the victims we were able to bring him to jus-tice,” she said.

Clarke, believed to be Britain’s oldest prison inmate, abused the children at his home, his garden shed and in his lorry, the court in Bir-mingham, , heard.

He admitted nine charges related to a boy during the trial and described the offences as “something that happened” in his past.

The jury took two days to reach its verdict. Britain has no statute of limitations regarding abuse and Judge Richard Bond said he was looking at a sentence for Clarke “in double figures”.

“The public would be hor-rified if I didn’t send him to prison,” Bond said, telling the court Clarke would be remanded in custody before he is sentenced tomorrow.

Barcelona

AP

Separatist leaders in Cata-lonia plan to seek Spanish government support for a

referendum on the region’s independence, but a lack of consent from Madrid will not stop them from staging the vote, the president of the regional government said.

Carles Puigdemont, Catalo-nia’s pro-independence leader, said he may seek to push forward his original plan to hold a bind-ing vote in September 2017.

“We would need to have everything ready, but it could be earlier, of course,” Puigde-mont said, when asked if his government would hasten the timetable to prevent the refer-endum from becoming mired in legal and political proceed-ings. “The welfare of Catalonia is only possible outside of Spain.”

Spain’s constitution doesn’t permit a referendum or the secession of a region. On Fri-day, Catalonia Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell appeared before a judge to be questioned about allowing the body’s lawmakers to debate a secession motion this year.

A thousand Catalan pro-independence supporters, including Puigdemont and hun-dreds of town mayors, turned

out Friday to support Forcadell. Waving pro-independence flags and chanting slogans, the crowd accompanied her from the local parliament to a nearby regional court.

Other officials, including a former president of the region, Artur Mas, have also been ques-tioned or are being called to testify for organising votes in and outside of parliament about Catalonia’s future within Spain.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy recently put his second-in-command of his newly-formed government, Soraya Saez de Santamaria, in charge of thawing relations with the Catalans, but both sides blame each other for the lack of formal negotiations.

Friday’s display of support for Forcadell was aimed, par-tially, at putting pressure on Madrid.

A leading figure in the inde-pendence movement, Forcadell is accused of disobeying Spain’s Constitutional Court by recently allowing the regional Parlia-ment to approve a resolution expressing its intent to press ahead with secession.

“I made clear that no court can stop the parliament from debating independence or any other issue that affects the peo-ple of this country,” she said after answering a judge’s ques-tions for half an hour.

Paris

AFP

A French anti-terrorist judge has charged three more men suspected of helping

to arm the Islamist radical who crushed 86 people to death with a truck in Nice.

The three, who were among 11 arrested in Nice and the west-ern city of Nantes, were

remanded into custody. The other eight have been released.

The three, aged 24, 31 and 36, were charged in relation to a terrorist plot.

The arrests come five months after Tunisian extrem-ist Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a 19-tonne truck into a crowd on the Nice seafront. .

The victims from 19 differ-ent countries were watching a

fireworks display on July 14, the Bastille Day public holiday. Over 400 people were injured.

Six people have already been charged so far over alleged links to the killer but investigators have yet to prove that any of them knew what he was planning.

The three men charged afresh are linked to varying degrees to these suspects.

The 31-year-old, born in

Tunisia, is suspected of being an intermediary between the Alba-nian couple and Arefa, said a source close to investigation. The 24-year-old, born in Albania and a cousin of Henaj, is suspected of being implicated in a trans-action over a Kalashnikov.

The Islamic State group moved quickly after the attack to claim Bouhlel as one of its followers.

UK restores order after prison uprising

Police officers in riot gear stand outside Winson Green prison, run by security firm G4S, after a serious disturbance broke out, in Birmingham.

Efforts needed to integrate migrants: German House

Dutch govt okays draft law to ratify Ukraine pact101-year-old British man guilty of child abuse attacks

Catalan leader to push for independence vote

3 more charged over Nice truck attack

13SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 EUROPE

People gather outside Syrian Embassy in Brussels yesterday to protest against Assad regime forces’ and its supporters’ attacks on civilians and the humanitarian plight in Aleppo.

Assad's actions draw criticism

A diver dressed as Santa Claus swims among fish at the Aquarium of Paris, France, yesterday.

Exploring marine world

Outrage

People protested against vote fraud and government's plans to impose new restrictions on media coverge of parliament.

Warsaw

AFP

Several thousand people protested yesterday outside the presidential palace in Warsaw over alleged vote fraud and

the rightwing government’s plans to impose new restrictions on media coverage of parliament.

The fresh demonstrations came after an unprecedented night of unrest that saw demon-strators blockade the exits of the parliament building and oppo-sition lawmakers take over its main chamber, with some pledg-ing to remain until next week.

Protesters yesterday waved Polish flags, blasted air horns and chanted “Stop the devastation of Poland” and “Liberty, equality, democracy” during a march toward parliament.

“I don’t want to see Poland turned upside down” by the rul-ing Law and Justice (PiS) party, a protester in her 60s, Malgor-zata Kramarz, told reporters.

Inside the parliament on Fri-day opposition lawmakers launched a protest, chanting “Democracy!” and “Free media!”.

The speaker of parliament had to interrupt the session and hours later transferred the pro-ceedings to another gallery so lawmakers could vote on the state budget for 2017.

The quorum for the vote was met, though the opposition slammed it as illegal.

The restrictions planned by the conservative party grant access to the parliament’s press gallery to only two journalists per outlet, and ban them from shoot-ing still pictures or video.

The limits prevent the media from recording images of law-makers when they break the rules, for example by voting for an absent colleague.

Amid the protests, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and PiS party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski only managed to leave the build-ing overnight by forcing their vehicles through the crowd under police protection.

The PiS has defended the measure, saying it seeks to ensure a comfortable work envi-ronment for both lawmakers and journalists.

“It’s definitely not meant to reduce transparency,” PiS law-maker Arkadiusz Mularczyk said previously.

Yesterday, the main opposi-tion parties announced they would seek an investigation into the budget vote, while dozens of lawmakers remained in the chambers and pledged to remain until next week.

European Union Council President Donald Tusk, com-menting on a standoff between

Poland’s opposition and the rul-ing party, called on the country’s authorities yesterday to respect the constitution.

Polish opposition leaders called for days of anti-govern-ment protests and pledged to keep blocking parliament’s main

hall after being accused of try-ing to seize power illegally by a government they say has vio-lated the constitution.

Berlin

Reuters

Top officials in Germany’s ruling coalition said they planned legislation to

crack down on “hate speech” and fake news on Facebook and other social media platforms, and impose stiff penalties if such messages were not quickly removed.

Politicians are worried about how hate speech and fake news could sway public opin-ion ahead of elections next year in which Merkel will be running for a fourth term and facing an increasingly popular far right.

“There has only been talk for too long. Now we in the coalition will take action at beginning of next year,” Volker Kauder, a sen-ior member of Chancellor Angela

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said in a statement.

Facebook Inc FB.O said it would take measures to pre-vent fake news spreading on its platform. Users would find it easier to flag fake articles as a hoax, and organisations would be deployed to check facts.

The statement suggested the ruling coalition was not altogether convinced by steps announced by Facebook.

Kauder said the legislation would require social media companies to set up offices that would respond to complaints from people affected by hate-ful messages within 24 hours.

“We plan to impose high penalties that would affect com-panies like Facebook if they do not meet their responsibilities,” Kauder said.

Paris

Reuters

FRANCE has postponed a proposed Middle East peace conference in Paris to Janu-ary next year, its ambassador to the United Nations said, acknowledging that the con-ditions to bring Israelis and Palestinians face-to-face were currently not there.

France has repeatedly tried to breathe new life into the peace process this year, holding a preliminary confer-ence in June where the UN, EU, US and major Arab coun-tries gathered to discuss proposals without the Israe-lis or Palestinians present.

The plan was to hold a follow-up conference before end of the year with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas involved to see whether the two sides could be brought back to negotiations and revive moribund peace talks.

Netanyahu had repeat-edly rejected conference proposal and with attendance from the US in doubt holding such a meeting appeared complicated.

“After nearly a year of efforts, France will hold during January an international confer-ence,” Ambassador Francois Delattre said yesterday.

London / Paris

Agencies

Britain announced the dis-covery of a highly contagious strain of bird

flu at a turkey farm, and sought to allay fears the outbreak could affect traditional Christmas meal.

The H5N8 strain of avian flu was detected at a farm near Louth, a town in northeast Eng-land, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural

Affairs (Defra) said. All of the more than 5,000 birds at the farm that have not died from dis-ease will be culled, Defra said.

The government also announced it was restricting the movement of animals and ani-mal products around the affected site.

Nigel Gibbens, the UK’s chief veterinary officer, said any risk to public health was “very low” and “does not pose a food safety risk for UK consumers”, chiefly

among Britons preparing for Christmas festivities which often include the traditional meal of roast turkey.

“There is not anticipated to be any impact on the supplies of turkeys or other birds over Christmas,” Defra said.

In a related incident, France detected H5N9 avian influenza among poultry in southwest of the country, an official report said, the third strain of bird flu to be confirmed this month in the

region known for its foie gras production. Two outbreaks of low pathogenic H5N9 bird flu were confirmed among poultry in Gers administrative department, France’s agriculture ministry said in a report posted online by World Organisation for Animal Health.

This led to slaughtering of 970 birds out of 1,870 at risk in the out-breaks, the report showed.

The Gers this month also saw the first case of H5N1 in France in the current wave of bird flu.

It is also one of several areas of southwestern France to be affected by the highly contagious H5N8 strain.

Twenty seven outbreaks of H5N8 bird flu have been con-firmed on farms in the southwest, the agriculture min-istry said in an update on its website on Friday.

The spread of the disease is a setback for French poultry pro-ducers recovering from an epidemic a year ago.

Paris

AFP

Tourists discovering Paris for the first time this week have had an unwelcome

introduction to France’s strike culture: a four-day stoppage at the Eiffel Tower has left thou-sands disappointed.

At the foot of the 1,063-feet Iron Lady, crowds milled around complaining about the lack of information and watching hope-fully for the lifts to spark into life.

“Brilliant. It’s the full French experience!” said 46-year-old computer pro-grammer Paul Freeman sarcastically after reading the sign announcing a fourth day of protests by the workers.

Amy Lee, 50, was puzzled,

even amused, at the sight of a few dozen workers gathered around signs denouncing the management in front of what is normally a busy ticket office.

“We’re from Singapore and for us this would be illegal,” the homemaker said as she snapped a picture on her phone. “This is something that’s interesting.”

At this time of year, 6,000 people per day ascend the famed iron tower, completed in 1889, but the Christmas rush starts this weekend when as many as 20,000 are expected daily.

Some members of the radi-cal left CGT and FO unions spearheading the action made their apologies to passing visi-tors, assuring them they had their best interests at heart.

“We have the feeling that the

new management doesn’t want to provide the resources needed to maintain the Eiffel Tower,” FO representative Hatim Ababous-sayr said. Three separate stoppages by 300-member workforce have disrupted activ-ities at the monument this year.

The stoppage is not about pay rises, job cuts or working conditions—common complaints by trade unions.

It is rooted in French work-place culture, which has a rich history of protest and often sees workers also take issue with stra-tegic management decisions.

France has by far most strike days among major European economies, according to data from European Trade Union Institute, with 149 days not worked per 1,000 employees in

2009-2015.French labour law, which

makes firing full-time workers extremely difficult, also places strict obligations on management to engage and communicate with union representatives.

“For several months, commu-nication has been going nowhere,” CGT representative Denis Vavas-sori told reporters, saying staff were anxious to know manage-ment’s plan for next year.

Among projects under con-sideration are a major paint-stripping and re-painting job to repair flaking areas of the tower. “When you look at it from the Champ de Mars (the surround-ing park), it’s a catastrophe,” says Vavassori, who says staff are wor-ried about lead contamination from the old paint.

Protests in Poland after parliament blockade

People block the exit from Polish Parliament during an anti-government demonstration in Warsaw, yesterday.

Hate speech: Germany plans tougher measures

France defers Middle East peace meet to January

Britain and France report bird flu cases

Eiffel Tower strike leaves tourists disappointed

14 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016AMERICAS

Unrest spreads

Protests were reported in Maracaibo in the west, in the eastern city of Maturin, and other cities of the country.

President Nicolas Maduro blamed opposition politicians for the unrest.

A man checks his car stuck in the mud which washed down Melcanyon Road in Duarte, California, in the foothills on the San Gabriel Mountains, as the biggest rain storm of the season hit the region, yesterday.

Stuck-up in rain storm

Caracas

AFP

Desperate Venezue-lans looted delivery trucks and clashed with police as a botched plan to

introduce new banknotes left people without cash—the latest shortage in the country.

Yesterday President Nicolas Maduro blamed opposition pol-iticians for the unrest, claiming that there were pictures and videos of some opposition mem-bers of the National Assembly involved in “attempts of vandal-ism and some acts of violence.”

He warned that “parliamen-tary immunity does not reach that far,” but did not give any names.

Maduro mentioned that riot-ers had torched two state banks in the town of Guasdalito, near the border with Colombia.

He blamed unnamed oppo-sition leaders who were also part of a “contraband mafia” for the incident, and warned that they “will be captured and put behind bars in the next hours.”

Faced with world-high inflation that has made its money increasingly worthless, the government is trying to

introduce new bills in denomi-nations up to 200 times higher than the old ones.

But the plan went off the rails when Maduro ordered the 100-bolivar note removed from circulation before the new bills arrived.

Angry protests erupted around the country as the cha-otic reform left people without money to buy food or Christmas presents.

In the second city of Marac-aibo in the west, groups of protesters hurled stones at police, reports said.

In the eastern city of Maturin, dozens of people blocked off a major avenue and

looting broke out.“I went by the market and it

was being guarded by the mili-tary. A chicken truck was looted,” Juan Carlos Leal, a farmer in Maturin, told reporters.

In the eastern city of Puerto la Cruz, “people rioted because they wanted to take out money and they weren’t allowed to,” said Genesis, a local baker.

“The police fired in the air to calm the riot. Everyone dis-persed and the police ordered all shops to be closed,” said Gen-esis, who asked not to be identified by her surname for fear of reprisals.

Protests were reported by users on Twitter in several Ven-ezuelan states.

Local media in the western city of Santa Barbara said four people were injured when the drivers of a security truck trans-porting money opened fire on people trying to break into it.

In the capital Caracas, thou-sands of Venezuelans from around the country queued to rid themselves of 100-bolivar notes at the only place still accepting them: the central bank.

Many were angry to learn they would only be allowed to deposit the old bills or obtain “special vouchers” for new ones.

“The world has turned upside down. Normally, there’s no food. Now there are no bills to buy it,” said Jesus Garcia, a 21-year-old food vendor who had been in line since 4:00 am.

Venezuela currently has the world’s highest inflation rate, set to hit 475 percent this year, according to an IMF forecast.

Maduro, whose popularity has plummeted, said the 100-bolivar note had to be killed because “mafias” were hoarding it abroad in what he called a US-backed plot to destabilise Venezuela.

In response, the leftist leader has sealed the borders with

Colombia and Brazil until today, exacerbating the chaos.

Angry crowds massed in the town of San Antonio at a bridge crossing on the Colombian bor-der, yelling “We want to cross!”

“We are suffering. We are hungry, we have no medicine, we have nothing. Nothing!” said one of the people in the crowd, Car-men Rodriguez.

“And now with this money problem, we can’t even buy food.”

The 100-bolivar note ceased to be legal tender on Thursday.

Initially, Venezuelans were to have 10 days after that to exchange them at the central bank.

Maduro subsequently slashed the grace period to five days.

Venezuelans had grown used to carrying around huge stacks of 100-bolivar bills for even the smallest purchases.

Now they are stuck trying to amass even bigger piles of 10-, 20- and 50-bolivar notes.

Some companies have stopped dealing in cash altogether.

The new banknotes were ini-tially to be launched Thursday, starting with a 500-bolivar bill and eventually reaching denom-inations up to 20,000.

But the bills, which are being printed abroad, have yet to arrive.

Bismarck, North Dakota

AP

Reopening a bridge near the main Dakota Access pipe-line protest encampment

is key to restoring better rela-tions between the state and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, according to North Dakota’s now-former governor and the tribal chairman, but the effort will take weeks if not months.

The bridge, unofficially called Backwater Bridge, has been closed since late October,

when protesters of $3.8bn pipe-line blocked the bridge with burning vehicles, damaging the structure. It’s also site of several clashes, including on November 20, when authorities used tear gas, rubber bullets and water sprays on protesters.

The state Transportation Department has said they can’t inspect the bridge until they know their workers will be safe, though pipeline opponents believe the closure is meant to block the north end of the fed-eral land, where hundreds of

protesters are camped out.Governor Jack Dalrymple

met with Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault, agreeing to enlist Bureau of Indian Affairs to help ensure the safety of inspectors so that the bridge can reopen.

Dalrymple said reopening the bridge “will be a strong sig-nal of cooperation to return area living conditions to a more nor-mal state,” while Archambault said doing so removes a road-block to emergency services and commerce. The bridge, on state Highway 1806, is the main route

to get to the tribe’s casino. “If there’s a way that we can help so that this bridge is opened, it’s a step forward,” Archambault said.

A timeline hasn’t been final-ised, but Transportation Department spokeswoman Jamie Olson indicates it will be a slow process, with testing of bridge being done “in next few weeks.”

Core sampling to evaluate the concrete requires temperatures around freezing mark for machines to work properly, she said, and the state has been blan-keted by frigid arctic air for weeks.

New York

AP

New Yorkers have become accustomed to waiting on the subway. But

nearly 45 years?That’s how long it’s been

since construction began on a much-needed subway line beneath the east side of Man-hattan. And if history is any guide, it’s anybody’s guess whether a December 31 deadline to open it will actually be met.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been push-ing end-of-the-year deadline set by Metropolitan Transpor-tation Authority hard in recent days, saying it’s become about more than the long-delayed Second Avenue subway — it’s about the faith people have in government.

“Nobody believes it’s going to be done on time, nobody,” the Democratic governor said in a radio interview this week. But, he added, “if we can get it done on time. ... if we can open that thing up at the beginning of the year, maybe people will start to say once again, “Wow. Maybe we can do something.”

The Second Avenue sub-way, seen as crucial to alleviating traffic on one of the world’s busiest transit systems, has been star-crossed since it was first envisioned by city’s

transportation board in 1929. Those plans were derailed by stock market crash a few months later.

It wasn’t until 1972 that ground was finally broken on the project. But again, a finan-cial crisis in the nation’s most populous city in the 1970s put to a halt to work. In the 1990s, two powerful US senators from New York were able to secure vital federal funds. But then there were years of bureau-cratic hurdles: zoning changes, environmental studies and pre-construction work to clear the city’s underground of pipes and cables.

In 2007, the major tunneling work began on the $4.4bn project that’s now set to open: a four-sta-tion, nearly 2-mile expansion of an existing subway line from Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street to 96th Street, with stops at 72nd and 86th streets in between. It was supposed to be completed in 2013.

“Quite frankly, it’s way overdue,” said Richard Barone, of the Regional Plan Associa-tion, a transportation research and advocacy group. “In the long run, does it matter if it’s a little late by weeks or months? No as long as it opens. But if the government says they’re going to do it at this time, people should have a reasonable expectation that they do.”

Mexico City

AP

ARMED residents of a com-munity in southern Mexico yesterday released 20 sus-pected criminals they had taken captive in a standoff with a local drug gang leader who they accused of kidnap-ping and extorting townsfolk. The release came with medi-ation of authorities in Guerrero state.

Roberto Alvarez Heredia, spokesman for Guerrero Coordinating group, said 14 of the captives were turned over to their families, while only four were handed over to prosecutors for possible ties to drug traffickers.

The strange standoff emerged after residents of Totolapan, tired of kidnap-pings, extortion and killings, formed a vigilante group and seized 20 people as well as Mrs de Almonte Salgado, mother of local drug gang boss Raybel Jacobo de Almonte. They then posted videos offering to release El Tequilero’s mother in exchange for Isauro de Paz Duque, a construction engi-neer abducted by the gang.

Lima

Reuters

The government of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said yesterday it has

rejected a new request to free imprisoned former authoritar-ian leader Alberto Fujimori filed by a supporter because it did not meet basic requirements.

Justice Minister Marisol

Perez Tello said the paperwork reached the government early this month but was declared inadmissible because it lacked signature of Fujimori or one of his relatives.

“It is another process that unfortunately ends ... because of reasons of form and without a decision on the core issue,” Perez told reporters in comments broadcast on TV station Canal N.

The announcement comes ahead of a meeting between Kuczynski and Fujimori’s daugh-ter, opposition leader Keiko Fujimori - raising the possibility of a pardon being on negotiat-ing table as they seek to ease hostilities after her rightwing party ousted Kuczynski’s edu-cation minister.

Kuczynski, who had a razor-thin victory against Keiko

Fujimori in a June runoff elec-tion, said before taking office he would not sign a pardon to clear her father of convictions for human rights violations and cor-ruption even if the pardons committee recommends doing so. However, Kuczynski has said he would sign a bill that allows aging prisoners like Fujimori to carry out their sentences from home. Keiko Fujimori’s party,

Popular Force, controls an abso-lute majority in the single-chamber Congress but has yet to propose any such legisla-tion. The most recent request to release Alberto Fujimori, 78, came from one of his supporters who asked Kuczynski to pardon him or put him under house arrest because of health problems, the magazine Hildebrandt en sus trece reported.

Cash crisis: Looting & protests in Venezuela

People queue outside Venezuela's Central Bank in Caracas to change 100 bolivar notes, yesterday.

Bridge near pipeline protest likely to reopen After nearly 45 years, NYC subway faces deadline to open

Vigilantes in south Mexico free 20 captives

Peru rejects new plea to pardon imprisoned Fujimori

15SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016 AMERICAS

Bizarre mishap

Bob Maloney of the Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management was quoted by WBAL-TV as saying that at least 30 cars were involved in the accident on northbound I-95.

Baltimore,

AP

A blast of cold air caused rain and wet roads to freeze across the Eastern US, triggering airport

delays in the nation’s capital and major traffic pileups in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Authorities say two people were killed in a chain-reaction acci-dent in Baltimore involving a tanker carrying petrol that skid-ded off a highway and exploded, yesterday.

Baltimore City Fire Chief Roman Clark said two people were killed and at least 15 were injured in the 55-vehicle accident

and tanker explosion on Inter-state-95. Clark said the tanker careened off the highway, fell over a jersey wall and burst into flames.

Clark said it’s too early to say whether the crash was caused

by slick roads, although scores of traffic accidents were being reported across the region due to icy roads.

“The roads were very icy,” Clark said. “We have nothing but sheets of ice throughout the city, sidewalks,” he said.

Officials have not released the names of the two people killed in the crash. Clark said it’s unclear whether the pileup started before the tanker crash or was caused by the incident.

Earlier in the day, Bob Maloney of the Baltimore City Office of Emergency Manage-ment was quoted by WBAL-TV as saying that at least 30 cars were involved in an accident on northbound I-95.

Baltimore County said on Twitter that between 15 and 20 vehicles were involved in a crash on I-695 near Rosedale. Six peo-ple were taken to the hospital.

The National Weather Serv-ice has issued a wintry weather advisory for the Baltimore area, meaning that periods of sleet and freezing rain through noon will lead to slippery roads and lim-ited visibility.

In Virginia, meanwhile, State Police say 41 traffic crashes were reported in the northern part of the state. It was unclear how many were due to slick roads. One fatality was reported.

In Ohio a Columbus woman was killed yesterday after her car skidded off a slick road.

Two airports serving nation’s capital are experiencing delays or cancellations.

Washington Dulles Interna-tional airport reopened two runways after having to close all runways for more than three hours due to icy weather. Win-try weather forced the airport to halt all flights yesterday. The air-port says two runways reopened for flights as of 10 am, but that travels should expect residual cancelations and delays.

A spokesman for Metropol-itan Washington Airports Authority says Reagan Washing-ton National Airport is operating normally, but some flights may be delayed or cancelled due to bad weather along the East coast.

A spokesman for Baltimore/Washington International Thur-good Marshall Airport said the weather is causing some delays and cancellations but no run-ways have been closed.

In central North Carolina, light freezing rain has caused scores of traffic accidents, add-ing to the road mayhem scattered throughout the Eastern US.

Police and emergency work-ers reported more than 100 crashes in Raleigh and Charlotte as the drizzle combined with temperatures below freezing for approaching 40 hours combined to create dangerous icy patches.

Charlotte police reported two people dead in separate fatal crashes early yesterday.

2 dead after crash on icy Baltimore highway

West Palm Beach, Florida

AP

As he prepared for the final stop on his postelection “thank you” tour, Presi-

dent-elect Donald Trump yesterday announced his pick for White House budget direc-tor, a tough-on-spending conservative congressman who advocates balancing the federal books.

South Carolina Represent-ative Mick Mulvaney, elected in the 2010 tea party wave and a founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, is a “very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump said that with Mul-vaney on his team, his administration will make “smart choices” and “renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent.”

The announcement came hours before Trump’s rally at a football stadium in Mobile,

Alabama, and he tweeted: “THANK YOU ALABAMA AND THE SOUTH. Biggest of all crowds expected, see you there!”

In Orlando, Florida, early yesterday, Trump told a crowd full of a military veterans that he would build up the forces but would use them sparingly as commander in chief.

After that event, Trump was expected to return to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach estate. Aides said the Presi-dent-elect probably would spend Christmas week there, taking meetings and relaxing with his family, and could remain at the coastal resort until New Year’s.

His budget pick, the 49-year-old Mulvaney, is one of the more hard-charging members among House conservatives.

Lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus helped push former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. from power and have caused heartburn for current Speaker Paul Ryan, Rep-resentative from Wisconsin.

As director of the Office of

Management and Budget, a post that requires Senate confirma-tion, Mulvaney would be responsible for crafting Trump’s budget and overseeing the final issuance of major regulations.

Mulvaney has taken a hard line on budget matters, routinely voting against increasing the government’s borrowing cap and pressing for major cuts to benefit programmes as the path

to balancing the budget.Actually balancing the federal

budget requires deeper spending cuts than the GOP-controlled Congress can probably deliver on, especially if Trump prevails on revenue-losing tax cuts and a big infrastructure package next year.

Mulvaney, in a statement released by Trump’s transition team, pledged to help restore “ling “budgetary and fiscal

sanity ... after eight years of an out-of-control, tax and spend financial agenda” under President Barack Obama.

“Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hardworking Americans do every day,” he said.

Washington

AFP

US President-elect Donald Trump got plenty of attention—but not the kind he was looking for—after a tweet yesterday calling out China for its seizure of an unmanned US naval probe.

“China steals United States Navy research drone in interna-tional waters—rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresi-dented (sic) act,” Trump wrote on his favourite platform.

“Unpresidented” quickly became a top trending topic on Twitter in the US, as online wags savaged the incoming president for the unfortunate misspelling. “TrumpSpellCheck—Unpresident-edly effective,” tweeted “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling. “Dear world, most Americans really wish we could be #unpresidented,” another Twitter user wrote.

Trump deleted the tweet after about an hour, replacing it with one correctly using the word “unprecedented.”

While many mocked the deeply divisive political novice, famous for his verbal tics and gaffes, supporters jumped to his defence and said critics were pil-ing on about a typo while ignoring the bigger problem.

Trump names Mick Mulvaney as budget director

Trump tweet on China sets off deluge of mockery

Columbus

AFP

Thousands were expected to gather in Ohio for a memorial service to pay

tribute to American space leg-end John Glenn, who died last week at the age of 95.

The gathering in the home state of the first American to orbit Earth caps two days of pub-lic events commemorating Glenn, who Nasa called “a true American hero.”

Glenn was also first senior cit-izen to venture into space, and became a symbol of America’s pioneering spirit and strength, drawing admirers from all walks of life over a long career in the US military, in the space programme, and in the US Senate.

The public memorial was to be held on the campus of Ohio State University in the state cap-ital Columbus, where the former astronaut taught during the lat-ter part of his life at the college of public affairs which bears his name.

Vice President Joe Biden and Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden were among those scheduled to speak at the serv-ice, along with Glenn’s adult children David and Lyn.

Glenn’s body lay in state at the Ohio Statehouse rotunda as US Marines stood guard—an honour usually bestowed upon high-ranking government offi-cials. The viewing was a solemn and quiet ceremony, as a line of mourners filed past Glenn’s flag-draped coffin.

Among those attending the viewing was Ohio Governor John Kasich. The Marine honour guard was to accompany the

coffin as it travelled in a hearse from the statehouse to the memorial service at an audito-rium on the university campus.

The former astronaut will be buried in April at Arlington National Cemetery, just outside the capital Washington, according to officials at Ohio State.

Glenn died surrounded by family at a Columbus hospital on December 8. The former

veteran of two wars had been in declining health and was hospi-talised more than a week earlier.

He was among the first mil-itary pilots chosen to be US astronauts in 1959 , the “Origi-nal Seven” whose saga was recounted in the classic movie “The Right Stuff.”

In 1962, he became the first American to orbit Earth, one year after Russia’s Yuri Gagarin became the first person ever do so.

After his 23-year career in the US military and space pro-gramme, Glenn entered the US Senate as a Democrat, and made two unsuccessful tries for the party’s presidential nomi-nation. In 1998, he made history again when he returned to space at the age of 77, becom-ing the oldest astronaut ever.

In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Glenn the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.

“John always had the right stuff, inspiring generations of scientists, engineers and astro-nauts who will take us to Mars and beyond—not just to visit, but to stay,” said Obama upon news of Glenn’s passing.

Montreal

AFP

Police in Montreal yester-day raided six cannabis shops one day after they

opened, following a warning by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that recreational marijuana is not yet legal in Canada.

Ten people were arrested in the raids, police said, includ-ing veteran pro-cannabis activist Marc Emery.

Trudeau, who campaigned last year on a promise to end nearly a century of pot prohi-bition, warned that the government is still at least one year away from legalising pot use.

“We haven’t changed the legislation yet,” Trudeau said while talking to reporters in Montreal. “It is coming, but we’re going to take the time to do it right.”

Until that happens, the current ban on the possession and sale of marijuana for rec-reational use remains in effect, he said.

Emery on Thursday how-ever went ahead and opened

in Montreal six boutiques of the Cannabis Culture franchise chain, which already exist in other cities.

Police raided the stores at the end of the day as buyers braved frosty conditions to crowd into the boutiques to buy marijuana.

“The prime minister is a disgrace, as is the Mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre,” Emery cried out as he was being taken away by police.

Those arrested will face charges of drug trafficking and possession of items for traffick-ing purposes, the Montreal police department said.

Police reported seizing 18 kgs of cannabis, as well as money and equipment includ-ing scales and containers.

Emery, the self-proclaimed “Prince of Pot,” has been arrested multiple times.

He was even extradited to the United States in 2010 and served just under five years in prison for selling on his web-site and mailing more than four million marijuana seeds.

He returned to Canada after his release in August 2014.

Thousands to attend Glenn’s memorial

United States Marines stand guard as they surround the casket of former Astronaut and US Senator John Glenn, as he lays in state at the Ohio Statehouse, yesterday.

Police raid pot stores after Trudeau’s warning

US President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence appear together during a stop on his “USA Thank You Tour 2016” at the Orlando Amphitheater at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando, yesterday.

Seagulls are seen in the city of Le Palais, in Belle-Ile-en-Mer, western France, yesterday.

Feathered friends

16 SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2016MORNING BREAK

FAJRSHOROOK

04.51 am

06.13 am

ZUHRASR

11.30 am

02.28 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

04.49 pm

06.19 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 08:15 - 20:00 LOW TIDE 00:30 - 15:45

Strong wind at places daytime. Hazy

at places at first becomes moderate

temperature daytime with slight dust

and some clouds, cold by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

17oC 24oC

Guanghou

Reuters

Chinese mermaid fans are getting a chance to live out their dream of swimming under-

water like the mythical aquatic creature.

Dada Li, a professional diver in the southern city of Guangzhou, teaches more than 100 adults and children how to wear a colourful monofin tail, hold their breath and dive underwater like a mermaid.

“I love being a mermaid, so I was sure that there were other little girls who had dreams of being one,” said Li, who began offering lessons a year ago after joining a mer-maid troupe at one of China’s largest indoor aquariums.

Interest in mermaids has grown since Hong Kong director Stephen Chow’s

comedy “The Mermaid” hit movie screens earlier this year, said Li.

The odd-ball romantic comedy about a businessman property developer who falls in love with a mermaid sent to assassinate him has broken Chinese box office records in 2016.

“The Mermaid has defi-nitely made many people realise the concept of a mer-maid and people can dress up as mermaids. After the mov-ie’s success I heavily promoted my courses,” said Li.

Li, a former logistics worker who turned to diving in 2012, said she offers wan-nabe mermaids and mermen a one-to-three day course costing between 1,400 yuan ($201) and 4,000 yuan ($575) in the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Huang Xiaying, 24, who was one of Li’s first students, is now a regular mermaid

performer at an aquarium.“When I’m in the water I

feel at peace and when I’m

with animals I’m very happy,” she said. “Being able to swim with so many different types

of sea-creatures, it makes me feel relaxed and very comfortable.”

A performer practices her mermaid swim next to a shark in an aquarium after graduating from a mermaid workshop in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, yesterday.

Swimmers get a chance to be mermaids

Los Angeles/Shanghai

Reuters

China’s box office is set to end the year with its smallest growth in a decade, clouding the outlook as

Hollywood pushes to show more of its films in theaters in the world’s second-largest movie market.

Beijing caps the number of imported films each year under a revenue-shar-ing deal reached in 2012. That quota, which Hollywood wants to increase from the official level of 34, is scheduled to be reviewed in 2017.

China accounted for 18.8 percent of worldwide movie ticket sales last year, versus 7.5 percent in 2012, according to research firm comScore.

For films imported under the cap, 25 percent of China ticket revenue goes to the US film studio, a smaller share than the roughly 40 percent average in other international markets.

While a drop in China’s ticket sales growth could muddy the outlook for for-eign movies, Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Corp’s Columbia Pictures, shrugged it off, saying: “We’ll take this slowdown in any territory in the world. It’s still an incredible story of a big growth market.”

Between January and November, tickets worth 41.4bn yuan ($5.97bn) were sold in China, industry tracker EntGroup said, up 4.4 percent over 2015. That is sharply slower than last year’s 50 per-cent jump and on track for the slowest annual growth in a decade.

But given the market’s size and potential, the Motion Picture Associa-tion of America remains eager for Beijing to open its doors wider. Box office experts say China’s ticket sales will over-take those in the United States and Canada within the next few years.

An MPAA official said it was “very encouraging” that US and Chinese

officials had agreed in recent talks to address issues including increasing the annual film quota and the revenue share that foreign studios receive.

On Friday, Chinese theaters debuted “The Great Wall,” starring Matt Damon and produced by Legendary Entertain-ment - the Hollywood studio purchased by China’s Dalian Wanda - along with China Film Group and others. The movie was partly filmed at Wanda’s new stu-dio in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. It has been designated an offi-cial China co-production and therefore avoided the cap on US-made movies.

China is juggling its desire to wel-come US films, its investments in Hollywood and efforts to protect its industry. “Culturally, they are very sus-pect of having too many American imports flood their country. They want their citizens to see homegrown hits and Chinese stories,” said Jonathan Papish, analyst for China Film Insider.

Washington

IANS

US researchers have successfully reversed the hallmarks of age-

ing in mice using a technique called cellular reprogram-ming. The approach extended the lifespan of mice with a premature aging disease called progeria by 30 per cent, Xinhua news agency cited a US journal Cell report as saying.

"Our study shows that aging may not have to pro-ceed in one single direction," Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor at the Salk Insti-tute's Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the study, said.

"It has plasticity and, with careful modulation, aging might be reversed," said Izpisua Belmonte.

Cellular reprogramming is a process that involves inducing the expression of four genes, Yamanaka fac-tors, to allow scientists to convert any cell into induced pluripotent stem cells, which are capable of dividing indef-initely and becoming any cell type present in our body.

However, previous efforts involving cellular reprogram-ming resulted in mice that either died immediately or developed extensive tumours.

In the new study, the Salk team used a partial cellular reprogramming approach, which induced expression of Yamanaka factors for just two to four days, to avoid tumours or death and improve aging characteristics.

When they examined skin cells from mice with progeria using this approach, the cells showed reversal of multiple aging hallmarks without los-ing their skin-cell identity.

Encouraged by this result, the team used the same method to treat live mice with progeria, which delivered "striking" results. Compared to untreated mice, the repro-grammed mice looked younger; their cardiovascu-lar and other organs improved and most surpris-ing of all, their lifespan went from 18 weeks to 24.

China to review film limits

London

IANS

Imagine your child controlling toys with his/her brain while you get busy with home chores. According to

researchers from the University of War-wick in Britain, next generation toys controlled with the power of thoughts can become must have gifts in the near future.

Led by Professor Christopher James,

the team has developed a technology which allows electronic devices to be activated using electrical impulses from brain waves, by connecting our thoughts to computerised systems.

The research connects the human mind with electronic devices and sen-sors in headsets receive brain waves and feed them into electrical circuits.

As a result, remote-controlled cars and toy robots could be activated with kids' levels of concentration like

thinking of his/her favourite colour or stroking your dog. Instead of a hand-held controller, the headset is used to create a brain-computer interface. This activity is then processed by a compu-ter, amplified and fed into the electrical circuit of the electronic toy.

The exciting bit is what comes next -- how long before we start unlocking the front door or answering the phone through brain-computer interfaces, the researchers noted.

US scientists reverse signs of ageing in mice

Gift 'mind-controlled' toys to your kids