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Volume 23 | Number 7502 | 2 RiyalsFriday 20 April 2018 | 4 Sha’baan I 1439 www.thepeninsula.qa

Prime Minister receives Qatari innovators

Qatar Airways first in region to offer gate-to-gate Internet on-boardTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Airways is the first airline in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) to provide gate-to-gate internet connectivity on-board, announced the airline yesterday. A decision by Qatar’s Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) will allow the provision of internet service onboard aircraft at all altitudes. Previously, internet connection was only permitted when an aircraft was higher than 3,000 meters above sea level.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “In another first for the MENA region, Qatar Airways passengers will be able to enjoy uninterrupted internet connectivity from the moment they step on board a Qatar Airways flight.

This is another significant

enhancement to our award-winning levels of service that our passengers around the globe have come to appreciate. We look forward to wel-coming passengers on board and helping them stay connected throughout the flight”.

Approval by the CRA means that Qatar will be the first country in the Middle East and North Africa

region to provide gate-to-gate internet connectivity onboard air-craft. It also reflects CRA’s alignment with Qatar’s high rate of technology adoption across various sectors, particularly those affecting transport and commu-nication that are strategic to Qatar’s future development and economic growth.

Improvements in technology and developments in global tech-nical standards now ensure that on board internet service does not cause harmful interference to either aircraft operations or land-based public mobile networks.

However to avoid any inter-ference to aircraft and land-based mobile services, restrictions still apply to the on board use of mobile GSM services and SMS when the air-craft is below 3,000 meters.

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New mega projects to boost self-sufficiency in food production

Qatar signs agreement with Global Dryland AllianceTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar, represented by the Foreign Ministry, signed yesterday an agreement with Global Dryland Alliance (GDA), making Doha the alliance’s new headquarters.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, signed the agreement on behalf of the State of Qatar and GDA Exec-utive Director Ambassador Bader Al Dafa signed on behalf of the alliance.

The GDA initiative was put forward by the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at a speech he gave at the 68th UN General Assembly in 2013.

GDA aims to provide support to researches and new

innovations of member states and to implement the results. The alliance also aims to provide the best practices that can be shared with dryland countries around the world.

After the signing, Spokes-person of the Foreign Ministry Lolwah AlKhater said the 11-state alliance seeks to achieve food security for dryland coun-tries, which results in further stability and peace around the world, reported QNA.

The GDA also aims to coop-erate with local, regional and international partners to find solutions and spread and implement them in order to face challenges related to agriculture, water and energy in dryland countries, the spokesperson added.

AlKhater said the alliance aims to engage in joint research and technological innovation relevant to the alliance members’ agricultural, water, and energy use needs. It also aims to coordinate with the private sector to implement and spread innovative solutions related to food security, exchange the benefits of new technological and research innovations with least developed dryland countries in an effort to reduce hunger and poverty, she added.

The spokesperson added that some land will be allocated to set up storage for cattle, a farm and laboratory to conduct research on desert and dryland.

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Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with the Qatari innovators who were awarded gold and silver medals at the International Exhibition of Innovations in Geneva, in Doha yesterday. The Prime Minister stressed the attention the State pays to innovators in different fields and encouraged them towards more creations that promote the country’s direction towards a knowledge-based economy. → REPORT ON PAGE 2

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The self-sufficiency i n l o c a l v e g e t a b l e production stands at 24 percent, 86 percent in dates, and about 50 percent in green fodder, said Sheikh Dr Faleh bin Nasser Al Thani, assistant undersecretary of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment for agri-cultural, livestock and fish-eries affairs.

He said that self-suffi-ciency in milk and dairy products in the country has increased to more than 82 percent, while fresh chicken and eggs cover more than 98 percent and 23 percent respectively of Qatar’s market consumption.

The number of animals for commercial purpose increased to about 1.6 million heads, while self-sufficiency in fish reached about 80 percent.

He was speaking at the end of a two-day seminar on food security.

The event was organised by the ministry in collabo-ration with the committee on following up the implemen-tation of food security pol-icies in the public and private sectors in cooperation with the Swiss Agency for Devel-opment and Cooperation (SDC).

The Minister of Munici-pality and Environment, H E Mohamed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi, attended the seminar yesterday.

Sheikh Dr Falih bin Nasser Al Thani reaffirmed that the agricultural sector has taken gigantic leaps towards covering the requirements of the local market and raising the self-sufficiency rates in the

Qatari athlete Abderrahaman Samba poses for a photograph after winning the first place in the 400 metres hurdles event at the International Senior Track and Field Championships held in South Africa with a world-leading time of 47.89 seconds.

Prospects for joint cooperation with North Carolina officials discussedTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani discussed yesterday means of enhancing joint cooperation with officials in Raleigh, North Carolina, during separate meetings on the sidelines the economic tour of the United States, currently underway in Raleigh.

During his meeting with Will Miller, Deputy Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Commerce , the Minister discussed mech-anisms to develop cooper-ation between the two coun-tries, expand trade exchanges, encourage the private sector to establish joint ventures to benefit from the promising investment opportunities and the excellent business envi-ronment provided by Qatar.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al -Thani, also discussed with Chris Chung, CEO of North Caro-linas Economic Development Partnership possibilities of joint cooperation in the eco-nomic, trade and investment fields and ways of developing them, investment incentives and the economic diversifi-cation strategy adopted by Qatar to achieve the Qatar National Vision 2030.

The Minister also met Adrienne Cole, President and CEO of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce to discuss means of developing cooperation between the two countries, expanding trade exchanges and encouraging the private sector to establish joint ventures. The meeting also reviewed the investment incentives and facilities pro-vided by the Qatari economy.

→SEE ALSO PAGE 3

Self-sufficiency in local vege- tables stands at 24%, 86% in dates, & about50% in green fodder.

Self-sufficiency in milk and dairy products has increased to more than 82%, while fresh chicken and eggs cover more than 98% and 23% respectively of Qatar’smarket consumption. Self- sufficiency in fish reachedabout 80%.

A new marketing program for Qatari vegetables was also launched in consumercomplexes with the partici-pation of 105 Qatari farms.

Food Security

agricultural, livestock and fishery sectors despite the unjust siege imposed on the country.

He said that the second Nat ional Development Strategy 2018-2022 has already started.

Al Thani said the state has undertaken a number of initi-atives to boost food security by providing opportunities for private investors in the agricul-tural field by launching four large strategic projects for the production of vegetables over an area of one million square meters per project.

Over the next few years, he added, a number of investment projects will be made available for the production of green fodder with the use of treated wastewater so as to conserve groundwater, while bringing about a large boom in the pro-duction of green fodder.

→CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

02 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018HOME

PM & Ministers of Liberia review relations of cooperation

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with Minister of Labour of the Republic of Liberia, Moses Y Kollie, and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Varney A Sirleaf, on the occasion of their visit to the country. During the meeting, they reviewed relations of cooperation between the two countries and ways of developing them in various fields.

Al Muraikhi discusses ties with envoys

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, met with Ambassadors of American friendly countries accredited to the State of Qatar. The meeting discussed the developments of the Gulf crisis and enhancing the prospects of cooperation, as well as issues of common concern. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs also met with Ambassador of Canada to Qatar, Adrian Norfolk.

QA to showcase latest aircraft at Eurasia AirshowTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Airways will be showcasing two of its state-of-the-art aircraft during Eurasia Airshow, which is set to take place in Antalya, Turkey from April 25 to 29. The airline will be displaying the world’s most advanced passenger aircraft, the Airbus A350-1000, featuring the revolutionary Qsuite Business Class seat, Qsuite. Also on display during the airshow will be the Gulfstream G650 ER, a premium Qatar Executive aircraft and industry-leading, long-range business jet.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “Qatar Airways is delighted to be participating for the first time at this year’s Eurasia Airshow. Visitors from across the world will be able to experience the five-star services and product provided by our airline. Turkey has always been one of our pas-sengers’ preferred destinations, due to its ongoing growth in popularity for both business and leisure travel. As such, we have recently announced a non-stop service to Hatay, which com-menced on April 4. Hatay is our fifth destination within Turkey,

reflecting the close relationship between the State of Qatar and Turkey. We are also tremen-dously excited to be launching a direct service to Antalya and Bodrum in June.”

Qatar Airways currently operates direct flights to Istan-bul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport twice daily, to Istanbul Atatürk Airport 10 times weekly, to Adana Şakirpaşa Airport three times weekly, a daily service to Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport and three times weekly to Hatay Airport, bringing the total to 37 weekly flights between Doha and Turkey.

QCS launches competition to raise awareness on tobacco dangersTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Cancer Society (QCS) has launched a compe-tition ‘Decide, We are with You,’ which aims to raise awareness about the dangers of tobacco and emphasize the importance of quitting smoking.

The contest also aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle to prevent the habit. The compe-tition is being held as part of the World No Tobacco Day, which falls on May 31, and targets three categories of people school stu-dents, university students and state institutions. The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held on May 3, and they will receive financial and commem-orative prizes. Topics of the com-petition revolve around harmful effects of tobacco, ways to combat smoking and tobacco, quitting smoking, smoke-free society at the individual level, smoke-free society at the com-munity level and dangers of passive smoking. All entries should be submitted by April 26, at the QCS at Barwa Towers in Al Sadd or email to ntd@qcs.qa.

In the school category, com-pletion will be held in three groups as primary schools, pre-paratory and secondary schools.

State institutions could submit entries on the theme smoking-free institutions and support creating more awareness about the importance of quitting smoking.

Qatar’s natural history discussed at QNLFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

DOHA: How the continuously changing natural environment of Qatar defines its past, present, and future was discussed yesterday during a lecture held at the Qatar National Library (QNL).

Also the groundwater evo-lution in deserts, and how it con-tributes to changing environ-mental and societal factors in desert areas was discussed by Planetary scientist Dr Essam Heggy during the lecture on ‘Understanding Space Explo-ration and the Natural Forces that Shaped the Qatar Peninsula.’

The public lecture concluded a week of events celebrating QNL’s grand opening.

Dr Heggy, a planetary sci-entist at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, and a ROSETTA co-investigator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Pro-pulsion Laboratory, discussed how climate evolution has shaped the history of Earth, as

well as that of other planets in the solar system.

He also addressed the unique case of the Qatar Peninsula, with its ever-changing coastlines driven by several active natural forces. According to Dr Heggy, early inhabitants of Qatar would have had an intimate understanding of groundwater and sea levels, dune movements, coral reef evo-lution, and shallow-water nav-igation, and adapted their daily survival in response to the shifts

in each. “Our climate is changing, and the only way to survive it is to understand it,” he said.

Dr Heggy talked about the meaning of Qatar’s flag and the map, and presented his views about the changes in Qatar’s coastline.

He said, “All maps (of Qatar) contain records of some of the most significant climatic changes we have seen. From the maps available in the library (QNL) we can speculate that something very strongly related to climate

change has influenced.” “The climate and envi-

ronment in Qatar have shaped the society. The people of Qatar were able to intuitively com-prehend that the coastline was changing,” he added.

Dr Heggy elaborated how technologies that are being designed to explore water in the solar system benefit from being tested in Earth’s deserts.

He also discuss groundwater evolution in deserts, and how it contributes to changing environ-mental and societal factors in desert areas.

He concluded with an exam-ination of Qatar’s current changing climate, and how understanding and adapting to it will affect the nation’s growth.

Dr Sohair Wastawy, Exec-utive Director, QNL, said that Dr Heggy will be directing the ‘Science Book Forum’ at QNL in September, an initiative to promote reading and exploring scientific issues among the younger generation.

She further said that a forum of scientific debate on ‘Qatar on Maps’ will be held at the QNL on April 29 at 6pm.

QNL Executive Director, Dr Sohair Wastawy (left), with planetary scientist, Dr Essam Heggy, during the lecture held at the QNL yesterday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA

Emir condoles with Emir of KuwaitQNA

DOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday a cable of condolences to Emir of the fraternal State of Kuwait, H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah on the death of Sheikh Fadel Duaij Al Salman Al Sabah. Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, also sent cables of condolences to Emir of the fraternal State of Kuwait, H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah on the death of Sheikh Fadel Duaij Al Salman Al Sabah.

Govt encourages innovations: PMTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, met with the Qatari innovators who were awarded gold and silver medals at the International Exhibition of Inno-vations held in Geneva recently.

He praised the efforts of the Qatari inventors and their achievement in the international scientific forum, which brought together inventors from around the world, reported QNA. He wished them success and further scientific achievements to high-light Qatar’s name in regional

and international forums, adding that the winning inventions con-tribute to improving the quality of life and achieving further eco-nomic and social wellbeing.

The Prime Minister stressed the attention the state pays to innovators and talents in the dif-ferent fields and encouraged them towards more creations that promote the country’s direction towards a knowledge-based economy. The inventors from Qatar Scientific Club were awarded six medals in the exhi-bition; four gold and two silver, in a strong competition with 600 inventors from 40 countries around the world.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, and GDA Executive Director Ambassador Bader Al Dafa at the signing event.

Qatar and Global Dryland Alliance sign agreement

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

For his part, Ambassador Al Dafa said the alliance is not an alternative for the organisations that work in this field, but com-plements their efforts and will work in full coordination and consultation with them in the area of food security for dryland countries.

Al Dafa added that there is an urgent need to intensify the efforts in developing food security programs, as the world population increases by 200,000 per day, with a gap between consumption and agri-culture investment, as well as climate challenges that impose a difficult reality on dryland countries.

He said that if the alliance’s member states cooperate, chal-lenges and threats may lessen.

He called on the private sector to play its role in projects that develop food security in member states.

The GDA executive director said these challenges are more acute and serious in dryland countries, who are mostly developing with limited means and more vulnerable to hunger and epidemics.

Doha hosted on October 15, 2017 the GDA Founding Con-ference, where the signing of the foundation treaty of the new organisation took place.

The alliance includes dryland countries with common challenges and is open to part-nerships with all countries and multilateral institutions.

It provides a new approach based on the latest innovations in addressing the food security challenges of many countries.

MEC shuts down outlet for selling counterfeit sport gearsDOHA: Ministry of Economy and Commerce under which the Consumer Protection Department falls has shutdown a commercial outlet for showcasing and selling counterfeit sport gears as reputed brand for a month in Suq Al Madina (city market).

The action was taken under intensified inspection drives launched by the Ministry to monitor the markets and business activities to ensure they are complying to the consumer pro-tection law.

The erring outlet was shutdown under the article No. 7 of the law No. 8 of 2008 which required the suppliers and shops to mention the details of the goods on the packet clearly as it should not mislead the customers.

An inspector is putting a sticker announcing the closure of the outlet.

Emir holds talks with PM of EthiopiaDOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held a tele-phone conversation with the Prime Minister of the Federal Demo-cratic Republic of Ethiopia, Dr Abiy Ahmed. The Emir congratu-lated Dr Abiy Ahmed on the occasion of assuming his duties, and wished him success. Talks during the call also dealt ways to boost and develop the friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries, in addition to a number of issues of mutual interest.

03FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 HOME

Qatar signs cooperation protocol with Islamic Conference Youth ForumQNA

BAKU: The Ministry of Culture and Sports signed a cooperation protocol with Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation (ICYF-DC), which is affiliated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Minister of Culture and Sports, H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali, signed the protocol with ICYF-DC President, Elshad Iskandarov, on the sidelines of the meeting of Their Excel-lencies Ministers of youth and sports of OIC member states as part of the fourth Islamic Con-ference of Youth and Sports Ministers (ICYSM). The event concluded on Thursday and took place in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The cooperation protocol includes organising joint youth activities between both parties to be held in Qatar or any other country, in addition to sup-porting events for Jerusalem, capital of the Islamic youth.

Titled “Solidarity in Action

for Youth Development,” the ICYSM condemned in its final communique the Israeli occu-pation’s obstruction to the Pal-estinians, especially the youth, to build their build their capacity, in addition to the occu-pation’s efforts to undermine the efforts of the State of Palestine in the sports field. It called on youth and sport institutions, Olympic committees and sports federations in member states to

support Palestine’s position in international sports organisa-tions regionally and interna-tionally. This includes providing appropriate support to the program of Jerusalem as Islamic Youth Capital 2018.

The meeting also approved the OIC youth strategy, which prioritises work on enabling youth and investing in their future. The strategy also calls on member states to set policies and mechanisms that ensure youth rights, improve their way of living, economic and social positions, raise their educational and knowledge levels and provide them with opportunities to participate in the decision-making process.

The final communique con-firmed the need for committing to implementing the fourth ICYSM especially with regards to the OIC Youth Strategy and its plan of action while adhering to the policies of openness and close cooperation with the rel-evant global bodies working in the field of youth.

Minister of Culture and Sports, H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali, signing the cooperation protocol with ICYF-DC President, Elshad Iskandarov, on the sidelines of the meeting.

Industrial Production index increases by 2% in FebruaryTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Industrial Production index (IPI) for February 2018 increased by 2 percent to 103.9 points compared to February 2017 while it decreased by 2.5 percent compared to January 2018.

The Industrial Production Index consists of three main components: mining with a relative importance of 83.6 percent, manufacturing with a relative importance of 15.2 percent, electricity with a rela-tive importance of 0.7 percent, and water

with a relative importance of 0.5 percent.The index of the mining sector showed a

decrease by 1.9 percent compared to January 2018 as a result of the decrease in the quantities of crude oil and natural gas produced by 1.9 percent, and other mining and quarrying by 3 percent. When compared to the corresponding month of the pre-vious year (February 2017), the IPI of mining increased by 1.4 percent. Manufacturing’s index saw a decrease of 5.3 percent in February 2018 compared to the previous month.

Mega projects to boost self-sufficiency in food productionCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The assistant undersecretary pointed out that a new investment project has been launched for fish-eries in floating cages with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes per year. Two other projects are planned for the next few years, while the ministry recently launched an investment project for shrimp farming with an annual capacity of 1,000 tonnes.

Preliminary estimates and fea-sibility studies indicate that the coun-try’s self-sufficiency as a result of these mega-projects will increase to 70 percent of fresh vegetables in two years, 100 percent of dairy products within eight months, 90 percent of eggs within two years, 100 percent fish within two years, and 100 percent of shrimp in two years. A new marketing program for Qatari vegetables was also launched in con-sumer complexes with the partici-pation of 105 Qatari farms.

The assistant undersecretary said that scientific research is the appro-priate tool for the development of the agricultural sector, pointing out

that the ministry is carrying out research on raising agricultural pro-ductivity and evaluating and adopting modern technologies through its relevant departments so as to improve the performance of this vital sector.

At the level of infrastructure, he said, the Aquatic Fisheries and Research Center in Ras Matbakh in Al Khor has been constructed to become one of the important pro-ductive research centers in the field of aquaculture. The designs of the Agricultural Research and Guidance Center in Al Mazroua, with work on the first phase of the project set to start in 2019.

The Animal Production Research Station in Al Shahaniya opened earlier in the month to develop research on animal production and artificial insemination technology, which will increase the animal pro-duction in the country.

Dr. Faleh bin Nasser Al-Thani said the upcoming phase requires intensifying the effort on a technical and legislative level to set quick and

appropriate solutions for challenges facing agriculture. He added that Qatar is following a comprehensive and inclusive approach for sus-tainable development and seeks to integrate government and private sectors to meet the needs of all seg-ments of society.

He stressed on working to activate the cooperation between the ministry and the private sector including local, regional and inter-national institutions, to intensify the efforts for comprehensive devel-opment in the agricultural, economic and social fields.

He said that the Ministry of Municipality and Environment has a great responsibility related to food security and developing natural resources to increase production, to bridge the gap between production and consumption and to increase self sufficiency in vegetables, fish red meat and animal products. This is what the agricultural strategy of Qatar as focused on, all whilst pre-serving the Qatari environment for the future generations and sus-

tainably developing it, he added. SDC’s co-head of the Global

Program Food Security, Simon Zbinden, highlighted the relations between Qatar and Switzerland.

He presented the agricultural conditions and possibilities between both countries in terms of similar-ities and differences. He praised the great development in Qatar’s agri-cultural production despite the ongoing siege. He said he is impressed with the achievements Qatar made over a short period and the significant leaps it took in the many agricultural and food fields on its path to self-sufficiency and in various dimensions, including sustainability.

Zbinden highlighted the need to take in consideration sustainability on the long run, when it comes to implementing food security projects and trade projects. He added that work must be made to decrease the production costs in return for revenue, effectively promote the role of local markets and support the related sectors and local produce.

Qatar Airways first in region to provide gate-to-gate Internet on-board

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1While on board, passengers can continue to enjoy

Qatar Airways’ inflight entertainment system, Oryx One, which offers passengers up to 4,000 enter-tainment options from the latest blockbuster movies, TV box sets, music, games and much more. Pas-sengers flying on Qatar Airways flights served by its B777, B787, A350, A380, and select A320 and A330 aircraft can also stay in touch with their friends and family around the world by using the award-winning airline’s on-board Wi-Fi service.

Qatar Airways operates a modern fleet of more than 200 aircraft to a network of more than 150 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America.

The airline plans a host of exciting new desti-nation launches this year, including London Gatwick and Cardiff, United Kingdom; Tallinn, Estonia; Val-letta, Malta; Cebu and Davao, Philippines; Langkawi, Malaysia; Da Nang, Vietnam; Bodrum and Antalya, Turkey; Mykonos, Greece and Málaga, Spain.

Qatar and US officials discuss cooperationTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Officials from Qatar and the United States reviewed and discussed opportunities for cooperation and joint ventures between the two countries in two sessions held yesterday on the sidelines of the Qatar-US Economic Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The two sessions discussed opportunities for cooperation in the fields of financing , investment, real estate and small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as projects related to Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup and opportunities and challenges in the tourism, energy and food security sectors.

The first session discussed the opportunities of cooperation and joint ventures between Qatar and the United States in the areas of finance, investment, real estate and small and medium-sized enterprises, where Rashid Ali Al Mansouri, CEO of Qatar Exchange, stressed the importance of the partici-pation of the US investment funds in the Qatar Exchange and its activity in the market.

Al Mansouri pointed out that the Qatar Stock Exchange tar-geted the investment of funds listed recently, and there was interest from US financial insti-tutions and business leaders in the United States to know the stock exchange and how to invest in it, adding that the bourse is trying to attract invest-ments and opportunities by offering opportunities and intro-ducing legislation and the investment environment.

Mohamed Hassan Al Malki, Head of Development and Planning at Economic Zones Corporation (Manateq), said during his speech that the company aims to attract foreign

investments to free zones, noting that it works directly with the Free Zones Authority in this direction.

He outlined privileges that Qatar provides to investors, identifying the target sectors in each economic zone, and the importance of each sector for both the State and the investors.

Abdullah Yaqoub Al Sayed, Director of Project Delivery Department at the Qatari Diar company spoke about the com-pany’s investments inside and outside Qatar, referring to the Washington CityCenter DC project. “The State of Qatar has many projects and opportunities in various sectors, as well as the investment environment and legislation attractive to foreign investments, which is a catalyst for US investors to invest in the State of Qatar,” he added.

Saleh Majid Al Khulaifi, Acting CEO of Qatar Devel-opment Bank (QDB), said that participation in the Qatar-US Economic Forum in Raleigh comes to discuss the devel-opment of joint cooperation between Qatari and US com-panies and the research of exporting some Qatari products in the supply chain, as well as linking small and medium-sized companies in the US with Qatari companies to create partner-ships in Qatar. He pointed out that QDB, which signed two agreements during the eco-nomic tour of the United States, is considering several factors including the localization of businesses and linking SMEs to the labor market as well as job creation, inter-firm cooperation to open manufacturing plat-forms, and provide services in Doha in addition to exporting some products.

At the second session titled “Qatar 2022 World Cup,

Opportunities and Challenges in Tourism, Energy and Food Security,” Abdul Basset Al-Ajji, Director of Business Devel-opment and Investment Pro-motion Department at the Min-istry of Economy and Com-merce, said that the ministry is working to support and promote sectors, which is the gate to the establishment of investments in the State of Qatar .. He pointed out that there was during the past year an initiative to review policies and procedures and to enhance opportunities for investments and investors.

Fahd Al Kuwari, Head of Policy Department at the Min-istry of Energy and Industry, stressed the commitment of the energy sector to the contracts concluded with the countries, noting that the Qatari gas exports reached consumers on time despite the siege imposed on the State. Al Kuwari also said that Qatar encourages new and renewable energy and there is a plan to generate 200 MW of electricity through solar energy.

Nasser Ali Al Muslamani, Director of Planning and Quality Department at the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) , dis-cussed Qatar’s efforts in devel-oping the tourism sector and opportunities for cooperation to develop the tourism industry during the coming period.

Eng. Ali Al Nemaa, repre-sentative of the Supreme Com-mittee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) gave a presentation on the projects of the Qatar 2022 World Cup and the date of their delivery and designs. Al Nemaa confirmed the readiness and delivery of the stadiums in time to host the World Cup, equipped with all the techniques of cooling and lighting, and the latest technology in the preser-vation of the environment.

Dignitaries at the Qatar-US Economic Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The cooperation protocol includes organising joint youth activities between both parties to be held in Qatar or any other country, in addition to supporting events for Jerusalem, capital of the Islamic youth.

04 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Smoke billowing over the southern districts of the Syrian capital Damascus, during regime strikes targeting the Islamic State group in the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk, and neighbouring districts, yesterday.

Rebels give up Damascus area town to govt

AP

BEIRUT: The Syrian government took control of a town northeast of Damascus yesterday after rebels evacuated to north Syria - the latest in a string of handovers by rebels to the government.

Residents in the town of Dumayr welcomed security forces into their town in a trium-phant show for the cameras of the state-affiliated Al Ikhbariya TV station.

Waving the national flag, they lifted Al Ikhbariya TV corre-spondent Rabieh Dibeh onto their shoulders and chanted their support for President Bashar Assad, after the last of 5,000 rebels and family members boarded buses and left the town.

There have been several handovers by rebels to the gov-ernment in the capital region fol-lowing a punishing government offensive against the rebellious eastern Ghouta region earlier this year. More than 1,500 civilians were killed in the offensive, which culminated in allegations of a chemical weapons attack on the town of Douma, with reports that more than 40 people were killed.

Rebels surrendered towns across eastern Ghouta as the offensive drove on, giving up control of an area once home to an estimated 400,000 people in

a matter of weeks.The Army of Islam rebels in

Dumayr followed their com-panions belonging to the same group from Douma to Jarablus, a town in north Syria shared between Turkish and Syrian opposition control.

The Syrian government has been following a proven strategy of besieging opposition areas until residents and fighters, des-perate for food, medical treatment and relief, give up and accept government control.

The bruising offensives have displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, and tens of thou-sands more choose to leave to north Syria than to submit again to the government and be con-scripted by the military.

U.N. officials and human rights groups say the strategy and the evacuation arrangements amount to forced population dis-placement, a war crime.

A similar arrangement to have Islamic State militants evacuate their pocket inside the capital appeared to collapse yes-terday. Government forces began bombarding the Hajr al-Aswad neighborhood and Yarmouk Pal-estinian camp inside Damascus only hours after reports surfaced that IS militants would be given two days to leave.

Local opposition activist Sami Dreid, in the nearby Yalda

neighborhood, said the militants were expected to relocate to IS-held territory in the east Syrian desert. He said it was not clear why the deal appeared to have fallen through.

Dumayr, in the Qalamoun mountains, is a short drive away from Douma, the site of the alleged April 7 chemical weapons attack. Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohi-bition of Chemical Weapons were still not able to reach the scene on Thursday, 12 days after the suspected attack.

The attack prompted the United States, France and Britain to strike at suspected Syrian chemical weapons facilities. The three countries said they held

the Syrian government and its ally Russia responsible.

Damascus and Moscow denied responsibility. A UN security team touring the sites of the alleged attack on Tuesday was shot at and subjected to a blast, said OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu. The security team was supposed to give the all-clear for OPCW inspectors to follow, but their visit was put on hold pending the security situation, Uzumcu added.

A UN spokesman said dis-cussions were taking place in the Syrian capital to arrange security to allow OPCW inspectors to visit Douma.

Stephane Dujarric said the

UN did not want to “telegraph” when a UN security team would return, “due to the volatility” of the situation on the ground. Journalists visited Douma a day before the U.N. security team. They were not exposed to any weapons fire.

Associated Press journalists spoke to witnesses who said they were overwhelmed by the smell of chlorine and experi-enced fainting during an April 7 assault.

First responders released videos purporting to show fatal-ities from the attack - lifeless bodies collapsed in an apartment, with foam around their mouths, a sign of asphyxiation.

Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia hold anti-terrorism conferenceAFP

TEHRAN: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia held a meeting in Baghdad yesterday of military and security officials to coor-dinate “anti-terrorism” efforts, the Iranian defence ministry said.

“Cooperation in intelli-gence between the four coun-tries for common aims and anti-terrorism missions has been successful in restoring stability and security, and it should form the basis for future cooperation,” Defence Minister General Amir Hatami said in a statement from the Iraqi capital.

The “coalition” had played an “important role in the defeat” of the Islamic State group in both Iraq and Syria, he said.

The meeting came the same day as Iraq said its air force carried out a raid on IS positions in Syria.

Tehran supports the Iraqi government and the Russian-backed regime in Syria in fighting rebel groups and jihadists by sending “military advisers” and “volunteers” from Iran and Afghanistan.

Turkey’s weak opposition scrambles to challenge ErdoganAP

ANKARA: One party leader is in jail. Another doesn’t have a candidate. A third might face eligibility issues for her party. Turkey’s weak opposition is scrambling to mount a meaningful challenge against strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with just nine weeks to prepare for snap elections.

Erdogan set the presidential and par-liamentary elections for June 24, in a move that will usher in a new system cementing the president’s grip on power more than a year ahead of schedule. Turkey is switching from a parliamentary system to an executive presidential system after a narrowly approved referendum last year, in the wake of a failed 2016 coup attempt. The changes take effect with the next election, which had originally been set for November 2019.

The snap elections caught Turkey off guard and come as the opposition is in disarray. Recent changes to the electoral law pushed through by Erdogan’s gov-erning AKP party with the help of the nationalist party make the playing field even more uneven for the opposition, analysts say.

Still, the opposition parties sounded upbeat with the main opposition party’s leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, promising that the June elections would bring “democracy” and “calm,” and Meral Aksener, seen as the strongest candidate against Erdogan,

vowing to send him home to rest after 15 years in power.

Observers say the early elections were called to capitalise on nationalist sentiment running high following a successful mil-itary campaign in Syria that ousted Syrian Kurdish militia from a border region, in a decision fueled by fears of an economic downturn ahead.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag compared the opposition to people “caught in a downpour in August, without an umbrella.” Marhir Unal, a senior member of Erdogan’s ruling party, said the latest opinion polls give Erdogan 55.6 percent support - which would allow him to win the presidential election in the first round. But Unal didn’t provide further details about the polls.

The main opposition party, the pro-secular Republican People’s Party has yet to announce its candidate. Its leader, Kilicdaroglu, yesterday didn’t rule out an alliance with parties “that support democracy and oppose a one-man regime.”

The party denied it has been caught by surprise, saying it has several strong can-didates and will nominate one in the next two weeks.

But the person considered the most serious contender against Erdogan so far is Aksener, a popular former interior min-ister who defected from Turkey’s main nationalists and formed her own party.

She has already announced her can-didacy for the presidential race.

Buhari’s remarks on young Nigerians’ work ethic stirs social media stormREUTERS

LAGOS: President Muhammadu Buhari has drawn criticism from social media and the opposition alike for saying many young Nigerians think they need “do nothing” to enjoy free homes, hospitals and schooling because they live in an oil-rich country.

Buhari, who said last week he will run for a second term in elections next February, made the comments in London where he is attending a Com-monwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

“More than 60 percent of the pop-ulation is below the age of 30,” he told

a business forum on Wednesday. “A lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria has been an oil producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing, and get housing, healthcare, education free.”

This went down badly with the very people the 75-year-old will need if he is to remain leader of Africa’s top oil producer. The median age in the nation of around 190 million people is just 18, according to the United Nations.

His remarks prompted the ironic hashtag #LazyNigerianYouths on Twitter even though Buhari, a former general who was also a military ruler in the 1980s, did not use the word “lazy”.

Kenya suspends land allocation as 9 hurt in attacksREUTERS

NAIROBI: Kenya suspended a land distribution programme yesterday after nine people were shot or attacked with crude weapons in six days, with local officials facing investigation for their role.

Land minister Farida Karoney said deteriorating security forced her, in con-sultation with the interior ministry, to stop the allo-cation of 44,000 acres (17,806 hectares) of land in Mwea about 100kmiles) northeast of the capital Nairobi.

“You can’t settle people when they are fighting,” she said by phone.

“The suspension is just to allow the security agencies to intervene and reduce the temperature there so that the process is finished without loss of lives.”

Conflicts over land are common in Africa, especially where colonial governments evicted indigenous people, leaving newly independent states to resolve disputes between communities with ancestral ties and more recent occupants and buyers.

Ownership of the land in Mwea has been in dispute for decades after people were forced off the land by the British.

The issuance of title deeds since 2016, in a bid to resolve several claims that had been in court, has inflamed tensions.

Rockets hit Libya airport as UN, French officials visit for talksREUTERS

TRIPOLI: Rockets hit Libya’s main airport and damaged a plane as it was waiting to take off early yesterday, a security force said, the same day as the United Nations envoy and France’s ambassador were visiting the capital to discuss a peace plan.

One rocket hit an Airbus 320 and others struck the arrivals hall at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport at around 2 a.m. (midnight GMT), but no one was injured, a spokesman for the Special Deterrence Force (Rada) said.

UN envoy Ghassan Salame

and French ambassador Brigitte Curmi arrived at the same airport - the only one operating in the city. Their offices did not imme-diately release a statement on the attack or say when they landed.

Tripoli has been controlled by a patchwork of armed groups since a 2011 uprising that toppled long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi and splintered the country.

There have been rival govern-ments in Tripoli and the east since 2014, when most diplomatic mis-sions evacuated to neighbouring Tunisia. Armed groups fighting for territory and power have

regularly attacked Tripoli’s transport hubs - undermining the government’s efforts to persuade diplomatic missions to return to the capital. Airlines have also struggled to maintain services and keep the oil-producing country connected to the outside world as attacks damage their planes.

Rada, a security grup that controls the airport alligned to Libya’s internationally recognised government, said the rockets were fired by men loyal to a militia leader known as Bashir “the Cow”, a group it has clashed with before.

France’s Curmi met

representatives of that govenrment in Tripoli at around 9 a.m., and the UN’s Salame held his meeting in the early afternoon.

When asked whether elec-tions would be held this year, Salame said after meeting Foreign Minister Mohamed Taher Siala: “Sure. We promised this the UN Security Council.” He did not elaborate.

The United Nations launched a new round of talks in September in Tunis between the rival fac-tions to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018 but divisions have prevented reaching an accord.

People inspect the site after a car bomb hit the convoy of Abdel-Razeq Nathouri, the chief of staff of the eastern Libyan military, outside Benghazi, Libya, yesterday.

The Syrian government has been following a proven strategy of besieging opposition areas until residents and fighters, desperate for food, medical treatment and relief, give up and accept government control.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari (centre), arrives to attend the Queen’s Dinner during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), at Buckingham Palace in London, yesterday.

05FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 ISLAM

Quran’s amazing description of realities of natureMANSOOR ALAM

The Holy Quran while describing nature’s physical beauty makes certain remarks that bedazzle the

human intellect, leaving it in awe! It says, “We have put shining stars for you in Asma’adunya. In saying this, the Quran implies that there is a world beyond these shining stars. What we usually observe is the nearest sky. We do not know how many cosmic worlds are beyond that. By calling the nearest sky Asma’adunya, the Quran has pointed out deep astronomical facts in just one word. In the period in which the Quran was being revealed, no one knew the astronomical realities.

For example, the Quran uses the term ‘Masaabih’ which means, shining lamps. It is Allah’s Mercy that He has arranged these stars and planets in such a way that they look so beautiful to us. Indeed, humans are amazed at how beautiful they look while shining!

If they were exposed to us as they really are, then we would not be able to sleep at night. The moon’s beauty has remained legendary since the dawn of civilization. To poets and literary lumi-naries, the moon has been serenaded as an object of extraordinary beauty. In fact, the word ‘lunatic’ derived from the world lunar, means an exquisite beauty that drives one mad. Yet when the astro-nauts lifted the veil from its face, the moon looked dreadful to us and was exposed as just a barren desert.

Indeed, it is because of Allah’s Mercy that the veil is not rent asunder from the true nature of the stars. To us, the stars look exquisitely stunning in the open azure sky. For this, we must be thankful to Allah that some realities are better hidden from us for our own good. He is a merciful God indeed!

But humans have made them objects of guesswork and astrology! The Quran states: “And, indeed, We have adorned the skies nearest to the earth with lights, and have made them objects of futile guesses for the evil ones [from among men], and for them have We readied suffering through a blazing flame” (67:5-6).

That is, the evil ones try to con-vince humanity that human destiny is tied to the stars! This was being said at a time when the world was involved in all types of superstitions, idol wor-ships, and star worship. In fact, star worshippers were called Saa-e-bin (2:62) by the Quran. Star worshippers are mentioned in the story of Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him).

They worshipped the stars as though they were gods. Even if the stars were not worshiped, stars were taken uni-versally as being linked to human destiny at the time. The Quran states that soothsayers, sorcerers, and wizards used to foretell the future by drawing up horoscopes.

The Quran particularly challenged the Arabs of the era who were deeply steeped in superstitious beliefs. The Quran asserts that those who are engaged in predicting kismet using astrology, are engaged in guesswork and are throwing superstitious arrows into darkness.

The Quran calls them, ‘rajumshay-aatin’. The Quran states that the stars in the sky are to be admired for their beauty, but not to be used for making prophecies. Still, we find astrologers and soothsayers who are engaged in guesswork using these stars. They hold the belief that the human future is tied to them!

Poet Allama Iqbal says:How can astrologer identify your

place in life from looking at the stars?You are dust made fully alive, not

one dependent on the position of stars!

A human worth depends on his

continuing efforts, his persistent struggle to exercise his freedom of choice and his ability to exercise Allah-given rights with deep conviction and steadfastness. But when these are taken away, when these are usurped from him, then what does remain of the human being? Please note the kind of metaphor the Quran uses to describe this: “suffering through a blazing flame” (67:5); for, suffering in hell awaits all who are [thus] bent on blas-pheming against their Sustainer: and how vile a journey’s end (67:6).

Such is their ignominy in this world.

But in the life to come, yet more awesome suffering awaits them (5:33). Please note that the Quran says that such people –like astrologers and those who seek their advice on Taqdir — will suffer ignominy in this world.

A messenger used to be a revolu-tionary personality and his revolution was both all-embracing as well as universal. Vested interest groups, be they religious or temporal, used to get upset at his fair and just holistic reform program because it challenged entrenched elite systems and prevailing false ideologies and beliefs, as Ibrahim (PBUH) did.

Imagine how many different entrenched false ideologies, beliefs, and wrong socioeconomic and political systems that a messenger was to tackle at the same time. Imagine the immensity of revolutionary changes that a mes-senger was to create in the society while facing the intense opposition of the pow-erful forces of status quo?

The Quran presents its claims based on rational evidence and logic and asks its opponents to provide proof of their claims as well: (2:111) – Produce an evi-dence for what you are claiming, if what you say is true! Life’s realities are not decided by good feelings but by knowledge and reason. When the Prophet (PBUH) said: My call is based on firm conviction and reason – then this is meant to refute all those beliefs ideologies that are product of false views and superstitions. May Allah give us the strength to practice this important Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH).

www.islamcity.org

Significance of the month of Sha’baanThe month of Sha’baan is the

8th month of an Islamic calendar. There are a few

months that hold a superior status as compared to other months and because of this, they are given more value and respect by the Muslims. One of such months is the month of Sha’baan.Sha’baan is considered one of the virtuous months for which we find particular instructions in the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

It is reported that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) used to fast most in the month of Sha’baan except the last few days of the month. Sha’baan is the month that comes immediately before the month of Ramadan.

Sha’baan acts as a con-nection between the two blessed and sacred months of Rajab and Ramadan. Prophet (PBUH) men-tioned in hadith, “Rajab is the month of Allah, Sha’baan is my month and Ramadan is the month of the Nation”.

In this Holy month of Sha’baan actions of the people presented to Allah Almighty. Our beloved Prophet (PBUH) used to fast repeatedly in this month.

Aisha (RA) said: “I never saw the Messenger of Allah fast for a complete month except for Ramadan, and I never saw him do more fasting in any month than he did in Sha`ban” (Al-Bukhari).

In another hadith Prophet (PBUH) said related to the signif-icance of the month of Sha’baan in these words: “People neglect this month which is between Rajab and Ramadan, in this month the actions of the people are pre-sented to Allah; so I like my deeds to be presented while I am fasting”. (Abu Dawood)

The above-mentioned had i t h s o f P r o p h e t Muhammad (PBUH) give the importance of the fasting in the month of Sha’baan. In hadith Prophet (PBUH) described the significance of

worship during midnight and fasting in the day in these words: “When the Middle Night of Sha’baan arrives, you should stand (Praying) in the night and should fast in the day following it” (Ibn Majah).

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) mentioned in one of His Hadith about the blessings of 15th Sha’baan night, during the night of 15th of Sha’baan, Allah will say “is there any person repenting so that I forgive him, and any person seeking provision so that I provide for him, and any person with distress so that I relieve him, and so on until dawn” (Ibn Majah).

This night should be spent in worship and total submission to Allah Almighty as much as pos-sible. The recitation of the Noble Quran is another form of bene-ficial worship in this night. After performing Salah, or at any other time, one should recite as much of the Holy Quran as one can. The best benefit one can take from the blessings of this night

is by asking Allah sincerely. It is hoped that all our prayers in this night will be accepted by Allah. Dua itself is a form of ibadah or worship, and Allah Almighty rewards the one who recites for asking, in addition to fulfilling his/her needs.

Fasting in the month of Sha’baan gives you a chance to start preparing for the month of Ramadan.

For fasting, you will have to wake up early on Fajr time, and spending a day without eating and drinking, will give you a clear idea of what it would take in order to success-fully spend the blessed month of Ramadan.

May Allah give us the utmost love for such a month that meant so much to our beloved Prophet (PBUH). May He give us the ability to fast abundantly in this month and committing good deeds and Muslim gain countless blessings from Allah Almighty in addition to receiving pardon and forgiveness. Ameen!

The Earth is green and beautiful, and Allah has appointed you his stewards over it. The whole Earth

has been created a place of worship, pure and clean. Whoever plants a tree and dil-igently looks after it until it matures and bears fruit is rewarded. If a Muslim plants a tree or sows a field and humans and beasts and birds eat from it, all of it is love on his part. Here are some beautiful verses from the Holy Quran on the cre-ation of the Earth and its beauty.

1 – Surat Luqman: “Do you not see that Allah (swt) has made what is in the heaven and Earth subservient to you and made complete to you His favours outwardly and inwardly?” [31:20]

2 – Surat Al-Teen: “We have indeed created man in the best of moulds.” [95:4]

3 – Surat Al-Sajdah: “He Who created all things in the best way and He began the creation of man from clay.” [32:7]

4 – Surat Aal Imran: “And to Allah belongs the dominion of the Heaven and Earth, and Allah is over all things. Indeed, in the creation of the heavens

and earth, and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding.” [189-90]

5 – Surat Al-Roum: “Devote thyself single-mindedly to the faith, and thus follow the nature designed by Allah, the nature according to which He has fash-ioned mankind; there is no altering the creation of Allah.” [30:30]

6– Surat Al-An’am: “And there is no animal that walks upon the Earth nor a bird that flies with its two wings but they are like yourselves; We have not neglected anything in the book, and then to their Lord shall they be gathered.” [6:38]

7– Surat Luqman: “He created the heavens without pillars as you see them, and put mountains upon the Earth lest it might convulse with you, and He spread it with animals of all kinds; and We sent down water from the clouds, then caused to grow therein (vegetation) of every noble kind.” [31:10]

8 – Surat Qaf: “And the Earth, We spread it out, and cast therein firmly set mountains and We have made to grow therein of all beautiful kinds; to

give sight and as a reminder to every servant who turns to Allah.” [50:7-8]

9 – Surat Al-Ra’d: “And it is He who spread the Earth and made in it firm mountains and rivers, and of all fruits, he has made in it two kinds; He makes the night cover the day; most surely there are signs in this for a people who reflect.” [13:3]

10– Surat Al-Ra’d: “It is He who shows you the lightning, causing fear and hope and who brings up the heavy cloud. And the thunder declares His glory and His praise, and the angels too for awe of Him; and He sends them thunderbolts and smites with them whom He pleases, yet they dispute con-cerning Allah, and He is mighty in prowess.” [13:13-14]

11– Surat Al-Anbiyya: “Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the Earth were a joined entity, and we separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?” [21:30]

12 – Surat Al-Anbiyya: “And We made the sky a protected ceiling, but they, from its signs, are turning away.” [21:32]

13– Surat Al-Nahl: “He causes to grow for you thereby herbage, and the olives, and the palm trees, and the grapes, and of all the fruits; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who reflect.” [16:11]

14– Surat Al-Nahl: “And he has made

subservient for you the night and the day and the sun and the moon, and the stars are made subservient by his com-mandment; most surely there are signs in this for a people who ponder.” [16:12]

15 – Surat Al-Nahl: “Eat of all the fruits and walk in the ways of your lord submissively. there comes forth from within it a beverage of many colours, in which there is healing for men; most surely there is a sign in this (life of bees) for a people who reflect.” [16:69]

16 – Surat Al-Ana’m: “And it is He who sends down rain from the sky, and We produce thereby the growth of all things. We produce from it greenery from which We produce grains arranged in layers. And from the palm trees – of its emerging fruit are clusters hanging low. And [We produce] gardens of grapevines and olives and pome-granates, similar yet varied. Look at [each of] its fruit when it yields and [at] its ripening. Indeed in that are signs for a people who believe.” [6:99]

17 – Surat Ghaafir: “It is Allah Who has made for you the earth as a resting place, and the sky as a canopy, and has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful and has provided for you sus-tenance.” [40:64]

18 – Surat Al-Hijr: “And the Earth; we have spread it forth and made in it firm mountains and caused to grow in it every suitable thing.” [15:19]

The beauty of Earth through

18 verses of the Holy Quran

When the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: My call is based on firm conviction and reason — then this is meant to refute all those beliefs and ideologies that are product of false views and superstitions.

06 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018ASIA

SC trashes plea for SIT probe into Loya’s deathIANS

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed peti-tions seeking a SIT probe into the death of Judge B H Loya, who was conducting a trial in the killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh in Gujarat in which now BJP President Amit Shah was an accused.

Holding that there was absolutely no merit in the peti-tions, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said that Judge Loya met a natural death while in Nagpur.

Dismissing the petitions, the court said: “There is no doubt and it is clear from the state-ments of the judicial officers that Loya died of natural causes.” Three of the judicial officers, the court said, had travelled with Judge Loya by train from Mumbai to Nagpur to attend a wedding reception. They stayed together at Ravi Bhawan, attended the function and during the day they also visited the residences of a few judges.

Sohrabuddin Sheikh was allegedly shot dead in a stage-managed shoot-out. One of the accused was Amit Shah, who was then the Home Minister in Gujarat when the Chief Minister was now Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

After Loya’s death in November 2014, Amit Shah was discharged and the CBI refused to file an appeal against it.

The Supreme Court ruling did nothing to quieten the political temperatures. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came down heavily on Congress President Rahul Gandhi, saying he should apologise to Shah, the country and the judiciary.

BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said all the petitions were polit-ically motivated and were aimed at defaming Amit Shah. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad echoed the sentiment and said Rahul Gandhi should hang his head in shame.

The Congress retorted that was a “sad letter day” in India’s history and reiterated its demand for a fair investigation into Loya’s “mysterious death”. It listed the chain of events leading to his death.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist demanded that the case be heard by a larger bench and described as “unfor-tunate” the apex court’s rejection of demands for an independent probe into Loya’s death.

The judgment pronounced by Justice Chandrachud took exception to the way the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed and insinuations were made against the committee of admin-istrators of the Bombay High Court and the judges of the Supreme Court in the course of the hearing.

Differences on stand towards Congress dominate CPI-M meetIANS

HYDERABAD: Differences over the issue of elec-toral understanding with the Congress dominated the proceedings of the national conclave of the Communist Party of India-(Marxist yesterday as it began discussion on the draft political resolution. The 22nd party Congress of the CPI-M on the second day took up discussion on two divergent viewpoints.

The draft political resolution, which was cleared by the party’s Central Committee in January and which ruled out alliance with Con-gress, was moved by senior leader Prakash Karat, while General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, who is in favour of electoral understanding with the Con-gress, moved the minority view, which was earlier rejected by the Central Committee.

Yechury told reporters that the Central Com-mittee decided to discuss both the viewpoints in view of the large number of amendments received

from members. “Since there was a difference of opinion on tactical line, the Central Committee felt that both the opinions should be discussed at the Party Congress and come to a collective decision. Once the decision is arrived at after delib-erations, it will be the unified policy decision of the party,” he said.

In a departure from the established procedure, Karat, who is opposed to any electoral under-standing with Congress, moved the political res-olution. Normally, the party General Secretary presents the draft political resolution at the Con-gress, the highest decision making forum.

Denying any differences, Yechury said this was not the first time that the incumbent General Secretary has not moved the political resolution. “Wait. The discussions have just started. Our party has a vibrant inner democracy and will take deci-sions collectively after discussion and debate,” Yechury said when asked what would be his next move if the minority view is rejected.

Delhiites may soon be compensated for power outageIANS

NEW DELHI: Lt Governor Anil Baijal yesterday approved a proposal from the Delhi government to compensate consumers for unscheduled power cuts lasting longer than one hour.

“Approved proposal for issue of policy directions regarding payment of compen-sation to consumers in case of power failure,” Baijal tweeted.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called it an “innovative policy” and said it would make power distribution companies accountable to people.

On Tuesday, Kejriwal had approved the policy to provide compensation to users in case of “unscheduled power cuts by the private power distribution companies” and it was sent to the Lt. Governor for approval.

As per the new policy, in case of an unscheduled power cut, the discoms (power

distribution companies) will have to restore the electricity within one hour. Failure to do so shall result in a penalty of Rs 50 per hour per consumer for the first two hours and Rs 100 per hour per consumer after two hours. The compensation would be provided to consumers in their monthly electricity bills.

In case of a power cut, a consumer has to file a “no current” complaint through SMS, email, phone, mobile application or website, along with name, Consumer Account (CA) number and mobile number. The power distribution company would then attend to the complaint and send a confirmation message to the consumer.

The respective compen-sation amount would be then credited to the CA number auto-matically and a message would be sent to the consumer.

This amount would be then adjusted in the consumer’s monthly electricity bill.

Modi meets Queen Elizabeth II

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is greeted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II during a private audience at Buckingham Palace in London.

Aung San Suu Kyi in Vietnam for talks

Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi (right) and Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc walk to the meeting room for bilateral talks in Hanoi, Vietnam, yesterday.

Myanmar blocks Rohingya aid despite safe return pledgeANATOLIA

YANGON: Myanmar pledged safe repa-triation of Rohingya from neighbouring Bangladesh as soon as possible despite accusations of activists claiming the government was intentionally blocking aid for refugees facing dire food shortage in Rakhine state.

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation deal last November, but

Dhaka claims not a single refugee has returned. The UN maintains the Myanmar government has been unable to assure safe return for the refugees, and remaining houses in entire villages have been razed to the ground in the name of development works.

Yesterday, Myanmar Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye, who recently visited the refugee camps in Bangladesh, said the

government was working hard for the safe, dignified and voluntary return of refugees who provide evidence of origin in the country. “Firstly, we would like to reiterate that we are not accepting those who failed to present required evi-dences,” Win Myat Aye told the media.

About his two-day visit to Bang-ladesh earlier this month, he said he met Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox Bazar. “For the repatriation, the first step

for displaced people is to fill the form. But I got surprised that they have not received any form to be filled although we already sent the forms since months ago,” he said.

He claimed all refugees he met in the camps said they wanted to return to Myanmar, but said the problem is citi-zenship. “They told me that they want citizenship when they come back. So, we explained to them about the citi-

zenship verification process,” he said. “We have been preparing for the

safe return for months, and now we are ready. And we would like to start repa-triation as soon as possible as the monsoon is coming,” he said.

However, he admitted that more time would be needed to verify the people as the forms sent back by Bang-ladeshi government had not been filled completely.

Nepal honours first conquest of Everest without bottled oxygenAP

KATHMANDU: Nepal honoured two climbers who were the first to scale Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen 40 years ago. Minister for Tourism Rabindra Adhikari praised the climbers at a ceremony.

Italian Reinhold Messner and Austrian Peter Habeler reached the summit without use of supplementary oxygen, while others on their team used bottled oxygen. Until then, all climbers carried oxygen cyl-inders to aid them at high alti-tudes where oxygen levels are low. Since Everest was first scaled in 1953, thousands of

climbers have reached the summit and hundreds more make attempts every year. This year nearly 350 foreign climbers have already been issued climbing permits. Most climbers still use supplementary oxygen.

Messner has been a strong critic of the large number of people climbing Everest. He sug-gested many years back that Nepal give the mountain a rest to allow it to recover, but Nepal did not listen. “They decided like this, I cannot change it,” he said, while acknowledging that the climbing has been good for Nepal economically because many people stay for weeks and spend large amounts of money.

Holding that there was absolutely no merit in the petitions, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, said that Judge Loya met a natural death while in Nagpur.

Indonesia nabs bootleg booze manufacturerYOGYAKARTA: Police announced the arrest of an alleged boss of an illegal manufacturer of home-made liquor whose lethal mix ended up killing at least 45 people in West Java district of Cicalengka in a week.

An estimated 100 people died in Indonesia this month after consuming toxic liquor.

Speaking at a news con-ference, Deputy National Police Chief Commissioner Gen. Pol. Syafruddin said police arrested the boss of illegal product, Samsudin Simbolon, at his palm oil plantation in southern Sumatra early Wednesday, according to antaranews.com.

Simbolon had allegedly bought his luxury home from the proceeds of his illegal business. Police also detained Simbolon’s wife and his two agents for helping him run the business that had been going on for the last two years.

Police were looking for four other suspects.

5 dead after toxic gas emissions in Sri Lanka factoryCOLOMBO: At least five people were killed by inhaling toxic gas coming out from a rubber factory in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan police said five people were killed and 15 others were hospitalised because of burns and breathing difficulties caused by exposure to toxic gas coming out from a rubber factory outside the capital Colombo.

The police said an employee of the factory had accidentally fallen into a tank containing Ammonia gas outside the factory. He died immediately, while four of his colleagues died while trying to save him because of inhaling toxic gas, and 15 sustained burns and breathing diffi-culties. The factory is located in Horana, 20km south-east of the capital Colombo.

07FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 ASIA

Prince Charles meets Pakistan’s PM

Britain’s Prince Charles (right) greets Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at Clarence House in London yesterday on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

Duterte during the National Police chief handover ceremonyPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte holds a Galil sniper rifle next to outgoing Philippine National Police Chief, Ronald ‘Bato’ Dela Rosa during the National Police chief handover ceremony in Camp Crame, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, yesterday.

PTI loses majority in KP province assemblyINTERNEWS

PESHAWAR: With just weeks remaining before the term of the assembly expires, PTI announced it would take action against over a dozen provincial lawmakers for allegedly selling their votes in last month’s elec-tions. But in doing so, it has thrown away its simple majority in the legislature in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Curiously, the oppo-sition in the house says it will not bring a no-confidence motion and seek to capitalise on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) precarious position, terming such a move pointless.

In a news conference in the federal capital, PTI Chairman Imran Khan announced the names of 18 party lawmakers (including two who had joined it from the Qaumi Watan Party and the rival Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) and two coa-lition members who had indulged in horse-trading in the recent Senate elections.

Imran said that they had issued show-cause notices to these lawmakers and would even take their alleged dis-loyalty to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for further legal action.

Some PTI lawmakers included in the list, though, have vehemently denied the accusations of horse-trading. Javed Naseem said that the party had first tried to expel him three years ago and it took a court order to reclaim his valid seat. Yasin Khalil refuted the allegations and stated that he had even met with Imran and the K P Chief Minister to convince them that he did not partake in horse-trading.

As a result, the PTI is now only left with just 41 lawmakers of its own, seven from its coa-lition partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and an independent member in the 122-member house.

Inauguration of Islamabad airport delayed againINTERNEWS

ISLAMABAD: The opening of new Islamabad International Airport has been delayed once again but this time at the eleventh hour when the operational prepar-edness was complete and new flight schedule had been announced though the media.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the facility would now become operational on May 3 as prime minister’s adviser on avi-ation Sardar Mehtab Ahmed wanted more system and equipment testing to achieve com-plete satisfaction. The new airport, built at a cost of Rs105bn, was earlier scheduled to become oper-ational on April 20. Airport is

capable of handling nine million passengers and 50,000 tonnes of cargo every year in its first phase Ahmed expressed his satisfaction during an inspection of the airport, according to a spokesman for the adviser.

“The state-of-the-art system and equipment need to be tested and trialed further to bring it to the level of international standards,” the spokesman said, adding: “Opening of the new airport was rescheduled to do more tests and trials in order to improve reliability and efficiency of systems.” After the rescheduling announcement, a fresh Notam (notice to airmen) was issued by the CAA headquarters, saying “the airport will be operational on May

3, 2018”.The surprising announcement

of rescheduling was made at a press briefing at the new facility by Nadir Shafi Dar, CAA’s director planning, and Syed Aamir Mehmood, director media coor-dination of the CAA. Briefing jour-nalists about features and other facilities at the new airport, Mehmood said the airport was capable of handling nine million passengers and 50,000 tonnes of cargo every year in its first phase. After its expansion, it would be able to serve up to 25m passengers a year by 2025, he added.

“The new airport will become the country’s hub and boost its business and economy. It is expected to provide multiple

direct and indirect jobs and reap enormous economic benefits for the country,” he said, adding that the successful completion of the airport reflected the ability of the CAA to build a world class airport that had become a pride of the country. Metro and private transport will be providing round-the-clock services for public convenience.

Mehmood said it took almost 11 years to build the new airport, adding that its 190,370-square-metre four-level passenger ter-minal building had been designed to facilitate passengers and stake-holders. In reply to a question about security of the airport, he said that since the new airport was located in two districts Attock and

Rawalpindi the issue of responsi-bility of police security had been taken up with the Punjab home department to make a decision which city would handle the security. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had last Friday paid a surprise visit to the new airport and inspected the terminal building and other facilities and sought a report on the short-comings in two days.

The Prime Minister also visited the domestic arrival lounge and issued some instructions to avi-ation secretary Irfan Elahi after noticing some serious flaws.

He inquired about the cafe-teria for airport employees, including those of the Airport Security Force, CAA and airlines.

Pakistan reducing its dependence on US armsINTERNEWS

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is grad-ually reducing its dependence on American military technology and China is filling the gap, says a report. The long, almost 2,000-word Financial Times report notes that the shift started in the last few months of the Obama administration, when Congress blocked the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

In Islamabad, this move was seen as a confirmation of Paki-stan’s fear that the United States “could no longer be relied on as their armed forces’ primary source of advanced weapons”, the report adds.

The shift started in the last few months of Obama adminis-tration, when Congress blocked sale of eight F-16s to Islamabad. So, Pakistan shifted its focus from F-16s to the JF-17 fighter jets it is developing with China, and which is catching up with the F-16 in terms of capabilities.

The ban accelerated Paki-stan’s efforts to shift its “military

procurement away from Amer-ican-made weapons towards Chinese ones, or those made domestically with Chinese support. The report also quotes data from the Stockholm Inter-national Peace Research Institute, showing that since 2010, US weapons exports to Pakistan have plummeted from $1bn to just $21m last year.

During the same period, those from China have also fallen, but much more slowly, from $747m to $514m, making China the biggest weapons exporter to

Pakistan. “The shift coincided with Islamabad’s growing sus-picion about the closeness between the US and India, but was accelerated by the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil in 2011, which badly damaged relations with the US,” the report added.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend $2bn of mil-itary aid to Pakistan — announced in January —further exacerbated the situation.

Identifying one immediate impact of the move, the FT noted that US officials were “now finding that Islamabad is less responsive than usual” to their requests for support in Afghanistan.

Harrison Akins, a research fellow at the Howard H Baker Jr Centre for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, said: “The Trump administration’s decision can only push Pakistan further into the arms of Beijing — especially with Pakistan’s shift from US military supplies to Chinese military supplies.”

In Islamabad, this move was seen as a confirmation of Pakistan’s fear that the United States “could no longer be relied on as their armed forces’ primary source of advanced weapons”.

China flies bombers around Taiwan, holds live-fire drillsAFP

BEIJING: Chinese bombers and spy planes have flown around Taiwan, the air force said as Taipei accused Beijing of trying to stoke regional tensions with its military drills.

China sees the democrati-cally-governed island as a ren-egade part of its territory to be brought back into the fold and has not ruled out reunification by force. H-6K bombers, Su-30 and J-11 fighters and reconnais-sance aircraft took part in a

patrol around Taiwan, air force spokesman Shen Jinke told the official Xinhua news agency.

Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang said the exercise served as a warning against those pushing for Tai-wanese independence.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said Thursday multiple Chinese aircraft including bombers and reconnaissance planes were spotted on Wednesday afternoon flying over Miyako Strait — near Japan’s southern Okinawa island — into the

western Pacific before returning to their base via Bashi Channel off southern Taiwan.

“China has deliberately manipulated (the exercise) to pressure and harass Taiwan in an attempt to spark tensions between the two sides and in the region,” Chiu Chui-cheng of Tai-wan’s Mainland Affairs Council told a regular briefing.

“(We) will never bow down to any military threat and incentive.” — Helicopter exer-cises — Chinese combat heli-copters also conducted live-fire

drills with missiles off southeast China, state media said, without confirming whether the exer-cises took place in the sensitive Taiwan Strait. The People’s Lib-eration Army (PLA) exercise took place Wednesday and involved various types of helicopters that tested “all-weather operational capability of the air force at sea,” the official Xinhua news agency said.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of helicopters firing missiles at distant objects in the water.

Seoul: Pyongyang removes nuclear sticking pointAP

SEOUL: South Korean President Moon Jae-in said yesterday that his rival, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, isn’t asking for the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula as a precon-dition for abandoning his nuclear weapons. If true, this would seem to remove a major sticking point to a potential nuclear disar-mament deal.

North Korea has always linked its pursuit of nuclear weapons to what it calls a “hostile” US policy that is embodied by the 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea, the 50,000 stationed in Japan, and the “nuclear umbrella” security guarantee that Wash-ington offers allies Seoul and Tokyo. Although Moon reported that North Korea isn’t asking for the US troops to leave, he said the North still wants the United States to end its “hostile” policy and offer security guarantees. When North Korea has previ-ously talked about “hostility” it has been linked to the US troops in South Korea.

It won’t be until Moon and Kim meet next week, and then when Kim is to meet US Pres-ident Donald Trump sometime in May or June, that outsiders might know just what North Korea intends. Until then, caution is needed over the statements the

various leaders are using to set up their high-stakes negotiations.

Moon and Kim’s summit on April 27 will be only the third such meeting between the coun-tries’ leaders. Moon, a liberal who is committed to engaging the North despite being forced to take a hard line in the face of repeated North Korean weapons tests last year, is eager to make the summit a success and pave the way for Kim and Trump to settle the deep differences they have over the North’s decades-long pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Many analysts believe that Kim sees the meeting with Trump as a way to bestow legit-imacy on his own leadership and on a nuclear programme that he has built in the face of criticism and crippling sanctions. Many say it is unlikely that the North will trade away its hard-won nuclear weapons without getting what it wants in return. “North Korea is expressing a com-mitment to a complete denu-clearisation,” Moon said during a meeting with the heads of media organisations. “They are not presenting a condition that the US cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of the American troops in South Korea.... North Korea is only talking about the end of a hostile policy against it and then a security guarantee for the country.”

Philippine-US war games to include Japan, AustraliaREUTERS

MANILA: Annual US-Phil-ippine military exercises involving thousands of troops will be expanded for the first time to include other coun-tries, with Japanese and Australian forces invited to join what will be the 34th edition of the war games.

The Philippines and the US have been holding the “Balikatan” (shoulder-to-shoulder) drills annually to test the readiness of their mil-itaries to respond to threats that include natural disasters and militant extremist attacks. The US embassy in Manila said Australia and Japan, two US allies countries with strategic partnerships with the Philippines, would join the exercises.

Qatari Diar is also making many strategic investments all over the world. They have invested around $40bn in 22 countries across five continents.

08 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018VIEWS

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Accelerated growth

It’s heartening to note that in the past week many senior officials revealed through media how Qatar as a country, along with its institu-

tions, is witnessing exponential growth. This is a matter of great pride for all citizens

and residents of Qatar as this happened during a time the country was subjected to unjustified blockade by some of the neighbouring countries.

Last week, CEO of Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company (Qatari Diar) said in an interview that 80 per cent work of Lusail City infra-structure projects is complete. Lusail City is a flagship project for Qatar and the stadium for 2022 World Cup final will be located here.

According to Qatari Diar CEO, Nabeel Mohammed Al Buenain, an estimated QR40bn is spent to develop the facilities in Lusail City.

In the beginning of the illegal siege, the block-ading countries thought Qatar market will face an economic squeeze and will face shortage of

construction material, as most of these material came from those countries.

What they didn’t realise is the robust policies and procedures Qatar has in place and quick thinking by the leadership made sure the material needed were pro-cured straight from the source country without any delay.

Anyway, the blockading countries were acting as agents as the source of these materials were other friendly countries. Cutting out the middlemen helped in bringing down the cost of some items.

Logistically, Qatar was well prepared as Hamad Port was ready to receive

cargoes and Qatar Airways flies to all over the globe.

Qatari Diar is also making many strategic investments all over the world. They have invested around $40bn in 22 countries across five continents.

There are investing in three projects in US – CityCenterDC, Conrad in Washington and another in Long Island City. The company has five projects in Britain with a total value of $8.17bn. He pointed out that the company’s investments in Asia and Africa are estimated at $3.72bn and $2.11bn respectively.

The trust in Doha was also evident when dollar bond issued by Qatar topped the Saudi bond issue – both in volume and international credit rating. They came in early thinking to mop up the market, but were in for a surprise as Qatar bond sale was oversubscribed many times over and it had the fourth highest rating by international credit agencies.

This goes on to prove that investors have tre-mendous faith in Qatari economy and Doha has very robust system and practices put in place wel-coming global players to the country.

‘Mission Accomplished’ in Syria is possible

JAMES STAVRIDIS BLOOMBERG

QUOTE OF THE DAY

We see that Astana process is parallel to Geneva process

and foresee that the political process

will continue with the support of the

UN.

Kairat Abdrakhmanov Kazakh Foreign Minister

Health care in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

Six months after Maria hit, the hurricane’s death toll is still a subject of contro-

versy. After seismic investi-gations by the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism and the New York Times late last year showing that the true death count was probably several times higher than the official toll — more than 1,000 hur-ricane-related deaths, com-pared with the 64 deaths reported at the time — the Puerto Rican government asked a team of experts at George Washington Uni-versity to review the numbers. But insufficient details were collected about causes of death by the island’s Demographic Registry. And as months go by, it becomes harder to trace the families of the deceased and ask

questions about how a death occurred.

These mistakes are symptomatic of a broader trend. Recently, the island’s Institute of Statistics has found itself at the unlikely epicenter of a public outcry, as the cash-strapped local government considers ending the independent agency’s tenure. Now side-lined from participating in Maria’s maligned death count, the institute has his-torically played a critical role in correcting tendencies by local agencies to under-report health risks.

Last month, I traveled to Puerto Rico to get a handle on what doctors are seeing on the island now, six months after the storm. Doctors there say that poor data collection and underre-porting are hiding a health crisis whose true scale eclipses official accounts.

The problems

are particularly acute for chronically ill patients. Wendy Matos, a physician who supervises nearly 470 doctors as the executive director of the University of Puerto Rico’s faculty practice plan, said that her clinics are seeing increases in cardiac arrest and intracranial hem-orrhage (bleeding inside the skull), more waterborne and infectious disease and swelling numbers of suicides since Maria.

Matos, whose doctors comprise the largest network of specialists and subspe-cialists on the island, also said her medical clinics have lost track of what has hap-pened to tens of thousands of patients since the hurricane. From September 1 to December 31, doctors at Matos’s clinics saw nearly 25 percent fewer patients than they had the previous year - just under 91,000, down from about 117,000 patients

in a comparable period in 2016. Some of these high-risk patients have left the island. Others are struggling to access care, immobile or unable to travel the long dis-tance to San Juan on deterio-rating roads. Some have died.

These issues, doctors think, either aren’t fully reflected in data put out by Puerto Rico’s Department of Health, or fail to surface because data on disease and injury isn’t being published at all.

Even before Maria, rural and isolated areas in Puerto Rico didn’t have enough doctors and nurses. Spe-cialists were in short supply. The hurricane has left more patients without care, or waiting longer for care. The island’s Center for Investi-gative Journalism found that after the storm, hospitals’ operational capacity had been overstated by the governor.

I understand what President Donald Trump was trying to express in his now-famous “Mission Accom-plished” tweet Saturday. And in

fairness, in the military we often do use that expression to convey the success of a tactical task.

But he should have understood the echoes of President George W Bush’s appearance under a now-infamous banner on a carrier deck after the invasion of Iraq that turned out to be anything but a mission accomplished. And, unfortunately, the weekend’s air strikes didn’t come near accomplishing the broader strategic mission ahead of us in Syria.

What the strikes (conducted jointly with two other close allies, France and Britain) did do was damage the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons research, production and storage facilities. They were executed flawlessly at the tactical level, and kudos to the operational forces involved, especially the planners at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida (Secretary of Defense Jim Mat-tis’s old command).

But here is what it did not do: totally destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stock-piles; knock out Bashar Al Assad’s ability to produce more nerve agents or rebuild the capability to do so; reduce the

regime’s ability to transport the chemical weapons by road, rail or air; degrade or destroy the means of delivery (Syria’s 250-plane air force); or knock out the govern-ment’s command and control system.

All those actions would have been per-missible under international law. But the US wisely decided to conduct a more measured attack

(although it was roughly double the level of last year’s strike that used only Tom-ahawk missiles). By opting for a rela-tively constrained assault, Mattis and the president chose a course of action that allows further escalation if necessary, had a minimal risk to US personnel, avoided direct confrontation with Russia and minimised collateral damage to

Syrian forces.But the question hangs in the air like

the smoke over the impact zones on Sat-urday morning: What if Assad doesn’t stop? What would the next strike look like, and what are the additional risks?

Operationally, the next logical step in the ladder of escalation would include the following elements:

many more allied participants

possibly two US aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean

portions of the Syrian electric grid and command and control stations

destroy Syrian air defences

the Middle East, Europe and the US con-ducting a multiday campaign with dozens of targets

Special Forces on the ground — focused on the region for battle damage assessment and enabling precision targeting.

This scenario would be much riskier than what we saw this weekend for several reasons.

First, it would put allied air crews in range of Syrian and Russian air defences, potentially leading to pris-oners of war and casualties. Second, it would increase the number of nations involved on the allied side, complicating operations considerably. Third, it would bring to a full halt the (very imperfect) peace negotiations underway. Fourth and most dangerously, it would probably bring the US and Russia into a direct military confrontation — it would be very difficult to avoid some level of Russian collateral damage if the coa-lition chose to go after Syrian airplanes, as they are increasingly intertwined with the Russians.

The US has a handful of strategic objectives in Syria. At the top of the list is

continuing to seize territory from the so-called Islamic State and reduce the ter-rorists’ reach and threat to America. Second is to enforce the important inter-national norm against using weapons of mass destruction.

At the humanitarian level, we should also be doing what we can, over time, to reduce the sheer human misery of Syria, where 500,000 are dead and well over 10 million have been pushed out of their homes. These are real and important strategic objectives.

One hopes Assad got the message and will refrain from using chemical weapons on his own people. But, as the saying goes, hope is not a strategy. An actual strategy would see the US remain engaged in Syria with up to 5,000 troops (currently there are around 2,000 — which is a far, far cry from the 150,000 under my command in Afghanistan just a few years ago). The allies would also push on Russia’s economic weaknesses — Moscow doesn’t have the money to rebuild Syria under Assad — to force real negotiations, under United Nations aus-pices, on a diplomatic resolution. A good model is the Balkans of 20 years ago, when Russia eventually became part of the solution.

The US has to find the balance in Syria between limited hard power (small numbers of ground troops, special forces, offensive cyber, long-range pre-cision strikes) and soft power (diplomacy, economic incentives, coa-lition-building to share costs, strategic messaging). A pair of well-executed air strikes is a long, long way from “mission accomplished.” We’ve got more work to do in Syria.

The author is a Bloomberg columnist. He is a retired US Navy admiral and former military commander of Nato, and dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His most recent book is “Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans.”

MEKELA PANDITHARATNE

What the strikes (conducted jointly with two other close allies, France and Britain) did do was damage the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons research, production and storage facilities. They were executed flawlessly at the tactical level, and kudos to the operational forces involved.

09FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 OPINION

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Cuba heads towardsa post-Castro future

Yemen: A country wracked by a bloody war

ISHAAN THAROOR THE WASHINGTON POST

AL JAZEERA

It’s an end of an era in Havana. Cuba’s National Assembly con-vened a session that culminates in President Raúl Castro stepping

down from his post in favor of his first vice president, Miguel Diaz-Canel. The move sets the stage for a startling reality: Diaz-Canel has become the first non-Castro to lead the Caribbean nation since Marxist revolutionaries swept to power almost six decades ago.

Castro, 86, will remain head of the country’s Communist Party, although

he is in the twilight of his career. His brother Fidel Castro, architect of the regime that has withstood decades of American blockade, stepped down in his favor in 2008 and died two years ago. And while the ascension of Diaz-Canel — a handpicked successor plucked from the ranks of the Com-munist leadership — has been tele-graphed for months, it still presents a dramatic inflection point.

“For me, not having a Fidel or Raul, it’s almost impossible to conceive of,” Giraldo Baez, a 78-year-old former factory worker, told my colleague Anthony Faiola in Havana. “It’s almost out of my realm of understanding. But even as they go, I feel we still need to follow their ideas.”

Among the hard-bitten Cuban diaspora in the United States, there is little reason to cheer. “Today is a day when the Castro dynasty is appointing a new monarch to commit even more crimes,” said Miguel Saavedra, pres-ident of a group of Cuban exiles in Miami. “The future ahead for the Cuban people is tragic and pathetic while Castro is still in power.”

That’s a line of argument shared by many Republicans in Washington and hawks in the Trump administration. In the space of a year, President Donald Trump has set about reversing the landmark steps toward normalization with Cuba that President Barack Obama had set in motion. Obama had visited Cuba in 2016 and delivered a speech watched by millions. He was followed by myriad US politicians, fashion icons, Wall Street CEOs and business execu-tives, and thousands of tourists - whose

arrival all buoyed Cuba’s fledgling private sector.

But after a mysterious set of “health attacks” on US diplomats, Trump moved to expel Cuban diplomats and withdraw the bulk of US staff in Havana. His administration has also stemmed the flow of American tourists heading to Cuba, limited American investment there and intensified rhetoric against the regime. What hopeful talk there had been of a new chapter in US-Cuba relations was snuffed out as Trump — who only a few years prior seemed interested in expanding his businesses to Cuba — pandered to a vocal but small constit-uency within his own party.

The Cuba skeptics claim that Obama’s opening did little to change the behaviour of the oppressive Cuban regime, but their critics argue that progress would be slow and fitful and that the US hawks cling to an anachro-nistic Cold War mind-set. After all, the United States has few qualms building economic and political ties with Vietnam, another Communist-ruled one-party state that squeezes civil society and jails dissidents.

“These steps loudly signaled the return of Florida’s pro-embargo faction, led by Senator Marco Rubio, at the helm of U S -Cuba policy,” wrote Ted Piccone of the Brookings Institution. “Now, with the appointment of the more hardline John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to top national security positions, we should expect the White House to double down on its first year’s embrace of punitive regime change.”

This uncompromising position has had a chilling effect within Cuba. It also probably offered relief to hard-liners within the Communist Party who were wary of the forces of liberalization that Obama’s opening could unleash. “Cuba and the United States can cooperate and live side by side, respecting their differences,” Castro said last year. “But no one should expect that for this, one should have to make concessions inherent to one’s sovereignty and independence.”

The Cuban government has since stalled its efforts to grow the private sector. “Cuban officials last year put a temporary halt on issuing new licenses for private businesses, arguing that time was needed to ensure that the island’s new crop of entrepreneurs was paying taxes and operating within the law,” Faiola explained. “The freeze was seen as motivated by

influential party officials still highly skeptical of change.”

Diaz-Canel, 57, is from a generation of Cuban politicos who never manned the guerrilla front lines alongside Fidel, Che Guevara or other figures from the halcyon days of revolution. Instead, he cut his political teeth in the 1990s as Cuba reckoned with the economic catastrophe that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is seen as some-thing of a pragmatist and a proponent of new technology. But his assumption of the presidency is also a mark of his closeness to the prevailing order.

Diaz-Canel faces pressure to bolster Cuba’s flagging economy, which can no longer count on being buttressed by Venezuela’s petro-wealth. He may have to spearhead monetary reform and push for further foreign investment, calibrating the imperative for loosening up against the fears of the Communist establishment.

Obama and his lieutenants believed the United States could help coax along these changes. But analysts argue that Trump’s unvarnished hostility to Havana narrows the scope of Diaz-Canel’s possible actions. “The United States and other outside actors will not determine the nature or the timing of these changes,” Marguerite Jimenez wrote in Foreign Affairs last month. “They can, however, create a climate in which reform is easier. Strategies of US engagement that recognise Cuban sov-ereignty and resist calling for regime change will reduce the risks to Díaz-Canel of undertaking more significant changes.”

For three years, Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has been wracked by a bloody war between the Houthi

rebels and supporters of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

The Houthis and the Yemeni gov-ernment have battled on and off since 2004, but much of the fighting was confined to the Houthis’ stronghold, northern Yemen’s impoverished Saada province.

In September 2014, the Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and proceeded to push south-wards towards the country’s second-biggest city, Aden. In response to the Houthis’ advances, a coalition of Arab

states launched a military campaign in 2015 to defeat the Houthis and restore Yemen’s government.

Here are some key facts about Yemen’s complex war:

Civilian casualties in Yemen are high.

As of March 26, 2018, at least 10,000 Yemenis had been killed by the fighting, with more than 40,000 casualties overall.

Getting accurate information on the death toll is difficult, but Save The Children estimated at least 50,000 children died in 2017, an average of 130 every day.

The United Nations High Commis-sioner for Human Rights, has esti-mated that Saudi-led coalition air attacks caused almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths, while the

Houthis have been accused of causing mass civilian casu-alties due to their siege of Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city.

Millions of Yemenis have been displaced.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), estimates that more than 3 million Yemenis have fled their homes to elsewhere in the country, and 280,000 have sought asylum in other coun-tries, including Djibouti and Somalia. As reported by Al Jazeera, internally displaced Yemenis often must cope with a lack of food and inadequate shelter. Many Yemenis who have not fled are also suffering, especially those in need of healthcare.

Yemen was ruled for a mil-lennium by Zaydi Shia imams until 1962, and the Houthis

were founded as a Zaydi Shia reviv-alist movement. However, the Houthis have not called for restoring the imamate in Yemen, and religious grievances have not been a major factor in the war. Rather, the Houthis’ demands have been primarily eco-nomic and political in nature.

In 2013, Yemen’s National Dia-logue Conference was launched, and was tasked with writing a new constitution and creating a federal political system. But the Houthis withdrew from the process because it left Yemen’s transitional gov-ernment in place. Further inflaming matters was the fact that two Houthi representatives were assassinated during the conference’s proceedings.

The government’s decision to lift fuel subsidies in July 2014 angered the Yemeni public and sparked massive street protests by Houthi supporters and others, who demanded that the government step down. The Houthis proceeded to take over Sanaa in Sep-tember, forcing the government to flee.

The Houthis were assisted in their advance by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was over-thrown by protests in 2011, and his supporters.

Al Qaeda and ISIL have spread as a result of the chaos.

Yemen has long been home to an Al Qaeda franchise, regarded as one of the most dangerous branches of the organisation. Yet the armed group was able to expand its footprint in Yemen amid the chaos following the ousting of Saleh in 2011, taking control of territory in southern Yemen.

Since the start of the war last year, Al Qaeda has launched several attacks on Houthi rebels, whom it views as

Diaz-Canel faces pressure to bolster Cuba’s flagging economy, which can no longer count on being buttressed by Venezuela’s petro-wealth. He may have to spearhead monetary reform and push for further foreign investment, calibrating the imperative for loosening up against the fears of the Communist establishment.

infidels. In 2015, Al Qaeda took over Mukalla, a provincial capital and the fifth-largest city in Yemen.

ISIL announced the formation of a wilaya, or state, in Yemen in December 2014. In March 2015, it claimed its first attack in Yemen: suicide bombings in two Sanaa mosques used by Zaydi Shia Muslims, which killed more than 140 people.

Providing aid to civilians in Yemen is very difficult. Across Yemen, aid organisations are facing major obstacles to helping Yemenis in need of food, medicine, and other essentials. The Houthi siege of parts of the city of Taiz has pre-vented critical medical supplies from arriving. In January 2016, a hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders was hit by a rocket, killing four people.

As of March 26, 2018, at least 10,000 Yemenis had been killed by the fighting, with more than 40,000 casualties overall. Getting accurate information on the death toll is difficult, but Save The Children estimated at least 50,000 children died in 2017, an average of 130 every day.

Around 15,000 rallied in Paris, according to a count by crowd consultancy Occurence, while police estimated the number at 11,500. The hard-left CGT union, the main organiser, put the crowd at 50,000.

10 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018EUROPE

An anti-riot police officer kicks a protester during clashes in Paris yesterday, as part of a multi branch day of protest called by French unions CGT and Solidaires against French President’s policies amid a rail strike and spreading student sit-ins. RIGHT: People attend a demonstration in Paris.

Thousands rally in France against Macron’s reformsAFP

PARIS: Tens of thousands of striking rail workers, angry public sector staff and students rallied across France yesterday against President Emmanuel Macron in what trade unions hoped would underline resistance nationwide to his reform efforts.

Under sunny skies, thou-sands marched, chanted and carried anti-Macron banners in Paris as well as other cities such as Lyon and Marseille, but the scale of the protests appeared below expectations.

Around 15,000 rallied in Paris, according to a count by crowd consultancy Occurence, while police estimated the number at 11,500. The hard-left CGT union, the main organiser, put the crowd at 50,000.

“We’re here for public services. We’re ready to continue the whole summer, even into

September and October,” Helene Tricre, a 25-year-old ticket inspector working for the SNCF railway, said at the Paris rally.

The overwhelmingly peaceful march was marred by occasional clashes between police and far-left groups, many of them hooded and masked, who were seen smashing several shop windows.

Rail workers were also car-rying out their fourth wave of

stoppages this month, although the number of strikers was down sharply from the beginning of April. Only one in three high-speed TGV trains was running, but this was higher than three weeks ago when only one in eight went ahead.

Staff at the debt-laden SNCF, a bastion of hard-left trade unionism, are striking every two days out of five against plans by Macron to remove job-for-life guarantees and pension privi-leges for new recruits.

“It’s a critical moment for Emmanuel Macron’s presi-dency,” Stephane Zumsteeg, a public opinion expert from the Ipsos polling group, said.

“Either he shows his ability to reform or he fails, and then it’s difficult to know what he will able to do for the rest of his term.” The CGT union had called for various groups angered by Macron’s one-year presidency — students, public sector

employees, pensioners, rail workers — to come together to resist the 40-year-old centrist.

Some left-wingers are even hoping for a re-run of the huge May 1968 demonstrations by workers and students that shook France half a century ago.

But Macron has vowed to stand firm, claiming a solid mandate from his election last year in which he swept away the traditional parties that governed France for decades.

“I’m doing what I said I would,” he told a television inter-viewer last week. Opinion polls suggest France remains deeply divided about his leadership, despite a sharp fall in unem-ployment and a pick-up in investment thanks to his business-friendly approach since taking power.

An Elabe survey showed Friday that 52 percent of respondents felt his election has proven “a bad thing”.

Another survey found 58 percent were unhappy with his presidency. “People who gen-erally have a good financial and professional situation support Macron, but among those who aren’t so well off, it’s much less,” said Vincent Thibault, a researcher at Elabe.

“He’s really a president facing two Frances,” he said. Leftwing critics accuse Macron of trying to break up public services, citing his pledge to cut 120,000 public sector jobs over his five-year term.

The government points to France’s mounting debt, equiv-alent to nearly 100 percent of GDP, as well as stubborn deficits since the 1970s.

Various groups have staged strikes and demonstrations against Macron over the past year, including a series of mass protests that have drawn hundreds of thousands onto the streets.

Yesterday’s protests included many students who have blocked

access to four of the country’s 70 universities, angered by plans to make admissions more selective.

Protesters at the Nanterre university near Paris, a cradle of the May ‘68 protests, voted yes-terday to maintain their shutdown until May 2.

Even Paris’s prestigious Sci-ences Po college — Macron’s alma mater — remained partially blocked after students staged a sit-in Wednesday against the president’s “dictatorship”.

Despite his difficulties, Macron may take heart from divisions in the labour movement as well as public opinion surveys, which do not show sentiment swinging behind the CGT and the protesters. The more moderate CFDT -- France’s largest union in terms of membership -- rejected the CGT’s call to join Thursday’s protests as well as a combined march for the tradi-tional Labour Day show of strength on May 1.

Nato’s forecourt sculpture, also known as the ‘Nato Star’, is pictured at the new Nato headquarters during a press tour of the facilities as the organisation is moving from its old headquarters to the new building, in Brussels, yesterday.

Nato moves from Cold War bunker to glass and steel palaceAFP

BRUSSELS: With its futuristic curved roof, gleaming walls of glass and steel and host of eco-friendly features, Nato’s new billion-euro Brussels head-quarters is a world away from the drab, low-slung warren of offices reeking of Cold War intrigue that it replaces.

The alliance is almost halfway through its move into the new building, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expected to shift to his new office at the end of the month and completion due in mid-June in time for July’s summit.

And while the old HQ has seen some of Nato’s most important moments — not least

the United States’ invocation of the alliance’s mutual self-defence pact after the 9/11 attacks — few disagree the time has come for an upgrade.

Stoltenberg’s deputy Rose Gottemoller, the first woman to chair meetings of Nato’s gov-erning North Atlantic Council, said a storm during the winter brought home the urgency of the move. “As I was sitting at my desk I suddenly heard a drip drip drip behind me and there was a big leak in my office,” she told reporters.

“I was moving the printers and so forth around to make sure they didn’t electrocute me as I was sitting at my desk. It is high time to move.” Next Friday’s meeting of Nato foreign ministers

will be the 70th and last such gathering in the old headquarters, which was only meant to be a temporary fix after the alliance moved from Paris but has lasted half a century.

Since then the alliance has expanded from 15 to 29 members and the old building — originally built as a military hospital — has been unable to keep up, with por-takabins thrown up in car parks to house extra office space.

In the bowels of the building, a control room with banks of vintage switches and lights is still used to run the power system, with enormous gener-ators that would look at home in the engine room of an oil tanker on standby in case of failure.

Britain to ban sale of plastic straws to tackle marine wasteAFP

LONDON: Britain yesterday announced plans to ban the sale of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds in England, as part of a push to tackle global marine pollution.

Prime Minister Theresa May said her government will launch a consultation on banning the single-use items later this year, ahead of legis-lation on the issue. The move follows the 2015 introduction of a small charge for carrier bags in most shops, a ban on plastic microbeads and last month’s announcement of plans for consumers to pay a deposit on plastic bottles.

“The UK government is a world leader on this issue, and the British public have shown passion and energy embracing our plastic bag charge and microbead ban,” May said in a statement.

“Today we have put forward ambitious plans to further reduce plastic waste from straws, stirrers and cotton buds.” She added that Britain is “rallying Common-wealth countries to join us in the fight against marine plastics” by making it central to the agenda at a summit of the group London is hosting this week.

“Together we can effect real change so that future gen-erations can enjoy a natural environment that is healthier than we currently find it,” May said. The government will commit £61.4m for global research and to improve waste management in devel-oping countries, she added.

Italy ramps up search for mafia kingpin after dawn bustsAFP

ROME: Italian police arrested the closest aides of Cosa Nostra kingpin Matteo Messina Denaro yesterday, clamping down on a tightknit, family-run clan which has kept the mobster safely hidden over a quarter of a century on the run.

In all, 21 people were arrested in towns near the Sicilian city of Trapani where Denaro’s criminal empire is based, as part of the “Year Zero” police investigation that allowed authorities to uncover a system of paper notes, or “pizzini”, that Denaro uses to give orders to his most faithful associates.

Those include brothers-in-law Gaspare Como and Rosario Allegra, both in custody, who allegedly manage their boss’s most important affairs.

“The Trapani Mafia is (securely) in the hands of fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro and we can say that because its most important members are his own family,” said Pasquale Angelosanto, head of the Italian carabinieri’s ROS special inves-tigative unit. Angelosanto was speaking at a press conference in Sicilian capital Palermo. Palermo’s assistant public prosecutor Paolo Guido said that six of the accused were local Mafia bosses.

Denaro, now 55, vanished in 1993, with the police seeking his arrest on a range of crimes including dozens of murders, and authorities say he has evaded justice by being more “mobile” than others on the lam, who tend to hunker down in hideouts.

“It would be pointless to say

we’re closing in on him. He’s a different type of fugitive to the other big targets, who’ve all been arrested, and that means locating his whereabouts is par-ticularly hard,” said Palermo prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi.

Police also arrested a busi-nessman involved in the online gambling industry, one of Denaro’s suspected income sources.

Police told reporters that despite reports of Cosa Nostra’s decline, the Trapani branch was “particularly lively and active in control of the area” and oper-ating in the longstanding Mafia industries of extorsion, property fraud and clinching public works contracts.

Police said the gang used people apparently above sus-picion to take part in judicial auctions to buy seized assets cheaply and sell them on at a profit. Police also confirmed the existence of a wiretapped recording of one of those arrested praising the notorious January 1996 murder and dis-solving in acid of 14-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo.

The son of Mafia turncoat Santino was kidnapped in 1993 in a vain attempt to stop his father from collaborating with the authorities. “Did he not do the right thing? He did the right thing!” news agency AGI reported the suspect as saying in the recording, apparently referring to the perpetrators.

In another recording, Denaro and his deceased father Francesco, once a local boss, are compared to Padre Pio, a friar who died in 1968 and was subsequently sainted and is revered in Italy.

Queen Elizabeth, who turns 92 tomorrow, welcomed leaders from the 53 Commonwealth nations — mostly former colonies — to Buckingham Palace for two days of talks that will include discussions on trade, marine protection and tackling cyber crime.

11FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Queen puts forward son as next head of CommonwealthAFP

LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of the Commonwealth, opened the Commonwealth summit for what may be the last time yesterday voicing hope that her son would be allowed to carry on her role.

Queen Elizabeth, who turns 92 tomorrow, welcomed leaders from the 53 Commonwealth nations — mostly former colonies — to Buckingham Palace for two days of talks that will include dis-cussions on trade, marine pro-tection and tackling cyber crime.

In her opening speech, Queen Elizabeth spoke of her own “extraordinary journey” as head of the Commonwealth, which started under her father King George VI with the London Declaration of 1949.

“It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity for future generations and will decide that one day, the Prince of Wales should carry on the important work started by my father in 1949,” she said, referring to her son Prince Charles.

Queen Elizabeth, who has been the group’s symbolic fig-urehead since 1952, gave up long-haul travel in support of the

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth applaud at the formal opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace in London, Britain, yesterday.

biennial summit in 2013 and the 2020 gathering is set to be held in Malaysia.

On the closing day on Friday, leaders are expected to discuss who should follow Queen Eliz-abeth in the role. The position is not hereditary, but Prince Charles, who is also the heir to the thrones of 16 Commonwealth nations, is expected to get the nod, despite some unease among ardent republicans.

Charles, 69, told Common-wealth leaders the body had been “a fundamental feature of my life for as long as I can remember”. “The modern Com-monwealth has a vital role to play in building bridges between our countries,” he said.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said of Charles: “We are certain that when he will be called upon to do so, he will provide a solid and passionate leadership for our Commonwealth.” British

Prime Minister Theresa May, the summit host, paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth’s service to the Com-monwealth at the opening cer-emony. “You have been the Com-monwealth’s most steadfast and

fervent champion,” May said. “You have seen us through some of our most serious challenges.

“And we commit to sus-taining this Commonwealth, which you have so carefully

nurtured.” A spectacle of pomp and pageantry was staged to welcome the leaders, with a guard of honour and flag bearers greeting arriving dignitaries.

More than 100 troops from the Coldstream Guards were in the honour guard, wearing their famous scarlet tunics and bearskin hats.

Born out of the former British empire, the voluntary organi-sation, covering a third of the world’s population, typically focuses on development and democracy, but is placing greater attention on boosting trade.

During the two days of talks, the group is hoping to agree an ocean governance charter, an agenda for trade and investment, and a declaration on tackling cyber crime.

Given its highly diverse membership, if agreements can be struck within the Common-wealth, they can likely achieve wider support.

At the last Commonwealth summit in 2015, leaders struck a deal on climate change that helped pave the way for the Paris agreement days afterwards.

Today’s sessions take place at Windsor Castle, west of London, where the leaders are left entirely alone to discuss whatever they wish.

UK royal wedding: Biggest security operations beginREUTERS

LONDON: Police in Windsor, where Prince Harry marries American actress Meghan Markle next month, said yesterday that they had begun one of the biggest security oper-ations in their history to ensure the event passes off safely.

Harry, 33, and Markle, 36, will tie the knot on May 19 at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the home of the prince’s grandmother which dominates the town about 30km west of London.

More than 100,000 visitors are expected to descend on Windsor to celebrate the wedding and police have said that barriers to stop vehicle attacks, armed patrols, and airport-style security would be

deployed to prevent any incident. Specialist explosive detection dogs from Thames Valley Police searched the town yesterday, examining mail boxes, phone booths and drains for signs of potential explosive devices.

“This is a large operation for any police force and one of the biggest I have worked on,” said police search coordinator Andy Turner. “We of course want it to all go smoothly.” Britain is on its second-highest threat level - severe - meaning an attack is considered highly likely. Last year there were five incidents classified as terrorism, in which 36 people were killed.

Police said shops and buildings would be searched in the days leading up to the wedding.

Economic crisis forces slowdown at Venezuela universitiesAFP

CARACAS: Teachers unable to pay the bus fare to get to class, students stuck in long super-market lines in the quest for affordable food: Venezuela’s academics say the deep economic crisis is paralyzing the country’s universities.

Venezuela’s universities have long ranked as among Latin America’s best. But the acute economic and political crisis has forced students to drop out in droves, and teachers are fol-lowing them out of the country.

Last month, the University of Zulia (LUZ) in northwestern city of Maracaibo cut courses to three days a week to try to ease the problems that students,

professors and employees are facing just to turn up each day.

“We are working every day, but we are organizing ourselves so that every teacher, student or employee comes about three times a week,” said Judith Aular, the LUZ’s rector. Lectures and study material are given out over the internet the rest of the time.

It’s an attempt to curb Ven-ezuela’s growing brain-drain, as teachers and students seek to leave the crisis-torn country, said Aular. “We allow teachers to look for another source of income. With what they earn, they can’t support their families.” Universities across the oil-rich Latin American country are facing the same problem.

Since 2016, when the crisis

sparked by the fall in the price of oil began to deepen, 25 percent of teaching staff, and 40 percent of the students at Oriente University in the eastern city of Cumana have packed their bags and emigrated, according to the university’s director Milena Bravo.

The country’s most experi-enced professors, working full time, earn 3.9 million bolivars a month, equivalent to $10 on the black market — only enough at current rates to buy 5kg of meat.

Danilo Fuenmayor, fresh from completing his economics studies at LUZ, said he was relieved that he only had to turn up for lectures three days a week during his last month. “I had to walk 3km because I didn’t have cash for the bus,” he said.

“Fifteen professors have left my faculty, and my tutor’s car has broken down and she can’t have it repaired. Transportation doesn’t work,” the 23-year-old said.

Venezuelans struggle with cash shortages because the gov-ernment can’t print new bills fast enough to keep pace with the world’s highest rate of inflation, estimated to reach a staggering 13,000 percent this year by IMF.

President Nicolas Maduro, whose government is widely blamed for mismanaging the economy after oil prices plum-meted, said new bills will be issued in June that lop three zeroes off current values in a bid to ease pressure on the public.

The crisis is also causing shortages of food, medicine and

essential products like auto-parts, the lack of which has left 80 percent of the bus fleet par-alyzed, according to the public transport union.

Caracas engineering student Daniela Garcia said she often misses classes because she has to join her mother to queue for hours to buy essential foodstuffs in the supermarket. Teachers, too, are struggling, said Amalio Belmonte, head of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).

UCV, which has 43,000 stu-dents, also plans to reduce classes to three days a week, according to Belmonte. His main problem is a huge budget shortfall, after UCV received only one-third of what he requested for the academic year.

Dozens held in Armenia anti-PM protestsAFP

YEREVAN: Mass anti-government protests in the Armenian capital Yerevan against ex-president Serzh Sark-syan’s election as prime minister entered their seventh day yesterday, with police detaining dozens of demonstrators.

Led by opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan, more than two thousand protesters marched towards government head-quarters in the afternoon where a cabinet meeting was under way. Protesters held up a huge, upside-down official portrait of Sarkisian and shouted anti-gov-ernment slogans.

“Serzh Sarksyan...we came here to tell you that the people

hate you!” Pashinyan shouted.Earlier, several hundred

demonstrators attempted to blockade the entrance to the government building before riot police intervened, arresting dozens and taking them to a local police station.

Protesters have held rallies over recent days to denounce Sarksyan’s efforts to remain in power as prime minister under a new parliamentary system of government.

Parliament elected him on Tuesday to the post of prime min-ister after he served a decade as president. Controversial consti-tutional amendments approved in 2015 have transferred gov-erning powers from the presi-dency to the premier.

“Armenians are ready to fight for their future, we will not stop, our victory is imminent,” 26-year-old protester Misak Mesropyan said at the rally.

Another protester, pensioner Ruben, said: “Protests must con-tinue if we want Serzh (Sarksyan) to finally step down.” The influ-ential head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II, expressed concern over the political turmoil.

“Inciting hatred and enmity as well as any form of violence are unacceptable,” he said in a statement. New President Armen Sarksyan, who is not related to his predecessor, said in a statement he invited “all parties to start dialogue to find the best way out of the situation”.

No charges in Prince death after two-year investigationAFP

CHASKA: Two years after pop icon Prince died of an overdose, prosecutors said yesterday that they would not file any criminal charges and announced a settlement with a US doctor who prescribed powerful pain-killers for the star.

A prosecutor in Prince’s home state of Minnesota said it remained unclear how the Purple One obtained coun-terfeit pills containing fen-tanyl, an intense opioid, that ultimately killed him.

“The bottom line is we simply do not have sufficient evidence to charge anyone with a crime related to Prince’s death,” Mark Metz, the attorney of Carver County, home to Prince’s Paisley Park estate, told reporters.

After searches, Metz said that Prince had bottles of pills marked with common commercial pain relief labels such as Bayer and Aleve and that the singer thought he was taking Vicodin — but was in fact taking the more potent fen-tanyl instead.

Metz acknowledged that someone gave Prince the counterfeit pills, saying: “There is no doubt that the actions of individuals around Prince will be criticized, ques-tions and judged in the days and weeks to come.” But he added: “Suspicions and innuendo are categorically insufficient to support any criminal charges.”

Prince died on April 21, 2016 at age 57 — stunning fans and bandmates who recall the singer as an outward model of health who rarely drank, ate a veg-etarian diet and would kick out musicians who abused drugs from his studio.

But the pop star — so ver-satile he could literally play guitar blind-folded behind his back — secretly suffered from pain stemming from a hip operation. In his death, Prince became the most famous face of the epidemic of painkiller abuse in the United States.

Last year, more than 42,000 people died and 2.1 million others abused opioids around the country.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend the Women’s Empowerment reception hosted by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London yesterday.

Armenian special police forces detain opposition supporters during their anti-government rally in front of the entrance to government headquarters in central Yerevan yesterday.

A stalwart of the ruling Communist Party, Miguel Diaz-Canel was sworn in to replace Raul Castro by the National Assembly in a carefully managed new chapter for the Caribbean island, aimed at preserving the political system.

12 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018AMERICAS

Cuba’s new President vows to defend legacy of Castro revolutionREUTERS

HAVANA: Cuba’s new president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, began his term yesterday with a promise to defend the socialist revolution led by the Castro brothers since 1959, giving a sober speech that also emphasized the need to modernize the island’s economy.

A stalwart of the ruling Com-munist Party, Diaz-Canel was sworn in to replace Raul Castro by the National Assembly in a carefully managed new chapter for the Caribbean island, aimed at preserving the political system.

“The mandate given by the people to this house is to give continuity to the Cuban revo-lution in a crucial historic moment,” Diaz-Canel, 57, told the assembly in his first speech as president. He delivered a warm homage to 86-year-old Raul Castro, who took office a decade ago as his brother Fidel Castro’s health deteriorated. Fidel Castro died in 2016.

Castro will retain consid-erable clout as the head of the Communist Party until a con-gress in 2021. Diaz-Canel, praising the reforms he ushered in as president, said Castro would remain the leader of the

Cuba’s new President Miguel Diaz-Canel (left, first row) stands with the new members of Cuba’s Council of State after he was formally named President by the National Assembly, in Havana yesterday.

revolution and would be involved in major decisions.

Stepping to the podium for a 90-minute-long parting speech, a relaxed-looking Castro gave the impression he would not quickly fade from sight. He sharply criticized US foreign, trade and immigration policy under President Donald Trump.

“Since the current president arrived in office, there has been a deliberate reversal in the rela-tions between Cuba and the United States, and an aggressive and threatening tone prevails,” Castro said.

Yesterday’s session was held on the 57th anniversary of Cuba’s 1961 defeat of a CIA-backed Cuban exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs, a

victory that Havana celebrates as a symbol of its resistance to “impe-rialist” pressure for change from Washington.

In 2014, Castro and former US President Barack Obama reached a landmark agreement

to renew diplomatic ties and improve relations between the Cold War foes, a detente that led to a rapid increase in US visits and investment on the island.

There has been a renewed chill under Trump, who put a

stop to doing business with some Cuban state-run companies and tightened rules for US visitors. A spate of mystery illnesses among US diplomats in Havana has also undermined trust.

Despite that, Diaz-Canel

praised Castro’s move to renew relations with the United States. He said there would be no com-promise in Cuba’s foreign policy but in a repetition of a long-held stance by Havana, he said he would hold dialogue with anybody who treated Cuba as an equal.

“I take that as a signal that the Cuban leadership still sees value in improving relations, even if they have to wait for the next US president,” said William LeoGrande, co-author of a book on the secret US-Cuba talks that led to detente.

In Washington, a White House official said the Trump administration had no expecta-tions Cuban people would have any greater freedoms under the new “hand-picked” leader, and had no intention of softening its policy toward the island’s government.

Castro spoke highly of Diaz-Canel and gave his blessing to the younger man to take over from him as the powerful head of the Communist Party in three years. He also said the new president could serve two five-year terms, underscoring restrictions Castro imposed on himself after his brother’s decades in power.

SpaceX rocket launchedA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soaring upward after lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying Nasa’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TESS will search for planets outside of our solar system..

US to drop curbs on drone tech to boost arms salesAFP

WASHINGTON: The United States dropped some restrictions yesterday on sales of its advanced drones in order to reinforce the armies of its allies and compete with China on the world arms market.

President Donald Trump’s White House announced an update to its policy on arms transfers to promote US exports and jobs, and specifically to loosen the rules on selling unmanned warplanes.

Trump’s chief trade advisor, Peter Navarro, said the move was designed to reverse former

president Barack Obama’s “myopic” decision to limit even US allies’ access to drone technology. Allowing US arms firms to directly market drones instead of forcing foreign customers to apply to the government would, he said, allow them to compete against sales of Chinese “knock-offs”.

“The administration’s UAS export policy will level the playing field by enabling US firms to increase their direct sales to authorized allies and partners,” he said, referring to so-called “Unmanned Aerial Systems”.

Navarro said US weapons and aerospace exports are worth a trillion dollars a year, support

2.5 million well-paid jobs and form a key plank of Trump’s ambition to wipe out America’s trade deficit.

But he said the market for drones alone could grow to $50bn in a decade and that offi-cials are “seeing Chinese replicas of American UAS technology deployed on the runways in the Middle East.” As an example, he cited the Wing Loong 2 medium-altitude, long-endurance drone manufactured by China’s Chengdu Aircraft Group.

This reconnaissance and missile platform was on display to potential clients at the 2017 Paris Air Show but is, he alleged,

“a clear knock-off” of US firm General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper.

“The fact is our allies and partners want to buy American,” Navarro said, noting that Trump was putting his “America First” slogan at the heart of arms sales policy. “Partners who procure American weaponry are more capable of fighting alongside us, and are also more capable of pro-tecting themselves with fewer American boots on the ground.”

The United States pioneered the use of unmanned aircraft, some of them flown by pilots half-a-world away through sat-ellite links to a ground station, for spotting missions and missile

strikes. They have been deployed both by the US military in support of overt deployments in the so-called war on terror and by the CIA for covert targeted strikes to kill suspected militants.

Critics of their deployment say that, because they can be used without putting American pilots in harm’s way, they encourage commanders and presidents to resort more easily to lethal force. Despite the accuracy of missiles guided by drone-mounted lasers, hundreds and perhaps thousands of civilians have been killed in US strikes in South Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.

At 96, Mexican woman fulfills dream: Going to high schoolAFP

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ: Guad-alupe Palacios stands out in her high school class in Mexico, and it is not just because of her gray hair, her deeply creased skin or her 96 years.

Palacios, who is seeking to live out her dream of fin-ishing high school by her 100th birthday, is also the most enthusiastic student in the classroom.

“I feel ready to give it my all. Today is a marvelous day,” she said on Monday on her first day of high school in the southern state of Chiapas, wearing the school uniform of a white polo shirt with a black skirt and her own per-sonal touch: a pink sweater.

“Dona Lupita,” as she is affectionately known, was wel-comed with applause from her fellow students at High School Number 2 in the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capital. She diligently took notes in her chemistry and mathematics classes and even strutted her stuff in a dance class.

Palacios grew up in poverty in an indigenous village and spent her childhood helping her family farm corn and beans instead of going to school. As an adult, she went to work selling chickens at market, married twice and had six children. Along the way, she picked up arithmetic, but never learned to read and write. When she turned 92, she said, she decided it was time, and enrolled in a literacy program. In 2015, she enrolled in a primary school program for adult learners. In less than four years, she completed both primary and middle school.

New US aviation safety inspections after Southwest mishapAFP

NEW YORK: The US Federal Aviation Administration said it is set to issue new guidelines to inspect jet engines like the one that ruptured during a recent Southwest Airlines flight.

Within the next two weeks rules requiring “an ultrasonic inspection of fan blades” of certain jet engines “when they reach a certain number of

takeoffs and landings” will be issued, the FAA said in a late Wednesday statement.

Blades that fail the inspection will have to be replaced, the FAA said. The directive comes after the left engine of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 suddenly blew apart during a Tuesday flight from New York to Dallas. The shrapnel shat-tered a window and depressurized the cabin, partially sucking a woman out of the plane. Fellow

passengers pulled the woman — identified as Jennifer Riordan, 43 — back in, but she later died of her injuries.

Robert Sumwalt, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that a first inspection of the Boeing 737’s damaged engine showed that an engine fan blade was missing, apparently broken due to metal fatigue.

The incident damaged the engine external covering, known

as cowling, where several blade fragments were discovered once the plane landed, Sumwalt said. “I’m very concerned about this particular event,” Sumwalt said.

The CFM56-7B jet engine in question, made by CFM Interna-tional — a joint venture of General Electric and France’s Safran — is widely used around the world on Boeing 737s and has a solid record of safety. “If we feel there is a deeper issue, we

have the capability to issue urgent safety recommenda-tions,” Sumwalt added.

Southwest earlier announced extra inspections of the CFM-56 engines in their fleet, which should be completed within 30 days. A similar accident on a Southwest Airlines flight in August 2016 forced the aircraft, also a 737 equipped with the CFM-56 engine, to make an emergency landing in Florida.

Trump heralds ‘revolution’ against California ‘sanctuary’ lawsAFP

LOS ANGELES: San Diego County has joined what US President Donald Trump called on Wednesday a “revolution” against “sanctuary” laws in California that protect undoc-umented migrants.

In a closed-door vote, the Republican-controlled board of supervisors governing San Diego County, which borders Mexico, backed the Trump administra-tion’s federal lawsuit challenging California legislation that restricts local police and businesses from cooperating with immigration authorities.

Trump took to Twitter to praise the news, writing: “There is a Revolution going on in Cali-fornia. Soooo many Sanctuary areas want OUT of this ridic-ulous, crime infested & breeding concept.” The president has repeatedly tried to link immi-gration to crime but immigrant defenders say many are fleeing poverty and violence. Activists accuse authorities of rounding up

longtime residents with families and jobs on minor infractions.

California’s “Jerry Brown is trying to back out of the National Guard at the Border, but the people of the State are not happy”, Trump added, referring to the state’s Democratic governor. “Want Security & Safety NOW!”

After rejecting the Trump administration’s initial proposals for a National Guard mission along the state’s border with Mexico earlier this week, Brown announced that California would mobilize 400 National Guard sol-diers in addition to the 250 already deployed.

The soldiers are tasked with combatting “criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers” and will be funded by the federal government, a statement said. The governor’s order “specifies that the Cali-fornia National Guard will not enforce immigration laws or participate in the construction of any new border barrier,” the statement said.

Alabama set to execute inmate aged 83REUTERS

WASHINGTON: Alabama is set to execute an 83-year-old convicted pipe-bomb killer, believed to be the oldest person put to death in the modern era of US capital punishment.

The execution of Walter Moody is planned for 2300 GMT at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He would be the eighth inmate put to death this year in the United States.

If the execution is carried out, Moody would replace John Nixon, who was 77 when put to death in December 2005 in Mississippi, as the oldest person executed since the US Supreme Court rein-stated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors US capital punishment.

Moody was convicted of mailing a bomb in 1989 that killed US Circuit Court Judge Robert Vance, 58, and another explosive that killed Georgia civil rights attorney Robert Robinson.

Prosecutors have said Moody sent the bomb to the judge in anger over a 1972 bomb conviction that Moody felt derailed his career, and sent the other to the civil rights lawyer to confuse investigators.

Moody, who has spent more than 20 years on death row, has maintained his inno-cence and his lawyers have not yet used his age in appeals seeking to halt the execution.

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Tyre-flipping competitionCompetitors taking part in a tyre-flipping competition on a glass-bottomed bridge in Pingjiang in China’s central Hunan province.

Facebook to put 1.5 billion users out of reach of new EU privacy lawREUTERS

SAN FRANCISCO: If a new European law restricting what companies can do with people’s online data went into effect, almost 1.9 billion Facebook Inc users around the world would be protected by it. The online social network is making changes that ensure the number will be much smaller.

Facebook members outside the United States and Canada, whether they know it or not, are currently governed by terms of service agreed with the com-pany’s international headquarters in Ireland.

Next month, Facebook is planning to make that the case for only European users, meaning 1.5 billion members in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America will not fall under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect on May 25.

The previously unreported move, which Facebook confirmed on Tuesday, shows the world’s largest online social network is keen to reduce its exposure to GDPR, which allows European regulators to fine companies for collecting or using personal data without users’ consent.

That removes a huge potential lia-bility for Facebook, as the new EU law allows for fines of up to 4 percent of

global annual revenue for infractions, which in Facebook’s case could mean billions of dollars.

The change comes as Facebook is under scrutiny from regulators and law-makers around the world since disclosing last month that the personal information of millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cam-bridge Analytica, setting off wider con-cerns about how it handles user data.

The change affects more than 70 percent of Facebook’s 2 billion-plus members. As of December, Facebook had 239 million users in the United States and Canada, 370 million in Europe and 1.52 billion users elsewhere.

Facebook, like many other US tech-nology companies, established an Irish subsidiary in 2008 and took advantage of the country’s low corporate tax rates, routing through it revenue from some advertisers outside North America. The unit is subject to regulations applied by the 28-nation European Union.

Facebook said the latest change does not have tax implications. In a statement, Facebook played down the importance of the terms of service change, saying it plans to make the privacy controls and settings that Europe will get under GDPR available to the rest of the world. “We apply the same privacy protections

everywhere, regardless of whether your agreement is with Facebook Inc or Facebook Ireland,” the company said.

Earlier this month, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told Reuters in an interview that his company would apply the EU law globally “in spirit,” but stopped short of committing to it as the standard for the social network across the world.

In practice, the change means the 1.5 billion affected users will not be able to file complaints with Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner or in Irish courts. Instead they will be governed by more lenient U.S. privacy laws, said Michael Veale, a technology policy researcher at University College London.

Facebook will have more leeway in how it handles data about those users, Veale said. Certain types of data such as browsing history, for instance, are con-sidered personal data under EU law but are not as protected in the United States, he said. The company said its rationale for the change was related to the European Union’s mandated privacy notices, “because EU law requires spe-cific language.” For example, the company said, the new EU law requires specific legal terminology about the legal basis for processing data which does not exist in US law.

Fuzzy crab and shiny-eyed shrimp discovered on Java expeditionAFP

SINGAPORE: A hermit crab, a shiny-eyed shrimp and a crab with fuzzy spines are among over a dozen new species discovered in a deep-sea expedition off the Indonesian island of Java, scientists said.

The team from the National University of Sin-gapore (NUS) and the Indo-nesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) carried out the expe-dition for 14 days between March and early April.

The area covered included a long stretch of the Indian Ocean off Java’s southern coast as well as the Sunda Strait that separates the island from Sumatra.

“This is a part of the Indian Ocean that has been never been sampled for deep-sea animals so we really didn’t know what to find,” said Peter Ng, a crab expert and head of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at NUS.

“We were very surprised by the findings,” he said yes-terday , adding that the team had expected to discover crea-tures from the Indian Ocean and the surrounding areas already known to scientists. But the discovery of species entirely new to science “tells us that there are things hap-pening in that part of Indonesia that we don’t know,” said Ng, who co-led the expedition.

T h e r e s e a r c h e r s examined 63 sites as they sailed from Jakarta to Cilacap town in southern Java and back. Three new species of spider crabs were discovered during the expedition, the sci-entists said. One of them had a plate protecting its eyes which resembled oversized ears while another was bright orange in colour.

Another discovery was a new species of hermit crab with bright green eyes, according to Indonesian sci-entist Dwi Listyo Rahayu, also a crab expert and the expe-dition’s co-leader. One new species of shrimp had shiny eyes that reflect light, the sci-entists said. Ng said the sci-entists will carry out a detailed study of the more than 12,000 creatures from 800 species they had picked up on the expedition and publish their findings in 2020.

Axe marks the sport as wood-chopping booms in AustraliaAFP

MAJORS CREEK: A flash of metal glinted in the Sydney sunshine as Curtis Bennett took one last swing of his axe and brought it down hard on the log at his feet. The wood split with a loud crack, triggering cheers and thunderous applause for the teenage sensation.

Curtis, 18, is one of the rising stars of Australia’s centuries-old sport of wood-chopping, which is enjoying a renaissance, with more women and children competing in the male-dominated activity.

His proud father Simon Bennett, 52, is revelling in the new-found appeal of the highly physical pastime, which is attracting more women competitors including his 25-year-old daughter Madii. “It’s probably never been as popular as it is at the moment,” he said at his home in Majors Creek, a small village, 300km south of Sydney.

“We have probably one of the best group of young axemen that’s been about for many years... The sport is in a really good spot.” - From survival to sport - The roots of the tradition stem from European set-tlement of the vast island continent some two centuries ago.

Faced with the challenge of having to live in the heavily timbered Australian bush on the east coast, the settlers realised they had to become

apt at wood-chopping to clear land for farming and to build homes. The knowledge of how to wield axes and cross-cut saws was handed down from generation to generation, and it was not long before the survival skill became a competitive game in the young, sporting-mad nation.

As the tale goes, the first recorded wood-chopping contest took place on the southern island state of Tasmania in 1870 when two men in a bar made a £25 bet to see who could fell a tree the fastest.

The sport caught on like wildfire and as contests sprung up across the country, Sydney’s Royal Easter Show — an annual extravaganza show-casing Australia’s rural lifestyle

— introduced wood-chopping in 1899. The events, attracting hun-dreds of contestants from across the globe and thousands of spectators annually, became the “Wimbledon of wood-chopping”, says Sydney show judge Don Brown, a veteran axeman himself.

“We have all the world cham-pions here because we run the world titles here, and so it attracts all the top competitors,” Brown said as his cowboy hat shielded him from the scorching sun at the show. The sport is still mostly family-based, and the Bennetts criss-cross Australia to take part in contests, travelling with some of their 120 axes, several engraved with their surname.

“We design our lives around our sport,” adds Simon — who like Curtis works in the timber industry having followed his father Len into the trade — on how the family fits the many competitions into their calendars.

Pure brute strength is essential for a woodchopper and Len Bennett, 78, who won the world champi-onship in 1975, is more than two metres tall and weighs 150kg.

Simon and Curtis are just under two metres tall, with both towering over Madii. Even for these seasoned lumberjacks, every swing is a major effort. “It’s hard,” Curtis says, as Madii chimes in: “Even now when I pick up an axe I want to start crying because I know how hard it is and just everything hurts in your body when you’re doing it.”

But athleticism is also key, Simon says, adding that wood-chopping is “more technical than golf”. “It is a craft. You can’t just stand up there and chop a piece of wood. “You are swinging an axe on the end of a handle that is 65 centi-metres long and weighs 3.5kg and that’s absolutely razor sharp — sharp beyond most people’s belief.”

The sport’s boom has been helped by increased sponsorship of both male and female competitions worldwide. At this year’s Easter show, there were 69 separate events with Aus$230,000 (US$176,800) in prize money on offer.

Simon Bennett sharpening an axe on their family property in Majors Creek.

Robot assembles IKEA chair frameREUTERS

SINGAPORE: Robots in Singapore have completed a task many humans dread — assembling flat-packed IKEA furniture. Sifting through pages of instructions and a jumble of screws and bolts to build the low-cost Swedish furniture may soon be a thing of the past given advances in technology, say researchers at the city-state’s Nanyang Tech-nological University (NTU).

The scientists spent three years programming the robot — made of arms, grippers, sensors and 3D cameras — which assembled the frame of an IKEA dining chair in around 20 minutes. They say it may not be long before such robots can fully assemble a piece of furniture from a manual, verbal instruction or by just looking at an image of the finished item.

“We have achieved the low level capability to teach the robot ‘how to do it’ and then in the next five to 10 years, high level reasoning - the ‘what to do’ - could be done too,” one of the researchers Quang-Cuong Pham told Reuters. Pham said the team at NTU were looking to work with artificial intelligence experts to try and hone the process.

Cindy Andersen, global business area manager of kitchen and dining at IKEA, told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper: “It’s interesting to see an example of how robots could potentially contribute to our vision of creating a better everyday life for many people.

“We are very positive about embracing new technology.” Singapore has been pushing businesses to invest in automation and robotics to boost pro-ductivity as it keeps a tight leash on cheap foreign labour. Some restaurants and hotels in the city-state use robots to deliver food to customers and collect used plates and cutlery.

16 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018HOME

The project will produce float glass sheets which are used in various applications such as buildings, automobile industry, solar energy panels etc. Currently, Qatar is importing all of its glass sheets requirement from other countries.

BUSINESSFriday 20 April 2018

PAGE | 20PAGE | 18Macron, Merkel differ

on fiscal policy in EU reform push

IMF’s Lagarde warns against harming trade, investment

QIMC signs MoU with US firm Stewart EngineersTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Industrial Manu-facturing Company (QIMC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) ) with the US firm Stewart Engineers (SE), in the presence of H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, Minister of Economy and Commerce.

QIMC Chief Executive Officer Abdul Rahman Al Ansari (pictured) and Stewart Engi-neers Chief Executive Andrew Stewart signed the document on behalf of the respective com-panies, according to a regulatory filing by QIMC to the Qatar Stock Exchange yesterday.

The signing ceremony took place as a part of the ongoing visit of official Qatari Business delegation to US to promote business cooperation between the two countries.

The MoU aims at evaluating the project from technical and economic aspects and even-tually preparing the detailed engineering design for its imple-mentation, if it is proven to be feasible.

The project will produce float glass sheets which are used in various applications such as buildings, automobile industry, solar energy panels etc.

Currently, Qatar is importing all of its glass sheets requirement from other countries.

The project is important to Qatar and will serve its strategic plans by developing and diver-sifying its national economy. It will provide necessary products for the construction industry and will create downstream business opportunities. Part of its pro-duction will be exported as well. Also, it will create jobs for nearly 250 employees thus, supporting the national economy.

The preliminary considered design capacity for the project is 600 tonnes per day and the estimated investment is around QR700m. Total area required for the project is about 150,000 sq. metres out of which 50,000 sq. metres is the covered area.

Qatar, being a major world producer of natural gas with all the government provided incen-tives and support, is the best suitable country for the project as the project will consume a considerable quantity of Natural gas for melting of its raw mate-rials like local sand.

QIMC and SE will embark on the following months on con-ducting a technical and eco-nomic feasibility study for the project based on SE’s advanced technology and QIMC’s opera-tional and marketing experience which has proven its success in the past years.

Banks, real estate lift QSE benchmark indexTHE PENINSULA

DOHA:The banking and real estate stocks lifted Qatar Stock Exchange benchmark index by 1.6 percent to close the week at end the week at 9,196.62 points.

The banking stocks rose 3.01 percent, with QNB rising the most by 5.14 percent. Real estate sector jumped 5.26 percent. The QSE weekly data showed the index gained 278.14 points, or 3.12 percent in the past week.

Trading value during the week increased by 0.48 percent

to QR1.44bn compared to QR1.43bn from a week ago. Trading volume increased by 25.98 percent to reach over 61m shares., while the number of transactions rose by 13.25 percent to 19,886, compared to the pre-vious week’s 17,559 transactions. Market capitalization rose by 4.08 percent to reach QR513.9bn.

The Banks and Financial Services sector led the trading value, accounting for 36.44 percent of the total, followed by Industrials sector (23.43 percent), telecoms (14.38

percent) and real estate (9.45 percent). The trading volume was led by the telecoms sector (32.11 percent), followed by Banks and Financial Services sector (22.11 percent), the indus-trials sector (22.11 percent) and real estate sector.

The QNB led trading value accounting for 17.17 percent of the total, followed by Vodafone Qatar (12.28 percent) and Indus-tries Qatar (9.22 percent). In all, 31 companies of the 45 listed companies ended higher, while 14 fell in the past week.

Qatar banks forecast uptick in private sector credit growthREUTERS

DUBAI: Qatar banks expect private sector credit growth in the country to pick up speed in 2018 as companies borrow and invest to expand their business, taking advantage of opportu-nities created by a regional political impasse.

The government and state-linked companies have long been the mainstay of credit growth and will continue to be, especially as Qatar prepares to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Qatar National Bank is tar-geting the private sector to contribute around 50 percent of lending growth in 2018, up from 22.5 percent in 2017, said a spokesman for QNB, the largest bank in the Middle East and Africa by assets and the lender that has benefited most from huge government spending in recent years.

“Looking ahead to 2018 and beyond, the projected

growth of the private sector will present several opportu-nities for the bank to finance the expansion of business,” said Commercial Bank.

Bankers say opportunities are being created in the con-sumer goods sector as the market share shrinks of sup-pliers like Saudi Arabia’s Almarai, the Middle East’s biggest dairy company, because of the blockade.

One company filling the vacuum is Baladna, which is creating a dairy industry in the desert and is planning an initial public offering in the first half of 2018.

Other sectors where higher demand is anticipated include manufacturing and hospitality, while investment is expected in the LNG sector due to a sharper rebound in hydro-carbon output.

The government has embarked on a strategy of making the economy self-sufficient to

help weather the effects of the blockade.

This year’s budget includes awarding QR29bn ($8bn of con-tracts to support growth in the private sector next year, part of a drive to diversify and strengthen the economy.

So far, the pick-up in private sector growth is far less steep than the period up to mid-2015 when it reached highs of around 27 percent.

It since slowed but has shown signs of recovery in recent months, despite the impact of the unjust siege.

“The previous tightening of financial conditions between mid-2014 to mid-2016, when hydrocarbon prices precipi-tously declined, does not seem to have harmed private sector lending post-impasse from June 2017 onwards,” said Ehsan Khoman, MENA head of research and strat-egist at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

Oil prices keep risingREUTERS

LONDON: Oil prices kept rising to their highest since late 2014 as US crude inven-tories declined, moving closer to five-year averages, and after sources said that Saudi Arabia aims to push prices even higher.

Brent crude futures reached $74.74 a barrel, the highest since November 27, 2014 — the day Opec decided to pump as much as it could to defend market share, sending the price to a low of $27 just over a year later.

Brent futures came off slightly to $74.40 a barrel by 1316 GMT, still up 92 cents from the previous close.

US West Texas Interme-diate (WTI) crude futures were up 53 cents at $69. WTI had earlier hit $69.56, its highest since November 28.

Opec and other major producers including Russia started to withhold output in 2017 to rein in oversupply.

Irish drugmaker Shire facing potential $60bn bidding warAFP

LONDON: Ireland’s Shire Phar-maceuticals yesterday faced the prospect of a bidding war after rejecting a $60bn takeover from Japan’s Takeda, as Botox-maker Allergan revealed it was mulling an offer.

Shire, which is based in Dublin but listed in London, said that it had rejected three takeover approaches from Takeda because they all “sig-nificantly undervalued the company, its growth prospects and pipeline”.

Takeda’s latest cash-and-shares offer valued Shire at £42bn ($60bn) and was pitched at the equivalent of £46.50 per share. The deal would represent Takeda’s biggest-ever takeover, according to Japanese media.

“Takeda... confirms that on April 12 it made a revised pro-posal to the board of Shire to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Shire,” the Osaka-based Japanese group said in a statement.

“Takeda was subsequently notified that the board of Shire had rejected its proposal. Dis-cussions between the parties regarding a potential offer are ongoing.”

Shire added that its advisers have entered a dialogue with Takeda to discuss “whether a further, more attractive, pro-posal may be forthcoming”.

Shortly afterwards, fellow Dublin-based pharma giant Allergan announced that it was also mulling a takeover tilt at Shire. “Allergan confirms that it is in the early stages of con-sidering a possible offer for Shire,” it said in its statement.

“No offer has been made. There can be no certainty an offer will be made nor as to the terms on which any such offer would be made.

The news sent Shire’s share price racing as high as £42 on London’s rising FTSE 100 index. However, it pared gains in late afternoon deals to finish at £39.75, up 5.89 percent from Wednesday’s closing level.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim meets William MillerMinister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani met yesterday with William Miller, Deputy Minister of Commerce, North Carolina, in Raleigh city. During the meeting, they discussed bilaleral ties, expanding trade exchanges and encouraging the private sector from both sides to establish joint ventures and benefit from the promising investment opportunities and the excellent business environment provided by Qatar.

“We both think that the Eurozone is not yet sufficiently crisis-proof,” Merkel said at a joint Berlin press conference with Macron. “There are French proposals, but there are also German proposals,” she said.

18 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018BUSINESS

9,196.62 +141.60 PTS1.56%

QSE FTSE100 DOW BRENT7,328.92 +11.58 PTS0.16%

24,591.99 -156.08 PTS0.63% Dow & Brent before going to press

$68.25 -0.22

MarketWatchMacron, Merkel differ on fiscal policy in EU reform pushAFP

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French Pres-ident Emmanuel Macron yesterday stressed their common will to reform the EU, but without bridging their funda-mental differences on economic and fiscal policy.

The young French leader voiced his passion for a sweeping overhaul for a post-Brexit EU that would have “at its heart” eurozone reforms such as a common budget and finance minister, and greater “solidarity” within the bloc.

Germany’s veteran chan-cellor, who has long preached painful belt-tightening for strug-gling European economies, main-tained Berlin’s cooler focus on the need for all members to first boost their own “competitiveness”.

“We both think that the eurozone is not yet sufficiently crisis-proof,” she said at a joint Berlin press conference with Macron. “There are French pro-posals, but there are also German proposals,” she said.

Post-crisis recoveries in Ireland, Spain and Portugal had been a result of “a mix of soli-darity and national effort,” she argued. Looking ahead to a joint Franco-German roadmap to be presented before a key June EU summit, she said that “we bring some different aspects to the table, but I believe that the sum of our pro-posals can ultimately lead to a good result”.

Merkel — once dubbed the “Queen of Europe”, but largely

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron during a news conference at the building site of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, Germany, yesterday.

absent from the debate during half a year of painful coalition talks — recently launched her fourth-term government, but is seen as domestically weakened.

This week she has faced growing resistance from her own CDU/CSU conservative ranks to Macron’s lofty vision that critics fear threatens new burdens and risks for German public coffers.

Much of Berlin’s resistance is rooted in deep-seated German wariness of any measures that could lead to debt pooling, or German taxpayer cash flowing to spendthrift neighbours.

Lawmakers from Merkel’s conservative alliance threw down the gauntlet when they attached strict conditions to transforming the EU’s bailout fund into a European Monetary Fund that can act as a “lender of last resort”.

Setting up such a fund would require a change to EU treaties, they wrote in a position paper, which would require the approval of each member state’s parliament. They also said national lawmakers, not the European Commission, should have the final say over any aid

disbursements.Macron’s proposed eurozone

investment budget meanwhile was dismissed by Merkel’s party as not “a top priority” when the bloc had yet to figure out how to plug the hole left in the wider EU budget by Britain’s departure.

Differences also remain on the completion of a eurozone “banking union”, generally seen as one of the least controversial issues but viewed sceptically in Berlin, in the belief that Germany would be on the hook to save fragile banks in other countries.

Macron had on Tuesday tried to breathe fresh life into his grand vision for EU reforms. In a passionate speech to the European Parliament he called eurozone reforms “indispen-sable” to challenging the rise of authoritarianism and nation-alism on the continent. But given Germany’s reluctance, expecta-tions for a breakthrough in Berlin had been low.

Germany is not alone in slamming the brakes on Macron’s drive to bolster the eurozone. A group of smaller northern EU countries, led by the Netherlands, have also pushed back, warning that they refuse to be “rail-roaded” into sweeping reforms.

P&G to buy Merck’s consumer health unit for $4.2bnREUTERS

LONDON: Procter & Gamble Co (P&G) has agreed to acquire Merck KGaA’s consumer health unit for €3.4bn ($4.2bn), giving it vitamin brands such as Seven Seas and greater exposure to Latin American and Asian markets.

The maker of Pampers diapers and Gillette razors said the deal would help it expand its portfolio of consumer healthcare products which includes Vicks cold relief.

The Merck unit includes vitamin brands Femibion and Neurobion. The deal follows GlaxoSmithKline agreeing to buy Novartis out of their con-sumer healthcare joint venture for $13bn after dropping its pursuit of Pfizer’s consumer unit.

Pfizer has struggled to divest the business for as much as $20bn, after Reckitt Benckiser dropped out last month and Johnson & Johnson stepped away in January.

Prescription-free remedies offer stable sales due to cus-tomers’ brand loyalty, albeit at lower margins than pharma-ceuticals. But intense price competition online, mainly from Amazon, as well as cheaper

store-brand products have weighed on profits in the US and other Western markets. US-based P&G derived 12 percent of group sales, or $7.5bn, from health care products last year, including Oral-B toothbrushes and toothpastes.

The purchase price for Merck’s business suggests that the German company climbed down from price demands of as much as €4bn, which sources said had deterred initial suitors such as Nestle, Perrigo and Stada owners Bain and Cinven.

Morgan Stanley analyst Vincent Meunier said the price still implied a valuation of 4.7 times sales and around 19 times operating profit (EBITDA) for the business, at the high end of recent deals in the sector.

Merck said that it fetched a multiple of about 19.5, above recent industry transactions and based on an adjusted “econom-ically transferred” EBITDA of €173m in 2017. P&G also announced it will split up its consumer care joint venture with Teva, PGT Healthcare, on July 1, saying strategies were no longer aligned. PGT accounts for nearly all of P&G’s personal health care sales outside of US.

Self-driving carA self-driving car is displayed at the China International Technology Fair in Shanghai yesterday.

China says ready to deal with any fallout from US trade rowREUTERS

BEIJING: China is well prepared to handle any negative effects from its trade dispute with the United States, the commerce ministry said yesterday, adding that Beijing’s tariff hikes on US imports will not have a big impact overall on its domestic industries.

It would be a miscalculation by the United States if its intention is to contain China’s rise, ministry spokesman Gao Feng said at a regular media briefing in Beijing.

“If the US attempts to use protectionist trade policies to contain China’s development and force China to make con-cessions even at the costs of companies’ interests, it has taken a miscalculated step,” Gao said.

In the latest escalations in the widening trade row, the U.S. said this week it had banned American companies from selling parts to Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE for seven years, while China on Tuesday announced hefty anti-dumping tariffs on imports of US sorghum and measures on synthetic rubber imports from the US, EU and Singapore yesterday.

“We are capable of resolving the challenges created by China-US trade frictions,” said Gao. He said Beijing hopes Washington will not underestimate China’s resolve to fight back. “We will relentlessly fight back,” he said, adding that China will take any necessary measures in response to the US move against ZTE.

Most analysts believe the two

sides will eventually reach a compromise and avoid a full-blown trade war. But so far, China and the US have held no formal trade talks, Gao said.

On April 2, China slapped additional import taxes on 128 US products, in response to US duties on imports of aluminium and steel. Two days later, China warned it was considering increasing duties on an addi-tional 106 US imports, hitting back at the US’s plan to levy duties on $50bn of Chinese goods following a months-long intellectual property probe.

A full-scale trade war would hurt both Chinese and US exports and have a negative impact on growth in the two countries, as well as probably lead to collateral damage for other countries.

ExxonMobil faces setback in Iraq as oil and water mixREUTERS

LONDON/BASRA: Talks between ExxonMobil and Iraq on a multi-billion-dollar infra-structure contract have reached an impasse, Iraqi officials and two industry sources said, in a potential setback to the oil major’s ambitions to expand in the country.

More than two years of negotiations on awarding the US firm a project to build a water treatment facility and related pipelines needed to boost Iraq’s oil production capacity have hit difficulties because the two sides differ on contract terms and costs, the officials and sources said.

Unless the differences can be resolved, the project could be awarded to another company in a tender, the officials said, without elaborating on the points of dispute. Losing the contract could deal a blow to Exx-onMobil’s broader Iraqi plans, as it would be handed rights to develop at least two southern oil-fields — Nahr Bin Umar and Artawi — as part of the deal.

Further delays to the project could also hold back the oil industry in Iraq, Opec’s second-largest producer; the country needs to inject water into its wells or risk losing pressure and face severe decline rates, espe-cially at its mature oilfields. As freshwater is a scarce resource in Iraq, using treated seawater is one of the best alternatives.

The Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP), which would supply water to more than six southern oilfields, including ExxonMobil’s existing West Qurna 1 field and BP’s Rumaila, was initially planned to be completed in 2013 but has now been delayed until 2022.

“The CSSP would be expensive and challenging but

there’s opportunity here (for ExxonMobil)... to get access to resources on a very large scale and to achieve something and really make a difference to its own business,” said Ian Thom, principal analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Many of the world’s biggest oil companies, like BP, Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Eni, have operations in Iraq, where a low-return environment and strict contract terms have squeezed returns in recent years.

With total oil production at West Qurna 1 at around 430,000 b/d, ExxonMobil’s presence in Iraq is small com-pared with dominant player BP whose Rumaila oilfield accounts for around a third of the coun-try’s total production of around 4.4 million b/d.

While the Texas-based firm is looking to grow in Iraq, its geo-graphical focus remains on the Americas, including US shale fields and Brazil, in contrast to rivals like France’s Total and Italy’s Eni who have been signif-icantly expanding their activities in the Middle East in recent years.

The talks between Iraqi authorities and ExxonMobil are still ongoing.

However the state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC), which is overseeing the project, said it could now tender the project this month in a parallel process with the aim of com-pleting a first phase by 2022.

Iraq chose Exxon to coor-dinate the initial studies of the CSSP in 2010.Negotiations with ExxonMobil fell through in 2012 due to red tape and cost dis-putes. In 2015, the company reentered talks with the oil min-istry, this time in partnership with China’s CNPC and with the CSSP folded into a much bigger development project known as the Integrated South Project.

Debenhams cuts dividend as profit halvesREUTERS

LONDON: British department store group Debenhams yesterday warned on the full-year outlook for the second time in four months and cut its dividend as it reported a 52 percent slump in first-half profit.

The retailer, which issued a profit warning in January, also said Matt Smith, its chief financial officer, was quitting the retailer to become finance chief of rival Selfridges.

The 240-year old Debenhams is one year into a turnaround programme led by Chief Executive Sergio Bucher, a former Amazon and Inditex executive. His plan to return Debenhams to profit growth involves closing some stores and revamping the rest, cutting promotions and improving its online service, while seeking efficiencies by simplifying the business.

However, progress has been hampered by a squeeze on UK consumers’ budgets, a shift in spending away from fashion towards holidays and entertainment, as well as intense online competition.

Debenhams made an underlying pretax profit of £42.2m ($59.9m) in the 26 weeks to March 3 — below analysts’ average forecast of £44m and the £87.8m made in the first half of its 2016-17 year. Revenue fell 1.6 percent to £1.65bn.

It cut its interim dividend by 51 percent to 0.5 pence. Debenhams said that based on its current view of the second half of the financial year, full-year pretax profit was expected to be at the lower end of the current range of broker forecasts of £50-61m. It was previously guiding to £55-65m and made £95.2m in 2016-17.

QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE Index 9,196.62 1.56 %

QE Total Return Index 16,203.41 1.56 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index

- Price 2,294.00 0.89 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,710.98 0.89 %

QE All Share Index 2,739.61 2.34 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial

Services 3,146.71 3.01 %

QE All Share Industrials 3,103.26 0.97 %

QE All Share Transportation 1,722.88 0.35 %

QE All Share Real Estate 2,026.60 5.26 %

QE All Share Insurance 3,142.30 0.31 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,122.37 0.64 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods

& Services 5,568.36 0.18 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON WORLD STOCK INDICES

GOLD AND SILVER

19-04-2018Index 9,196.62

Change 141.60

% 1.56

YTD% 7.90

Volume 16,131,626

Value (QAR) 449,277,364.96

Trades 5,761

Up 33 | Down 12 | Unchanged 118-04-2018Index 9,055.02

Change 97.02

% 1.08

YTD% 6.24

Volume 19,187,757

Value (QAR) 365,281,246.55

Trades 5,146

EXCHANGE RATE

GOLD QR158.2234 per grammeSILVER QR2.0222 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year Low

All Ordinaries 5976.4 20.1 0.34 6256.5 5834

Cac 40 Index/D 5386.84 6.67 0.12 5567.03 5038.12

Dj Indu Average 24748.07 -38.56 -0.16 26616.71 20379.55

Hang Seng Inde/D 30708.44 424.19 1.4 33484.08 29129.26

Iseq Overall/D 6767.56 3.93 0.06 7257.41 6410.26

Kse 100 Inx/D 45387.77 -90.86 -0.2 47144.12 40169.62

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 2872.87 2532.69

Currency Buying SellingUS$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 5.1487 QR 5.2213

Euro QR 4.4758 QR 4.5391

CA$ QR 2.8639 QR 2.9199

Swiss Fr QR 3.7374 QR 3.7898

Yen QR 0.03360 QR 0.03425

Aus$ QR 2.8129 QR 2.8682

Ind Re QR 0.0549 QR 0.0560

Pak Re QR 0.0311 QR 0.0318

Peso QR 0.0693 QR 0.0707

SL Re QR 0.0231 QR 0.0236

Taka QR 0.0429 QR 0.0439

Nep Re QR 0.0343 QR 0.0350

SA Rand QR 0.3024 QR 0.3084

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

Aban Offs-A/D 178.7 6.1 483413

Acc Ltd-A/D 1574.25 1.1 42177

Ador Welding-B/D 415 0.5 1714

Aegis Logis-A/D 283.8 0.95 5592

Alembic-B/D 57.6 -0.1 27637

Alok Indus-T/D 3.3 -0.17 87236

Apollo Tyre-A/D 293 3.55 219560

Asahi I Glass-/D 353.75 -0.5 4213

Ashok Leyland-/D 151.05 1.95 1381614

Bajaj Hold-A/D 2630 -25.85 244

Ballarpur In-B/D 13.53 -0.32 125535

Bata India-A/D 765.6 -9.55 17275

Bayer Crop-A/D 4551 76.05 721

Beml Ltd-A/D 1113.65 -3.1 31826

Bhansali Eng-B/D 208.05 7.65 378623

Bharat Bijle-B/D 1598.7 -10.8 2025

Bharat Ele-A/D 135.95 -2.9 392380

Bharat Heavy-A/D 88.25 0.6 261916

Bharatgears-B/D 182.7 -2.35 3450

Bhartiya Int-B/D 412.9 11.85 2535

Bom.Burmah-X/D 1485.25 109.35 160237

Bombay Dyeing-/D 280.3 12.95 675376

Canfin Homes-A/D 441 -0.8 17406

Castrol India-/D 204.2 -3.8 61808

Century Enka-B/D 366.5 -3.65 4553

Century Text-A/D 1235.35 13.45 28366

Chambal Fert-A/D 189.6 11.7 425494

Chola Invest-A/D 1584 8 2418

Chowgule St-Xt/D 14 0 1000

Cimmco-T/D 86.75 -1.5 9997

Cipla-A/D 584.2 0.35 48118

City Union Bk-/D 181 1.1 11302

Colgate-A/D 1110.45 5.55 12919

Container Cor-/D 1350 4.1 7862

Dcm Financia-T/D 2 0 1100

Dcm Shram Ind-/D 207 -2.2 6954

Dhampur Sugar-/D 98.55 -10 162485

Dr. Reddy-A/D 2130.4 33.45 14348

E I H-B/D 195.8 -2.2 141733

E.I.D Parry-A/D 268.2 -5.7 35555

Eicher Motor-A/D 30773.4 -96.95 3774

Electrosteel-B/D 31.5 0.1 96567

Emco-B/D 14.05 1.25 38170

Escorts Fin-Xt/D 7.15 0.14 5573

Escorts-A/D 968.6 3.95 118347

Federal Bank-A/D 98.2 -0.9 282576

Ferro Alloys-X/D 6.9 -0.14 103732

Finolex-A/D 650.5 -1.75 1917

Forbes-B/D 3797.05 -41.2 2488

Gail-A/D 335.2 5.05 221140

Garden P -B/D 36.65 0.65 13040

Godfrey Phil-A/D 889 9.9 4410

Goodricke-X/D 344 -3.35 4089

Goodyear I -B/D 1229.4 5.25 2702

Hcl Infosys-A/D 55.15 1.25 619227

Him.Fut.Comm-A/D 26.65 -0.55 601364

Himat Seide-X/D 397 3.85 5514

Hind Motors-T/D 7.62 -0.07 28093

Hind Org Chem-/D 27.05 1 301540

Hind Unilever-/D 1454 2.65 47916

Hind.Petrol-A/D 301.55 -18.5 1116297

Hindalco-A/D 264.75 22.15 1944264

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1867.95 -8.65 453706

Idbi-A/D 70.15 0.2 2039250

Ifci Ltd-A/D 20.9 0.1 259609

India Cement-A/D 154 4.25 282322

India Glycol-B/D 543.2 0.75 32885

Indian Hotel-A/D 149.05 -3.25 205769

Indo-A/D 98 0 17212

Indusind-A/D 1834.1 -10.55 115195

J.B.Chemical-B/D 321 1.4 2855

Jagatjit Ind-X/D 105 0.75 1356

Jamnaauto-B/D 94.4 6.05 1161597

Jbf Indu-B/D 112.7 1.8 56286

Jct Ltd-X/D 3 -0.16 79065

Jindal Drill-B/D 173.1 7.65 48408

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 163.1 -0.8 111972

Jmc Projects-B/D 639.8 3.35 2374

Kabra Extr-B/D 121.5 -0.7 114268

Kajaria Cer-A/D 565 -2.95 5309

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 264.9 4.35 1856

Kalpat Power-B/D 489.4 10.6 30155

Kalyani Stel-B/D 324.95 11.2 49489

Kanoria Chem-B/D 78.45 -1.05 12492

Kg Denim-X/D 49 0.25 2874

Kilburnengg-X/D 82.95 7 26549

Kinetic Eng-Xt/D 72.5 -1.45 2417

Kopran-B/D 71 0.05 53944

Laxmi Prcisn-B/D 42.1 0.85 1749

Lloyd Metal-X/D 16.15 -0.95 84793

Lupin-A/D 790.1 -0.45 64712

Lyka Labs-B/D 48 -0.1 7909

Mafatlal Ind-X/D 270.15 -1.85 1225

Mangalam Cem-B/D 312 -2 1066

Mastek-B/D 576.9 -8.6 60928

Max Financial-/D 447.7 11.85 21200

Mrpl-A/D 105.3 -2.2 420231

Nagreeka Ex-T/D 34.5 2.35 2507

Nagreeka Ex-T/D 34.5 2.35 2507

Nahar Spg.-B/D 95.95 1.15 26646

Nation Alum -A/D 87.4 7.2 6601841

Navneet Edu-B/D 152.75 1 3923

Nrb Bearings-B/D 171.05 -0.15 7678

O N G C-A/D 183.15 1.35 320206

Oil Country-B/D 31.8 1.2 28434

Onward Tech-B/D 93.35 0.15 3366

Orchid Pharm-M/D 12.45 -0.1 29692

Orient Hotel-B/D 52.95 -1.85 60473

Orient.Carb.-B/D 1172 4.25 3200

Orient.Carb.-B/D 1172 4.25 3200

Patspin India-/D 17.1 -0.9 2302

Radico Khait-A/D 420.55 38.75 780808

Rallis India-A/D 231.75 3.45 25545

Rallis India-A/D 231.75 3.45 25545

Reliance Indus/D 464.4 1.05 56828

Ruchi Soya-B/D 15.7 -0.2 174897

Saur.Cem-X/D 73 0.05 30813

Tanfac Indu-Xt/D 129 3.05 12610

Tanfac Indu-Xt/D 129 3.05 12610

Thirumalai-B/D 2125.1 64.7 14373

Til Ltd.-B/D 497 8.95 2003

Timexgroup-T/D 55 1.65 25646

Tinplate-B/D 245.65 6.45 356855

Ucal Fuel-B/D 256.35 -1.35 7003

Ucal Fuel-B/D 256.35 -1.35 7003

Ultramarine-X/D 350 -0.6 12351

Unitech P -B/D 6.15 -0.09 2592999

Univcable-B/D 155.15 -0.85 26293

3I Group/D 906.4 -2 280586

Assoc.Br.Foods/D 2649 -19 185327

Barclays/D 213.95 -0.05 14570093

Bp/D 510.7 1.1 11194561

Brit Am Tobacc/D 3845.5 -14 1275626

Bt Group/D 240.9 -2.1 4583485

Centrica/D 144.75 -0.5 3987354

Gkn/D 479.1 3.1 1740120

Hsbc Holdings/D 686.1 9.6 5436966

Kingfisher/D 303.2 1.2 1003632

Legal & Genera/D 272.9 -1.4 3810073

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 65.69 -1.93 63397586

Marks & Sp./D 279.3 -2 1946732

Next/D 5128 -62 142429

Pearson/D 773 -1.4 589264

Prudential/D 1852.5 -3 2381468

Rentokil Initi/D 280.9 8 2778103

Rolls Royce Pl/D 872.4 2.6 801026

Rsa Insrance G/D 644.6 -1.2 450443

Sainsbury(J)/D 261.9 -0.2 1436586

Severn Trent/D 1853 -5 292714

Smith&Nephew/D 1336 -4 712535

Smiths Group/D 1570 22.5 520095

Standrd Chart /D 740 10.1 1390189

Tate & Lyle/D 562 0 346905

Tesco/D 238.4 -0.9 15002301

Unilever/D 3868.5 -78 1779109

United Util Gr/D 708.4 -1 600415

Vodafone Group/D 206.6 -0.2 11133658

Whitbread/D 4177 27 105469

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

LONDON

19FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 BUSINESS

In its World Economic Outlook this week, the IMF listed the trade tensions as a key downside risk to the global recovery and warned that it could harm the poorest the most through rising prices.

20 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018BUSINESS

BREAK TIME

IMF’s Lagarde warns against harming trade, investmentAFP

WASHINGTON: Governments must take care, even when there are disagreements, to avoid harming trade and investment which have been key drivers of the global economic recovery, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said yesterday.

Amid concerns that esca-lating trade tensions between the United States and China could reverberate through the world economy, Lagarde urged the sides to resolve their dis-putes through dialogue.

“Investment and trade are two key engines that are finally picking up. We don’t want to damage that,” she said at a press briefing to open the spring meetings of the Inter-national Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Lagarde said finance offi-cials from member governments this week during the Wash-ington meetings would discuss the trade disputes that she said threatened to hurt economies that are interconnected by global supply chains.

While she acknowledged “the actual impact of growth is not very substantial when you measure in terms of GDP,” she said the dispute could erode business confidence very quickly because of the uncertainty, which would make businesses “reluctant to invest.”

In its World Economic Outlook this week, the IMF listed the trade tensions as a key downside risk to the global recovery and warned that it could harm the poorest the most

through rising prices.US President Donald

Trump last month imposed steep tariffs on steel and alu-minum imports and threatened to impose more on tens of bil-lions of dollars in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to slap duties on US goods like pork and sorghum and threaten even more sensitive US exports like soy beans.

International cooperation “has served us so well and delivered more progress for more people than at any time in history,” but is now being ques-tioned, Lagarde said.

While she welcomed bilateral discussions between Washington and Beijing, she said disagreements should be resolved in a multilateral forum, and every country should address its own trade barriers.

Lagarde again urged coun-tries to “steer clear of all protec-tionism,” saying that “unilateral trade restrictions have not proven helpful.” Instead, “coun-tries should work together to resolve disagreements without using exceptional measures.” Even with the implied critique of Trump’s tactics, Lagarde praised the massive US cor-porate tax reform which the fund “advocated, recommended, encouraged, and is very pleased to see happening.”

She said lowering the tax rate to match the average of other major economies would encourage investment.

But at the same time, she said the US should take advantage of good economic times to work to reduce its debt and deficit, rather than increase it. Debt levels worldwide have hit a record $164 trillion, two-thirds of which is held by the private sector, while public debt in advanced economies is higher than at any time since World War II, according to the IMF.

Lagarde cautioned that these circumstances could create “unsustainable debt burdens” for developing countries should financing conditions shift.

Sky adds TV subscribers as bid battle intensifiesAFP

LONDON: Sky, the pan-European TV giant, said yesterday that it had added 38,000 customers in its third quarter as a takeover battle for the group intensified.

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox is hoping to buy the 61 percent of Sky it does not own but the long-running battle has been held up by competition con-cerns over media plurality and broadcasting standards in Britain.

Amid the delay, US cable giant Comcast has offered more than £22bn ($31bn) for all of Sky, trumping Fox’s bid on a price-per-share basis. In a further twist, Disney is hoping to buy Fox for $52.4bn — a deal that would see British government concerns over

Murdoch’s far-reaching media control in Britain fall away.

Awaiting developments in the takeover saga, Sky added that its revenue climbed 5 percent to £10.14bn in the first nine months of its 2017-18 financial year that runs to the end of June. “In media terms, Sky is currently the belle of the ball, attracting overseas suitors aplenty. This update is another vindication of the interest being shown,” noted Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.

Following the trading update, shares in Sky rose 0.4 percent to 1,314 pence in early deals on London’s FTSE 100 index, which was up 0.2 percent overall. Earlier this month, 21st Century Fox proposed selling

rolling TV channel Sky News to Disney in order to finally seal control of Sky. Nearly 18 months ago, 21st Century Fox bid £11.4bn for the part of Sky it is yet to own. The Fox bid, pitched at £10.75 per Sky share, is signifi-cantly lower than the Comcast offer of £12.50.

But earlier this year, Brit-ain’s Competitions and Markets Authority provisionally ruled that Murdoch’s planned takeover was not in the public interest and that a deal would hand him too much power in swaying public opinion. To counter the regulatory obstacle, 21st Century Fox has proposed to sell Sky News to Disney even if the latter does not buy Fox. Another option put up by Fox is to ring-fence Sky News.

Lukoil opens ‘Kandym Gasfield’Uzbekistani President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak and President of the Russian oil company Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov, and other officials attend the opening ceremony of the gas processing plant “Kandym Gasfield”, opened by Lukoil, in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, yesterday.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde attends an opening news conference ahead of the IMF/World Bank spring meeting in Washington, DC, yesterday.

VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTERCROSSWORD NOVO Pearl Qatar

MALL

Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

LANDMARK

ROXY

AL KHOR

ASIAN TOWN

Truth Or Dare (2D) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00pm & 12:00midnight Rampage (2D/Action) 10:30am, 1:00. 3:30, 6:00, 8:30 & 11:00pm The Titan (2D) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00pm & 12:00midnight Chappaquiddick (2D) 10:15am, 2:30, 6:45 & 11:00pm Unsane (2D) 12:30, 4:45 & 9:00pm Masha And The Bear (2D) 10:00, 11:50am, 1:40 & 3:30pm Backstabbing For Beginners (2D) 5:20, 7:30, 9:40 & 11:50pm A Quiet Place (2D) 10:00am, 2:15, 6:30 & 10:45pm Never Not Love You (2D/Tagalog) 12:00noon, 4:15 & 8:30pm Serb Al Hamam (2D) 10:00am, 2:00, 6:00 & 10:00pm Etlouly Barra (2D/Arabic) 12:00noon, 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnight Rampage (2D/Action) 11:30am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:30, 5:50, 7:00, 9:30, 11:45pm & 12:00midnight Rampage (3D/IMAX) 11:00am, 2:00, 5:00, 8:00 & 11:00pm

Bharat Ane Nanu (2D/Telugu) 2:00 & 9:00pm Parole (Malayalam) 2:00, 9:30 & 11:30pm Masha And The Bear (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 4:00pm Nanu Ki Jaanu (2D/Hindi) 4:45 & 9:00pm Chappaquiddick (2D/Thriller) 5:00pm Rampage (2D/Action) 5:30 & 7:00pmThe Titan (2D/Thriller) 7:15pm & 12:00midnight Never Not Love You (2D/Tagalog) 7:30pm Truth Or Dare (Thriller) 12:00midnight

ROYAL PLAZA

Parole (Malayalam) 2:15, 5:00 & 11:30pm Masha And The Bear (2D/Animation) 2:30, 4:00 & 5:30pm Beyond The Clouds (2D/Hindi) 5:15, 7:00 & 11:00pm Rampage (2D/Action) 7:00pmThe Titan (2D/Thriller) 9:15pm Never Not Love You (2D/Tagalog) 7:45pm Serb Al Hamam (2D/Arabic) 9:30pm Truth Or Dare (Thriller) 9:45pm Bharat Ane Nanu (2D/Telugu) 11:15pm

Masha And The Bear (2D/Animation) 2:00, 3:30pm The Titan (2D/Thriller) 2:00, 5:00 & 8:00pm Bharat Ane Nanu (2D/Telugu) 2:00 & 11:00pm Beyond The Clouds (2D/Hindi) 2:30, 5:00 & 11:30pm Parole (Malayalam) 3:45, 9:00 & 11:30pm Serb Al Hamam (2D/Arabic) 6:15pm Never Not Love You (2D/Tagalog) 7:00pm Chappaquiddick (2D/Thriller) 7:00pm Rampage (2D/Action) 9:00pm Truth Or Dare (Thriller) 9:45pm

Parole (2D/Malayalam) 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30pm, 02:00 & 02:15am Bharat Ane Nanu (Telugu) 12:00noon, 12:30, 3:00, 3:30, 6:00, 9:00pm & 12:00midnight Kuttanadan Marpappa (2D/Malayalam) 8:45pmBeyond The Clouds (Hindi) 6:30pm Sudani From Nigeria 9:00pm Nanu Ki Jaanu (Hindi) 6:30pm

Parole (Malayalam) 11:15am, 5:30 & 11:45pm Masha And The Bear (2D/Animation) 10:30am, 12:30 & 2:30pm Truth Or Dare (Thriller) 11:30am, 4:15 & 9:00pm Bharat Ane Nanu (2D/Telugu) 2:15 & 8:30pm Rampage (2D/Action) 4:30, 7:00, 9:30pm & 12:00midnight Nanu Ki Jaanu (2D/Hindi) 1:45, 6:30 & 11:15pm

Stolen Princess (2D/Animation) 10:30am, 12:45, 3:00, 5:00 & 7:15pm Beyond The Clouds (Hindi) 10:30am, 1:00 & 9:40pm Bharat Ane Nanu (Telugu) 10:30am, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 & 10:30pmRampage (2D/Action) 7:30, 10:00pm & 12:30amParole (Malayalam) 10:30am, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 & 10:30pm Truth Or Dare (Thriller) 3:30, 5:40, 7:40pm & 12:10am

A military family takes part in a ground-breaking experiment of genetic evolution and space exploration.

FLIK MirqabA Quiet Place 10:10pm Bharat 3:00, 9:25, 11:35pm & 12:05amMasha And The Bear 1:45, 4:20 & 6:30pm Never Not Love You 3:30, 6:05 & 7:55pm Parole 6:20pm Peter Rabbit 1:30, 3:35, 5:35 & 7:35pm Rampage 1:35, 3:50, 5:05, 7:20, 9:35, 11:50pm 3D 2:50, 6:05, 8:20 & 10:35pm Stolen Princess 2:30pm Titan 2:20, 3:05, 5:05, 8:20, 9:35, 11:45pm & 12:40am Truth Or Dare 5:45, 7:05, 8:30, 9:10, 10:35, 11:25pm

THE TITAN

SPORT5.30PM 12:00PM

Live on beIN HD 13 Live on beIN HD 12

Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals

Monte-Carlo Masters -Quarter-finals

CRICKET: IPL TENNIS

LIVE ON

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21FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018

RIZWAN REHMAT THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Volleyball giants Al Rayyan will be looking to complete a trophy treble this season when they take on Police in the Qatar Cup final today.

Coached by Carlos Schwanke, Al Rayyan won the Super Cup final against Police last November before clinching the Qatar Vol-leyball League title earlier this month.

“We have the chance for one more title. We are expecting to bring a good level to the final,” Schwanke said yesterday.

“All of my players feel ready. May the best team win. In every championship there is a story. We are playing for a trophy,” the Bra-zilian said.

“For us Police are playing their best. We have to be at our best. I cannot promise the result. I can promise the fight from our side,” he added.

“And yes, congratulations to Police for reaching the final,” Schwanke said with a smile.

Earlier this month, Al Rayyan defeated Police 3-1 in their last Qatar Volleyball League match to remain unbeaten in the season. This was the ninth league title for Al Rayyan and it came after a gap of two seasons. Police finished runners-up with 46 points.

In February, Al Rayyan won the 36th Arab Club Volleyball Championship in Tunis after beating Tunisia’s Esperance 3-0 in the final of the tournament.

The winner in today’s final will pick up QR 300,000 while the runners-up take home QR 200,000, Qatar Volleyball Asso-ciation (QVA) confirmed yesterday.

Police coach Damian Arre-dondo said the final ‘felt like a thriller of a game’.

“It looks like it’s going to be a thrilling game. We were close to winning against Al Rayyan many times this season. Both teams have had good games and I am sure we will make a great game for the fans,” Arredondo said.

“This is not a revenge match. They are a champion side. For us, this is the first final of this event. We will give our best. They can change their (suspended) players because all (of their reserve players) are good. They have a great team,” Arrendondo added.

“We are happy to be in the final. We wish to play a high level game. We hope to enjoy the game tomorrow.

“We are confident of becoming the new champions. We are excited to be in the final because it is a big show. We want

to deliver like we did in the semis. We did what was expected from us. Now the final is here. Now we have to give everything we have,” the Argen-tinian added.

Two former players will be honoured after the final while a special prize for the Most Val-uable Player will also be announced, QVA said yesterday.

Police manager Rashid Mahmood said: “It’s a big match. We have played well. It will be a tough clash. The best of Qatari volleyball will be seen in the match. We hope to present a good match. Al Rayyan are a very experience side having won numerous titles.”

Al Rayyan’s team-manager Ali Ishaq said: “The match is going to be a tough one for both side. We have had tough games all season and that shows that

you have to show respect to Police team players.”

Sulaiman Saeed of Al Rayyan said yesterday: “I respect the Police squad. I can say that they are a tough side. They have played well throughout the season. The performance of my team didn’t change since the sus-pension (of key players). We played without suspended players. Two of our played won’t be available. The r e p l a c e m e n t players will try to make a statement.”

The Qatar Cup game will be tel-ecast live on Al Kass S p o r t s Channel.

Roaring Al Rayyan eye treble gloryCoached by Carlos

Schwanke, Al Rayyan won the Super Cup final

against Police last November before

clinching the Qatar Volleyball League

title earlier this month.

The winner in today’s final

will pick up QR 300,000 while the

runners-up take home QR 200,000,

Qatar Volleyball Association (QVA)

confirmed yesterday.

Two former players will be honoured after

the final while a special prize for

the Most Valuable Player will also be

announced

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Police coach Damian Arredondo and Al Rayyan coach Carlos Schwanke pose for a photograph with the Qatar Cup Trophy following a press conference held in Doha yesterday.

Female coaches brush up skills with RNFA at Doha campTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Football is still perceived as a men’s world, but a glimpse on the football pitch of Qatar Women’s Sport Committee (QWSC) this week showed a different picture.

A group of almost 30 women worked on their coaching skills with top class trainers from the World Coaches Program of the Royal Netherlands Football Associ-ation (RNFA) and the talented girls from Evolution Sports Qatar.

Through the international World Coaches Program, sports professionals learn to use football coaching to teach important life skills to the children and youth, like team work, mutual respect and responsibility.

The first World Coaches program in Qatar was specifically designed for women, thanks to the cooperation with Qatar Women’s Sport Committee (QWSC). On Thursday, they ended their training program with an all-girls football tournament.

The participants received their certif-icates from the President of QWSC, Mrs. Lolwa Hussain Al Marri, and the Ambas-sador of the Netherlands, H E Bahia Tahzib-Lie, after completing the intensive course.

Mrs. Al Marri congratulated all the par-ticipants and said: “Good, empowered

coaches are important to further spread the enthusiasm for sports among women and girls. You can now lead the way! Together, let’s increase the number of women and girls playing football in Qatar.”

Dr. Tahzib-Lie said: “The World Coaches course takes you out of your comfort zone and challenges you to try new things and show leadership. I am proud of all of you for completing this course as a team”.

The World Coaches trainers are enthu-siastic about their experiences in Qatar and hope to come back to train more women and men in the near future.

Female coaches and players receive tips during the World Coaches Program of the Royal Netherlands Football Association (RNFA) in Doha.

Mbappe brace as PSG reach French Cup final

AFP

PARIS: Kylian Mbappe struck a brace and Christopher Nkunku added a late third as Paris Saint-Germain marched into the French Cup final thanks to 3-1 win at Caen on Wednesday.

PSG travelled to the Nor-mandy coast with the French league title already wrapped up and looking to take another step towards what would be a fourth consec-utive Cup triumph -- a record -- if they beat third division Les Herbiers at the Stade de France on May 8.

But while dominant throughout, Unai Emery’s men were kept on their toes in an at times messy encounter in which they had one goal chalked off by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), and Mbappe’s second fall under its scrutiny before it was confirmed nine minutes from time.

PSG should have opened the scoring early but Angel Di Maria saw a weak rolled shot collected by ‘keeper Brice Samba on 17 minutes.

But despite poor pitch conditions, the French cham-pions were quickly into their stride with Mbappe, out-standing on the night, opening the scoring on 21 minutes.

A textbook move from midfield saw Edinson Cavani

in possession to the left of the area. When the Uruguayan striker rolled across the area, Samba misjudged his lunge to leave Mbappe with an easy tap in from yards out.

PSG were firmly in control against a Caen side reeling from four consecutive league defeats.

But Patrice Garande’s men pounced to level shortly before the half-time interval.

PSG’s defence stepped back amid a Caen offensive and when a deflected shot fell to Ismael Diomande his shot deflected off Adrien Rabiot to leave Kevin Trapp snatching for thin air.

PSG replied moments after the second half began after a defensive blunder by Damien Da Silva saw Cavani add his name to the scoresheet. It was ruled out for offside. But with the clock ticking down, another textbook move saw PSG restore their lead.

Again, VAR was used to check whether Cavani was offside when he ran on to a slick backheel by Di Maria and rolled across the area for Mbappe to fire past Samba nine minutes from time.

This time, the goal stood. PSG added a third in the final minute of added-on time after Nkunku completed a great one-two to run through and leave Samba with no chance.

Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe celebrates with team-mate Edinson Cavani after scoring against Caen during the French Cup semi-final at the Stade Michel-d’Ornano on Wednesday.

But it's the ultimate challenge for everybody, to play against

him (Rafael Nadal). I have to rise my level again. I think I'm able

to do that.

Dominic Thiem After his win against Serbia’s Novak Djokovic

Thiem stuns Djokovic to reach quarter-finals; Nadal through;;

22 FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018SPORT

Austria’s Dominic Thiem hits a return to Serbia’s Novak Djokovic during their Monte Carlo Masters third round match played at the Monte-Carlo Country Club in Monte Carlo, Monaco yesterday. Thiem won 6-7 (2/7), 6-2, 6-3.

QGF President honours winners as SOP gymnastics competitions concludeTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The artistic gymnastics competitions for primary and preparatory schools (boys) at the prestigious 11th Schools Olympic Program 2018 (SOP) were successfully concluded on Wednesday.

Qatar Gymnastics Feder-ation President, Ali Al Hitmi

honoured the top winners during the presentation cer-emony which took a festive atmosphere on the final day.

The occasion was attended by students parents, teachers and coaches.

The SOP is held annually as a collaborative effort of Qatar School Sports Federation ( Q S S F ) a n d

Ministry of Education and Higher Education, with hun-dreds of student athletes com-peting from all over Qatar.

The SOP committee aims to spread a culture of sports throughout Qatar’s schools and to engage the entire community in active and healthy lifestyles while retaining local values and traditions.

Qatar Gymnastics Federation President, Ali Al Hitmi poses for a photograph with podium winners of artistic gymnastics competitions for primary and preparatory schools (boys) at the prestigious 11th Schools Olympic Program 2018 (SOP) during the presentation ceremony on Wednesday.

Al Arabi and Al Wakrah set for Emir Cup blockbuster

Al Arabi and Al Wakrah team officials speak during a press conference in the presence of Qatar Basketball Federation officials ahead of the Emir Cup final yesterday. The final of the prestigious tournament will be played at the Al Gharafa Indoor Stadium tomorrow, starting at 6.30pm.

AFP

LONDON: Indian Premier League founder Lalit Modi (pictured) believes there will come a time when players will earn $1m per game while warning that the traditional programme of matches between countries "will disappear".

A Twenty20 domestic fran-chise competition launched a decade ago, which has spawned a host of imitators worldwide, the IPL is now the most lucrative of all cricket tournaments.

"The IPL is here to stay," Modi told Britain's Daily Tele-graph newspaper in an interview published yesterday. "It will be the dominant sporting league in the world."

At present there is a team salary cap, with the likes of England all-rounder Ben Stokes earning $1.95m per season from the Rajasthan Royals.

But Modi believes that if that $12m cap is relaxed, leading IPL players could earn as much as English Premier League foot-ballers and even NFL stars.

"You will see players making $1-$2m a game," said Modi. "It will happen sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, in a chilling argument for cricket tradition-alists, London-based Modi forecast the end of country versus country contests, which effectively finance professional cricket structures all round the world and the demise of the International Cricket Council, the sport's global governing body.

"Today international cricket does not matter," he said. "It is of zero value to the Indian fan.

"Tomorrow you will see bilateral cricket disappear," Modi added. "Big series will happen once every three or four years like the World Cup.

"The ICC will become an irrelevant body. It will be full of fat lugs who have no power.”

Modi forecasts IPL players will earn ‘$1m a game’

THE PENINSULA

CHANDIGARH: Chris Gayle hit his sixth Indian Premier League century, the maximum by any batsman as Kings XI Punjab clinched a 15-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Punjab Cricket Association I S Bindra Stadium yesterday.

Gayle struck a 63-ball 104, laced with 11 sixes and a boundary to set the jam-packed stadium on fire as Punjab posted a total of 193 for 3. The visitors were 15 runs short despite fighting knocks from Kane Williamson and Manish Pandey.

Brief Scores: Kings XI Punjab: 193 for

3 (Chris Gayle 104n.o., Karun Nair 31; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 1 for 25)

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 178 for 4 (Kane Williamson 54, Manish Pandey 57 n.o.)

Gayle’s record ton powers Punjab to easy victory

AFP

MONTE CARLO: Novak Djokovic was knocked out of the Monte Carlo Masters by an inspired Dominic Thiem in the third round yesterday, with the Austrian fifth seed progressing to a possible quarter-final with Rafael Nadal.

Thiem, a two-time French Open semi-finalist, was the better player for much of the match and won 6-7 (2/7), 6-2, 6-3 despite a battling effort from Djokovic.

The 12-time Grand Slam champion has still not reached a quarter-final since Wimbledon last July after struggling with an elbow injury.

Djokovic, 30, had said he was pain-free in Monte Carlo for the first time in two years, but Thiem backed up his French Open quarter-final win over the Serbian from last year with another impressive victory.

The 24-year-old will take on either world number one Nadal or Russian Karen Khachanov in the quarter-finals.

World number seven Thiem laid down a marker in the opening stages, holding to love before breaking the Djokovic serve with a clean forehand winner. Djokovic faced a set point on his own serve when trailing 5-2, but saved it with a volley to force Thiem to serve for the opener.

Thiem brought up two more set points, only for his forehand to break down with two errors, before a double fault gave Djokovic the chance to break back.

The ninth seed grabbed that oppor-tunity as Thiem miscued again,

celebrating exuberantly in front of a delighted crowd as the set went to a tie-break.

And Thiem continued to throw in a series of poor shots, double faulting on Djokovic’s first set point as the 30-year-old took the breaker 7-2.

The first few games of the second set went with serve, but Thiem broke for a 3-2 lead on his third break point of the game when Djokovic scooped a wayward backhand off target.

Djokovic, now ranked 13, missed a chance to level immediately and Thiem then continued his momentum to break the faltering Serbian again.

Despite another double fault, Thiem banished the first-set jitters to close out the set at the first time of asking and force a decider. The key moment came in the seventh game of the third set, when Djokovic lost a 40-15 lead and Thiem broke with a venomous backhand up the line.

And the Austrian closed it out with

another break on his second match point.Later, world number one Rafael

Nadal cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Russian Karen Khachanov on Thursday to set up a quarter-final against Thiem.

The 16-time Grand Slam champion needs to win an 11th Monte Carlo title to stay clear of Roger Federer at the top of the world rankings, and he made short work of Khachanov in Monaco. Third seed Alexander Zverev came through a three-set tussle with fellow German Jan-Lennard Struff to set up a potential first ATP Tour meeting with his older brother Mischa.

The 20-year-old, who won two Masters titles last season, became frus-trated in the second set but came through 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 and will play either Mischa or Richard Gasquet in the last eight.

Belgian sixth seed David Goffin held off a late fightback from Roberto Bautista Agut to reach the last eight with a 6-4, 7-5 win.

23FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018 SPORT

THE PENINSULA

LOSAIL: Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah and French co-driver Matthieu Baumel romped to an emphatic victory on the opening 358.15km desert stage of the Manateq Qatar Cross-Country Rally yesterday.

The day’s stage started south-west of Losail and wound its way through the remote western wastelands before crossing the bottom of the country to finish near Sealine in the south. The Toyota Hilux driver began the day positioned eighth on the road, but he delivered another polished per-formance to extend his overall advantage in the fourth round of the FIA World Cup to 16min 07sec.

Al Attiyah said: “It was a good job today, but it was a very difficult stage and not easy for the navigation. We lose a little bit of time searching for the road and we had one flat tyre, but I am quite happy to be here. Many people made mistakes today. Tomorrow is another day and we try to do our best.”

Poland’s Jakub Przygonski lost some time in the middle of the stage with his own naviga-tional issues, but the X–Raid MINI driver hit back over the closing kilometres to pull clear of fellow countryman Aron Domzala to snatch the second quickest time and move up to a similar position in the standings.

“We are happy for second position but we are not so happy with the rhythm today,” said Przygonski. “The speed was okay but we had a lot of navi-gation mistakes and we lost a lot of time on this, maybe 12 or 14 minutes. This is when Aron (Domzala) catch us. But we are still in the game and the car is perfect. We need to focus on the next days and not make any mistakes.”

Dutchman Erik van Loon put Wednesday evening’s Losail mishap to the back of his mind and clocked the fourth quickest time to move up the field to seventh. Saudi Arabia’s Yasir Seaidan and Russian Vladimir

Vasilyev finished the stage in fourth and fifth overall and held fifth and fourth in the overall classification, respectively.

FIA World Cup leader Martin Prokop slipped to sixth in the rankings after losing his way in the desert. The Ford F-150 Evo driver said: “The stage was not the most difficult and was quite nice to drive, but it was navigation that was big trouble for us. We struggled a lot. We got lost really properly in the first 55km. It took a long time to find the right way again. Then we were looking for a waypoint after 200km and really struggling. It’s a disap-pointment. The speed was good, the car was perfect. It was a good decision to start 10th. But the two big mistakes have cost us this race. We try and do a good job o the last three stages.”

Qatar’s Adel Abdulla increased his lead in the T2 cat-egory for series production cross-country vehicles after Saudi Arabian championship

rival Ahmed Shegawi suffered technical problems before PC2. The QMMF and Ooredoo-backed Nissan Patrol driver also held an impressive 10th overall and a T2 lead of 47min 15sec at the end of the day.

Frenchman Claude Fournier romped to the T3 stage win in his Polaris RZR 1000 and moved up to an impressive eighth in the overall rankings, after series rival José Luis Pena Campo of Spain lost time early on and both Italy’s Michele Cinotto and Spaniard Santiago Navarro were delayed.

The Qatar debut of Toyota GAZOO Racing South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers came to a pre-mature and painful halt when co-driver Robert Howie com-plained of back pain shortly after a heavy landing in a deep hole shortly before the first passage control. De Villiers took the sensible decision to retire the Toyota.

De Villiers said: “It was at the end of a shott and I guess

there should have been a couple of cautions in the road book. I braked hard but, unfortunately, Rob injured his back and was in a lot of pain. I decided to stop. His health is more important. There is nothing wrong with the car. I wait to see if he is okay after the medical checks.

Polish Orlen Team rider Maciej Giemza maintained a level head and survived the rigours of navigating alone from the front to card a stage time of 5hrs 47min 56sec on the sole motorcycle. Russian Alex-sandr Maksimov was a com-fortable leader of the quad cat-egory after Dutch rival Kees Koolen stopped with fuel pump problems on the day’s stage and lost a lot of time.

Giemza said: “It was a great experience to open the stage for the first time. We know how hard the Qatar stages are for navigation and I heard that some of the best guys in the cars also lost some waypoints today. I am happy about the

clean stage without a crash. I hope to do better navigation tomorrow.”

The difficulty of the stage decimated the field running in the Manateq Qatar National Baja and T2 leader Adel Abdulla – who is eligible for both rallies

– stormed to the top of the leader board in his TOK Sport Nissan Patrol Y62.

Despite losing over an hour, Al-Shegawi (Toyota) held fifth place behind the Qatari, second-placed Kuwait’s Thuwaini Al Nahel (Polaris) and the Qatari duo of Mohammed Al Meer (Nissan) and Sheikh Hamed bin Eid Al Thani (Nissan).

Overnight leader Abdulaziz Al Bsheyer, Nayef Al Nasr, Ahmed Allouh and Mohammed Al-Attiyah all suffered their own fair share of mechanical issues and delays on the treach-erous special.

Today, competitors tackle another mammoth loop stage across the State of Qatar.

The 340.54km selective section begins to the north of Losail and passes around the northern extremities of the country before cutting across the uppermost deserts to run down the western coast to finish off the Al Kharsaah Road, west of Doha.

Russia’s Aleksandr Maksimov rides his Yamaha YFM 700R through the Qatari desert.

Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah and the French

navigator Matthieu Baumel in action during

the opening 358.15km desert stage of the

Manateq Qatar Cross-Country Rally yesterday.

2018 QATAR CROSS-COUNTRY RALLY – OVERALL STANDINGS (TOP FIVE)

CARS

1. Nasse Al Attiyah (QAT)/Matthieu Baumel (FRA) Toyota Hilux Overdrive 3hrs 38min 41sec

2. Jakub Przygonski (POL)/T Colsoul (BEL) MINI John Cooper Works Rally 3hrs 54min 48sec

3. Aron Domzala (POL)/Maciej Marton (POL) Toyota Hilux Overdrive 4hrs 03min 52sec

4. Vladimir Vasilyev (RUS)/Konstantin Zhiltsov (RUS) MINI One 4hrs 12min 00sec

5. Yasir Seaidan (SAU)/Alexei Kuzmich (RUS) Toyota Hilux Overdrive 4hrs 34min 40sec

BIKES/QUADS

1. Maciej Giemza (POL) KTM 450 Rally Replica 5hrs 52min 32sec

2. Aleksandr Maksimov (RUS) Yamaha YFM 700R 6hrs 57min 39sec

2018 QATAR CROSS-COUNTRY RALLY – POSITIONS ON SS2:

CARS

1. Nasser Al Attiyah (QAT)/Matthieu Baumel (FRA) Toyota Hilux Overdrive 3hrs 34min 28sec

2. Jakub Przygonski (POL)/T Colsoul (BEL) MINI John Cooper Works Rally 3hrs 50min 29sec

3. Aron Domzala (POL)/Maciej Marton (POL) Toyota Hilux Overdrive 3hrs 59min 29sec

4. Erik van Loon (NLD)/Wouter Rosegaar (NLD) Toyota Hilux Overdrive 4hrs 07min 10sec

5. Vladimir Vasilyev (RUS)/Konstantin Zhiltsov (RUS) MINI One 4hrs 07min 25sec

MANATEQ QATAR NATIONAL BAJA – POSITIONS AFTER SS2

CARS

1. Adel Abdulla (QAT)/Nasser Al Kuwari (QAT) Nissan Patrol Y62 (T2) 2hrs 15min 13sec

2. Thuwaini Al Nahel (KWT)/Mohammed Al Tahnoun (KWT) Polaris RZR 2hrs 57min 47sec

3. Mohammed Al Meer (QAT)/Jaber Abu Jabri (QAT) Nissan Patrol 2hrs 58min 12sec

4. Hamed bin Eid Al Thani (QAT)/Feres Allouh (QAT) Nissan Patro 2hrs 58min 54sec

5. Ahmed Shegawi (SAU)/L Lichtleuchter (FRA) Nissan Patrol Y61 (T2) 3hrs 21min 52sec

It was a very difficult stage and not easy for the navigation. We lose a little bit of time searching for the road and we had one flat tyre, but I am quite happy to be here. Many people made mistakes today. Tomorrow is another day and we try to do our best: Al Attiyah

QCCR: Al Attiyah extends lead with emphatic second stage win

Qatar’s Adel Abdulla driving his Nissan Patrol Y62 during yesterday’s stage.

Poland’s Przygonski loses time with navigational woes

Qatar’s Adel Abdulla extends leads in T2

Giemza on track for FIM success

SPORTFriday 20 April 2018

Al Duhail’s players and officials celebrate with the trophy after beating Al Rayyan 27-21 in the Qatar Cup final yesterday at Al Duhail Handball Sports Hall. Right: Action during the final.

It’s going to be a tough game. Al Rayyan are out of the AFC Champions League. Therefore, they want to satisfy their fans. But we are thinking about the semi-final at the moment. We will our best to win it: Al Sadd star Akram Afif

This is my first Qatar Cup with Al Rayyan, having played for Al Duhail earlier. So I wish to win this title, especially since we are out of the AFC Champions League: Al Rayyan star Ahmed Yasser

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reach French Cup final

Thiem stuns Djokovic to reach Monte Carlo quarter-finals

Al Sadd ready for title defence as Al Rayyan look to bounce backFAWAD HUSSAIN THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Reigning champions Al Sadd are roaring with confidence as they head into the first semi-final of Qatar Cup against wounded Al Rayyan at their backyard tomorrow.

Coached by Jesualdo Ferreira, ‘The Wolves’, who won the trophy last year by defeating now defunct El Jaish in the final, will enter the Al Sadd Stadium clash as favourites against ‘The Lions’ courtesy of their better run than their rivals this season.

Al Sadd (second) finished ahead of Al Rayyan (third) in the QNB Stars League (QSL) while Xavi Hernandez-led side also qualified for the knock-out stage of AFC Champions League. On the other hand, Michael Laudrup’s Al Rayyan endured a contrasting fate in the continental event failing to advance after defeat to Al Ain last Monday.

But despite holding an upper hand ahead of the semi-final, Fer-reira is not taking anything for granted against Al Rayyan.

“Everyone in the club gives much importance to the game against Al Rayyan. They know that it will be a tough game,” Al Sadd coach told a press conference at Al Sadd Stadium yesterday.

“We will do our best to achieve our target of reaching the final. We will be playing in the Emir’s Cup after this tournament and we hope we will succeed in both,” he said before adding there will be no room for complacency against ‘tough’ Al Rayyan.

“Al Rayyan are a big team.

Two seasons ago, they won the league (QSL) and most of the players who achieved it are still with them. So we won’t be com-placent,” he said.

Ferreira also expressed delight on his team’s performance lauding his players for making it to the last 16 stage of AFC Champions League.

“I am very happy the way team is performing. We’ve qual-ified for the AFC Champions League’s Round of 16 and we’re satisfied with our performance even though the knockout stage will be difficult. We go into all matches, especially in the Cup competitions, as if we are playing a final.

“In the Champions League, we have two games and we will work to win them. I pay tribute to the players who have made great progress knowing that the upcoming games will be difficult and require more focus.”

Meanwhile, Al Rayyan coach Laudrup admitted that failure to progress in the AFC Champions League has taken a toll in team and hoped his team will bounce back with a good performance at

Qatar Cup. “The loss against Al Ain is still hurting us as we were desperate to qualify for the AFC Champions League last 16 stage. But in football, you always have to look ahead and learn from the

past,” said Al Rayyan coach. “We have a strong game against Al Sadd and our matches always have a special flavour. We are now preparing the team to be at its best during this period.

“This is what the players know and we will work to equip the team so that it is at its best. I cannot prepare any result or expect it, but we can prepare to perform very well. I wish we

QATAR CUP

Al Sadd coach Jesualdo Ferreira (right) speaks during a press conference as star Akram Afif looks on yesterday. RIGHT: Al Rayyan coach Michael Laudrup gestures during a press conference. Defending champions Al Sadd and Al Rayyan will square off in the first semi-final of Qatar Cup tomorrow at Al Sadd Stadium. PICTURES: EBRAHIM KUTTY

Al Sadd are hoping to retain their Qatar Cup title.

convert the chances that we create into goals unlike what happened with us against Al Sadd earlier,” said Laudrup.

The former Denmark player disagreed with the notion that Al Rayyan fail in big matches.

“Be it in the league, AFC Champions League or Cup tournament, Al Rayyan have proved they are strong. It won’t be different this time. I promise that our players will bring out their best and I expect the game to be very strong. There are some small details that will determine the winners.

“As for my future with Al Rayyan, I am not worried about my contract ending at the end of the season. We will talk and decide my course.”

Tomorrow (7pm kick off) First semi-final: Al Sadd vs Al Rayyan at

Al Sadd Stadium

Sunday (7pm kick off) Second semi-final: Al Duhail vs Al Gharafa at

Al Sadd Stadium

FIXTURES

Handball: Al Duhail crowned Qatar Cup champs